Areiel: They are not bad, all of them are hand-made and guaranteed for 100% success in Dark Lady-annoyance!
My Dread Lady (Warcraft)
Chapter 47: Recall and Reconciliation
Chapter 47: Recall and Reconciliation
The dead walk the streets! Clutch your ears and abandon all hope of decency, ye whose gates they enter.
The Forsaken finally come to visit Theramore. Nothing is awkward in any sort of way, of course…
Author's Note
"Rangers, attend!"
Ranger Lieutenant Kalira was honestly looking much tamer when you barged into her sessions of council meetings with her ranger captain and queen, than when she scrutinized the small but proper formation of her dark rangers. Runar unconsciously straightened himself and tried to look over his boots with one eye.
"Your personal guard ranger squadron, Right Hand of the Queen, Master…" Kalira frowned. "…actually, I have to apologise for never asking about your last name."
"Just Runar will be just fine." Runar hurriedly assured her.
"Rune-ear." Lenara half whispered. "Your Handiness."
"Run-er. A fast one." Nara mused absently.
"The rangers I command rank among the greatest fighters ever to come out of Quel'thalas. They are also incorrigible delinquents and bickering mongrels all. I will expect a representative of the king of Khaz Modan to set an example for them and conduct himself accordingly."
"Of course. Always."
"We will set out south towards Ambermill and Dalaran shortly. The territory we pass through should be considered…contested ground, and I will hold command of this expedition as well as our outposts and armies operating alongside Lordamere Lake. In short, so long as you follow the Dark Lady's orders you follow my orders."
"Don't worry." Nara mumbled from behind. "Last time we had a living squad member he made it through with all limbs attached."
"And…we'll try to be a little friendlier this time…" Lenara promised.
"Don't get captured by the enemy though, then Kalira will break your bones when you return." Cyndia mumbled from the corner of her mouth.
"That is correct." Kalira confirmed, strict and curt as anyone could ever be. "Should you have any ideas of getting yourself wounded or missing on my watch you would do well to strike them from your mind, Emissary Runar. And the same goes for you, Ranger Recruit Ratatosk."
Kalira sent the squirrel on Runar's shoulder a stern look.
"Now I believe we all have preparations to make. Squadron dismissed."
"Are you that?" Runar asked Velonara. "Incorrigible delinquents and bickering mongrels?"
"Woof."
The Lordaeron snow was dancing in the air. Cyndia stood with her squadron by their boat and waited for their newest member to be ready to embark. Or their two newest members, Cyndia corrected herself dutifully. Ratatosk was not to be forgotten! Velonara had packed an entire sack of nuts and an inordinate amount of blankets for the squirrel. Taken together with their regular gear and tent canvas, lanterns for warmth and even a small stack of firewood the living might make a living onboard. Or whatever…
Their old boat was considerably improved. The hull was reinforced, the planks tarred, and they even had a mast! Fancy that. A boat with a mast, truly a wonder to behold.
Something that was an actual wonder, or quirk if you preferred, was the pair of sturdy beams underneath with curious metal runners furthest out along with the one underneath the rudder. Their boat was nothing less than an ice boat.
It was Jaina's idea, of course. Trust these crazy Kul Tirans to come up with a way to keep sailing even in the middle of winter.
Cyndia could learn to like this...winter thing. It was quiet and the sorry landscape was beautiful when the snow lit up the night. Serene, in its own way.
If the whole construction worked and the winds were with them they could sail along the western shore of Lordamere Lake and inspect all the Forsaken positions along the way, much freer than if Jaina had portaled them directly to Ambermill or some other fortified spot. The Naras had bet heavily against the Mirrahs that their squadron would break Amoras' cross-lake record from the summer.
In the worst case, if the ice would not hold them the boat was still a boat after all.
Apparently the dwarves had been sailing before (they only got stranger the more you got to know them) and were almost as crazy about trying out this new method of transportation. They had quibbled and nitpicked about the supplies for this expedition and Runar and Ratatosk particularly, and were now threatening each other with gruesome vengeance if the other one would allow himself to get so much as a scratch.
"They are just like you, Noble Commander." Cyndia said lightly to Kalira. "Runar will fit right in."
Kalira tried to glare at her, but she had lost her sting nowadays.
Finally the dwarves parted ways and Velonara cried promises to Halvdan that they promised to look after his friend. Amora's squadron returned similar oaths when they waved to them from the shore.
Runar hoisted the sail and adjusted the angle, or 'tacking' or something that the crab peoples called it. The wind buffeted the canvas and then it filled, and they begun to move. And more than move.
"Yihooo! Hold on to your tail, Ratatosk!" Velonara squealed from the bow where she had claimed the position as lookout.
Cyndia leaned back contently. Velonara was happy again. And Anya was happy to go to Theramore.
Cyndia would really like to see that place too. Some time. She was not too keen on cities after all.
But first she really had to go take a look at how Dalaran was doing. Would there be enough forage now with the deep snow? Were their stableboys warm?
"Can we raise more sail, Captain?"
Hoist. Hoist more sail, damn it.
***
Jaina watched with equal parts excitement and apprehension as the column of Forsaken neared the gates of Theramore. She was standing with a detachment of city guards by the side of the road to welcome their guests, and to demonstrate to everyone who was looking that they were indeed guests and nothing else.
One full ranger company, eight squadrons along with company staff, together with twice as many civilian Forsaken. Mostly civilian, anyway. One or two guardsmen and common soldiers would be found in the crowd here and there but not in their professional capacity. Still they could prove good to have to impress Theramore's city guard, where the majority would find dark rangers harder to relate to. And Baron Frostfel would be…hard to miss. They would all be making their way through Theramore's modest blocks of houses to the city square where Jaina would formally welcome everyone. After that she assumed that most would want to promptly return to their encampment outside.
The Forsaken lodgings had been a tricky problem to solve, and in truth they had not solved it so much as come to a decision that they were reasonably certain was the best they would be able to come up with.
Forsaken did not require shelter in the same way as the living did, just as they had no need for food or air in the same way. But treating them as some sort of tools that could be left on their own until the next day was of course not an option either. Some manner of comforts and basic dignity had to be offered as well as displayed if the undead people would ever be seen as people and not just undead.
Compounding, but also simplifying, the issue was the fact that Theramore was crowded as it was. Even with the rapid growth during the last year the city was far from completed and a not insignificant part of its inhabitants lived in temporary housing that Jaina hoped could be replaced as soon as possible. The good thing was that since the city was full anyway, there would not have to be any debating of whether undead could be allowed to live next-door to the citizens inside the walls. There was simply no room at the moment, be the visitors living or dead.
So the Forsaken would encamp on their own outside the city walls. The segregated position and the squalid state of a lot of the things they possessed would not be impressive, but Sylvanas and Areiel would ensure that the encampment would at least be kept in meticulous order. Even if it might give off an air of an occupational force it was better than just looking like a band of tramps and beggars.
"If the question is raised, anyone is free to blame me and Areiel and our militaristic habits." Sylvanas had offered with a small hint of ironic humour. "Though in truth it may be beneficial that our respective peoples can get used to each other from a distance at first. I can honestly not say what sort of reactions we should expect. "
"No, seeing you for the first time can be a bit...overwhelming." Jaina cleared her throat. She had meant the Forsaken in general, of course. She was at least almost quite sure that she had.
"Not everyone can be counted on being so generous and adaptive when encountering us for the first time as their Lady." It was as if Sylvanas wanted to smile, but at the last moment remembered herself and that she was not entitled to be amusing or relaxed in Jaina's presence. A tense sort of awkwardness still hung over them both like a wet blanket when they were on their own.
Like it usually did when two people had argued badly and were afraid to do so again.
"I have picked only rangers for protection because they are the only ones I know well enough to trust personally. Or I believe I know them well enough in any case." Sylvanas had always been frank but this was a different tinge of earnestness, that sounded almost as an anxiousness to be believed. "These are most of the gentler ranger squadrons, apart from Amora's and Kalira's. They are the most likely to be able to supervise things without appearing too grim about it or losing their composure. And they have volunteered like all the others."
"I have no objections. I trust you've made an excellent assessment of whom to bring."
"You do?"
"Of course. You're the Dark Lady." Jaina tried to smile reassuringly but she feared it turned out mostly nervous. "It's a good thing there aren't more of you right now anyway, because the city square will be packed tight enough."
"My people are used to confined spaces for the most part. And my rangers tend to be close to one another whether they need to or not."
"So I have noticed." Now Jaina managed to smile for real. Sylvanas mirrored that. A little bit. Where was her usual confident self? Her real self? "I intend to appoint Pained as supervisor and liaison of our new auxiliary contingent. I got the impression that she could be someone the rangers will respect."
"The obvious choice." Sylvanas agreed. "Just remind her not to expect obedience to come with respect. Something tells me that she and Areiel will have a lot to talk about sooner rather than later."
So here Jaina now was, trying to project confidence with her stomach filled with giant moths. They were actually doing this. Sylvanas, the Forsaken Banshee Queen, coming to visit and stay in her city for an extended time. Hopefully, so long as no new disaster appeared to interrupt it all. They would check in with the Undercity each day through Jaina's portals.
The Banshee Queen cared nothing for false pretences. She walked, at the head of her column of rangers heading the ranks of Forsaken, and commanded respect by the undeniable confidence she displayed and the assuredness of her posture. Just as the first time Jaina had seen her sitting on the throne in the Lordaeron Keep, she was struck by how unnecessary and silly a crown would look on her. A meaningless trinket, a toy out of place when put next to the real thing. The baron rode just behind her, the only one mounted. He looked imposing as always in full armour, no doubt painstakingly polished for the occasion, but Jaina fully expected him to bend down to listen at the first command of his queen.
Thank the Tides that Baron Frostfel looked so unlike Arthas, too. The more of his boasting manners that shone through the better it would be. Anything to distinguish this death knight from the spiteful and sneering prince.
Jaina straightened herself and stepped forward. Sylvanas held up a hand to stop her column and bowed with graceful flourish that Jaina tried to match.
"Lady Proudmoore."
"Lady Windrunner. Welcome to Theramore, all of you."
"We were in the neighbourhood." Sylvanas said flippantly.
Jaina flashed a grimace in her direction and tried to look annoyed but it only managed to elicit a wry quirk of the Dark Lady's mouth in return.
We were in the neighbourhood.
This was serious, for Tides' sake. Honestly.
Jaina turned to walk next to Sylvanas looking as dignified as possible. She briefly wondered if she should offer the Dark Lady her arm but discarded the idea. It would be very proper and ladylike, but Sylvanas wasn't really the kind of lady you escorted through gates. Not when she was wearing her ranger armour anyway.
It looked well polished too, by the way.
"Lieutenant Hornblower. Your men look formidable in their armour too." Sylvanas said just then.
Jaina had to force herself not to make another face as the lieutenant and his detachment stiffened and looked like they did not quite know how to look. Jaina fully understood the feeling.
It was only a short way to the city square and if anyone had cared for such things, the avenue leading directly from the gates was flanked by the most completed houses. It was of necessity as much as anything else that they had prioritized this part so that the major lane of transporting goods inside would not be clogged by construction materials. Though Jaina found herself being a little proud of how tidy this part of her small city looked.
The street was not deserted, but there were few people outside and all kept their distance. Warily. Theramorian city guards were posted at every corner, which could be viewed as a gesture of respect - an honour guard – but their presence inevitably underlined the seriousness of the situation. There was no way around that.
Jaina's mood fell when she saw the closed shutters and locked doors, and what she imagined was dark glances from the sides.
What if she was wrong, and just now making the greatest mistake she ever could? No, that was a nightmare come to haunt her and nothing more, just as the same nightmares haunted Sylvanas. That was like…like a fear of your lover choosing someone else over you despite every proof of the contrary, or fearing that your little brother would fall off a cliff when playing. You just feared it because it would be so terrible, not because you had reason to think it likely. That was that.
The city square became just as crowded as Jaina had expected. Even more, when living Theramorians bunched up on one side and the Forsaken naturally filled the space on the other. Jaina led the way to the entrance of the city hall, where the three steps to the doors offered a little elevation for herself and the Forsaken leadership.
Jaina swallowed. Yes.
She had addressed a Forsaken crowd once before. And Theramore's citizens on many occasions.
"Ci –" Her voice faltered and she had to clear her throat. "Citizens of Theramore and Lordaeron. I am honoured to welcome the Forsaken to our city this day. I hope you will enjoy your stay…"
No, what was she thinking, she was not a tavernkeep!
"…and I am sure we can be of help to one another."
Tides, that sounded so paltry. Were they going to be useful, again?
"I…I know this is difficult. I did not… personally set a very good example when I first met the Forsaken. But we shouldn't be divided. It is not by choice that we are. None of us asked for what happened and the blame lies with the Lich King and the Scourge…"
Her eyes fell on Sylvanas. Tense, probably clenching her jaws thinking of Jaina's words. Relentless and determined despite anything the Lich King would throw in her path.
"We are stronger together. We need to stand together."
Was it still the crowd she was addressing?
She had better be, if she hoped to convince anyone. It did not really look like she was doing a grand job so far.
"It has been my privilege to live and fight alongside the Forsaken queen Sylvanas Windrunner –" Jaina half turned to indicate Sylvanas "– and her dark rangers. They have saved my life several times. And Sylvanas' personal ranger squadron, which became my squadron, kept me fed and took care of me when I was wounded and ill. They…they are really the nicest you could ask for…"
Jaina guessed that her voice had softened so that everybody would notice by now.
"They're all here. Except Kitthix, who is Lyana's pet spider. Lyana is the nurse of the group. And tailor. But don't get sick because then she will feed you fish soup…"
Tides, now Jaina was rambling.
But Sylvanas was coming to her rescue.
"Lady Proudmoore has returned every effort in kind. It is thanks to her that I still have a city and a people to govern. I could not wish for a better ally." Sylvanas stepped forward and took over the scene as she let her gaze sweep over the crowd. "What was done to us was something no one should deserve. Our lives, our will and our honour was stolen by the Lich King's will. We are monsters and no pretending otherwise will change that. Not a day goes by when it does not haunt us."
It reminded Jaina very much of the speech before the Kirin Tor Council, only Sylvanas was much more dispassionate now. Or just simply calmer, because she did in no way appear indifferent. Solemn, maybe that was the better term.
"We do not ask for the understanding or acceptance of anyone. Only to be seen as what we are instead of what the Scourge made us into." She almost dared anyone to shout that those two things were the same. "There are about a hundred and fifty of us with me, those who volunteered to come in search of lost family and for other reasons. To that purpose we will see to it to compile lists of names of those that are with me, since there are few of us who look like our old selves."
Sylvanas waved Areiel forward.
"There are forty-six rangers with me, who will assist Theramore's guard in patrolling the surrounding lands and whatever other capacity is needed. Ranger Captain Areiel will hold command of the company and coordinate efforts with Lady Pained."
Lady Pained. Jaina had to admit it sounded a bit more impressive than 'Miss Pained' as the dark rangers had taken to calling her.
"The rest of us are artisans, craftsmen, farmers and farmhands. We are those who did not make it out alive. And we are ready to lend help to an ally who require it." Sylvanas let that sink in and then called the baron forward. "Baron Frostfel, commander of my deathguard, has also volunteered his services as instructor of heavy infantry and cavalry."
"Zat is right. We must ztand as one and be prepared for ze day we drive ze Scourge from our world." Baron Frostfel stated resolutely, straight as a (heavily armoured) post with his helmet under his arm. "I would be honoured to draw my blade next to ze defenders of Lady Proudmoore's fair city and…and…"
Like Sylvanas, the Baron had let his gaze sweep across his audience. Unlike Sylvanas', his had stopped, to linger on one of the Theramorian guards on one side who now seemed halfway about to retreat out of sight.
"Rodrick?"
He took the stairs in one step and before anyone thought of uttering a word he was ploughing through the gathered Forsaken who hurriedly bunched up to get out of the way.
"Rodrick…is zat…"
Jaina hurried after the Baron. She had never heard him speak like that. Awestruck. Elated. Afraid. Afraid to be mistaken.
"Rodrick…"
The city guard had bowed his head so deeply that Jaina was sure the Baron was right. But why he would seek to hide his face in this manner she could not divine. Finally he relented, or resigned, and painfully slowly looked up in the manner of someone expecting a hail storm to break out. Or perhaps if someone had dented Ranger Lieutenant Kalira's favourite sword.
"My Lord Baron, Sir…"
No more did he manage before Baron Frostfel had caught him in a crushing bear hug that Jaina was absolutely sure made the Alliance footman plates groan and buckle.
"Rodrick, my boy…"
Oh.
Jaina wanted to be able to teleport the rest of the city away, or summon a small wall of ice that could somehow be made to fit inside the overcrowded square. Even just standing here felt way too intrusive.
"…you got out…you got out… Baron Frostfel mumbled while he released Rodrick enough to look him over, but the guardsman only tried to avert his eyes even more when hearing that.
"I ran." He said it tonelessly. He confessed it, Jaina realised.
"Then…then I held ze gates for something!" the Baron burst out, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.
Had he been alive, Jaina was sure she should have offered him a handkerchief or something like it. Now she just lingered in the periphery in a slightly awkward position, until Baron Frostfel turned around when the rest of the world had finally caught up with him.
"Zis is Rodrick, my squire. From...before. And, look...look at you! Sergeant, in ze Lady Proudmoore's guard?" the Baron looked him over more like a proud father than a knight.
"They - we, uh, were short on men with formal training."
"Zat iz ze way. Pass what you have learned unto others, and raise zeir spirits higher by your example, zat it how a knight should conduct himself... I mean, not Raise raise zem, in zat way of course! Zat is, uh..."
Jaina couldn't help it, she had to clamp down with both hands to not break out in giggles. The underlying circumstances were terrible and tragic, the references sometimes morbid, but all these Forsaken intentional or accidental puns and misspeaks would in the end leave you capitulating before the sheer grim absurdity of it all. Jaina blamed her own nervousness on some part too.
Necromantic puns as well as the good Baron's accent were also two excellent ways to annoy certain Dark Ladies, thinking of nothing in particular. Jaina swallowed the rest of her lack of propriety and needlessly smoothened out her robes. It was high time to steer this introduction back on it's proper course -
"...beast!" A high-pitched voice resounded from - of course - the other end of the city square and Jaina found all thoughts of orderly continuation shelved in favour of once more squeezing through the rows of Forsaken spectators with Sylvanas right behind her.
"Fiend!"
Jaina sighed and briefly closed her eyes. She had a very distinct idea of who that voice belonged to.
On the other end was a small space left by the throng of spectators and in it a particularly withered Forsaken in front of an elderly, but rather formidable, lady with a prodigious hat and a cup of tea wielded in one hand and a stool in the other. A pair of thick, gold-rimmed glasses sat steadily on her sharp nose.
"That would be old Missis Gertrude unless I am very mistaken..." Jaina whispered hurriedly to Sylvanas while trying to get to the front of the crowd. "She can be a bit...batty. She rather chewed me out one time when I gave her those glasses."
"I do not know about 'Gert' but I would definitely agree on 'Rude'." Sylvanas whispered back as she smoothly followed half a graceful step behind Jaina.
The Dark Lady was not wrong, Jaina thought as they came within sight, and well within earshot, of the two interlocutors. She was just about to intervene when Sylvanas stopped her with a held out arm.
"Wait and watch." she whispered into Jaina's ear when Jaina looked questioningly at her.
"Honeycake!"
"Villain!"
"Darling!"
"Monster!"
"Gertrude!"
Jaina's staff almost dropped, and her jaw definitely did, as the old lady stopped in the middle of a wild swing and leaned forward to peer through her imposing spectacles.
"Alfred?"
"Sweetheart!"
"You've been dead for fifteen years." All ferocity had vanished, and it was fifteen hard years that now weighed heavily on Gertrude's creaking voice.
"And frankly, my darling, I don't give a damn."
Sylvanas leaned closer to Jaina as they both watched Alfred offer his wife his arm and both of them walk away, uncaring of High Ladies and Lich Kings alike.
"Perhaps we should consider simply letting the rest of this gathering run its own course?"
It was afternoon. The sky was grey and cloudy over the mismatched but orderly tents and growing sheds and shacks for storage or workshops that were springing up on this exposed spot outside Theramore's walls.
Jaina and a small delegation of sorts of Theramore, mainly Pained and Lieutenant Hornblower and some of the city councillors, were visiting the Forsaken camp as a show of respect as well as to sneak a look at something that they or Sylvanas thought they would need to change.
It was a strange experience, but then most things concerning the undead were either strange or varying degrees of terrible, so strange was quite endurable in Jaina's opinion.
The encampment in itself was as proper as it could be. Situated on an open, if not even, field of sand and stubby grass close to the shoreline it did not take up any valuable patch of land which was a good start. The ground was easy to dig and smoothen if necessary, though the tents and other structures were placed to follow the lay of the land from what Jaina could see. A symbolic fence of poles and rocks marked a path around and through it, straight and square as any geometer's drawing.
As for its inhabitants, there was less evenness there. They were Forsaken of all backgrounds and in any and all states of withering. Jaina had found herself sticking to that term, because it was both less repulsive and more accurate than saying something like rotting, and she did not actually know if the process was ongoing or they simply were as they had been Raised. Yes, another opening for a hopeless undead pun.
Even if Jaina had cautioned herself countless times against expecting too much or too quick developments, she had not been able to help being hopeful after the meetings between Baron Frostfel and Rodrick and Alfred and Gertrude. But that had been that. No other visible reunions and nothing else of note had happened, and when it came down to it there had simply not been very many living Theramorians attending the city square. So after a short and awkward time the event had been over and the Forsaken had returned to put their place in order and Jaina had conferred with her own council until now.
The looser, heart-stopping chaotic and in every way preferable atmosphere of their Kalimdorian games was gone. Sylvanas was serious again, and Jaina could tell that she was concerned too. She found herself longing to have the Dark Lady to herself and just talk, in peace and quiet, while their respective peoples wrestled with the idea of seeing one another. Just that. There would be more than enough statecraft tomorrow for anyone anyway.
Jaina made a point of speaking to as many as she could make time for and inquire if they had what they needed (or a workable proportion of it…) and if there was something they thought she should be particularly aware of (which was several things). When she dared, she inserted an off-handed question about what they thought of the coming days and interacting with the living.
Few of the Forsaken dared to be optimistic, which Jaina had been prepared for and thought was perfectly understandable, to say the least. She had not been prepared for how many of the answers would ascribe importance to her own actions in that regard.
"How come?" Sylvanas asked back when Jaina tried to put words on her impression. "One thing you will have noted is that my people are to a great extent longing for something to believe in again. In some, perhaps in a greater part of those who wanted to come with me here, it can take the form of fierce and unexpected loyalty and devotion. Should you ever be considered to betray that trust however, you may rest assured that it will not be easily forgotten or forgiven. You have risen to become someone to place trust in, Lady Proudmoore, to rally behind in a world that has turned against us."
Jaina did not know what to say. Particularly since those waters were full of reefs.
"The wiser among the Forsaken know what you have done and can do for us as a ranger mage. Now they brave meeting a city full of their living kin, an ordeal that could in the best of outcomes still offer grievous torment for anyone around us. Rest assured that they will brave it reminding themselves that it is your city, where you rule as archmage in your own right and where you will ensure that they are treated fairly."
"And those who are less wise?" Jaina was sure she knew in which direction this conversation would go, and she was equally sure that the best thing she could do was to let it.
"They have allowed their fears and delusions to cloud their judgement and failed to see what was right before them. They are a disgrace." Sylvanas did not meet her gaze when she declaimed it with harsh finality. "Your squire, or sergeant was it? Rodrick. I believe you should have words with him."
Jaina wanted to sigh, almost, but it looked like Sylvanas could be right. The squire, right now Jaina also thought of him as such, looked deeply unhappy, dismayed even, as he joined the rest of the Theramorian delegation about to return to the city. It had been tacitly agreed upon that the Forsaken would enter the city for real the next day, to give themselves and the citizens a night to come to terms with their first impressions. For now Jaina would do the most good following Banshee Queen suggestion.
"Sergeant Rodrick?" She tried to wrap her mind around what to say, really.
"…yes? Apologies. Yes, My Lady?" Rodrick came to attention like someone who had been deep in thought and only just now returned to the present.
"How are…no, belay that. I just wanted to ask how you feel after meeting the Forsaken. It must have been…" What, exactly? Hard? Overwhelming? "…actually, I should know better than to make assumptions so let me just say that I found my first encounter with them very unsettling. And, am I correct in guessing that something troubles you?"
Rodrick looked like he braced himself, gathering his wits and focus about him to perform a task for which you put personal feelings away.
"I am not demanding any report in official capacity and I don't mean to pry. Not at all. Just, if you want, we could compare experiences on the way back to the city gate?"
Not that it was a very long way there. But Rodrick fell in beside her and kept pace. It took some time still before he said something.
"I met some of my…old fellow squires. Four of us, to be precise. They are deathguards now, with the Baron." Rodrick spoke slowly, like you do when you search for words and they are hard to find. Jaina knew the feeling perfectly well. "You know that he was glad to see me, that I…got out. Survived."
Jaina nodded to encourage him.
"The others weren't. And they have all the right not to be."
"Surely they do not literally wish you had died with them?" If that was the case Jaina would have to take it up with Sylvanas as a concern for security.
"Can't say. How do you…how can you tell after over two years? And them being…" Rodrick shook his head and looked emptily at the ground they walked on. "The Baron said that he regretted most of all that he did not order everyone to run that day. But…he still didn't. And I still did."
"If…if it had been me I at least hope that the thought of someone making it out, for whatever reason, would bring me some measure of comfort rather than ire. But I can't know for sure of course."
Jaina wanted to say something more. Something more meaningful perhaps.
"Sylva – ehm, Lady Windrunner, described to me how there used to be a schism, between those Forsaken who wanted nothing to do with the living and those who wanted to reach out. I can't imagine the ones who came here doing so only to tell us living ones to get stuffed."
The words just glanced off the former squire.
"Nothing changes the facts. They were right. I was a coward. A craven, weak-hearted fool."
"I abandoned my city, my home that I loved more than any other place on Azeroth. I left my Master to die alone at the hands of the Scourge to buy us time to embark and sail out. If I had not, then we would all have lost."
Rodrick said nothing.
"If you are a coward or a fool, then you are in good company at least, Sergeant Rodrick." Jaina said quietly.
They were coming up on the city gates. It was almost twilight.
We are all afraid. And the fear made us all fools.
Jaina excused herself and dropped back to where Sylvanas and her rangers were walking with them.
"Lady Windrunner? When everything is settled for the evening, if you have the time, I would like to talk to you. With your ranger squadron."
"Areiel is taking care of all things in the encampment. I am available whenever you have need of me, Lady Proudmoore."
"Then please come with me. To my tower."
"I hope it isn't too cramped. It's not anything like a keep or anything like it…" Jaina kept rambling nervously.
Jaina's tower had three floors. A single large, high ceiling room made up the first, a kitchen and bathroom and Pained's room the second, which had a balcony as well, and the topmost floor housed Jaina's study and bedroom and a library and laboratory.
That is, that was the supposed floor plan. In practice the lower floor they were now meeting in was mostly taken up by crates and not very furnished in any sort of way, far from the large library it was intended to be. Jaina's study was also her bedroom, and her intended bedroom was stuffed with…stuff.
And yes, Jaina planned to have two libraries in her tower. One for her guests, or possibly students like she had sometimes dreamed of, and one for herself. Wouldn't anyone want to have that if they could?
"We all used to fit nicely into a single tent." Clea gently reminded her.
The dark rangers refused to be dissuaded and explored her home eagerly, apart from Pained's room which they let be with uncharacteristic respectfulness.
"There's most space downstairs, maybe we could sit down there? There are some blankets to hang over the crates, so you can sit on them…"
For the love of mana, was this all she had to offer her friends when she finally, finally could welcome them to her home?
"That will be great, we do that." Lyana said before Jaina could have second thoughts.
The rangers spread out across a half circle of crates that formed an improvised couch around a table in the middle. Kitala stretched out with her head In Clea's lap and her feet across Lyana, and overall did the humble conveniences an honour Jaina was sure they did not live up to. Anya sat down beside Lyana and Sylvanas furthest out on the opposite end to Jaina, and just like Jaina she did it with such care you would think her crates contained goblin land mines.
"I don't know how to begin –" Jaina begun.
No. She knew better than that. She was not going to pretend that she had to make excuses before her own ranger squadron. She was only going to be as honest as she could.
"I want to…I want to make it right between us. I know we can not go back to how it used to be but I still would like nothing better. I want…I want to be your ranger again."
"You are our ranger. You always were." Anya's voice was smooth as the sort of scarf that was too soft and too treasured to be worn.
"Jaina, we are…we are not angry with you. We were angry with Sylvanas when you left, but I am starting to think there could be more to this that we don't know?" Clea made it almost a question, directed at both Sylvanas and Jaina.
"I deeply regret ever calling your right to wear your cloak into question like I did when I yelled at you, but I know that is not foremost what you are referring to." Sylvanas said slowly and very seriously, and like she knew exactly what was on Jaina's mind. "I want to mend as much as I ever could but as…as I have said I do not have much confidence in my ability to do so. Perhaps the best thing to start with would be to show Clea and Kitala and Lyana the letter I wrote you, a paltry apology though it may be."
"Can I do that? It was not paltry. Don't you ever say that. I have it in my drawer, just a minute!"
It did not take a minute. It took less than a count of ten for Jaina to disappear and reappear in another flash. Teleporting up instead of using the stairs was the utmost of magical complacencies and tantamount to heresy, or so both Master Antonidas and Archmage Modera had instilled in Jaina and every other Kirin Tor apprentice.
But sometimes there were extraordinary and extenuating circumstances.
She could not help looking probably a little softer at the treasured piece of paper she handed over to Clea, Kitala and Lyana to read.
Read it they did, together and with such interest that Jaina half imagined their ears had perked up like on a trio of curious cats.
She could tell when they had reached the end because Lyana grabbed Anya's hand and Clea and Kitala sighed in unison.
"You should have come to us, Dark Lady." Kitala said, not unkindly. "Instead of waiting and worrying all on your own."
"I should." Sylvanas looked too unhappy to fully note her tone. It was peculiar, how easy Jaina found it now to note, or feel, the Dark Lady's mood even if she could objectively say that Sylvanas did not let much show except when she was teasing or extremely agitated.
"Lady Proudmoore wrote to me first. I think that you should see those letters too in order to know the whole field. If she permits it?" Sylvanas asked Jaina.
"Yes, I want to. But…you have them? I mean here?"
In answer Sylvanas took out a small protective case from somewhere beneath her armour. She opened it carefully.
"You carried them with you all time?" Jaina could apparently not stop herself from noting obvious things this evening.
"Of course. I will be gone from the Undercity for some time."
That was also an obvious thing, and the letters were not of the kind that anyone would feel really comfortable to have lying around.
And the letters were also valuable things that Sylvanas had not wanted to leave at home. Valued things.
This time it was four dark rangers who sat close together going through Jaina's at the time unanswered correspondence…and infuriated monologue.
"The Dark Lady is in trouble…" Kitala begun and then her face fell. "Oh, no…"
"Jaina called it." Clea observed while they digested the last part of Jaina's first letter.
Anya wrapped herself into herself next to Lyana and looked absolutely miserable. The other three were reading about Jaina being hurt but to Anya…Anya was feeling it.
And that was heartbreaking.
"Sylvanas. How could we do so wrong?"
"…how could we do so wrong?"
Sylvanas.
Was it the first time Jaina had called her by her name only? It probably was.
She had never attached much importance to her titles, not on a personal plane. They were tools that had their uses and they were amalgamations of an uncountable number of duties and expectations. Even that of Dark Lady, that Anya so insisted could and should be shaped into something that was not by necessity a burden.
Anya. Invaluable, precious Anya. The first and last thing we did wrong was to listen too little to you.
And perhaps you are right about my station as well, the way only you see it. Perhaps being the Dark Lady could one day be a thing of pleasure more than duty.
Yet right now I think I would like to just be Sylvanas.
"Dread."
Jaina was looking at her with big eyes. So intense and so calm all at once.
Sylvanas should have looked into them instead of at the downcast head of her devastated mage in her tent, or the revolting cuffs she had just thrown at her, or at anything else. Would she then have been able to come up with something so hideous as poisoning her own ranger mage?
"Did you know that your rangers gave the same answer?"
"No, but I am not surprised. Fear is everywhere for us…and it excuses nothing." Sylvanas could hear the tone of her own voice shift from sympathetic to contemptuous as her mind turned from her rangers to herself.
"It doesn't?" Jaina…pleaded.
It does not. Why do you speak as if you are begging me for – no! You blame yourself just as I do. That is not your place to do here and now!
Why did I have to say that?
"It excuses nothing that I have done, is what I meant to say." Sylvanas corrected herself through slightly clenched teeth.
"Oh, different standards? Those that should apply to banshees and living humans?" Jaina had not been impressed.
I made that argument when you had broken your mirror. It is mine to make, little mage! And I should just be quiet.
"I am only making everything worse. You should not be listening to me, Lady Proudmoore."
In her eye's left corner Anya was shaking her head in disapproval. Jaina did not, but she still somehow managed to mirror the sentiment.
"Forgive me, Dark Lady, but I will reserve the right to find that piece of advice faulty and ignore it. On the contrary I would like to ask you another thing." It was not hesitation that made Jaina draw up, she was making a deliberate pause to ensure she had Sylvanas' full attention. "I would like you to tell me all the things you wanted to say to me that night when I returned with your necklace. If…if you can recall…"
"Verbatim."
"For real?"
"No other thing has been on my mind the way that conversation has since you left."
"Then I want to hear it, all of it, the way it should have been."
Jaina's voice had fallen now. She was humbly asking Sylvanas to share something deeply personal and close and she knew it. And of course she had every right to hear it.
You all should. You deserve to know.
"You entered my room like you had just appeared out of one of your portals. You were just there." Sylvanas begun. "And I thought that, how could you ask to speak to me like nothing had happened? Where in all places had you been? Speaking was the least you would do, my unthinking, careless, foolhardy, insane mage!"
Even now, just recalling the words recalled the moment they had been spoken in. It was how memories worked.
Careful .
Careful, careful, careful.
Jaina was blushing. Of all things. She was looking down at her own lap and made the tiniest nod.
"I asked what it was you had there. The necklace was familiar to me. I asked you to hand it over, harshly so."
"I explained that we had visited your home, didn't I?" Jaina asked and Sylvanas nodded.
"I knew the jewellery. I know there is a small dent in the third link. I know the light is cast differently when the sun shines on the stone from the right and from the left. I know how it feels against every inch of my throat. I had left it in a box for years and had not thought of ever seeing it again. And now you had it here right before my eyes and I thought that it could not be. Not after all this time, when I thought it was lost forever."
"Not any more." Jaina interjected very shyly. Was she also following a memory as vivid as Sylvanas'? Or was she just recognising those fragments she had heard Sylvanas give voice to?
"Your eyes twinkled. Now, of all things. And I wondered if you thought this some sort of game. If you had any idea what you caused by disappearing without a single trace, let alone telling anyone what you were going to do and where? I was inches from screaming at you for it! Had you the slightest idea of what was going on in the Undercity in the meantime, or what could have happened? What if we had been attacked? Had you completely forgotten how we are at war and how many people that had come to depend on your presence? And you sat before me like nothing has happened and I wondered if you thought this would amuse me?!"
"We wanted to give you a gift. Something important, which was why we visited your old home. It wasn't supposed to take so long but then we encountered a lot of banshees there."
"Banshees. Scourge banshees, presumably? You rush headlong into the deepest of the blighted parts of Quel'thalas where if not the Scourge would get you then an elven patrol could have, and they do not stop to ask questions any more I can tell you! Were you trying to get yourselves killed?! How can you even think of something like this?! Is it not enough that I have hurt you so deeply already but must you and Anya court your true deaths in this manner on top of everything? For a gilded trinket! What do I care for relics of the past when put against your life?!"
Sylvanas could practically see Jaina sitting before her in her room in the Undercity. Determination that was giving way to worry, and the growing realisation that she could have done something way worse than she had accounted for.
"Do you think I long for a time before I was the queen of the Forsaken? That I long for it so much that I would not be bothered sending mine to their deaths to retrieve mementos on a whim? Is that what you think of me?"
"We just thought it would be something you would like to have. That it would mean something, and hopefully mean a lot."
"How could you ever think that anyone could care more for a piece of metal than for you? How can you risk yourself for dead gold that is nothing more than dirt next to that in your locks? What gems can compare to those two that look upon me? Have I done this to you? Did I drive you to this reckless thing? It is not the gifts of those closest to me that hold meaning, it is they themselves. Like you."
"Like…me?"
"Like you. My little mage. I would take it all back if I could. I would rather have it that I was taken unawares when someone proved false for real than to have hurt you like I did over falseness imagined. Damn any traitorous prisoners! Damn any malcontents I could not care less about! Damn the entire, rotten, Undercity! It means nothing to me."
She would not Wail.
But neither would she hold anything back.
And it was…good not to.
"And Alleria Windrunner is a long dead memory! She is nothing in comparison for she is gone, and you are not! And Alleria would personally GUT me if she saw me putting her memory ahead of my ranger sisters who were still with me! She would be ashamed to call herself Windrunner if she saw me do that!"
Jaina's face did not fall this time. But Belore damn her if it wasn't close.
"I asked how you could say that." Jaina intoned. "I was so shocked, and hurt, and insulted. And I said that if that was all there was to it I should not take up more of the Dark Lady's valuable time, and that I hoped it was acceptable that I now remove myself from her distinguished presence."
"By then I hardly could tell what I had said or not but I knew it had been something terribly wrong. I could not even keep up a civil conversation and whatever I attempted seemed to me doomed to fail before it could even begin. I just wanted you away from me, before you would be hurt even more by the poison that I am. I did not even trust myself to say that in a way you would not misunderstand."
"'You may now remove yourself from my presence, Ranger Mage', you only said." Jaina finished.
Sylvanas nodded. She felt drained. Like she and Jaina had argued for real, or rather she had yelled at Jaina for real, which was exactly what she had done in a sense.
All rangers sat still as statues looking at them. Anya with wide, distraught eyes.
"Thank you. For telling me." Jaina said in the smallest voice.
Jaina, have I hurt you more by obliging you in this? You wanted me to lay everything out – was I too harsh? I was so caught up, so vivid, everything… And I…I wanted to tell you all of this too. I want to be honest with you and nothing else. But neither do I want to cause you pain.
Please don't be hurt. Please don't.
Jaina was taking a deep breath. Just a little bit shaky.
"I so wish you would have said all of this the first time. I would ask why you did not but you have already explained that in your letter. And I am angry about it, so angry about what…happened, that you could not just have said everything you were thinking, but I understand it. I understand it so very well now."
"I ran after you. When my thoughts had stopped spinning enough for it to dawn on me what I had done. I think it did not take much time. But you were already gone."
"I just wanted to go home." Jaina whispered the words. "I did not even think of saying goodbye."
"No wonder –"
"No. It was no wonder I didn't, however much I regret that, because I was out of my mind. I was overwhelmed, crushed, broken –
"There is no way I can ever put in words how much you deserved better from me –"
"I was out of my mind." Jaina quieted her. "And I truly believe that so were you."
Yes. Maybe you should rather say too deep in my mind actually, but you are of course right in every way, Jaina.
And you are being too damned kind.
"Dark Lady?" It was Kitala's voice, which Sylvanas had to take an extra moment to remind herself of. There were more people in the room than her and Jaina. "If you and Jaina are going to argue about who is most to blame, would you like us to keep score?"
Lyana had drawn Anya closer to her and Kitala had sat up in Clea's arms where she looked with sincere, innocent eyes at Sylvanas. Sylvans knew that she was sincere. Kitala always was when it really counted.
But what did you –
How could you possibly answer –
Jaina was laughing. She was laughing and crying and probably being a tad furious mixed with everything when she bent down huffing and sobbing and trying to get a hold of herself.
"Kitala, you…"
"We missed keeping score a lot in the games so I thought we had best not forget it now too." Kitala continued like it was the most sensible and everyday thing.
"And make sure you don't forget to apologise to Jaina for making her a library either. "Clea added. "Oh, my bad, you only repaired the old one so it doesn't really count, does it?"
Jaina looked up at Clea and then at Sylvanas with a newly kindled trace of curiosity.
"Was that what you had been doing? And then you found I was gone…?"
The confirming silence was awkward.
Discomfiting.
"After you had left us, there was another case of Forsaken betraying their kind to Scarlet henchmen that we discovered. Witnesses that offered conclusive testimonies."
Not even her rangers knew about it. Both because she had managed to maintain rigorous secrecy and because they had not…been on speaking terms.
"I let them go. Towards the Tirisfal Glades like the others. Armed, to defend against roaming ghouls."
Sylvanas quieted and mentally berated herself. Where was she going with this, then? Was she expecting a pat on the head from Jaina now? An acceptance of the proof that she was being a good little banshee these days, or what?
No, silence. Jaina cares about it. That is all that holds significance.
"Thank you, Sylvanas." Jaina said without a trace of irony. "Regardless of what your reasons were, and they are your own business, it makes me very happy to know."
She called me Sylvanas again. I will always be your Dark Lady if that is what you need me to be, Jaina, but I think I like that.
"…what your reasons were, and they are your own business, it makes me very happy to know."
Anya was not fooled the slightest. Sylvanas' reasons were sitting right before her and had the kindest blue eyes that you only wanted to look deeper in, but you couldn't because this was the most important conversation that could be imagined, and it could not be allowed to get out of hand.
But Anya had no idea how to be of any help in it.
Had she been much help to anybody lately?
When Jaina proposed the expedition to Windrunner Spire she had just accepted, and look where that got them. Anya was just as guilty when it came to leaving the city without a word. More, even, for as Jaina's squadron lieutenant she ought to know better!
Even if Jaina had the habit of making the impossible seem possible and turning difficulties to trifles.
"There is one thing I want to say. I have been thinking more and more about it." Her squadron's mage was saying.
"Wait, isn't it bedtime now?" Lyana blurted out and everyone stopped talking or listening and looked at her. "Sorry, I did not mean to tease, I mean for everyone. I'm not used to the night and day here yet."
Jaina was giving her a long look.
"Yes, it is probably bedtime for us young living things."
"I don't want you to have to strain yourself sitting on crates. Can't we continue to talk in your bedroom? Then you can sit on the bed and we can be on the floor."
"On the floor? What kind of hostess would that make me?" Jaina protested but then she had to stifle a yawn and admit defeat. "I guess you're right. But at least bring the blankets so you can have something softer to sit on. See you upstairs!"
Then Jaina was gone in another teleport flash.
Anya and her squadron looked at each other. Sometimes Jaina was very…Jaina.
Soon after, a hastily washed Jaina met with them upstairs in her tiny bedroom. Now it was fortunate that only one of them needed to breathe because otherwise it would quickly have gotten stuffy. Jaina leaned against a pillow in the corner of her bed and Sylvanas sat on the only chair by her desk. The rest of them huddled by Jaina's feet and the floor by all of her chests.
"Right." Jaina said slowly. "This is… Sylvanas, when I did what I did before we went to Dalaran…when I let all the prisoners go. I know that I put you and other people in danger and that has to be the worst thing of all. But…I also want to say that I am sorry for denying you the choice, to choose for yourself, whether to be a good or evil queen. Apologises for the oversimplification –"
"No, at the moment that was the crossroads you saw me standing at, was it not?"
"And I refused you the right to decide which way to walk. I forced a tremendously important choice upon you and in the process betrayed your trust. I denied you a will of your own. Just like –"
"No, seriously, you can not compare –"
"Yes!" Anya did not know of anyone who could debate with equal spirit from her bedside as Jaina. "I was just like them, one more to deny Sylvanas Windrunner her free will –"
Sylvanas cut her off calmly but firmly.
"No. Lady Proudmoore, no. I understand your reasoning but the things are simply not comparable. Having your mind shackled and your own will crushed by another…another entity is something entirely different. And regarding a queen's right to choose –" She shook her head slightly. "There are many valid concerns that merit consideration in governing but a queen's right to…moral self-determination is not one of them. Not when other people's lives are at stake. ...or undeaths…"
"I am still so sorry. I went behind your back."
"I know that. You were devastated. And I bitterly wish I could have let it stay with being furious and shouting at you."
"One more day." Anya found herself whispering, or whimpering. "We would have needed one more day."
Anya would have needed one more day and one more night to talk Sylvanas out of that horrid scheme. If only she could have done that.
Jaina looked like she could be thinking about the same thing.
"If I had…come to you and asked you to spare the Forsaken traitors, or if I had done nothing and let you make the choice on your own…what would it have been? I swear I will trust your word on it, no matter what."
"I can honestly not say." Sylvanas answered after a long and tense pause. "I would like to say with certainty that I would have made the gentler, and as it turned out wiser, choice but unfortunately I can not."
Jaina nodded, dejected.
"Yes. You can not say because you were not allowed to make the choice. Someone else made it for you." she mumbled, and Anya was not sure if she was speaking to herself or to Sylvanas.
The Dark Lady offered Jaina a long look but did not contradict her.
This wasn't fair! Because…because if you imagined a different Sylvanas without a Jaina who did what Jaina did, why not also imagine a Sylvanas who did not have to have Scarlets for neighbours in the first place? Or a Sylvanas who did not have to die at all?!
They had almost, maybe, survived this undeserved, horrible, stupid fucking turncoat mess! Were they going to sit here and accuse themselves of cheating?!
"No." Anya said. "You would not have killed those prisoners because you didn't."
"Because Jaina…"
"Because YOU brought her here! I mean there! To us. It was you who took a – the most – kind-hearted mage into our ranks, it was you who choose to trust her, it was you who made her our ranger mage. You brought Jaina's actions on yourself for good or bad when you choose to trust her to be your mage, Dark Lady. And also, it was you who sought Jaina's council when any Lordaeronian Forsaken could have told you how their former kings would have ruled. Why, if you were not in any way looking for Jaina's way out of having to be like them?"
Sylvanas apparently did not know what to say.
Jaina apparently did not know either.
Just as well, because now they were just coming up with new ways of being stupid with each other!
"You would not have made a vile decision alone because you would not have been alone, because you would have had your rangers with you. Because that is what you do. You have us! It is only when we try to do everything on our own that we fail." she added glumly.
"Anya, I do not deserve you…"
"Tough luck, because you're in my squadron, Ranger Windrunner." Anya said and imagined she probably managed to be dismissive and harsh and petulant all at once. "Which is also your fault by the way, so you brought everything down upon yourself."
"I am with my squad leader. I wouldn't dare otherwise." Jaina shyly agreed with the warmest look towards Anya.
"Nor would we." Kitala said. She did not bother trying to hide her smile.
"Well, good then!" Anya had never been very good at looking threatening to her own rangers but now she would have liked to be better at it.
"Anya. I ruined so much already. I don't want to ever do so again. How?" Sylvanas asked her with absolute deference.
"To start with you should be angry with Jaina. And me. For running off. Not Wail, and not turn yourself inside-out trying to stop yourself from Wailing. Just allow yourself to be angry about it like any sensible person would."
"I for one would prefer an honest Wail over…over what is far worse. I can take being Wailed at after all." Jaina blinked up a shield around herself and her pillow to underline her point.
"Yes, you can. You have put up with so much from us."
"Not from you. From…Lordaeron, and all…" To Anya it was as if Jaina was still sad, but in a softer way. "I needed a break, I needed to come home. We just should all have talked properly about it first."
"You need that too, Dark Lady." Clea looked seriously at Sylvanas. "All of us do. If not time off, then time that is less grim and less fraught with danger at every turn. As silly as it may sound we dead need to remind each other that we need our rest too."
"Certain commanders should practice more what they preach in such matters." Kitala noted to no one in particular, and especially not half of the room's occupants.
"For…for what it's worth you are more than welcome to stay here with me as much as you like. All night. Every night. I have…missed you so much..."
Lyana tenderly pried Jaina from her seated position to lie down under her blankets as four other stealthy shadows vacated the bed and blew out the lights.
"So have we."
Author's Note
The dead walk the streets! Clutch your ears and abandon all hope of decency, ye whose gates they enter.
The Forsaken finally come to visit Theramore. Nothing is awkward in any sort of way, of course…
Author's Note
I came to think of a detail of Jaina's spells that I have not mentioned previously I think. Shielding spells are not part of the archmage's skills in Warcraft III. However, the experienced bookworms also have more than twice the hit points of their armoured infantry so obviously SOME sort of arcane protection is in place!
"Rangers, attend!"
Ranger Lieutenant Kalira was honestly looking much tamer when you barged into her sessions of council meetings with her ranger captain and queen, than when she scrutinized the small but proper formation of her dark rangers. Runar unconsciously straightened himself and tried to look over his boots with one eye.
"Your personal guard ranger squadron, Right Hand of the Queen, Master…" Kalira frowned. "…actually, I have to apologise for never asking about your last name."
"Just Runar will be just fine." Runar hurriedly assured her.
"Rune-ear." Lenara half whispered. "Your Handiness."
"Run-er. A fast one." Nara mused absently.
"The rangers I command rank among the greatest fighters ever to come out of Quel'thalas. They are also incorrigible delinquents and bickering mongrels all. I will expect a representative of the king of Khaz Modan to set an example for them and conduct himself accordingly."
"Of course. Always."
"We will set out south towards Ambermill and Dalaran shortly. The territory we pass through should be considered…contested ground, and I will hold command of this expedition as well as our outposts and armies operating alongside Lordamere Lake. In short, so long as you follow the Dark Lady's orders you follow my orders."
"Don't worry." Nara mumbled from behind. "Last time we had a living squad member he made it through with all limbs attached."
"And…we'll try to be a little friendlier this time…" Lenara promised.
"Don't get captured by the enemy though, then Kalira will break your bones when you return." Cyndia mumbled from the corner of her mouth.
"That is correct." Kalira confirmed, strict and curt as anyone could ever be. "Should you have any ideas of getting yourself wounded or missing on my watch you would do well to strike them from your mind, Emissary Runar. And the same goes for you, Ranger Recruit Ratatosk."
Kalira sent the squirrel on Runar's shoulder a stern look.
"Now I believe we all have preparations to make. Squadron dismissed."
"Are you that?" Runar asked Velonara. "Incorrigible delinquents and bickering mongrels?"
"Woof."
***
The Lordaeron snow was dancing in the air. Cyndia stood with her squadron by their boat and waited for their newest member to be ready to embark. Or their two newest members, Cyndia corrected herself dutifully. Ratatosk was not to be forgotten! Velonara had packed an entire sack of nuts and an inordinate amount of blankets for the squirrel. Taken together with their regular gear and tent canvas, lanterns for warmth and even a small stack of firewood the living might make a living onboard. Or whatever…
Their old boat was considerably improved. The hull was reinforced, the planks tarred, and they even had a mast! Fancy that. A boat with a mast, truly a wonder to behold.
Something that was an actual wonder, or quirk if you preferred, was the pair of sturdy beams underneath with curious metal runners furthest out along with the one underneath the rudder. Their boat was nothing less than an ice boat.
It was Jaina's idea, of course. Trust these crazy Kul Tirans to come up with a way to keep sailing even in the middle of winter.
Cyndia could learn to like this...winter thing. It was quiet and the sorry landscape was beautiful when the snow lit up the night. Serene, in its own way.
If the whole construction worked and the winds were with them they could sail along the western shore of Lordamere Lake and inspect all the Forsaken positions along the way, much freer than if Jaina had portaled them directly to Ambermill or some other fortified spot. The Naras had bet heavily against the Mirrahs that their squadron would break Amoras' cross-lake record from the summer.
In the worst case, if the ice would not hold them the boat was still a boat after all.
Apparently the dwarves had been sailing before (they only got stranger the more you got to know them) and were almost as crazy about trying out this new method of transportation. They had quibbled and nitpicked about the supplies for this expedition and Runar and Ratatosk particularly, and were now threatening each other with gruesome vengeance if the other one would allow himself to get so much as a scratch.
"They are just like you, Noble Commander." Cyndia said lightly to Kalira. "Runar will fit right in."
Kalira tried to glare at her, but she had lost her sting nowadays.
Finally the dwarves parted ways and Velonara cried promises to Halvdan that they promised to look after his friend. Amora's squadron returned similar oaths when they waved to them from the shore.
Runar hoisted the sail and adjusted the angle, or 'tacking' or something that the crab peoples called it. The wind buffeted the canvas and then it filled, and they begun to move. And more than move.
"Yihooo! Hold on to your tail, Ratatosk!" Velonara squealed from the bow where she had claimed the position as lookout.
Cyndia leaned back contently. Velonara was happy again. And Anya was happy to go to Theramore.
Cyndia would really like to see that place too. Some time. She was not too keen on cities after all.
But first she really had to go take a look at how Dalaran was doing. Would there be enough forage now with the deep snow? Were their stableboys warm?
"Can we raise more sail, Captain?"
Hoist. Hoist more sail, damn it.
***
Jaina watched with equal parts excitement and apprehension as the column of Forsaken neared the gates of Theramore. She was standing with a detachment of city guards by the side of the road to welcome their guests, and to demonstrate to everyone who was looking that they were indeed guests and nothing else.
One full ranger company, eight squadrons along with company staff, together with twice as many civilian Forsaken. Mostly civilian, anyway. One or two guardsmen and common soldiers would be found in the crowd here and there but not in their professional capacity. Still they could prove good to have to impress Theramore's city guard, where the majority would find dark rangers harder to relate to. And Baron Frostfel would be…hard to miss. They would all be making their way through Theramore's modest blocks of houses to the city square where Jaina would formally welcome everyone. After that she assumed that most would want to promptly return to their encampment outside.
The Forsaken lodgings had been a tricky problem to solve, and in truth they had not solved it so much as come to a decision that they were reasonably certain was the best they would be able to come up with.
Forsaken did not require shelter in the same way as the living did, just as they had no need for food or air in the same way. But treating them as some sort of tools that could be left on their own until the next day was of course not an option either. Some manner of comforts and basic dignity had to be offered as well as displayed if the undead people would ever be seen as people and not just undead.
Compounding, but also simplifying, the issue was the fact that Theramore was crowded as it was. Even with the rapid growth during the last year the city was far from completed and a not insignificant part of its inhabitants lived in temporary housing that Jaina hoped could be replaced as soon as possible. The good thing was that since the city was full anyway, there would not have to be any debating of whether undead could be allowed to live next-door to the citizens inside the walls. There was simply no room at the moment, be the visitors living or dead.
So the Forsaken would encamp on their own outside the city walls. The segregated position and the squalid state of a lot of the things they possessed would not be impressive, but Sylvanas and Areiel would ensure that the encampment would at least be kept in meticulous order. Even if it might give off an air of an occupational force it was better than just looking like a band of tramps and beggars.
"If the question is raised, anyone is free to blame me and Areiel and our militaristic habits." Sylvanas had offered with a small hint of ironic humour. "Though in truth it may be beneficial that our respective peoples can get used to each other from a distance at first. I can honestly not say what sort of reactions we should expect. "
"No, seeing you for the first time can be a bit...overwhelming." Jaina cleared her throat. She had meant the Forsaken in general, of course. She was at least almost quite sure that she had.
"Not everyone can be counted on being so generous and adaptive when encountering us for the first time as their Lady." It was as if Sylvanas wanted to smile, but at the last moment remembered herself and that she was not entitled to be amusing or relaxed in Jaina's presence. A tense sort of awkwardness still hung over them both like a wet blanket when they were on their own.
Like it usually did when two people had argued badly and were afraid to do so again.
"I have picked only rangers for protection because they are the only ones I know well enough to trust personally. Or I believe I know them well enough in any case." Sylvanas had always been frank but this was a different tinge of earnestness, that sounded almost as an anxiousness to be believed. "These are most of the gentler ranger squadrons, apart from Amora's and Kalira's. They are the most likely to be able to supervise things without appearing too grim about it or losing their composure. And they have volunteered like all the others."
"I have no objections. I trust you've made an excellent assessment of whom to bring."
"You do?"
"Of course. You're the Dark Lady." Jaina tried to smile reassuringly but she feared it turned out mostly nervous. "It's a good thing there aren't more of you right now anyway, because the city square will be packed tight enough."
"My people are used to confined spaces for the most part. And my rangers tend to be close to one another whether they need to or not."
"So I have noticed." Now Jaina managed to smile for real. Sylvanas mirrored that. A little bit. Where was her usual confident self? Her real self? "I intend to appoint Pained as supervisor and liaison of our new auxiliary contingent. I got the impression that she could be someone the rangers will respect."
"The obvious choice." Sylvanas agreed. "Just remind her not to expect obedience to come with respect. Something tells me that she and Areiel will have a lot to talk about sooner rather than later."
So here Jaina now was, trying to project confidence with her stomach filled with giant moths. They were actually doing this. Sylvanas, the Forsaken Banshee Queen, coming to visit and stay in her city for an extended time. Hopefully, so long as no new disaster appeared to interrupt it all. They would check in with the Undercity each day through Jaina's portals.
The Banshee Queen cared nothing for false pretences. She walked, at the head of her column of rangers heading the ranks of Forsaken, and commanded respect by the undeniable confidence she displayed and the assuredness of her posture. Just as the first time Jaina had seen her sitting on the throne in the Lordaeron Keep, she was struck by how unnecessary and silly a crown would look on her. A meaningless trinket, a toy out of place when put next to the real thing. The baron rode just behind her, the only one mounted. He looked imposing as always in full armour, no doubt painstakingly polished for the occasion, but Jaina fully expected him to bend down to listen at the first command of his queen.
Thank the Tides that Baron Frostfel looked so unlike Arthas, too. The more of his boasting manners that shone through the better it would be. Anything to distinguish this death knight from the spiteful and sneering prince.
Jaina straightened herself and stepped forward. Sylvanas held up a hand to stop her column and bowed with graceful flourish that Jaina tried to match.
"Lady Proudmoore."
"Lady Windrunner. Welcome to Theramore, all of you."
"We were in the neighbourhood." Sylvanas said flippantly.
Jaina flashed a grimace in her direction and tried to look annoyed but it only managed to elicit a wry quirk of the Dark Lady's mouth in return.
We were in the neighbourhood.
This was serious, for Tides' sake. Honestly.
Jaina turned to walk next to Sylvanas looking as dignified as possible. She briefly wondered if she should offer the Dark Lady her arm but discarded the idea. It would be very proper and ladylike, but Sylvanas wasn't really the kind of lady you escorted through gates. Not when she was wearing her ranger armour anyway.
It looked well polished too, by the way.
"Lieutenant Hornblower. Your men look formidable in their armour too." Sylvanas said just then.
Jaina had to force herself not to make another face as the lieutenant and his detachment stiffened and looked like they did not quite know how to look. Jaina fully understood the feeling.
It was only a short way to the city square and if anyone had cared for such things, the avenue leading directly from the gates was flanked by the most completed houses. It was of necessity as much as anything else that they had prioritized this part so that the major lane of transporting goods inside would not be clogged by construction materials. Though Jaina found herself being a little proud of how tidy this part of her small city looked.
The street was not deserted, but there were few people outside and all kept their distance. Warily. Theramorian city guards were posted at every corner, which could be viewed as a gesture of respect - an honour guard – but their presence inevitably underlined the seriousness of the situation. There was no way around that.
Jaina's mood fell when she saw the closed shutters and locked doors, and what she imagined was dark glances from the sides.
What if she was wrong, and just now making the greatest mistake she ever could? No, that was a nightmare come to haunt her and nothing more, just as the same nightmares haunted Sylvanas. That was like…like a fear of your lover choosing someone else over you despite every proof of the contrary, or fearing that your little brother would fall off a cliff when playing. You just feared it because it would be so terrible, not because you had reason to think it likely. That was that.
The city square became just as crowded as Jaina had expected. Even more, when living Theramorians bunched up on one side and the Forsaken naturally filled the space on the other. Jaina led the way to the entrance of the city hall, where the three steps to the doors offered a little elevation for herself and the Forsaken leadership.
Jaina swallowed. Yes.
She had addressed a Forsaken crowd once before. And Theramore's citizens on many occasions.
"Ci –" Her voice faltered and she had to clear her throat. "Citizens of Theramore and Lordaeron. I am honoured to welcome the Forsaken to our city this day. I hope you will enjoy your stay…"
No, what was she thinking, she was not a tavernkeep!
"…and I am sure we can be of help to one another."
Tides, that sounded so paltry. Were they going to be useful, again?
"I…I know this is difficult. I did not… personally set a very good example when I first met the Forsaken. But we shouldn't be divided. It is not by choice that we are. None of us asked for what happened and the blame lies with the Lich King and the Scourge…"
Her eyes fell on Sylvanas. Tense, probably clenching her jaws thinking of Jaina's words. Relentless and determined despite anything the Lich King would throw in her path.
"We are stronger together. We need to stand together."
Was it still the crowd she was addressing?
She had better be, if she hoped to convince anyone. It did not really look like she was doing a grand job so far.
"It has been my privilege to live and fight alongside the Forsaken queen Sylvanas Windrunner –" Jaina half turned to indicate Sylvanas "– and her dark rangers. They have saved my life several times. And Sylvanas' personal ranger squadron, which became my squadron, kept me fed and took care of me when I was wounded and ill. They…they are really the nicest you could ask for…"
Jaina guessed that her voice had softened so that everybody would notice by now.
"They're all here. Except Kitthix, who is Lyana's pet spider. Lyana is the nurse of the group. And tailor. But don't get sick because then she will feed you fish soup…"
Tides, now Jaina was rambling.
But Sylvanas was coming to her rescue.
"Lady Proudmoore has returned every effort in kind. It is thanks to her that I still have a city and a people to govern. I could not wish for a better ally." Sylvanas stepped forward and took over the scene as she let her gaze sweep over the crowd. "What was done to us was something no one should deserve. Our lives, our will and our honour was stolen by the Lich King's will. We are monsters and no pretending otherwise will change that. Not a day goes by when it does not haunt us."
It reminded Jaina very much of the speech before the Kirin Tor Council, only Sylvanas was much more dispassionate now. Or just simply calmer, because she did in no way appear indifferent. Solemn, maybe that was the better term.
"We do not ask for the understanding or acceptance of anyone. Only to be seen as what we are instead of what the Scourge made us into." She almost dared anyone to shout that those two things were the same. "There are about a hundred and fifty of us with me, those who volunteered to come in search of lost family and for other reasons. To that purpose we will see to it to compile lists of names of those that are with me, since there are few of us who look like our old selves."
Sylvanas waved Areiel forward.
"There are forty-six rangers with me, who will assist Theramore's guard in patrolling the surrounding lands and whatever other capacity is needed. Ranger Captain Areiel will hold command of the company and coordinate efforts with Lady Pained."
Lady Pained. Jaina had to admit it sounded a bit more impressive than 'Miss Pained' as the dark rangers had taken to calling her.
"The rest of us are artisans, craftsmen, farmers and farmhands. We are those who did not make it out alive. And we are ready to lend help to an ally who require it." Sylvanas let that sink in and then called the baron forward. "Baron Frostfel, commander of my deathguard, has also volunteered his services as instructor of heavy infantry and cavalry."
"Zat is right. We must ztand as one and be prepared for ze day we drive ze Scourge from our world." Baron Frostfel stated resolutely, straight as a (heavily armoured) post with his helmet under his arm. "I would be honoured to draw my blade next to ze defenders of Lady Proudmoore's fair city and…and…"
Like Sylvanas, the Baron had let his gaze sweep across his audience. Unlike Sylvanas', his had stopped, to linger on one of the Theramorian guards on one side who now seemed halfway about to retreat out of sight.
"Rodrick?"
He took the stairs in one step and before anyone thought of uttering a word he was ploughing through the gathered Forsaken who hurriedly bunched up to get out of the way.
"Rodrick…is zat…"
Jaina hurried after the Baron. She had never heard him speak like that. Awestruck. Elated. Afraid. Afraid to be mistaken.
"Rodrick…"
The city guard had bowed his head so deeply that Jaina was sure the Baron was right. But why he would seek to hide his face in this manner she could not divine. Finally he relented, or resigned, and painfully slowly looked up in the manner of someone expecting a hail storm to break out. Or perhaps if someone had dented Ranger Lieutenant Kalira's favourite sword.
"My Lord Baron, Sir…"
No more did he manage before Baron Frostfel had caught him in a crushing bear hug that Jaina was absolutely sure made the Alliance footman plates groan and buckle.
"Rodrick, my boy…"
Oh.
Jaina wanted to be able to teleport the rest of the city away, or summon a small wall of ice that could somehow be made to fit inside the overcrowded square. Even just standing here felt way too intrusive.
"…you got out…you got out… Baron Frostfel mumbled while he released Rodrick enough to look him over, but the guardsman only tried to avert his eyes even more when hearing that.
"I ran." He said it tonelessly. He confessed it, Jaina realised.
"Then…then I held ze gates for something!" the Baron burst out, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.
Had he been alive, Jaina was sure she should have offered him a handkerchief or something like it. Now she just lingered in the periphery in a slightly awkward position, until Baron Frostfel turned around when the rest of the world had finally caught up with him.
"Zis is Rodrick, my squire. From...before. And, look...look at you! Sergeant, in ze Lady Proudmoore's guard?" the Baron looked him over more like a proud father than a knight.
"They - we, uh, were short on men with formal training."
"Zat iz ze way. Pass what you have learned unto others, and raise zeir spirits higher by your example, zat it how a knight should conduct himself... I mean, not Raise raise zem, in zat way of course! Zat is, uh..."
Jaina couldn't help it, she had to clamp down with both hands to not break out in giggles. The underlying circumstances were terrible and tragic, the references sometimes morbid, but all these Forsaken intentional or accidental puns and misspeaks would in the end leave you capitulating before the sheer grim absurdity of it all. Jaina blamed her own nervousness on some part too.
Necromantic puns as well as the good Baron's accent were also two excellent ways to annoy certain Dark Ladies, thinking of nothing in particular. Jaina swallowed the rest of her lack of propriety and needlessly smoothened out her robes. It was high time to steer this introduction back on it's proper course -
"...beast!" A high-pitched voice resounded from - of course - the other end of the city square and Jaina found all thoughts of orderly continuation shelved in favour of once more squeezing through the rows of Forsaken spectators with Sylvanas right behind her.
"Fiend!"
Jaina sighed and briefly closed her eyes. She had a very distinct idea of who that voice belonged to.
On the other end was a small space left by the throng of spectators and in it a particularly withered Forsaken in front of an elderly, but rather formidable, lady with a prodigious hat and a cup of tea wielded in one hand and a stool in the other. A pair of thick, gold-rimmed glasses sat steadily on her sharp nose.
"That would be old Missis Gertrude unless I am very mistaken..." Jaina whispered hurriedly to Sylvanas while trying to get to the front of the crowd. "She can be a bit...batty. She rather chewed me out one time when I gave her those glasses."
"I do not know about 'Gert' but I would definitely agree on 'Rude'." Sylvanas whispered back as she smoothly followed half a graceful step behind Jaina.
The Dark Lady was not wrong, Jaina thought as they came within sight, and well within earshot, of the two interlocutors. She was just about to intervene when Sylvanas stopped her with a held out arm.
"Wait and watch." she whispered into Jaina's ear when Jaina looked questioningly at her.
"Honeycake!"
"Villain!"
"Darling!"
"Monster!"
"Gertrude!"
Jaina's staff almost dropped, and her jaw definitely did, as the old lady stopped in the middle of a wild swing and leaned forward to peer through her imposing spectacles.
"Alfred?"
"Sweetheart!"
"You've been dead for fifteen years." All ferocity had vanished, and it was fifteen hard years that now weighed heavily on Gertrude's creaking voice.
"And frankly, my darling, I don't give a damn."
Sylvanas leaned closer to Jaina as they both watched Alfred offer his wife his arm and both of them walk away, uncaring of High Ladies and Lich Kings alike.
"Perhaps we should consider simply letting the rest of this gathering run its own course?"
***
It was afternoon. The sky was grey and cloudy over the mismatched but orderly tents and growing sheds and shacks for storage or workshops that were springing up on this exposed spot outside Theramore's walls.
Jaina and a small delegation of sorts of Theramore, mainly Pained and Lieutenant Hornblower and some of the city councillors, were visiting the Forsaken camp as a show of respect as well as to sneak a look at something that they or Sylvanas thought they would need to change.
It was a strange experience, but then most things concerning the undead were either strange or varying degrees of terrible, so strange was quite endurable in Jaina's opinion.
The encampment in itself was as proper as it could be. Situated on an open, if not even, field of sand and stubby grass close to the shoreline it did not take up any valuable patch of land which was a good start. The ground was easy to dig and smoothen if necessary, though the tents and other structures were placed to follow the lay of the land from what Jaina could see. A symbolic fence of poles and rocks marked a path around and through it, straight and square as any geometer's drawing.
As for its inhabitants, there was less evenness there. They were Forsaken of all backgrounds and in any and all states of withering. Jaina had found herself sticking to that term, because it was both less repulsive and more accurate than saying something like rotting, and she did not actually know if the process was ongoing or they simply were as they had been Raised. Yes, another opening for a hopeless undead pun.
Even if Jaina had cautioned herself countless times against expecting too much or too quick developments, she had not been able to help being hopeful after the meetings between Baron Frostfel and Rodrick and Alfred and Gertrude. But that had been that. No other visible reunions and nothing else of note had happened, and when it came down to it there had simply not been very many living Theramorians attending the city square. So after a short and awkward time the event had been over and the Forsaken had returned to put their place in order and Jaina had conferred with her own council until now.
The looser, heart-stopping chaotic and in every way preferable atmosphere of their Kalimdorian games was gone. Sylvanas was serious again, and Jaina could tell that she was concerned too. She found herself longing to have the Dark Lady to herself and just talk, in peace and quiet, while their respective peoples wrestled with the idea of seeing one another. Just that. There would be more than enough statecraft tomorrow for anyone anyway.
Jaina made a point of speaking to as many as she could make time for and inquire if they had what they needed (or a workable proportion of it…) and if there was something they thought she should be particularly aware of (which was several things). When she dared, she inserted an off-handed question about what they thought of the coming days and interacting with the living.
Few of the Forsaken dared to be optimistic, which Jaina had been prepared for and thought was perfectly understandable, to say the least. She had not been prepared for how many of the answers would ascribe importance to her own actions in that regard.
"How come?" Sylvanas asked back when Jaina tried to put words on her impression. "One thing you will have noted is that my people are to a great extent longing for something to believe in again. In some, perhaps in a greater part of those who wanted to come with me here, it can take the form of fierce and unexpected loyalty and devotion. Should you ever be considered to betray that trust however, you may rest assured that it will not be easily forgotten or forgiven. You have risen to become someone to place trust in, Lady Proudmoore, to rally behind in a world that has turned against us."
Jaina did not know what to say. Particularly since those waters were full of reefs.
"The wiser among the Forsaken know what you have done and can do for us as a ranger mage. Now they brave meeting a city full of their living kin, an ordeal that could in the best of outcomes still offer grievous torment for anyone around us. Rest assured that they will brave it reminding themselves that it is your city, where you rule as archmage in your own right and where you will ensure that they are treated fairly."
"And those who are less wise?" Jaina was sure she knew in which direction this conversation would go, and she was equally sure that the best thing she could do was to let it.
"They have allowed their fears and delusions to cloud their judgement and failed to see what was right before them. They are a disgrace." Sylvanas did not meet her gaze when she declaimed it with harsh finality. "Your squire, or sergeant was it? Rodrick. I believe you should have words with him."
Jaina wanted to sigh, almost, but it looked like Sylvanas could be right. The squire, right now Jaina also thought of him as such, looked deeply unhappy, dismayed even, as he joined the rest of the Theramorian delegation about to return to the city. It had been tacitly agreed upon that the Forsaken would enter the city for real the next day, to give themselves and the citizens a night to come to terms with their first impressions. For now Jaina would do the most good following Banshee Queen suggestion.
"Sergeant Rodrick?" She tried to wrap her mind around what to say, really.
"…yes? Apologies. Yes, My Lady?" Rodrick came to attention like someone who had been deep in thought and only just now returned to the present.
"How are…no, belay that. I just wanted to ask how you feel after meeting the Forsaken. It must have been…" What, exactly? Hard? Overwhelming? "…actually, I should know better than to make assumptions so let me just say that I found my first encounter with them very unsettling. And, am I correct in guessing that something troubles you?"
Rodrick looked like he braced himself, gathering his wits and focus about him to perform a task for which you put personal feelings away.
"I am not demanding any report in official capacity and I don't mean to pry. Not at all. Just, if you want, we could compare experiences on the way back to the city gate?"
Not that it was a very long way there. But Rodrick fell in beside her and kept pace. It took some time still before he said something.
"I met some of my…old fellow squires. Four of us, to be precise. They are deathguards now, with the Baron." Rodrick spoke slowly, like you do when you search for words and they are hard to find. Jaina knew the feeling perfectly well. "You know that he was glad to see me, that I…got out. Survived."
Jaina nodded to encourage him.
"The others weren't. And they have all the right not to be."
"Surely they do not literally wish you had died with them?" If that was the case Jaina would have to take it up with Sylvanas as a concern for security.
"Can't say. How do you…how can you tell after over two years? And them being…" Rodrick shook his head and looked emptily at the ground they walked on. "The Baron said that he regretted most of all that he did not order everyone to run that day. But…he still didn't. And I still did."
"If…if it had been me I at least hope that the thought of someone making it out, for whatever reason, would bring me some measure of comfort rather than ire. But I can't know for sure of course."
Jaina wanted to say something more. Something more meaningful perhaps.
"Sylva – ehm, Lady Windrunner, described to me how there used to be a schism, between those Forsaken who wanted nothing to do with the living and those who wanted to reach out. I can't imagine the ones who came here doing so only to tell us living ones to get stuffed."
The words just glanced off the former squire.
"Nothing changes the facts. They were right. I was a coward. A craven, weak-hearted fool."
"I abandoned my city, my home that I loved more than any other place on Azeroth. I left my Master to die alone at the hands of the Scourge to buy us time to embark and sail out. If I had not, then we would all have lost."
Rodrick said nothing.
"If you are a coward or a fool, then you are in good company at least, Sergeant Rodrick." Jaina said quietly.
They were coming up on the city gates. It was almost twilight.
We are all afraid. And the fear made us all fools.
Jaina excused herself and dropped back to where Sylvanas and her rangers were walking with them.
"Lady Windrunner? When everything is settled for the evening, if you have the time, I would like to talk to you. With your ranger squadron."
"Areiel is taking care of all things in the encampment. I am available whenever you have need of me, Lady Proudmoore."
"Then please come with me. To my tower."
***
"I hope it isn't too cramped. It's not anything like a keep or anything like it…" Jaina kept rambling nervously.
Jaina's tower had three floors. A single large, high ceiling room made up the first, a kitchen and bathroom and Pained's room the second, which had a balcony as well, and the topmost floor housed Jaina's study and bedroom and a library and laboratory.
That is, that was the supposed floor plan. In practice the lower floor they were now meeting in was mostly taken up by crates and not very furnished in any sort of way, far from the large library it was intended to be. Jaina's study was also her bedroom, and her intended bedroom was stuffed with…stuff.
And yes, Jaina planned to have two libraries in her tower. One for her guests, or possibly students like she had sometimes dreamed of, and one for herself. Wouldn't anyone want to have that if they could?
"We all used to fit nicely into a single tent." Clea gently reminded her.
The dark rangers refused to be dissuaded and explored her home eagerly, apart from Pained's room which they let be with uncharacteristic respectfulness.
"There's most space downstairs, maybe we could sit down there? There are some blankets to hang over the crates, so you can sit on them…"
For the love of mana, was this all she had to offer her friends when she finally, finally could welcome them to her home?
"That will be great, we do that." Lyana said before Jaina could have second thoughts.
The rangers spread out across a half circle of crates that formed an improvised couch around a table in the middle. Kitala stretched out with her head In Clea's lap and her feet across Lyana, and overall did the humble conveniences an honour Jaina was sure they did not live up to. Anya sat down beside Lyana and Sylvanas furthest out on the opposite end to Jaina, and just like Jaina she did it with such care you would think her crates contained goblin land mines.
"I don't know how to begin –" Jaina begun.
No. She knew better than that. She was not going to pretend that she had to make excuses before her own ranger squadron. She was only going to be as honest as she could.
"I want to…I want to make it right between us. I know we can not go back to how it used to be but I still would like nothing better. I want…I want to be your ranger again."
"You are our ranger. You always were." Anya's voice was smooth as the sort of scarf that was too soft and too treasured to be worn.
"Jaina, we are…we are not angry with you. We were angry with Sylvanas when you left, but I am starting to think there could be more to this that we don't know?" Clea made it almost a question, directed at both Sylvanas and Jaina.
"I deeply regret ever calling your right to wear your cloak into question like I did when I yelled at you, but I know that is not foremost what you are referring to." Sylvanas said slowly and very seriously, and like she knew exactly what was on Jaina's mind. "I want to mend as much as I ever could but as…as I have said I do not have much confidence in my ability to do so. Perhaps the best thing to start with would be to show Clea and Kitala and Lyana the letter I wrote you, a paltry apology though it may be."
"Can I do that? It was not paltry. Don't you ever say that. I have it in my drawer, just a minute!"
It did not take a minute. It took less than a count of ten for Jaina to disappear and reappear in another flash. Teleporting up instead of using the stairs was the utmost of magical complacencies and tantamount to heresy, or so both Master Antonidas and Archmage Modera had instilled in Jaina and every other Kirin Tor apprentice.
But sometimes there were extraordinary and extenuating circumstances.
She could not help looking probably a little softer at the treasured piece of paper she handed over to Clea, Kitala and Lyana to read.
Read it they did, together and with such interest that Jaina half imagined their ears had perked up like on a trio of curious cats.
She could tell when they had reached the end because Lyana grabbed Anya's hand and Clea and Kitala sighed in unison.
"You should have come to us, Dark Lady." Kitala said, not unkindly. "Instead of waiting and worrying all on your own."
"I should." Sylvanas looked too unhappy to fully note her tone. It was peculiar, how easy Jaina found it now to note, or feel, the Dark Lady's mood even if she could objectively say that Sylvanas did not let much show except when she was teasing or extremely agitated.
"Lady Proudmoore wrote to me first. I think that you should see those letters too in order to know the whole field. If she permits it?" Sylvanas asked Jaina.
"Yes, I want to. But…you have them? I mean here?"
In answer Sylvanas took out a small protective case from somewhere beneath her armour. She opened it carefully.
"You carried them with you all time?" Jaina could apparently not stop herself from noting obvious things this evening.
"Of course. I will be gone from the Undercity for some time."
That was also an obvious thing, and the letters were not of the kind that anyone would feel really comfortable to have lying around.
And the letters were also valuable things that Sylvanas had not wanted to leave at home. Valued things.
This time it was four dark rangers who sat close together going through Jaina's at the time unanswered correspondence…and infuriated monologue.
"The Dark Lady is in trouble…" Kitala begun and then her face fell. "Oh, no…"
"Jaina called it." Clea observed while they digested the last part of Jaina's first letter.
Anya wrapped herself into herself next to Lyana and looked absolutely miserable. The other three were reading about Jaina being hurt but to Anya…Anya was feeling it.
And that was heartbreaking.
"Sylvanas. How could we do so wrong?"
***
"…how could we do so wrong?"
Sylvanas.
Was it the first time Jaina had called her by her name only? It probably was.
She had never attached much importance to her titles, not on a personal plane. They were tools that had their uses and they were amalgamations of an uncountable number of duties and expectations. Even that of Dark Lady, that Anya so insisted could and should be shaped into something that was not by necessity a burden.
Anya. Invaluable, precious Anya. The first and last thing we did wrong was to listen too little to you.
And perhaps you are right about my station as well, the way only you see it. Perhaps being the Dark Lady could one day be a thing of pleasure more than duty.
Yet right now I think I would like to just be Sylvanas.
"Dread."
Jaina was looking at her with big eyes. So intense and so calm all at once.
Sylvanas should have looked into them instead of at the downcast head of her devastated mage in her tent, or the revolting cuffs she had just thrown at her, or at anything else. Would she then have been able to come up with something so hideous as poisoning her own ranger mage?
"Did you know that your rangers gave the same answer?"
"No, but I am not surprised. Fear is everywhere for us…and it excuses nothing." Sylvanas could hear the tone of her own voice shift from sympathetic to contemptuous as her mind turned from her rangers to herself.
"It doesn't?" Jaina…pleaded.
It does not. Why do you speak as if you are begging me for – no! You blame yourself just as I do. That is not your place to do here and now!
Why did I have to say that?
"It excuses nothing that I have done, is what I meant to say." Sylvanas corrected herself through slightly clenched teeth.
"Oh, different standards? Those that should apply to banshees and living humans?" Jaina had not been impressed.
I made that argument when you had broken your mirror. It is mine to make, little mage! And I should just be quiet.
"I am only making everything worse. You should not be listening to me, Lady Proudmoore."
In her eye's left corner Anya was shaking her head in disapproval. Jaina did not, but she still somehow managed to mirror the sentiment.
"Forgive me, Dark Lady, but I will reserve the right to find that piece of advice faulty and ignore it. On the contrary I would like to ask you another thing." It was not hesitation that made Jaina draw up, she was making a deliberate pause to ensure she had Sylvanas' full attention. "I would like you to tell me all the things you wanted to say to me that night when I returned with your necklace. If…if you can recall…"
"Verbatim."
"For real?"
"No other thing has been on my mind the way that conversation has since you left."
"Then I want to hear it, all of it, the way it should have been."
Jaina's voice had fallen now. She was humbly asking Sylvanas to share something deeply personal and close and she knew it. And of course she had every right to hear it.
You all should. You deserve to know.
"You entered my room like you had just appeared out of one of your portals. You were just there." Sylvanas begun. "And I thought that, how could you ask to speak to me like nothing had happened? Where in all places had you been? Speaking was the least you would do, my unthinking, careless, foolhardy, insane mage!"
Even now, just recalling the words recalled the moment they had been spoken in. It was how memories worked.
Careful .
Careful, careful, careful.
Jaina was blushing. Of all things. She was looking down at her own lap and made the tiniest nod.
"I asked what it was you had there. The necklace was familiar to me. I asked you to hand it over, harshly so."
"I explained that we had visited your home, didn't I?" Jaina asked and Sylvanas nodded.
"I knew the jewellery. I know there is a small dent in the third link. I know the light is cast differently when the sun shines on the stone from the right and from the left. I know how it feels against every inch of my throat. I had left it in a box for years and had not thought of ever seeing it again. And now you had it here right before my eyes and I thought that it could not be. Not after all this time, when I thought it was lost forever."
"Not any more." Jaina interjected very shyly. Was she also following a memory as vivid as Sylvanas'? Or was she just recognising those fragments she had heard Sylvanas give voice to?
"Your eyes twinkled. Now, of all things. And I wondered if you thought this some sort of game. If you had any idea what you caused by disappearing without a single trace, let alone telling anyone what you were going to do and where? I was inches from screaming at you for it! Had you the slightest idea of what was going on in the Undercity in the meantime, or what could have happened? What if we had been attacked? Had you completely forgotten how we are at war and how many people that had come to depend on your presence? And you sat before me like nothing has happened and I wondered if you thought this would amuse me?!"
"We wanted to give you a gift. Something important, which was why we visited your old home. It wasn't supposed to take so long but then we encountered a lot of banshees there."
"Banshees. Scourge banshees, presumably? You rush headlong into the deepest of the blighted parts of Quel'thalas where if not the Scourge would get you then an elven patrol could have, and they do not stop to ask questions any more I can tell you! Were you trying to get yourselves killed?! How can you even think of something like this?! Is it not enough that I have hurt you so deeply already but must you and Anya court your true deaths in this manner on top of everything? For a gilded trinket! What do I care for relics of the past when put against your life?!"
Sylvanas could practically see Jaina sitting before her in her room in the Undercity. Determination that was giving way to worry, and the growing realisation that she could have done something way worse than she had accounted for.
"Do you think I long for a time before I was the queen of the Forsaken? That I long for it so much that I would not be bothered sending mine to their deaths to retrieve mementos on a whim? Is that what you think of me?"
"We just thought it would be something you would like to have. That it would mean something, and hopefully mean a lot."
"How could you ever think that anyone could care more for a piece of metal than for you? How can you risk yourself for dead gold that is nothing more than dirt next to that in your locks? What gems can compare to those two that look upon me? Have I done this to you? Did I drive you to this reckless thing? It is not the gifts of those closest to me that hold meaning, it is they themselves. Like you."
"Like…me?"
"Like you. My little mage. I would take it all back if I could. I would rather have it that I was taken unawares when someone proved false for real than to have hurt you like I did over falseness imagined. Damn any traitorous prisoners! Damn any malcontents I could not care less about! Damn the entire, rotten, Undercity! It means nothing to me."
She would not Wail.
But neither would she hold anything back.
And it was…good not to.
"And Alleria Windrunner is a long dead memory! She is nothing in comparison for she is gone, and you are not! And Alleria would personally GUT me if she saw me putting her memory ahead of my ranger sisters who were still with me! She would be ashamed to call herself Windrunner if she saw me do that!"
Jaina's face did not fall this time. But Belore damn her if it wasn't close.
"I asked how you could say that." Jaina intoned. "I was so shocked, and hurt, and insulted. And I said that if that was all there was to it I should not take up more of the Dark Lady's valuable time, and that I hoped it was acceptable that I now remove myself from her distinguished presence."
"By then I hardly could tell what I had said or not but I knew it had been something terribly wrong. I could not even keep up a civil conversation and whatever I attempted seemed to me doomed to fail before it could even begin. I just wanted you away from me, before you would be hurt even more by the poison that I am. I did not even trust myself to say that in a way you would not misunderstand."
"'You may now remove yourself from my presence, Ranger Mage', you only said." Jaina finished.
Sylvanas nodded. She felt drained. Like she and Jaina had argued for real, or rather she had yelled at Jaina for real, which was exactly what she had done in a sense.
All rangers sat still as statues looking at them. Anya with wide, distraught eyes.
"Thank you. For telling me." Jaina said in the smallest voice.
Jaina, have I hurt you more by obliging you in this? You wanted me to lay everything out – was I too harsh? I was so caught up, so vivid, everything… And I…I wanted to tell you all of this too. I want to be honest with you and nothing else. But neither do I want to cause you pain.
Please don't be hurt. Please don't.
Jaina was taking a deep breath. Just a little bit shaky.
"I so wish you would have said all of this the first time. I would ask why you did not but you have already explained that in your letter. And I am angry about it, so angry about what…happened, that you could not just have said everything you were thinking, but I understand it. I understand it so very well now."
"I ran after you. When my thoughts had stopped spinning enough for it to dawn on me what I had done. I think it did not take much time. But you were already gone."
"I just wanted to go home." Jaina whispered the words. "I did not even think of saying goodbye."
"No wonder –"
"No. It was no wonder I didn't, however much I regret that, because I was out of my mind. I was overwhelmed, crushed, broken –
"There is no way I can ever put in words how much you deserved better from me –"
"I was out of my mind." Jaina quieted her. "And I truly believe that so were you."
Yes. Maybe you should rather say too deep in my mind actually, but you are of course right in every way, Jaina.
And you are being too damned kind.
"Dark Lady?" It was Kitala's voice, which Sylvanas had to take an extra moment to remind herself of. There were more people in the room than her and Jaina. "If you and Jaina are going to argue about who is most to blame, would you like us to keep score?"
Lyana had drawn Anya closer to her and Kitala had sat up in Clea's arms where she looked with sincere, innocent eyes at Sylvanas. Sylvans knew that she was sincere. Kitala always was when it really counted.
But what did you –
How could you possibly answer –
Jaina was laughing. She was laughing and crying and probably being a tad furious mixed with everything when she bent down huffing and sobbing and trying to get a hold of herself.
"Kitala, you…"
"We missed keeping score a lot in the games so I thought we had best not forget it now too." Kitala continued like it was the most sensible and everyday thing.
"And make sure you don't forget to apologise to Jaina for making her a library either. "Clea added. "Oh, my bad, you only repaired the old one so it doesn't really count, does it?"
Jaina looked up at Clea and then at Sylvanas with a newly kindled trace of curiosity.
"Was that what you had been doing? And then you found I was gone…?"
The confirming silence was awkward.
Discomfiting.
"After you had left us, there was another case of Forsaken betraying their kind to Scarlet henchmen that we discovered. Witnesses that offered conclusive testimonies."
Not even her rangers knew about it. Both because she had managed to maintain rigorous secrecy and because they had not…been on speaking terms.
"I let them go. Towards the Tirisfal Glades like the others. Armed, to defend against roaming ghouls."
Sylvanas quieted and mentally berated herself. Where was she going with this, then? Was she expecting a pat on the head from Jaina now? An acceptance of the proof that she was being a good little banshee these days, or what?
No, silence. Jaina cares about it. That is all that holds significance.
"Thank you, Sylvanas." Jaina said without a trace of irony. "Regardless of what your reasons were, and they are your own business, it makes me very happy to know."
She called me Sylvanas again. I will always be your Dark Lady if that is what you need me to be, Jaina, but I think I like that.
***
"…what your reasons were, and they are your own business, it makes me very happy to know."
Anya was not fooled the slightest. Sylvanas' reasons were sitting right before her and had the kindest blue eyes that you only wanted to look deeper in, but you couldn't because this was the most important conversation that could be imagined, and it could not be allowed to get out of hand.
But Anya had no idea how to be of any help in it.
Had she been much help to anybody lately?
When Jaina proposed the expedition to Windrunner Spire she had just accepted, and look where that got them. Anya was just as guilty when it came to leaving the city without a word. More, even, for as Jaina's squadron lieutenant she ought to know better!
Even if Jaina had the habit of making the impossible seem possible and turning difficulties to trifles.
"There is one thing I want to say. I have been thinking more and more about it." Her squadron's mage was saying.
"Wait, isn't it bedtime now?" Lyana blurted out and everyone stopped talking or listening and looked at her. "Sorry, I did not mean to tease, I mean for everyone. I'm not used to the night and day here yet."
Jaina was giving her a long look.
"Yes, it is probably bedtime for us young living things."
"I don't want you to have to strain yourself sitting on crates. Can't we continue to talk in your bedroom? Then you can sit on the bed and we can be on the floor."
"On the floor? What kind of hostess would that make me?" Jaina protested but then she had to stifle a yawn and admit defeat. "I guess you're right. But at least bring the blankets so you can have something softer to sit on. See you upstairs!"
Then Jaina was gone in another teleport flash.
Anya and her squadron looked at each other. Sometimes Jaina was very…Jaina.
Soon after, a hastily washed Jaina met with them upstairs in her tiny bedroom. Now it was fortunate that only one of them needed to breathe because otherwise it would quickly have gotten stuffy. Jaina leaned against a pillow in the corner of her bed and Sylvanas sat on the only chair by her desk. The rest of them huddled by Jaina's feet and the floor by all of her chests.
"Right." Jaina said slowly. "This is… Sylvanas, when I did what I did before we went to Dalaran…when I let all the prisoners go. I know that I put you and other people in danger and that has to be the worst thing of all. But…I also want to say that I am sorry for denying you the choice, to choose for yourself, whether to be a good or evil queen. Apologises for the oversimplification –"
"No, at the moment that was the crossroads you saw me standing at, was it not?"
"And I refused you the right to decide which way to walk. I forced a tremendously important choice upon you and in the process betrayed your trust. I denied you a will of your own. Just like –"
"No, seriously, you can not compare –"
"Yes!" Anya did not know of anyone who could debate with equal spirit from her bedside as Jaina. "I was just like them, one more to deny Sylvanas Windrunner her free will –"
Sylvanas cut her off calmly but firmly.
"No. Lady Proudmoore, no. I understand your reasoning but the things are simply not comparable. Having your mind shackled and your own will crushed by another…another entity is something entirely different. And regarding a queen's right to choose –" She shook her head slightly. "There are many valid concerns that merit consideration in governing but a queen's right to…moral self-determination is not one of them. Not when other people's lives are at stake. ...or undeaths…"
"I am still so sorry. I went behind your back."
"I know that. You were devastated. And I bitterly wish I could have let it stay with being furious and shouting at you."
"One more day." Anya found herself whispering, or whimpering. "We would have needed one more day."
Anya would have needed one more day and one more night to talk Sylvanas out of that horrid scheme. If only she could have done that.
Jaina looked like she could be thinking about the same thing.
"If I had…come to you and asked you to spare the Forsaken traitors, or if I had done nothing and let you make the choice on your own…what would it have been? I swear I will trust your word on it, no matter what."
"I can honestly not say." Sylvanas answered after a long and tense pause. "I would like to say with certainty that I would have made the gentler, and as it turned out wiser, choice but unfortunately I can not."
Jaina nodded, dejected.
"Yes. You can not say because you were not allowed to make the choice. Someone else made it for you." she mumbled, and Anya was not sure if she was speaking to herself or to Sylvanas.
The Dark Lady offered Jaina a long look but did not contradict her.
This wasn't fair! Because…because if you imagined a different Sylvanas without a Jaina who did what Jaina did, why not also imagine a Sylvanas who did not have to have Scarlets for neighbours in the first place? Or a Sylvanas who did not have to die at all?!
They had almost, maybe, survived this undeserved, horrible, stupid fucking turncoat mess! Were they going to sit here and accuse themselves of cheating?!
"No." Anya said. "You would not have killed those prisoners because you didn't."
"Because Jaina…"
"Because YOU brought her here! I mean there! To us. It was you who took a – the most – kind-hearted mage into our ranks, it was you who choose to trust her, it was you who made her our ranger mage. You brought Jaina's actions on yourself for good or bad when you choose to trust her to be your mage, Dark Lady. And also, it was you who sought Jaina's council when any Lordaeronian Forsaken could have told you how their former kings would have ruled. Why, if you were not in any way looking for Jaina's way out of having to be like them?"
Sylvanas apparently did not know what to say.
Jaina apparently did not know either.
Just as well, because now they were just coming up with new ways of being stupid with each other!
"You would not have made a vile decision alone because you would not have been alone, because you would have had your rangers with you. Because that is what you do. You have us! It is only when we try to do everything on our own that we fail." she added glumly.
"Anya, I do not deserve you…"
"Tough luck, because you're in my squadron, Ranger Windrunner." Anya said and imagined she probably managed to be dismissive and harsh and petulant all at once. "Which is also your fault by the way, so you brought everything down upon yourself."
"I am with my squad leader. I wouldn't dare otherwise." Jaina shyly agreed with the warmest look towards Anya.
"Nor would we." Kitala said. She did not bother trying to hide her smile.
"Well, good then!" Anya had never been very good at looking threatening to her own rangers but now she would have liked to be better at it.
"Anya. I ruined so much already. I don't want to ever do so again. How?" Sylvanas asked her with absolute deference.
"To start with you should be angry with Jaina. And me. For running off. Not Wail, and not turn yourself inside-out trying to stop yourself from Wailing. Just allow yourself to be angry about it like any sensible person would."
"I for one would prefer an honest Wail over…over what is far worse. I can take being Wailed at after all." Jaina blinked up a shield around herself and her pillow to underline her point.
"Yes, you can. You have put up with so much from us."
"Not from you. From…Lordaeron, and all…" To Anya it was as if Jaina was still sad, but in a softer way. "I needed a break, I needed to come home. We just should all have talked properly about it first."
"You need that too, Dark Lady." Clea looked seriously at Sylvanas. "All of us do. If not time off, then time that is less grim and less fraught with danger at every turn. As silly as it may sound we dead need to remind each other that we need our rest too."
"Certain commanders should practice more what they preach in such matters." Kitala noted to no one in particular, and especially not half of the room's occupants.
"For…for what it's worth you are more than welcome to stay here with me as much as you like. All night. Every night. I have…missed you so much..."
Lyana tenderly pried Jaina from her seated position to lie down under her blankets as four other stealthy shadows vacated the bed and blew out the lights.
"So have we."
Author's Note
Velonara: The author seems to be referencing bridal movies at a scandalous rate.
Kitala: Obviously most unseemly and inappropriate in a romance story of, hehe, so called "leading ladies".
Clea: Pff…misleading or stumbling, more like.
Kitala: Obviously most unseemly and inappropriate in a romance story of, hehe, so called "leading ladies".
Clea: Pff…misleading or stumbling, more like.
Chapter 48: Gold and Greed
Chapter 48: Gold and Greed
The guests of Theramore's archmage make themselves at home and draw up plans to make their host more at home in her home. Sylvanas and Pained have a flippant and light-hearted talk while Jaina is the personification of collected and even-tempered rulers conducting themselves with the utmost seriousness.
Meanwhile in Lordaeron, Ranger Champion Blacksilver is learning about his new colleagues. Or family. He is not quite sure.
Author's Note:
Halvdan was a little tense, there was no question about it.
Ranger Champion?
And assigned to Alina's squadron no less. Practically like staying with her family.
He had better not make a fool of himself. And keep his ears open now that Ranger Lieutenant Amora Eagleye was going over the fundamentals while at the same time inquiring for a cloak that could be adjusted for the right size and two or three other things.
"The ranger squadron is made up of three pairs. It allows it tactical flexibility and to divide watches comfortably during a six hour night's rest, which may no longer be the issue it once was… In any case; while one pair engages the enemy, another pair can flank them and a third can be held in reserve."
"That sounds, hm, really well thought out. But I guess you have been doing this for a while…"
Blast it, that didn't come out well. Where was Runar when you needed him the most? Apart from sailing on the ice with his own band of pointy-eared teasers.
Amora looked amused however.
"You could say that. Our ranger corps is built from the ranger squadron. The tents, those we used to have, are larger ones for six or seven people and smaller for two. A pair of rangers can easily carry a small tent canvas as part of their packs and string it up with rope practically anywhere. Eight squadrons make up a company together with its captain and her ranging partner, who is often the second-in-command and shares in the running of the company."
"Like Ranger Captain Areiel? Though she seems to do a lot more of things."
"Spot on, Ranger Champion." Halvdan grimaced uneasily when she used that title, he had still not really got used to it or what it may entail. "We are not what we used to be and to tell the truth we do not quite know how to be in many ways. Chain of command not exempted."
"Are there more ranks than ranger lieutenant and captain?"
"No. Nor are the terms fully interchangeable with their Common counterparts. Think of ranger captain as simply meaning the commander of a company, and lieutenant as the captain's subordinate, and you will come closer to their meaning in Thalassian. Remember also that these are the official ranks but inside the ranger squadron and the company there are many unofficial or – how do you say it – 'semi-official' positions. Each squadron has one or two members acting as quartermasters and keeping track of things, and will want someone above the average at field medicine. Cooking with sparse ingredients is a dearly coveted skill as well, or it was for us."
Just then Halvdan's stomach growled, no matter how hard he tried flexing his gut muscles to keep it quiet.
"Though I think some of us still got the hang of it." Amora added amiably. "Now then! I hope you have…packed lightly? Oh, dear…"
Halvdan sort of shrugged. He had honestly tried his best to not bring too many things.
Amora signed to him to remove the backpack and started to go through it.
"I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with the armour otherwise. Marching all day in full plate is too tiresome, it will wear you out completely by the time you need to use it."
"Right… And warm clothes and blankets as well – wintry kingdoms are seriously impractical however pretty they may look – which we can of course not dispense with. Let's see…shield on the back over the quiver, good. The helmet well at hand by the belt, of course. Mira! Marrah! You take the chest and back plates. Alina packs the arm guards and I take the leg ones."
"We can be squires, sure! Alina will make an excellent one too! Me and Marrah can arm our knight and she can disarm him." Mira said.
"She does that better than anyone." Marrah informed.
Where were the snow drifts of sufficient depth to crawl into when you needed it the most? Halvdan imagined he looked like he had just finished the aforementioned day's march in full armour.
Alina did not redden like he did but when he happened to look at her she appeared equally embarrassed despite that.
"Alina is staying with me." Amora smiled knowingly. "Someone has to keep an eye on you… But we are still under-strength with an odd number of rangers, which is not ideal even if dividing watches is not the issue it used to be."
Halvdan cleared his throat.
"I have a suggestion, maybe…" he said somewhat hesitantly.
"Who might that be?"
"What a sneaky ranger champion, has he already recruited secret comrades-in-arms?"
Amora silenced the Mirrahs with a gesture.
"Well, I hit him with a snowball and we made up insults about each other –" Halvdan begun explaining before he was promptly and loudly interrupted.
"YES! YES! Please-please-please Amora you must! Spellbreakers all around!"
Amora at first appeared not to follow, but then she caught on and frowned as she thought it over.
"I think Ire is lonely. Please ask him, Amora?" Alina joined in her sisters' insistent request. "And what if we encounter more of those hideous destroyers?"
With a small but affectionate sigh Amora relented.
"You girls always liked teasing him. Or was it that he was the only one patient enough to put up with you all day? Alright, then, I will make the request and hear what he thinks of it."
She turned to Halvdan and tilted her head a little.
"You hit him with a snowball, you say?"
Jaina dreamed of a sunny forest clearing. She was resting by the roots of old oaks on grass and mossy ground that was friendly enough to be both soft and at the same time dry. All around her was light that shone down through the branches and danced before her. There were birds singing all around. Some sort of thrushes, she thought. They had long pointy ears and red eyes and sang her name…
"Jaina… Jaina… Jaina…"
Something touched the edge of her ear. Was it a caterpillar? A falling leaf? Jaina blinked and opened her eyes dizzily. The forest had transformed into her own bedroom and the sunlight had dimmed into the low morning light reflected into her window.
"Good morning, Jaina." Clea the Caterpillar hummed from behind her. She was lying in Jaina's bed, mashed between Jaina's back and the wall and stroking her hair.
"…mmm…g'morning…" Jaina blinked some more and stretched herself. "Have I made you flat? …sorry…"
"I was just going to pull your blankets back up but then I got stuck here. And when I tried to turn myself to wall paint you only followed and bunched up against me again. But I don't mind. You're so nice and warm."
Jana yawned. She was still not quite awake, but awake enough to think that what Clea said sounded silly. What was the point of sleeping in the same bed if you were going to keep away…
Clea had slept in her bed? No, not slept as such, more like snuggled because Clea was Clea and loved to hug you. But she was here, they were all here! Jaina had almost all her friends safely in Theramore and they had talked all night yesterday, and now they would find their way back to what they should be and nothing would be allowed to get in their way!
Brimming with mischief, Jaina pressed herself back as hard as she could.
"Pff-huff!" Clea gasped. "You're lucky I don't need to breathe… Help! I'm being turned into a tapestry here." she pleaded to her squadmates who were peeking in through the door.
"Pressed into service." Kitala observed.
Jaina sat up in her bed and let Clea escape.
"I dreamt I was in a forest I think. And sleeping in the dream too. I guess you must be really tired to dream that. You were all birds I think…" She yawned. "You sang really pretty… You can talk?!"
Clea and Kitala looked at one another.
"Yes, I am no bird?"
"No, but – loud! You're not whispering anymore!" Jaina burst out.
The three rangers in sight made space for Lyana and Sylvanas to come into the room too.
"You're right." Lyana was turning towards the thoughtful Clea. "You could barely be heard a few months ago."
"I hadn't really thought about it."
"Maybe one or two other things happened lately that stole all our attention. I'm just saying..."
"I had noticed." Sylvanas said. "But I can not put a definite date to where that change occurred. Perhaps we have all gradually gotten used to crediting our supreme hearing when we found it easier to discern your speech?"
"This is huge!" Jaina looked expectantly at them all. Didn't they get it? "Don't you realise? You can change! You are not bound to be the way you were when you were Raised!"
"Quiet, Jaina!" Kitala admonished her. "If word of this gets to Areiel she will take it as an excuse to have us exercising from dusk to dawn every night!"
Then she seemed to remember that if not the ranger captain then the Dark Lady was standing just next to her.
"And you are sworn to secrecy too, Dark Lady. Anya's orders."
"By all means." Sylvanas dryly agreed. "I shall be happy to withhold this crucial and hope-inspiring piece of information from our brothers and sisters who have no reason whatsoever to wish for something like this being true."
"Don't be like that…"
"Actually Lady Proudmoore and I once discussed this question, of whether undead can grow and learn. I have no doubt that we will revisit the issue and the implications this discovery poses, but it will have to be at a later time."
"First we are going to tidy up your room." Anya determined.
"My room?" Jaina looked around, or tried to. With five visitors present there was not much else in sight in her small study. "What's wrong with my room?"
Sylvanas raised an eyebrow and Anya looked pointedly at the side opposite Jaina's desk. All – well, most – of Jaina's chests were almost neatly stacked on top of each other.
"Lady Proudmoore, I am well aware of how dedicated you are to your work but I was under the impression that a study's intended function is to facilitate reading and writing, and not to act as its occupant's sole living space. I also find myself forced to amend certain previous judgements of mine regarding the Undercity's claustrophobic conditions as I did clearly not fully appreciate what I had."
Jaina blushed something terribly.
"How can you even find your things in here?" Anya questioned almost pityingly.
"It's easy." Jaina defended herself. "You just have to learn the system. Small clothes and smallclothes are in the small chest there, large robes are in the large chest, summer robes are in the one behind, or they are supposed to be but I haven't had time to stow them away, and winter robes are…they are kind of on top but that is just temporary…"
"Until summer?"
"Yes – no! And then there are some books, or, a lot, and I think there is a case of alchemical ingredients in the long oaken sea chest because there was honestly no other good place to put them –"
"Than in your current bedroom where they are left unsupervised and potentially degrading or worse, and I very much hope they are not of the flammable kind."
"Of course not, what sort of archmage do you take me for?"
"One that thought so little of herself that she would offer her home up as storage for other people's things without reflecting, and continue to do so until it became second nature to her." Sylvanas said solemnly, and Jaina stopped in the middle of retorting.
"That obvious?" she asked, deflated.
"Perhaps this is the time where you could say that it takes one to know one." Sylvanas said very quietly. "Though however that may be, it is very obvious to someone who has the blessing of knowing you, Lady Proudmoore."
"My tower was finished last winter. We had so little space and so many things to keep safe from the wet and weather, and then… I never cared much after the spring. And Pained's not to blame, she had her hands full just keeping me alive."
"We know." Anya said and tip-toed forward to sit down on Jaina's bedside. "You weren't eating. But now we are all here so we will fix it now instead. Alright?"
Jaina nodded obediently.
"Good. Now; Clea, Kitala and Sylvanas take the bedroom, I will start here and Lyana to the kitchen to make breakfast for Jaina and Pained. What does she eat and drink?"
"Not so much fish as I do…and she drinks Kaldorei herbal tea. We just restocked it. I'll show you."
"You mean we will actually find the tea in the kitchen? Fancy that." Lyana said matter-of-factly.
Jaina stuck her tongue out at her.
Pained was, for all her diligence around the clock, not one for early mornings or in fact for any mornings. She had hinted about it being a night elf thing and Jaina assumed that since her people thrived under the moon they would prefer to reclaim that lost sleep early in the day. Her bodyguard was now calmly sipping tea together with Jaina and dutifully finishing Lyana's breakfast, which was thankfully not fish soup or anything similarly vile.
"Did you sleep well, Pained?" Jaina asked her. She was still just a little bit worried about her bodyguard having stood sentinel over her bed and not mentioned it. "I hope the rangers did not make a noise or anything."
"No." Pained was about to pick up yet another freshly baked bun but thought better of it. "In fact our new guests were outstandingly quiet."
"At least during the night." Jaina commented. Distinct sounds from above told of furniture being moved and many things being inspected. Jaina wondered slightly uneasily if all personal belongings would be equally safe from elven curiosity. She had her doubts.
"Your guests certainly sound like they are making themselves at home." Pained cast a wry look at the ceiling. "That speaks highly of your abilities as hostess if nothing else."
"Are you alright with that? I mean, I did invite them over rather sudden and I realise I maybe ought to have consulted you first…"
"This is your tower, My Lady." Pained almost interrupted her. "My place is to guard you whoever you keep for company and if you strive to promote good relations with the Forsaken it makes every sense for you to let them into your home."
"But how do you feel about them? I think you did excellent during the archery games and they really seem to like you but you haven't had nearly the time I've had to get used to dark rangers… They can take some time getting used to."
Now Pained took some time before she answered.
"I did not interfere when you talked last night. I was sure you needed it and I have to trust those you accept as friends to not do anything unthinkably stupid. However little I enjoy that notion." Jaina was sure that both bodyguards and parents sulked in a certain way over that sort of issue. "But your dark rangers have had the opportunity to harm you countless times already and further suspicions of their intentions in that regard is folly. On the contrary they made you eat again when I hardly could, and many times despaired over how you wasted away."
Jaina opened her mouth to retort but did not get further.
"It was that bad, My Lady. It broke my heart to see and had I known you more and better at that time I would have made you choke down soup until you relented, but I dared not force the issue lest you would send me away if I overstepped. The dark rangers' unlikely intervention saved my lady for me and for that alone I will always treasure them, and certainly some of them appear charming enough. Some others I do not yet know what to think of." The night elf put her finished cup of tea down. "I know it is not for nothing that you needed to sit down and talk yesterday and…for what it's worth I hope you found your path."
"It's worth a great lot. Found our path?" Jaina wondered.
"Oh, Kaldorei expression. As in finding your way back to each other, and a way forward together. The opposite of being lost."
"Oh. I think we did. Or a bit of it. I so much want us to have done that but I'm almost afraid to say it out loud."
"It is futile to ask someone not to be, though at least I think you have less reason to be anxious." Pained eyed her very kindly. "And do I now assume correctly that you want nothing more than seeing our pale friends happy again, even if it comes at the price of them nosing through all of your personal and private chests?"
"Mmm…"
"Well, I have had a most thoughtfully made breakfast and been able to finish my tea at a civilised pace. Shall we go up and have a look at what they are up to?"
The scraping of furniture – honestly more of the thuds of furniture lifted and carried – and scurrying steps back and forth sounding from above had in truth been conservative and not nearly done justice to the dark rangers' exertions. They were halfway through Jaina's bedroom – her proper one – and seemed to be taking inventory of all things in their path. Since the place was so cluttered they had to progressively move things in their path and move over them so that the enterprise was most accurately likened to a sort of excavation.
Hm.
Archmage Modera and Master Antonidas had of course never used that metaphor to describe the state of Jaina's room in Dalaran.
Almost never.
Sylvanas' ears were sticking up from behind a hill of crates while Clea and Kitala laboured with a particularly densely stacked pile of chests, well on their way to reach one of the room's corners.
"Your room is something of a small barracks, Lady Proudmoore." The Dark Lady said from out of sight and pointed with her hand above the top of the wooden ridge at a great pile of coarse clothing having been gathered as they progressed.
"Those? They, ah – what are they…" Jaina scrounged up her forehead.
"They would appear to be coats for the city guard." Pained was only a little, little bit dry.
"Oh, yes, right. We were short on wardrobes in the actual barracks and by that time most of the guard was deployed further inland so we had to store it somewhere…"
"And they know it? Now when it is your windy and rainy season of the year, if I have understood it correctly?" Sylvanas asked. She was also only a little bit dry.
"Uhm, there may be a distinct possibility that such a piece of knowledge has fallen out of memory, yes…" Jaina admitted and grimaced. Now she felt bad for real. Having a less than completely organised bedroom waiting to be dealt with was one thing, but someone having to keep watch during a stormy night with insufficient clothing because of her was not tolerable.
"Then the city guard will have a pleasant surprise today." Pained decided. "I believe Lady Windrunner and I will be able to handle that without difficulty."
She proceeded to climb across the immediate debris and gather up the bundle of coats in her arms before Jaina could think of anything to say.
Sylvanas slid back into sight from behind the wall of crates.
"Unless you have need of me at the moment –"
"Excellent idea, Ranger Windrunner." Anya cut her off from the corridor outside. "Then Pained can give you a tour of the city at the same time. We'll meet back here for lunch."
None of them would argue with Anya. Not over anything short of mortal danger, and maybe not even that.
Though Jaina could still not help herself from being a little bit concerned. Pained commanded enormous respect from the Theramorian guard and she had every faith in her bodyguard handling all interaction smoothly, but the night elf had also made it very evident how she wanted an opportunity to have a word alone with Sylvanas.
"Please play nice." She tried to sound more flippant than she felt.
"Not to worry. I am sure we can find a way to question the responsible quartermaster about why two dozen coats have been collecting dust with no one missing them, without being too stern." Pained smirked.
Between the scrutinizing glares of her bodyguard and the Dark Lady, Jaina pitied that quartermaster. Not that it had exactly been her primary concern.
Her mind was rather soon turned to other more acute matters. It would appear that its cluttered state had not stopped her guests from drawing up grand and ambitious strategic plans for her bedroom after their first reconnaissance.
"We are going to find a carpenter – the best one, and we will ask Master Oddricht if you refuse to tell us because you think it is too much effort or some other really stupid nonsense." Anya threatened. "And then we are going to order a new bed and proper wardrobes all along the walls. They are going to be filled with drawers and boxes and hideouts for all of your things and shelves for all of the chests. And the bed is going to be really big also. The size for a queen. Or no, the size for an archmage, because that is even bigger. And it's going to have a really big canopy over it too."
"But… Hold up… Why do I need to have such a large bed?" the bewildered Jaina almost stammered.
"Because when you sleep you want to move around and grasp for things all over the bed unless someone is near you. So either the bed must be large enough so you don't fall over the edge or large enough to accommodate someone else lying next to you so you don't wander off. In either case, it needs to be large. And a canopy will be just like your own tent so you can have peace and quiet even if your guests are up and about during the night. We'll make it really, really cosy."
Well…trust those guests to insist on making camp in Jaina's bedroom on this side of the sea as well.
One could almost be led to believe that the dark rangers were accustomed to installing their guests in tents set up inside their rooms or something.
She could not argue with their logic, at least not when she was too busy blushing and melting inside over seeing Anya looking so hopeful again.
Jaina would sleep on barnacles and sea urchins if it got that job done.
"Well, I suppose we could head down to –"
"Great! Off we go!" Kitala skipped ahead with Jaina's hand in tow and Lyana dragged her along by the other.
Sylvanas had thought the Undercity was expanding at a high pace.
Theramore was growing everywhere.
There seemed to be a new stretch of road being worked on or a building with ladders or wooden platforms along partly finished walls wherever you looked. Nothing especially elegant but all the more impressing when this had been bare rock just a couple of years ago. Humans worked fast.
Though there were not just humans of course. Elves and dwarves were a noticeable part of the population as well. Sylvanas pulled her cloak tighter around herself and hid her face behind her half of the guardsmen's cloaks and coats. She had no wish to be recognized right now by her former kin.
Former kin.
Jaina considered her an elf still. One with a specific…condition, or how she would phrase it if asked about her standpoint. Though just as likely Jaina would reject the notion completely that she would have to answer to anyone for treating Forsaken as the human and elven persons that they used to be. And woe to anyone pressing that issue, now when no shackles hampered the archmage.
The garrison's, or guard's, quarters were practical and unassuming by most standards. They looked like they had been finished rather early in the founding of the city.
Sylvanas was inclined to let Pained do the talking but a barely perceptible glance signalled that the night elf wanted otherwise, so Sylvanas put on her most businesslike face and demeanour as she strode up to the officer on watch by the entrance and unceremoniously put the eleven coats and cloaks she carried down on his desk.
"Good morning, Sergeant. Please inform the quartermaster it concerns that we are delivering twenty-three Theramorian cloaks and tabards from their temporary and from now on discontinued storage in Lady Jaina's tower."
Pained promptly followed and almost buried the baffled young man with the remaining twelve.
"Tw-twenty-three?" he asked, as if the number itself would be the most astonishing detail.
"Indeed. I am sure you will be able to see to it that they are distributed to where they are most needed without further delay. We shall not keep you from your duties any longer. Carry on."
Before anyone had said a further word Sylvanas turned on her heels and marched out of the building.
Pained followed in close tow. She did not say anything, but Sylvanas could see her only partly repressed smirk.
How odd. She had actually interacted with a living stranger without anything calamitous happening or anyone else diplomatically paving the way. She had not even scared him too much.
They walked for a short distance until Pained indicated another way than where they had come from. It led along less finished backstreets towards the inner shoreline, the one on the west side where the bay shifted to the Dustswallow Marsh. Here Pained was slowing down tellingly.
"It takes no great feat of perception to discern that you seek a word alone with me." Sylvanas noted.
"It does not. Would you be amenable?"
"Lead the way."
The sun already caused the waters to glimmer. It was a clear day yet despite the allegedly unstable wintry weathers. It almost disturbed her eyes to look at, a notion that irritated her until she reminded herself that even as living glittery waters could be hard on the eyes if you looked at them too long.
"The shore has always offered the finest views in my opinion, however accustomed I am to the sight of the forest." Pained observed before turning her attention more fully to Sylvanas. "Should I address you as Lady Windrunner like the others do?"
"In all matters regarding Lady Proudmoore I wish to have no title to hide behind before you or anyone else she holds close. Since that is what I am sure you wish to discuss."
"Yes it is…Sylvanas."
There was some pause while they only strolled slowly along the rocks with the ever-present coats of algae and seaweed and Pained decided on how to begin. Perhaps oddly, the fact that she did made Sylvanas more at ease. If Pained placed enough importance in what she wanted to say that it made her think twice about how to word it, it made two of them if nothing else.
"Jaina is my ward and my lady. And she is also something much more to me." The night elf told solemnly. "When I begun guarding her it was because Priestess Tyrande had ordered me to. Now, I would not cease doing so even if I was ordered by the same."
"I know." Sylvanas said, quiet and dampened.
"Do you?" Pained was not confronting, but deep in thought. She spoke more slowly than Sylvanas had heard her do any other time. "When her father had died she wasted away. All fire, all spirit was seeping out of her like water running through my fingers. She cared for neither food, nor sleep, nor comfort. Do you know how I wished and prayed for anything at all to happen that would break her out of that grieving sickness?"
"She had nightmares when she came aboard my ship." Sylvanas had not told that to anyone, not even Anya. "I sat next to her throughout the night, when she was lying in my hammock. I noticed how malnourished she was the next day. I did not like seeing it, even if we were presumed to be on opposing sides."
"You thought Jaina your enemy?"
"I thought Theramore hostile and Lady Proudmoore extremely dangerous. But not of herself as our foe. She has never been."
Pained let out a long breath, that was only almost a sigh.
"When she was gone I was worrying out of my mind and cursing myself for failing her. Then she wrote to me – not that it was an altogether reassuring note – and I told myself that whatever she had gotten herself into there was a chance it might do her the good I could not provide."
Ruthlessness towards oneself in the face of shortcomings, that was evidently something that also made two of them.
"And it did. When I saw Jaina stumbling back out of the air with the colour back on her cheeks and well fed and vibrant and alive again, it was everything I had hoped for. And at the same time she was crying rivers and cursing over you and could not get you out of her mind."
They were passing the western side of the city's docks now. Heavy timber resting on rock pilings and saturated with the smell of tar and fish.
"I do not know what to make of you, Sylvanas. Are you good or bad for my Lady Jaina?"
"Is this where you should make some sort of armed threat for good measure?"
"Would it work?"
Pained furrowed her brows and looked around. Her gaze settled on a thick pole jutting out of the woodwork, one of countless that held the whole brim of quays in place. In a blink – less than a blink – she had whipped her heavy blade out of its scabbard on her back and slashed through the air.
Sylvanas had heard the thud of metal impacting with wood well enough. The pole remained aggravatingly unchanged however as Pained sheathed her unnerving idea of a side arm.
Sylvanas remained perfectly still, just like the wood did even as the night elf glared daggers at it.
Finally Pained drew in air and blew with a mighty huff so that her cheeks puffed up. The topmost fingerbreadth of the pole clattered to the ground, sliced neat and flat like a Silvermoon marble floor.
"I did not put off answering her letters out of anything but concern for her. I thought it would be better that way."
"So you consider – or considered – yourself a bad influence in spite of caring for her? May I ask what changed your mind?"
"A conspiracy. Including but not exempting close and senior ranger commanders working in conjunction with foreign powers."
"I think I will consider that particular piece of plotting a fortunate thing." Pained took a moment to admire the wide ocean around them. "It is Jaina's choice to divulge as much or as little as she wants about such things that you met to discuss last night, things which I am of course aware are neither trifling nor fully settled. Against all that however I weigh how happy and relieved she evidently is after having had that very same conversation and how I no longer need to fear her fading away. Do you understand my position?"
"Pained. I have every confidence in Lady Proudmoore's ability to safeguard my people while they stay in Theramoore and my rangers are ably led by Areiel in my absence. You have also been...most generous and patient with them yourself, for which I am very grateful. It would not be thought out of place if I as the queen had to return to Lordaeron prematurely. Should…should I do that?"
"Is that what Jaina wants?"
"No."
"Is it what you want?"
"No." Sylvanas found herself having to force out the simple word. Not because it was false or hard to determine what she wanted but because she wanted too much, far too much, to stay with Jaina as much and as close as she possibly could. Yet what if she was wrong, and selfish, in indulging in that? Pained's words had reawakened that never truly sleeping creature of fear.
"Then the matter is already settled, is it not? Sylvanas, Jaina wants you here. You know that even if whatever it is that lies between you appears to cloud your mind in that regard. And if I knew in greater detail what that was, it is very possible that you and I would be having an entirely different kind of conversation. But until then Jaina needs the Banshee Queen that brought life back into her."
"But what if I do wrong? What if I err…again?"
"Do not hurt her. That is all I ask of you."
"There is nothing I want less."
Later in the same day Sylvanas leaned back in her high chair, looking across the largest room of the city hall's upper floor.
Theramore's city council was much like the Forsaken's in a way. Important professions and economical interests were clearly represented to some degree – not exempting the ones of mages and priests when the city was like a daughter to Dalaran – along with a probably deliberate collection of the residing races. A council was a delicately balanced mixture, prone to boiling over if you were not careful with which ingredients to add.
Of course, this was Sylvanas' own view. She was well aware of the fact that it may be rather skewed. Contrary to the Undercity, where the civic administration had grown only out of the necessity to unburden her own war councils, Theramore and her ruler placed a whole other kind of importance into theirs. This was where the city was actually ruled and things were decided.
With Jaina at the head, as eager as ever to make a good impression and to make the best decisions she could for her Forsaken guests. Sylvanas would do what she could to return that favour, which for the moment amounted to summarizing the immediate moves of her own contingent.
"The greater part of my dark rangers are deploying around the city as we speak to assist in scouting and patrolling under the initial supervision of the Theramorian ranging units. In return the freed up city guards can bolster the watch inside the walls. Ranger Captain Areiel is handling that part from our side and I have every expectation that it will be the less complicated one."
"Thank you, Lady Windrunner." Jaina said pleasantly. "I assure everyone that whatever brigand or spy attempting to sneak past that line of defense will deserve our pity. How many rangers are the greater part?"
"Six squadrons, thirty-six. Two at a time will be rotated in and out of Theramore itself, at least now in the beginning. My own being one of them."
At that – which she was of course already aware of – Jaina smiled warmly.
"We went shopping this morning. Maybe that counts as the first official trade between our peoples?"
"You would have pioneered that when buying the pair of slippers in the Undercity I think, Lady Proudmoore."
"But you paid for them – and surely that was a gift, and all your hinting of a loan just idle chit-chat?" Jaina bantered.
"My treasurers and financial advisers are sure to look into the accumulated interest in due time, Lady Proudmoore." Sylvanas quipped back.
Am I allowed? Do you want me to joke with you like this, like we used to do so much before all turned bad? I swear I would want that as much as I said last night but even so I still can not help being afraid I will have misread you, or doubt whether I deserve the privilege it is to speak so freely with you.
Sylvanas was absolutely sure that she had not uttered a word of the thoughts going through her mind. She was equally sure that somehow, some way, Jaina had still caught most of them.
"Then I will await that no doubt ominous note with great…mmm…interest." Jaina was biting her lip shyly and managed to look mischievous at the same time. She reminded Sylvanas most of all of how she had acted when they had actually procured the mentioned slippers.
I want…you back. My little mage. I want you back so much. I just do not know how.
A discreet cough brought both their attention to the present situation.
"Ahem, right…next item!" Jaina blushed.
"Ah, but I think you and the Lady Windrunner have already sprinted ahead and delved into just that." Master Oddricht observed. Sylvanas found herself appreciating the familiar faces of him as well as Gromwell at the council table.
"The gist of it…" The gnome carpentry master continued. "…is just this. How do we Theramorians and our new neighbours get along in as smooth a way as possible?"
Sylvanas' first thought was that smoothness had not been the defining characteristics of her own actions during the last weeks, but with some effort she promptly put that thought away. She was on duty. She was here to help Jaina rule her city and nothing else mattered.
"I offered our help in whatever capacities would be most needed when we arrived. That offer stands and I honestly believe it is of importance that my people can contribute something concrete to the city."
"But that is not your only purpose." Jaina was quick to interject. "You have also come to search for friends or family that may have survived, and for safety, and for lots of other personal reasons. You are not to be our tools or our servants."
"The purveyor insists on offering and the commissioner on paying…" Master Oddricht spoke out loud.
"That's new if it ain't anything else…" Gromwell agreed.
"So, should our first question then be to decide how to exchange goods and services in a mutually satisfactory way then?" Jaina asked but in truth more like summed it up. "I hate to be this…crass but perhaps it is best to start with something very practical."
"How do you do it in your own city?" Sylvanas was asked. "What, ah, would your people be accustomed to?"
She held back an impulse to point out that like they ought to know, the people of Lordaeron also knew how to count coins after all. It was not obvious. Last time anyone present but Jaina had met their former kin of Lordaeron they had been raving ghouls.
"To appreciate the differences between the Undercity and Theramore you first need to keep in mind that we are a nation that has been beleaguered almost from the first moment. Our existence is shaped by it and so are our ways of governing. You would probably find my rule akin to that of a military outpost."
"That's right – she is terribly strict." Jaina stage whispered to the rest of the assembly. "No mana buns except on Sundays."
"Unless I am very much mistaken your enchantment lesson with my mages and the storming of the city happened neither seven nor fourteen days apart. At least one of those occasions would have been on another day of the week." Sylvanas calmly pointed out.
"Are you sure?" Jaina looked genuinely bemused. "Have you actually kept count?"
"I have been known to be terribly strict, after all." Sylvanas kept a perfectly straight face. "These conditions are of course not ideal for mercantile enterprises and our interest in such pursuits is solely of practical nature. We have been short of almost every commodity but lacked any market through which to acquire it."
"But you have a market of your own! It's fascinating, it's all underground and you can come across almost everything."
"I was getting to that, yes." Sylvanas resumed patiently. "What I am trying to underline is that while we do trade and barter with one another there are no major sums involved. All construction and excavating in the city are public works ordered or ratified by me. It is essentially forced labour."
She squirmed inwardly under the big-eyed, sad, compelling and slightly disapproving look Jaina gave her, and corrected herself accordingly.
"Ordered labour. I am not compelling anyone to take part who refuses. Not that it has been a recurring problem so far."
That was apparently enough to make her mage happy again.
"So ye stick together in a pinch and throw yer lots in to help the community when it's needed. Sounds like a fine example to set to me." Gromwell said.
"Perhaps, yet it is not the Theramorian way of doing things, is it?"
"Very right." It was one of the merchant councillors, Gheed, who quickly cut in. "In Theramore all is purchased right and proper – although the pricing can be discussed…"
Master Carpenter Oddricht cleared his throat audibly.
"…and surely the money of your royal coffers is equally good, Lady Windrunner. A spare weapon, some gold…a small gem…is all I need in exchange for all the equipment your people will need for whatever works you may contribute in or whatever quest you might undertake. Now, now, now, don't be shy! All our items are guaranteed for, ahem, life, and come with a two day warranty."
"You have my gratitude, Master Gheed. I will take that into consideration when deliberating how to put the Lordaeron treasury to use." Sylvanas dryly thanked him for the unabashed sales pitch.
"Sylv…Lady Windrunner I mean…" Jaina corrected herself. "Are you rich?"
She sounded a little intrigued.
"I…suppose we are." Sylvanas shrugged. "The treasury appears largely intact since before the war. The Scourge and the Legion were here to kill us, not rob us, and had little use for the gold. Neither have we when we can not put it to use. It is not a very workable metal apart from being easy to mould and not corroding."
She remembered something and smiled back at Jaina. At least a lopsided half smile.
"King Terenas' claims of having run out of the funds needed to finish the Banshee's Wail looks to have been mere pretext."
"Appalling." Jaina shook her head at the sacrilege but tilted it like she did when considering something that interested her. "But that is different now, isn't it? I mean the situation has changed, and perhaps you can in fact buy something useful now for that gold. Or…"
"Bad idea, ore takes up too much space. Better to invest in raw iron." Gromwell muttered.
"…or you could invest it with the help of Theramore to start trade! Timber trade, between Lordaeron and Kalimdor!"
Jaina bubbled over with enthusiasm like a boiling pot.
"Later, it will have to be in any case…"
"Right… Sorry. Back to the Forsaken staying in Theramore."
How I would want this idea of your to become reality one day. Just to see your eyes twinkle like that.
After lengthy discussion they settled on a solution that was both liberal and formalistic. The Forsaken would adapt to Theramorian pricing and currency – the latter being fairly easy as coin was valued by their metal and weight rather than who had minted them – and be free to earn their living pretty much like any other citizens.
Earn their living…what a way to put it.
Given that, the state of Theramore with the obvious backing and support of Lordaeron would purchase the services it needed the most and thereby set a poignant example for any private business thinking of doing the same. Sylvanas almost privately considered it all a sham – since it was obvious that work needed doing and a competent work force was ready and able to be deployed – but simply letting loose free labour into a more or less functional economy would upset the system and create a whole new mess.
She was not cut out for civic administration and she did not pretend to be.
Jaina was, though, or so Sylvanas at least would firmly maintain. Her mage was equally sharp when it came to understanding military matters but her heart and her instincts lay in the scholarly and constructive pursuits. She was a good ruler, and it did not matter that she had too many ideas sometimes because she knew to be concerned with results. She also knew to delegate tasks and to ask for help and admit when she needed to.
Her Forsaken were right when they put their trust in Jaina Proudmoore.
There would be hard times ahead, when the two sides of former Lordaeronians would meet in earnest. Jaina may be too gentle to fully foresee the magnitude of potential dissent, or Sylvanas was the one being too pessimistic. Regardless, Sylvanas would do whatever she could to dampen whatever tensions that arose.
They would see to it that both sides worked together in truth, with foremen and living workers as liaisons of sorts. Those who did not wish to ply their trade next to Forsaken would be free to choose but would also have to actively take it up by themselves.
It was a relief that the rangers were so much easier to put to work. The initial supervision by their Theramorian officers was largely for show. Once they had ran their presumed guides ragged they could roam freely.
"Poor guides…" Jaina said and tried to hide the way her mouth twitched at the corners.
"Indeed."
"Speaking of which, Baron Frostfel will be meeting up some appraising guard recruits later today. I think I should be there to oversee it in the beginning." Jaina was biting on her lip again. Had she always done it or was it a habit she had picked up lately? It was somehow reminiscent of when Anya's fangs showed. "To zee to it zat all iz in order."
The guests of Theramore's archmage make themselves at home and draw up plans to make their host more at home in her home. Sylvanas and Pained have a flippant and light-hearted talk while Jaina is the personification of collected and even-tempered rulers conducting themselves with the utmost seriousness.
Meanwhile in Lordaeron, Ranger Champion Blacksilver is learning about his new colleagues. Or family. He is not quite sure.
Author's Note:
With everything Runar and Halvdan have been through during their travels, who can blame them for packing thoroughly? Is there anything you do not need to be prepared for in the field Azerothian diplomacy?
Halvdan was a little tense, there was no question about it.
Ranger Champion?
And assigned to Alina's squadron no less. Practically like staying with her family.
He had better not make a fool of himself. And keep his ears open now that Ranger Lieutenant Amora Eagleye was going over the fundamentals while at the same time inquiring for a cloak that could be adjusted for the right size and two or three other things.
"The ranger squadron is made up of three pairs. It allows it tactical flexibility and to divide watches comfortably during a six hour night's rest, which may no longer be the issue it once was… In any case; while one pair engages the enemy, another pair can flank them and a third can be held in reserve."
"That sounds, hm, really well thought out. But I guess you have been doing this for a while…"
Blast it, that didn't come out well. Where was Runar when you needed him the most? Apart from sailing on the ice with his own band of pointy-eared teasers.
Amora looked amused however.
"You could say that. Our ranger corps is built from the ranger squadron. The tents, those we used to have, are larger ones for six or seven people and smaller for two. A pair of rangers can easily carry a small tent canvas as part of their packs and string it up with rope practically anywhere. Eight squadrons make up a company together with its captain and her ranging partner, who is often the second-in-command and shares in the running of the company."
"Like Ranger Captain Areiel? Though she seems to do a lot more of things."
"Spot on, Ranger Champion." Halvdan grimaced uneasily when she used that title, he had still not really got used to it or what it may entail. "We are not what we used to be and to tell the truth we do not quite know how to be in many ways. Chain of command not exempted."
"Are there more ranks than ranger lieutenant and captain?"
"No. Nor are the terms fully interchangeable with their Common counterparts. Think of ranger captain as simply meaning the commander of a company, and lieutenant as the captain's subordinate, and you will come closer to their meaning in Thalassian. Remember also that these are the official ranks but inside the ranger squadron and the company there are many unofficial or – how do you say it – 'semi-official' positions. Each squadron has one or two members acting as quartermasters and keeping track of things, and will want someone above the average at field medicine. Cooking with sparse ingredients is a dearly coveted skill as well, or it was for us."
Just then Halvdan's stomach growled, no matter how hard he tried flexing his gut muscles to keep it quiet.
"Though I think some of us still got the hang of it." Amora added amiably. "Now then! I hope you have…packed lightly? Oh, dear…"
Halvdan sort of shrugged. He had honestly tried his best to not bring too many things.
Amora signed to him to remove the backpack and started to go through it.
"I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with the armour otherwise. Marching all day in full plate is too tiresome, it will wear you out completely by the time you need to use it."
"Right… And warm clothes and blankets as well – wintry kingdoms are seriously impractical however pretty they may look – which we can of course not dispense with. Let's see…shield on the back over the quiver, good. The helmet well at hand by the belt, of course. Mira! Marrah! You take the chest and back plates. Alina packs the arm guards and I take the leg ones."
"We can be squires, sure! Alina will make an excellent one too! Me and Marrah can arm our knight and she can disarm him." Mira said.
"She does that better than anyone." Marrah informed.
Where were the snow drifts of sufficient depth to crawl into when you needed it the most? Halvdan imagined he looked like he had just finished the aforementioned day's march in full armour.
Alina did not redden like he did but when he happened to look at her she appeared equally embarrassed despite that.
"Alina is staying with me." Amora smiled knowingly. "Someone has to keep an eye on you… But we are still under-strength with an odd number of rangers, which is not ideal even if dividing watches is not the issue it used to be."
Halvdan cleared his throat.
"I have a suggestion, maybe…" he said somewhat hesitantly.
"Who might that be?"
"What a sneaky ranger champion, has he already recruited secret comrades-in-arms?"
Amora silenced the Mirrahs with a gesture.
"Well, I hit him with a snowball and we made up insults about each other –" Halvdan begun explaining before he was promptly and loudly interrupted.
"YES! YES! Please-please-please Amora you must! Spellbreakers all around!"
Amora at first appeared not to follow, but then she caught on and frowned as she thought it over.
"I think Ire is lonely. Please ask him, Amora?" Alina joined in her sisters' insistent request. "And what if we encounter more of those hideous destroyers?"
With a small but affectionate sigh Amora relented.
"You girls always liked teasing him. Or was it that he was the only one patient enough to put up with you all day? Alright, then, I will make the request and hear what he thinks of it."
She turned to Halvdan and tilted her head a little.
"You hit him with a snowball, you say?"
***
Jaina dreamed of a sunny forest clearing. She was resting by the roots of old oaks on grass and mossy ground that was friendly enough to be both soft and at the same time dry. All around her was light that shone down through the branches and danced before her. There were birds singing all around. Some sort of thrushes, she thought. They had long pointy ears and red eyes and sang her name…
"Jaina… Jaina… Jaina…"
Something touched the edge of her ear. Was it a caterpillar? A falling leaf? Jaina blinked and opened her eyes dizzily. The forest had transformed into her own bedroom and the sunlight had dimmed into the low morning light reflected into her window.
"Good morning, Jaina." Clea the Caterpillar hummed from behind her. She was lying in Jaina's bed, mashed between Jaina's back and the wall and stroking her hair.
"…mmm…g'morning…" Jaina blinked some more and stretched herself. "Have I made you flat? …sorry…"
"I was just going to pull your blankets back up but then I got stuck here. And when I tried to turn myself to wall paint you only followed and bunched up against me again. But I don't mind. You're so nice and warm."
Jana yawned. She was still not quite awake, but awake enough to think that what Clea said sounded silly. What was the point of sleeping in the same bed if you were going to keep away…
Clea had slept in her bed? No, not slept as such, more like snuggled because Clea was Clea and loved to hug you. But she was here, they were all here! Jaina had almost all her friends safely in Theramore and they had talked all night yesterday, and now they would find their way back to what they should be and nothing would be allowed to get in their way!
Brimming with mischief, Jaina pressed herself back as hard as she could.
"Pff-huff!" Clea gasped. "You're lucky I don't need to breathe… Help! I'm being turned into a tapestry here." she pleaded to her squadmates who were peeking in through the door.
"Pressed into service." Kitala observed.
Jaina sat up in her bed and let Clea escape.
"I dreamt I was in a forest I think. And sleeping in the dream too. I guess you must be really tired to dream that. You were all birds I think…" She yawned. "You sang really pretty… You can talk?!"
Clea and Kitala looked at one another.
"Yes, I am no bird?"
"No, but – loud! You're not whispering anymore!" Jaina burst out.
The three rangers in sight made space for Lyana and Sylvanas to come into the room too.
"You're right." Lyana was turning towards the thoughtful Clea. "You could barely be heard a few months ago."
"I hadn't really thought about it."
"Maybe one or two other things happened lately that stole all our attention. I'm just saying..."
"I had noticed." Sylvanas said. "But I can not put a definite date to where that change occurred. Perhaps we have all gradually gotten used to crediting our supreme hearing when we found it easier to discern your speech?"
"This is huge!" Jaina looked expectantly at them all. Didn't they get it? "Don't you realise? You can change! You are not bound to be the way you were when you were Raised!"
"Quiet, Jaina!" Kitala admonished her. "If word of this gets to Areiel she will take it as an excuse to have us exercising from dusk to dawn every night!"
Then she seemed to remember that if not the ranger captain then the Dark Lady was standing just next to her.
"And you are sworn to secrecy too, Dark Lady. Anya's orders."
"By all means." Sylvanas dryly agreed. "I shall be happy to withhold this crucial and hope-inspiring piece of information from our brothers and sisters who have no reason whatsoever to wish for something like this being true."
"Don't be like that…"
"Actually Lady Proudmoore and I once discussed this question, of whether undead can grow and learn. I have no doubt that we will revisit the issue and the implications this discovery poses, but it will have to be at a later time."
"First we are going to tidy up your room." Anya determined.
"My room?" Jaina looked around, or tried to. With five visitors present there was not much else in sight in her small study. "What's wrong with my room?"
Sylvanas raised an eyebrow and Anya looked pointedly at the side opposite Jaina's desk. All – well, most – of Jaina's chests were almost neatly stacked on top of each other.
"Lady Proudmoore, I am well aware of how dedicated you are to your work but I was under the impression that a study's intended function is to facilitate reading and writing, and not to act as its occupant's sole living space. I also find myself forced to amend certain previous judgements of mine regarding the Undercity's claustrophobic conditions as I did clearly not fully appreciate what I had."
Jaina blushed something terribly.
"How can you even find your things in here?" Anya questioned almost pityingly.
"It's easy." Jaina defended herself. "You just have to learn the system. Small clothes and smallclothes are in the small chest there, large robes are in the large chest, summer robes are in the one behind, or they are supposed to be but I haven't had time to stow them away, and winter robes are…they are kind of on top but that is just temporary…"
"Until summer?"
"Yes – no! And then there are some books, or, a lot, and I think there is a case of alchemical ingredients in the long oaken sea chest because there was honestly no other good place to put them –"
"Than in your current bedroom where they are left unsupervised and potentially degrading or worse, and I very much hope they are not of the flammable kind."
"Of course not, what sort of archmage do you take me for?"
"One that thought so little of herself that she would offer her home up as storage for other people's things without reflecting, and continue to do so until it became second nature to her." Sylvanas said solemnly, and Jaina stopped in the middle of retorting.
"That obvious?" she asked, deflated.
"Perhaps this is the time where you could say that it takes one to know one." Sylvanas said very quietly. "Though however that may be, it is very obvious to someone who has the blessing of knowing you, Lady Proudmoore."
"My tower was finished last winter. We had so little space and so many things to keep safe from the wet and weather, and then… I never cared much after the spring. And Pained's not to blame, she had her hands full just keeping me alive."
"We know." Anya said and tip-toed forward to sit down on Jaina's bedside. "You weren't eating. But now we are all here so we will fix it now instead. Alright?"
Jaina nodded obediently.
"Good. Now; Clea, Kitala and Sylvanas take the bedroom, I will start here and Lyana to the kitchen to make breakfast for Jaina and Pained. What does she eat and drink?"
"Not so much fish as I do…and she drinks Kaldorei herbal tea. We just restocked it. I'll show you."
"You mean we will actually find the tea in the kitchen? Fancy that." Lyana said matter-of-factly.
Jaina stuck her tongue out at her.
***
Pained was, for all her diligence around the clock, not one for early mornings or in fact for any mornings. She had hinted about it being a night elf thing and Jaina assumed that since her people thrived under the moon they would prefer to reclaim that lost sleep early in the day. Her bodyguard was now calmly sipping tea together with Jaina and dutifully finishing Lyana's breakfast, which was thankfully not fish soup or anything similarly vile.
"Did you sleep well, Pained?" Jaina asked her. She was still just a little bit worried about her bodyguard having stood sentinel over her bed and not mentioned it. "I hope the rangers did not make a noise or anything."
"No." Pained was about to pick up yet another freshly baked bun but thought better of it. "In fact our new guests were outstandingly quiet."
"At least during the night." Jaina commented. Distinct sounds from above told of furniture being moved and many things being inspected. Jaina wondered slightly uneasily if all personal belongings would be equally safe from elven curiosity. She had her doubts.
"Your guests certainly sound like they are making themselves at home." Pained cast a wry look at the ceiling. "That speaks highly of your abilities as hostess if nothing else."
"Are you alright with that? I mean, I did invite them over rather sudden and I realise I maybe ought to have consulted you first…"
"This is your tower, My Lady." Pained almost interrupted her. "My place is to guard you whoever you keep for company and if you strive to promote good relations with the Forsaken it makes every sense for you to let them into your home."
"But how do you feel about them? I think you did excellent during the archery games and they really seem to like you but you haven't had nearly the time I've had to get used to dark rangers… They can take some time getting used to."
Now Pained took some time before she answered.
"I did not interfere when you talked last night. I was sure you needed it and I have to trust those you accept as friends to not do anything unthinkably stupid. However little I enjoy that notion." Jaina was sure that both bodyguards and parents sulked in a certain way over that sort of issue. "But your dark rangers have had the opportunity to harm you countless times already and further suspicions of their intentions in that regard is folly. On the contrary they made you eat again when I hardly could, and many times despaired over how you wasted away."
Jaina opened her mouth to retort but did not get further.
"It was that bad, My Lady. It broke my heart to see and had I known you more and better at that time I would have made you choke down soup until you relented, but I dared not force the issue lest you would send me away if I overstepped. The dark rangers' unlikely intervention saved my lady for me and for that alone I will always treasure them, and certainly some of them appear charming enough. Some others I do not yet know what to think of." The night elf put her finished cup of tea down. "I know it is not for nothing that you needed to sit down and talk yesterday and…for what it's worth I hope you found your path."
"It's worth a great lot. Found our path?" Jaina wondered.
"Oh, Kaldorei expression. As in finding your way back to each other, and a way forward together. The opposite of being lost."
"Oh. I think we did. Or a bit of it. I so much want us to have done that but I'm almost afraid to say it out loud."
"It is futile to ask someone not to be, though at least I think you have less reason to be anxious." Pained eyed her very kindly. "And do I now assume correctly that you want nothing more than seeing our pale friends happy again, even if it comes at the price of them nosing through all of your personal and private chests?"
"Mmm…"
"Well, I have had a most thoughtfully made breakfast and been able to finish my tea at a civilised pace. Shall we go up and have a look at what they are up to?"
The scraping of furniture – honestly more of the thuds of furniture lifted and carried – and scurrying steps back and forth sounding from above had in truth been conservative and not nearly done justice to the dark rangers' exertions. They were halfway through Jaina's bedroom – her proper one – and seemed to be taking inventory of all things in their path. Since the place was so cluttered they had to progressively move things in their path and move over them so that the enterprise was most accurately likened to a sort of excavation.
Hm.
Archmage Modera and Master Antonidas had of course never used that metaphor to describe the state of Jaina's room in Dalaran.
Almost never.
Sylvanas' ears were sticking up from behind a hill of crates while Clea and Kitala laboured with a particularly densely stacked pile of chests, well on their way to reach one of the room's corners.
"Your room is something of a small barracks, Lady Proudmoore." The Dark Lady said from out of sight and pointed with her hand above the top of the wooden ridge at a great pile of coarse clothing having been gathered as they progressed.
"Those? They, ah – what are they…" Jaina scrounged up her forehead.
"They would appear to be coats for the city guard." Pained was only a little, little bit dry.
"Oh, yes, right. We were short on wardrobes in the actual barracks and by that time most of the guard was deployed further inland so we had to store it somewhere…"
"And they know it? Now when it is your windy and rainy season of the year, if I have understood it correctly?" Sylvanas asked. She was also only a little bit dry.
"Uhm, there may be a distinct possibility that such a piece of knowledge has fallen out of memory, yes…" Jaina admitted and grimaced. Now she felt bad for real. Having a less than completely organised bedroom waiting to be dealt with was one thing, but someone having to keep watch during a stormy night with insufficient clothing because of her was not tolerable.
"Then the city guard will have a pleasant surprise today." Pained decided. "I believe Lady Windrunner and I will be able to handle that without difficulty."
She proceeded to climb across the immediate debris and gather up the bundle of coats in her arms before Jaina could think of anything to say.
Sylvanas slid back into sight from behind the wall of crates.
"Unless you have need of me at the moment –"
"Excellent idea, Ranger Windrunner." Anya cut her off from the corridor outside. "Then Pained can give you a tour of the city at the same time. We'll meet back here for lunch."
None of them would argue with Anya. Not over anything short of mortal danger, and maybe not even that.
Though Jaina could still not help herself from being a little bit concerned. Pained commanded enormous respect from the Theramorian guard and she had every faith in her bodyguard handling all interaction smoothly, but the night elf had also made it very evident how she wanted an opportunity to have a word alone with Sylvanas.
"Please play nice." She tried to sound more flippant than she felt.
"Not to worry. I am sure we can find a way to question the responsible quartermaster about why two dozen coats have been collecting dust with no one missing them, without being too stern." Pained smirked.
Between the scrutinizing glares of her bodyguard and the Dark Lady, Jaina pitied that quartermaster. Not that it had exactly been her primary concern.
Her mind was rather soon turned to other more acute matters. It would appear that its cluttered state had not stopped her guests from drawing up grand and ambitious strategic plans for her bedroom after their first reconnaissance.
"We are going to find a carpenter – the best one, and we will ask Master Oddricht if you refuse to tell us because you think it is too much effort or some other really stupid nonsense." Anya threatened. "And then we are going to order a new bed and proper wardrobes all along the walls. They are going to be filled with drawers and boxes and hideouts for all of your things and shelves for all of the chests. And the bed is going to be really big also. The size for a queen. Or no, the size for an archmage, because that is even bigger. And it's going to have a really big canopy over it too."
"But… Hold up… Why do I need to have such a large bed?" the bewildered Jaina almost stammered.
"Because when you sleep you want to move around and grasp for things all over the bed unless someone is near you. So either the bed must be large enough so you don't fall over the edge or large enough to accommodate someone else lying next to you so you don't wander off. In either case, it needs to be large. And a canopy will be just like your own tent so you can have peace and quiet even if your guests are up and about during the night. We'll make it really, really cosy."
Well…trust those guests to insist on making camp in Jaina's bedroom on this side of the sea as well.
One could almost be led to believe that the dark rangers were accustomed to installing their guests in tents set up inside their rooms or something.
She could not argue with their logic, at least not when she was too busy blushing and melting inside over seeing Anya looking so hopeful again.
Jaina would sleep on barnacles and sea urchins if it got that job done.
"Well, I suppose we could head down to –"
"Great! Off we go!" Kitala skipped ahead with Jaina's hand in tow and Lyana dragged her along by the other.
***
Sylvanas had thought the Undercity was expanding at a high pace.
Theramore was growing everywhere.
There seemed to be a new stretch of road being worked on or a building with ladders or wooden platforms along partly finished walls wherever you looked. Nothing especially elegant but all the more impressing when this had been bare rock just a couple of years ago. Humans worked fast.
Though there were not just humans of course. Elves and dwarves were a noticeable part of the population as well. Sylvanas pulled her cloak tighter around herself and hid her face behind her half of the guardsmen's cloaks and coats. She had no wish to be recognized right now by her former kin.
Former kin.
Jaina considered her an elf still. One with a specific…condition, or how she would phrase it if asked about her standpoint. Though just as likely Jaina would reject the notion completely that she would have to answer to anyone for treating Forsaken as the human and elven persons that they used to be. And woe to anyone pressing that issue, now when no shackles hampered the archmage.
The garrison's, or guard's, quarters were practical and unassuming by most standards. They looked like they had been finished rather early in the founding of the city.
Sylvanas was inclined to let Pained do the talking but a barely perceptible glance signalled that the night elf wanted otherwise, so Sylvanas put on her most businesslike face and demeanour as she strode up to the officer on watch by the entrance and unceremoniously put the eleven coats and cloaks she carried down on his desk.
"Good morning, Sergeant. Please inform the quartermaster it concerns that we are delivering twenty-three Theramorian cloaks and tabards from their temporary and from now on discontinued storage in Lady Jaina's tower."
Pained promptly followed and almost buried the baffled young man with the remaining twelve.
"Tw-twenty-three?" he asked, as if the number itself would be the most astonishing detail.
"Indeed. I am sure you will be able to see to it that they are distributed to where they are most needed without further delay. We shall not keep you from your duties any longer. Carry on."
Before anyone had said a further word Sylvanas turned on her heels and marched out of the building.
Pained followed in close tow. She did not say anything, but Sylvanas could see her only partly repressed smirk.
How odd. She had actually interacted with a living stranger without anything calamitous happening or anyone else diplomatically paving the way. She had not even scared him too much.
They walked for a short distance until Pained indicated another way than where they had come from. It led along less finished backstreets towards the inner shoreline, the one on the west side where the bay shifted to the Dustswallow Marsh. Here Pained was slowing down tellingly.
"It takes no great feat of perception to discern that you seek a word alone with me." Sylvanas noted.
"It does not. Would you be amenable?"
"Lead the way."
The sun already caused the waters to glimmer. It was a clear day yet despite the allegedly unstable wintry weathers. It almost disturbed her eyes to look at, a notion that irritated her until she reminded herself that even as living glittery waters could be hard on the eyes if you looked at them too long.
"The shore has always offered the finest views in my opinion, however accustomed I am to the sight of the forest." Pained observed before turning her attention more fully to Sylvanas. "Should I address you as Lady Windrunner like the others do?"
"In all matters regarding Lady Proudmoore I wish to have no title to hide behind before you or anyone else she holds close. Since that is what I am sure you wish to discuss."
"Yes it is…Sylvanas."
There was some pause while they only strolled slowly along the rocks with the ever-present coats of algae and seaweed and Pained decided on how to begin. Perhaps oddly, the fact that she did made Sylvanas more at ease. If Pained placed enough importance in what she wanted to say that it made her think twice about how to word it, it made two of them if nothing else.
"Jaina is my ward and my lady. And she is also something much more to me." The night elf told solemnly. "When I begun guarding her it was because Priestess Tyrande had ordered me to. Now, I would not cease doing so even if I was ordered by the same."
"I know." Sylvanas said, quiet and dampened.
"Do you?" Pained was not confronting, but deep in thought. She spoke more slowly than Sylvanas had heard her do any other time. "When her father had died she wasted away. All fire, all spirit was seeping out of her like water running through my fingers. She cared for neither food, nor sleep, nor comfort. Do you know how I wished and prayed for anything at all to happen that would break her out of that grieving sickness?"
"She had nightmares when she came aboard my ship." Sylvanas had not told that to anyone, not even Anya. "I sat next to her throughout the night, when she was lying in my hammock. I noticed how malnourished she was the next day. I did not like seeing it, even if we were presumed to be on opposing sides."
"You thought Jaina your enemy?"
"I thought Theramore hostile and Lady Proudmoore extremely dangerous. But not of herself as our foe. She has never been."
Pained let out a long breath, that was only almost a sigh.
"When she was gone I was worrying out of my mind and cursing myself for failing her. Then she wrote to me – not that it was an altogether reassuring note – and I told myself that whatever she had gotten herself into there was a chance it might do her the good I could not provide."
Ruthlessness towards oneself in the face of shortcomings, that was evidently something that also made two of them.
"And it did. When I saw Jaina stumbling back out of the air with the colour back on her cheeks and well fed and vibrant and alive again, it was everything I had hoped for. And at the same time she was crying rivers and cursing over you and could not get you out of her mind."
They were passing the western side of the city's docks now. Heavy timber resting on rock pilings and saturated with the smell of tar and fish.
"I do not know what to make of you, Sylvanas. Are you good or bad for my Lady Jaina?"
"Is this where you should make some sort of armed threat for good measure?"
"Would it work?"
Pained furrowed her brows and looked around. Her gaze settled on a thick pole jutting out of the woodwork, one of countless that held the whole brim of quays in place. In a blink – less than a blink – she had whipped her heavy blade out of its scabbard on her back and slashed through the air.
Sylvanas had heard the thud of metal impacting with wood well enough. The pole remained aggravatingly unchanged however as Pained sheathed her unnerving idea of a side arm.
Sylvanas remained perfectly still, just like the wood did even as the night elf glared daggers at it.
Finally Pained drew in air and blew with a mighty huff so that her cheeks puffed up. The topmost fingerbreadth of the pole clattered to the ground, sliced neat and flat like a Silvermoon marble floor.
"I did not put off answering her letters out of anything but concern for her. I thought it would be better that way."
"So you consider – or considered – yourself a bad influence in spite of caring for her? May I ask what changed your mind?"
"A conspiracy. Including but not exempting close and senior ranger commanders working in conjunction with foreign powers."
"I think I will consider that particular piece of plotting a fortunate thing." Pained took a moment to admire the wide ocean around them. "It is Jaina's choice to divulge as much or as little as she wants about such things that you met to discuss last night, things which I am of course aware are neither trifling nor fully settled. Against all that however I weigh how happy and relieved she evidently is after having had that very same conversation and how I no longer need to fear her fading away. Do you understand my position?"
"Pained. I have every confidence in Lady Proudmoore's ability to safeguard my people while they stay in Theramoore and my rangers are ably led by Areiel in my absence. You have also been...most generous and patient with them yourself, for which I am very grateful. It would not be thought out of place if I as the queen had to return to Lordaeron prematurely. Should…should I do that?"
"Is that what Jaina wants?"
"No."
"Is it what you want?"
"No." Sylvanas found herself having to force out the simple word. Not because it was false or hard to determine what she wanted but because she wanted too much, far too much, to stay with Jaina as much and as close as she possibly could. Yet what if she was wrong, and selfish, in indulging in that? Pained's words had reawakened that never truly sleeping creature of fear.
"Then the matter is already settled, is it not? Sylvanas, Jaina wants you here. You know that even if whatever it is that lies between you appears to cloud your mind in that regard. And if I knew in greater detail what that was, it is very possible that you and I would be having an entirely different kind of conversation. But until then Jaina needs the Banshee Queen that brought life back into her."
"But what if I do wrong? What if I err…again?"
"Do not hurt her. That is all I ask of you."
"There is nothing I want less."
***
Later in the same day Sylvanas leaned back in her high chair, looking across the largest room of the city hall's upper floor.
Theramore's city council was much like the Forsaken's in a way. Important professions and economical interests were clearly represented to some degree – not exempting the ones of mages and priests when the city was like a daughter to Dalaran – along with a probably deliberate collection of the residing races. A council was a delicately balanced mixture, prone to boiling over if you were not careful with which ingredients to add.
Of course, this was Sylvanas' own view. She was well aware of the fact that it may be rather skewed. Contrary to the Undercity, where the civic administration had grown only out of the necessity to unburden her own war councils, Theramore and her ruler placed a whole other kind of importance into theirs. This was where the city was actually ruled and things were decided.
With Jaina at the head, as eager as ever to make a good impression and to make the best decisions she could for her Forsaken guests. Sylvanas would do what she could to return that favour, which for the moment amounted to summarizing the immediate moves of her own contingent.
"The greater part of my dark rangers are deploying around the city as we speak to assist in scouting and patrolling under the initial supervision of the Theramorian ranging units. In return the freed up city guards can bolster the watch inside the walls. Ranger Captain Areiel is handling that part from our side and I have every expectation that it will be the less complicated one."
"Thank you, Lady Windrunner." Jaina said pleasantly. "I assure everyone that whatever brigand or spy attempting to sneak past that line of defense will deserve our pity. How many rangers are the greater part?"
"Six squadrons, thirty-six. Two at a time will be rotated in and out of Theramore itself, at least now in the beginning. My own being one of them."
At that – which she was of course already aware of – Jaina smiled warmly.
"We went shopping this morning. Maybe that counts as the first official trade between our peoples?"
"You would have pioneered that when buying the pair of slippers in the Undercity I think, Lady Proudmoore."
"But you paid for them – and surely that was a gift, and all your hinting of a loan just idle chit-chat?" Jaina bantered.
"My treasurers and financial advisers are sure to look into the accumulated interest in due time, Lady Proudmoore." Sylvanas quipped back.
Am I allowed? Do you want me to joke with you like this, like we used to do so much before all turned bad? I swear I would want that as much as I said last night but even so I still can not help being afraid I will have misread you, or doubt whether I deserve the privilege it is to speak so freely with you.
Sylvanas was absolutely sure that she had not uttered a word of the thoughts going through her mind. She was equally sure that somehow, some way, Jaina had still caught most of them.
"Then I will await that no doubt ominous note with great…mmm…interest." Jaina was biting her lip shyly and managed to look mischievous at the same time. She reminded Sylvanas most of all of how she had acted when they had actually procured the mentioned slippers.
I want…you back. My little mage. I want you back so much. I just do not know how.
A discreet cough brought both their attention to the present situation.
"Ahem, right…next item!" Jaina blushed.
"Ah, but I think you and the Lady Windrunner have already sprinted ahead and delved into just that." Master Oddricht observed. Sylvanas found herself appreciating the familiar faces of him as well as Gromwell at the council table.
"The gist of it…" The gnome carpentry master continued. "…is just this. How do we Theramorians and our new neighbours get along in as smooth a way as possible?"
Sylvanas' first thought was that smoothness had not been the defining characteristics of her own actions during the last weeks, but with some effort she promptly put that thought away. She was on duty. She was here to help Jaina rule her city and nothing else mattered.
"I offered our help in whatever capacities would be most needed when we arrived. That offer stands and I honestly believe it is of importance that my people can contribute something concrete to the city."
"But that is not your only purpose." Jaina was quick to interject. "You have also come to search for friends or family that may have survived, and for safety, and for lots of other personal reasons. You are not to be our tools or our servants."
"The purveyor insists on offering and the commissioner on paying…" Master Oddricht spoke out loud.
"That's new if it ain't anything else…" Gromwell agreed.
"So, should our first question then be to decide how to exchange goods and services in a mutually satisfactory way then?" Jaina asked but in truth more like summed it up. "I hate to be this…crass but perhaps it is best to start with something very practical."
"How do you do it in your own city?" Sylvanas was asked. "What, ah, would your people be accustomed to?"
She held back an impulse to point out that like they ought to know, the people of Lordaeron also knew how to count coins after all. It was not obvious. Last time anyone present but Jaina had met their former kin of Lordaeron they had been raving ghouls.
"To appreciate the differences between the Undercity and Theramore you first need to keep in mind that we are a nation that has been beleaguered almost from the first moment. Our existence is shaped by it and so are our ways of governing. You would probably find my rule akin to that of a military outpost."
"That's right – she is terribly strict." Jaina stage whispered to the rest of the assembly. "No mana buns except on Sundays."
"Unless I am very much mistaken your enchantment lesson with my mages and the storming of the city happened neither seven nor fourteen days apart. At least one of those occasions would have been on another day of the week." Sylvanas calmly pointed out.
"Are you sure?" Jaina looked genuinely bemused. "Have you actually kept count?"
"I have been known to be terribly strict, after all." Sylvanas kept a perfectly straight face. "These conditions are of course not ideal for mercantile enterprises and our interest in such pursuits is solely of practical nature. We have been short of almost every commodity but lacked any market through which to acquire it."
"But you have a market of your own! It's fascinating, it's all underground and you can come across almost everything."
"I was getting to that, yes." Sylvanas resumed patiently. "What I am trying to underline is that while we do trade and barter with one another there are no major sums involved. All construction and excavating in the city are public works ordered or ratified by me. It is essentially forced labour."
She squirmed inwardly under the big-eyed, sad, compelling and slightly disapproving look Jaina gave her, and corrected herself accordingly.
"Ordered labour. I am not compelling anyone to take part who refuses. Not that it has been a recurring problem so far."
That was apparently enough to make her mage happy again.
"So ye stick together in a pinch and throw yer lots in to help the community when it's needed. Sounds like a fine example to set to me." Gromwell said.
"Perhaps, yet it is not the Theramorian way of doing things, is it?"
"Very right." It was one of the merchant councillors, Gheed, who quickly cut in. "In Theramore all is purchased right and proper – although the pricing can be discussed…"
Master Carpenter Oddricht cleared his throat audibly.
"…and surely the money of your royal coffers is equally good, Lady Windrunner. A spare weapon, some gold…a small gem…is all I need in exchange for all the equipment your people will need for whatever works you may contribute in or whatever quest you might undertake. Now, now, now, don't be shy! All our items are guaranteed for, ahem, life, and come with a two day warranty."
"You have my gratitude, Master Gheed. I will take that into consideration when deliberating how to put the Lordaeron treasury to use." Sylvanas dryly thanked him for the unabashed sales pitch.
"Sylv…Lady Windrunner I mean…" Jaina corrected herself. "Are you rich?"
She sounded a little intrigued.
"I…suppose we are." Sylvanas shrugged. "The treasury appears largely intact since before the war. The Scourge and the Legion were here to kill us, not rob us, and had little use for the gold. Neither have we when we can not put it to use. It is not a very workable metal apart from being easy to mould and not corroding."
She remembered something and smiled back at Jaina. At least a lopsided half smile.
"King Terenas' claims of having run out of the funds needed to finish the Banshee's Wail looks to have been mere pretext."
"Appalling." Jaina shook her head at the sacrilege but tilted it like she did when considering something that interested her. "But that is different now, isn't it? I mean the situation has changed, and perhaps you can in fact buy something useful now for that gold. Or…"
"Bad idea, ore takes up too much space. Better to invest in raw iron." Gromwell muttered.
"…or you could invest it with the help of Theramore to start trade! Timber trade, between Lordaeron and Kalimdor!"
Jaina bubbled over with enthusiasm like a boiling pot.
"Later, it will have to be in any case…"
"Right… Sorry. Back to the Forsaken staying in Theramore."
How I would want this idea of your to become reality one day. Just to see your eyes twinkle like that.
After lengthy discussion they settled on a solution that was both liberal and formalistic. The Forsaken would adapt to Theramorian pricing and currency – the latter being fairly easy as coin was valued by their metal and weight rather than who had minted them – and be free to earn their living pretty much like any other citizens.
Earn their living…what a way to put it.
Given that, the state of Theramore with the obvious backing and support of Lordaeron would purchase the services it needed the most and thereby set a poignant example for any private business thinking of doing the same. Sylvanas almost privately considered it all a sham – since it was obvious that work needed doing and a competent work force was ready and able to be deployed – but simply letting loose free labour into a more or less functional economy would upset the system and create a whole new mess.
She was not cut out for civic administration and she did not pretend to be.
Jaina was, though, or so Sylvanas at least would firmly maintain. Her mage was equally sharp when it came to understanding military matters but her heart and her instincts lay in the scholarly and constructive pursuits. She was a good ruler, and it did not matter that she had too many ideas sometimes because she knew to be concerned with results. She also knew to delegate tasks and to ask for help and admit when she needed to.
Her Forsaken were right when they put their trust in Jaina Proudmoore.
There would be hard times ahead, when the two sides of former Lordaeronians would meet in earnest. Jaina may be too gentle to fully foresee the magnitude of potential dissent, or Sylvanas was the one being too pessimistic. Regardless, Sylvanas would do whatever she could to dampen whatever tensions that arose.
They would see to it that both sides worked together in truth, with foremen and living workers as liaisons of sorts. Those who did not wish to ply their trade next to Forsaken would be free to choose but would also have to actively take it up by themselves.
It was a relief that the rangers were so much easier to put to work. The initial supervision by their Theramorian officers was largely for show. Once they had ran their presumed guides ragged they could roam freely.
"Poor guides…" Jaina said and tried to hide the way her mouth twitched at the corners.
"Indeed."
"Speaking of which, Baron Frostfel will be meeting up some appraising guard recruits later today. I think I should be there to oversee it in the beginning." Jaina was biting on her lip again. Had she always done it or was it a habit she had picked up lately? It was somehow reminiscent of when Anya's fangs showed. "To zee to it zat all iz in order."
Pained is certainly taking this well. I would imagine it's pretty awkward for a devoted bodyguard to have the people who kidnapped her VIP wandering around, but after all, I guess she did have a fair while to come to terms with it after Jaina came back but before the rangers showed up.
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter!
Precisely! She is both inclined to be very, very wary and immensely grateful for their help with Jaina. She has probably had time to get used to Jaina's impetuous antics as well. Luckily Pained appears to be in the slightly more level-headed minority of Azertoh's inhabitants.
Chapter 49: Unwelcome and Unwanted
Chapter 49: Unwelcome and Unwanted
Jaina's good mood continues to shine like a bright flame for the Forsaken in Theramore but will even such radiant luminescence be enough?
The Theramorian training grounds were nowhere near as elaborate as the Forsaken ones. The only thing they had in great supply was sand – which was fortunate enough in Jaina's opinion. People tended to forget or ignore the benefits of a friendly pile of cushioning grains when other people did their best to relocate you to the very same.
Now they were here – meaning herself and the Baron and a number of unfortunate city guards including his old squire Rodrick, together with a hesitant number of spectators that shifted between keeping their distance and acting like they were only really passing by and had just happened to stop for a quick look.
Thank goodness the Baron looked so comparatively intact. He was certainly old old, but not withered old like the ancients of Alfred's kind. That did not stop the Baron in the slightest from wearing his age well and shamelessly baiting the half as young guards to challenge him.
"Humour an old knight with both feet in ze grave, good Sir. Surely a bout with such a frail and creaking elder baron will not more zan mildly inconvenience you." he implored blithely to the cluster of presumed opponents.
Rodrick, who stood next to Jaina in the forefront of ze audience – the audience of course, huffed.
"Like we never heard that old tune before…" he snorted and was not buying into his old teacher's tricks the slightest.
The participants were not wearing armour except for light padding and wielded practice swords made of tightly strung stems of a kind of reed-like huge grass that grew in abundance in the nearby marshes. They would not break bones but were sure to hurt more than enough if you got hit. Baron Frostfel made his look rather tiny when he awaited his opponent with it deceptively lowered.
Once the gruff Theramorian footman, who had both sword and shield properly raised, had come within range the Baron whipped his weapon up and swatted his opponent on the knee in the process.
"Politeness is a virtue among friends, but do not return ze favour if your foe appears to let his guard down." he offered as a friendly reminder.
It did not do much to dispel the dourness and dark glare he got from his sparring partner. The 'partner' bit of it being currently questionable. Jaina knew that she could let events play out as they willed but she felt much too exuberant not to want nudge them a little in the right direction. This was her day and she wouldn't let anyone's grumpiness put a damper on it.
So she nudged. Rodrick, more specifically.
"Maybe this calls for someone a little more welcoming from our side to set an example." Jaina whispered to him.
Rodrick did not flinch as such but Jaina could see him tensing up momentarily, before he sighed inaudibly in acceptance.
"You know that he is proud of you, even if you aren't." Jaina tried to put all the sincerity she could into that insistent whisper that maybe was blunt, but she knew by heart that sometimes what you needed to hear was allowed to be just that.
Rodrick slowly climbed under the ropes fencing the practice field and went to retrieve a set of gear for himself. Baron Frostfel beamed – not many undead could truly do that – and looked just as proud as Jaina had insisted.
"Let me guess, you will have something to say about the way I hold the shield again, Baron Sir?" Rodrick said a little resigned but also with the hint of some good-natured reminiscence hidden behind.
"First let us talk about your posture, my boy. No slouching, but no tensing up either."
"It is always one or the other. I swear I'm starting to think he's just making this up." Rodrick said it half to himself and half to the audience, which his unenthusiastic precursor had now joined.
"Ha! Do not discount ze little things, my boy. A noble posture is always worth maintaining no matter ze occasion. Why, who can tell whenever one of ze fair girls of Theramore have you in her sights? Zey are sly, and you may find yourself weighed and measured when you least expect!" the Baron advised as he circled his former – but not former enough – squire, who kept pace while looking very much like Jaina felt much too often in certain other Forsaken company.
"Baron, please! Weren't we supposed to be sparring?"
"A, forgive an old man his forgetfulness." Baron Frostfel backhanded Rodrick very hard, who caught the hit on the shield with practiced ease. "Perhaps a recurring case of premature death-ness. You were yet unmarried, was zat zo?"
"Death-ness?! There must be some sort of line that one crossed, Sir" Rodrick parried three succeeding swings with sharp thwacks while Jaina had to struggle to maintain her neutral expression.
Tides, no wonder the Baron and Ranger Captain Areiel got along so well. There seemed to be some worryingly similar traits that old teachers everywhere shared, Jaina thought while thinking of Archmage Modera.
Rodrick, for all initial reluctance he may have displayed, took the lesson in stride. He defended himself well even as the Baron cheerfully pounded his shield almost to splinters and drove his pupil from one edge of the sands to the other while keeping up a steady stream of merciless pointers interlaced with unrelenting interrogation.
"Shield up, Rodrick, I have told you zat a hundred times! Ze shield will not spring to our defense, we must wield it just as much as ze sword! How is ze country upland of here, are you able to keep horses about?"
"Yes, scarcely few. Grazing is sparse and the gnats coming up from the marshes are hard on the animals." Rodrick countered with a quick slash at the Baron's sword arm.
"It pleases me to hear. Take good care of zem, and don't forget to keep up with riding practice – shield up, my boy! And by ze way, ze sight of a man showing how he cares for his horse can move ze heart of many a young lady."
"For goodness' sake, Baron Sir! Can we talk about something else?"
His flustered squire charged forward in desperate attempt to keep both their attention centred on the here and now and nothing other.
He had a point though, Jaina thought as her mind turned to Kalira's squadron and Westley. She wondered if she should find a convenient opportunity to let slip that not as young but equally fair ladies reputedly had their soft spots for dashing knights too. It would only be equal and fair, wouldn't it?
"A knight must not allow himself to be distracted by ze underhanded taunts of his opponent. And should you have ze opportunity, a leisurely ride in ze countryside is as classic a move as zey come."
Rodrick groaned.
Jaina knew the situation around them was more than serious, she knew that the shared past of Baron Frostfel and Rodrick was a hard and heavy thing to handle. And still she could not for the love of mana stop herself from breaking into a wide smile at the two of them bickering and out of pity for Rodrick's plight.
Finally both lowered their practice swords and the Baron patted him on the shoulder with some last-minute reminder squeezed in. Then one spectator hesitantly took up clapping, another followed, and the day was won when the next Theramorian guard took up position, this one far more sporting than the first but understandably wary.
There followed then a series of sound thrashings of the pride of her city state, Jaina conceded. The grizzled death knight harried every opponent with deluges of wrecking hits high and low only matched by the downpour of aggravatingly on-the-point reminders whenever one missed or omitted something noteworthy.
Just like the Dark Lady would do when she chased you around the Forsaken arena. Although Sylvanas did not plague her victims with obviously blatant falsehoods about how old and feeble she was. Not that Sylvanas failed to be every time as distracting, in her own particular way.
Jaina had survived the predatory Dark Lady, the lecturing Irizadan and the outrageous Areiel before. Maybe she should give it a go? After all, the name of the game was friendly sparring and if she asked Rodrick to set an example…fair was only fair.
No more had she begun to raise her hand the next time Baron Frostfel asked for another Theramorian fencer when her city guards and a good deal of the passers-by that mysteriously found time to linger ever longer ushered her forward with glee.
"Ehm, could I begin at page level, my good Baron?" Jaina pleaded after she had braided her hair and donned a moderately ill-fitting gambeson.
"But of course! One zing at a time and you shall have the pages for a whole book, Lady Proudmoore." Baron Frostfel turned the metaphors upside-down.
Alright. Sword and board. Block and dodge. Just like Irizadan and Areiel did all the time. Jaina could do this –
BANG.
All of her shook from the impact or so it felt like. Mana-based shielding was so much more cushioning as a matter of fact.
Shouldn't they, like, be conservative and try not to go through the city's supply of practice shields at too quick a rate?
"Keep your guard up, Lady Proudmoore! Ze shield is a valuable tool but zere is no point in blocking for ze sake of it. Now parry or dodge. Eyes up!"
Sensible people relocated to another spot when a lot of vicious strikes started to rain down on them from above. Preferably with a teleport spell.
The principle was more or less the same as when tumbling about with Sylvanas – uhm, training, which was the more correct and appropriate wording. She had to try and anticipate where the next strike would fall and find a way to disrupt it. You did that in an endless variation of counter-striking or angling your blade or shield to direct the force of the blow away; that she knew. It was just that executing that sort of move when you were jumping around with your heartbeat somewhere in your throat and all your limbs either too stiff or too shaky was quite another thing.
The day was fresh with pleasantly cool temperatures for Theramore and a healthy breeze, but nothing that would stop Jaina from sweating like it was high summer in no time. She had not landed a single hit on her own but she could not say that she had really expected to either.
From the bright side of things – huff! – it was good that they had knights of high standards to lead their charges – huff! – wasn't it? This was a – huff! – good learning experience!
For her at least, should she ever find herself without means of casting spells.
Hm!
What about Baron Frostfel? What if he one day encountered, say, some particularly troublesome warlock or lich, with all its mana at the ready?
Jaina could not in good conscience let him go back to guard Lordaeron completely unprepared. What would Kalira say if he ended up frozen into a statue?
Except for asking which way the responsible party went and suggest that he warmed himself up again by hacking the left regiment of minions apart while she took the right, of course.
"Theramore! Shall I begin?!" Jaina yelled at the crowd.
There was just a spell of stunned silence, before she was met by a roar of affirmation.
And then Jaina disappeared in a flash…
…and reappeared instantly behind the Baron's back.
"Shield up, Baron Frostfel! I will not wield itzelf!" Jaina shouted and swatted him hard across his backside with her practice sword. Then she was off again in a blink and landed on the opposite end of the practice ring.
"By Ze Fair Lady, zere is a storm brewing! Of rain or snow or worse!" Baron Frostfel exclaimed like a wizened old fisherman who could tell the shifts of the weather from his aching leg.
He laughed merrily with the audience while wasting no time adjusting to the new rules of the game. Now he did his best to rush Jaina while changing direction erratically to throw her aim off.
Jaina would take him up on the storms. She couldn't hurl a real ice storm at him of course but there were a lot of smaller, better and funnier methods that were much more precise.
Forsaken still used their eyes to see with.
A gust of whirling snow blew up from nowhere and blinded the Baron while Jaina leapt out of the way. He countered by a wide whirling pattern of swings to catch her even with his sight impeded. Jaina immediately froze the nearby ground into a slippery ice floor and stopped the wind blowing, so that the Barom tumbled forward against the force of the gale that was no longer there.
"Remember our posture, when those charming ladies are watching!" Jaina advised cheekily. How she wished that Kalira's squadron could have been here now. "Now beware. Nilas' Nose-Freeze!"
Jaina pointed with her wooden sword and a heap of snow shot out and landed on the face of Baron Frostfel. Jaina was admittedly not sure Nilas Arcanister had ever thought of devising such a spell and even less sure that he would approve of naming it in such a way.
"Tirisfal Toe-Cracker!" That meant a barrage of sparks under the feet.
"Magic Missile!"
"Zat is in all honesty not very descriptive, Lady Proudmoore!"
"Summon Greater Land Shark!"
Jaina's illusions for the Loras children had been well and good for that audience but now she needed something grander. And the land shark that rose out of the ground amid writhing flames – because why not? – measured up to the challenge.
"Tyr's Beard! Begone! You are not –" the Baron exclaimed and leapt out of the way with a spin, but he had nothing for it, for the land shark turned in midair and swelled even more out of proportion so that when it landed it could swallow the peerless knight whole.
He was nowhere to be seen, until a wooden sword made trying waves through the belly of the frighteningly surreal shark.
"Hello? It is a tad dark inside here…" the Baron commented from inside Jaina's illusion. She snapped her fingers theatrically and it turned into bubbles that popped into nothing in the air.
She met the slightly dizzy eyes of Baron Frostfel, if the glowing Forsaken eyes could be called that. The next moment they both broke out laughing and the crowd followed and applauded the entertainment.
"I will look forward to zat posting as commander of northern Lordaeron. It will surely be much calmer zan zis wild city of sea monsters." the Baron told the audience and garnered some easy points.
Jaina decided that she had had her day's fill of fencing practice now and set a good example. Or…
There was a slight possibility that the world was not quite yet ready for land sharks in the training grounds.
When Jaina climbed back under the roped fence she came right upon Sylvanas, accompanied by Lyana, Clea and Kitala who all wore wide grins. Sylvanas managed to keep her face expressionless but Jaina could still recognise that she had to struggle to do so.
"Why, Dark Lady, what a delightful surprize! What do you zink about today's practise, did you catch zight of zat astounding intervention from ze fish kingdom?" Jaina burst out, still caught up in the Eastern Lordaeron accent.
Which she maybe, maybe wanted to be still caught up in because she maybe, maybe could tease the Dark Lady something terrible by overdoing it.
Sylvanas initially almost paled in horror but then she looked so sternly at Jaina that Jaina nearly shivered, and it was as if they were back in the Undercity and she acted the Dark Lady's disobedient pet again.
The dark rangers had set up a small camp around Jaina's tower.
It was a tangle of lines in all directions but at the same time very tidy and well ordered. They had to make use of every hold from the nearby trees to one of the lower windows. Inside were piled all of Jaina's chests and crates and all other things that had occupied her bedroom so they would be out of the way of Theramore's carpenter guild but still sheltered from the weather.
Anya had great fun when they presented Jaina with the surprise. Her soon-to-be-useable bedroom looked really large now that it was empty. They would be able to fit two rows of wardrobes on opposite sides of the new bed and have proper light coming in from the big windows that looked out south-west over most of Theramore and its bay. When the mist rose you could not see the marshlands and hills that lay beyond them and it was like the city lived inside its own little world.
When Jaina had fallen asleep Anya had climbed quietly over all the stuff and found a nook to sit in where she could look out of that window. Theramore looked so peaceful when the lights were lit everywhere. She had sat there and just looked for hours until it was her time to watch Jaina.
Now there were not a lot of nooks when their tents were so packed, but in some places you could sit, and the weather was clear so there was no danger in opening the chests to have a peek inside. Jaina allowed them to because Jaina was kind and lovely. Anya however had the feeling that she enjoyed having the opportunity to go through her own things more thoroughly than probably…ever. Or at least not since she had sailed from Dalaran in desperate hurry to get her fleet out of the Scourge's way.
It really was as if Jaina had never had time to make her own tower her home for real. She had barely unpacked her things since she moved in to sleep and work and occasionally eat in it. Perhaps that was the problem. You needed to do some little things that were just because you felt like doing them, to make it your very own den. Like reading something for fun and not for staying up to date with the umpteenth important report from the city council.
Because Jaina had those kinds of books too.
They were buried deep, deep at the bottom of one of her chests that looked like they had stood untouched for years. Anya loved them from the start. She had no idea about the content but the sight of the volumes made Jaina blush and shift between looking fond and self-conscious and that meant they were dear to her and also a little embarrassing.
The very best of books.
Clea and Kitala immediately dove into the treasure trove. Especially a series of very worn and used volumes filled with pictures of Kul Tiran mariners who could never remember to button their wind-catching shirts. It could very well be the overlaying plot, Anya thought. The quest of the missing buttons.
She thought one of the female mariners looked especially handsome. Except for the tricorne hat she looked just like Jaina did in her ranger clothing. Though Jaina seldom walked around with her shirt open like that and the mariner girl had not wrapped her chest like Jaina had taken to doing. It looked to Anya like she'd maybe like to do that if she was ever going to skip rope.
She wasn't staring.
Not…too much.
"Anya?"
Anya almost shot into the air. She had really let herself become distracted – dark ranger lieutenants shouldn't exactly do that – and now Jaina was looking kindly at her and she did not know a thing to say and wondered if Jaina had caught her staring at not-quite-but-almost-Jaina on her adventure novels.
"Secret message to Lazy Larva Lieutenant Eversong!" Jaina whispered loudly. "We are being watched."
She looked deviously around them and Anya followed her gaze to the nearest side-street.
Half a dozen small heads quickly withdrew back into hiding.
No!
No-no-no-no-no!
Curse and damn and all darkness take Anya for her stupidity! But what had she expected? They were in a city and cities had children. It was just plain luck they had not come close to any of them in the morning when they went to the see the carpenters.
She should run inside…or something. But what was she going to tell Jaina? Maybe…maybe if the rest of them were with her it wouldn't be so dangerous even if Sylvanas wasn't there. Jaina could…Jaina could cast something, if it was needed. So long as Anya stayed close to her, and could warn her in time.
But what if Jaina was hurt?
Anya edged away, she tried to edge away out of the picture like a very quiet shadow that no one would notice was gone. Of course Jaina noticed something immediately and took hold of her hand.
She couldn't walk out on Jaina. She just couldn't.
Lyana, Clea and Kitala had no time to dwell on the reluctance that must be written plainly all over her right now. They were digging into another of the long sea chests, one of those with Jaina's spare mage robes.
Kitala whistled appreciatively as she held up one white-gold-violet and official-looking such.
"Look what we have been missing out on all this time!"
"Next time you could let the mages you are stealing off with pack first. Just a tip." Jaina ribbed back.
"Where would be the fun in that? Dibs!"
Without further ado or any thought of, say, asking for permission, Kitala pulled the flowing garment over her head and begun wriggling into place into it. But she did so very carefully so as to not tear at any seam.
Lyana went over the rest of the content with great professional as well as personal interest. Anya was sure she was giving each piece of clothing a quick look for spider patterns which were regrettably lacking. Clea was too broad to dare to try one of the mage robes but she found a fur-trimmed very wintry cloak that would have been stifling for any warm-blooded creature to wear in this part of the world. Forsaken were not hindered by such trivialities from wrapping it around themselves and catching Jaina with one end.
"Ugh, too warm!" Jaina protested. "These are the winter robes, if anyone had failed to notice."
Lyana held up a matching thick wool robe and started to put it on. Anya was sure she would look very soft and huggable in it.
Kitala had gotten the magical gala dress in place and swaggered around in a way Anya was very sure the Kirin Tor did not when they had their meetings.
"Snowball Swarm!" Kitala chanted and pointed at Jaina. "Greater Tickling Curse!"
"Frog Form." Jaina countered and pointed back, and Kitala sat down and croaked very finely.
"Mana Bun Hex! Jaina is a mana bun – eat her, Anya, before she counters the spell!"
Jaina snorted with laughter when she spun around and looked over Anya the way she did when she was thinking of something. Then she took out another chest. It also held clothes but not so thick ones, they would be the summer robes Anya guessed. Jaina bent over and rummaged through the contents somewhere near the bottom.
She rose again holding a mostly white and violet robe. Mostly, because it was a little bit discoloured here and there and had suspicious scorch marks and a few tears that had been sewed back together. Whatever the piece had been through, it had had a most colourful career.
"My old apprentice robe." Jaina said affectionately and held it out to Anya. "Try it on!"
Wait, what?
Anya couldn't wear that, right? That robe was obviously something Jaina had kept for the sake of remembrance and what if Anya damaged it or –
Or nothing, because Jaina grinned while she half dressed Anya up like a doll and she could never take that away and just had to do her best to be her most careful.
Jaina's robe were just a tiny bit too large for her so it was very comfortable and easy to slip into. And it had been washed so many times that it was incredibly soft and gentle against her skin. Anya couldn't help stroking her cheek against a bit of the collar and one of the cuffs. Jaina's apprentice robes was as much a warm caress that it deserved to be named an honorary scarf.
"You make the cutest apprentice." Jaina mumbled.
"I would like to be able to do magic. Just a little bit."
"What would you do?"
"Warm my hands." Anya whispered glumly.
"Oh." Jaina stroked along her cheek and looked at her more kindly than ever if that was possible. "Anya, you could not be sweeter if Kitala had turned into a mana bun. Remember that cool hands are healing hands to me whenever I have a headache or a fever, which you know I am sensitive to. I would not trade yours for anything."
Anya believed her.
And she wasn't afraid anymore. Not when Jaina was there.
Jaina found a loose summer outfit for Clea to snuggle into and Lyana could take the wintry cloak to match her hideously warm robe. She looked very elegant like that.
"So! Now I have a magic ranger for every season and occasion!" Jaina concluded and admired her new chaotic fellow mages. "Tell you what; when I get my library in order – more in order – we will institute the Dark Ranger Bookshelf and you can choose whatever you would possibly like to have there."
"Only the most meticulously scrutinized and reviewed editions will make onto that illustrious display." Kitala agreed while skimming through the guilty literary pleasures of Jaina's youth, no doubt in search of the steamiest scenes to read out loud or worse.
"There are more watching us now." Clea observed.
She was right. Anya dared to throw a glance sideways. Their dress-up party had caused a small commotion of now barely hidden Theramorian boys and girls of every present race or size, who watched them mess with their ruling archmage with wide-eyed fascination.
Kitala went so far as to wave, followed by trailing mysterious patterns in the air that mages like Jaina presumably did before the most devastatingly explosive fire spells.
"Yes, please come." Jaina said half to herself. "See for yourselves how it is. The Forsaken are not our enemies."
"Maybe that actually is the answer." Clea mused.
"Which?" Kitala asked.
"Win the kids over. The adults will follow in their wake or be left behind one day."
"You dark rangers are certainly childish enough for it to be a perfect match." Jaina said cheekily.
"Then what about mages who won't eat their fish soup?" Lyana countered.
Almost a week had passed since their arrival.
Baron Frostfel had returned to the Undercity through one of Jaina's portals and they had received the all clear from the city's garrison. All was quiet in Lordaeron so far as they could tell. Anya and her squadron were out to do their time on manoeuvres with the other rangers and Theramore's patrols.
Sylvanas was worried about her.
Anya, you must come home. As in coming home after their tour of duty was finished. She had actually said it like that to Anya, as if they had a real, actual home. All of you must. There will be no arrows saved for a sister! You are coming home with empty quivers and dented blades and you are leaving no one out there!
The entire squadron had straightened reflexively at the attempt to hide her fretting under a commanding veneer but Clea had seen right through her.
Don't worry. We have her back.
Sylvanas had probably sounded worse than Areiel or even Amora at their worst. But she couldn't help it.
It had been an eternity since she had been worried in this way about Anya. Sure, the death and destruction of all of them was always a non-existent heartbeat away, but this was something else. This was the way Ranger Lieutenant Sylvanas had chilled inside at the thought of what might happen to her newest and most precious raven-haired ranger girl if she so much as turned her eyes away, cringing and mortified by the thought of anyone else or, Belore forbid, Anya herself finding out.
Because absolutely nothing at all was allowed to happen until – or after – she had been allowed to speak to Anya properly the way she ought to have already done days ago.
Not that Sylvanas had been overly afforded spare time, quite the opposite. It was not without reason she had to remain in the city – Theramore being the city this time – and for every figurative fire she put out two new flared up in its place.
Sylvanas would truly have it no other way because she knew that she was where she needed to be. Her administrative skills could be put to question but she knew how to lead and she knew what it was like being Forsaken. And so far her people's trust in herself and in Jaina and in their own sheer stubbornness in the face of insurmountable hardships had sufficed, but it was by barer margins every day and it was something she now had to speak seriously to Jaina about.
The two of them were kept busy from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn with every possible and impossible issue that arose from moving a contingent of undead into a fledgling city of the living and more to the point into its daily life. They were still tense and overly careful and nervous with each other like they were walking on glass. Or was it eggshells humans called it? Confusing as hell but probably much better for your feet to step on than broken glass…
Jaina made her lair in the city hall this week since her tower was occupied by a crew of busy carpenters well until evening, and also to pay homage to the hall's workplaces and present herself as more accessible when someone had something to take up with her.
Which someone indeed had. Sylvanas had to wait in line for quite some time outside Jaina's door. Velonara and similarly cheeky people would probably claim that it was a healthily humbling experience for queens and generals to stand in line and wait from time to time.
"…I will see what I can do." Sylvanas heard Jaina promise with stressed resignation as the door opened. She slid back into the shadows of another doorway and let a pair of dock workers with tar-stained clothes pass her by without noticing.
Jaina had not bothered or not thought of closing the door so Sylvanas slid quietly inside her temporary office. It had already become nearly as cluttered as her home.
"Hard meeting?"
Jaina yelped and twitched so that half a dozen papers and two quills fell to the floor.
"Sylvanas. Thank goodness, I almost thought it was more dockers coming to badger me about…for the love of mana I don't even understand what it really is about –" Jaina rambled while she reached down and half climbed out of her chair to retrieve the missing leaflets. Sylvanas knelt to help pick up two of them.
"I'm sorry, I'm a mess – or in a mess I should rightfully say – how have you been doing? This is ridiculous, here I am inviting you to my city wishing for you to have some nice, quiet time in peace and I leave you saddled with…" Jaina slumped back in her chair with a telling gesture at the mass of important correspondence in front of her.
"Hmm, yes… It is not like we decided to attempt any new ambitious diplomatic endeavours to pass the time in Theramore while we were at it." Sylvanas made a show of nodding sagely. It made Jaina smile. She looked like she was starting to relax.
"Really, how have you been? Are things as chaotic on your end too?"
"Without knowing the whole field I would still be inclined to answer yes, they most likely are, but in different manner. I came to talk to you about that, if you have the time? It will probably have us sitting here until evening."
"Yes! Yes, please, Sylvanas, I would really like nothing more. Take as much of my time as you possibly need. And sit down for mana's sake, if I have to look up at you all the time I'm going to both strain my neck and feel like I have done something gravely wrong that my ranger commander has come to reprimand me for. I hope I haven't. Have I?"
"No, I do not think you have, Lady Proudmoore. I am not sure I have either, in this unprecedented situation." Sylvanas said slowly took her seat opposite Jaina at the desk. "Would you prefer the easy things served first?"
"I fear that I will be wanting to have a couple of those in reserve to balance the difficult ones I sense looming on the horizon. No, do as you prefer. I am all ears in either case."
All adorable little mouse ears in either case but that was not a thought for here and now and not something Sylvanas should be thinking.
"Starting with what is working well it is just that. The work itself that my people has begun to undertake has presented no particular difficulty or hardship. It appears we have come more prepared with protective clothing than my sailors had to make do with. Captain Bonecarver and his crew appreciated their new gloves by the way."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Do you have something to eat? It is well past midday and since I am likely to keep you occupied for some time…"
"You as well…" Jaina pretended to give Sylvanas a long glare. "Yes, as a matter of fact I am well supplied thanks to an unholy conspiracy of Pained and dark rangers."
The mage held up a basket covered with a cloth which presumably contained something edible. A peculiar way to pack your provisions in Sylvanas' opinion but it was pleasant-looking.
"I am pleased to see that. May I recommend a heartening snack to take the edge off the dock workers' complaints while I relay some of the harder challenges we face?"
Jaina dutifully set the table with some bread and dried fruit and dug in – she was hungry – while Sylvanas described the situation she faced among the Forsaken.
"As I said the work itself presents no great difficulty except for the same issues the living have, such as shortage of tools and materials. The hard part for our artisans and builders are the relations with their colleagues."
"I mnknow, right?!" Jaina intoned between two bites of dried apples that she forced down so she could elaborate. "I've been seeing representatives of every single profession in the entire city! What the heck is it that they all want?!"
"They want assurances that they will not be rendered superfluous by an influx of free undead labour. They want to confirm and safeguard the power and influence of their guilds. And a significant number want to be able to do their work without having to lay eyes on anyone undead, much less speak to one." Sylvanas said, calm but firm. "You know this."
"Tides damn it…" Jaina just about sulked, but she did not contradict Sylvanas.
"We expected such opinions to be the main obstacle. That does not mean that being proven right is a pleasant experience."
"It's not the points they raise that are wrong. On the contrary, I will say that several – even most – are valid concerns and we have had them up for discussion more than once too. It's just…damn it…"
"You would have wanted those concerns to come together with a more generous disposition towards the Forsaken as a people." Sylvanas filled in.
"I would settle for a shred of common decency! I wouldn't count on anyone welcoming the Forsaken with open arms but…but to give people a fair chance."
"Those that hold up common decency as a standard to adhere to tend to find such decency anything but common." Sylvanas' tone let know that she was not disparaging.
"Elegant." Jaina rubbed her forehead and sighed. She was clearly frustrated with what they discussed. "I apologise, Sylvanas. That did not come out the way I wanted."
"Think nothing of it. I share your dissatisfaction with the way former Lordaeronians are treated by the same. But you and I should also be careful about how much we read into what we have heard so far. These petitioners and concerned voices may represent the general view or they may be a very vocal minority."
"We can have a certain capacity for imagining the worst…" Jaina mumbled. "Should we try to look at it objectively, compare notes?"
"We should."
They did just that, in detail and trade after trade. An hour went by before Sylvanas and Jaina had concluded several things.
The first was that their information was incomplete. They would need to sound out the Theramorian councillors and a number of other people Jaina trusted to give a level-headed and sincere account and hear their views on how the Forsaken labourers were regarded.
The second was that the issue was serious and vital enough to warrant permanent supervision. In hindsight there was no reason why they should appoint Pained to smoothen the integration of dark rangers into Theramore's guard and not do a similar thing for the civilian professions. The traditions and structures of guilds and similar organisations were already in place on both sides and ready to be used.
The third was to flip the board – Jaina's curious way to put it – on the sceptics and invite these representatives and worried citizens to join a new jointly formed governing body with the express objective of providing oversight on and easing all Theramorian-Forsaken matters. Since they had showed such notable spirit and engagement by bringing their concerns to Jaina.
Yes, Jaina was being exceedingly cheeky about the third measure. Sylvanas would probably not put it past her to begin their first meeting with asking the living and undead delegates to mingle until they had learned each other's names, relatives and favourite colours.
Relatives. Yes.
That brought them to another tender spot.
It was no secret that the search for living friends and family was the most important reason for many of the Forsaken who had joined Sylvanas in journeying to Theramore. That great work was still in its infancy compared to the mercantile matters.
It was also going distinctively worse.
No, it was not just that but almost everything except the strictly professional that was going distinctively worse. Perhaps she had been unwise in laying it out like it was even separate issues that could be summed up one after the other, for everything was connected. But Sylvanas functioned that way. She needed to group, sort and categorize things for her mind to make sense of the world. She had been praised as orderly and thorough many times in her life but in truth it was just how she worked.
Anya was her complete opposite. Anya's heart and mind was open to everything around her. She possessed remarkable skill and patience as a scout because she could watch all surroundings like it was the first time she saw them, and she succeeded as a squad leader by remaining attentive to the slightest shifts in her companions' mood and demeanour.
Jaina was somewhere in-between, or if it was more right to say that she had a bit of both Sylvanas and Anya in her way of thinking.
Jaina had the intellectual capacity to make deductions and conjectures on levels Sylvanas could only barely trace. Jaina also had a heart great enough that no matter how easily she would follow the underlying logic of what Sylvanas was about to elaborate on, it was likely to make her weep.
"Lady Proudmoore. There are some things I need to tell you about…about the Forsaken in Theramore. You will not enjoy hearing it."
Jaina swallowed. She was meeting Sylvanas' eyes with unhidden apprehension.
"You know of course that a significant part of the Forsaken who accompanied me here did so above all else out of hope of finding someone of their still living kin. And that is in turn just one facet of the myriad of ways in which we can dream of once more, somehow, belonging to the world of the living." Sylvanas begun to explain. She dearly wanted Jaina to understand, not just assimilate the facts, but understand what lay behind and beneath.
"I know that. You described to me how there are some of your people who feel that way and others who…who want the opposite."
"Yes. This schism – this fundamental and often conflicting difference in philosophy and outlook and view of what it means to be Forsaken – divides our people more than anything else. Only dire necessity keeps us all together as a nation. You have seen firsthand how volatile situations this can spark."
Jaina nodded very solemnly.
"When I sailed for Theramore it was a last ditch effort, a desperate gamble. We had been turned down by any other potential ally within reach. My people had come to blows with each other in their bitterness over the previous rejections. I believe we were on the verge of disintegrating as a nation during that time."
"I am…so glad you came." Jaina almost whispered.
My little mage. I am too. If only so that I could rock you back to sleep and force a few nice fishes down your throat. How frail you looked when you first came aboard.
"What I am trying to approach in a convoluted way is that that for many of those that are here with me, Theramore is the last chance. There have been immense expectations and hopes placed on this event of which many have not been met."
"Please go on." Her mage listened with rapt attention. "I have to admit that I probably don't fully understand how all these things connect, and I will not pretend to."
"I think you understand us far better than you give yourself credit for, Lady Proudmoore." Sylvanas said thoughtfully. "We are not nearly done with the investigative endeavour of listing present Forsaken and comparing names against Theramore's citizens, and of course such an undertaking – enterprise, I was going to say – is complicated by most Lordaeronians not using family names, or using names that are too generic to be of help. Fords and Lanes only get us so far."
"Standing in stark contrast to that plethora of elven names which do not refer to the sun or the forest."
Sylvanas flashed her a grin.
"Exquisite riposte. What is happening right now instead is that people are searching on their own as best they can for those they can. And the city is not overly large."
"It is…not going well?" Jaina's expression showed that she could tell where this was leading.
"I do not know for sure. This is a highly personal and private matter to most people and what I see could be only the worst cases. One girl cried for her parents outside a closed door. None would open. Those sort of things."
"No! I didn't know that! It's horrible, Tides, I –" A bout of coughing drowned out whatever else she had been about to say. Sylvanas continued while Jaina drank some water and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
"I always send company and have them preferably notify a city guard if they can to smoothen these attempts. But it is what it is. Most of my time has been taken up with the search for relatives and handling the aftermath."
"Poor thing…"
"A third wants to go back to Lordaeron. They think it was a mistake coming here."
Jaina looked devastated.
"I expected that something like this could happen. I have not allowed them to and I have appealed to their sense of obligation to honour our promise to work for Theramore, for now. We need time to let all of this sink in and let everyone come to terms with the situation."
"You are right, of course you are right, but…I just wish all could be gentler…"
"You would fix and heal us and be a balm for our sorrows if you could, Lady Proudmoore. I know that."
"Right now I fear that my invitation was a stupid thing altogether."
"No. We are not beaten yet, you and I. Nor is everything going badly and you are leading us fine by example. Your squire turned guard sergeant, Rodrick? I have talked at length with the deathguards that were his former companions. I have not demanded anything of anyone but from what I can tell they are coming to terms with him being alive while they are not."
"That's…that's good at least."
"I saw myself forced to remind them how my ranger mage was a rather special case to get used to and obviously it will be harder for others."
"Will it?"
"Of course it will." Sylvanas could not see how that could even be a question. "You were altogether helpful and charming from the start, disarmingly so."
Jaina waved that flattery away but she looked a little bit happier and that was what counted.
"As a matter of fact I could use some of those abilities tonight. There is a boy, well, young man who asked me to accompany him stealthily. He believes he has a lead on an old flame that he attempted to escape from Stratholme with and wants to see if it is her. Would My Lady like to accompany me on a quiet nightly stroll while I chaperone this touching reunion?"
"I need to have my ears looked at. For a moment there I thought you said quiet, nightly stroll."
"Well, if it comes to Wailing you need only raise your arcane shields and teleport the other party to safety. You know the drill."
Dark rangers were keeping watch over the road in the night. They waved and showed a quick 'all clear' in their sign language when Sylvanas and Jaina passed by and Sylvanas confirmed it in the same manner. Both of them stayed a discreet twenty steps behind their ward, wrapped in shadows and an invisibility spell.
Jaina knew the place they were going to – Jaina knew most things that there were to know about Theramore – and it was very helpful to have her along in addition to comforting. Sylvanas was not untouched by the grief she had dealt with these last days…they had been both trying and disturbing.
Jaina's company made her both stronger and more vulnerable to such things. She found herself thinking of her scar more than in a long time. Without the bulwark that her all-consuming vengefulness used to provide.
"It is the fourth house from the left ahead." Jaina whispered from her side and pulled Sylvanas back to the present.
"Thank you. Then we can stay here by the cover of this wall. It looks like it is going to rain."
"This is a real fine night for a walk, isn't it? But I'm glad you suggested it, I need to remember to go out more when I'm working."
"I think Areiel could offer some ideas for wholesome morning exercises to clear the head in preparation for a long day."
"Don't even think about it. Shush! Someone's opening the door."
Jaina was right. They were too far away for even Sylvanas to be able to catch anything of the conversation above the rising wind and rain. Though the shrill scream reached them.
"That does it…"
"Hold on. Let's see if they can work through it."
"So she lives there. And…not alone."
"Indeed not."
They abided silently and watched the altercation, or shocked conversation, from afar. The rain in the air was turning it damp and misty.
"Would you consider it eavesdropping to move close enough to hear what is being said?"
"Kind of. But if the idea of us being here is to be able to intervene if something goes wrong there is something to be said for actually knowing what's going on."
"My point exactly. And maybe conversations in the middle of the street ought not to count as fully confidential."
"Speaking of which, what if someone overhears us talking? Or more precisely you talking to yourself." Jaina stage whispered out of nowhere.
"Naturally they will put it down to the innate and widely known eccentricity of us ghostly queens."
"Ah, that eccentricity. Then it is well that the good people of Theramore are so used to the same from the crazy witch that rules them, albeit she collects dark rangers instead of cats."
Sylvanas likely fit the described picture when she turned to the side and put a finger on her lips to sign to the proverbial thin air – in truth damp and thick – to be quiet so they could listen from the shadows to three voices, two living and one Forsaken.
"…waited for you!"
"Then that was stupid and nearly made it all for nothing. Good thing you caught some sense and got out of there."
"I couldn't just leave you!"
"I knew that. That's why I heaved that rock in the skull of that ghoul. You couldn't run with those petticoats snagging your legs."
"What happened to you then?"
"I led the bastard into the left alley, only it leads to the yard of a smithy and is a dead end. Which she didn't know because she's from the east end of Stratholme. I was going to climb the roof but as it turned out it was a bit too high and those ghouls could leap. The rest..."
"What…what now?"
"You two go on and make something worthwhile out of this. I keep at it being immortal, or rot and fall apart one day, knowing I spited those fuckers of one more soul at least."
"You should have a statue, brother."
"Take care of her. 'S all I care about."
"Does it hurt? …that?"
"Not in the way you think."
Sylvanas knew that was the end of the conversation even before he had turned and started to walk away towards the city gates. When he passed she took a step forward and revealed herself, and they exchanged nods before he disappeared in the mist toward the waiting dark rangers.
She found the need to correct herself.
He was definitely not a boy.
"All things considered they are doing better than most." Sylvanas observed when she followed her mage home, lowly so that only Jaina would hear. "If this is the fabled human teenage drama I would be inclined to take it over much else I could mention."
Jaina huffed as if she was trying hard to suppress a giggle.
"Though I had better consult those more knowledgeable first, before rendering judgement of things outside my area of expertise."
"I, ehm, I wasn't very good at that, I think. Mostly bookworm. Just the…talked about engagement."
"Would that not have been drama enough?"
"Yes, it was, but apart from – after that – I wasn't very outgoing and such, like a lot of other magical students in Dalaran. I was no Jaina Prowlmoore."
"Elves grow at a different rate than humans, but I think I understand how you mean. In all honesty you have had your hands full through several years but it is never too late to pick up the slack as they say. Just an…elven perspective."
Jaina stood unfazed before calamitous powers but could be made to blush and squirm by the simplest words. She was adorable when she did and utterly lovely to tease, but Sylvanas knew she should not bother her too much. This was after all a sensitive subject at heart.
"I'm…I'm not much apart from my magic and my position." Jaina confessed. "And I think I am afraid – that is, I would be afraid – to cause a great inequality through my superior position as Theramore's leader. I don't know how I should think as a ruler…I try to be kind and not make too much of a point about it but I also don't want to forget what I am and take for granted that people can relax in my presence and such…"
Sylvanas understood, oh how she understood so very, very much.
"Adhering too much to such concerns can lead down a path of loneliness I can not recommend anyone of walking…though I share the fears you have given voice to of abusing ones position, Lady Proudmoore. But you do succeed in being kind and you need neither your position nor your magic to be a wonderful person that anyone would be lucky to have. And don't you dare think otherwise, little mage."
"No, Dark Lady." Jaina said shyly.
Jaina's good mood continues to shine like a bright flame for the Forsaken in Theramore but will even such radiant luminescence be enough?
The Theramorian training grounds were nowhere near as elaborate as the Forsaken ones. The only thing they had in great supply was sand – which was fortunate enough in Jaina's opinion. People tended to forget or ignore the benefits of a friendly pile of cushioning grains when other people did their best to relocate you to the very same.
Now they were here – meaning herself and the Baron and a number of unfortunate city guards including his old squire Rodrick, together with a hesitant number of spectators that shifted between keeping their distance and acting like they were only really passing by and had just happened to stop for a quick look.
Thank goodness the Baron looked so comparatively intact. He was certainly old old, but not withered old like the ancients of Alfred's kind. That did not stop the Baron in the slightest from wearing his age well and shamelessly baiting the half as young guards to challenge him.
"Humour an old knight with both feet in ze grave, good Sir. Surely a bout with such a frail and creaking elder baron will not more zan mildly inconvenience you." he implored blithely to the cluster of presumed opponents.
Rodrick, who stood next to Jaina in the forefront of ze audience – the audience of course, huffed.
"Like we never heard that old tune before…" he snorted and was not buying into his old teacher's tricks the slightest.
The participants were not wearing armour except for light padding and wielded practice swords made of tightly strung stems of a kind of reed-like huge grass that grew in abundance in the nearby marshes. They would not break bones but were sure to hurt more than enough if you got hit. Baron Frostfel made his look rather tiny when he awaited his opponent with it deceptively lowered.
Once the gruff Theramorian footman, who had both sword and shield properly raised, had come within range the Baron whipped his weapon up and swatted his opponent on the knee in the process.
"Politeness is a virtue among friends, but do not return ze favour if your foe appears to let his guard down." he offered as a friendly reminder.
It did not do much to dispel the dourness and dark glare he got from his sparring partner. The 'partner' bit of it being currently questionable. Jaina knew that she could let events play out as they willed but she felt much too exuberant not to want nudge them a little in the right direction. This was her day and she wouldn't let anyone's grumpiness put a damper on it.
So she nudged. Rodrick, more specifically.
"Maybe this calls for someone a little more welcoming from our side to set an example." Jaina whispered to him.
Rodrick did not flinch as such but Jaina could see him tensing up momentarily, before he sighed inaudibly in acceptance.
"You know that he is proud of you, even if you aren't." Jaina tried to put all the sincerity she could into that insistent whisper that maybe was blunt, but she knew by heart that sometimes what you needed to hear was allowed to be just that.
Rodrick slowly climbed under the ropes fencing the practice field and went to retrieve a set of gear for himself. Baron Frostfel beamed – not many undead could truly do that – and looked just as proud as Jaina had insisted.
"Let me guess, you will have something to say about the way I hold the shield again, Baron Sir?" Rodrick said a little resigned but also with the hint of some good-natured reminiscence hidden behind.
"First let us talk about your posture, my boy. No slouching, but no tensing up either."
"It is always one or the other. I swear I'm starting to think he's just making this up." Rodrick said it half to himself and half to the audience, which his unenthusiastic precursor had now joined.
"Ha! Do not discount ze little things, my boy. A noble posture is always worth maintaining no matter ze occasion. Why, who can tell whenever one of ze fair girls of Theramore have you in her sights? Zey are sly, and you may find yourself weighed and measured when you least expect!" the Baron advised as he circled his former – but not former enough – squire, who kept pace while looking very much like Jaina felt much too often in certain other Forsaken company.
"Baron, please! Weren't we supposed to be sparring?"
"A, forgive an old man his forgetfulness." Baron Frostfel backhanded Rodrick very hard, who caught the hit on the shield with practiced ease. "Perhaps a recurring case of premature death-ness. You were yet unmarried, was zat zo?"
"Death-ness?! There must be some sort of line that one crossed, Sir" Rodrick parried three succeeding swings with sharp thwacks while Jaina had to struggle to maintain her neutral expression.
Tides, no wonder the Baron and Ranger Captain Areiel got along so well. There seemed to be some worryingly similar traits that old teachers everywhere shared, Jaina thought while thinking of Archmage Modera.
Rodrick, for all initial reluctance he may have displayed, took the lesson in stride. He defended himself well even as the Baron cheerfully pounded his shield almost to splinters and drove his pupil from one edge of the sands to the other while keeping up a steady stream of merciless pointers interlaced with unrelenting interrogation.
"Shield up, Rodrick, I have told you zat a hundred times! Ze shield will not spring to our defense, we must wield it just as much as ze sword! How is ze country upland of here, are you able to keep horses about?"
"Yes, scarcely few. Grazing is sparse and the gnats coming up from the marshes are hard on the animals." Rodrick countered with a quick slash at the Baron's sword arm.
"It pleases me to hear. Take good care of zem, and don't forget to keep up with riding practice – shield up, my boy! And by ze way, ze sight of a man showing how he cares for his horse can move ze heart of many a young lady."
"For goodness' sake, Baron Sir! Can we talk about something else?"
His flustered squire charged forward in desperate attempt to keep both their attention centred on the here and now and nothing other.
He had a point though, Jaina thought as her mind turned to Kalira's squadron and Westley. She wondered if she should find a convenient opportunity to let slip that not as young but equally fair ladies reputedly had their soft spots for dashing knights too. It would only be equal and fair, wouldn't it?
"A knight must not allow himself to be distracted by ze underhanded taunts of his opponent. And should you have ze opportunity, a leisurely ride in ze countryside is as classic a move as zey come."
Rodrick groaned.
Jaina knew the situation around them was more than serious, she knew that the shared past of Baron Frostfel and Rodrick was a hard and heavy thing to handle. And still she could not for the love of mana stop herself from breaking into a wide smile at the two of them bickering and out of pity for Rodrick's plight.
Finally both lowered their practice swords and the Baron patted him on the shoulder with some last-minute reminder squeezed in. Then one spectator hesitantly took up clapping, another followed, and the day was won when the next Theramorian guard took up position, this one far more sporting than the first but understandably wary.
There followed then a series of sound thrashings of the pride of her city state, Jaina conceded. The grizzled death knight harried every opponent with deluges of wrecking hits high and low only matched by the downpour of aggravatingly on-the-point reminders whenever one missed or omitted something noteworthy.
Just like the Dark Lady would do when she chased you around the Forsaken arena. Although Sylvanas did not plague her victims with obviously blatant falsehoods about how old and feeble she was. Not that Sylvanas failed to be every time as distracting, in her own particular way.
Jaina had survived the predatory Dark Lady, the lecturing Irizadan and the outrageous Areiel before. Maybe she should give it a go? After all, the name of the game was friendly sparring and if she asked Rodrick to set an example…fair was only fair.
No more had she begun to raise her hand the next time Baron Frostfel asked for another Theramorian fencer when her city guards and a good deal of the passers-by that mysteriously found time to linger ever longer ushered her forward with glee.
"Ehm, could I begin at page level, my good Baron?" Jaina pleaded after she had braided her hair and donned a moderately ill-fitting gambeson.
"But of course! One zing at a time and you shall have the pages for a whole book, Lady Proudmoore." Baron Frostfel turned the metaphors upside-down.
Alright. Sword and board. Block and dodge. Just like Irizadan and Areiel did all the time. Jaina could do this –
BANG.
All of her shook from the impact or so it felt like. Mana-based shielding was so much more cushioning as a matter of fact.
Shouldn't they, like, be conservative and try not to go through the city's supply of practice shields at too quick a rate?
"Keep your guard up, Lady Proudmoore! Ze shield is a valuable tool but zere is no point in blocking for ze sake of it. Now parry or dodge. Eyes up!"
Sensible people relocated to another spot when a lot of vicious strikes started to rain down on them from above. Preferably with a teleport spell.
The principle was more or less the same as when tumbling about with Sylvanas – uhm, training, which was the more correct and appropriate wording. She had to try and anticipate where the next strike would fall and find a way to disrupt it. You did that in an endless variation of counter-striking or angling your blade or shield to direct the force of the blow away; that she knew. It was just that executing that sort of move when you were jumping around with your heartbeat somewhere in your throat and all your limbs either too stiff or too shaky was quite another thing.
The day was fresh with pleasantly cool temperatures for Theramore and a healthy breeze, but nothing that would stop Jaina from sweating like it was high summer in no time. She had not landed a single hit on her own but she could not say that she had really expected to either.
From the bright side of things – huff! – it was good that they had knights of high standards to lead their charges – huff! – wasn't it? This was a – huff! – good learning experience!
For her at least, should she ever find herself without means of casting spells.
Hm!
What about Baron Frostfel? What if he one day encountered, say, some particularly troublesome warlock or lich, with all its mana at the ready?
Jaina could not in good conscience let him go back to guard Lordaeron completely unprepared. What would Kalira say if he ended up frozen into a statue?
Except for asking which way the responsible party went and suggest that he warmed himself up again by hacking the left regiment of minions apart while she took the right, of course.
"Theramore! Shall I begin?!" Jaina yelled at the crowd.
There was just a spell of stunned silence, before she was met by a roar of affirmation.
And then Jaina disappeared in a flash…
…and reappeared instantly behind the Baron's back.
"Shield up, Baron Frostfel! I will not wield itzelf!" Jaina shouted and swatted him hard across his backside with her practice sword. Then she was off again in a blink and landed on the opposite end of the practice ring.
"By Ze Fair Lady, zere is a storm brewing! Of rain or snow or worse!" Baron Frostfel exclaimed like a wizened old fisherman who could tell the shifts of the weather from his aching leg.
He laughed merrily with the audience while wasting no time adjusting to the new rules of the game. Now he did his best to rush Jaina while changing direction erratically to throw her aim off.
Jaina would take him up on the storms. She couldn't hurl a real ice storm at him of course but there were a lot of smaller, better and funnier methods that were much more precise.
Forsaken still used their eyes to see with.
A gust of whirling snow blew up from nowhere and blinded the Baron while Jaina leapt out of the way. He countered by a wide whirling pattern of swings to catch her even with his sight impeded. Jaina immediately froze the nearby ground into a slippery ice floor and stopped the wind blowing, so that the Barom tumbled forward against the force of the gale that was no longer there.
"Remember our posture, when those charming ladies are watching!" Jaina advised cheekily. How she wished that Kalira's squadron could have been here now. "Now beware. Nilas' Nose-Freeze!"
Jaina pointed with her wooden sword and a heap of snow shot out and landed on the face of Baron Frostfel. Jaina was admittedly not sure Nilas Arcanister had ever thought of devising such a spell and even less sure that he would approve of naming it in such a way.
"Tirisfal Toe-Cracker!" That meant a barrage of sparks under the feet.
"Magic Missile!"
"Zat is in all honesty not very descriptive, Lady Proudmoore!"
"Summon Greater Land Shark!"
Jaina's illusions for the Loras children had been well and good for that audience but now she needed something grander. And the land shark that rose out of the ground amid writhing flames – because why not? – measured up to the challenge.
"Tyr's Beard! Begone! You are not –" the Baron exclaimed and leapt out of the way with a spin, but he had nothing for it, for the land shark turned in midair and swelled even more out of proportion so that when it landed it could swallow the peerless knight whole.
He was nowhere to be seen, until a wooden sword made trying waves through the belly of the frighteningly surreal shark.
"Hello? It is a tad dark inside here…" the Baron commented from inside Jaina's illusion. She snapped her fingers theatrically and it turned into bubbles that popped into nothing in the air.
She met the slightly dizzy eyes of Baron Frostfel, if the glowing Forsaken eyes could be called that. The next moment they both broke out laughing and the crowd followed and applauded the entertainment.
"I will look forward to zat posting as commander of northern Lordaeron. It will surely be much calmer zan zis wild city of sea monsters." the Baron told the audience and garnered some easy points.
Jaina decided that she had had her day's fill of fencing practice now and set a good example. Or…
There was a slight possibility that the world was not quite yet ready for land sharks in the training grounds.
When Jaina climbed back under the roped fence she came right upon Sylvanas, accompanied by Lyana, Clea and Kitala who all wore wide grins. Sylvanas managed to keep her face expressionless but Jaina could still recognise that she had to struggle to do so.
"Why, Dark Lady, what a delightful surprize! What do you zink about today's practise, did you catch zight of zat astounding intervention from ze fish kingdom?" Jaina burst out, still caught up in the Eastern Lordaeron accent.
Which she maybe, maybe wanted to be still caught up in because she maybe, maybe could tease the Dark Lady something terrible by overdoing it.
Sylvanas initially almost paled in horror but then she looked so sternly at Jaina that Jaina nearly shivered, and it was as if they were back in the Undercity and she acted the Dark Lady's disobedient pet again.
***
The dark rangers had set up a small camp around Jaina's tower.
It was a tangle of lines in all directions but at the same time very tidy and well ordered. They had to make use of every hold from the nearby trees to one of the lower windows. Inside were piled all of Jaina's chests and crates and all other things that had occupied her bedroom so they would be out of the way of Theramore's carpenter guild but still sheltered from the weather.
Anya had great fun when they presented Jaina with the surprise. Her soon-to-be-useable bedroom looked really large now that it was empty. They would be able to fit two rows of wardrobes on opposite sides of the new bed and have proper light coming in from the big windows that looked out south-west over most of Theramore and its bay. When the mist rose you could not see the marshlands and hills that lay beyond them and it was like the city lived inside its own little world.
When Jaina had fallen asleep Anya had climbed quietly over all the stuff and found a nook to sit in where she could look out of that window. Theramore looked so peaceful when the lights were lit everywhere. She had sat there and just looked for hours until it was her time to watch Jaina.
Now there were not a lot of nooks when their tents were so packed, but in some places you could sit, and the weather was clear so there was no danger in opening the chests to have a peek inside. Jaina allowed them to because Jaina was kind and lovely. Anya however had the feeling that she enjoyed having the opportunity to go through her own things more thoroughly than probably…ever. Or at least not since she had sailed from Dalaran in desperate hurry to get her fleet out of the Scourge's way.
It really was as if Jaina had never had time to make her own tower her home for real. She had barely unpacked her things since she moved in to sleep and work and occasionally eat in it. Perhaps that was the problem. You needed to do some little things that were just because you felt like doing them, to make it your very own den. Like reading something for fun and not for staying up to date with the umpteenth important report from the city council.
Because Jaina had those kinds of books too.
They were buried deep, deep at the bottom of one of her chests that looked like they had stood untouched for years. Anya loved them from the start. She had no idea about the content but the sight of the volumes made Jaina blush and shift between looking fond and self-conscious and that meant they were dear to her and also a little embarrassing.
The very best of books.
Clea and Kitala immediately dove into the treasure trove. Especially a series of very worn and used volumes filled with pictures of Kul Tiran mariners who could never remember to button their wind-catching shirts. It could very well be the overlaying plot, Anya thought. The quest of the missing buttons.
She thought one of the female mariners looked especially handsome. Except for the tricorne hat she looked just like Jaina did in her ranger clothing. Though Jaina seldom walked around with her shirt open like that and the mariner girl had not wrapped her chest like Jaina had taken to doing. It looked to Anya like she'd maybe like to do that if she was ever going to skip rope.
She wasn't staring.
Not…too much.
"Anya?"
Anya almost shot into the air. She had really let herself become distracted – dark ranger lieutenants shouldn't exactly do that – and now Jaina was looking kindly at her and she did not know a thing to say and wondered if Jaina had caught her staring at not-quite-but-almost-Jaina on her adventure novels.
"Secret message to Lazy Larva Lieutenant Eversong!" Jaina whispered loudly. "We are being watched."
She looked deviously around them and Anya followed her gaze to the nearest side-street.
Half a dozen small heads quickly withdrew back into hiding.
No!
No-no-no-no-no!
Curse and damn and all darkness take Anya for her stupidity! But what had she expected? They were in a city and cities had children. It was just plain luck they had not come close to any of them in the morning when they went to the see the carpenters.
She should run inside…or something. But what was she going to tell Jaina? Maybe…maybe if the rest of them were with her it wouldn't be so dangerous even if Sylvanas wasn't there. Jaina could…Jaina could cast something, if it was needed. So long as Anya stayed close to her, and could warn her in time.
But what if Jaina was hurt?
Anya edged away, she tried to edge away out of the picture like a very quiet shadow that no one would notice was gone. Of course Jaina noticed something immediately and took hold of her hand.
She couldn't walk out on Jaina. She just couldn't.
Lyana, Clea and Kitala had no time to dwell on the reluctance that must be written plainly all over her right now. They were digging into another of the long sea chests, one of those with Jaina's spare mage robes.
Kitala whistled appreciatively as she held up one white-gold-violet and official-looking such.
"Look what we have been missing out on all this time!"
"Next time you could let the mages you are stealing off with pack first. Just a tip." Jaina ribbed back.
"Where would be the fun in that? Dibs!"
Without further ado or any thought of, say, asking for permission, Kitala pulled the flowing garment over her head and begun wriggling into place into it. But she did so very carefully so as to not tear at any seam.
Lyana went over the rest of the content with great professional as well as personal interest. Anya was sure she was giving each piece of clothing a quick look for spider patterns which were regrettably lacking. Clea was too broad to dare to try one of the mage robes but she found a fur-trimmed very wintry cloak that would have been stifling for any warm-blooded creature to wear in this part of the world. Forsaken were not hindered by such trivialities from wrapping it around themselves and catching Jaina with one end.
"Ugh, too warm!" Jaina protested. "These are the winter robes, if anyone had failed to notice."
Lyana held up a matching thick wool robe and started to put it on. Anya was sure she would look very soft and huggable in it.
Kitala had gotten the magical gala dress in place and swaggered around in a way Anya was very sure the Kirin Tor did not when they had their meetings.
"Snowball Swarm!" Kitala chanted and pointed at Jaina. "Greater Tickling Curse!"
"Frog Form." Jaina countered and pointed back, and Kitala sat down and croaked very finely.
"Mana Bun Hex! Jaina is a mana bun – eat her, Anya, before she counters the spell!"
Jaina snorted with laughter when she spun around and looked over Anya the way she did when she was thinking of something. Then she took out another chest. It also held clothes but not so thick ones, they would be the summer robes Anya guessed. Jaina bent over and rummaged through the contents somewhere near the bottom.
She rose again holding a mostly white and violet robe. Mostly, because it was a little bit discoloured here and there and had suspicious scorch marks and a few tears that had been sewed back together. Whatever the piece had been through, it had had a most colourful career.
"My old apprentice robe." Jaina said affectionately and held it out to Anya. "Try it on!"
Wait, what?
Anya couldn't wear that, right? That robe was obviously something Jaina had kept for the sake of remembrance and what if Anya damaged it or –
Or nothing, because Jaina grinned while she half dressed Anya up like a doll and she could never take that away and just had to do her best to be her most careful.
Jaina's robe were just a tiny bit too large for her so it was very comfortable and easy to slip into. And it had been washed so many times that it was incredibly soft and gentle against her skin. Anya couldn't help stroking her cheek against a bit of the collar and one of the cuffs. Jaina's apprentice robes was as much a warm caress that it deserved to be named an honorary scarf.
"You make the cutest apprentice." Jaina mumbled.
"I would like to be able to do magic. Just a little bit."
"What would you do?"
"Warm my hands." Anya whispered glumly.
"Oh." Jaina stroked along her cheek and looked at her more kindly than ever if that was possible. "Anya, you could not be sweeter if Kitala had turned into a mana bun. Remember that cool hands are healing hands to me whenever I have a headache or a fever, which you know I am sensitive to. I would not trade yours for anything."
Anya believed her.
And she wasn't afraid anymore. Not when Jaina was there.
Jaina found a loose summer outfit for Clea to snuggle into and Lyana could take the wintry cloak to match her hideously warm robe. She looked very elegant like that.
"So! Now I have a magic ranger for every season and occasion!" Jaina concluded and admired her new chaotic fellow mages. "Tell you what; when I get my library in order – more in order – we will institute the Dark Ranger Bookshelf and you can choose whatever you would possibly like to have there."
"Only the most meticulously scrutinized and reviewed editions will make onto that illustrious display." Kitala agreed while skimming through the guilty literary pleasures of Jaina's youth, no doubt in search of the steamiest scenes to read out loud or worse.
"There are more watching us now." Clea observed.
She was right. Anya dared to throw a glance sideways. Their dress-up party had caused a small commotion of now barely hidden Theramorian boys and girls of every present race or size, who watched them mess with their ruling archmage with wide-eyed fascination.
Kitala went so far as to wave, followed by trailing mysterious patterns in the air that mages like Jaina presumably did before the most devastatingly explosive fire spells.
"Yes, please come." Jaina said half to herself. "See for yourselves how it is. The Forsaken are not our enemies."
"Maybe that actually is the answer." Clea mused.
"Which?" Kitala asked.
"Win the kids over. The adults will follow in their wake or be left behind one day."
"You dark rangers are certainly childish enough for it to be a perfect match." Jaina said cheekily.
"Then what about mages who won't eat their fish soup?" Lyana countered.
***
Almost a week had passed since their arrival.
Baron Frostfel had returned to the Undercity through one of Jaina's portals and they had received the all clear from the city's garrison. All was quiet in Lordaeron so far as they could tell. Anya and her squadron were out to do their time on manoeuvres with the other rangers and Theramore's patrols.
Sylvanas was worried about her.
Anya, you must come home. As in coming home after their tour of duty was finished. She had actually said it like that to Anya, as if they had a real, actual home. All of you must. There will be no arrows saved for a sister! You are coming home with empty quivers and dented blades and you are leaving no one out there!
The entire squadron had straightened reflexively at the attempt to hide her fretting under a commanding veneer but Clea had seen right through her.
Don't worry. We have her back.
Sylvanas had probably sounded worse than Areiel or even Amora at their worst. But she couldn't help it.
It had been an eternity since she had been worried in this way about Anya. Sure, the death and destruction of all of them was always a non-existent heartbeat away, but this was something else. This was the way Ranger Lieutenant Sylvanas had chilled inside at the thought of what might happen to her newest and most precious raven-haired ranger girl if she so much as turned her eyes away, cringing and mortified by the thought of anyone else or, Belore forbid, Anya herself finding out.
Because absolutely nothing at all was allowed to happen until – or after – she had been allowed to speak to Anya properly the way she ought to have already done days ago.
Not that Sylvanas had been overly afforded spare time, quite the opposite. It was not without reason she had to remain in the city – Theramore being the city this time – and for every figurative fire she put out two new flared up in its place.
Sylvanas would truly have it no other way because she knew that she was where she needed to be. Her administrative skills could be put to question but she knew how to lead and she knew what it was like being Forsaken. And so far her people's trust in herself and in Jaina and in their own sheer stubbornness in the face of insurmountable hardships had sufficed, but it was by barer margins every day and it was something she now had to speak seriously to Jaina about.
The two of them were kept busy from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn with every possible and impossible issue that arose from moving a contingent of undead into a fledgling city of the living and more to the point into its daily life. They were still tense and overly careful and nervous with each other like they were walking on glass. Or was it eggshells humans called it? Confusing as hell but probably much better for your feet to step on than broken glass…
Jaina made her lair in the city hall this week since her tower was occupied by a crew of busy carpenters well until evening, and also to pay homage to the hall's workplaces and present herself as more accessible when someone had something to take up with her.
Which someone indeed had. Sylvanas had to wait in line for quite some time outside Jaina's door. Velonara and similarly cheeky people would probably claim that it was a healthily humbling experience for queens and generals to stand in line and wait from time to time.
"…I will see what I can do." Sylvanas heard Jaina promise with stressed resignation as the door opened. She slid back into the shadows of another doorway and let a pair of dock workers with tar-stained clothes pass her by without noticing.
Jaina had not bothered or not thought of closing the door so Sylvanas slid quietly inside her temporary office. It had already become nearly as cluttered as her home.
"Hard meeting?"
Jaina yelped and twitched so that half a dozen papers and two quills fell to the floor.
"Sylvanas. Thank goodness, I almost thought it was more dockers coming to badger me about…for the love of mana I don't even understand what it really is about –" Jaina rambled while she reached down and half climbed out of her chair to retrieve the missing leaflets. Sylvanas knelt to help pick up two of them.
"I'm sorry, I'm a mess – or in a mess I should rightfully say – how have you been doing? This is ridiculous, here I am inviting you to my city wishing for you to have some nice, quiet time in peace and I leave you saddled with…" Jaina slumped back in her chair with a telling gesture at the mass of important correspondence in front of her.
"Hmm, yes… It is not like we decided to attempt any new ambitious diplomatic endeavours to pass the time in Theramore while we were at it." Sylvanas made a show of nodding sagely. It made Jaina smile. She looked like she was starting to relax.
"Really, how have you been? Are things as chaotic on your end too?"
"Without knowing the whole field I would still be inclined to answer yes, they most likely are, but in different manner. I came to talk to you about that, if you have the time? It will probably have us sitting here until evening."
"Yes! Yes, please, Sylvanas, I would really like nothing more. Take as much of my time as you possibly need. And sit down for mana's sake, if I have to look up at you all the time I'm going to both strain my neck and feel like I have done something gravely wrong that my ranger commander has come to reprimand me for. I hope I haven't. Have I?"
"No, I do not think you have, Lady Proudmoore. I am not sure I have either, in this unprecedented situation." Sylvanas said slowly took her seat opposite Jaina at the desk. "Would you prefer the easy things served first?"
"I fear that I will be wanting to have a couple of those in reserve to balance the difficult ones I sense looming on the horizon. No, do as you prefer. I am all ears in either case."
All adorable little mouse ears in either case but that was not a thought for here and now and not something Sylvanas should be thinking.
"Starting with what is working well it is just that. The work itself that my people has begun to undertake has presented no particular difficulty or hardship. It appears we have come more prepared with protective clothing than my sailors had to make do with. Captain Bonecarver and his crew appreciated their new gloves by the way."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Do you have something to eat? It is well past midday and since I am likely to keep you occupied for some time…"
"You as well…" Jaina pretended to give Sylvanas a long glare. "Yes, as a matter of fact I am well supplied thanks to an unholy conspiracy of Pained and dark rangers."
The mage held up a basket covered with a cloth which presumably contained something edible. A peculiar way to pack your provisions in Sylvanas' opinion but it was pleasant-looking.
"I am pleased to see that. May I recommend a heartening snack to take the edge off the dock workers' complaints while I relay some of the harder challenges we face?"
Jaina dutifully set the table with some bread and dried fruit and dug in – she was hungry – while Sylvanas described the situation she faced among the Forsaken.
"As I said the work itself presents no great difficulty except for the same issues the living have, such as shortage of tools and materials. The hard part for our artisans and builders are the relations with their colleagues."
"I mnknow, right?!" Jaina intoned between two bites of dried apples that she forced down so she could elaborate. "I've been seeing representatives of every single profession in the entire city! What the heck is it that they all want?!"
"They want assurances that they will not be rendered superfluous by an influx of free undead labour. They want to confirm and safeguard the power and influence of their guilds. And a significant number want to be able to do their work without having to lay eyes on anyone undead, much less speak to one." Sylvanas said, calm but firm. "You know this."
"Tides damn it…" Jaina just about sulked, but she did not contradict Sylvanas.
"We expected such opinions to be the main obstacle. That does not mean that being proven right is a pleasant experience."
"It's not the points they raise that are wrong. On the contrary, I will say that several – even most – are valid concerns and we have had them up for discussion more than once too. It's just…damn it…"
"You would have wanted those concerns to come together with a more generous disposition towards the Forsaken as a people." Sylvanas filled in.
"I would settle for a shred of common decency! I wouldn't count on anyone welcoming the Forsaken with open arms but…but to give people a fair chance."
"Those that hold up common decency as a standard to adhere to tend to find such decency anything but common." Sylvanas' tone let know that she was not disparaging.
"Elegant." Jaina rubbed her forehead and sighed. She was clearly frustrated with what they discussed. "I apologise, Sylvanas. That did not come out the way I wanted."
"Think nothing of it. I share your dissatisfaction with the way former Lordaeronians are treated by the same. But you and I should also be careful about how much we read into what we have heard so far. These petitioners and concerned voices may represent the general view or they may be a very vocal minority."
"We can have a certain capacity for imagining the worst…" Jaina mumbled. "Should we try to look at it objectively, compare notes?"
"We should."
They did just that, in detail and trade after trade. An hour went by before Sylvanas and Jaina had concluded several things.
The first was that their information was incomplete. They would need to sound out the Theramorian councillors and a number of other people Jaina trusted to give a level-headed and sincere account and hear their views on how the Forsaken labourers were regarded.
The second was that the issue was serious and vital enough to warrant permanent supervision. In hindsight there was no reason why they should appoint Pained to smoothen the integration of dark rangers into Theramore's guard and not do a similar thing for the civilian professions. The traditions and structures of guilds and similar organisations were already in place on both sides and ready to be used.
The third was to flip the board – Jaina's curious way to put it – on the sceptics and invite these representatives and worried citizens to join a new jointly formed governing body with the express objective of providing oversight on and easing all Theramorian-Forsaken matters. Since they had showed such notable spirit and engagement by bringing their concerns to Jaina.
Yes, Jaina was being exceedingly cheeky about the third measure. Sylvanas would probably not put it past her to begin their first meeting with asking the living and undead delegates to mingle until they had learned each other's names, relatives and favourite colours.
Relatives. Yes.
That brought them to another tender spot.
It was no secret that the search for living friends and family was the most important reason for many of the Forsaken who had joined Sylvanas in journeying to Theramore. That great work was still in its infancy compared to the mercantile matters.
It was also going distinctively worse.
No, it was not just that but almost everything except the strictly professional that was going distinctively worse. Perhaps she had been unwise in laying it out like it was even separate issues that could be summed up one after the other, for everything was connected. But Sylvanas functioned that way. She needed to group, sort and categorize things for her mind to make sense of the world. She had been praised as orderly and thorough many times in her life but in truth it was just how she worked.
Anya was her complete opposite. Anya's heart and mind was open to everything around her. She possessed remarkable skill and patience as a scout because she could watch all surroundings like it was the first time she saw them, and she succeeded as a squad leader by remaining attentive to the slightest shifts in her companions' mood and demeanour.
Jaina was somewhere in-between, or if it was more right to say that she had a bit of both Sylvanas and Anya in her way of thinking.
Jaina had the intellectual capacity to make deductions and conjectures on levels Sylvanas could only barely trace. Jaina also had a heart great enough that no matter how easily she would follow the underlying logic of what Sylvanas was about to elaborate on, it was likely to make her weep.
"Lady Proudmoore. There are some things I need to tell you about…about the Forsaken in Theramore. You will not enjoy hearing it."
Jaina swallowed. She was meeting Sylvanas' eyes with unhidden apprehension.
"You know of course that a significant part of the Forsaken who accompanied me here did so above all else out of hope of finding someone of their still living kin. And that is in turn just one facet of the myriad of ways in which we can dream of once more, somehow, belonging to the world of the living." Sylvanas begun to explain. She dearly wanted Jaina to understand, not just assimilate the facts, but understand what lay behind and beneath.
"I know that. You described to me how there are some of your people who feel that way and others who…who want the opposite."
"Yes. This schism – this fundamental and often conflicting difference in philosophy and outlook and view of what it means to be Forsaken – divides our people more than anything else. Only dire necessity keeps us all together as a nation. You have seen firsthand how volatile situations this can spark."
Jaina nodded very solemnly.
"When I sailed for Theramore it was a last ditch effort, a desperate gamble. We had been turned down by any other potential ally within reach. My people had come to blows with each other in their bitterness over the previous rejections. I believe we were on the verge of disintegrating as a nation during that time."
"I am…so glad you came." Jaina almost whispered.
My little mage. I am too. If only so that I could rock you back to sleep and force a few nice fishes down your throat. How frail you looked when you first came aboard.
"What I am trying to approach in a convoluted way is that that for many of those that are here with me, Theramore is the last chance. There have been immense expectations and hopes placed on this event of which many have not been met."
"Please go on." Her mage listened with rapt attention. "I have to admit that I probably don't fully understand how all these things connect, and I will not pretend to."
"I think you understand us far better than you give yourself credit for, Lady Proudmoore." Sylvanas said thoughtfully. "We are not nearly done with the investigative endeavour of listing present Forsaken and comparing names against Theramore's citizens, and of course such an undertaking – enterprise, I was going to say – is complicated by most Lordaeronians not using family names, or using names that are too generic to be of help. Fords and Lanes only get us so far."
"Standing in stark contrast to that plethora of elven names which do not refer to the sun or the forest."
Sylvanas flashed her a grin.
"Exquisite riposte. What is happening right now instead is that people are searching on their own as best they can for those they can. And the city is not overly large."
"It is…not going well?" Jaina's expression showed that she could tell where this was leading.
"I do not know for sure. This is a highly personal and private matter to most people and what I see could be only the worst cases. One girl cried for her parents outside a closed door. None would open. Those sort of things."
"No! I didn't know that! It's horrible, Tides, I –" A bout of coughing drowned out whatever else she had been about to say. Sylvanas continued while Jaina drank some water and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
"I always send company and have them preferably notify a city guard if they can to smoothen these attempts. But it is what it is. Most of my time has been taken up with the search for relatives and handling the aftermath."
"Poor thing…"
"A third wants to go back to Lordaeron. They think it was a mistake coming here."
Jaina looked devastated.
"I expected that something like this could happen. I have not allowed them to and I have appealed to their sense of obligation to honour our promise to work for Theramore, for now. We need time to let all of this sink in and let everyone come to terms with the situation."
"You are right, of course you are right, but…I just wish all could be gentler…"
"You would fix and heal us and be a balm for our sorrows if you could, Lady Proudmoore. I know that."
"Right now I fear that my invitation was a stupid thing altogether."
"No. We are not beaten yet, you and I. Nor is everything going badly and you are leading us fine by example. Your squire turned guard sergeant, Rodrick? I have talked at length with the deathguards that were his former companions. I have not demanded anything of anyone but from what I can tell they are coming to terms with him being alive while they are not."
"That's…that's good at least."
"I saw myself forced to remind them how my ranger mage was a rather special case to get used to and obviously it will be harder for others."
"Will it?"
"Of course it will." Sylvanas could not see how that could even be a question. "You were altogether helpful and charming from the start, disarmingly so."
Jaina waved that flattery away but she looked a little bit happier and that was what counted.
"As a matter of fact I could use some of those abilities tonight. There is a boy, well, young man who asked me to accompany him stealthily. He believes he has a lead on an old flame that he attempted to escape from Stratholme with and wants to see if it is her. Would My Lady like to accompany me on a quiet nightly stroll while I chaperone this touching reunion?"
"I need to have my ears looked at. For a moment there I thought you said quiet, nightly stroll."
"Well, if it comes to Wailing you need only raise your arcane shields and teleport the other party to safety. You know the drill."
***
Dark rangers were keeping watch over the road in the night. They waved and showed a quick 'all clear' in their sign language when Sylvanas and Jaina passed by and Sylvanas confirmed it in the same manner. Both of them stayed a discreet twenty steps behind their ward, wrapped in shadows and an invisibility spell.
Jaina knew the place they were going to – Jaina knew most things that there were to know about Theramore – and it was very helpful to have her along in addition to comforting. Sylvanas was not untouched by the grief she had dealt with these last days…they had been both trying and disturbing.
Jaina's company made her both stronger and more vulnerable to such things. She found herself thinking of her scar more than in a long time. Without the bulwark that her all-consuming vengefulness used to provide.
"It is the fourth house from the left ahead." Jaina whispered from her side and pulled Sylvanas back to the present.
"Thank you. Then we can stay here by the cover of this wall. It looks like it is going to rain."
"This is a real fine night for a walk, isn't it? But I'm glad you suggested it, I need to remember to go out more when I'm working."
"I think Areiel could offer some ideas for wholesome morning exercises to clear the head in preparation for a long day."
"Don't even think about it. Shush! Someone's opening the door."
Jaina was right. They were too far away for even Sylvanas to be able to catch anything of the conversation above the rising wind and rain. Though the shrill scream reached them.
"That does it…"
"Hold on. Let's see if they can work through it."
"So she lives there. And…not alone."
"Indeed not."
They abided silently and watched the altercation, or shocked conversation, from afar. The rain in the air was turning it damp and misty.
"Would you consider it eavesdropping to move close enough to hear what is being said?"
"Kind of. But if the idea of us being here is to be able to intervene if something goes wrong there is something to be said for actually knowing what's going on."
"My point exactly. And maybe conversations in the middle of the street ought not to count as fully confidential."
"Speaking of which, what if someone overhears us talking? Or more precisely you talking to yourself." Jaina stage whispered out of nowhere.
"Naturally they will put it down to the innate and widely known eccentricity of us ghostly queens."
"Ah, that eccentricity. Then it is well that the good people of Theramore are so used to the same from the crazy witch that rules them, albeit she collects dark rangers instead of cats."
Sylvanas likely fit the described picture when she turned to the side and put a finger on her lips to sign to the proverbial thin air – in truth damp and thick – to be quiet so they could listen from the shadows to three voices, two living and one Forsaken.
"…waited for you!"
"Then that was stupid and nearly made it all for nothing. Good thing you caught some sense and got out of there."
"I couldn't just leave you!"
"I knew that. That's why I heaved that rock in the skull of that ghoul. You couldn't run with those petticoats snagging your legs."
"What happened to you then?"
"I led the bastard into the left alley, only it leads to the yard of a smithy and is a dead end. Which she didn't know because she's from the east end of Stratholme. I was going to climb the roof but as it turned out it was a bit too high and those ghouls could leap. The rest..."
"What…what now?"
"You two go on and make something worthwhile out of this. I keep at it being immortal, or rot and fall apart one day, knowing I spited those fuckers of one more soul at least."
"You should have a statue, brother."
"Take care of her. 'S all I care about."
"Does it hurt? …that?"
"Not in the way you think."
Sylvanas knew that was the end of the conversation even before he had turned and started to walk away towards the city gates. When he passed she took a step forward and revealed herself, and they exchanged nods before he disappeared in the mist toward the waiting dark rangers.
She found the need to correct herself.
He was definitely not a boy.
"All things considered they are doing better than most." Sylvanas observed when she followed her mage home, lowly so that only Jaina would hear. "If this is the fabled human teenage drama I would be inclined to take it over much else I could mention."
Jaina huffed as if she was trying hard to suppress a giggle.
"Though I had better consult those more knowledgeable first, before rendering judgement of things outside my area of expertise."
"I, ehm, I wasn't very good at that, I think. Mostly bookworm. Just the…talked about engagement."
"Would that not have been drama enough?"
"Yes, it was, but apart from – after that – I wasn't very outgoing and such, like a lot of other magical students in Dalaran. I was no Jaina Prowlmoore."
"Elves grow at a different rate than humans, but I think I understand how you mean. In all honesty you have had your hands full through several years but it is never too late to pick up the slack as they say. Just an…elven perspective."
Jaina stood unfazed before calamitous powers but could be made to blush and squirm by the simplest words. She was adorable when she did and utterly lovely to tease, but Sylvanas knew she should not bother her too much. This was after all a sensitive subject at heart.
"I'm…I'm not much apart from my magic and my position." Jaina confessed. "And I think I am afraid – that is, I would be afraid – to cause a great inequality through my superior position as Theramore's leader. I don't know how I should think as a ruler…I try to be kind and not make too much of a point about it but I also don't want to forget what I am and take for granted that people can relax in my presence and such…"
Sylvanas understood, oh how she understood so very, very much.
"Adhering too much to such concerns can lead down a path of loneliness I can not recommend anyone of walking…though I share the fears you have given voice to of abusing ones position, Lady Proudmoore. But you do succeed in being kind and you need neither your position nor your magic to be a wonderful person that anyone would be lucky to have. And don't you dare think otherwise, little mage."
"No, Dark Lady." Jaina said shyly.
