#or two he betrays Sylvanas but like for her own good?

[1296-very-good-year]

Sylvanas and the Jailer

I feel like it’s a fair complaint that there is just.. a lot we haven’t seen about the relationship between our two Big Bads that explains all the relevant character and story beats happening with Sylvanas right now. HOWEVER, I’d like to lay out what we do know, and I think its enough to intuit what exactly the context of their relationship was/is. 

Side note: Yes, Zovaal is still horribly underdeveloped and hopefully that changes soon. We still don’t know how he managed to convince the literal Paragon of Loyalty (Devos) to betray her covenant and there better be a damn good reason.

So at the very base of it, Sylvanas and Zovaal decided to work together to tear down the system they both hate and build a fairer one in its place. When they were about to reach that goal, Zovaal reveals he never intended to honor the “fairer system” part of the deal so Sylvanas turns on him. I find it fascinating that although Zovaal clearly betrayed her, a lot of people frame this moment as Sylvanas betraying him. He just declared he wanted everyone and everything forced to serve him, and somehow it’s Sylvanas doing the betraying. Interesting...

Anyway, the biggest complaint from the raid finale people seem to have is: 

How could she be so stupid to believe the JAILER wanted to give everyone free will? (Actually what a lot of people were thinking was “Goddamnit! I wanted to kill that bitch!” but they weren’t all just going to say that outright so they latched on to something more reasonable to explain why they’re mad)

So let’s think about that complaint for a second!

First of all, we don’t know if she fully believed him. They had a deal and he broke it. We don’t know yet if she had a plan in case that happened. We have to wait to find out. 

My speculation is Anduin managed to convince her to come up with contingencies - if she didn’t have any already - considering Zovaal literally gets into his head to possess him. Anduin could have learned his true intentions in time to warn her.

But why would she make a deal with this clearly evil guy in the first place?

Think about what we’ve been told already:

The Eternal Ones locked Zovaal away with domination magic, but was eventually able to free himself enough to turn that magic into a weapon against his jailers and had no concern for who got hurt along the way.

Sound familiar?

Arthas turned Sylvanas into an undead slave with domination magic, she was eventually freed and used her new banshee magic against the one who enslaved her and had no concern for who got hurt along the way.

I don’t see anyone talking about this very obvious parallel! Why wouldn’t Sylvanas see the Jailer as a mirror of herself to relate to? Someone she can project her own ambitions and hurt and anger onto? We don’t have the details about how they met yet, but I guarantee Zovaal used their similarity to convince her to help him. And based on her knowledge and fear that she was damned to the Maw when she died, it would be completely out of character if she didn’t side with the guy trying to bust it open. 

And remember, Zovaal is only using domination magic because his siblings bound him with it first! That horrible power that Arthas used to enslave Sylvanas? That was first used against Zovaal. This is why I don’t get the complaint that Zovaal is the reason for every bad thing that’s happened to her so she should hate him.

Yes he made Frostmourne and the Helm that gave Arthas the ability to do what he did to her, but 1) the lich kings were Zovaal’s only means of getting his influence out of the Maw to crack it open and 2) the game dialogue has made it clear that Zovaal did not control the lich kings like he wanted to and they all had free will. They were corrupted, not controlled. Arthas himself decided to raise Sylvanas and torture and enslave her, no one told him to do that. If you want to get technical it was Ner’zhul telling Arthas to attack the Sunwell which led him to Sylvanas, but Zovaal didn’t control Ner’zhul either.

With that said though, I can definitely see her redirecting her hatred for Arthas on to Zovaal now that she’s learned what his real intentions for getting free were. And he looks a lot like Lich King Arthas with his fancy new armor so that will be pretty easy to do. 

#god i have so much more to say #i dunno how to put things under the cut so i'll just make little posts #why am i so fixated on this story #probably cuz its told so slowly ughghghgh #sylvanas windrunner #the jailer #zovaal #shadowlands spoilers #who else #anduin wrynn #arthas

[tess-grey-maned]

Prompt list eh? 👀 👀👀How bout some Thalyssra/Sylv with either the "I love you, but stop talking" or the marshmallow one above it

I HOPE YOU ARE PREPARED COS THIS FOOL DID BOTH

Here, have some Thalvanas, and thank you so much for your prompt @addicted-to-procrastination !! <3

   Thalyssra clatters through the door, dumps her keys in the bowl, throws her bag on the counter as usual and narrowly misses a neatly-iced cake.

 “I love you, but stop talking.”

[EDIT: taken references to police out of the fic. Author does not and will never support police brutality, especially racially motivated, in any of its forms. We're here for soft happy lesbians and that's it thank you.]

   “Fuck!” Rushing to steady it on its plastic stand, Thalyssra peers down at the delicate piping on the top. “I’m sorry? Sylvanas! Why is there an apology cake on the counter? I told you I didn’t care about the Thalassian soup incident, it was a terrible hob anyway and the dry cleaners did a great job on my… Sylv? Where are you?”

   No answer.

   “SYLVANAS WINDRUNNER! I’m being very serious now!”

   Her only answer is the gentle ticking of her grandmother’s leyline clock in the hallway.

   Sylvanas’s Doc Martens are still on the shoe rack. A sleepy bark betrays Dori as dozing in his favourite sunny spot in the living room. An elderly, tatty Eastern Kingdoms PI lanyard is dumped beside the blazer Thalyssra draped over her fiancée’s shoulders this morning.

  Why would she leave when everything is going so well-

   Why would she leave her beloved dog, why would she leave a cake of all things and not a note, Sylvanas loves being passive-aggressive with notes, come on Thalyssra get a grip-

   Is it because we argued about the wedding? About how long into the evening she works? Is she embarrassed that I earn more than her, has she- has she found someone else to go hunting in Eversong with and drink those hideous Thalassian herb cocktails with? Is it Jaina? Someone else as smart and determined as Sylvanas, someone else who talks about everything and nothing with her, like I do, until she’s four glasses of mana-wine down and she’s too tipsy to do anything other than fall on top of them and snuggle into them like she snuggles into me-

   “Thal?”

   Thalyssra looks up to a smirking Sylvanas, hair in disarray, teeth glinting in the evening sun.

   Slumps in relief until Sylvanas steps closer, and those sunbeams catch on the right eye ringed with bruising and the neatly-stitched laceration running through her lower lash line-

   “We got him. We got Menethil, Thalyssra, Lor’themar found his hard drive and a couple of phones dumped in the fireplace but the idiot forgot he’d got it backed up to his cloud and you know how smart Jaina is, she had his login details within seconds, Belore I nearly kissed her when she showed us all the files she’d found and we got him!” Thalyssra’s tugged forwards and into a frantic kiss but Sylvanas has dodged away before she can deepen it, grabbing a bulging folder off the dining table and holding it aloft like a trophy. “There’s proof of his links to Kel’thuzad, and Garrosh Hellscream, and it’s not just drugs he’s been distributing- though we found enough evidence afterwards up in his attic, Belore the smell alone, I might be a bit high- but Jaina found evidence that he’d been involved in trafficking people into Gilneas and now I have to talk to fucking Greymane of all the private investigators, and of course Daddy Menethil has been supplying him with phony bank accounts and funnelling his cut back through the Bank of Lordaeron and with him implicated too, we could be even closer to tracking Kel’thuzad’s movements through the Eastern Kingd-”

   She’s cut off by Thalyssra’s lips on hers.

   Sylvanas tastes sweet, like Thalassian tea, and Thalyssra wraps her arms around her and deepens the kiss. Hears a little murmur of appreciation as she presses in with her tongue. She smells of tulip perfume, and antiseptic, and the soft earthy warmth that has Thalyssra stealing her pillow on mornings when Sylvanas has to be in early, just for a few more breaths of her.

   She breaks the kiss to press their foreheads together, her one hand stroking down the nape of Sylvanas’s neck. Her heart is still pounding in her throat. “What is the cake for?” she murmurs.

   “The- Lor’themar said to get one. Thought that by the time I told you I ran after Menethil with no backup, you’d be too full of sugar to tear into me for it-”

   “You did what?”

   There’s a pause.

   “Shit,” Sylvanas mumbles. “I’m definitely a bit high.”

   Pushing her back, Thalyssra glares down at her. “Why would you do something so fucking stupid? And this is the result, no doubt.” She reaches up to caress Sylvanas’s bruised cheekbone with the pad of her thumb; Sylvanas flinches, unable to meet Thalyssra’s eyes. “Sylv, you’re smarter than that. You knew he was violent.”

   “Yes.” Finally, those hard eyes meet hers. “And the last time we went after him, he hurt Jaina. Nobody hurts my friend and walks away, Thalyssra. Nobody. I care nothing of how rich or entitled he is. Besides.” She bares her fangs in a smug grin, and lifts her bruised knuckles up. “I can be violent too.”

   “I know.” Thalyssra bends closer, stroking Sylvanas’s hair back to press a feather-light kiss to her eyebrow. Can’t help closing her eyes to breathe in that familiar scent. I thought I’d really lost you. “But I know you’re reckless when you’re angry. And from the looks of it… he knew that, too.”

   Sylvanas opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks away.

   Squeezing her arm, Thalyssra lets her go and walks round into the kitchen. “Go and sit on the sofa. I’ll bring you some ice for your eye. Put one of your awful Thalassian comedies on the TV and stay.”

   With me, forever and ever, she wants to say and doesn’t.

   But when she turns back round from the medical cabinet, Sylvanas is only a few steps behind her, now flanked by a lynx-hound intent on bathing her hands in kisses. “It was my hunch,” she announces, bending to scritch Dori behind the ears as he groans in delight. “I told Lor’themar he’d go to ground, and we knew that the property was a holiday home of sorts but it was me who connected it to Hellscream and do you know how I did that? By putting his friend Nazgrim under surveillance for two weeks and having Anya report directly to me every-”

   Thalyssra places a finger over that soft, full mouth. “I love you,” she murmurs against the shell of Sylvanas’s ear, and delights in the shiver that runs up and down her body. “But stop talking.” Hears Sylvanas draw in a sharp breath only for Thalyssra to swoop in and steal it with another kiss. “You don’t need to prove to me how clever you are. I’m not your minn’da. To the sofa with you.” And she gently takes hold of Sylvanas’s shoulders and guides her towards the sofa.

   “Fine,” Sylvanas mutters, and flops inelegantly onto the heaped cushions. “But I hope back to back episodes of Sunsail and Sex aren’t too mind-numbing for- ooftBelorehoundyouareheavy!”

   “Good boy, Dori!” Thalyssra sniggers as a pillow bounces off her side. “Bad girl, Sylvanas. Naughty. Naughty girl.”

   “Keep talking to me like that and I might find I’m no longer in the mood to show you just how naughty I can be.”

   “Nightwell save us from such a fate, Sylvanas.”

   The TV flashes into life, and Sylvanas laughs at Dori’s playful attempts to steal the remote control from her fingers. “Thal?”

   “Yes, dalah?”

   “Can you bring the cookies with you? I’ve got the munchies.”

 -0-0-

 Extra prompt:

 “You’re basically a marshmallow. Perfect for cuddling.”

   They lead the first dance.

   Thalyssra walks with her new wife to the dance floor and pulls her into her arms as the first few notes play. Sylvanas’s silken curls brush the back of her palm, in time with the rhythm they catch and start to sway to; her dress- Thalassian red, in spite of Lireesa’s protests- rustles like blades of grass against her legs. Her intricately embroidered sleeves prickle Thalyssra’s own unadorned arms.

   Thalyssra revels in the sight of her, so majestic and beautiful, and delights in the splay of her fingers against the warm, soft skin of Sylvanas’s exposed back.

   It is a simple Thalassian waltz. Lirath, perched on the stage beside the microphone, plays with tears in his eyes.

   “Was it what you thought it would be?” Sylvanas murmurs. Her voice is low. Her eyes never leave Thalyssra’s. “The ceremony.”

   “More or less, though you were far more gorgeous than I dared hope.” But the smile she was hoping for doesn’t come. “Was it what you thought?”

   Sylvanas does look away then. Her fingers toy with the zip of Thalyssra’s gown.

   “Later, you impatient wretch. Come on. Out with it.” Thalyssra reaches up to tickle her fingertips along that strong jawline. “Was it my gown? I know you’re none too fond of dusk purple. Or did one of my cousins make some stupid comment-”

   “I thought I was supposed to feel some rush of emotion,” Sylvanas blurts out. Her muscles stiffen beneath Thalyssra’s hands. “Some overwhelming- love, or possessiveness, or pride, or- and instead I felt… relieved. That it would soon be over, and we could slip out of the spotlight. That I could just have you to myself.”

   “You weren’t supposed to feel anything.” Thalyssra bends to press a kiss to her forehead. There are other couples venturing onto the floor now, Alleria with her girlfriend Alexstrasza, Ly’leth and Margaux swaying off-beat with their gazes fixed on one another. “There is no one way to marry me. As for some great flurry of emotion- I need no fancy declaration to know you love me.”

   “Do you not?”

   Thalyssra turns them, to shield Sylvanas’s face from the crowd. She won’t let them see her vulnerable. No-one but Thalyssra may see Sylvanas doubting herself. “You tell me you love me when you bring me coffee in the morning before you go to work. When you come racing home through the rush hour traffic because you promised to make dinner tonight. When you hide tickets to Suramar theatre plays in my nightstand and when you worship my every inch in bed. I don’t need you to break down and profess your undying devotion, you know.” She strokes her fingers down Sylvanas’s collarbone and presses them to the crimson fabric over her heart. “I know it’s there. And here.”

   And she reaches down to squeeze Sylvanas’s butt.

   “Stop molesting my poor innocent sister!” Alleria yells from within Alexstrasza’s arms. Sylvanas snorts with laughter, arching an elegant brow. “She’s so sweet and pure!”

   Lirath cackles into his pipes. “Is she Helheim!” he calls down. “About as innocent as you are!”

   Laughter rings out across the room, but it’s Sylvanas’s little chuckle that sounds the sweetest in Thalyssra’s ears, as her new wife rests her head on Thalyssra’s shoulder and closes her eyes.

   The last notes of the waltz fade away. Lirath bows quickly, blowing Rommath a kiss from across the room as he hops down amidst the scattered applause and scoots off towards the buffet.

   “You know, I didn’t feel that rush either, as we stood at the altar,” Thalyssra murmurs as Lirath’s album starts to play over the speakers. “That rush you speak of. But you know when I did? I felt it two days ago, when I cut myself on the vegetable peeler and you had a band-aid on it before I had even finished whinging.” She reaches up to stroke Sylvanas’s cheekbone with the still-tender tip of her index finger. “I looked at you, bent over my hand with your whole face scrunched up in concentration, dabbing that antiseptic as though it were a matter of life and death. And I thought, by the Nightwell, I’m marrying this woman.”

   Sylvanas doesn’t move, but Thalyssra can feel her lips curl into a smile against the tender skin of her neck.

   They stay there, arms round one another, watching in silence as Belore creeps below the horizon and bathes the sky in swathes of pink and red.

   “I would go and get some food from the buffet,” Thalyssra mumbles into Sylvanas’s hair, absent-mindedly fiddling with the hook fastening at the nape of her new wife’s neck. Her new wife. “But I can’t seem to entertain the thought of letting go of you.”

   “Mmn, so don’t.” Sylvanas’s eyes catch the red of the sunset when they open and look up into hers. “There will be food in Eversong.”

   “You’d better not go feral hunter on me. Not out of the bedroom, anyway.”

   “It’s a tent. There is only bedroom.”

   “My point still stands. Come now, my marshmallow. You haven’t eaten eith-”

   “What,” Sylvanas growls, shoving half-heartedly at Thalyssra’s chest, “did you just call me?”

   “I worry you might grow tired of cherry pie. And you are basically a marshmallow.” Thalyssra meets Sylvanas’s mock outrage with a soft, indulgent smile. “Perfect for cuddling.” And she kisses the faux scowl off her new wife’s mouth.

   My new wife.

   “We’re not cuddling,” Sylvanas mutters against her mouth the moment they break the kiss. “This is an embrace. It is not a cuddle.”

   “Whatever you say. My marshmallow.”

   “O Belore.” Sylvanas sighs, long and melodramatic, and Thalyssra swallows back the laughter building in her chest. “Would that I had brought the divorce papers with me today.”

   Chuckling, Thalyssra tips Sylvanas’s head up, and kisses her again.

#sylvanas windrunner #thalyssra #first arcanist thalyssra #thalvanas #fanfiction #fanfic prompt #sweet wow lesbians #many thanks to you!

[kektrain]

The broken vail: Those who walk after and the future

#Neo Astil RP stuffs. #Gettin that Shadowlands train rolling

[moonlitarrow]

Work In Progress

As darkness swallowed her, Gavriyal was consumed by so many emotions. Fear for her family, anger for Alenras’s boldness, apprehension for his motives. Resolve that she would never allow him to keep her from seeing her family, her child again. The last thing she could hear was Estel’s cries as she faded into unconsciousness.

When she woke, Gavriyal was surprised to realize that she was laying on a mattress. She was stripped of any weaponry she’d still had on her person--the dagger she’d grabbed as she’d been dragged through the floor gone. The room she was being kept in was of a fair size, but barren of any other furniture--as well as no windows, and no doors. Smooth stone made up the chamber. There were no chisel marks or tool marks, almost as though the chamber itself had just been formed naturally, rather than being carved away. Her brother’s magic, undoubtedly. She didn’t want to know just how he managed it, nor whether or not his magic would keep providing her with air. 

The door that opened had not been there a moment prior. There had been no noise to indicate its appearance, and none as it opened. Gavriyal sat up, scooting her back against the wall behind herself. No weapons, no armor… she was at Alenras’s mercy here and she hated that feeling. 

“Ah, she wakes.” Alenras said as he entered the room, smirking at her. His body language was relaxed, at ease--even amiable. Gliding into the room as though he was some magnanimous host, offering his hospitality--as though he had not spirited her away from her home, under duress. 

Gavriyal narrowed her eyes at him. The effect was not quite as dramatic, as her eyepatch was still on; so it was more like she narrowed her good eye at him. Oh, she wanted to hit him. To tear him apart--after he’d dared touch her wife, assaulted her husband and even touched their baby… “Now you have me. What now, Alenras? If you plan to kill me, can we at least make it a fair fight?”

“Always so direct, and so fierce. Even when we were children, as I recall. I dread what your daughter will be like--perhaps she’ll resemble her mother in demeanor more. We can hope.” Alenras said, smirking at her snarl in reply. “But, that is not why I’ve brought you here. I’ll dispense with the courting and frippery for your benefit.” He moved to stand in front of her, his stance solid and sure. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but recently--today, in fact--the blighted Banshee Queen has gone and done the unthinkable. I had thought that creating me was the extent of her depravity, but it seems she has yet to show her true colors to us.”

“And this has what to do with me?” Gavriyal asked, her tone flat as she moved to sit on the edge of the mattress he’d left her on. “We’ve all known the banshee has gone mad, betrayed every ally she made as well as the trust of the Horde. What’s she done now?”

Alenras’s expression changed. For a moment, Gav almost thought she could see a hint of the brother she’d known. As his features tightened and his true feelings were for a moment displayed so clearly, she could almost say she saw a ghost in him. “She has opened the way to the Shadowlands. An afterlife no mortal was meant to see.It’s how I had the power to breach their wards, to spirit you away as I did. It’s why all death knights are hearing the cacophony of tortured souls screaming and shrieking for rescue from the Banshee’s new master’s hold. She broke the damn sky… and now… I want to make her pay. For all she’s done to me. To us. To Azeroth.” 

This was strange to see. The most sincere, honest thing she’d heard from her brother’s lips since they were children so many years ago. Before the Apothecaries had twisted his mind and body into the monstrosity he had become. Some part of her almost wondered if this was a sign that there was something of her brother still remaining somewhere within him. But another bit of her mind was insistent that it was some sort of manipulation, a trick to make her sympathetic to him. “I think you’d have people telling you to get to the back of the line.” She said dryly. 

That seemed to amuse Alenras and his smirk returned. “That, my dearest baby sister, is where you come in. Or rather, we. You see, as much as a pain in the ass as you have been to me in the last few decades, I acknowledge that your skill with combat and hunting might rival my own. And... you are still alive. That would prove quite a valuable trait out ther. Between the two of us, I think we can jump the proverbial line.” His smirk became almost predatory, displaying his sharpened teeth. 

A sinking feeling began to make its home in Gav’s stomach. “...I have no love for Sylvanas. That much is true. She destroyed both Darkshore and Teldrassil... killed and tortured countless people. She deserves to suffer.” She said, moving to get to her feet and stand before her brother instead of simply cowering on a mattress. “But I don’t trust you.”

“Nor do I trust you, Gavriyal.” Alenras said, chuckling as he shrugged. “But, trust is not needed on a hunt, merely desired. The enemy of my enemy and all that. After we end her, we can go back to trying to kill or maim one another as we please.”

“I have to agree there. But something tells me that you could have sent any sort of message to me to convey this... you saw fit to kidnap me from my home and family. What am I here for?” Gavriyal asked, narrowing her eye at him again as she stood, regarding him with her arms crossed over her chest. She was tall, even for a kaldorei woman. Alenras too was somewhat taller than the average kaldorei man, both lean and well toned... nearly evenly matched before whatever perverse magic gave Alenras his strength and agility, and spells. 

That predatory smirk curved his lips again. “Well, the Banshee Queen has taken refuge in the lands of the dead. Not just the lands of the dead, but in the Maw--hell itself. You might be fierce and well trained, but you are still a mortal. You’ve seen the kind of power that opening that door has given me… and I refuse to let you hold me back, sister mine.”

Gav’s brows lifted and she tilted her head to the side slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Alenras’s hands moved quickly, abruptly. Before she knew it, his fists had struck her head and chest--first stunning her and then knocking her back. The wind was beaten from her lungs and her vision had stars dancing over it. “I have no intention of dragging you into the Maw, unless I know you will be able to hold your own. Clearly, that is not the case yet.”

She groaned, her hand going to her head. The pain was not the worst she’d endured, but the dizziness and nausea that accompanied it was most unpleasant. Suddenly, she felt hands around her ankles, and became aware that Alenras was dragging her from the room. “What?” She said, trying and failing to find purchase on the smooth stone floor as he dragged her. 

“I am going to improve you, Gavriyal.” Alenras said as he dragged her through a barren corridor. There were no windows, only braziers lit with arcane light, and no obvious doors either--at least until Alenras approached a particular spot in the corridor. Another door formed and slid into the wall, silent as her cell’s entryway. The huntress was still dizzy and only half-conscious as her brother lifted her and laid her on a hard, cold surface. “Once you can match me, I will know that you are ready to join my hunt for the Banshee Queen. I think we will begin with your eyes,” Alenras added as he strapped her to the table, her arms held out spread eagle, as were her legs. “It won’t do to have a halved range of vision where we’re going.” He said as he removed her eyepatch. 

“What?” Gavriyal asked, her voice a little hoarse, still breathy from his blow to her chest. 

“Feel free to scream as much as you need to.” Alenras said flatly. Gav heard the snap as he applied gloves, not unlike those she’d seen alchemists wearing when brewing potions or concoctions. 

That pit in her stomach was growing and cold, electrified needles of fear were driving their way into her head as he began applying some sort of apparatus to keep her bad eye open. “Alenras--” She said, starting to try and struggle in the plentiful, heavy straps that were holding her motionless on the table. No fruitful motion was possible. She couldn’t see out of that eye, even as he locked its lid open with his mechanism. 

“That’s it, sister dear.” He said, snapping his fingers. A tray with what he revealed to be surgical tools upon it floated over from a nearby shelf. Another snap produced a very bright light, leaving no refuge for shadows in that room. “We have no neighbors, scream as much as you need to.” He said, selecting a scalpel and what looked to be some sort of debriding scoop. “We begin your improvement right…” Alenras  brought the scalpel down and into the socket of her fel-ruined eye--prying the useless organ from its seat. “Now.” He said. 

The only reply Gavriyal could give was a stifled scream of pain. Over and over again.

#family #torture #surgery #shadowlands #moonlit arrow #World of Warcraft

[ladywindrunner]

@redeeming-sun ❤︎’d for a starter

The knowledge that the Forsaken wanted to meet with what remained of their families, was beyond infuriating. It lit every undead nerve on fire within the Banshee Queen’s pale figure, to have to endure request after request that she bend to the boy king’s will and permit the meeting. When had such foolishness infected the Forsaken? Where were the yellow-eyed corpses whose hatred for the living was matched only for their grisly tenacity to survive?

           It was as she suspected, the stagnation of peace was polluting her people with weakness. They reminisced of lives they lost, of loved ones who’d abandoned them. Their memories were obscured by history; the pain they’d experienced long ago had scarred over.

           The runt of a monarch had even saw fit to write to Vellcinda and twist her stale heart. It was an obvious ploy, a scheme she, herself may have tried on the hapless living – but for the high king to attempt it? It was laughable.

           Blightcaller hadn’t thought it a plot. He believed the naïve boy to be genuine in his want for unification.

           Somehow that made it worse.

           Sylvanas hadn’t given Anduin any reason to believe that such a gathering was impossible. She’d been ever so careful with maintaining this tiring peace.

           She’d crushed the missive, mocked it.

           It would only bring her people pain. She’d let them cling to their false hope, but the agony of their loved ones turning them away – they’d call her cruel, but she’d be kind enough to spare them. She’d attempted it. The Dark Lady had twice experienced the horrible abandonment that followed meeting with so-called family.

           But the persistence of requests, which were near-to begging, saw her cave. Sylvanas decided to allow it.

           It would permit her the opportunity to truly witness the poisonous Alonsus Faol in the field. She was reluctant but willing to believe the young King of Stormwind innocent enough to offer this without an agenda, but not Alonsus.

           He had a purpose for wanting to sow discord within the Forsaken.

Staring across a wide field at Stromgarde’s battlements did nothing to ease Sylvanas’ frustration. Though she took comfort in the knowledge that seeing she and her most trusted forces brought the whelp ruler unease as well. This strange peace between the Alliance and Horde was standing on flimsy foundation.

           All it would take to turn this gathering into a nightmare was a wrong word, spat with hatred. The Highlands would once again be a blood bath, though sheer stubbornness on the part of the Warchief saw her endeavoring it would not be she who ruined everything.

           No, the heartlessness of the living would do that for her. She had no need for a scheme. These fools wanted to experience the anguish of being called abominations once more, then let them.

           She watched, clenching her jaw, as the undead began to wander into the open field. The wind shifted, and the scent of the living struck her along with their palpable fear.

           Sylvanas wanted to laugh. She imagined the idiots were running back to Stromgarde, cursing themselves for ever entertaining the notion. Her expression shifted from suspicion to contempt. Her lips curved into a malicious smirk.

           But then—

           A figure came over the rise. A hill just irritatingly large enough that it denied her sight of the keep’s gates.

           She took a step forward, hands coming to rest on the old stone of Thoradin’s Wall. Her eyes narrowed.

           A human.

           Then another, and another.

           Her grip on the embrasure tightened. Her amusement evaporated.

           Nathanos undoubtedly sensed her fury.

           “They’ll run,” he assured her, glancing at his queen before his wicked gaze returned to the sight before them. “They’re weak. They’ve never seen the undead up close.”

           Sylvanas agreed with him, she forced her bitterness down.

           “Curiosity,” she stated, “they’ll indulge themselves until our people draw too close. Then they’ll flee.”

           It was a reaction many of those around the Dark Lady had encountered.

           And their expectation held true. A scream of terror rung out and saw a woman bolt away from an undead who reached out for her.

           A young boy burst into tears and clung to his father, he kept pointing back at the Stromgarde. His mother was a corpse now, rotten and filthy. He didn’t want to see her.

           The Banshee Queen’s loathing smile returned.

           She glared across the distance at the form of Anduin.

           The cripple king’s gamble hadn’t paid off.

           “Dark Lady,” a ranger drew her attention back to the field.

           Two women were embracing one another. One alive, one undead.

           Sylvanas scoffed, what was one exception to the rule?

           Only, it wasn’t just one.

           The tantalizing scent of fear, began to fade. Nothing replaced it, as her kind had no need to track happiness, relief, acceptance…

           … Love.

           Her disgust is barely contained. She thought of her sisters, of their cruel words and intentions. Vereesa’s lies that spun Alleria against her. How they were permitted forgiveness for their sins but she’d been spurned.

           ‘the way you did not betray Vereesa when you manipulated her into agreeing to be killed and become undead with you in the Undercity?’

‘I’ve heard talk of just how many voices you’ve silenced during my absence, Sylvanas.’

           ‘Tell me, how long ago was it you silenced what was left of the sister I loved?’

           Her sisters’ absences had not escaped her.

           It was in her mind to strike them all down. To murder every, last soul before her.

           Jealousy was an ugly companion. It bled into wounds and caused them to fester.

           “My Lady,” Nathanos interrupted her thoughts, “look there.”

           Sylvanas hardly thought whatever she might glimpse be worth the agony of remaining here.

           Yet the man who came over the hill with a few others from the Alliance controlled keep was different. He was not a human, he was taller, his hair a brilliant gold. He carried himself as a knight would, with discipline and since Sylvanas had caught sight of them, he’d aided a few older persons towards their undead counterparts.

           Her glare was thankfully unreadable from afar, for it radiated with absolute anger.

           What game was that useless king playing? How dare he permit such an individual on the field.  It was such a blatant manipulation, she wondered if this idea was Anduin’s at all, but rather Genn.

           That rapid dog would love to find a way to wound her.

           “Is that—“

           “Yes,” she cut Nathanos’ off sharply. She moved quickly, flanked by her champion.

           “No weapons are permitted on the field,” he reminded her, his displeasure at the agreement evident. “You will be exposed, My Queen.”

           “I am not some hapless peasant!” She snarled, thankful that her outburst wasn’t seen by her soldiers. They stood in a darkened chamber, having halfway descended a staircase.

           A moment lingered between them.

           “Sylvanas,” he spoke her name softly, “I would never doubt your capabilities. But neither should we doubt the capabilities of our enemies.”

           She knew better than to believe he was reprimanding her in strategy. A small, fanged smile graced her lips as she touched his pale cheek with her hand.

           “Should that fool boy and his pet dog try anything,” she murmured in a silken tone, “end them.”

            She relinquished her bow an instant afterwards.

           Stepping out onto the field, she ignored the startled glances from her own people. Despite her claim to Nathanos that she wasn’t a fool, she certainly felt she was. Though it did not go amiss by the Banshee Queen that the Forsaken appeared to move with renewed confidence that their Dark Lady was with them.

           Perhaps they took comfort that she trusted the Alliance enough not to strike at them.

           She didn’t. If she were Anduin, this would be far too glorious of an opportunity to pass up.

           For once, she found herself hoping the High King was as good as the rumours implied.

           She drew closer to the man who’d elicited such a reaction. Taller than she, wearing knightly armour. He too, was without a weapon. His eyes gleamed a wondrous gold.

           Arator Windrunner, her nephew.

           She stopped a distance from him, for it was she who was wary of him (not that she let that show). She hadn’t seen him since her undeath. She only knew what he looked like from reports and rumours.

           What was he calling himself? The Redeemer?

           It was laughable.

           “Your mother would end you if she knew you were here.” Sylvanas spoke, arms crossing.

#✧:: the dark lady ( warcraft ) #// this is so long and im so sorry #// back story is important right? XD

[warwaged-archive]

The first time Tyrande is mentioned in the book, and most notable other than the two scenes she actually appears in, is this one:

Tyrande and Malfurion had fled to Nordrassil, and all of his missives went unread. A messenger had returned that morning with his letter to them unopened. The man looked shaken, more so when Anduin told him firmly to leave, return to Nordrassil, and try again.

Which is only confirmation of what we already knew of her by the end of BFA rather than new information, both in that Tyrande does not accept the peace treaty and is not really in agreeable terms with Anduin

Anduin: The armistice is signed. At long last, the Fourth War is over. Tyrande: No. Not while the Black Moon still cries out for vengeance. Not until the Horde has answered for its treachery. Anduin: Further bloodshed will not bring back the fallen. We must renew our hope and forge a future for those who survived. Tyrande: And when the next warchief musters an army, will hope save you if it is Stormwind that burns? Anduin: I know it's difficult to trust, but there are signs of change within the Horde. Anduin: In place of a warchief, there is now a council led by Baine, Thrall, and the others. I believe they can-- Tyrande: Your faith is naive, lion son. I will sign no treaty unless it is written in the Banshee's blood!

and that she’s left for Nordrassil, as she notes she will do in a conversation with Shandris following the above one

Shandris: You spoke harshly to King Anduin, Tyrande. The kaldorei can ill afford to shun the Alliance. They have provided aid and comfort to us in these dark times. Tyrande: The young king is foolish to trust our enemies. Harsh words should be the least of his fears. Shandris: The Banshee Queen no longer leads the Horde. Those who do seem more inclined toward peace than war. Tyrande: If the wolf is rabid, it matters not who rides it. Sooner or later, the beast will bare its fangs. Shandris: You are dearest to my heart, Tyrande. I beg you, let go of the Black Moon's rage and embrace the mother's light once again. I could not bear to lose you to darkness. Tyrande: Know this. My hunger for vengeance will not be sated so long as Sylvanas Windrunner remains free--and until I know why Elune abandoned her children. Shandris: Tyrande! Do not say such-- Tyrande: I will tarry no longer in this city of men. Let us leave for the boughs of Nordrassil. Tyrande: From there we will dispatch the Sentinels to every corner of Azeroth. Let no one rest until the Banshee is found!

What happens with Anduin by the beginning of Shadows Rising, then, feels only like a natural continuity from that, in that he’s trying to reach out but she’s uninterested and won’t hear of it. In my opinion, that’s not only coherent, but also justified; she feels like the Alliance has failed her people, repeatedly -- both in denying them help in Darkshore, and now in agreeing to peace before giving them justice -- all the while uniting their forces to aid the Horde solve their problems with the Warchief. 

We don’t hear from her again until Thrall is discussing a visit to Nordrassil, in order to investigate the unrest the shaman are feeling with the spirits. Yukha, who’s been negotiating the meeting, tells him she agrees on the condition Thrall “must bring what is owed” and that he would know what she means. He doesn’t. Not entirely. He knows Tyrande and Malfurion will want retribution for Teldrassil, but he doesn’t know what he can give them, but he goes anyway, choosing to bring Baine and Calia with him. And then, when he actually goes, we finally see Tyrande. (And I liked a part of this one so much ! For the most part I liked it initially -- except for the very ending).  

Tyrande is there, sitting with Malfurion, Maiev and Shandris behind them. While Malfurion stands upon the Horde’s arrival, Tyrande does not. Thrall and company bow and he begins to speak of what brought them there, and he’s rather unsettled by the cold reception and lack of response, noting that Tyrande locked eyes with him and did not look away, and that as he spoke, none of them did even blink. He starts to feel impatient and insulted (lol thrall) and tries to hold back from answering poorly.

He looked into Tyrande’s eyes once more, into the hypnotizing aura of darkness in the never-cool embers of her eyes. That moment in Nagrand returned to him, when he tasted smoke and sensed a far-off pain. That pain was not so far off for her, it was constant and as potent as the day Teldrassil burned.

I like this quote in particular a lot, in spite of it apparently being a tiny thing. It brings to light how although those close and far may have felt sorrow and pain when the World Tree burned, Tyrande carries it with her the entire time. Others may be moving on, concerned with other matters, but she isn’t, and how could she? It may have been a day or three hundred, it is still recent to her, still fresh, constantly fresh, not something she can set aside, not something she can let go of, and not something she would let go of, given the choice --- it is what she owes those who burned, and it is what she owes those who lived. I like this bit, and the initial part with Baine, Calia and Thrall arriving, because to me it did a good job of showing that. To everyone, it’s a great tragedy, it’s horrible, but they’ve moved on. Calia and Baine arrive there taken by the natural beauty surrounding the World Tree, and are initially quite insensitive to the aura of mourning still surrounding the Night Elves. To them that pain is still real. It isn’t something they can just let go of, specially when they have yet to get any justice that may give them some closure.

“I brought what you wanted, what is owed,” Thrall said, and at last he saw a spark of life in her eyes. “I bring you the sincere apology of the Horde. We are not a single voice now spoken through the mouth of a warchief, but a whole host of voices. We have formed a council, so that never again will one take power and abuse it as Sylvanas did. As…as Sylvanas used that power to slaughter your people.”

Then Thrall says he brought her what was owed, and Tyrande demonstrates some interest, but what he brings is apologies and excuses and a bunch of “we’re trying to do better” stuff that isn’t what the Night Elves deserve after what they suffered. He speaks of Baine opposing Sylvanas, of Calia and Lilian trying to do better by the Forsaken, but throughout it all, Tyrande is unmoved.

Was he speaking to a wall? Would nothing move Tyrande? Even Malfurion gave him the smallest nod of understanding, perhaps only indicating that he was listening.

Although Malfurion’s willingness to in the least hear shows (and side note: I do appreciate how in this moment and later on Malfurion is portrayed as, while no less imposing, considerably gentler, because that’s what I’m here for), it is Shandris who then removes her helmet and speaks to Thrall and tells him it’s hard not to be distrusting of promises when even allies have failed to come through with them. Maiev, then, is her counterpoint, proceeding to tell her to listen at her peril, because she’ll end with daggers on her back. 

Although Tyrande doesn’t speak, Maiev is clearly more of her voice, here. It is when she says that that Tyrande shows some reaction again, an almost smile that suggests she’s in great agreement with Maiev’s distrust, with the voiced believe no matter what the Horde will end up betraying them again, hurting them again.

Maiev makes some very valid points, after that. That Sylvanas did not, in fact, act alone; that she acted for the Horde and spoke for them, that they are trying to disperse the blame and “hiding behind cowardly revisions of a history that will not be forgotten". This will be important later on, in comparison to Tyrande’s own stance on the matter.

The Horde gives the “mUsT iNnOcEnTs DiE fOr It To Be JuStIcE tO yOu” excuses a bit, although Thrall acknowledges Saurfang did indeed take part in planning the attack, if not burning the World Tree, but he is now dead by Sylvanas’ own hand and there’s nothing they can do in that regard. I like that it is at very least acknowledged, though, after we spent so long ignoring he had anything to do with it and blaming everything on Sylvanas aksjndfkajsndfkj

Shandris continues to be the most moderate voice from the Kaldorei side, suggesting they do not absolve the Horde for their crimes, but make a temporary understanding as to deal with the more urgent matters. Maiev continues to argue against her. Then we have this:

Tyrande, it seemed, still did not care to speak. 

The elf began plucking her lute again, but Tyrande slammed her hand down on the owl-shaped arm of the bench, demanding a return to silence. Had the moon grown bigger in the sky? Was it somehow closer? Threatening? 

“It was not yet time.” Malfurion’s grave baritone filled the clearing. He leaned down toward his wife, placing a furred, clawed hand on her shoulder. “This was folly. Let them go.” 

Tyrande uncrossed her legs and sat back on the bench, shaking off her husband’s hand with a tight grimace.

Here we have what I mentioned before, of Malfurion being portrayed as gentler of the two. When he notices her reaction, he tries to appease her even before Tyrande has indeed said anything, intervening on behalf of letting the Horde people go, but she’s clearly displeased by then, and very much unwilling to listen even to him, as her reaction shows. And then we have the very best part:

And then, all at once, she cared very much to speak. 

“When you have washed the bodies of a thousand kaldorei burned and broken, when you have fallen to your knees and kissed the feet of a thousand mourning souls, when you look into their eyes and tell them ‘our Horde has changed’ and they believe you, only then will I accept your apology and treat you as my equal.” Tyrande’s voice, edged as steel, pulled the air out of the clearing. “My brethren here may be willing to entertain your empty pledges of justice and aid, but I know better. I have learned better.” 

Then she stood, and Thrall worried that the moon might truly fall from the heavens and crush them at Tyrande’s command. Her eyes, though black, somehow glowed, Elune’s fury blazing colder and brighter along her skin with each word. The glade itself grew gray and almost dead, as if by her will she had sapped the life out of everything around them, withering the trees and obliterating the flowers and grass to dust.

“How many orphans did your Horde create that day?” Tyrande sliced the flat of her hand diagonally across her body. “Those children will grow, they will wake each morning tasting ash, and one day they will come for you. Oh, they will come for you, and they will make you taste that same ash, and then you will know their justice.” She sat down again, as if winded. Light returned to the clearing, and the plants around them were green and vibrant once more. 

“Quickly,” Yukha muttered, trying to gather them. “We must go. This was a mistake; I should not have brought you here.” 

Baine and Calia allowed Yukha to corral them back toward the path of glittering solid water. Thrall remained, only taking slow, careful steps, never showing Tyrande his back. For his trouble, Tyrande directed her final words to him and only him. 

“You will find that justice less sweet than the sorry excuse for punishment you faced, and when this justice comes, there will be no armistice to save you.”

Again, I love how it’s done because of how clearly it portrays that there is no healing for the Kaldorei as is, but I like Tyrande’s words most of all because of how they clearly say “You don’t get to decide what is enough justice. The victims are the only ones who can decide what is enough for them.” Apologies mean nothing to her, because she has no reason to believe they will hold true, and because even if they do, is it enough for those who suffered? Is it enough for those who survived, damaged and broken, their loved ones gone? Is it enough for those who burned? It may all be very honorable and just in theory, but what about practice? What did the Horde’s honor do to stop Sylvanas’ decision to burn the World Tree? If her own allies failed to heed her request for aid, why should Tyrande believe the promises of those who stood on Sylvanas’ side, and turned only when her actions begun to harm the Horde itself?

But even then, Tyrande’s mindset and her words are never about herself. It isn’t about her. Of course she mourns, and of course it wounded her; she is the leader of the Night Elves, and she failed to protect them. It is them, her people, her charges, they who matter --- those she failed, be it because they are dead or be it the survivors left with an everlasting mark and everlasting absences. 

And because of them, because she cannot fail them like that again, because she’s so hellbent on doing right by them now, apologies just won’t do it.

I love how the atmosphere surrounding them reflects Tyrande’s feelings, the moon closer and fiercer, her tone so sharp as to take the air from the clearing, her fury so searing as to appear to suck all life from a place previously praised by its nature and vitality. 

What she speaks next still carries very much the intent behind her former words. How can she accept apologies? Will apologies soothe those children who lived through it but lost so much and will have to live their entire lives with the memory of an unspeakable horror such as that? It won’t leave them. Apologies aren’t enough that they won’t remember the torment of hot flames, the taste of the ashes in their mouths. Apologies do not give them justice; but they’ll never stop wanting for it, needing it, to be able to, indeed, move on and perhaps heal. Until justice is done, however, that can’t be done. They can’t heal without it. There’s no moving on without it. And apologies are not justice. Promises of change are not justice.

She’s not making a threat. In a way, it is a promise, but not a threat. She’s not vowing to kill them all; she’s promising that they can pretend it’s all well and fine and they’ve done enough, but they haven’t and eventually that will catch up to them. 

And it will, Tyrande has no doubt of that. A council instead of a Warchief may prevent the same of happening again, but it doesn’t change what was done, it doesn’t erase it, it isn’t paying for what was done and doesn’t give them compensation in any way. Calia and Lilian leading the Forsaken in a different way may mean a different future for the Forsaken, but it doesn’t help the Kaldorei’s future, it doesn’t help them heal, it isn’t paying for what was done, it doesn’t give them compensation in any way. Baine trying to oppose Sylvanas well after Teldrassil burned may have been a step on the right direction, but it doesn’t change that when Sylvanas gave the order, that the Horde burned the World Tree, that they stood by her even after, that they only changed sides later on; it isn’t paying for what was done and it doesn’t give them compensation in any way. The Horde thinks it did enough, punishing the loyalists and setting up the means to prevent it from happening again, but to the victims at Teldrassil, how can that be justice? The Horde deciding the punishment their own should face, the victims having no voice, the victims receiving no compensation in any way, nothing that would give them closure? Of course it won’t be enough. Of course there won’t be closure. And of course they’ll eventually try to take it themselves, armistice or no.

Lastly, we have the scene closing with this exchange, that follows Thrall’s realization he was (an idiot) wrong to think apologies would be enough:

“I will bring what is owed, then. I will not bring words or promises, I will bring you the head of Sylvanas Windrunner.” 

The faintest trace of a smile appeared on Tyrande Whisperwind’s face. “Do it, then, or never seek to speak with me again.”

I don’t like it, because Thrall isn’t the one who has to kill Sylvanas. And here, I think it’s off that Tyrande would agree to these terms when it’s clear all throughout the previous part that it is important to her that the victims acknowledge it as justice, or it won’t truly be justice, and that the Horde doing it themselves isn’t it. Still, I don’t think her being agreeable is what’s wrong; I think it’s very much in accord to her stance throughout it, that she’d be agreeable to a promise she actually, truly acknowledges as possible justice for her people. If Thrall had promised her Sylvanas would face the Kaldorei’s justice, that he wouldn’t return empty handed not because he’d bring her head, but because he’d give the Kaldorei the opportunity to take it, then I think it’d be more coherent that Tyrande agrees to it.

And imo, if he really does it, meh. He shouldn’t be the one to do it, if Sylvanas does die. Nevertheless, my disagreement on that aside, Tyrande’s agreement is important: it shows she’s not unreasonable. She’s not refusing all compromise, refusing all chance to talk, vowing not to rest until every single Horde member is dead. She’s angry, and rightfully so; she’s terrifying, but she never threatened the Horde group there. She’s resentful and distrusting, and she does want blood, but she’s not after innocents, and she’s not even after those who could be implied alongside Sylvanas. Maiev earlier argued that Sylvanas didn’t act alone, and while I think she’s right, and while I think Tyrande thinks she’s right, Tyrande never voices that. Her desire for justice focuses on those who are to blame and unrepentant; spoken or not, this denotes she acknowledges the Horde’s attempt to change, in spite of her disbelief, and instead of focusing on the entire Horde as being guilty, she seeks justice to be taken from those who were direct cause, and who have taken no steps to make amends.

And I think that speaks a lot of her not being oblivious to Shandris’ point, that they need to not lose themselves, and that they need to heal. Tyrande is relentless in her pursuit for justice, and unwilling to let go of it, because that’s what the Kaldorei need. But her agreement that Sylvanas paying for it should be enough for her to be willing to talk to Thrall denotes that she knows they can’t pursue vengeance forever, that blood isn’t always the answer, that they need justice to heal but once it’s done they need to, indeed, try to move on and heal. (And I’m not talking about forgiving here, but merely turning away from bloodshed to focus on mending their own wounds).

Tyrande appears again in one more scene, by the end of the book, after the battle is done, and the Horde captures Sira, who Thrall then sends to Tyrande. It’s funny that here, he does pretty much what I said I think he should have promised in regards to Sylvanas: he captured her, yes, but he didn’t impose the Horde’s justice, and instead gave her to Tyrande so Tyrande did with her what she thought was suitable.  

But yeah, she gets to Stormwind with Maiev and Shandris, who “had insisted on coming along, perhaps sensing that Tyrande should not be left alone" which I think it’s pretty understandable since they didn’t know what the ‘gift from the Horde’ was, and what reaction it may cause, specially when in spite of not being unreasonable before, there is something of volatile in her now, perhaps due to how the power she has received impacts so heavily Tyrande but also her surroundings. 

They get there, see Sira, Tyrande recalls Thrall’s letter saying it isn’t yet what was owed but he hopes it’s a start, Sira rages and says Tyrande is a coward who does nothing even with the Night Warrior’s rage and power.

“I wish I could have done more to protect you,” Tyrande said, cold. “But some natures prove too evil to curb. Too ambitious to abide. Sylvanas has such a nature, and I will not forget that. You are her servant now, Sira, I have not forgotten that, either.”

This is a very important point because everyone else does not, apparently, care that Sira chose to serve Sylvanas.

Before I move on to that, it’s nice to notice that Tyrande shows no guilt in regards to Sira’s fate, which, in my opinion, is entirely understandable because of the before mentioned reason. She’s failed Sira, yes, and she wishes she could have protected her, yes, but Sira chose to side with the one who caused them all of that in the first place. She knew the horrors Sylvanas had already done, and she still followed. She knew her crimes were unforgivable, and she worked to further her plans. And because of that, Tyrande has no pity left for her, even though she was one of them before, even though she regrets her inability to have aided her in time. 

But Maiev and Shandris disagree and have plenty of pity left for Sira, and both make a plea for Tyrande’s compassion, Maiev citing an occasion when she had witnessed it before, accompanied by her stubbornness to give up on something she believed could still be saved. Tyrande replies she failed.

“How long did you try?” Maiev asked. “And would you try again? If you continue down this path, Tyrande, you will find yourself no better than Sira. She is in pain, can you not see it? She is in agony. The only relief comes from spilling blood. Is this what you want? To find your only comfort in the suffering of others?”

“And so I should do nothing?” Tyrande seethed. 

“That is not what I suggest and you know it. Listen, Tyrande.” Maiev went to stand beside Sira, a warden she had considered more than a friend. A sister. “I have lived as one consumed, and though there is no great love between us, Tyrande, I would not see you become what I was. What Sira is now. You are more than just rage and vengeance, you are more than simply the Night Warrior: you are a priestess and a leader. Can you not, as a priestess, take pity on this creature?”

I think Maiev throughout that scene sounds off, in that not only there’s this gentleness I have no idea where came from but just overall she definitely doesn’t sound like Maiev and her dynamics with Tyrande are also??? but other than Maiev, I have several issues with how this is played. The plea for compassion becomes a comparison between Tyrande and Sira, as if it was somehow comparable that this is the path she’s in, when the previous scene the book showed us, the meeting with Thrall, does not speak of it at all. Like I said, then she’s not portrayed as unreasonable, she’s portrayed as relentless in her pursuit of justice, disillusioned with promises, unwilling to forget, filled with righteous anger, but never unreasonable and lost to a dark path of blood and vengeance. Here, somehow, Maiev and Shandris argue that she is, because of her initial choice to end Sira --- ignoring that Sira, although a fallen comrade, became a willing follower of the one who initially caused them so much misery, the one they wish to bring justice to, the one who caused Sira to be what she became. Sira shows no remorse at all throughout the book, and is, in fact, considerably vicious and bloodthirsty, delighting in cruelty for the sake of it, only wishing for the death toll to be as high as possible (much more so than, for example, Nathanos, who should wish for it if only for how it strengthens Sylvanas, but never goes out of his way for the sake of killing or cruelty). 

She doesn’t kill Sira, but she gives her a cut, and we have this:

She was the Night Warrior, revenge made flesh, but now with that one shallow cut, she felt suddenly, horribly alive again.

Which is???????? I don’t even know, given that the book itself shows Tyrande is clearly feeling, and not simply anger. How isn’t she, when you have Thrall himself notice her pain for Teldrassil never left, that is is as fresh as when the World Tree burned?

I think the pleading her for mercy, specially coming from Shandris, could be valid. I think Shandris showing concern that Tyrande is losing the softer side of her would be very valid, if it was coherent with what we saw of Tyrande so far speaking of it also. Speaking to her, asking her to look at things as a priestess, to remember how compassionate she was, would all be very valid; I just think this wasn’t the situation to do it, not how it was done, and not with the previous scene. Towards someone different, I may agree, but Sira has plenty of crimes of her own, beyond the fate she didn’t chose, and to say Tyrande’s decision here accounts for her loss of compassion doesn’t seem fitting at all, specially when the other scene has her willing to talk to a representative of the Horde and accept his offer of justice (no matter how much I disagree with that). 

In spite of it, she shows herself very much capable of mercy still, and doesn’t strike Sira down. Again, her attitude is not that of one lost to a dark path of vengeance; she heeds those that are with her and ask her to be compassionate, even if her first impulse is not to be. She allows Shandris to take away her weapon, and ultimately turns away from the prisoner. 

And given there is reason for her to feel about Sira as she does, I don’t know to which point her reaction can be blamed on her being the Night Warrior. Maiev remembers her compassion, in that scene, but forgets her ruthlessness; Tyrande has never hesitated to shed blood, specially in defense of her people or commitment to the course of action she believes right. 

#* general: headcanons / WHO TELLS YOUR STORY? #* character study: tyrande whisperwind / MOON SOAKED AND DAWN FLAVORED. #* muse: tyrande whisperwind / MOONLIGHTED. #sr spoilers #long post cw #I think everything I wanted to say is here? both in regards to how I feel about it and how I understand Tyrande in those scenes? #I think? #kajfdjndskf #I threw this on docs to see how long it is #it was like 9 pages with times new roman 12 kjasndkjnasdkfn #I don't like maiev in the second scene :c

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Sandwiches and charming little huts 

Walking the trails of Charm Villa is like stepping into a bright, colorful, and cute notepad. Rolling hills with vibrant green grass and colorful flowers scattered all over. On the tops of the hills are rustic and whimsical little cottages and huts, as well as shops, cafes, and a library. Take a picture and you’d think it was from a stationery set!

After sleeping in until around eleven we met up with Gutsy and Livvy at Coffee Studios for a tour of Charm Villa. Gutsy’s a college friend of Daisy Jane who just moved to the village a few months ago. Livvy’s her niece - first cousin once removed - and she and Jack - her dad/Gutsy’s cousin - own Coffee Studios. The cafe was founded by Gutsy and Jack’s grandma, then it was passed down to Jack’s mom, and after she retired her son and granddaughter now run the place.

The cafe’s best known for their sandwiches and every few months they set up a contest for a new sandwich to add to the menu. Livvy was the one who started that tradition and it got popular so it stuck. Guess what today happened to be? While Lolly, Pancetti, Biskit, and Lyman prepped for the contest, the rest of us hung around the village before meeting back around 3 for the contest.

I’ve only met Gutsy a handful of times over the years and she always leaves an impression. The name Gutsy - short for Augusta - fits her to a T. She said that she never thought her impulsiveness and wild imagination would make her a good detective and yet there she was solving crimes and saving the day. Gutsy really does remind me a lot about Jamie, except a lot more extroverted and bold. Honestly, I’m surprised that they haven’t crossed paths yet.

So far Gutsy’s enjoying the peaceful village life. It’s a huge change of pace compared to her old life. Gutsy grew up in a boarding house that also ran a stable so her life revolved around horses since forever. Her father died when she was seventeen, opening up a can of worms that led to her getting tangled up with an embezzling scheme that he was involved in and indirectly caused his death. After exposing the crime, Gutsy joined a task force dedicated to investigating crimes relating to shady underground practices involving horses like racing and such. 

Daisy Jane and Gutsy met in college when they became roommates. At the time Gutsy was considering studying to be a veterinarian but ended up dropping out a year later because the task force was starting to take over her life. In retrospect, the whole being a vet thing wasn’t meant to be for her.

Being a detective was an unexpected turn for Gutsy, one that no one saw coming - and yet, at the time, it made sense. For a while, she felt that she found her calling, especially after being betrayed by what her dad and his friends had done. Maybe, in a way, she was trying to absolve him of his misdeeds. Solving mysteries and working with horses, what else can she ask for?

But then around last year things went sour. Investigating crimes has its dangers, which Gutsy knows all too well. She can handle being a target, but when loved ones are in the line of fire, that’s where she draws the line. The birth of her daughter Lulu led to Gutsy reevaluating her life choices. Eventually she decided that it was time to move on and give Lulu a stable childhood.

That’s why she decided to settle in Charm Villa. Other than her cousins and a small handful of relatives, Gutsy doesn’t have much family. With Lulu to take care of, a journey of self discovery was out of the question so she opted to stick close to family for practical reasons. With Livvy in college and only coming home every other weekend and Jack having experience as a young single parent as well as needing help with the cafe, Gutsy knew she and Lulu would be in good hands. 

While she finds herself much happier and less stressed in Charm Villa, Gutsy does miss being around horses. As far as she knows, the nearest stable is about two hours away so she hasn’t had a chance to visit yet. Maybe when Lulu’s a little older, she says. For now, Gutsy and horses are taking a long break. 

The way she describes it is like a close relationship that has gone a bit too codependent. All her life she grew up surrounded by horses so she related to them more than people. Her views on the family she grew up with, especially her dad, have been clouded in recent years. When she put together the pieces, she didn’t want to believe it, but at the same time, it all made sense. While being a detective gave her a sense of purpose, it also showed Gutsy how deceiving people can be. She always - and still - find horses more trusting than people, so in a way she relied on them as a crutch. Do it for the horses - that was her mantra whenever she tackled a case that would push her limits. Then that led to her letting the task force take over her life to the point that she had nothing outside of that. 

Eventually it got to the point where all she cared about was getting the truth out. Right and wrong, black and white, collateral damage was unfortunate but it didn’t matter as long as what’s done is done. As a result, Gutsy ended up burning a lot of bridges, which in turn made her question if she did more harm than good.

Lulu was her wake up call, the one who turned Gutsy’s life upside down and forced her to reevaluate her future. Being a parent wasn’t in the cards for her but in the end she made her choice. While the idea of raising a kid is still terrifying for her, so far it seems to be the best thing to happen to her. After spending most of her life jumping headfirst into danger and chasing thrills, Gusty realized the weight of her actions and how one can’t always jump to conclusions or make poor judgements just to get ahead of everyone else.

Maybe it’s another attempt to right her dad’s wrongs - that’s still something she struggles with - but Charm Villa, the cafe, Lulu, her cousins, it’s been doing her a lot of good. There’s still a lot that Gutsy’s uncertain about, but getting herself out of a bad place is a good first step. After everything she’s been through, I hope she finds that peace of mind she deserves. From the looks of it, I think she’s finding her way.

Around 1:30 we headed back to the cafe to help set up for the sandwich contest. When we were done, we had time to kill so Jack and Livvy gave us a tour of the kitchen. Then we made lattes and bread, which was a lot of fun. By the time we were able to master latte art, it was time for the contest to begin!

Candy Fruit Sando by Lolly A super sweet take on the cute Japanese fruit sandwiches! To kick things up a notch, the fruits are coated with a sugary syrup for an extra crunch! Fresh ripe fruit candied to perfection, freshly whipped cream that feels like eating a cloud and a soft and pillowy brioche to tie it all together - it’s the perfect addition to any bento box! Rod - Candied fruit?! Genius! 9/10 Snooty - I just wanna take pictures of it and make my friends jealous over how pretty it looks! 10/10 Sylvana - Strawberries and cream are a winning combo! 8/10 Audie - Aesthetic and yummy - that’s a win for me! 9/10

Spa Day Sandwich by Pancetti In need of shaking up your skin care routine? No need to swap out your face mask or moisturizer when you can have a sandwich instead! All the freshest veggies guaranteed to give you a healthy glow like cucumbers and seaweed seasoned with a zesty citrus glaze on a slice of lightly toasted pumpernickel. Snooty - My skin’s already feeling great! 7/10 Sylvana - This kinda reminds me of a salad, but in sandwich form! 6/10 Audie - This was definitely inspired by a spa! 6/10 Rod - Skip the moisturizer, go for the sandwich! 7/10

The Ultimate Dessert Sandwich! by Biskit What happens when you mash a pie, cake, and pudding into one? Well, we’re about to find out with this sandwich! The bread’s kinda like a pie crust/brioche hybrid and the sauce is a rich caramel custard. In between are thin slices of red velvet cake, blueberry-ginger pie filling, and slices of yellow cake. Sylvana - If this doesn’t satisfy your sweet tooth, I don’t know what will! 8/10 Audie - Talk about indulgent! 6/10 Rod - Perfect for a cheat day after an intense workout - but only in moderation! 7/10 Snooty - Are you sure this is a sandwich? 5/10

Take a Bite of Nature! by Lyman Need a palate cleanser after having too many sweets or processed foods? Nothing like fresh organic veggies to put your body back in balance! Green, leafy veggies, rustic roots, and crisp, sweet fruit on sprouted bread - all the flavors of nature in one tasty package! Audie - Crunch, crunch, crunch! 7/10 Rod - I wonder if this will make a good post-workout shake… 7/10 Snooty - Turn the bread into croutons and add some dressing and it’s a rustic salad! 8/10 Sylvana - This is probably better than some of the stuff they sell at health food stores 7/10

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #Diary of a Junebug #headcanon ramble

[jerek]

[[MORE]]

i mean for gods sake in canon garrosh calls sylvanas a bitch and implies shes no different than the lich king but in my version she was killed by a misogynistic warlock, literally demonized after her death, and mourned in a Cringy but to my younger self quietly poignant scene by a version of garrosh that only truly comes into her femininity in remembrance and admiration for the woman who she feels alienated from in both nature and values but also spent so much time with, giving an honest ear to her cruel, world-taught views.

I mean for gods sake how did i write this. I accidentally wrote Garrosh as a nonbinary lesbian with a crush on a homophobic woman. Half of what i just detailed was a metaphor for things I would later go on to experience.

And i know this was some lesbian shit because it didnt end there. My version of garrosh was a physically imposing masculine lesbian, but she herself had an alternate version.

The alternate version was smaller, more normatively feminine, and drawn as an animal. In some branches of the story, she’s a reincarnation of the main lesbian garrosh, in a world where everyone else is reincarnated as a symbolic animal version of themselves, but in the main branch she never spoke, never interacted with anyone, and haunted Nagrand like a ghost.

Also let me talk about Nagrand. Fucking nagrand. When she got there is when the REAL feminist theory started. There were three main plot points.

1. it was revealed here that sylvanas lived on in a sort of afterlife. Not the empty blank void that Blizzard sent their favorite misogynist caricature to, to reflect the way they wrote her, but a dreamlike world that floated between the lines of the universe’s rulebook— surrounded by a perpetual rose-gold haze.

Sometimes it was a grassy floating island, with a single tree and a little pool of water, sometimes it was a modern driveway and a street and a park based on my own neighborhood, and then.

Sometimes they’d travel to the furthest edge of the afterlife, and there would be no great gate. Instead, there would be a silver strip, like a metal tightrope, and Sylvanas would walk her down it on their tiptoes, with only one of each woman’s arm extended for balance because the opposite hands were holding each other.

it was a dreamlike world, and until she gave up her life and met her there, she could only ever dream of it.

2. She did, eventually.

it was for garrosh. not my female version, because she had a different name that i would randomly change, but the male garrosh, the canonical garrosh, the garrosh who was meant to escape into the timeline she found herself accidentally in.

she saw him as a big brother, but at the same time, not. he was worse than her, and she knew that, but much like sylvanas it itched in the back of her brain that she could change him, that she could show him a new way like anduin tried to, that if this giving calm existed in her it surely rested dormant in garrosh.

because after all, like a nb lesbian and her favorite male character, she and garrosh were the same person.

garrosh was killed, and she sought revenge. wielding two axes— her own, and that of garrosh, she strode up to thrall and thrust her heart to the sky as she was struck down.

she went to the afterlife, and there sylvanas would sleep atop her chest, under the tree.

3. but before that…

you know how i joke about anduin being a lesbian??

i also used to have a virulent hatred for varian, from my version of anduin— another extended metaphor, this time for how neurodivergence affected my school life and my online life back in 7th grade.

and anduin snuck off.

almost every other day, he’d sneak off; sometimes to the animal world, where instead of being reincarnated he emerged from a dark, underground labyrinth in elwynn to a world that had never heard the words “prince of stormwind”— and unknowingly, he emerged transformed into a wild, half-maned feline.

sometimes to nyalotha, where he could rest, where he could recover, where in a single psychic scream he could eliminate the pull of duty and become not what he perhaps should have been, but what he was nonetheless happy to turn into.

sometimes back to veiled stair, sometimes he would burn the valley of four winds in his black-hole suspicions— he would drink too much of something shadowy purple— and he would sleep well knowing High Queen Proudmoore would understand that though destruction is a choice, one far easier than creation, sometimes the only real choice is whether to do something stupid or just stand by.

but this time, it was him and my version of garrosh. him, and her, and varian back in stormwind.

and he would ask her— why?

she would be silent, and keep bandaging his wounds from the local wildlife. they would heal eventually.

but he wasn’t the only insane, stupid one around. like a child younger than himself, sometimes she would leave their makeshift tent, and sit in the bushes, and sulk.

does it matter, one dream showed me her asking; my thinking, if it only lasts a moment?

he didn’t understand yet, but this wasn’t the branch where he ran from the same problem— a mix of his upbringing and the failures of his brain.

she would ask— “if i feel nothing for any longer than a few minutes,” in a tone i eventually thought betrayed who she was meant to represent— “how do i know that this momentary despair, this momentary rage even matters?”

“does it matter why, if i can do good only because i forget so often my evil nature?”

she would plead— smite her, burn a hole through her eyelid as was done to sylvanas, and remove what makes her this way. what makes her any way.

perhaps when she was redeemed, honorable by both orc and human standards, she would allow herself to die.

only one tear a night fell from my version of garrosh, and though they were both unstable, anduin learned from her. she was his mentor, his aunt, his idol, and his replacing parent.

when the si:7 found him, he was alone. he was scratching in his sleep at reddened pustules around old wolf-bite scars she had helped to close, and they took him back. as they do in every branch where he survives, by trap or by net or by silent cooperation.

through the fevers, he traveled back to stormwind. through the nausea, he embraced his father.

relishing the pain of red pox all over, pain body-wide that had never let itself exist without hellscream, he stabbed his father in varian’s own throne room.

this is how it must end with wrynn kings.

he didn’t know whether the guards slew him or arrested him. he saw only a thin strip of silver, splitting the evening sky, and knew soon he would be there with the woman he felt was truly worthy of being his family.

he experienced what she did. the weight on his heart, closing his throat as he tried to get people to see why he does what he does— why he sees the world the way he does, why it doesn’t mean he’s just a naive idealist waiting patiently for reality to beat it out of him. why it doesn’t make him stupid.

being haunted by himself. the dark face of the moon she was to him was small, and spindly, and though it was striped, unlike a lion, it wore a thick, soft mane from the top of its head down to its chest. he didn’t think the dead could laugh, but here he was— because what stalked him wherever he went was so much like her. big, and strong, and when he was alone daydreaming instead of performing for the crown, he imagined it free from the alliance.

dreaming of what could be. even with his own garrosh, he felt a familiarity that ate at him— how deep and warm his voice, how bright his eyes, how quick his temper— and how breakable he felt, from the moment his father woke every morning, to that moment in draenor where he saw another towering figure in solid stance, with hair long and tied, stare down at him and ask— who are you?

and with her, he could answer that.

i am what i am, he would tell her, the moment his soul untangled from his form, and there are no words in my language to describe me.

except for one, if his new mother would see fit— if orcish surnames could pass the grave he might feel around him were he able to move.

she had once called herself garrosh, because she thought she was him.

now, though it would take courage, as all things seemed to take when done her way— he would ask if he was a hellscream yet.

honorable to orcs and humans alike.

[redisaid]

Two Rooms - Chapter 1

Just a Wall Between Us

Remember when I said I wouldn’t do Sylvaina?

Yeah that lasted like, 3 days. 

Inspired by some awesome art from @hattersarts. I hope you don’t mind me borrowing a bit of this political marriage AU thing...

Also, fucking @sylvanas-lesbian-harem. You know what you did.

4626 Words

Read it on AO3!

Sylvanas never imagine that she would receive anything other than a scowl by saying, “I have a surprise for you.”

So when she got an intrigued eyebrow lift instead, she counted that as something of a triumph. Well, that was hardly fair. An incredible triumph, really, considering that it was Jaina she was surprising, and Jaina who actually seemed eager to see what the surprise was.

They were walking the newly built walls of the keep of New Lordaeron. A castle for a city, born of both old and new. The stones of old ruins, on the foundation of a new alliance. Well, alliance was still a word with too much sting to it. Coalition? Sure. Partnership? Maybe. Whatever you might call...this.

When they discovered the true might of the old god N’zoth, just as their war had reached its peak, it had become apparent to both the Alliance and the Horde that continuing their conflict would only lead to a mutually assured destruction. They had to work together to defeat a greater foe, yet again. But the little lion, Anduin Wrynn, would not be content with a temporary peace. No truces to be betrayed, no pacts to be forged, then forgotten. No, he wanted to ensure an end to it all.

So the plan had been to trade promises instead of wins or losses on the battlefield. Large, important promises. Things like territory, hostages, and of course, marriages. At first he proposed that he himself would marry the Banshee Queen. Sylvanas did not accept this for many reasons, chief among them being that she preferred women, and second to that being that she had literal centuries on Anduin. He was a fine lad, sure enough, but what could they possibly talk about? He was young, alive, and human. She felt ancient, was dead, and had become a creature entirely of her own creation at this point. Those sort of differences would quickly melt away any good intentions, surely.

Sylvanas was sure she had taken herself off the table. She made quite the case for how terrible of a marriage partner she would make, even if it meant losing a bit of faith with the rest of the members of this new pact. Of course, even then, no one had expected Jaina to volunteer.

Yet how were they to expect any of this? As they walked, Sylvanas found herself noting a great variety among the stonemasons that worked around them. When they had first begun construction the previous year, it was nearly all Forsaken working on the new city. That made sense. They were, after all, building on the same spot of the home that most of these people had lost at least twice--once during the Third War, again during the Alliance assault in the War of Thorns. Yet now, there were just as many living humans as dead ones carving away at the stones, or laying floorboards of polished wood. They even passed a room where a Tauren was holding up a dwarf so she could hang a chandelier.

This was what they had worked for. This was what would help them to keep their world safe. Unity, cooperation, peace.

Yet it didn’t come easy. Most of New Lordaeron was still populated by members of the former Horde. The humans and their friends were slow to trust. Those that had come were mostly survivors of the Scourge returning to their ancestral home, or those who decided that they weren’t going to let a silly little thing like undeath scare them away from their families.

But it was a start. Like this half-finished castle. Like the silence between her and Jaina that was beginning to grow more comfortable and less awkward. It was a start. That last part proved to be very difficult when both you and your spouse happened to start out thinking of eachother as genocidal maniacs, but they were working through it.

They stepped into a larger hallway, with high vaulted ceilings and light streaming in from the arched windows above of them. That light filtered through stained glass that formed the emblems of each allied race. Sylvanas had to admit that her skin looked best when it passed under the Forsaken purple, as was only natural.

“Wait,” Jaina interrupted her musings. “Is it finished?”

Sylvanas found a smile forming all too easily on her lips. “You’ll see,” she replied.

At the end of that hallway lay a large set of double doors. They, like the rest of the keep, were still not entirely finished. The fittings were only basic black iron, but hey, they were functional and level on their hinges. Sylvanas had ideas for some lovely brass work, but that would have to come later.

She opened the door for Jaina, reflexively. This time, Jaina simply went through the door and didn’t offer a scowl or flinch as if she was breaking some sort of protocol. Things were getting better, maybe.

It would all depend on what she had to say about the rooms that lay beyond those doors.

First there was an audience chamber, maybe better termed as a meeting room. There was long table, and Jaina appeared to approve of the number and quality of the chairs clustered around it, as well as the fact that there was a hearth. She had previously expressed some worry over undead architects forgetting that others might need things like heat to survive.

Beyond that, a dining room, with another long table, but less chairs. Paintings were what Jaina seemed drawn to here. Sylvanas had chosen one of a Kul Tiran ship at sea. She was glad to see it noticed.

Then a sitting room, off to the side, smaller, cozier. A great bay window overlooking what would be garden, maybe in a decade or two. Right now it was a lumber yard.

And after that, two doors. Two rooms.

“You’re on the left,” Sylvanas noted.

Jaina turned to look at her questioningly, but then opened the left door to reveal the surprise.

A bedchamber, or maybe more like a study with a bed in it. That seemed to be what Jaina would want, after all. A wonderful writing desk with plenty of space for her to spread her mess out. Shelves full of books, some on gracious loan from the Kirin Tor, others pilfered from Silvermoon or Suramar and everywhere in between. A curtained bed draped in deep Kul Tiran green. Clutter to remind her of better times--a ship in a bottle on the mantle, a mounted display of fine wands, a tapestry depicting a lively harbor scene in Theramore.

Jaina took her time. She walked around the room, picking up objects as she went, examining them. She didn’t say anything. She flipped through the pages of a tome on the arcane that was resting on a marble bookstand. She gently touched the rich velvet of the bed curtains. She didn’t look back toward Sylvanas as she asked, “All for me then?”

“Unless you want to keep sleeping in a tent,” Sylvanas noted.

Jaina half-turned toward her. A little smile was betraying her, but she wouldn’t dare show Sylvanas her entire face when it was like that. “Thank you.”

“It’s to your liking then?” Sylvanas asked. She still hung in the doorway. Even as she was consulting on the decorating of this room, she didn’t feel like she had the right to enter. She wanted it to be a place for Jaina, just for her. After all, no one quite knew the importance of personal space like a banshee did. You couldn’t truly appreciate privacy until you had been used to possess the body of an ogre that had just eaten an entire rotten goat.

Not that she had this place created out of any sort of sentiment. No, definitely not. It would keep Jaina quiet and happy. Maybe not happy. Content? It was tough to say.

But it would get rid of the complaints about having to share a tent down in the camp that functioned as a makeshift city while the real one was still being built or reclaimed. Sylvanas quickly learned to stop reminding Jaina that it had been her idea in the first place. Her endless need for nobility and self-sacrifice had prompted her to repurpose the pavilion she brought for herself as a medical tent. Rather than leave her homeless in the interim, Sylvanas had insisted that Jaina stay with her instead. It made sense. After all, they were technically married.

The problem was that Sylvanas didn't need to sleep. So she didn't. She was up all night, every night, meeting with commanders, coming and going, writing missives and battle plans, trying to save this world from the void in the way she knew best.

But her living, mortal wife needed sleep. She needed it more than she cared to admit. At first, Jaina pushed her way into those meetings, offered advice on the battle plans, and waited up to ask where Sylvanas had been all night and why she didn’t invite her along, but she began to suffer for it rather quickly. She was eventually convinced to go to sleep in the bed Sylvanas had brought in for her and placed in a far away corner of the pavilion.

But even then, it was hard to get her to rest. Jaina would complain about missing things while she slept, on the odd occasion that she did. With her own room, though, maybe she might actually sleep and leave Sylvanas back to her nights again.

At least that was the hope.

Jaina turned to face her, still with a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Yes. I had no idea this was supposed to be a second bedroom.”

“Well, it is now,” Sylvanas replied.

“And yours is next door?” Jaina asked, walking back toward the doorway where Sylvanas stood.

“Yes, complete with a lavish coffin and a closet for my skeletons,” Sylvanas scoffed.

Jaina shook her head. “I never imagined you would have a sense of humor. Now that I've seen it, I understand why you keep it a secret. It's truly awful.”

Sylvanas gave a sigh of mock annoyance as a response.

“Can I see it?” Jaina asked after a moment.

Sylvanas answered by removing herself from the doorway and moving to open other the door beside it.

Her room was not as nice or as thoughtful. There was a bed, yes, because even if she didn't sleep, she could enjoy a comfortable rest now and then. There were places to keep clothing and armor, along with a weapon rack or two. There was a smaller, more practical desk.

But it wasn't entirely without personality. Most of the decorations were gifts--banners sewn for her, a delicate rose made from black glass in a simple vase, a wood carving of lynx, the old symbol of her ranger squad back in Quel’thalas. Instead of taking prominent places, these treasures were hidden away in the shadows of shelves and curtains. She would hold onto them, sure, but that was no reason to advertise them.

Jaina didn't snoop much. She stood mutely by the door, taking it in for a moment, before noting, “Just a wall between us.”

“I assure you that any late night meetings will be kept away. We won't disturb your rest,” Sylvanas offered. “I highly doubt I'll use this chamber often anyway.”

A quick look of rebuke from Jaina hinted that maybe it wasn't the noise she was concerned about.

Or maybe that was Sylvanas imagining things.

“So we can stay up here tonight?” Jaina asked.

“I've already sent for our things,” Sylvanas informed her.

---

Jaina was warmer and more comfortable than she had been in months. And it was quiet. Intensely quiet. All she could hear was the occasional spark of the fire in her new hearth. Her hearth, not a brazier that she had to demand to be dragged into the tent because she just happened to notice that it was winter and that she was tired of constantly freezing. Just because she was a master of frost didn't mean that she had to live like it, or in it.

Still, it was quiet.

She busied herself with the many new books on her shelves. Even as she hung her head over a massive tome of philosophy, which she really didn't care for, written in Thalassian, which she had never really quite mastered as a language, she found herself bored, not tired. Buried in a terrible book, under the covers of this massive bed, even then sleep could not find her.

Quiet, comfortable, and alone for what felt like the first time in months, yet still her mind was racing.

She had to wonder at what it was like for such a state to be normal, much less healthy. How was Sylvanas coping in the next room over? Even if her insomnia was typical for her kind, what was it like, to go from something that once slept and ate and lived to a being propelled by an unending energy, seemingly fueled by will alone from one sunrise to the next?

These were the kinds of questions that Jaina always had running through her mind anymore. Living and working closely with the undead would do that to a person. Of course, she could never ask these questions. It didn't stop her from wondering, though.

It reminded Jaina of the first time she’d met Sylvanas. Both of them were alive at the time. Jaina was just 16 years old then, accompanying her friend Prince Kael’thas on a quick trip back to his home in Silvermoon. It was such an honor to be asked to go to the home of the high elves. In those days, it was rare for human guests to be permitted.

So it was with narrowed eyes and suspicion that the Ranger General first greeted her, not to mention a typical elven attitude of standoffishness and barely disguised irritation. Most elves saw her as a small, weak, and temporary thing compared to themselves. Even as Kael had introduced her as a promising young mage that was stealing the hearts of everyone in Dalaran, Sylvanas didn't seem convinced.

Later, Jaina would mention this to Kael, concerned she had somehow made a bad impression. She remembered him laughing and reassuring her, “Don't worry, my dear. I think you’re just not her type.”

Needless to say, that comment lead to a valuable lesson on how elven culture viewed same sex relationships. That marked another time in her life in which Jaina had plenty of questions that she wouldn't dare to ask.

What would Kael think, were he still here and hadn't lost his mind all those years ago? Would he think it was funny still? Yes, he would probably find it hilarious that she managed to end up married to Sylvanas Windrunner.

There would also be a lot of other details about Jaina’s life that he would find decidedly unfunny, but that was a worry for another night.

Jaina went back to wondering how it was that she could be so exhausted, yet unable to sleep. Was she hungry? No. Thirsty? Maybe a little. Was she looking for excuses to leave this room and find some way not to be alone? Absolutely.

Why lie to herself? There was no point anymore. Besides, she had been assured that this place was as much her home as anyone else’s--her keep, her city, her armies, definitely her navy. She was more than allowed to walk around if she wanted to.

She closed her book, setting it aside amongst the pillows she’d shoved to one side of the bed. She then slipped out of the covers and found herself a robe. She didn’t have a destination in mind, honestly, but anything was better than just sitting there, hoping for sleep to magically come upon her.

And yes, of course, there were magic spells and potions for all of that, but continued use of them was not healthy. Jaina needed to get over this herself. She knew she could. She just needed more time to adjust to, well, everything.

She tried to open her door as quietly as possible and stepped out into the hall. She had no idea where Sylvanas was, but didn’t want to disturb her in case she was actually in her room.

And she was, with the door open, lit only by a small lamp. Though there was a hearth in Sylvanas’ room, it lay cold and dark. She was hunched over her desk, writing. It amazed Jaina just how small she looked without her armor, even though she’d seen her bereft of it many times in the past year. It was hard to imagine that the imposing figure of the former Warchief actually inhabited the body of just an average-sized high elf. Yet there she was, in a simple dressing gown, writing letters. Jaina knew exactly what they said. They were pleas for help, requests for understanding, attempts at diplomacy, and yes, even some apologies. Sylvanas knew as well as she did that they needed any ally they could get. She had once confided in Jaina that she felt the least she could do was write to those who still resisted their attempts at peace in her own hand.

“You might as well come in,” Sylvanas invited without even looking up from her work.

Damn. She was not as quiet as she thought. “I uh...I know this will come as a shock to you, but I can’t sleep,” Jaina told her.

Sylvanas grunted an acknowledgement.

Jaina almost felt like she shouldn’t even try to pass through the door frame. Sylvanas clearly wanted her sleepless nights back to herself. There was no other reason for her to give Jaina her own space. She certainly hadn’t been expecting it.

But one didn’t refuse an invitation from the Banshee Queen. Jaina stepped into the dim room, immediately feeling the difference in temperature.

Jaina watched her wordlessly as Sylvanas finished off the letter, signing it with her spidery and very distinctly elven signature.

Sylvanas leaned back and sighed, stashing the quill back into a nearly empty inkwell. She turned to face Jaina. Unhooded, her grave-dulled hair was free to spill into her eyes. It gave her a distinct look of exhaustion. Maybe that was just Jaina projecting, but it seemed like even Sylvanas could use a nap at this point.

“It’s more than a bit late,” Sylvanas commented, brushing the hair back from her face.

“I tried reading something boring, well, something that I would find boring,” Jaina told her. “But it turns out that even two thousand year old elven philosophy is too exciting to get me to doze off.”

“Oh no, that old Daysong relic? I had them throw it in because it has a pretty cover,” Sylvanas admitted. “Please don’t actually read that pile of garbage.”

Jaina shrugged. “Honestly, it was more just looking at words and less reading. My Thalassian isn’t great.”

“We can work on that,” Sylvanas noted. “But you speak Orcish better than me, for what it’s worth.”

Jaina smiled. That was true. She’d had years more practice, after all. “What are we even doing here?” she asked Sylvanas.

The other woman laughed. “It seems like we might actually be having a casual conversation.”

“It’s weird,” Jaina said.

“I know,” Sylvanas agreed. “But it’s not really that casual of you are standing at attention like a soldier over there.”

Jaina hadn't realized it, but yes, she was about one salute away from that. There were no other seats in the room besides the one Sylvanas was still occupying. She hated this. Of all the people in Azeroth, and honestly any other world she’d had occasion to visit, only Sylvanas could still make her feel like a complete fool. Where was she supposed to sit?

Fine. She would sit on her bed. That was the only option.

Jaina swept her way over to the bed with as much regality as she could muster. She sat down on the dark satin of the comforter and remarked, “Nice coffin you have here.”

Sylvanas answered with a huff, not quite a laugh. “What can I say? I've done well for myself.”

Jaina offered a smile back the sarcastic side of Sylvanas that she was beginning to become acquainted with. She was trying. She really was. She had stopped seeing the Banshee Queen and the Warchief every time she looked at her. Most of the time now, she just saw a person, sometimes a world class general, other times a leader who cared deeply for her people, well, more so the undead ones than the living. That was no secret. But she no longer saw a monster or an enemy, just not really a friend either. Or, you know, a spouse.

“Could you sleep, if you wanted to?” she found herself wondering aloud.

Sylvanas hummed before answering, “Yes. I would have to force myself, but I could.”

“Why bother with this then?” Jaina asked as she ran her hand over the rich fabric of the bedspread.

“For the same reason I have them set a place for me at feasts, why I still keep a bottle of good wine handy--it’s normal. I don't need to sleep, eat, or drink, but I spent more of my existence doing those things than I have not doing them. It’s just,” she paused for a moment, “it's just odd I guess, not to have a bed in a bedroom. Besides, where else am I supposed to huddle up and read awful philosophy into the wee hours of the morning?”

“I've seen a lot of Forsaken eating though,” Jaina objected.

“Ghouls,” Sylvanas corrected. “Depending on how they died, most of them still actually get some benefits from eating and have a sense of taste.”

“I see, so--"

“The rest of us are a different story,” Sylvanas cut her off. “Banshees, geists, abominations, dark rangers, death knights, liches--our deaths were a bit more...traumatic. For me, it’s like sleeping. I can eat, but I don't taste anything, nor do I get hungry, so what's the point?”

“Huh, I didn't know that,” Jaina admitted. “Someone should really do a study on the different forms of undeath.”

Sylvanas shrugged. “I'm sure the Apothecaries have material on that subject, if you are interested.”

She didn't need to know that Jaina still treated that group of Forsaken with a lingering distrust, so Jaina simply nodded her reply.

Sylvanas also didn't need to know that Jaina was developing a bit of a fascination with how she worked.

“I'm not trying to shut you out, you know,” Sylvanas said after a moment of silence stretched on too long. “I just thought you needed your own space.”

Why was it such a relief to hear that? Why did her stomach immediately unknot itself? Why did the tension in her shoulders that she didn't even realize was there before begin to ease at those words? Why was she worried about this? Why did she care?

“My door is and will remain open to you,” Sylvanas went on. “I meant what I promised, despite the circumstances I promised it under; we are equals in this partnership, both politically and privately.”

Jaina found herself letting out a long, shaky sigh. “I appreciate that,” she said. “I just...I'm still feeling a little lost here.”

“Who isn't?” Sylvanas offered. She turned back to her desk. She checked to make sure the ink was dry, then started folding the letter. “This is new for all of us. I think you and I are a fine example of this new nation of ours--we are all still learning to trust one another.”

Sylvanas then took the candle from her lamp and dribbled a bit of violet wax from it onto the folded letter. She waited a few moments before pressing it with a seal, then carefully stowing the candle back where it belonged. The seal itself was newly forged, and it's symbol was only finalized a few months ago. It was a jumbled collection of a Worgen wolf, a Forsaken mask, a Blood Elf phoenix, and a Kul Tiran anchor, clustered around the old symbol of Lordaeron. The seal for their newly-formed kingdom, one of four new nations bound together in what was being called the Protectorate Pact. A step towards Anduin’s dream of a united Azeroth that was nothing short of miraculous.

Sylvanas waved the sealed letter a bit to cool the wax. “We’ll see if the Amani trolls have changed their minds. Ugh, if I were to go back and tell myself 20 years ago what I just wrote…”

Jaina happily took this segue back to a less emotional conversation. “How would you explain yourself to, well, yourself?”

Sylvanas flashed her a grin. “Well, first, I think I'd tell her to run away if she sees a death knight charging at her.”

Jaina hated these jokes. She never knew how to react. Was she supposed to laugh? Was she supposed to console her? She had no idea.

But Sylvanas kept on grinning.

“Wait. You know I hate when you do that. You have to,” Jaina pointed out.

“Of course I do. It's great. No one ever knows what to say,” Sylvanas admitted.

Jaina found herself laughing. “Awful! You are despicable! How many times have you given people literal heart attacks over this?”

“How else am I supposed to make more Forsaken?” Sylvanas answered with an even wider grin.

“Stop!” Jaina tried to protest through even more laughter.

Sylvanas joined her with a chuckle or two even. “I may not be able to enjoy a fine wine or a long nap anymore. Let me have something.”

It was funny how that one tugged at her heartstrings the most. Forget all these great tragedies that had befallen the two of them. Jaina could still enjoy a hot meal on a cold day or, on a rare occasion, turn off her thoughts enough to drift into a restful slumber. She still had many ways left to herself to find a little comfort when life got rough.

All Sylvanas had left was her awful, and rather unexpected repertoire of self-deprecating undeath jokes.

Sylvanas set the letter down as laughter left her. She stared at another blank piece of parchment that still lay on the desk. The red glow of her eyes reflected off of it’s off-white surface with just the faintest hint of ruddy light. “I have one more letter to write tonight,” she noted as pulled the sheet forward. “But you can stay here while I write it, if you want.”

Jaina was tired of being confused about how to accept offers like these. There was only one way to find out if she was being tested or not, or if they were finally through with all of that nonsense. She just had to accept them and find out. “If you don't mind,” she replied more out of politeness than anything else.

Sylvanas had already begun scratching away with the quill again. She didn’t respond, but Jaina thought there might have been a hint of a smile hidden somewhere within the wild tangle of her loose hair.

She wasn't sure when she fell asleep, or how, or why. She just knew that she woke up in her own bed a few hours later, just after dawn. Jaina didn’t question how she made it from sitting on dark purple satin to neatly tucked into Kul Tiran green. She didn’t have time to ponder why she couldn't sleep alone. She felt rested, for once, and there was work to do.

#sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #sylvaina #fanfic #why am i doing this #i dont even like jaina #but enemies to friends to lovers is like so good #ugh #two rooms

[lily-orchard]

Blizzard has shown their hand completely. They are gunning hard for Sylvanas as the expansion’s end boss, and have decided to completely ignore the entire story of Warcraft up to this point in order to get their precious “Garrosh 2.0.”

Worse than that, they are pretty much forcing the player to get behind Saurfang as a revolutionary.

I don't want to be on Saurfang's side. In my eyes he is a deserter and hypocrite. He constantly talks about honor when he left his own people instead of standing up and struggling against the “so hated” Warchief. It's the most dishonorable act. And he’s been this way since Cataclysm, talking a lot about honor and yet refusing to do anything about the two Warchiefs who he claims has gone off the deep end. He did nothing about Garrosh, he does nothing about Sylvanas. He runs and hides like a dishonorable coward.

Blizzard has yet to give me a good enough reason to want to betray Sylvanas in the first place, and yet they have assumed that I’m already on board with another orc that talks a lot about honor but refuses to practice it.

In an expansion where the Light is shown to be malicious, and zealous conviction gets you killed, you’d think the Orcs’ obsession with honor might get a similar kind of thrashing. But apparently not. Blizzard will not let go of their precious “Honorable Orcs.”

With this, Blizzard have made it clear that the story doesn’t matter. If they decide on a whim that they’re going to speed a beloved legacy character downhill at a hundred miles an hour, they will ignore anything that might contradict that. What reason is there to care about the story when Blizzard has so brazenly demonstrated that they will not bother with it?

Worse off, they’re doing it with a character who has been my favorite since The Frozen Throne, not just for her “Not having your bullshit” attitude, but also for how perfectly she encapsulated the core of the Faction War that has defined Warcraft since the very first game. And they have abandoned all of that to chase another Garrosh, to kill another Warchief.

So after 14 years, I’m done.

[fuckblizzardbearlover]

“Yes the Sylvanas storyline IS original and its one the Horde needs right now″

For starters “2.0″ always means “not the same, but similar and better”  so GJ using the reference wrong

Ok for reasons i cant understand people keep calling whats happening Garrosh 2.0. when the only similarity is that the person who is a villain is the Horde Warchief.

That COMPLETELY ignores the canon personality and history of both characters. it COMPLETELY ignores FIVE expansions worth of story (so like 10 years) for Garrosh and ALL of Sylvanas’s story.

I’m sorry but any idiot can look at the best thing in the world and insult it with a single sentance. Obama the greatest president? “Oh that do nothing president?”  Beyonce is a legend? “oh i think she’s overrated”, Chris Evans is hot? “oh another muscled blond twunk, how original?”

giving a quick one liner to insult the story and the writers doesnt give any validity to your statement. the only reason it continues is because its popular to be mean to developers. If you actually had to PROVE why its bad or similar you’d be fucked because they arent even remotely similar.

The Horde is a unified found family of people with greatly different values who help each other survive in a harsh world. The Tauren find Forsaken actions such as experimenting on living people, abhorrent, but they are allies and dont presume to judge the actions of people who were enslaved in death. The Trolls kept most of their rituals but gave up cannibalism in order to make the Orcs happy. Most of the blood elves are not used to such....natural enviroments but Silvermoon still sends its finest in defense of Horde lands.

The Horde is a group willing to put up with each others evils, willing to protect each other, and work together because they made an oath to do so.  many of the horde disagreed with Thrall’s leadership, many disagreed with Garrosh’s, many disagreed with Vol’jins and Sylvanas’s . But the Warchief was their leader. 10s of thousands throughout the years had already died because their warchief asked them to. to protect each other and their own.

many people who’s sincerity i question say blizzard has forgotten what makes up the horde but YOU forget what makes up the horde.  They’ve gone along with things they dont agree with because they Trust the mantle of warchief, the entire system is based on the idea that the leaders will work in their best interest and sometimes that means some of them have to do harsh things, or fight to the death because it protects the HORDE not the individual.

The problem is that that can work both ways. If you trust Thrall your warchief , that working with the humans who hate us is what we need to do to save the world then you do as he commands. Likewise if the warchief tells you that you need to fight to occupy Pandaria to get the resources so horde children can grow up with full bellies then you do as he commands. And if the Warchief tells you that from her expert opinion the Alliance will strike and you need to make the first move then you do as she commands.

you say “FOR THE HORDE” but dont realize that most of the Horde will give their weapons, lives, concience, and even their honor and morals to protect the Horde?

but back to the two warchiefs.

Garrosh was an outsider. For some Ass reason people blame Thrall, despite him kinda having to help save the world, asking Cairne and Vol’jin to advize  Garrosh, and Garrosh being a good 10 years older than Thrall who was i believe 24 at the time World of Warcraft started. Anyways, THATS whats important Garrosh was an outsider. He was discovered in the burning crusade, and when Thrall told him that while Grom did sell out the horde he ultimately did what was right Garrosh deliberately ignored the lesson in favor of his binary way of thinking. To Garrosh you are an enemy or ally, you are a victor or a loser. He thought Grom doomed his people , he didnt give a damn about the countless draenei children whos bones made up the Path of Glory, he cared because Grom was an embarrassment . He didnt care that Grom helped save elf and human lives by killing Manaroth, he cared that he saved Orc lives and FREE’d his people from the underhandedness of Gul’dan.

People act like his character was assassinated and those people are Wrong. I was there for the prepatch event, the moment he looked at Ogrimmar he spat on how hard his fellow orcs works. He saw the lush lands far away and demanded why Thrall did not TAKE them. He didnt listen when thrall said that Durotar was their penance for the all the Genocide that orcs committed. Of course Garrosh doesnt care about nuance, You are good or bad, enemy or friend. To admit that the Horde did something wrong would to suggest that their victories, their legacy was honorless. And that would mean HIS legacy was honorless. And as a selfish bit of self defense he REFUSED to accept that. So he challenged the Warchief himself to a duel for rulership of the Horde (or at least Ogrimmar). which was interrupted by the Scourge (and also in which Thrall used magic btw).

Garrosh was an outsider but he spoke Alt Right propoganda. Most of the orcs did not know draenor, they grew up in the horde, some their lives sucked away by Guldan’s warlocks. Many knew only the glory days of the horde and then the suffering of the internment camps. others grew up in those interment camps NEVER knowing any glory only the piss and mudd of their human captors. Thrall didnt leave Durnholde till he was 13 (physically the size of an adult orcs, probably almost mentally mature). this meant that orcs were captive for that same time. Any orc that is currently less than 28 years old would have been BORN a slave and knowing only that.

So when Garrosh spoke to these orcs who  where teenage to young adult age about how they should be glorious, about how the filthy humans didnt deserve their respect he had a crowd. Almost evey young orc HAD nothing to be ashamed of unlike Saurfang and Eitrigg they had never murdered innocent humans. but humans DID beat them, despite being smaller and weaker.

Skipping ahead, when he became warchief he spouted propoganda. He was not interested in The Horde as we know it He didnt want a family he wanted “THE HORDE” a glorious war machine to trample those who deserve trampling. Thats why he looked down on the Goblins elves and forsaken. While the rest of the horde didnt like their family, the strange cultures of other races, they accepted them. even if they did not personally accept them they knew that they could not let others know. But Garrosh didnt care about family, didnt care about the Horde. He was an outsider pushing his delusions of grandiur and glory of the old horde he never even experienced, onto THIS horde.

And everytime he tried to shove the horde races back into their places he hurt them. Many of the horde were sucked in, mostly the orcs though. All that “this is WHO we are”. And since the Horde as the Horde understood it was loyal and understanding they went along with  it. Each race had warred with the alliance before. They might have personally disagreed but they were loyal to the horde and its chief, if he felt they deserved to take ashenvale the horde would do so.

But like i’ve said 20 times, the Horde was family, not a war machine. When something didnt ‘fit” like the forsaken’s plagues, or the cowardly goblins they were shoved to the side. They “had no place in MY HORDE”.  Garrosh pushed and threatened, but he did help in the campaign against deathwing, he was just alot more...aggressive and mean than Thrall. But as his power solidified he saw more the potential of his horde, and what pieces didnt fit. Vol’jin the rightful warchief was in the Horde from day 1 and didnt accept any disrespect the Horde HE knew was family and he was right. Sylvanas knew this lover of Axe and Brainlessness would never accept the forsaken, but kept her cards close to the chest. And the elves went to the throne of thunder to get a weapon as a deterant for Garrrosh’s anger.

Garrosh, the outsider, trying to force the horde into what it wasnt, attacked and destroyed that family. He wanted to become head of house but he destroyed family and THAT the horde could not abide. For the Alliance their Morality is more important than their kin. this is why the blood elves and forsaken were shunned, why they accepted the Void elves and worgen, they had similar values. For the Horde their Kin was more important than their Morality. They would protect their friends even if their friends turned to darkness. Because they trust each other , they trust its necessary, they trust that to SURVIVE sometimes you have to look the other way as your comrade eats brains, or sucks magic out of a demon

And Garrosh betrayed that trust and he was ousted

The reason why the Horde needs this storyline is because thats Not whats happening here. The Horde could distance themselves from Garrosh, they could say “not my warchief” despite 34% of them voting for him. He was an outsider, brought into the horde , and betrayed it.

Not Sylvanas though. She’s not a founding member but she almost is. She’s been in the horde for Years, she’s has command over the greatest victims of evil, and spearheaded the fight against the Lich King. She is the one who created the cure for the Plague. if not for her and her apothecaries the 2nd scourge invasion would have been the end. She’s ALWAYS been evil. She’s a monster. A horrible disgusting shell of herself whos only emotion is hatred or nothingness. thats why we love her. She’s extremely dangerous, and since 2004 Warcraft has said “THe forsaken are up to something” they were the black sheep of the family. But they were, as she said, loyal to the Horde. the Horde Trusts her, trusted her, relied on her. Her apothecaries worked with the Shat’tar to create the cure to the plague . She spearheaded the campaign against Arthas. in every area of the world the forsaken willingly sent their scientists and mages and warlocks to study dark magic and plagues to help the horde fight demons and monsters. Her spies who do not require food or water or air have been invaluable. The horde for YEARS has looked the other way, knowing its hard to judge someone who had been enslaved and turned into a monster against their will. Yes they comitted attrocities, but whats it mater really if you kill the enemy with an arrow or with a disease. one is more horrific yes but dead is dead and that was their way.

Sylvanas has always been a part of the Horde, She IS part of the Horde, the horde wouldnt be the same without their undead brothers and sisters, without the sciences and magics of lordearon and the dead brought to bare against any enemy. She is FAMILY She IS the Horde.

She ISNT an outsider. She represents everything the horde is, or rather everything the HOrde chooses to ignore about itself. The Horde is full of noble, honored, skilled, regal and peaceful people. but among those were orc nationalists, monsterous forsaken who commit evil, trolls who perform dark magic, cannibalism. . The Horde has ALWAYS looked the other way from its own dark side in order to put Kin before their morals for the sake of the Horde.

And now the epitome of the Hordes compliance has done something none of them can condone. The Horde has always turned the other cheek when one of its members has commited attrocities. even Garrosh wasnt ousted until he attacked its own members

The Horde could never say they were the good guys, because they did almost nothing as their family commited evil.

Sylvanas is family, the forsaken is family. Its easy to kick an associate out, For an outsider to come into your group and say “this is how we should do things” and when you realize they are going to far to kick them out, to band together against them.

But what if that person whos gone to far, who does horrible things, who puts you at risk and risks your family, IS family.

This is the Hordes reckoning. this is the moment they will have to decide, is Family worth losing your souls over?  I think the answer they will choose is ‘no”

#sylvanas windrunner #world of warcraft #world of warcraft spoilers #garrosh hellscream #thrall #battle for azeroth

[indiikaa]

Wanderer

Little thing about Aeroshot doin some good for once.

Characters:

Nebulous Aeroshot - Blood Elf Hunter Hercules the Black Lion- His companion  Talanji B’wansomdi A secret player.

The lion beside him seemed to growl whenever one of the Death Guards walked by, patrolling the outside terrace of the Great Seal. He had requested an audience with Talanji; but that had been three hours ago, and even though he knew she was busy,  this was important. She would listen to him, he knew she would, but he feared it may already be too late.

Hercules looked back up to his master, the black-haired Sin'dorei reading through one of his journals. The mighty black lion had stayed by the Hunter's side since he had found him in the Ghostlands a decade ago, unconscious and with no memory of who he actually was. Hercules and Nebulous were inseparable by this point, and none were as foolish to think of separating the two.

It had felt like an eternity until he heard the clinking of the Zandalari Guard's armor walking towards him. Nebulous lifted his head from the book, looking up to the guard with a raised eyebrow.

"Queen Talanji has agreed to see ya now, Speaker of de Horde" The guard spoke, looking down to the Blood Elf.

"Thank you for informing me," Nebumous nodded, standing as he closed the journal. He placed it back into his satchel, looking down to the lion. "Come along now, Hercules. We shouldn't keep a Queen waiting," With that, the black lion yawned, standing up from the ground beside where the archer had been sitting. The two made their way through the open doors of the Great Seal, walking up the stairs and to the lift. Hercules stayed beside Nebulous as he always did, weary of the Undead guards that stood by each door. Again, he would growl in their direction, and Nebulous would scratch behind his ear gently to tell him he knew of the dangers. The two boarded the lift as it came down for them, the archer waiting until they were moving and alone to look to the lion.

"You and I both know that this needs to be done, and she needs to know. There's no denying it," he spoke quietly, still unsure if they were being listened to. "I promise that nothing bad will happen, alright?" He asked, kneeling down to look the lion in the eyes. "If anything were to happen, though, I have you behind me so I wouldn't have to worry" he grinned, scratching under Hercules' large mane. The lion pawed at him gently as the lift came to a stop, the two exiting and walking up the stairs towards the Queen's throne.

"Aeroshot! To who do I owe de pleasure of your presence?" Talanji would give a small smile if she could, but the look on Nebulous's face seemed to worry the young Queen.

"Talanji, what I'm about to tell you is important, and you must take my words into consideration." He spoke, stopping just short of the throne. The Zandalari Queen looked to him, a questioning look on her face.

"What is it, Aeroshot?"

He took a breath, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them and looking up to her. "Do not trust Sylvanas's words, Talanji. You and I both know that she is not here to help the Zandalari with their plight, she is here for her own gain," He began. "She lies and deceives and murders for her own power and gain; and she is no better than the one who killed and rebirthed her back into existence."

"What do you mean by this?"

"The Banshee Queen is no better than those who threatened your father and betrayed him. She will betray you and I fear for what could be lost because of it." He replied, looking up to her.

"How do you know dis?"

"I have seen it first hand, Talanji. I was there when she ordered Teldrassil burned, and I was there when her dog Nathanos burned it into the husk that stands now. " Nebulous looked down, shaking his head. "I joined the Horde because I was promised answers to my own past, promised answers to questions... promised a home, a family. Ask me what I see now, though..." he stopped,  his eyes trained on Talanji. "What I see now is a bastardization of what the Horde once was and what it stood for. Talanji..." He took a breath. "Do not trust the Horde."

Talanji looked to the Blood Elf. Aeroshot had come on behalf of the Banshee Queen and Warchief of the Horde when they first arrived in Zandalar, and had promised that the Horde would be behind them with their plight against the Kul Tiran. But now, Aeroshot stood before her, pleading for her not to trust the Horde. His change of heart startled her.

"Den what does she want from us?"

"She wants the Azerite under our feet. She wants to create weapons from it that would destroy anyone who stands in her way." He replied. "She bombed her own city and killed countless people in doing so, just out of spite. She burned down a tree that housed an entire race just because it sat on an Azerite deposit. What do you think she is going to do to Zul'Dazar? Or Voldun? Nazmir?" he asked. "She is going to destroy everything to get what she wants unless you help stop her."

Talanji stayed quiet, watching the archer as he spoke. If what he said was the truth, she would be putting her people in danger. Her eyes narrowed before she spoke again.

"Aeroshot, you are de Speaker of de Horde, and you speak well. I will take your words into consideration, and think about dis. I will send for you when I have decided what to do." Talanji looked to Nebulous, who nodded.

"I will be in Nazmir for the next few days, but after that, I do not know where I will be" He nodded, moving to leave before stopping. "Talanji,"

"Yes?"

"I was never here. Blightcaller cannot know I told you this."

"I have heard nothing but what de wind told me" She replied. "May your Loa watch over you."

"And may yours... well, I would say watch over you but B'wansomdi has his claws in everything, doesn't he?" he asked with a small grin. Talanji smiled a bit at this, watching as the Blood Elf walked off.

 *

 The Necropolis loomed in the dark fog, the energy here felt different, strange. This wasn't the first time the archer had been to the land of the dead, but this time was different. He had a deal to make with the Loa who called The Necropolis home. Spirits walked as if still living, unaware of his presence as he entered the large building before him.

Once inside, he walked down the stairs and to the platform. He could see the Loa hovering in the air, contemplating. Hercules roared, gaining the attention of the Loa.

"The Demon Archer wishes to speak with me, don't he?" B'wansomdi turned, looked down to the Blood Elf.

"I have come to make a deal with you, B'wansomdi. A deal that you have wished for for some time, it seems," Nebulous spoke confidently, his eyes trained on the Loa of Death.

"And what is dis deal dat ya offer, elf?"

"At Talanji's coronation, you said you always wanted the soul of a Horde Warchief, did you not?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "What if I can guarantee that?"

"A Warchief in my collection would be a sweet victory." B'wonsomdi floated forward, the troll Loa landing to sit upon the alter that Nebulous stood in front of. "But, what is de cost to me?"

"In return for a Warchief's soul, I ask you to bring a Warchief back to life, one of my own choosing," Nebulous replied, watching the Loa. In dealing with these mystical gods, he had learned how to speak to them, but B'wansomdi was the tricky one out of the Loa.

"Ya wish to return de former Warchief to life, de one who's ashes ya stole." B'wansomdi grinned. Nebulous's eyes narrowed, looking up to the Loa.

"How did you know I stole the ashes, death dealer?"

"I have my ways," B'wonsomdi chuckled, tilting his head slightly. "Dere is something else ya want to bargain, I can sense it on ya"

"There is nothing left for us to bargain, Loa. A Warchief for Warchief, that is it."

B'wansomdi's eyes narrowed as his laughter hushed, and he held his hand out. A light came from it, and the Loa seemed to grin.

"I see now, dis is what ya truly want..." He spoke, watching as the light seemed to fade. "I will make ya a different deal, 'Demon Archer'."

"What deal? I am only here for the one I have offered you,"

"Ya bring me de soul of the Horde Warchief, and I give ya back ya past life, de one you been lookin' for,"

A sharp breath in came from Nebulous.

"I see I have ya attention now," B'wonsomdi continued. "If ya bring me Windrunna's soul, I will give ya back the memories ya lost and couldn't find."

Was it worth it? An answer so close but so far away? This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Since he had woken up to Hercules watching over him all those years ago, he had wanted to know. But now... it was different.

"No," he spoke after a moment of thought. "Warchief for Warchief. Whatever life I lived back then, I do not want to know about. I am no longer who you see there, I am me, and I am here to bargain my deal with the Loa of Death." He replied. "Unless, the Loa of Death cannot fulfill the bargain, that is."

B'wonsamdi's eyes narrowed, a hand extending to the Blood Elf. "Windrunna's soul for de one ya call Vol'jin, den." Nebulous took the Loa's hand, nodding. "Windrunner for Vol'jin."

They shook hands, and Nebulous walked out of the Necropolis. He took a breath, sighing before closing his eyes.

"I made the deal with B'wansomdi, and you were right - he tried to bargain my past. Thank you for the heads up, old friend." he spoke, eyes opening as he looked to the left. Through the scores of undead souls floating around, the one that stood to his left was the most familiar. "He wants Sylvanas's soul, but I doubt she has one; that's why he made the deal with me."

"He will own ya until de day ya die," the familiar voice came to the Blood Elf's ears, but he shook his head.

"He can try, but I won't go lightly. Who knows, perhaps when I die, I'll become whoever I was before; and whoever that soul is, isn't me." He replied as he began to walk, the spirit floating behind him. "Honestly... I was surprised to see you at Talanji's coronation... but when I did, I had hope. I had an idea and I had to do it. You kept me in the Horde for a reason, and I intend to rectify what happened to you, old friend."

"Ya may want to watch ya back now, stay with ya Loa for a while. B'wansomdi be lookin' for ya to pay up,"

"Good. When he finds me to pay up, I'll be ready." he grinned. "Right, Hercules?" He asked, turning to look to the lion, but stopped. Hercules wasn't at his side, nor was he anywhere around.

"Hercules?"

#WoW #blood elf #Sindorei #Loa #Talanji #Bwonsamdi #Zandalar

[ryn-bloodroyle]

😮 [Send a 😮 for my muse to react to being mistaken for being in a relationship with yours]

Ryn would hear a loud knock upon his inn room door, the death knight glancing up from his a glass of ‘red wine’ over to the door, and then the window, brows furrowing in annoyance. It was the middle of the damned night! Who would be bothering him at a time like this?

His mind raced for sveral long moments until it was interrupted by another knock on the door, this one much more insistent. He’d take another quick sip from the glass before setting it on the room’s dresser, leaning back in the chair as he pondered. Come to think of it, there were quite a few who probably wished him dead… Even with his policy of never leaving loose ends.

This time the third knock was accompanied by a commanding voice. “Open up. This is the Silvermoon Magistry.” He’d see the lock upon the door flash with arcane magic, beginning to open itself before the death knight called out to his apparent ‘guests’.

“Fine, fine, give me a moment… Pissants.” He muttered the last word, rising from his seat as he now stood over the bed. The body was fresh, her limbs across strewn across the bed as her pleasure-filled expression was stained with her own lifeblood. He’d been thorough enough to keep it from staining the sheets, quickly grabbing the whore’s nude, limp form and shoving it under the bed. Giving a groan, he only hoped that would be good enough.

Several moments later, the Magistrix was glaring daggers at the knight, her notebook floating at her side as an enchanted quill scribbled down their continued conversation. There were two guards at her side, a blood knight guarding the doorway.

“You were seen with a Zaeri Vor'thael about a year ago, just outside the gates of the Shepherd, and again carrying her into the Hall of Respite for a session with a privately-ordered healer, correct?” Her voice was somewhat hoarse, dark circles under her cat-like eyes. Arms crossed over her chest, she hardly seemed as if she had any more patience, already to the brink with Ryn’s attitude.

“…Aye, I had found her out there. She’s the sister to my fia-,” he paused, wincing before correcting himself. “Ex-fiancée.” He wasn’t even looking at the Magistrix now, wondering why this had come back to haunt him once more. The memory flahsed through his mind as if it were yesterday, staring down at the sister of his former beloved as she had been freed of her abusive step-father’s soul– all thanks to Ryn. He’d held her in his arms, staring down at her as he perhaps had a moment of weakness.

“-and you were romantically involved with this Zaeri, correct?” She looked at him with utter disdain, disgusted as she waited for his reply. The quill would stop, glancing over the notebook as if to join her.

It was then Ryn burst into a short fit of laughter, a mad cackle that echoed throughout the room. He managed to compose himself before answering once more. “No, no I wasn’t– can’t say I had never thought about her in that way. To be fair, she and my former fiancée were twins-”

The Magistrix’s voice boomed over his own then, a spell augmenting her voice as his ears wilted back from the overwhelming tone. “I want to hear not of your foul endeavors, scourge scum. Now tell me, did you or did you not assist her in her studies of the void? She is a known traitor and a Ren'dorei.”

Ryn leaned back in his seat once more, finally meeting the woman’s intense fel green gaze as he tilted his head to the side, smirking nonchalantly. He perhaps had known a few things, his final talks with Zaeri having consisted of the new direction the Horde had taken with Sylvanas as Warchief. He could’ve perhaps even thought of a few possible places where they might be, out in the world– assuming they weren’t staying in any of the capital cities. He could get her rooted out now.

“No, I had no clue whatsoever that she was planning to betray us.” He narrowed his eyes as the quill scribbled his final few words before the notebook closed shut. The Magistrix clenched her grip upon her own ornate robes, clearly seething at yet another dead end.

((Well, this certainly turned out to be much longer than I meant for it to be! XD Thank you to @lady-zari-vorthael for the ask! ❤️))

[youngster-monster]

what if kael’thas had been a double agent instead?

kael’thas who never backs down, never goes back on a promise and never, ever gives up — kael’thas who’s young ans reckless and stupid and too clever for his own good. he sees illidan and he thinks, I will die for that man, and maybe it’s not such a bad way to go.

illidan is smart, too, but he’s also running on fumes and panic and there’s only so much sheer spite can do in the war effort. they need an insider, or at least reliable intel, anything to get one step ahead of a legion. demons aren’t loyal but it goes both ways; illidan has nothing to offer them that would trump the destruction and chaos sargeras promised them.

and then kael’thas has an idea: send one of their own to kil’jaeden. make them a traitor, a coward, an opportunist — they wouldn’t be the first, nor the last, to come to the legion for power of survival or revenge.

it’s a good idea. kael’thas has a lot of those. but now, the issue is this: who would be smart enough, deceiving enough, loyal enough, to be thrown to the wolves and lie his way to the top, and still be trusted to send intel to them? it can’t be anyone — the nagas are too loyal to their queen, kil’jaeden would never believe their betrayal. the draenei are barely their allies and, like the orcs, they have had no reasons to develop such undying loyalty to illidan.

a blood elf would makes more sense — they do not have the best track record when it comes to loyalty. but it can’t be any blood elf. kil’jaeden would not bother with a footsoldier. he’ll want an officer, an advisor, someone with insider knowledge.

he’ll want kael’thas.

illidan reacts the way you’d expect him to: with a big, finite no. but kael’thas has made up his mind and they both know it’s the only way.

you don’t have do to this, illidan tells him. kael’thas peruses his notes, looking for the soldiers he knows would gladly follow him to the legion, to a surer victory, and says I do.

no one must know it is an act. you never know who could be a traitor.

so kael’thas leaves for a mission they both know he won’t come back from, with troops that he can’t ever trust, and to everyone else in the world, the prince of the sin’dorei betrayed everything they stood for and defected to the legion.

rommath tries his best not to cry. sylvanas breaks her hand punching a wall in rage. vashj shakes her head and swears that there must be another reason, that he can’t be doing this willingly.

when illidan isn’t training his new demon hunters, which ranks were bolstered with blood elves seeking revenge on the prince they trusted and lost, he locks himself in his chambers and read every report from kael’thas one, two, three times.

they are cold, matter-of-fact summary of what little of the legion’s plans he hears about. it is priceless information — an opportunity, finally.

each word breaks his heart.

kael’thas is alone, doing everything he can to assure the world he turned his back on everything he’s ever loved. but he endures, and with each letter they gain an advantage.

still, illidan wishes it wouldn’t have come to that.

and then, one day, azeroth’s troops decide to put an end to the sunstrider traitor — one less ally for the legion, they think, and illidan—

illidan is many things. he is a warrior, a sorcerer, a general, a demon hunter and, in vashj’s word, ‘a manipulative son of a whore’.

(fair enough)

he has sacrificed countless things in his fight against the legion. people, morals, his sense of ethic, among other things. but he won’t — he can’t — sacrifice kael’thas, too.

kael’thas fights his decision. he still has a job to do and he belives that, with a little more time, he could turn the tide of this war.

I won’t die, he tells illidan in a letter, trying and failing to be reassuring. they won’t let me.

illidan burns the letter and thinks about it. he knows what he will get from keeping kael’thas where he is: information, enough to keep winning this upheal battle against kil’jaeden. but if kael’thas were to die, he would lose everything: his most trusted agent, his best friend, his lover...

is it worth it?

in the end, it isn’t, but illidan backs down anyway. the war comes before the soldier, always.

so kael’thas fights the adventurers and lose, and the legion — well, the legion isn’t about to let go of such a useful pawn. he survives, for a given definition of survival, and for a second he thinks, this mission isn’t over.

it is.

fel is a thing of corruption, a magic of chaos and decay. it eats at his heart, at his mind, and everything becomes a blur. intrusive thoughts become his truth — illidan abandoned him, he betrayed illidan, the legion made him an offer he couldn’t refuse... he is a double agent but he doesn’t remember who he is doubling, and then he doesn’t even remember anything but the pain and the whispers of kil’jaeden in the back of his mind.

illidan dies knowing he has betrayed his closest friend, and kael’thas dies forgetting he never did.

or maybe, when azeroth sends troops to tempest keep, illidan does, too.

(in the end, he’s always been a lovesick fool)

kael’thas loses his advisors but he was one of the best mage in the kirin tor, if not the best. he can hold his own long enough for— for what? there’s no point.

he will die here. he doesn’t like leaving his work unfinished but, oh well. that’s how things go.

double agent never was a position with a high life expectency. he knew this, he took the risk, so there’s nothing left to do but stand, a smile on his lips and felo’melorn slipping between his blood-slick fingers, and go down fighting.

and then something — someone — slams into him, throwing him to the ground and out a the way of a strike that might have decapitated him.

“it’s over, boss,” the demon hunter says. they look so much like illidan, after a year without seeing each other it’s jarring.

he doesn’t want to leave, but he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. illidaris aren’t known for backing down easily, he should know that, and this one is an illidari on a mission, which is the most stubborn kind of all. they hoist him on their shoulder, deaf to his complaints, his assurance that he can still fight, he can still win this, and in a second they are gone through a portal, leaving behind bewildered and enraged adventurers.

they lose their biggest asset, but illidan can’t be bothered to care. his heart stuck in his throat, he holds an outraged kael’thas against his chest and says, almost too quiet to hear, I’m so glad to have you back

and kael’thas closes his arms around him and says, just as low, you reckless bastard, and it sounds exactly like I love you.

#writing #kael'thas sunstrider #illidan stormrage #an idea i had and ran away with #world of warcraft

[shanlorel]

Betrayal

Cross-posted from the Order of the Shanai forums for archival purposes.

Prompt:  Consider the limitations of your character's loyalty to the people they care about. Describe one situation in which they could be moved to betray these people.

   Shanlorel stood on the rocky beachfront, the wind whipping her hair and the spray from the violent ocean waves leaving her soaked and miserable.  Her arms ached from the seemingly nonstop fight, and green demon blood dripped from her swords.  There seemed to be no end to the battle in sight, however; green lightning crackled on the horizon, splitting the black clouds for a second and lighting up the ranks upon ranks of demons that still waited to join the fray.    She grimly hefted her sword and struck out at the wrathguard in front of her, slicing at its exposed thighs through the gaps in its armor.  The demon grunted, barely seeming to be phased by the wound, and shifted one clawed foot behind it, dropping into a defensive stance and bringing up its own sword, a massive thing the size of Shanlorel's body.  She danced right at the edge of its reach, feinting in and hoping for an opening, the runic tattoos along her skin glowing a brilliant blue.  Shanlorel was far too drained to waste her energy on a real spell, but she couldn't risk fighting without her magically heightened reflexes.    The two edged around each other for a moment, each waiting for the other to make a mistake.  Shanlorel saw her chance as the wrathguard misstepped, stumbling on the slick stone.  She lunged, bringing her sword up under its chestplate and burying it in the demon's flesh.    It roared in pain and pulled back, wrenching her weapon out of her hand.  With a speed Shanlorel didn't expect, it swung its spiked tail, catching her across the midsection.  Winded, the elf collapsed to the ground.  She scrambled to get back to her feet, but the monster placed a clawed foot on her chest, grinning wickedly as it lifted its blade.  She glared as fiercely as she could, watching the sword raise over her head, and--    With a faint whistle, an arrow plunged into its throat.  The demon faltered, then another pierced its eye.  The wrathguard stumbled back, shaking itself as if merely dazed, before it hit the ground hard enough to make the earth shake under Shanlorel's body.  She coughed and pushed herself to her feet, pulling her sword from the monster's corpse and turning to face her rescuer.    Her thanks died on her lips as she locked eyes with the woman standing beside her.  Even through the pounding rain, Shanlorel could clearly make out the delicate pointed ears that poked out of her cowl, the achingly familiar cut of her jaw and the strong, lithe body under her tooled leather armor.  Her eyes glowed red as coals, and her hair was shock white, but there was no mistaking her.    "Sylvanas," Shanlorel managed, unable to quite catch her breath, her heart hammering double-time in her chest.  Her old commander, the woman she had once looked up to more than anyone else, the woman who had died defending Quel'Thalas from Arthas's assault.    Sylvanas smiled, a cold, harsh expression, and nodded.  She turned to fire another arrow into the fray, making a voidwalker dissipate in a cloud of blue-black smoke.    Shanlorel's shook her head and returned to the battle, but the image of her ranger-general's face was burned on the back of her eyelids.  Even as she fought and bled and shivered in the rain, she could not forget.

    Shanlorel sought out Sylvanas after the battle was over.  She was powerless to do anything else.  As the combined Alliance-Horde armies camped out on the broken shoreline of this new continent, the storm still rumbling on the horizon, she slipped out of her tent and made her way towards the center of the complex.  Dozens of other soldiers milled about, making conversation or playing dice, but most slept.  There was no telling when the demons would strike back.    She pulled her hood up higher over her head.  With the factions truly fighting side by side, it would not be so strange for an Alliance soldier to have business in the Horde side of camp, but the fewer questions asked, the better.  With her hood shadowing her distinctive blue eyes, she could pass for sin'dorei to anyone not looking too closely.      Her boots squelched in the mud as she crept deeper into the compound, eyes fixed on the massive black-and-purple tent in the middle.  A pair of flags fluttered in the whipping wind.  One, blood-red with stark black markings, represented the Horde as a whole.  The other, bearing the imagine of a cracked mask against the outline of a raven, marked the tent as belonging to the Forsaken.  A pair of heavily-armored undead flanked the entrance, their baleful eyes watching everyone that walked nearby.  As Shanlorel approached, they drew their swords, crossing them in front of her.    "Who goes there?" one asked, his words slurred by the fact that he was missing half of his jawbone.    "Shanlorel Dawnsong," she replied.  "I believe Lady Sylvanas will know who I am.  Tell her I wish to speak."    The two guards traded glances, before the second spoke, voice low and grating.    "The Dark Lady has no time for interruptions."    Shanlorel grit her teeth and stood straighter, expression fierce.  She desperately wanted to drive her sword through the chests of these two shambling corpses, but strange times called for strange bedfellows, and she simply nodded.    "Pass on my message.  If she does not wish to see me, I will leave, but at least let her know I am here," she continued, keeping her tone calm.    The Forsaken looked at each other again, before the first one shrugged and walked back into the tent without another word.  Shanlorel shifted her weight and tried not to feel foolish.  She did not even know what she meant to say.  There would be no reminiscing on old times, no making up for nineteen years without speaking.  Not with the woman who now called herself the Banshee Queen.  She silently berated herself for even coming out here, for wasting both her own time and that of the Forsaken guards.    The jawless man stepped back out, then he gestured at her with one skeletal hand.  "Come in, and make it quick," he said, rough and to the point.  Shanlorel nodded curtly and stepped past the other guard, although her eyes followed his every movement, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.    The inside of the command tent was more cramped than it seemed from outside; the middle of the space was dominated by a massive table large enough for Shanlorel to lay down and stretch out upon.  An equally large map lay across it, little wooden figures and flags placed atop it.  Sylvanas herself stood bent over it, her red eyes narrowed and neck craned as she moved a red flag.  Behind her stood a ghostly, white-winged figure, face obscured by an ornamental helmet.  Shanlorel's breath caught--she had heard tell of Sylvanas's pact with Arthas's val'kyr, but she had not believed it.  Not until now.    The guard bowed from the waist, an action that would have been almost comical were it not for the severity in the room.    "Shanlorel Dawnsong, Dark Lady.  As you requested," he said, straightening up and waiting for orders.    "Good.  You're dismissed," Sylvanas returned with a wave of her hand.    The guard saluted crisply and walked out without a second glance, leaving Shanlorel alone with the smirking val'kyr and the corpse of her former commander.    "Keep it quick.  I do not have time for idle chitchat," Sylvanas said matter-of-factly, not looking up from her map.    Shanlorel nodded, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Sylvanas.  The flickering lamplight cast shadows over her face, giving her a gaunt, washed-out look, and her eyes burned brighter for the darkness.    "I simply came to give you my thanks for the battle earlier," she replied, squaring her thin shoulders.  "That is all."    Sylvanas arched a single eyebrow, glancing up from her battle plans.    "You waste my time for this?"    Shanlorel's heart shivered in her chest, and she paused, unable to quite find the right words.  Sylvanas abruptly straightened, circling around the table to come and stand before her.  Her slanted eyes were every bit as determined and strong as Shanlorel remembered, and she instinctively stood straighter, just barely stopping herself from bringing her hand up in a salute.    "What are you doing?" Sylvanas asked, voice barely raised above a whisper.  "Skulking around my camp, saying nonsense like that, nearly getting yourself killed against such an easy foe...You've grown soft in the Alliance army if this is how you conduct yourself.  None of my Farstriders were so weak."    "It was a moment's sentimentality, nothing more," Shanlorel muttered, checking her desire to turn and storm out.  "It won't happen again."    "What are you fighting for?" she continued, cool and to the point.  It was not the question of an old comrade, but rather an inquisition, a reprimand during practice drills, and it stirred something Shanlorel thought long-buried in her soul.  She tried to call to mind the faces of Naranuur, of Aevari, the draenei she had worked beside for the past two years, but her mind fed her images of golden-leafed trees, of the rolling meadows of Quel'Thalas.    "I fight for what I have always fought for, Lady Windrunner," she returned, breath coming too quickly.  "The right thing."    Sylvanas laughed, the sound sharp and cutting.    "And do you expect them to do the right thing?  What have they ever done for you, Shanlorel?" she replied, lip quirking in a predatory smirk.    Shanlorel hesitated, something inside her snapping at those cool words.  Her commander had made no choice, not like the sin'dorei had; she had become a nightmare through no fault of her own.  Could Shanlorel truly blame her for such a thing?  Could she hate her the way she hated the blood elves?    Had Arthas made Sylvanas any worse than the blue flight made Shanlorel?    She took a deep breath, before she dropped to one knee, head bowed, her heart crying out for the familiarity she had so long turned her back on.    "Once a Farstrider, always a Farstrider," she says quietly.  "I owe you more than I have ever owed them."

#short story #shanlorel #au #prompt

[rctchild]

Frost. (I'm sorry, I had to.)

         “DISAPPOINTED you’re not with the other adventurers on the broken shore, eh?” malkhaz was brought back to reality by a light shove given to him by the dark ranger addressing him. “nobody was particularly IMPRESSED with you on the isles, you know that. kept going SOFT. so CHILL, kid– at least you’re not back in tirisfal picking off easy targets for the hobbling old skeletons who need children to defend them.”

the boy scoffed, turning his face away from the ranger. “yeah, whatever. that your way of coping while you’re stuck babysitting the rejects?”

the ranger laughed. malkhaz knew well that dark rangers were typically known for their brooding, cold dispositions; but like in any populace, there were exceptions to certain norms. this woman seemed to accept & enjoy her place in undeath, a bit like he did. except, of course, without the internal conflict & questioning that lead him to work here in ICECROWN to begin with. “it’s my way of CHEERING UP the rejects. maybe if somebody gives you a cookie you’ll stop whining & be useful enough to head back overseas, i dunno. the deathguard who knew you mentioned that your behaviour on the isles was unusual for you.”

he said nothing to that.

“well, whatever. if you can’t be useful where we need the best of the best, try being useful where we need the better-than-average.” the ranger handed him a bag & nudged her head towards the WRATHGATE– here was the opposite side to the infamous wrathgate INCIDENT. just on the other side was where PUTRESS had betrayed the horde– where DRANOSH SAURFANG had met his end with a single swing of frostmourne– where both horde & alliance alike suffered horrific losses some years ago. “we sent a scout to plant goblin-built surveillance equipment some time ago. we recieved word that they managed to get everyplace except the WRATHGATE, & we lost contact afterwards. go investigate, kid– & IGNORE the paranoid rumours about arthas’ ghost wandering these wastes. i swear, had these creaky old human carcasses not had just enough muscles left in their neck, their heads would have fallen off their shoulders.”

malkhaz bit his tongue– those tales were more than just RUMOURS, but his mouth felt FROZEN shut just to remember the presence of the LICH KING. the chill that shook his nerves awake, as if he’d never died. the paralyzing fear that, even at his bravest, threatened to shut him down. “any interest in returning the body?”

“NAH. don’t bother– you’ll have enough work to do without worrying about hauling literal dead weight. if you do find it, just grab the communicator and buzz me. and don’t go chasing ghosts– i’ve had about two guys vanish on me besides this one, telling stories about the scourge regathering its strength. you’re second-gen, right? never knew mindless undeath?”

he shook his head– “i was raised by val'kyr in hillsbrad.”

“good. then i’m less likely to have you go crazy, too. alright, off you go, kid– the faster you get this done, the sooner the dark lady might invite you on the next airship to the broken shore.”

malkhaz offered her a salute– “victory for sylvanas.”

she nodded in return– “dark lady watch over you.”

         problems were few on the way to the wrathgate. malkhaz’s caution was JUSTIFIED, on the way there– for a chance encounter had rattled him to the core some time ago. he was provided a surprisingly complacent mount, (which had been a STRUGGLE for his small self to climb onto,) and made it to his destination with no evident opposition. still, the boy couldn’t help but have a smoke bomb settled in one hand after dismounting, and careful steps towards the suspiciously humanoid lump of snow next to unactivated surveillance gear.

a bony hand brushed the fluffy white off of it. sure enough, now frozen stiff, was the previous worker. further analysis noted teethmarks belonging to jaws which had mutated, ROTTED more than most forsaken. DISARMED, there had been little struggle before they met their final end. & … FROST, the kind attributable to the dead which had walked these cold lands before.

malkhaz steeled himself & pried the communication device from the body. he tucked it within his cloak & reached over to activate the surveillance equipment. however, it did not activate. after opening one of the compartments, he realized why.

more cold, around broken wires & smashed pieces. this was now UNUSABLE.

more importantly, he was in danger.

the rogue did not dare risk contacting his superior immediately– instead raising his hand to throw down the smoke bomb. however, a grasp far stronger & more rotten than his own grabbed his arm, twisted it back. the other arm wrapped around his torso and pulled him off the ground, leaving him flailing his legs & protesting. a recognizable CHILL made him stop for a moment, too scared to turn his head.

SHIT.

whether it was his bad luck or falling out of favour with the dark lady had simply ensured he’d settle right back into the potential grip of the lich king, malkhaz knew for a fact that he wasn’t going to get away this time. the panic was slightly less– perhaps it was because he had already known– but the fear was just the same. but as the ghoul turned, it was simply towards … a higher-ranked scourge. no, arthas wouldn’t waste his time with this.

but as the other undead– lesser undead, technically– discussed in a language of death foreign to the forsaken boy, white eyes found icecrown citadel in the near distance & trailed all the way up to the top.

but he was WATCHING. watching the way the dark lady WOULD NOT.

#necroarchy #→ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍 ; 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗! { main. } 💀 #→ 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚢 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 ; 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎'𝚜 ̶𝚗̶𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚊𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚎. { ic. } 💀 #→ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚢'𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚋𝚘𝚡 ; 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑? { ask. } 💀 #i'm... i'm sorry this is basically a drabble #you could probably reply to it anyway but iT GOT LONG?? #also gg me for coming up with a dark ranger oc on the spot #so yes while in-game mal is a shadowblade with all the artifact weapons & kicking ass in the broken shore #and waiting impatiently to recruit lilian because LILIAN................. #canon mal has hecked up too much and is off doing stuff everywhere else until his superiors like him enough again to let him hang out wit ht #with the cool kids #... i could probably come up with a shadowblade mal au if i wanted but i kind of don't #mostly because his entire character arc is revolving around getting to be good enough to do that #and he simply hasn't reached that point yet. #once he deals with more political conflict and is personally hit by it he'll be good to start being actually important. #UNTIL THEN HIS LOSING FAITH IN SYLVANAS IS BASICALLY PARTLY A NEON SIGN FOR ARTHAS LIKE #''COME HELP TURN ME AGAINST MY QUEEN''