It is difficult to know when things begin.
In a tale or a song, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. But as my father always said, “life ain’t no song, lad.”
Did it begin the day, two decades ago, when the Dark Portal opened in the Black Morass, letting the first orcs into the world? Did it begin the day my mother strapped my baby brother to her back, stuck a gun in my hands, and told us to keep quiet as we ran through the snow and trees so the Dragonmaw orcs wouldn’t spot us as we fled our home? Or did it begin the day I shot my first Dragonmaw, rifle shaking in my hand so badly, I almost shot my brother’s ear off?
Did it begin the day Muradin Bronzebeard hired my brothers to accompany him on an adventure to Northrend? Or did it begin when Prince Arthas of Lordaeron, Arthas Menethil, Arthas the Betrayer burned their ships, abandoning them to the cold and the spiders and the undead in his quest for vengeance, to die in the frozen north?
Did it begin the day I joined Feanor Steeltoe’s expedition to Lordaeron to help him stalk the black dragon Searinox? Or when one of Searinox’s whelps fell on me, dead, breaking my leg in two places, laying me up, keeping me from going to war when the great horns of Ironforge Mountain sounded once more?
Did it begin when the undead Scourge swept through Lordaeron, and the Alliance was too slow, too comfortable to rise to the challenge? Did it begin when I stood on crutches in Menethil Harbor, waving farewell to my father and mother as they boarded the ships, sailing west to some land called Kalimdor, following Jaina Proudmoore of the Kirin Tor, while Lordaeron burned in the north? Did it begin when my parents died, side by side, my mother singing a battle hymn as she stood over my father as he bled out into the Mount Hyjal snow, watching the approach of the Burning Legion, a warhammer clutched before her? Or did it begin that day when I received the letter from Theramore, telling me what had happened?
Enough.
I am Ringo Flinthammer of Clan Bronzebeard.
My story begins here.
