The Fables of Alesthe

Alesthe, Mother of Winter

 * "I am neither the first, nor the last. I am the lashing of the wind, the bite of frost, the fury of the blizzard, and the loving embrace of snow. My ice shall shield my kith and kin from harm, and bejewel the corpse of my enemies. I am the winter itself, and Ashora'danil speaks through me."


 * — Alesthe

To the denizens of Ashora'danil, the supernatural entity known as Alesthe is the heart and spirit of winter made manifest, and an eternal guardian to the land and its people. According to the countless tales and legends of heroism and sacrifice spawned by way of oral tradition, Alesthe was a woman who lived in the city formerly named Ama'thalas, and the only living child of her noble house's patriarch, Erondil Winterpeak. Due to the fact that females could not carry on the name of the house, Alesthe was arranged to be wed to a man named Cratheon, a lord and eventual patriarch of house Summersteel. The unsettling reality that her own father was essentially going to sell her off to a man she had never met for house Winterpeak's own political advantages had infuriated Alesthe, who was, at the time, just barely reaching the proper age of maturity for a young noblewoman. In a fit of justified hysterics, the woman decided she would venture north to the gusty and chilled mountainside then known as Belore'dinoriel, or The Keeper of the Sun, in order to pray before the statue of Dath'Remar Sunstrider. The statue was little more than a rumor amongst the cityfolk, and it was said that only the most devout and prestigious of the Sun would be able to survive this testament of faith by scaling the dangerous, unforgiving cliffs, and to finally set eyes upon the statue itself was one of the highest of honors to the High Elven people...

... And what a most beautiful honor it was, for when Alesthe finally battled her way to the apex, she had become likely one of the first and few people to ever see the shrine for themselves. The statue of Dath'Remar stood tall, with gold-plated wings glistening in the rays of the sun bright enough that Alesthe could not bear to look directly into the face of the effigy. It was there that she discovered an even more legendary finding than the fabled shrine of their beloved Sunstrider. There, within the silver pommel of the sculpture's blade sat a pure, frothing crystal glistening in its silver socket. The gemstone was known as the Tear of the Moon, an ancient manastone that supposedly contained arcane energy from the ley lines themselves. Folklore warned that all who had touched the item with their bare hands had not been able to handle such massive amounts of the arcane so suddenly, and had dissolved into a cloud of pure arcane dust, only to be scattered to the wind like the sands of time. Now this mythical artifact was real, and it was placed right before Alesthe, unscathed by the elements.

Alesthe knew that she should not dare to come near it, let alone touch it, for fear of sealing her death warrant, just like all those before her who had been so arrogant as to do the same. But something compelled her to come forward; something as old, deep-seated and natural such as hunger and desire seduced her into coming closer.

Could it be the arcane energy that was doing this? Or was it simply the mortal sin of temptation that drove her to the brink of madness?

[[File:Harpy3_1_zps84629b67.jpg|thumb|left|Alesthe reborn as the Mother of Winter.

(Photo credit: Raptor729)]]Archivists and philosophers of the Ashora'danil people have argued for ages on what it was that swayed her decision, and will continue to do so within the confines of their councils and bureaucratic seats for eons to come. But what is definitely agreed upon is that Alesthe did not perish like all else whom pressed skin upon the stone. A bright, fiery blue light erupted from the clouds over Belore'dinoriel, and crashed down upon the mountain in an arc of twisting, crackling light. It seemed as if the heavens themselves were exacting their wrath on one of the tallest peaks of Quel'thalas. But, that assumption would be nothing less than an insult to the skies and aether. From the tempest of ice and blue holyfire emerged a being like none other in the reaches of Quel'thalas; a being of the coldest frost and wind, a mystical embodiment of winter and magic, and an ancient protector to all those whom stepped foot upon the territories of Ama'thalas — which, in the ages to come, renamed itself Ashora'danil (or Winter's Rise) in honor of the deity. Alesthe commanded the power and fury of wind and ice to defend her home from all who dared to oppose the Mother of Winter.