Uyendu/Rings on the Water
Rings on the Water is the story about how the Shattering affected the krokul Uyendu.
Characters
Uyendu the Wellwaker
Jurok- The Water
Locations
Text
They had asked him to venture down into the Telaari Basin, so he did. They had asked him to submerge himself in the waters at the bottom of the canyon and so he did. Uyendu scowled at the schools of fish that danced around him, displacing the ache from his joints into disapproval of the fish and their joyful display. Impatience tugged at the broken one’s focus, as did his body’s reflex to breathe. Before Uyendu the currents shifted so that it seemed the aquatic plant life outlined the features of a face that splayed an unnaturally wide smile. The seer could feel how his body felt heavier and heavier for each passing moment. A sudden pressure struck him and forced the small breath he had left to escape his body, allowing water to rush into his mouth.
The world rushed past Uyendu and was quickly replaced by another where the water was a lot warmer, almost scalding, and the rocks more rusty in colour. He burst through the surface of the pool and gasped frantically for air before he crawled up on dry land. When he first saw Jurok sitting beneath one of the massive stone pillars of the area he was convinced the orc was a vision, but when the fellow shaman spoke, he knew it was in fact Jurok that sat before him.
Blood boiling with anger rushed through the seer’s body. It was the first time he had ever set foot on Azeroth during his relatively short lifetime. They had ripped him from his place on Outland, from his purling streams and luminescent marshland! He was not taken there without reason and the 'elder' orc supported this. The Elements are always in a state of more or less chaos, but something stirred them on this ‘new’ world, caused them to coalesce into elementals. More shamans, spiritualists and elementalists of varying races centered upon this spot. Shoulder against shoulder they faced the raging elementals of the Steaming Cauldron, suppressing their destructive intentions.
An entity burst out from the bottom of the scalding pool, formed entirely from churning steam with an outline that vaguely resembled something humanoid, or a mockery of one. With their powers combined they managed to bridle the entity of Water, but it gazed into Uyendu the instant before it dissipated and shared with him a primal fury. This echoed within the krokul’s core and chimed with the young spirit trapped in an decrepit body.
Uyendu could barely contain the magnitude of emotions that rushed through his mind and heart. His hands and tendrils trembled and the seer called upon Water familiar to him, but nothing reached back out. In desperation the broken one reached out to anything stable and solid that could ground him... and the earthen spires trembled with him.
A dry wind that stung at Uyendu’s eyes greeted him and his orcish guide when they ascended up on the southern edge of the Barrens. Beyond the valley draped in brambles the arid and barren plains stretched out before them. It wasn’t long until the broken one’s cheekbones burnt from being constantly rubbed as he wiped away tears and dust that was caught in his eyes again and again. Jurok, his orc companion also from the Earthen Ring didn’t seem bothered by the hot, dry gales that plagued Uyendu.
The sun was different and so was the few trees they had come across. Uyendu just glanced at the glaring orb in the sky, unable to judge time’s passing according to its movements. His already uneven lips had begun to crack from the lack of moisture and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Fine dust caught in the wind wasn’t stopped by the cloth Uyendu held over his mouth and it unleashed wracking coughs he was unable to stifle or control. Small, colourful blotches danced in front of the krokul’s eyes due to the unrelenting coughs that had starved him of deep breathes.
They had found a shelter from the ruthless elements of the Field of Giants. The seer lived up to his name and called for water that poured gently from cracks in the stone, but little did the weak and alien spirits of water soothe him. He tossed and turned beneath tanned hide strung up above as part of their shelter. Uyendu was unable to shake the howling of the ferocious gales or the moan of their brethren as they faded in the distance. Little did the broken shaman realize that come nightfall the winds around him had subsided.
Back on the remnants of Draenor he had never been very in touch with the Earth. But on Azeroth he was struck by that overwhelming agony of the spirits as the world heaved and broke around him. Deep below the surface a smoldering anger rekindled and grew…
Uyendu was lost to the physical realm for weeks after the [Shattering] tore the Barrens apart. He awakened alone under the scraps of a tauren tent and saw no other path but to choose a direction and stick to it, so he wandered north through brambles and over budding greenery. His stumbling gait came to an abrupt stop when water appeared in a jagged creek before him, the first water he’d seen for days and the only reason he didn’t throw himself into the alluring, green stream wasn’t self-control but lack of energy.
Water had always answered to his call for as long as Uyendu could remember so his general state of frustration grew tenfold when the glimmering flows of the Overgrowth ignored him. Despite the alien nature of the luscious green waters he knew it wasn’t so strange that he couldn’t connect with it, which only infuriated him further. In a fit of childish rage he reached out and forced the life-giving water to obey his calling!
