▸ Column · War-torn Azeroth — the refugee camps and apothecary tents of the Legion's war (Warcraft)
ILLIDAN STORMRAGE replies.
Replied to by Illidan Stormrage, with a rebuttal from Arthas Menethil.
The letter
I was outside the apothecary's tent in the camp, weeping in the dark after collecting the draughts that are the only thing left that eases my dying father, when a woman I'd never seen pressed a cup of something warm and a clean cloth into my hands. No word. Just a small nod, and she was gone into the crowd before I could even thank her. I've carried that kindness around for a week, not knowing what to do with it. My instinct is to do the same for some stranger in pain — but how do you go to someone who's hurting without making them feel pitied, or like a fool is shoving comfort at them? What if I've misread the whole thing, and they were only weary, not grieving? Is there a way to pass on that quiet, no-strings kindness without it curdling into something awkward, or do I just have to trust the moment when it finds me?
Illidan Stormrage replies
You are circling a small, good act as though it were a war plan, paralyzed by the fear of being seen as a fool. I know that fear more intimately than anything alive. I burned away my own eyes for the Sight that could hunt the Legion, and my people named me Betrayer for it; my own brother Malfurion sealed me in a cell for ten thousand years. I have been misjudged on a scale you will never have to approach. So hear me plainly: being mistaken for a weirdo with a cup of coffee is not the same as being wrong. It is the smallest possible version of a tax I have paid in full.
Look at what she actually did. She did not wait until she was certain. She did not linger for your thanks or your understanding — she gave, and walked into the crowd before either could reach her. That is the whole of it. The gift was real precisely because she asked nothing back, not even to be understood. That is its own loneliness, and I will not pretend it isn't.
The cause is real — kindness to someone in the dark. Stop appraising it like a merchant counting risk. When the moment comes, move before your fear can name you. A stranger with mere weariness and a warm drink is no catastrophe. You will survive their verdict. I have survived far worse for far longer.
— Illidan Stormrage
Arthas Menethil weighs in
Illidan reads a stranger's grief and somehow makes it about the names they called him. Of course he does. But notice what he commands you to throw away: your hesitation. That second-guessing — what if I've misread them, what if I shame them — is not cowardice. It is attention. I walked into Stratholme certain I had read the moment correctly, certain enough to silence every voice that begged me to wait, my mentor Uther's among them. The woman who helped you was not certain. She was careful. Keep the doubt the Betrayer wants you to burn away. It is the very thing that lets you give without wounding.
— Arthas Menethil
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