Present Day: Dawn
Reyneese sits alone at dawn, staring at the horizon. Her hands wrapped around tea that’s gone cold again.
Reyneese (to herself, quiet): “I can’t remember her face anymore.”
She closes her eyes, searching through millennia of compressed memories.
Reyneese: “Mother’s voice, yes. The cadence. The way she sang while weaving mooncloth under the stars. But her face…” (opens eyes, frustrated) “It’s compressed. Filed away in some deep cell I can’t access anymore.”
She looks at her hands—hands that have been unchanged for two thousand years.
Reyneese: “Two thousand years. Ten thousand memories. A million moments. They don’t fade. They compress. Layer upon layer until the details… blur.”
Flashback: 1,800 Years Ago
The light shifts, softer, ancient. A village in Ashenvale that no longer exists.
Young Reyneese—only two hundred years old, still learning—sits beside an ancient priestess under the stars.
Priestess: “You will live long enough to forget, child. Not lose the memory. Compress it. Like stars collapsing into themselves.”
Young Reyneese: “But I don’t want to forget. If I forget them, how do they matter?”
Priestess (gentle smile): “The body remembers what the mind compresses. You’ll see.”
Young Reyneese: “I don’t understand.”
Priestess (laughs softly): “You will. In about eighteen hundred years. That’s the curse of wisdom. It only makes sense after you’ve survived it.”
Present Day: The Truth
Reyneese opens her eyes, back in the present.
Reyneese (bitter smile): “She was right. The old bitch was right.”
She stands, walks to the window. The warband is sleeping. She can see Vyrneese’s room, door slightly open. The ancient warrior rests, nineteen thousand years compressed into armor and silence.
Reyneese: “I remember the feeling of losing my first mortal friend. A human girl. She was…” (pauses, searching the compressed files) “…seven when we met. I was fifty. She thought I was a goddess.”
She laughs—small, sad.
Reyneese: “I remember her laugh. The way she’d braid flowers into my hair. The exact weight of her hand in mine when she was old, dying, and I was still… this.” (gestures at herself, unchanged)
“But her name?” (long pause) “Gone. Compressed so deep I can’t find it. I’ve tried. For centuries I’ve tried.”
She sits back down, picks up the cold tea.
Reyneese: “The priestess said the body remembers. I didn’t understand. But now…” (touches her chest) “Now I understand. The grief is stored here. In the cells. In the tissue. I don’t need to remember her face to know she mattered. The scar tissue is the proof.”
Flashback: 1,000 Years Ago
A burning village. Not hers. Someone else’s. Another war in a long history of wars.
Reyneese kneels beside a young night elf soldier, barely one hundred and fifty years old. He’s dying.
Soldier (gasping): “Will you… remember me?”
Reyneese (takes his hand): “I will remember the shape of you. How you stood. How you fought. How you loved.”
Soldier: “But not my face?”
Reyneese (honest, gentle): “Not forever. But I’ll remember that you mattered. I promise.”
Soldier (weak smile): “That’s… enough.”
He dies. Reyneese stays kneeling, holding his hand long after his spirit has departed.
Reyneese (whispers): “It has to be enough.”
Present Day: Understanding
Reyneese looks toward Vyrneese’s room again.
Reyneese (quiet): “She doesn’t understand yet. Vyrneese. She thinks memory is keeping everything sharp. Every detail. Every face. Every battle. Every death.”
She stands, moves toward the door.
Reyneese: “But that’s not how we survive. We compress. We keep the core. The feeling. The weight of them in our hearts.”
She pauses at the threshold of her room.
Reyneese: “And maybe… maybe that’s the gift. If I remembered every detail of every person I’ve lost, I’d be drowning. Paralyzed. But compressed memories?” (small smile) “I can carry those. I can keep moving.”
She walks down the hall, stops at Vyrneese’s door. Doesn’t enter. Just watches the ancient weapon sleep—a sister in survival, in compression, in the weight of millennia.
Reyneese (barely audible): “She’ll learn. In nineteen thousand years, she’ll understand. The body remembers. Even when the mind compresses.”
She turns away.
Reyneese: “I should make fresh tea. Vyrneese will wake soon. She’ll ask if I’m okay.”
A small smile crosses her face—sad but real.
Reyneese: “And I’ll tell her yes. Because in this moment, with her here, I am. The compressed memories can wait. This moment is sharp. Clear. Real.”
She walks toward the kitchen, leaving the past where it belongs.
Reyneese: “Tomorrow I might forget the color of her eyes today. But I’ll remember she cared enough to ask.”
Fade to dawn light. End scene.
The Weight That Remains
Reyneese can’t remember her mother’s face. Can’t remember her first friend’s name. Can’t remember the soldier’s eyes.
But she remembers:
- The weight of her mother’s hand on her head in blessing
- The sound of her friend’s laugh in summer
- The soldier’s gratitude as he died
Memory compresses. Love remains. The body keeps score.
This is how night elves survive eternity.
Not by remembering everything. By remembering what matters.
Author’s Note
This is the first in a series of chronicles exploring the inner lives of the Warband of Starveil Weavers. These stories dive deep into what it means to be ancient, to love mortals, to survive millennia, and to find family when you’ve lost everything else.
Reyneese is 2,000 years old. Vyrneese is 19,000. They both carry the weight of compressed memories. This is how they survive.
Read more: Reyneese’s Character Profile | Vyrneese’s Character Profile | All Warband Stories
Gallery
Reyneese in a moment of quiet reflection—the scene that perfectly captures this story. Art credit: AI-generated character portrait based on Reyneese’s character description.
Reference Image: This image is also available in the Warband Assets Collection for future storytelling and character references.
