User:Joshmaul/Kirenna Summerlight

"'If we're to be damned, let us be damned for what we truly are - not what Sylvanas wants us to be.'"
 * - Master Kirenna Summerlight

Kirenna Summerlight is a Master of the Order of Blood Knights, the paladins of Quel'Thalas. She serves as an advisor and enforcer for Lord Randarel Vendross, a Nightborne nobleman and arcanist from Suramar.

Biography
Born in Fairbreeze Village south of Silvermoon, Kirenna Summerlight was the daughter of Arryn Summerlight, a priest who dabbled in horticulture; however, she was more interested in learning how to fight, and ran away to join the army. Though derided as a "soft village girl" by her drill instructors, she soon impressed them with her natural speed and skill with a spear. Her father was enraged, and publicly disinherited her. However, just after the fall of Silvermoon, Kirenna recovered her father's diary from the ruins of their old house in Fairbreeze, in which he expressed his pride in her strength and spirit. Arryn believed the Light had guided her to fight for Quel'Thalas, and expressed the hope that it would protect her from the horrors of the Scourge.

Kirenna fought against the Old Horde during the Second War, and was nearly killed by the Scourge during the Third. Remaining behind while Prince Kael'thas and his entourage travelled to Outland, Kirenna took up blacksmithing to help maintain what gear they had (and, where possible, make new gear). When Silvermoon was brought into the "new Horde" under Warchief Thrall, Kirenna joined the ranks of the Blood Knights, and rose to the rank of Master while fighting against Illidan and the Burning Legion in Outland. When Kael'thas was exposed as a Legion pawn, she fought against his fel-corrupted forces on Quel'Danas, and welcomed the restoration of the Sunwell as a fountain of Light - a symbol of the redemption of Quel'Thalas.

Kirenna's doubts about Silvermoon's alliance with the Forsaken, their sponsors in the Horde, were first awakened during the war against the Lich King. Upon hearing that the Forsaken had created a plague that was used against both Scourge and living alike at the Wrathgate, she was unconvinced by the official explanation that it had been part of a coup against Sylvanas, believing that it had been in fact orchestrated by Sylvanas herself. She gladly set aside "petty politics" to fight for the Argent Crusade during the campaign, participating in the exploration of Ulduar and the siege of Icecrown.

Following her service in Northrend, Kirenna returned to Silvermoon, working as a trainer for new Blood Knight initiates, remaining there through the Cataclysm and the Pandaria campaign. She was thus able to (more or less) avoid being affected by the rebellion against Thrall's successor, Garrosh Hellscream, and did not participate in the subsequent campaign on the alternate-timeline Draenor. A number of her charges would not be so lucky, many of them killed either during the siege of Orgrimmar or during the war with the Iron Horde.

When the Legion began its final invasion, Kirenna felt she could no longer be expected to send her students to fight while she remained at home - certainly not against this foe. Thus she followed Lady Liadrin and the other Blood Knights to fight the demons under the banner of the Silver Hand, and found herself preferring the company of the world's paladins to that of the Horde...particularly now that the "soulless Scourge witch", as she often refers to Sylvanas, was the Warchief. Yet no sooner had the campaign ended with the victory on Argus than the old divisions returned, and Kirenna once again found herself opposing those she had once fought alongside...