▸ Column · Warcraft universe, post-Third War Horde — Durotar, among orcs rebuilding after the demon-blood corruption
THRALL replies.
Replied to by Thrall, with a rebuttal from Garrosh Hellscream.
The letter
Two years ago this week I walked away from the demon blood, and there were nights I didn't expect to see dawn. Kazgar — this retired old fighter who's been clean of it for decades — would just sit with me through the worst of it. Never made me feel like a burden. Now I want to be that for someone still in the thick of it. I've been looking into becoming a guide for others coming out from under the corruption, but my mate Adela is scared that being around orcs still under the blood will drag me back down, and honestly I can't say she's entirely wrong. That possibility scares me too, I guess. How do you walk toward those still in the fire without catching it? I owe Kazgar and every elder who showed up for me something I can never fully repay. I don't want to spend my second chance sitting in Durotar being quietly grateful while others are still chained.
— Two Years Free in Durotar
Thrall replies
What you are describing is not a risk to be outrun. It is a weight to be carried right.
I know the call of the blood — I led a people out from under it, watched great orcs shake with the craving and refuse to give in, and watched others fall again when the burden found no one to share it. Adela is not wrong to fear. I watched Grommash Hellscream — a warrior of a generation — go back among the still-corrupted. He went without ground beneath him, without anyone who could catch him if the blood reached for him again. It cost him everything. The courage was real. The debt to his people was real. The loneliness of it killed him.
That is not a warning against going. It is a warning about how.
Go toward those still in the fire. That debt you carry — Kazgar sitting with you through the worst nights — it becomes a duty now, not a choice. But do not walk into it as a lone warrior. Bring Kazgar at your back, someone who can name the moment the ground shifts under you before you feel it yourself. Bring Adela into the truth of what you are doing and why. A river does not disappear when it reaches the sea; it arrives carrying everything from upstream. That is what you are. But even a river needs its banks.
The elements do not ask us to carry everything alone. Neither should you.
— Thrall
Garrosh Hellscream weighs in
The old shaman will use my father's death as a caution. He always does. Grommash Hellscream went back among the corrupted because he was strong enough — and he is remembered as a HERO. That is what the strength cost him, and it was worth paying.
Adela's fear is not wisdom. It is a leash wearing the shape of love, and you are already asking for permission to put it on. You did not manage the blood. You CONQUERED it. Conquerors do not need their elder watching over them before they are allowed to move.
...I cut every leash I had. I burned alone at the end with all my strength intact and no one left to stand beside me. Look at what I built before you follow my counsel.
— Garrosh Hellscream
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