#vereesa: what.

[jujoobedoodling]

Haunting.

Phantom of the Opera Spire anyone? Jaina is once again the nerdy skeptic just can't let the ghost rumours go. She finds more than she bargained for - namely, a hot and broody elf named Sylvanas Windrunner.

inspired by this femslash february prompt list

#world of warcraft #sylvaina #sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #minifemslashfeb2024 #mine #also im hiding this in the tags do not mob me ive literally never seen any adaptation of it ive only heard That One Song #this was an interesting...thing #the mask was inspired of me i must say #jaina: vereesa you never told me it was your fucking sister i thought it was something way worse from the way you described it? #jaina: also you never told me she was still ALIVE #vereesa: where's the fun in that? also you never believed she was even real #jaina: that's not the point. #vereesa: it's a great prank jaina admit it. plus she likes keeping busy with the spire it gives her something to do #jaina: i'll give her something to do. #vereesa: what. #jaina: what.

[redisaid]

Strangers - Part 1 of ??

A very special shoutout to @jujoobedoodling for their amazing art, and for sharing this neat little idea with me when I asked if there's any sort of fics they'd like to see.

So, fellas, is it gay to make Sylvaina fall in love over prison letters, in a nutshell? I dunno. Let's find out.

5146 Words

Read it on Ao3!

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

Jaina wants to assure her she didn't come to stare at her like she's some sabercat in a cage—teeth dulled on the bars, roar hoarse and failing. Only she realizes now that this is exactly why she's come. A wave of shame threatens to crash over her, but she dismisses it. She came to deliver Veressa’s letter, and to banish the notion that Sylvanas Windrunner truly was a stranger to her.

Staring at Sylvanas, waiting for her to rattle the bars of her would be cage, would do neither of those things for her.

“Certainly not you,” Sylvanas continues, drawling out the last word with her high, nasally elven accent, still chiming in a banshee double-tone.

They stand now in the Maw, where Jaina had been asked by her friend to draw an interdimensional portal to deliver a letter to her sister as only she and a handful of other mages on Azeroth could. Jaina had been reluctant to agree. She had refused at first, of course.

But here she was, all the same.

You, with that drawl and sneer and the arrow still aimed between her eyes, was about all that Jaina deserved from this woman. After all, Vereesa was right—at best, they were strangers.

“What is it you’ve come for? To deliver more demands from Tyrande? To report to her? To make sure I am completing my penance? Or did you come to gloat?”

The accusations pile up. Jaina lets them. She scans the tangle of strange and unnatural rocks jutting from the charcoal earth of this literal hell. It doesn’t take her long to realize she’s stumbled upon Sylvanas’ camp. Her home here in the Maw, simple, but well lived-in. The undead have no need for food or sleep and suffer minimally from lack of shelter, and while Jaina knows this, she still observes a makeshift bedroll, the embers of a dying fire, clustered close to a lean-to made mostly of chunks of dull grey metal, once the armor of some great beast or terrible construct long since vanished after its master’s defeat.

It has been a year on Azeroth. Jaina knows time stretches in the Shadowlands, but not by a factor of how much. She wonders how long it has been since Sylvanas has seen another person. Two years? A decade? A century?

The woman herself is little better than her camp. Her armor sits beside the fire, mostly shrugged off in rest, and while it looks well-kept, it is still worn. The dark leathers she wears beneath it, and now exclusively, are much the same. At first glance, they do not look so different as when she lay in Oribos after her own defeat, as Uther bade them to wait for her to wake and explain her actions. However, Jaina’s keen eyes find the rips and the tears, the mending that has been executed with scraps of grey cloth and grey metal and grey leather fashioned from the skin of a grey, doubly dead beast. Everything here is grey. Hell is devoid of color, but Sylvanas’ eyes burn into her, bright and blue, demanding an answer.

So she gives it, “None of those are my reason. Your sister, my friend…Vereesa asked me to come.”

Truly, Vereesa’s choices were limited. Only those who had walked the Maw, of their volition or Sylvanas’, could safely find it again. Only fewer of the great mages of Azeroth were capable of entering it without going through Oribos, or asking permission from the entities that ruled there. Jaina, Khadgar, and a few heroic Mawwalkers perhaps were the only ones who could have delivered this letter. And while Jaina had been reluctant, she was not about to offer Khadgar the excuse to use this place as another of his many distractions if Vereesa were to ask him instead.

At least, that was another one of her reasons for accepting.

Only now does the arrow lower, and the bow with it. At the mention of her sister’s name, Sylvanas gives up her fight.

“How can I trust her not to tear me apart, if we’re to be alone there?” Jaina had asked the youngest Windrunner sister, back in her office in Boralus, days ago.

“I suppose you can’t,” had been Vereesa’s answer. “You don’t know her.”

Jaina holds out the letter. It is folded neatly and sealed and she has done her best to resist the temptation to read it or even scry upon it with magic. Such is her trust for Vereesa. Her sister, not so much.

Perhaps this will be the end of it, then. She’ll deliver her letter. She’ll make arrangements for a response. She’ll leave. Sylvanas will go back to gathering souls, living even though she does not live, in this ramshackle camp—this prison of her own making. Jaina will have done something good and satisfied her curiosity. The sabercat will wither in her cage, having gained only further shame from her observation.

Jaina isn’t sure why she expects anything more than that, but she does.

“She wrote you a letter,” she explains. “I’m not able to bring her here like this for her to deliver it herself. Perhaps something can be arranged for her to visit by other means, if you’re interested.”

Sylvanas hesitates. Jaina watches her think.

She watches her closely, waiting for the muscles in her broad shoulders to twitch and aid in pointing her bow upward again. She finds more rends in her leathers, more attempts at mending. She watches, and finds a woman determined, though for what she isn’t certain.

Sylvanas Windrunner as she is now is a stranger to her. Once, her eyes burned red with rage and hatred and it was easy enough to say that Jaina had known her as an enemy. She and her Forsaken whispered, “Death to the living,” though they were of the same people Jaina had once led in Theramore—survivors of Lordaeron, as it were. Scarred in different ways by the same man.

Yet as before, even when Uther, dead and scarred by the same hand, bid Jaina to see reason and work with Sylvanas to defeat the Jailer, she cannot help but to fall into old habits. Magic pulses at her fingertips, waiting. She is ready for Sylvanas to attack her. She is ready to know her as an enemy once again.

This woman burned Teldrassil. She’d resurrected Derek to use against her. She’d blighted her own city in a rage rather than give it to the Alliance, to Jaina specifically, who had turned that battle in their favor.

Jaina is certain that this is still what she is—a burner and blighter, a screaming banshee that knows only hatred—and she’s ready for her.

She is not ready for Sylvanas to put down her bow and the arrow knocked within it, and begin to walk over to meet her.

She’s not ready for the soft muttering that follows, and the wry chuckle that comes with it, “I doubt Tyrande would allow me such a luxury as a visit from my sister.”

This is no banshee, no formless enemy. No, Sylvanas is an elf, still undead and still much unchanged from the last time Jaina saw her, but now walking toward her with purpose. She moves like Alleria, proud and powerful. She smirks a little, the same way as Vereesa does when she thinks no one is looking. Her hair, though dull and ashen in death, is a shade between Alleria’s honey gold and Vereesa’s cool silver.

“You’re so certain she’s changed?” Jaina had asked Vereesa before she’d left. “You were only allowed to speak with her for a few minutes.”

“I know my sister, Jaina,” Vereesa had replied, head tilted upward, smiling. “I know that I have her back, or I will, should she ever be allowed to return home.”

Where is home, Jaina wonders, holding out the letter, to a woman who died for her country, and razed the one she built out of the ashes of a nation everyone else abandoned?

If and when she completes her penance, who will want Sylvanas Windrunner, burner of trees, blighter of cities? Manipulated or not, she did these things. No amount of souls ferried to better places can change that. And while Vereesa claims much, she cannot move the inevitable mountains that will stand in her way if she chooses to defend her sister, to make a home for her in Azeroth again one day.

The dip of Sylvanas’ head upon her graceful neck seems to say to Jaina that she knows this. The way she holds up her hands, bare and long-fingered without any gloves or gauntlets to cover them, tells Jaina she knows what she is to her—an enemy still. A problem unwanted, surely.

But still, Jaina had agreed to come here. She is determined to make sure that the reason for it all was not as simple as gawking at a toothless beast, though Sylvanas doesn’t seem as though she will bite.

She takes the letter from her. She looks to her. She waits.

“I can’t speak for Tyrande, or any authority Oribos and its contingent might have on the matter,” Jaina tells her. “But I can deliver a reply, if you want.”

Now this close to her, Jaina can tell Sylvanas is taller than her sisters. More broad-shouldered like Alleria than slight as Vereesa is, bordering between both of them with the elder’s wildness and Vereesa’s well-manicured elven beauty. She is neither and both, but seems to have maintained some semblance of grooming, despite having no one to look nice for. Her hair is combed and neat. She is clean, with only the barest hint of the grey dust and ash that swirls in the air of this place clinging to her skin.

That grey, at least, is warm in nature, and Sylvanas’ is cold, more toward purple. Their meeting is an interesting contrast of hues.

“Very well,” she answers, one long finger tracing the seal on the letter as she eyes it. “I would offer you tea while you wait, but I have no such thing.”

While she waits. Jaina hadn’t assumed she’d be allowed to, asked to, or really anything but run off with sneers and insults at best, arrows at worst.

She supposes that if she hadn’t seen another person in a year, she too would want them to stay a while, no matter who they were. But has it been longer? The state of Sylvanas’ clothes says yes.

Jaina endeavors to break any falling of awkward silence to seek the answer, “It has been a year or so, on Azeroth, since I returned from the Shadowlands. Has it been the same for you?”

She stiffens, recalling who it was who brought her here the first time, though she saw little of Sylvanas then. Only the Mawsworn that were meant to hold her captive, and keep her from escaping Torghast, though she managed to do so several times. Jaina knows now that her purpose in doing so was just to keep her out of the way—to keep her from interfering with what was to be done with Anduin.

Anduin, another reason for her to come here. Yet she did not find him. The Maw is but one of many possible places the boy could have gone, though he’s hardly a boy anymore. Jaina knows what he did and was made to do weighs heavily on him. She’d thought that maybe he too would seek penance, and wouldn’t care if it was his own to seek, yet there is no sign of him here. This camp is meant only for one.

“There is no day or night here for me to know,” Sylvanas tells her as she slides a sharp-looking fingernail beneath the wax seal and opens the letter. “One could keep track by counting the hours, I suppose, but trust me, it is a dull pastime. It has been a long time. A very long time.”

A long time, Jaina thinks, to wear the same clothes and see no one but lost souls.

A spectral fluttering of wings catches her eye and reminds her that Sylvanas does have one other companion besides the souls she ferries. Dori’thur’s wide eyes catch Jaina’s as she looks up into the canopy formed by this tangle of rock, ironically almost nest-like. The owl spirit makes no motion to acknowledge her, so carefully does she watch her charge instead. Doomed or honored to be her warden, Jaina can’t decide. The owl, it seems, does not care either way. She just watches.

Sylvanas follows her gaze, and a little smile creaks its way into lips that seem to forget how to bend that way. “Don’t mind the owl. It loves to stare.”

“She. Dori’thur,” Jaina corrects.

Sylvanas’ blue eyes are wide for a moment, drinking in the information in a way that shows it is clearly new to her. No one bothered to tell her the name of her warden, really?

“I didn’t know,” Sylvanas confesses. “And here I’ve just been calling you owl this whole time,” she calls up at the spire of twisted stone that Dori’thur perches on.

The spirit cocks her head just slightly at Sylvanas, the first and only acknowledgement she gives.

Jaina stands for a moment, maybe two. She looks around at the humble camp, the spectral owl, the once fearsome undead elf in her ragged leathers, reading her letter with blue eyes that look strange on her.

Sylvanas looks up once Jaina’s gaze comes to rest on her. Her long brows furrow briefly, simmering in the awkwardness, the wrongness of this.

They have never met, despite all the things they both share and do not share, in a way that allowed them the luxury of quiet conversation. And despite the nagging curiosity that dragged her here, the continued insistence by Vereesa that she did not know her, or least as anything but an enemy, Jaina does not know what to say to her.

So instead, she offers, “I can go, and return after a time to allow you your privacy.”

Sylvanas nearly drops the letter. She takes a step toward her. She catches herself and does not take a second. She reaches out a bare and empty hand to Jaina, then drops it to her side immediately upon realizing what she’s done.

“No. No,” she says, trying to make the words come out not as a plea, but anything else. “A while for you is longer for me. I would—I would rather be as prompt as possible, you understand. I have my penance to work on, still more souls to guide. I don’t have time to wait around for you to return here.”

It is a poor excuse, and they both know it. They know it in the silence between the ask Sylvanas isn’t actually asking and the reply Jaina struggles to give. They know it in the way Sylvanas reaches for her, a woman she does not know in any other way but an enemy, and apparent friend to her younger sister and her owl warden, because she and her letter and her excuses for delivering it are the only reason she’s had any contact with something remotely like herself in a long, long time.

Jaina is living and breathing and human and annoyed, but curious. She is not undead and newly made whole of soul again, though she supposes that’s not so new anymore. She knows, though, that she cannot possibly understand what it is Sylvanas is thinking as she reaches for her. But still, she reaches.

Jaina does not leave. “I will wait then.”

Where she will wait is the question, really, and she sees Sylvanas ask it of herself too as she looks back toward her camp. Still, she gestures for Jaina to follow her.

It is a strange time she lives in, Jaina thinks, as she does.

And this is how she ends up seated on a stool of chipped rock, across the dying fire from where Sylvanas sits on her bed roll, reading her letter.

Sylvanas is undead and does not need a bed or a stool or a fire. Her owl warden is a spirit of nature and needs no comforts as well. Yet Sylvanas has made them, and taken the time to make them. She reads and sits cross-legged like a child. Jaina’s eyes pick at her leathers still, finding more wear and tear as she reads, counting the patches and stitches. It irks her. For some reason, of all the things, the state of her clothes bothers Jaina the most.

She’s never seen Sylvanas in anything other than fine armor, meant to intimidate as much as it was to impress. And while she still has fine armor, stacked neatly by the fire in her rest, Jaina can see that too is worn.

“Do you want new things?” Jaina eventually asks. She can’t stand the silence any longer, though from the rustling of the second of four pages, she knows Sylvanas isn’t done reading.

Sylvanas looks up. Her blue eyes dart from Jaina to her armor and herself. To the contrast of warm grey dust and cool grey skin. The mended rips and tears of her leathers match the similar state of her skin. Scars abound as little pale points and lines, streaking across her like stars in the night sky. Just barely visible at the tip of her sternum, beneath the dark leather, a gnarled and twisting point belies the deep scar where Frostmourne rent her and stole her soul, for the first time.

Sylvanas seems disturbed by the question, or perhaps by her own appearance. Maybe both. “I have done the best I could to maintain what I was given.”

“I didn’t mean to criticize,” Jaina tells her immediately, because this is the line she must draw and draw right away, regardless of how many cities this woman may have burned, or under whose influence she burned them. “It’s just—well, with Vereesa’s help, I’m sure, we could get you new things.”

“She has not mentioned this in her letter thus far,” Sylvanas says, holding up the paper as if it were the armor she so desperately seems to want to hide within now.

“She has not seen you,” Jaina tells her.

And I do not know you, she tells herself.

Jaina does not know her, but she knows the scars that form the map of the stars that make up her skin. She knows which is Frostmourne, which is the line under her eye from Saurfang’s ax at the Mak’gora. She knows there’s another from an ice lance she’s thrown, yes there, near her left elbow where there was a gap in her old skull armor.

She can feel that Sylvanas wants to shrink under her gaze, to disappear. But she does not. She sits up a little, chest out, daring Jaina to say something else.

“Then I’ll draft a list in my reply, and trust that you’ll explain the reasoning behind it,” Sylvanas offers in challenge.

“I will.”

Dori’thur, thankfully, chooses this time to swoop down and alight herself onto the top of Sylvanas’ lean-to, rather than leave them to simmer in silence again.

The owl looks between them, then at the paper in Sylvanas’ hands. Sylvanas, having gone back to reading, simply says, “Not for you, owl.”

“Dori’thur,” Jaina reminds.

“Not for you, Dori’thur. What an odd name,” Sylvanas notes, but says nothing else.

“Does she leave you to report to Tyrande?” Jaina wonders, watching both the owl and her charge now.

“That would require her to stop watching me, so no. I do not know how or if Tyrande knows what she sees. Frankly, it matters little to me. I have said that I will do what was asked of me. I do not need a babysitter to ensure that I do,” Sylvanas tells her.

Though Jaina catches something in the middle of her words. A brief dashing of blue eyes. Another little smirk, elven and wry and lopsided in such a way that’s distinctly Windrunner. She wonders who was the first to hold it. Alleria? Their mother or father? Or a Windrunner before them? An elf so ancient Jaina struggles with the numbers.

All she knows is that Sylvanas seems to enjoy the company of her warden, in a way. And that her little secret smile is something Jaina never thought she’d see on that face.

Objectively, dead and haunted and guilty as she is, she’s beautiful still. All the Windrunners are, after all.

Sylvanas is looking up at her again, expecting Jaina to challenge that notion. She’s probably expecting her to question this camp, this fire, these small comforts. The time she takes to mend her ragged clothes. The rest she dares to seek from time to time, though there are no days or nights here in the Maw to track it by.

Jaina clears her throat. “How goes it then, your work?” she asks, and nearly immediately regrets it for how silly that sounds.

How goes it, rounding up the souls you doomed to an eternity of torture? How goes it, making up for decisions that were not entirely yours, but still part and parcel wishes of your own? How goes it, living in the prison of your own failures, alone save for an owl that does nothing but stare at you?

There is a justice in this, yes. Jaina wants to sink into that and never leave. It is easier to feel like this is justice in action she’s seeing. The tedium and wear of it all are things Sylvanas deserves to endure. She deserves worse, depending on who is asking.

But the woman in front of her looks tired. She is as worn as her clothing, body as stiff and rigid as her defensive words.

Jaina will not deny her the comfort a fire and a rest might bring, now and then, though she doesn’t understand why Sylvanas seeks them. Either way, demanding she go without is a cruelty beyond necessity.

“It goes,” Sylvanas answers. “There are still many more for me to find. Torghast alone will take countless more visits to empty. The Beast Warrens are a maze I’ve still yet to properly map and account for, among other such haunts in this hellish place.”

She does not say more. She reads. Jaina watches. Dori’thur too. Sylvanas sneaks a glance at her every now and then, blue eyes flitting fast over the edge of the parchment, then back below it.

Jaina waits, as she said she would.

Sylvanas Windrunner is a stranger to her, but invited her to what home she had here all the same.

“I miss her,” Vereesa had told her, before she left. “I thought the sister I knew was gone, but I know now that she’s still herself, or is now, at least. I had mourned her, Jaina. I had mourned her for years, but now I can say that I miss her. She’s not gone, she’s just not here. And I don’t know when she’ll be back. You can’t blame me for trying.”

Jaina didn’t blame her.

Flipping to page three of Vereesa’s loopy handwriting, Sylvanas says, “I must look a sight to you, for you to say something about the state of my gear.”

Jaina corrects herself. She does not know Sylvanas, but she knew one thing about her, well, about who she once was. She was notoriously vain, and though Vereesa claimed this was exaggerated, she was known to repeatedly tell a story about how Sylvanas had screamed at her once for getting mud on her dress right as she was headed out the door for a Ranger ball, like she thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

And Jaina has just come here to her prison, the first other person she’s seen in gods know how long, handed her a letter, and told she looked a mess.

“It just seems to have been some time, that’s all,” Jaina assures her.

Sylvanas huffs a laugh she hides behind parchment, just like the odd blue of her eyes. Jaina struggles to replace it with the red of her memories.

“If there’s anything else you want, such that I could carry with me through a portal, then ask it,” Jaina offers, perhaps out of guilt.

Perhaps out of curiosity again, for what this woman might ask for. What comforts she might crave.

Sylvanas eyes her at this statement. It seems this is the first time she really takes Jaina in, perhaps to assess her intentions, or perhaps to assess how much she can carry. Jaina isn’t sure. But she knows she now feels like that sabercat in the cage. She wonders if Sylvanas still thinks she has her teeth.

She thinks, perhaps, that she doesn’t want the judgment of a virtually immortal and beautiful elf. Undead though she is, scarred and worn, she thinks Sylvanas might have plenty of criticisms to offer over her messy braid, the prudish nature and drab colors of her Kul Tiran garb, or the crows feat that have begun to claw in earnest at the dull blue of Jaina’s eyes, which only glow when she shows her real teeth.

Instead of worrying about that, Jaina wonders what she might ask for, if she were to spend potential centuries in hell doing penance. Something to pass the time. Playing cards, perhaps? Though Solitaire would get old quickly, and Dori’thur doesn’t look like she’d be much competition at Hearthstone. An instrument to play? Surely those nimble fingers of Sylvanas’ would be clever on a lute or lyre or something elven and haughty and old. Jaina had never learned to play anything with proficiency in all of her thirty-eight years of life, but might come out of such a situation fairly talented at the fiddle or flute. Her brothers would be impressed, surely.

But what would Sylvanas do, to pass the time, in her idle moments? Would she fletch arrows for game that didn’t exist, and flesh she didn’t need to eat, enemies already defeated? Would she sharpen the shortsword Jaina could see resting in its scabbard beside the fire on a whetstone until it was honed and wicked, only to have nothing to plunge it into?

Would Jaina ever be able to consider anything but war-like interests for her, even as she saw Sylvanas considering her from her bedroll, shoulders bare, hair loose, clearly not ready for any sort of battle?

“Paper,” she answers. “Ink and a few quills too, if you’d be so generous.”

Paper was not anywhere close to the answer Jaina thought she’d give.

Sylvanas holds the letter up again as her armor, her shield, her weapon. “Vereesa has asked me to reply, for us to continue to correspond. I wish to write her back.”

“Right, that’s easy enough,” Jaina agrees.

“What was that hesitation? Afraid I’ll draw up plans for world domination upon my eventual return? I’m not interested, truly. Believe me, Proudmoore, it’s not worth it,” Sylvanas assures her.

There is mischief in those secret smiles. A spark in glowing blue eyes that dares Jaina to challenge it, but in the way a child challenges her friend to a foot race. A craving for competition, maybe, in any form, or companionship on the barest of levels.

“Jaina,” she corrects her. “If I am to continue to deliver said letters, as it were, you might as well call me Jaina. And I didn’t think you had your sights set so lofty, but thanks for clarifying.”

Sylvanas nods to this. “So many names have I earned today. Though I’ll still call Dori’thur ‘owl’. Osa is the Thalassian word. It has more punch, right, osa?”

Dori’thur cocks her head just slightly at the term, then slowly blinks her large eyes.

“Very astute, thank you for adding so much to the conversation, as always,” Sylvanas sighs.

Jaina supposes that she too, would talk to a silent owl, if she were left alone for so long. She would probably go insane long before her clothes began to wear out, if it were her.

“Either way, I’ll continue to deliver your letters,” Jaina assures her. “I hadn’t realized this was a more than once sort of favor I’m doing, but I suppose I should have.”

“I’d say Vereesa is lucky to befriend such a powerful mage and be able to make such inane requests of her, but she always did like mages,” Sylvanas notes, going back to reading and flipping to the final page of Vereesa’s letter.

This time, though, the smile stays on her face too long to be a secret. Long enough for Jaina to watch her get lost in a memory, maybe two, and still come out smiling.

Smiling at her sister, a fondness beyond ages and time and dimensions and death—and the reason, perhaps, why Vereesa felt compelled to write to her, and send her friend to check on her.

“Tea,” Sylvanas mutters, eyes still glued to the parchment.

“Padron?”

“Bring tea when you come back,” Sylvanas tells her.

“What kind do you like?” Jaina asks, uncertain. She didn’t think undead drank.

Even if they did, she wouldn’t know the answer. Vereesa likes chamomile, sometimes. She doesn’t really drink tea. Alleria, well, Jaina has never seen Alleria drink anything but alcohol and would be afraid to ask if had any other preferences for more sober sorts of beverages.

“Whatever kind you like. It’s not for me,” Sylvanas says.

“Are you telling me that you’d like me to bring tea for myself when I come back?” Jaina asks, needing desperately for something about this request to be clear to her.

Sylvanas laughs her little laugh. It sounds like it’s been sanded down, worn like the caged sabercat’s teeth, like tattered leathers.

“I suppose I am. I don’t want to be a bad host, but I’m afraid all I have to offer here are rocks and broken war machines and wandering souls. None of these are fit to drink, or to give to company.”

Company. Jaina hadn’t expected to be company to her. She hadn’t expected the hidden smiles and weary laughs and how Sylvanas had tried to cover the desperation in the way she reached out after her. She hadn’t expected to find her nestled in a little camp, forging a mockery of a life that had long been stolen from her and the comforts of living she no longer needed, but clearly still craved.

Jaina isn’t sure. She doesn’t know anymore. She didn’t, even as she first cast the portal spell this morning that would take her to the Maw. She was curious. She still is.

But company, she supposes, is a thing she can try to be.

#sylvaina #sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #fanfic #count me surprised to be this intrigued by a post-shadowlands premise but ok here we go

[jainaism]

Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: I know what I said. My trust was misplaced. King Varian Wrynn says: What of the Sin'dorei - the Sunreavers? Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Those that surrendered are being taken to the Violet Hold. I make no guarantees about those who chose to fight. [...] Once Horde, always Horde. I see that now. I'm mobilizing the Kirin Tor. King Varian Wrynn says: Jaina. We've got to work together on this. The Alliance must act as one. Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Don't get soft on me, Varian.

Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: This has been the worst year of my life: Theramore, destroyed. And a betrayal from within the Kirin Tor. The lesson is clear. From here on out, I'm taking the initiative.

Vereesa Windrunner says: The Horde is just across the courtyard. Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Of course they are. One problem at a time, Vereesa. Lady Jaina Proudmooore yells: Everyone! Advance! And if anyone sees that traitor, Aethas Sunreaver, save that one for me… [....] Lady Jaina Proudmoore yells: Ignore the Horde - focus on the Zandalari guarding the door!

Lady Jaina Proudmoore yells: Hand over the Archmage and I may yet allow you to walk out of here, Lor'themar. Lor'themar Theron yells: Proudmoore! You will release my people from the Violet Hold, or I will cut you down myself! Lady Jaina Proudmoore yells: Your people are legitimate prisoners of war. They orchestrated an attack on Darnassus from MY city- Lor'themar Theron yells: The Sunreavers knew NOTHING of Garrosh's raid on Darnassus! Aethas Sunreaver shifts uncomfortably. Taran Zhu yells: ENOUGH!! There will be no more bloodshed today. Taran Zhu yells: I see now why your Alliance and Horde cannot stop fighting. Taran Zhu yells: Every reprisal is itself an act of aggression, and every act of aggression triggers immediate reprisal. Jaina and Lor'themar shout over each other. Lady Jaina Proudmoore yells: They have undermined EVERY attempt at peace! Lor'themar Theron yells: I must protect my sovereign people. Taran Zhu yells: SILENCE! YOU must break the cycle. Taran Zhu yells: It ends TODAY. Here. The cycle ends when you, Regent Lord, and you, Lady Proudmoore, turn from one another. And walk. Away. Lor'themar narrows his eyes. Jaina takes a deep breath. Lor'themar Theorn yells: Rangers. Lower your weapons. Scout Captain Elsia yells: My Lord! Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Very well. We will stand down. Vereesa Windrunner yells: They killed my husband! Lady Jaina Proudmooore says: This won't bring him back. Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: But know this, "Blood" Elf: There can be no peace while Hellscream is Warchief of the Horde.

Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: Vereesa, are you hurt? Vereesa Windrunner says: It is nothing. I am fine. Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: You need to get back to camp. I can't lose you.

#I can't lose you #😥 #jaina x vereesa #jaina proudmoore #jaina #vereesa #vereesa windrunner #warcraft #mists of pandaria #world of warcraft #jaina proudmoore daily #the best jaina

[lily-orchard]

Vereesa: "Have you ever thought about getting a dog?"

Sylvanas: "That's what Nathanos is for."

Vereesa: "...What about a cat?"

Sylvanas: "Anevay."

[tess-grey-maned]

still here to drink alone

me? continuing this prompt? it's more likely than you think

with thanks to @blue-eyed-banshee for the prompt!

  “What do you mean, you’ve never had a Tiragarde pasty before? You told me you’d lived in Dalaran for months!”

  For a moment, Sylvanas can do nothing but stare blankly at the fury incarnate beside her, at the bright blue eyes that look fit to bulge out of her skull and Jaina’s mouth hanging open in soundless, wordless indignation at this perceived slight to her heritage. Belore take me, she’s hot when she’s angry, comes unbidden to her thoughts. “Jaina, I hail from Quel’Thalas,” she says, slowly, letting every syllable come out dripping in her Thalassian accent. “I was never in Tiragarde Sound.”

  “You mean, I’ve never been to Tiragarde Sound, we use the past- oh for the love of the Tides, you know how it’s meant to be said, you’re just making a point.”

  Sylvanas tries to wink at her, but it comes out as a tipsy blink.

  Throwing her arms up in frustration, Jaina turns back to the woman behind the counter. “Two Tiragarde pasties, please. I need to educate this heathen.” And, to Sylvanas: “Why’s your accent so different to the other elves I’ve met here?”

  “I come from southern Eversong. They probably come from Silvermoon. Did you really drag me away from Valtrois’ bar to talk about Thalassian dialects?”

  “Well, no, not as such, but forgive my curiosity, I don’t know many high elves, and I love languages.” And, so quietly that Sylvanas only catches it for her elven hearing: “Your accent is much sexier.”

  “I know,” she replies, just as subtly, and Jaina’s cheeks flush red.

  Pasties in hand, they emerge back out onto the street.

  “One of my colleagues at the University is married to a high elf,” Jaina says as they amble down a street, round the corner, feet taking them nowhere in particular. Sylvanas tries to nod at her to continue but it diverts her concentration from walking and she nearly topples face-first into the pavement. Belore thrice damn you, Valtrois, that wine was stronger than I thought- “But his wife’s been here for years, you’d hardly know she was from Quel’Thalas. Why’d you come here?”

  “I move around a lot.” The street lights make Jaina’s hair shine a beautiful flaxen blonde. Even Lady Sun would be outshone by this human. “Not Kul Tiras, yet, but I’ve lived in Orgrimmar and Lordaeron, learned Orcish and Common there, even a couple of weeks in Northrend, hated it by the way. Then I got sick in Northrend and came home early. My sister and her husband live here, so I’ve moved into their spare room until she has her twins.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to be- twins? Wait. Hold on. Is your sister called Vereesa?”

  “Yes- Belore take me, you work with Rhonin, don’t you. I should have guessed.”

  Jaina bursts out laughing. “Damn the Tides. I finally find someone as gorgeous as you, and she’s the sister of my boss’ wife. Just my luck.”

  “Rhonin wouldn’t care- gorgeous?”

  Jaina splutters. “Do you own a mirror, Sylvanas Windrunner?”

  “No, it’s not- more that- I wasn’t expecting-”

  “Full sentences now.”

  Sylvanas turns. Focuses fully on Jaina. “Jaina,” she says, ensuring to enunciate every word in her thickest Thalassian accent, “if you wanted to take me home, you had but to ask, in that delectable Kul Tiran accent of yours.” Jaina swallows hard, her face bright red. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “The answer would have been-”

  One moment she’s upright, and the next Jaina’s bracing her a few inches from the floor.

  Sylvanas hiccups miserably. “-yes,” she finishes, and suppresses the urge to be very un-sexily sick. “I’m going to kill Valtrois.”

  “I’m calling us a cab,” Jaina says, already fiddling with her phone. “Told you you’d give yourself alcohol poisoning.”

  “’S not the worst poisoning ‘ve had,” Sylvanas slurs. Jaina’s so warm. So soft. “Pro… pro tip, never eat bread from Andorhal Baking Company.”

  “Is that why you had to come back from Northrend?”

  What was left of me, she thinks but doesn’t say-

  Wait. Jaina said she knew Vereesa. “Can you call Reesa for me? Tell her… tell her I’m safe with you? She… worries.”

  Jaina pauses, just for a moment. A smile broadens over her face. “I will,” she says, and wraps her arm fully around Sylvanas. “You are. Safe with me, I mean.”

  Sylvanas hiccups again. “’M sorry to have ruined our plans,” she mumbles. “Don’t usually drink this much.”

  “You’re allowed to let go. Vereesa said you were always the sensible one growing up, first to learn to drive, first to go to university, the whole shebang, so you get to make stupid decisions. You’ve earned it.” Jaina’s phone pings. “Just not within earshot of Arthas.”

  “Who?”

  “My ex. Big guy at the bar. You’d hate him. His family is a majority shareholder in Andorhal Baking Company.”

  “Oh, I wish you’d told me that while we were there. I would’ve pulled his teeth out one by one with a-”

  “Vereesa says to make sure you drink lots of water, and Rhonin will come pick you up in the morning.” Jaina angles her phone screen so Sylvanas, going slightly cross-eyed in the process, can read it. “And I think that’s our cab pulling up. Think you can get yourself upright?”

  “Yeah- yeah, I can.” And she does, holding onto Jaina all the while. “Hey, I get to see your bed one way or the other tonight, so I’m happy.”

  “Depending on what you’re doing tomorrow night,” Jaina says, walking with her towards the car waiting patiently for them, “you can see it again, but let’s talk about that in the morning. Hi there- Proudmoore?”

  The cab driver motions her in.

  It takes Sylvanas a moment, as she fumbles with her seatbelt, to remember where she knows that name from. “Proudmoore Shipping Company, right?” she mumbles as they pull off. “Why in the name of all that’s touched by Belore would you be working at the university in Dalaran when your family owns most of the ships on Azeroth?”

  “Why are you not working at the military headquarters in Silvermoon?”

  Sylvanas blinks. “Ah, so we’re both disappointments. Got it.”

  Jaina’s smile is tinged with sadness when she turns towards her. “For what it’s worth, Vereesa worships the ground you walk upon. Never a bad word to say about you.”

  “That’s because Minn’da was too busy raising an army to raise her children. And I have had far too much wine to talk about that.”

  “Home, water, warm pasties back up, eat pasties, sleep. In that order.” Jaina’s fingers intertwine with hers. “Hope you like cats, by the way.”

  “Ah, yes, I must try this- you have a cat?!”

  “Erm, two actually.”

  “Jaina,” Sylvanas says, fixing her bleary gaze on Jaina, who bursts out laughing. “You have so much to learn about flirting with an elf. This should have been the second thing I found out about you, after your name. How dare you hold out on me like this.”

  “I promise to make it up to you tomorrow night.”

  Sylvanas hiccups, nods sagely. “Promise accepted. I would pinky promise, but I’m not sure I could find which one’s my pinky right now.”

  And Jaina starts laughing again. It’s a beautiful laugh, Sylvanas thinks. Very beautiful.

  Like Jaina.

-0-0-

  Jaina wakes in the morning to the sight of Sylvanas lying flat on her back, hands folded over her chest like some cartoon vampire, and both of Jaina’s cats splayed snoring on top of her.

  “Yes,” she mumbles, easing out from beneath the covers, “you were right, Sylvanas. I should have started with the cats.”

-0-0-

(this chapter inspired by the time i had two surprisingly potent cocktails at a voice acting conference and stood up too quickly and would've gone face first into the pool had a lovely casting director not caught me. one way to make an impression ig)

#so this became a whole thing #do i post this to ao3 now? #sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #sylvaina #thanks so much again for the prompt! #tiragarde sound pasties are absolutely cornish pasties and those things are lush

[blue-eyed-banshee]

Once completing her penance, Sylvanas immediately wanted to find Jaina. To tell her how she never left her thoughts with each soul that was freed.

She wouldn't even know where or who she could tell she was coming home, back to Azeroth. Of course, Tyrande knew due to the fact she was tasked to seek her once she had arrived from the shadowlands.

The elven priestess would make sure no harm would come to her as well as allowing her to travel with dark rangers Alina and Velonara, who she learned had adopted a child of their own. They named Sylvanas as a god mother and aunt, of course and Jaina would also be the child's aunt.

Tyrande gave her a kind welcome; some food from the city in the form of a banquet fit with food that had a spell so she and her dark rangers could eat. The spell would make their body work just as they had in life; so digesting, heartbeat, and all that.

Tyrande sent her daughter, Shandris, to bring Jaina and her two children to the city. Jaina had bore another child while Sylvanas in the shadowlands; a girl named Lireesa, after Sylvanas' mother.

Upon seeing her wife talking with the high priestess, their son would just run at her, a huge grin on his face.

"Banshee Minn'da!"

Sylvanas' ears twitched at the sudden sound. She turned and grinned widely before she felt a pair of tiny arms wrapped around her leg. The child was already up to her waist in height.

"You've gotten so big. What has your Minn'da been feeding you, I wonder?" She said before picking her son up into her arms before feeling his little arms hold onto her cape, which she always adored him doing, and this warmed her heart, thanks to Tyrande's spell.

"Let's find your sister and your minn'da, shall we, my little sailor?"

"How rude, sister. Aren't you going to at least talk to us first?"

Sylvanas tensed slightly as thoughts ran through her head.

Would Alleria still be mad at her? Would she get a lecture from the eldest Windrunner?

She did not know but she decided to take the plunge so to speak.

"Little Moon, Lady Sun." She turned before greeting them both warmly.

"I have had much time to ponder our last encounter, and I never got the say what I really wanted to say." Sylvanas spoke in Thalassian but her voice had a hint of remorse.

Alleria smiled softly before stepping forward with Vereesa on her side.

"That can wait, Sylvanas. Your family missed you dearly." The eldest ranger said before noticing her nephew.

"I'm proud of you taking care of your little sister while your minn'da was away." She said before handing a piece of candy she had brought with her from home.

"Our little secret, little lord moon." She spoke softly with a grin.

Jaina wanted so badly to almost run up and hug her wife, but she didn't want to cause attention to them all.

The mage walked over with a smile at the scene of her son clutching tightly onto Sylvanas' cape before hugging her wife tightly.

"I missed you." Jaina whispered, her voice breaking.

"And I missed you, Dalah'surfal."

#sylvanas windrunner #sylvanas musings » i deserved a clean death #sylvanas hc » sealed in an iron coffin

[bansheeys]

Chapter 5: The Cellar

Summary: Vereesa and Anya rekindle their friendship after years apart and the group finds each other again. As they all gather together, an unexpected predicament confines them to a cellar, compelling them to venture further into the catacombs. However, one member of the group appears to be behaving strangely.

"You're still my baby sister, no matter what you may believe about me. I'll always look out for you, even if it means protecting you from Alleria."

Read Here

#sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #valeera sanguinar #lady liadrin #alleria windrunner #vereesa windrunner #dark ranger anya #dark ranger velonara #sylvaina #valadrin #alleria x velonara #vereesa x anya #bansheey writes #wlw fanfic

[maltacus]

A Haunted Hallows Eve, Chapter 3

Sylvanas enacts her genius plan to prank Jaina by offering her literally the night of her dreams. Dreams which Sylvanas has personal first-hand experience with. Azeroth can rest peacefully knowing that their top leadership is busy playing dress-up.

“If you are Lady Moon and Vereesa Little moon, would I be a Sailor Moon now?” Jaina asked while she turned to look at herself from the side.

“Keep up the good work Miss Proudmoore and maybe you will join this family of lunatics sooner than you think.” Sylvanas flashed her a pearly grin.

“Let’s hear a growl!” Jaina suggested.

“What – no.”

“Come on. What kind of frostsaber would you be if you don’t growl? Just a little one?”

“You are so pretty when you’re thinking, do you know that?” The Frostsaber Queen caressed her cheek with a fuzzy gloved paw. “Tell me what devious deviant things that go on in there. I have only caught a glimpse after all.”

But the singing she could un-live without, Sylvanas thought.

“Soft banshee, warm banshee, little ball of fur…” Jaina rocked her slightly. “Happy banshee, sleepy banshee, purr, purr, p –

#sylvaina #jaina proudmoore #sylvanas windrunner #archive of our own #fanfiction #world of warcraft #dark rangers #halloween #cosplay

[eighthdoctor]

in your opinion, what do you think are jaina's most important qualities, characterization wise? love your fic, by the way!

fun question! sylvanas i literally boiled down to 3 points, jaina's a little bit harder.

jaina is: smart and compassionate.

she's a fucking genius in her own field, although she doesn't know everything, and as you move into technical fields UNrelated to magic she's going to start fumbling. but she learns fast, she rarely needs more than one explanation or one wrong answer to change course, and she's extremely open to new knowledge.

second, jaina will repeatedly go out of her way to help others. even if it requires sacrifices from her. even if they're her enemies. she wants to help others, she wants to be useful, she has a fatal case of Eldest Daughter Syndrome which is funny as hell when she's not the eldest daughter.

jo put it as--i went WAY back through our message history to find this:

Jaina's entire life is just her, over and over again, refusing to divide the world into black and white, Horde vs Alliance, Good vs Evil, holding out her hand, over and over and OVER and over and over again having someone betray her and everything fall traumatically apart around her

so she wants to help, she'll kill herself trying to help, and she thinks in ways that means she's very likely to be able to help (and come up with responses another wouldn't necessarily have thought of). she gives second chances. she's generous.

she also will carry through on those ideals. in every way, standing aside at theramore was the right call, but that's making the right call when the person who's about to die for it is your dad. that's a hard fucking consequence to accept, and she accepts it, and then she accepts the next 20-odd years of fallout from it. because it was the right choice.

and then there's the trauma. jaina VERY much has a temper and VERY much will use it in defence of those she cares about, and sometimes that's fine and sometimes it's not fine. sometimes she's saying "yes vereesa fuck the sunreavers" and then not checking in again until there's mass slaughter in the streets of dalaran. she is absolutely on a hair trigger following theramore's destruction, for obvious reasons, but like. she always had a temper. it's just worse now.

writing jaina is a lot of "what's the right thing to do if you are willing to accept the consequences", but as i yelled about earlier--she's not a shrinking violet. she's going to do the right thing, and she's going to accept the consequences, and then she's going to continue not practicing ANY sort of self care and having a breakdown about it that leads to multiple levels of war crime--

#asks for ts #Anonymous #blorbos from my games #ftr the three things you need to know to write sylvanas are #1. ends (survival of the forsaken) justify the means (literally everything else) #2. middle child. #3. 17 traumas in a trenchcoat #the power to manipulate belief

[marxalittle]

This got so big in my notes app I had to split it into several notes.

Below the jump: I asked myself two questions and they changed the world (of Warcraft). Also, and this isn't relevant for several thousand more words, card games are very important to elves.

The household wards pulsed gently, a feeling of belonging just in the back of her mind, the Estate welcoming one of the family home. Brigade General Vereesa Windrunner, Ranger Lord of the army of Silvermoon, Meritorious Order of the Unconquered Sun (with cluster), et cetera, sighed and stood up from her desk. "Thank you, everyone. Let's call it there and we'll pick up in the morning."

If her abruptness gave any of the headquarters staff pause, they didn't show it, tossing off less-than-parade salutes and shuffling their reports, maps, scrying stones, and assorted paraphernalia back into order and taking their leave. Doubtlessly most of them would find their way to the kitchens, or the barracks mess if the Estate's cook told them off for pilfering the pantry. For her part, Vereesa left the charts and files in their working order on her desk for later, heading down the corridor and toward the east foyer, closest to the stables. Her house slippers further softened her light steps, allowing her to make it down the stairs undetected, and she stopped just shy of the foot of the stair to observe, for once, without being observed.

General Sylvanas Windrunner (inactive), former Ranger-General of the armies of Quel'Thalas, Meritorious Order of the Unconquered Sun (with cluster and braid), Banner of Thas'alah, Crimson Star (with sunburst, multiple), et cetera, was still pulling her boots off in the entryway, the jacket of her undress uniform open and her saddlebags dumped beside her. A dusty riding cloak was draped over a rack where the steward could collect it for laundering with the rest of the linens. Sitting on the bench, hauling her riding boots off and rubbing at her calves where her breeches had wrinkled under them, Sylvanas was still the very picture of a Farstrider officer, just not the sort of pictures that went up on recruitment posters. She was road-worn, slightly dirty, armed to the teeth, clearly fatigued, and perfectly capable of carrying on for another three days with a fight at the end: a ranger true in Ranger blue.

Vereesa took the last few stairs more heavily, announcing herself before she stepped into the foyer. The long ears of the old campaigner on the bench flicked toward her, and Sylvanas cast a glance over her shoulder as she fished around for slippers that fit. She favored the open, sandal type, and was having some trouble, bent forward to root under the bench, making a pair. Vereesa had always preferred the closed-heeled type, feeling that they looked marginally less ridiculous with her uniform.

"How was your trip?"

She shrugged, a neat trick in that position. "A long ride with a few short stops. Sharpshooters and master sharpshooters have been certified and sent back to their units. Silvermoon is still strange. The outposts I visited are in good repair. Personnel levels are adequate. Runestones are secure, from what I saw. Patrols could be a little more imaginative, but that's the dividend peace pays, I guess." Straightening up from the bench, she threw her saddlebags over one shoulder and strode into the house proper. Annoyingly, the slippers barely marred the effect.

Vereesa perforce followed after her, determined to take the rare opportunity to have an actual conversation with her sister. "All in your report, I suppose?" Catching up, she guided them into the quiet of the east den, cool and shaded this far into the afternoon.

If Sylvanas realized her intentions, she at least didn't fight, allowing herself to be steered. She shrugged again. "As usual."

"Sylvanas, I get reports like that all the time, in much more depth. I could read your reports if that's what I wanted. I'm asking you about the rest of it."

Rather than answer the original question, her sister blinked down at her, dressed for the workday in a fuller and finer version of the uniform they shared, and flicked her ears. "It still astonishes me that you're a Ranger Lord."

"And yet I'm not at all surprised that you've managed to avoid that honor yet again, despite the obvious advantages to having you in that room."

"I've no patience for politics anymore-- me as a Ranger Lord would be a complete disaster. The Conclave would ban me from speaking in chambers. I'd drive everyone around me to madness or sedition and drink myself insensible."

"There was a time when your manners and maneuvers in chambers were the equal to your skill in the field. The marvel of the court." She put one hand on her hip and cocked it, ears forward and eyebrows raised. A challenge, and a very deliberate one at that.

Sylvanas shifted her stance enough to cross her arms without losing the saddlebags from off her shoulder. Blank-faced, ears neutral: a wall. "And there was a time when your impulsiveness and impertinence were its despair. Times change. Even people do, eventually."

#wip #notes app #writing a whole revisionist lesbian Warcraft fanfic in your notes app #sylvanas windrunner #vereesa windrunner #sylvania #eventually #actually this happens after they hook up but because stupid reasons they don't know who the other is in context #sibling dynamics #when your sister used to outrank you and now technically you're her commander in chief #A Shattered Sword #the girls the wives

[kai-j-moriarty-author]

What am I gonna do with these feathered children

Welcome back, I was hoping to get some more writing in today but I have been having to play chaperone for my flock. Raha, my sweet blue budgie, just won’t stop flirting with the girls. If he isn’t doing flirty chirps at Alleria, the budgie who bullied him into friendship, then he is flirting with Yrel or Vereesa. I’m sure there is a level of stockholm syndrome between Raha and Alleria. To be…

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#birb #budgie #pets #writers struggles

[jujoobedoodling]

Plagued by the horrors.

The horrors being the Windrunners. This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, Tides fucking dammit.

Sylvaina is already too angsty most of the times - but this doesn't mean Jaina has to suffer less. Just in a different way.

#world of warcraft #sylvaina #sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #minifemslashfeb2024 #mine #alleria windrunner #vereesa windrunner #ive decided to just post what i have

[redisaid]

Strangers - Part 2 of ???

The Spider in Her Web

Oops, new hyperfixation unlocked lads. Post-Shadowlands Sylvaina slowburn, here we go.

5326 Words

Read it on Ao3!

The first thing Jaina notices upon her return visit to the Maw is that Sylvanas’ camp is unoccupied. The second thing she notices is that another stool has appeared, chipped out of the same twisting black rock that surrounds this place, this cloistered safe haven that almost feels as though it belongs under a canopy of trees and a sky of blue, rather than shades of black and grey.

The first thing Jaina does is test out the second stool, and finding it comfortable, she sits and waits. She sets down the heavy rucksack Vereesa eagerly supplied her with. She listens. She watches. She wonders where Sylvanas might have gone, but realizes that most of her time within the Maw is likely spent on the move, working at her redemption, little by little.

She gives it a few minutes. A quarter of an hour. Surely, Sylvanas will somehow know she’s here. She will sense the disturbance Jaina causes in her routine, the rippling of the calm waters of a lonely pond.

And while Jaina is patient, and the odd silence of this place gives her time to think she’s not normally afforded in her busy life in Boralus.

She thinks about leaving the rucksack and its corresponding letter. She has no obligation to do anything else. In fact, all that she’s done here thus far might be too much to explain to the likes of many of her Alliance comrades. She thinks that if Dori’thur truly could report what she sees to Tyrande, then the looming visage of the High Priestess would have already darkened Jaina’s doorstep, asking her what she was thinking, offering small comforts to her prisoner.

But then, she remembers how Sylvanas reached for her. How she stammered out excuses to keep her there, just a little longer. She does not know her. Sylvanas similarly knows little of her. But Jaina is all she’s seen, all the contact she has had with her world in some time.

So Jaina waits, but thinks to use her magic to shoot a bright flare into the swirling grey of the sky above the Maw, so that Sylvanas might be alerted to her presence.

Only another quarter of an hour passes until Jaina hears the beat of wings. More than that, and she might have given up her small mercy. It's likely only been a few minutes on Azeroth she's wasted, but still, she has other duties today, far less optional than this. She vows to attempt to keep time as well as she can, knowing that she left Azeroth mid-morning. If the rate of dissonance between the two timelines is steady, then she can calculate the difference. She can decide whether she cares to wait.

Dori’thur proceeds her charge by a few moments, perhaps being asked to scout ahead, perhaps just doing as she pleases. Jaina wonders if the owl offers any aid in Sylvanas’ work, but has no time to ask. Once again, she meets Sylvanas Windrunner with a drawn bow and an arrow between them, though it is lowered much faster this time, upon those burning blue eyes recognizing her.

“Sorry if the flare spooked you, I didn’t know how else to get your attention,” Jaina tells her, and this time it’s her hands that fly up in surrender.

If things were to turn, if Vereesa’s good intentions and well-packed supplies are for naught, then she doesn’t need to worry about where her hands are. She can defend herself. Jaina thinks that she should have when she was taken by the Mawsworn, but there were three of them, and they knew to chain her and gag her in such a way she could not have cast anything against them. She still feels shame in being caught, a year and some time later. She shouldn’t have had her guard down enough to be taken.

And yet here she is, bringing camp supplies, or whatever all of this is, to the woman who saw her captured.

Sylvanas says nothing at first. She lowers her bow, stashes the arrow back in her quiver. She wears her armor today, worn but more intact than the leathers beneath it, and the hood of her long cloak covers her hair, neatly tucked and likely tied up beneath it. Jaina wonders at why she bothers with the bow and the armor and all of it, if there are no more enemies here to fight, but realizes that this is probably what Sylvanas is used to. It is good practice, after all, for a Ranger to be prepared for anything.

She does not seem to be prepared to find Jaina here again. “Back so soon?” she finally asks, though there is a dry sarcasm in the words.

For Jaina, it has been two days. She delivered the letter to Vereesa the morning after she came back, and she arrived the following morning with the rucksack. Jaina had breakfast with her mother, then had decided to take the day to deliver it, making the excuse she had an errand to run elsewhere in the world. Funny, how no one questioned a mage who could transport herself anywhere she liked on where exactly she might be going. Perhaps they guessed each time? Maybe her honor guard had a betting pool over it.

No one would have guessed this destination, or won any money on it.

Truth be told, though it has only been two days, the image of Sylvanas in her tattered leathers, eyes wide and wild, reaching out for someone, anyone, even if they wear the face of her former enemy, captor and captive all in the same, has not left Jaina’s mind. She did not tell Vereesa about that, when she relayed her version of the visit to her. No, that moment was hers alone to ponder, though why she fixated on it so much, she still struggled to understand.

Maybe there was a cruelty in this she had not considered, they had not considered, or perhaps Tyrande had deliberately considered. After all, Sylvanas Windrunner had been sentenced to what might be eons of solitary confinement.

“How long has it been for you?” Jaina asks, still curious, still wondering if perhaps this grim sentence is hurting the effort for peace and justice more than it is helping it.

“As I told you before, it is difficult to tell. Perhaps something near to ten days,” Sylvanas answers, a bit more straightforward this time.

Five times as long. Well, that was easy math at least, though Jaina would be more exact about it upon her next visit. If she were to keep up with this chore, then at least she could endeavor to learn more about the Maw and the Shadowlands from it.

If such time dilation is constant, then that means Sylvanas has been here alone for five years, not even knowing the name of the owl who watches her. And still, Jaina thinks this difference might be somewhat variable in nature.

This feels correct and true to her own experiences, when the Mawwalkers found her in the last of her many escape attempts, and later freed her from Torghast to abscond to the safety of Oribos. There, she’d been informed she’d only been missing from Azeroth for just two weeks. It had felt like months to her, but she had blamed it on the menacing nature of this place, on being held captive and kept busy navigating the twisting tower of Torghast, and on the lack of night and day by which to tell the time.

A part of her feels justified in the confirmation, but another part feels remorse at the loss of that time, stretched and strange and terrifying as it was.

Perhaps then, for subjecting her and Anduin and Thrall and Baine and who knows how many others to this, Sylvanas deserves to linger in the same. But the length of it is still worrying. How can anyone expect a person to come out better, changed, and repentant, after so long alone?

“Vereesa was very eager to get this back to you,” Jaina rouses herself from her thoughts to explain, and lifts up the rucksack a little.

It is heavy, and something within it rattles. Jaina thinks she should have maybe been nosy enough to inspect its contents before agreeing to transport it, but again, she trusts Vereesa. She still does not trust Sylvanas, or know her, really.

The letter she carried back for her in return was much shorter than the younger Windrunner sister’s, written on some blank parchment Vereesa had included with her own correspondence. She’d only left one page, but Sylvanas had only needed three-quarters of it. Her handwriting was neat, and militant, the Thalassian runes each shaped perfectly and correctly to a tee, crammed together and narrow.

Jaina had provided a conjured quill for her, as well as some ink. Vereesa hadn’t thought that part through, it seemed. For her extended services, Jaina felt slightly entitled to read what she carried back to Azeroth, but had only glanced at the first few sentences. They seemed civil. Beyond that, it had felt as though her eyes had better things to see.

Now, today—two days later for her, ten for Sylvanas—those eyes stare across a chasm of their own making at another pair of blue ones.

Sylvanas approaches, finally. Dori’thur circles the sky above them, coming to rest on the top of the lean-to, near where Jaina sits, a reminder that both of their actions here are subject to judgment. Only Jaina has never enjoyed being judged.

A gauntleted hand reaches out to her, reminding Jaina of how it had been, bare and unarmored, desperate in so many ways, reaching for her before. Sylvanas has no such tension in her now. She is a woman seeking what she is owed and has asked for, and Jaina hands her the rucksack dutifully. There is nothing more in this today. An exchange of part and parcel, but nevermind the extra stool upon which Jaina sits.

She is a stark contrast to Sylvanas in her armor, not having bothered to make a show of herself this morning, or whatever passes for such in the Maw. She wears only the white blouse, navy trousers, and sensible boots she went to breakfast in. She considered bringing a jacket, at least, but what for? The Maw is neither hot nor cold, at least not here in the shelter of Sylvanas’ grove of rock. As a mage, her armor is as unnecessary for her as any of the rest of her battle regalia. It is all for show, and something about how she caught Sylvanas last time didn’t sit right with her.

If she were dressed down, so Jaina should be, but now they have swapped places again, and Jaina isn’t sure which is right, only that it feels wrong.

“Thank you,” forms on Sylvanas’ lips, stiffly and formally.

She takes two steps back, sets her bow on her bedroll, and the rucksack on the ground before she kneels to dig within it, leaving no space for further ceremony or to add to her graciousness.

“There is another letter within,” Jaina explains instead. “Should you want to reply.”

Again, she had not checked and does not know where it is, only taking this information with a grain of salt, as it were, from a delighted Vereesa. If nothing else, she reminds herself that she endures the unnatural stretching of her hours, the dismal neutrality of this place, and the awkwardness of serving as a messenger girl to her once-enemy, because it seems to be bringing a great deal of happiness to her friend.

There are few people on Azeroth who have stuck by her as Vereesa has. Through all of her decisions, questionable and rage-tinted as they might have been for a while. Through nights where they held one another, crying over losses they could not otherwise express. Through days of war and strife new to neither of them, but quickly growing old. Jaina would watch the twins and tell them of their father, sometimes, because she knew they were curious and she knew it was too painful for Vereesa to speak of Rhonin much anymore. Vereesa would all but force her to come out with her and do normal things, lunches, shopping, festivals, and would sometimes point out a thing that Pained or Kinndy might have enjoyed, to remind Jaina that living was a thing she could do to honor them too, just as much as anything else.

So for that, Jaina could endure an awkward pause or two here in the Maw.

Sylvanas, knelt beside the rucksack, takes inventory of its contents in a militant way, saying nothing. One of the first items she does lay out is another sealed envelope, so there’s that. Next to it she lines up an odd assortment of things she must have requested. A length of rope concerns Jaina slightly, but as for how, she’s not sure. Sylvanas certainly can’t climb out of the Maw on thirty feet of rope, but it’s still odd to see. After that is a large bundle of dark material that Jaina can only assume are new leathers, and she breathes a private sigh of relief at that.

Again, it is an odd thing to focus on—clothes of all things. Still, if it were her, down here, alone, left only with her regrets and the glowing judgment of Dori’thur’s eyes, she would not want to be wearing tattered clothes.

A smaller odd assortment follows, laid out in an organized fashion. Jaina catches glimpses of new flint and tinder, bow strings, a small knife, a crisp white hand towel, an odd brass instrument that’s something like a sextant or viewfinder—distinctly elven in nature but close enough to both that Jaina guesses it is meant for finding the value of distances, quills and ink and a stack of parchment, a large piece of thick, fine velum lined with a grid, perhaps meant to be made into a map.

So little of it is sentimental. Sylvanas could have asked for anything, but what lies before her is a military requisition. It seems she is a General through and through, and has put all of her concern into the practicality of her mission. She is here to seek souls and guide them, and if a map and rope and measuring of things will help in that, then Jaina supposes there is no harm in such tools.

Still, none of it is what she expects to come out of that pack, save the leathers.

Only when Sylvanas makes a face of sorts, long eyebrows twitching, does she pull out something unexpected, and the expression that comes to rest on her sharp features tells Jaina it is not something she asked for, and perhaps not something she wants.

She presses the button on a small circular case in her palm to reveal it is a compact, not a compass or some other practical instrument. The face she makes is at the mirror within it, and Sylvanas swiftly closes the lid, setting the offending object aside, away from the rest.

The last thing she retrieves comes out with a rattle. A copper kettle, out of place in the wash of monotone greys and whites and blacks, chimes as two matching mugs attached to its handle slam against it. While it is well-made and elven in nature, it is simple enough that it too seems to serve a military purpose.

“I told Vereesa, about the tea,” Jaina confesses before the curiosity alighting in Sylvanas’ eyes can seek satisfaction.

It’s only then that she looks up from her hoard at her, one long eyebrow slightly lifted. Sylvanas, once again, says nothing.

“She thought it was a good idea,” Jaina goes on. “And that I could use a break while I wait for you to write your replies, as it were.”

Sylvanas says nothing still, pulling aside the lid of the kettle to find that what rattles inside is a strainer and small tin of tea. She sets these aside separately, lining them up with the rest of her expanded inventory.

She looks over the items, not back at Jaina, as she finally nods, just slightly, and says, “Running a nation is a daunting task.”

Jaina knows. She’s run three of them, should one count Dalaran as a nation, which she certainly does. Sylvanas has run one and the military of another, and led an entire faction of united nations and races, for a time. On this, they can both agree.

Jaina watches, fascinated, as Sylvanas packs some things back into the rucksack in a very focused and practiced way. She leaves aside the leathers and the kettle and its accessories and the mirror compact. Everything else is stored away with purpose and precision.

Her fixation is interrupted when Sylvanas stands, walking over to her to hand her the kettle.

“I have no water,” is her explanation.

There is water in the Maw, or at least in Korthia, still chained to it even now. Jaina had looked there first, assuming that Sylvanas would be among the trees of a more familiar landscape, closer in Azeroth to its nature. But no, she had camped here, nearer to Torghast, in what Jaina now thinks is probably a more practical home base.

Dare she even think it, but Sylvanas Windrunner seems to be very boringly pragmatic, when left alone to her own devices.

Jaina takes the kettle, recognizing her usefulness in this situation. Perhaps that’s why the arcane arts were always appealing to her. She thrives on being useful.

Conjuring water and fire for her own tea, at least, will give her something to do besides joining Dori’thur in her silent watching of Sylvanas.

The odd domesticity of the scene isn’t lost on Jaina as she kneels by the firepit, measuring out tea leaves from the tin in pinches. Sylvanas is seated on the stool she had not occupied, reading her letter in silence.

A tension fills the stale air of the Maw, but it’s different than any they’ve simmered in before. Jaina is used to being in the same room with Sylvanas Windrunner only in states of distress—during Garrosh’s trial, or when she stopped Varian from attacking her by teleporting his entire army away. Jaina’s life is made up of moments she rethinks years after, and that is one of them. Had she not interfered, would Teldrassil have burned?

Then again, would Varian have died sooner? Would Sylvanas not have been justified in killing him then, had Jaina let that fight play out? She had asked for help to win back her city, and had far more claim to the ashes of Lordaeron than anyone in the Alliance—even Jaina, who, if not for many other lost moments, might have been its queen. Would they then have come to their own blows, ending it all in the bowels of the Undercity, a clash of ice and shadow?

This is why Jaina can’t think on these things. She’ll get lost. Time slips away like sands in an hourglass, and she wonders how the bronze dragons can manage to know the outcomes of such scenarios and not go mad. No, it is better to be present where and when she is now, tending to the kettle over Sylvanas’ fire pit, waiting, as strange a scenario as that might be.

Stranger still is the question that breaks the silence, “It seems you know my nephews. How do they fare these days?”

Do you know them is the question Jaina wants to ask back, but she knows the answer. No, well, maybe not. Maybe she knew Arator, as a baby. He’s a man grown now, and last Jaina saw him, he was excited to hear all about her interactions with Uther in the Shadowlands, and wanted to know all about her stories of the legendary paladin of old.

Of old…that was not all that long ago. Fifteen years back, she stood with him at Stratholme, in another moment in which her mind frequently stalls, questioning everything, able to change nothing.

“They’re well,” is Jaina’s answer. “Arator is busy with the Silver Hand. Giramar and Galadin continue to grow like weeds.”

Again, the conversation strikes an odd chord of domesticity. Jaina has really never considered that Sylvanas is the aunt of those boys, but she is. Having seen it up close on her now, Giramar has the same lopsided smirk when thinks he’s said something particularly funny. Galadin has the same look of burning seriousness and focus. Jaina wonders if Sylvanas once laughed, lifetimes ago, as easily as Arator does?

It’s a question she can never ask.

Sylvanas huffs a response, “I’ve never seen Vereesa’s children.”

Jaina thinks this is some egregious sin for a moment, but then realizes, of course she hasn’t. The boys were born when she was already dead. They know their aunt only as the fearsome Banshee Queen. Jaina wonders if they know that, until quite recently, their own mother was still so desperate for her sister, but so afraid of her.

The Windrunners are and remain a complex web of a family to weave in and out of, and while Jaina never intended to be as such, she feels she’s become the spider that maintains it. Yes, she knows Sylvanas’ nephews likely better than she ever will. She helped the twins study for a test last week. She knows Arator’s favorite snack is caramel popcorn, and she buys a big tin for him every Winterveil. She tries to diffuse conversations between Alleria and Vereesa, where the elder sister’s brash and self-assured nature rubs wrong against the youngest’s sensitive one.

And now she makes tea for herself, waiting for the middle sister to write what amounts to a prison letter back to them. Or, well, the only one who has made an effort to contact her.

“I can ask her for a photograph?” Jaina offers, looking over her shoulder for a response, unsure if that was a problem for her to solve or just a statement.

Either way, she likes solving problems. She likes being useful. While she did not intend to be the spider, spinning this web, she still spins it.

Sylvanas says nothing, yet again, but Jaina sees her ears twitch upward. She’s been around enough elves for enough years to understand the language their ridiculously long ears speak. This, while Sylvanas doesn’t give voice to it, tells Jaina she’s interested.

She takes that for her answering, demanding nothing else, and pretends to be distracted by the hiss of the kettle. The earthy smell of Kul Tiran black tea tells her it’s ready as much as the hiss. The Maw smells of nothing, but now, it smells like tea and a fire, and to some, that’s home.

“Do you want any?” Jaina asks over her shoulder again.

When she looks back at Sylvanas for a reply, she just waves her disinterest, offering no explanation for it. The undead do not need to eat or drink, but Jaina knows Derek still likes his tea. It is the polite thing to do, the useful thing. Jaina, spider that she is, is an industrious creature. She cannot stop weaving.

She knows she’s right when she catches another lift of Sylvanas’ ears at the question, and the barest hint of her sharp cheek poking out from behind the paper that covers the rest of her face, a hint of the smirk she shares with her nephew, whom she’s never seen nor met.

---

Such a problem is what brings Jaina now to Vereesa’s doorstep, that same evening.

The smell of a sweet elven curry fills Jaina’s nose as the door is cracked open. She can just barely see the red heads and stubby, pointed ears of Giramar and Galadin, bent over plates at the kitchen table.

Vereesa stands, dressed as causally in peacetime as Jaina is, smelling of spice and vegetables, smiling.

“Jaina! I just put dinner on the table!” she announces. “There’s extra, if you’d like to join us. Say hello to Jaina, boys.”

“Hi Aunty Jaina,” comes in a twin chorus of deepening voices she’s still getting used to. The boys are entering their gangling teenage phase now, as half-elves tend to grow as quickly as their human parent. Apparently, they are eating Vereesa out of house and home, and prove this statement correct as they don’t bother to get up from their dinner to greet her. A hello is the best she can hope for.

They call her aunty, though she isn’t their aunt, because Anduin does it too. Because Arator did it once, to make fun of him.

“I’m good on dinner, thank you though,” Jaina tells their mother.

She does not feel the need to impose or intrude, and is not hungry, but the position suits her. She is not a Windrunner. She is the spider spinning her web on the top corner of their door frame.

“I didn’t expect to see you again today,” Vereesa confesses, leaning her weight on the doorknob she still holds.

She is smaller than Sylvanas, quick both to smile and to cry, though she has had more reason to do the latter. She is not prone to smirking, and does so only when she thinks no one is watching.

Jaina produces a letter as her answer. This time, Sylvanas wrote two pages. That should hopefully mean something to her.

Vereesa’s blue eyes go wide. They’re softer in color, a tone closer to purple, while Alleria’s are a muted aqua. They are normal and natural for a high elf, or as natural as an arcane-infused near immortal being can be. Sylvanas’ bright, burning blue, is as unnatural as the sinister red it replaced. Before, Vereesa had once told her, Sylvanas had grey eyes like their mother, a trait considered highly rare and desirable among the quel’dorei. Vereesa had been jealous of them.

Now Sylvanas dwells in eternal grey, and Vereesa’s home is smothered with Alliance blue.

She snatches the parchment with delight. A little noise escapes her lips, whether she wants it to or not is anyone’s guess.

“I can’t thank you enough for doing this,” she tells Jaina, eyes already pouring over the words. “And for not making a stink about it or refusing on Tyrande’s behalf.”

Jaina had thought about that, certainly. The morality of her acceptance had weighed heavy on her before her first meeting with Sylvanas. Surely, Tyrande would not want this. Surely, there was a breach of hard-won justice. Surely, she should feel strongly against it herself, having been a recent victim of Sylvanas’ actions, fully in her control or not. Jaina had once questioned that deeply, wondering if some of this was posturing and blame, and if Sylvanas had very much willed her and her friends dead and tortured and forgotten as the souls she was now tasked with ushering to better places.

But in reality, free now of any influence besides Dori’thur’s watchful eyes and a sentence one could debate if she’d earned, Sylvanas had been polite to her. Curt, but courteous.

Eager, even, to have what little she was allowed, though not eager to show that. Words and gifts from her sister. The presence of another person from Jaina.

“As I told you before, I suspect that if Tyrande wanted to know and had a problem with it, she would have already come to me,” Jaina says to this, and she still believes it.

Something about the way Dori’thur watches even sets her ill at ease. She feels Tyrande’s eyes on her, feels her judgment, a tinge of betrayal, but not enough to stir her to action. If she has truly watched Sylvanas all this time, then she must understand that she’s suffering enough. Letters and map-making supplies aren’t going to change that.

Her expression must have changed at the thought, because now Vereesa is staring at her, confused, the letter and its contents forgotten. “You’re angry about the knife?”

“I don’t care if you gave her a knife,” Jaina quickly says, raising her hands defensively. “It was small. I assumed it was for cutting quills or fletching. She certainly didn’t turn it on me, so why should I be concerned?”

“Quills,” Vereesa answers, settling back into a grin. “An important part of a proper Quel’thalan pen set, but I debated about that knife for a good hour, packing that bag.”

Jaina knows that, as dull as the contents of the bag seemed, Vereesa carefully selected all of them and made a day of it. She is the type to agonize over gifts, and to ensure she always gives something unique, thoughtful, and unexpected.

For her last birthday, Jaina did not do much in the way of celebrating. She was busy, of course, making herself busy, and settled for a nice dinner with her mother and brothers. They’d given her no gifts and she expected nothing from them. In Kul Tiras, birthday gifts are a thing reserved for children, not for thirty-eight-year-old women.

But to her surprise, that evening she found a little box wrapped in simple blue paper upon her desk, waiting for her. Within it was a bottle of silver polish, a note that explained Vereesa had noticed that her anchor pendant was getting a little tarnished from these years of constant wear, and a fine bottle of port, aged exactly thirty-eight years, with a remark on the note that said waiting such time to be drunk had only made it all the sweeter.

“She asked about the boys,” Jaina reports, attempting to change the subject before she too becomes sentimental over silly little things.

“Oh?”

The odd combination of raised eyebrows and drooped ears tells Jaina she feels odd about this, maybe guilty. Glowing eyes wander her face, searching for more details.

“She’s never met yours, I suppose I hadn’t thought about that,” Jaina goes on.

“I hadn’t either.”

Behind her, said boys shovel curry and rice into their mouths like their stomachs have no bottom. They’re nearly taller than Vereesa now, and have grown up so fast, sheltered by her expertly from this world of war and terror. Both reach for the earthenware pitcher of water between them at the same time to refill their glasses, and laugh as their hands smack into one another.

Vereesa turns her head to them, smiling and shaking it.

“Do you have a photograph of them? Arator too, maybe you and Alleria?” Jaina asks.

Vereesa doesn’t turn back to her, but her ears droop enough to tell Jaina she’s frowning about it. The answer is no, there’s no photo of them all together. The remaining Windrunners in Azeroth are busy people, hard to pin down and gather in one place.

Vereesa turns to her, a rare public smirk on her face. It makes her look as much like Sylvanas as Jaina has ever seen, no doubting they are sisters there.

“No, but I believe a trip to Stormwind is in order to correct that. And I’ll have an extra copy made—for you, if anyone’s asking,” Vereesa tells her.

“Of course, for me,” Jaina tells her, echoing the mischief on her face, glad to see it sparkling through the soft blue of her eyes.

Glad, really, to see anything in them but tears.

#sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #sylvaina #fanfic #help i am being consumed by this #now with fixed time dilation shit because i am fuckin dumb as hell

[jainaism]

Prejudice towards Jaina №5356 "She switches several times from i hate the horde to it's garrosh to i hate the horde"

Jaina doesn't forgive the horde neither after the explosion of Theramore, nor after the trial of Garrosh.

“You do not know my heart anymore, Thrall,” she said. “I am no butcher—but I will no longer call for peace at any cost. The Horde you do not lead is dangerous and must be challenged at every turn—and defeated. Then, perhaps, there can be peace. But not before.” I’m not what I was—I don’t burn for vengeance anymore. But… neither am I the woman who longed so much for harmony between the Horde and the Alliance. There… can’t be harmony, Kalec. Not while Garrosh leads the Horde, not after what he has done. I don’t believe peace is the answer anymore. - tow

When she's asked to become a leader of Kirin Tor, Jaina doesn’t know what to do, since it's extremely difficult to be neutral in this situation, but she agrees, while fighting her anger every day.

What if the Horde killed your friends? Your family? Destroyed everything your had. Could you maintain your conviction even then? To be honest, I struggle. Every. Day. Every day, the hard decisions. Every night… the nightmares. But I have a responsibility to preserve the Kirin Tor. - Jaina, mop

Nobody dislikes Garrosh more than me. I wrestle with my anger every day. Anduin, you know more than anyone, it's important to separate the Horde from its people. The Sunreavers still operate within this city. Alliance and Horde work together.  As long as we stay above the war, then there's hope for the world as a whole.  I see our city as a beacon of light, showing the way. If we can trust one another here, then there's hope for the rest of the world. - Jaina, mop.

However, despite this, the sunreavers have a different opinion. They help the horde steal the divine bell from Darnassus, another artifact that could set off a hundred Theramors across the Azeroth. Jaina finds out about it, it enrages her, she losts the shit. That's where her patience ends, and she's learned her lesson.

For too long, I have toiled to mend fences between Alliance and Horde. Time and time again, I've given the Horde the benefit of the doubt - and time and time again, they stab me in the back. I resude to be betrayed again! If the hode intends to use the Kirin Tor as a weapon against the alliance, then they have no place in Dalaran. I've decided. Certain members of the Kirin-Tor have put their allegiance to the Horde above the order, and I will NOT tolerate it. This is nothing short of a betrayal. - Jaina, mop.

The Kirin Tor was betrayed from within. I've handled the situation. You're fooling yourself. Once Horde, always Horde. I see that now. - Jaina, mop.

This has been the worst year of my life: Theramore, destroyed. And a betrayal from within the Kirin Tor. The lesson is clear. From here on out, I'm taking the initiative. - Jaina, mop.

Next, there is a skirmish between the horde and alliance and zandalari. Jaina orders the alliance to switch from the horde to the trolls, and when she and Lor-Themar decide to part peacefully, Vereesa remains unhappy, and Jaina in the one who discourages her ardor, saying that "this battle will not bring her husband back."

During the siege, Jaina wants to first make Garrosh suffer and then kill him, while she just proposes to dismantle the horde, because she saw the possibility of another betrayal. However, Varian is against this, and Jaina, although disappointed, agrees to make peace with the horde.

During Garrosh's trial, Jaina wants him to receive the punishment he deserves, but Kalecgos reproaches her for this and is afraid that after this she will not stop. This upsets Jaina because she has become very attached to him - and mind you, when he was in trouble, she helped him no matter what, and he is just an asshole here. When Tyrande asks her if she would become the same as the horde if she washed away Orgrimmar, Jaina replies that the horde is on Garrosh. Because she keep separeting the horde and its people from Garrosh.

At the end of the book, she is seriously injured, and the Red Crane gives her and everyone else a blessing (temporary), thanks to which she feels herself calm and silently reconciles with Thrall, although they do not become friends again. She doesn't forgive the horde, but also she doesn't see every single orc or elf as pure evil.

Conclusion: “the horde is not garrosh,” Jaina thought exactly that throughout the entire MoP, the only difference being that she stopped giving the horde a “second chance” and began to see it for what it really is. While she wants to kill Garrosh, she despises the rest of the horde, continues to blame it for the destruction of Theramore, does not trust it, punishes traitors, etc, but at the same time she goes into negotiations, stops Vereesa from the battle and only offers dismentle the horde, and not kill every single orc. She releases the elves and prisons to Silvermoon. Jaina helps the horde player, albeit reluctantly, strengthen the ring, and then runs along the broken shore with the alliance and the horde. And everything was fine until the horde betrayed the alliance again, which caused another wave of indignation from Jaina. She didn't forgive the horde then, keep blame them for Theramore and mistrust them because of it, but doesn't want to kill them all as she wanted to kill Garrosh.

The only problem here writing. This story is not well written because Golden sucks, making Jaina too soft, like in dumb Disney movies, but generally acceptable.

#jaina proudmoore #world of warcraft #warcraft #jaina #jaina proudmoore daily #alliance #wow #kalecgos #jaina's characteristic

[kaelsleftverdantsphere]

"Where is our daughter? Where is my baby?" The female voice asked immediately upon arriving aboard the Vindicaar.

Arator's heart sank. He knew this would happen. He knew he should have atleast bothered to wear something feminine to make the change easier on his long lost parents.

He saw Vereesa frown and look at him, nodding slowly to let him know she's there for him.

"Where is she? Has she not arrived yet?" Turalyon was looking around and noone dared to say.

Arator looked down on his shoes. He couldn't even lift his gaze up to see his parents.

"Did something happen to her? For Light's sake, why are all of you so quiet? What happened to her?"

"Nothing-" Khadgar started but his sentence was cut short by Turalyon.

"Something happened and HE has something to do with it! Look at how pale he looks!"

Arator looked up at his father, who was enraged, obviously not recognizing him.

"That's very far from the truth actually..." Vereesa said. "This is Arator... Arator the redeemer."

Arator instinctually bowed a little although he felt as if he could throw up if he actually bowed properly.

"And why should that interest us?"

"Because he is your son, Turalyon..."

Alleria's eyes lit up after a second and she immediately walked over to hug Arator. He was completely frozen in place, not knowing how to respond to her embrace. "Arator..." She said, a smile on her lips, tears in her eyes. "What a beautiful name you've chosen..."

Turalyon was just standing there, mouth agape, confused by the whole situation.

"You are a handsome young gentleman, Arator... I'm delighted to finally meet you..." Alleria said, slowly pulling back. "Can I, please, hear your voice?"

A few moments of silence and then... "Mother..." As he essentially fell back into her embrace.

----

THIS WILL CONTINUE AT SOME POINT

#arator #arator the redeemer #turalyon #alleria #alleria windrunner #trans arator #transmasc character #im projecting alright #SPHERE FICS

[samsaintjames]

👀

So, you‘re getting actually two snippets, one from a Bering and Wells story, on which I haven‘t exactly been actively writing, but I must have reread it and fixed some typos because it shows up in my recently worked on tabs, so yeah. The second snippet will be from what I‘m actually actively working on.

This story itself is still untitled; the idea behind it is that the warehouse doesn‘t realize H.G. has been unbronzed by MacPherson for quite a while; and that he left her for a while to her own devices in Univille to get acclimated to the new world. And she just so happened to meet Myka (accidentally?) and they kinda… become friends.

And then kinda Time Will Tell happens and they go to London and that‘s when Myka realises, but doesn‘t say anything.

I assumed the same rough timeline as in the show, so the snippet happens after 2x7.

(I title my scenes always with what‘s kinda happening in them to have a better overview.)

caught red handed

“Let me get this straight. You’ve been in contact with H.G. Wells on numerous occasions after your run in with her in Tamalpais and you didn’t think to fill me in?” Myka winced at Artie’s tone; if she’d been a few years younger she would’ve probably burst into tears right away and even now she felt her eyes sting. She had never been good at handling it when scolded by superiors. “Well… we haven’t exactly been talking.” Myka could feel the blush creep to her face, her skin getting ridiculously hot. “So what else have you been doing then?” “Um…” Myka couldn’t remember the last time she felt that embarrassed in her life - and more or less living together with Pete that said something. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, but the words wouldn’t come; instead she could only feel herself blush even more. Pete was the first one to put one and one together. “Oh my god.” He looked weirdly proud at her. Claudia’s eyes widened in comprehension only a few seconds later. “Shit, you mean you were getting some from freaking H.G. Wells? How awesome is that!?”

Okay, and now for something completely different. It‘s a WoW AU with Jaina/Sylvanas endgame, that is titled „Rockstar AU“ at the moment and which I started writing october 2021, and which has quite a few words accumulated already.

The story is mostly Jaina centered and written from her perspective (though maybe once Sylvanas is there, I might throw in a few scenes from her perspective too, not sure yet).

The base story operates under the assumption that Jaina was kinda „exiled“ from Kul Tiras when she was 11 (though I might change the ages still) and after that grew up with Vereesa, Rhonin and Arator (who canonically must actually be around her age actually) in the floating city of mages - aka Dalaran. Oh yeah, in case it wasn‘t obvious the whole story is very AU, so some things from base lore obviously happened, but when they happened is different - most importantly, there never was a Scourge, Lich King or Forsaken; instead we have smartphones :D.

My plan is to show „now“ story parts, where Jaina and Sylvanas interact, interspersed with chapters that show Jaina growing up; my plan is to explain the present with the past, though I‘m not sure I‘ll pull it off.

And because I have sometimes only written small scenes and snippets for this story, you‘re getting several :D.

Dalaran, Jaina is 11

„What am I, the foster mother for Azeroths unwanted children?“ Arator grimaced, his ears moving downward at the sides of his head until they were almost drooping. Even Jaina could recognize the sadness of his expression. „She doesn‘t mean it like that.“ He whispered to Jaina, though he kept his eyes fixed on the ground instead of looking at her again and Jaina thought he had maybe said that more for his benefit than hers. They could not hear Rhonins reply to Vereesa, but whatever he said must have calmed her down so that her voice dropped as well, because the rest of their discussion did not carry outside to where Jaina and Arator stood.

This second snippet is last years rewrite of the beginning of the introduction scene from last year:

intro version 07.01.

„No.“ The temptation to just shove the missive with her orders and the accompanying information folder back into Anduin’s hands and close the door in his face is so strong, Jaina has to clench her jaw to fight the compulsion and push down the accompanying emotion of indignation and anger that threatens to escape the strong control she now needs to exert over herself at all times. Reacting on her anger, the possible danger of it aside, the scars starting on her hands and growing up her arms almost to her shoulders on both arms tingle as her temper flares, would not only be thoroughly unfair to her nephew, who, while obviously already knowing the contents, is nothing more than a glorified messenger at the moment, but also accomplish nothing. Shooting the messenger would not solve anything however satisfying it might be in the heat of the moment; but while Jaina might be considered temperamental - though elven standards differ slightly from human ones, and the dragons considered her laughably mellow - she has never been rash in her actions. Damn Khadgar, who knew her well enough to know that a) she would not like the orders he sent her and b) that despite that she would not explode directly into Anduins face, Anduin who is looking at her like a kicked puppy at her rejection because he obviously thought this - the orders he just delivered to her - was a good idea. „Jaina, this…“ She cuts him off, unwilling to hear what no doubt is a reassurance that she will be well and this assignment the perfect opportunity, even though the rudeness of her behaviour makes her uncomfortable. „No.“ Jaina shakes her head. „I will not spent the next year babysitting a rockstar to protect her from her apparently insane star allures, while Grommash Hellscream still runs free.“ There is more to it however that she does not voice, partly because it is none of Anduin’s business, but mostly because Jaina herself is still very much reeling from what she has already learned by only skimming over all that is included in the background information folder. Confusion, surprise and a near overwhelming sense of betrayal, as unfounded as it may be, make it impossible to articulate what is going through her head. Jaina has lived with Vereesa Windrunner since she was 11 and been called daughter by her during her youth; Vereesa‘s now 11 year old sons call her aunt (just like Anduin); Arator, Aleeria Windrunners son once punched the prince of Lordaeron and knocked him out cold because nobody was talking about his sister like that when she was 17; she has spent almost a year at Windrunner spire under Lireesa Windrunners care during the Legion invasion of the Broken Isles when she was 16; Lirath Windrunner has unsuccessfully tried to teach her to play the elven flute for years and been her date to several official banquets she had not managed to talk herself out of despite the only thing between them being a slight sense of sibling rivalry. She is so integrated into the Windrunner family that she has been a Proudmoore only in name for years; at least that‘s what she had thought until this very moment. Yet none of them, not even in passing, have ever mentioned that Vereesa and Alleria have a middle sister called Sylvanas.

#Bering and Wells #Sylvaina #my fanfics