The dream came again, as it always did. She was a little girl again, in her father's forge, and it was burning.
The dwarf commander's words echoed in her mind: "Your whelp will die with you, orc... because she loves you," he'd told her father, then turned and left.
Jedoga cried out as the pain reached a new level of intensity, the hot chain searing her bare hands; the smell of her own charred flesh wafting into her nostrils. Father faltered, his leg deliberatly smashed, and as she tugged on the chain to compensate, the jerk on the chain sent dribbles of molten steel down to splash her face.
"Let go," her father muttered.
She shook her head defaintly, teeth clenched against the pain. He was shackled to the rafter: if she let go, then... no, she refused to consider it. The pain was nearly unbearable now, but still she clung to the chain.
"I said, let go of the chain, girl!" he repeated forcefully.
"No," she cried, even as he lifted his face upwards to the pourer. The chain: it was too hot now, her nerves screaming in agony, her brain forcing her grip to slip... His leg buckled again, he was too heavy... the purer tipped down... She could see it now, a bright dirty orange, pouring, pouring down towards her father...
"No!" she screamed, but the cry was caught in her throat like a chunck of stale bread as she woke. Jedoga gasped for air as she took stock of her surrounding, temporarily lost. Her gase swept from her sweat-drenched bedroll to the dying campfire, the sleeping armored wolf and finally down to her hands. The scars on her palms were rugged and grey, ugly, though they had healed well all things considered.
The images came unbidden as always, flashes of her beloved Iceblood village, reduced to piles of smouldering ruin. She had returned, after a time, and all that was left now, was a barracks and a watchtower... and those were in a bad way. Bodies, bodies everywhere, the forge in flames. And the smell... Rohkstrom shuddered.
She was awake now, no doubt about it. So, to clear her mind, she sat down and stoked the fire some to liven it up. Once she was satisfied, Jedoga settled down and stared at the hot embers, working herself into a meditative trance.
"It was your fault," the Earth said matter-of-factly.
"Shut it," Jedoga snapped.
"I will do no such thing. It was your fault. You could have saved him, yet you did nothing."
Jedoga growled and opened her eyes. The Earth's voice came from nowhere and yet everywhere at once, an omnipresent thorn in her thoughts whenever it decided to talk.
"If you're so clever, what could I have done to save him?" she asked innocently, knowing full well that she would not get such a simple reponse.
"Any number of things, I'm sure. He'd taught you basic things, it was you who failed to think quickly enough to save him. Your emotions had clouded your mind," the voice childed. "They made you every bit the whelp they said you were. Weak. Pathetic. Even now, you can't think of anything."
The words were torture. They frequently danced to this tune: she defending herself that she'd been helpless to do anything, and had acted to the best of her ability, tragic though it was. Always the Earth blamed her, called her a weakling, a failure. Worse, frequently it took on the voice of her father to berate her for her many failures. "Avenge your father," it would say, as it did now, "wipe the Stormpikes from the face of Azeroth. They all deserve the fate they gave your kind! If you a re as strong as you say, then prove it! Use the training you have to annihilate them and reclaim your homeland! You will descend on them like the namesake you took, a storming avalanche of vengence and retribution, swift, just and without mercy!"
"No," she shouted, in a sudden moment of clarity that surprised even her. "I've been fighting for nearly ten seasons now, and nothing has changed. The Frostwolves have not advanced, despite my best efforts in leading the roving mercenaries that we recruit endlessly! Despite all that you promise, nothign ever comes of it! All that changes is the ocean of blood that I swim in, and it grows ever deeper. One day, I will drown in it."
"Ridiculous," replied the Earth, but it sounded uncertain, taken aback by her uncharacteristic refusal. "You refuse my help, after all I've done to help you along, for us to survive together?"
"Help?" she repeated mockingly, "You never help me, you do nothing but berate and demean! You call me pathetic, worthless, weak, yet never do anything to better me!"
"And who will you turn to instead? You are alone in the world."
"This world, perhaps... but there is another world, my companion. The home of my ancestors, Draenor. The Portal awaits."