DWC - June 2026 - Day 3 - Shock / Reflection - Rimath "Maths"
Maths hadn’t been to Silvermoon in years. The first steps back inside the walls were a little disorienting. Things had changed. He had changed. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. People glanced his way, but their eyes quickly moved on to his sister. He tried to keep his hackles down, but it was hard with the open hostility being shown to her.
Estira had a light hand on her warp stalker’s head, but her unfocused eyes roved the city paired with a dreamy expression. Whatever she saw reflected in the marble and stone of the city, Maths would never see. The Void’s incubation in her was much more prominent than his own. It made sense, she’d invited it with relief once she’d understood what was happening. Maths had simply followed his sister protectively. Habitually.
They walked slowly; Maths was on high alert for anyone threatening them with more than a glare and Estira was meandering, leading them on what Maths could only assume were her whims. Hopefully not whispers.
It made a long and uncomfortable walk for him.
They finally found the Embassy that Easy had told them about. The siblings registered and were approved to stay in the city with little fuss. A few rules and recommendations were given by rote, with no shock shown from their host as a passerby spat insults and sputum alike in their direction. The soft hum of an arcane barrier activated and protected them. The ren’dorei reading the scroll did not even flinch, did not even look toward the other elf. Estira’s gaze focused finally, pinning on the man, but she remained still and poised. Her ears twitched, though. Maths swallowed and pulled her gently the other way, toward an inn their attendant had told them was friendly.
(Note: This reflection goes back to when the tree of Teldrassil burned. Around that same time, I lost my roleplay partner and dear friend of 10 years, who passed away too early. I wrapped up our roleplay with his characters sacrificing themselves for their mates. Seemed fitting. Thanks for reading.)
Day Three DWC 6/2/26
Shock/Reflect
Elutia spent most of her time trying not to think about that day. The pain and grief of her home burning still made her ache even after all these years. However, it was what she had lost that day that all but suffocated her each time she thought of it, making her chest feel as if an immense weight was upon it and causing her not to breathe.
Today, however, for once she lets herself reflect, and though she still feels grief, it no longer consumes her. It no longer robs her of all the air in her lungs, or crushes her chest, or makes her wish it was her instead.
She closes her eyes, and the wind blows through her almost now dark-blue hair. Her hands grip the railing of the ship, The Righteous Venture, thinking back to all those years ago…
…The fire rages out of control around her and those she loves. An inferno of never-ending heat that is engulfing everything in its path. She has lost count of the burns, scratches, and bruises she has gotten. Lost count of the number of women, children, and men she helped. She shifted so much that her joints ached, inhaled so much smoke that her lungs burned from both it and the exhaustion of running, helping others from this hellscape.
Her sister wasn’t in any better shape, nor were their mates or their friends. Everyone was exhausted. Mages had stayed as long as they could, holding portals open to help as many escape as possible, but they too were exhausted and didn’t have the energy to continue holding them open much longer. It was a battle they couldn’t win, and they all knew it.
Silanon looks at Elutia, and he leans forward, kissing her softly. She knows immediately what he is going to do, and she shakes her head. “No. I am not leaving you. You can’t ask that of me.” He nods his head, but it is meant for the mage over her shoulder, not her. She doesn’t realize this, and by the time she does, it is too late. Before she can even react, her body too tired to move fast enough, he pushes her with words of I love you the last thing she hears as her body hits the portal and she is carried through to the other side.
She lands on her backside, her mind and body in shock as another woman lands beside her, her sister, then the mage herself, which turns out to be Oceanaira, a dear friend. The woman is so pale and coughing so heavily that she collapses almost immediately.
Elutia moves urgently, trying to get back to the portal, but as soon as the mage collapsed, so too did it, disappearing before she can reach it.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just send her away. Her eyes searched frantically for another portal, something, anything, that would take her back.
She turns to see her sister leaning over the passed-out mage. Her friend still breathed, but it was shallow. Elutia moves to make sure there are no injuries, though her mind is still searching for her mate, needing to get back to him. As a healer, though, she can’t just leave her friend to fend for herself.
Then she feels it. A feeling of doom, something squeezing her chest so tight that she feels her heart will explode. It hit both women simultaneously. Her eyes instantly move to her sister’s, and both twins let out a wail that cuts through the surrounding air, sharp as a knife. Tears stream down Elutia’s cheeks, cutting lines through the soot on her face as pain like she has never felt rips through her.
Gone. Their mates were gone. Both knew. They couldn’t have told you how, but they knew.
She couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t be. She looked down at the mage, her friend.
“Why?!” How could Ocean have taken her away from her mate? She was supposed to be her friend. She pushes herself away from the woman and crawls toward the side of the pier, pain cutting so deep that she felt sick with it.
Her sister isn’t in any better condition as she leans over Ocean and shakes her shoulders, screaming for the woman to wake up, to take her back. But she doesn’t; she can’t. She spent the last of her energy bringing them all here to Stormwind. There is nothing either of them can do…
…Elutia shakes her head, clearing herself of the thoughts and images. She doesn’t realize she is crying until a drop that slides off her cheek lands on her chest. Her hand reaches up, and she wipes the tears away and takes a deep breath.
He wanted her to live, but until now she had merely survived. Years. It did not seem that long, and yet it was.
She opens her eyes and looks to her left, noticing the captain, and smiles. Again, the pain is still there, but now it is manageable. Her mate died to save her, and she realizes now that she needs to honor the life he gave her. A part of her will always grieve the loss, but it is time she moved forward.
Now she is on her way to Eversong, where she will stay in Silvermoon, having taken Captain Fiske’s offer of a ride there instead of going by land or air. The man gives her a smile in return, not saying anything about her tears, which she appreciates. For a pirate, he didn’t seem too bad. Though she wouldn’t ruin his reputation by saying so.
She turns back toward the sea. The sun shimmers off the water, and she takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
There is still much to do, much that needs to be done. And now she is finally ready to do it.
Kyden barely had time to glance up before a bag was dropped onto his lap — done in a way meant to catch him off guard. He narrowed his eyes at his brother's retreating form before suspciously checking the contents of the bag.
"You didn't buy out any poor vendors this afternoon, did you?"
"Nope. Not this time anyway. No one pissed me off between this morning and this evening, so it was just enough to keep you from getting hangry. Works out better for both of us if you're well fed."
Raxwel grinned playfully as he settled down, leaning back against one of the nearby trees and pulling a flask from his jacket. "You know, we really should consider just getting a room at the inn, probably would be a little more comfortable…" His gaze turned towards his brother as he removed the cap of the flask. "You're overthinking. About what?"
"I'm not…"
Kyden trailed off with a sigh as the flask was lifted to Raxwel's lips. "…I was just thinking about what I'm doing."
"In regards to…?"
Kyden waved his hands around, motioning in the general area around him. "Just…as a whole." He flopped back onto his back, reaching up and scratching Finn's chin when the worg came over to sniff — making sure he was alright (and certainly not to see if he could see what was in the bag he was holding.)
"I can't follow you around for forever. I need to figure out what I'm doing eventually…Savia…my mother wants me to visit, eventually and I don't know when. O-or if I even want to. And."
"…Kyden."
"And you go off on these trips sometimes, and I just can't sit here and wait for you to come back with Finn, and he looks lost when you do that. I think he knows where you go and wants to go and he can't because I'm here…"
"……Kyden."
"And what if you have work, because I know you have to have work. The last job was a job I gave you and you didn't even get paid for that. And eventually you're going to need to get paid and-"
"…KYDEN!"
The last attempt to gain his attention was accompanied by something landing, rather uncerimouniously on his face.
A pastery.
One of the, gods knew, how many his brother had purchased that morning.
Kyden sputtered before sitting up and whipping around to glare at Raxwel who took a moment to take another sip of his flask.
His brother exhaled, eyes closed before slowly capping the flask and finally…eventually, opening his eyes to look at him.
"Are we done?"
"…For the moment."
"Good. So let me poke a few holes in some things. I'll find work when I find it. It's not an issue. You can wait with Finn — if that's what you want to do. These trips…I'll tell you about them eventually, just not yet. And if it gets to point where you're ready to wander off, after you figure out what you want to do, then you can. You don't have to figure it out right now."
"…And Sav- My mother?"
"Don't have to call her that if you're ready to, kid. You can sort that out in your own time too. I would suggest visiting at least every once in a while. Doesn't mean you have to do it next week."
Kyden barely resisted the urge to pull his hood up over his head as he felt his brother's gaze narrow on him.
"How long did you sit out here thinking about all this?"
He muttered a response.
"Want to try that again?"
"….All afternoon."
"I figured. Whelp, seems keeping you out of trouble means dragging you into mine. This should be fun."
"Wha-what?"
"Don't worry about it. Get some sleep though. Tomorrow could be…interesting."
Kyden stared blankly at his brother for a moment before turning to the contents of the bag — trying to imagine what he'd just gotten himself into.
( Minor trigger warning for mentions of violence and abuse )
@daily-writing-challenge
The floorboards creaked like they were trying to wake the whole house. Ridley shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, rolling heel-to-toe the way he used to move through back alleys in Boralus when being quiet meant the difference between a heavy pocket and a broken jaw. Old habits, the kind that lived in muscle and bone long after the reasons for them had gone. He adjusted the bundle against his chest carefully, and kept walking the slow circuit from the window to the hearth and back again. Giddeon was four days old and had opinions about sleeping, loud ones. Not now, though. Now the boy had finally gone quiet, his damp little mouth pressed against Ridley's collarbone with one fist curled into the open collar of his shirt. The weight of him was almost nothing. A bag of flour weighed more. His pistol weighed more. Hell, Ridley's arm alone probably weighed more, and yet this scrap of warmth and breath and angry red skin had him moving through the dark like a man carrying a crate of Azerite—terrified to jar, to jostle, to breathe wrong. Sybil was fast asleep, finally. She'd wanted to keep the boy in the crook of her arm all night, murmuring those strange little half-rhymes she does when she's too tired to filter them: thin night, thin night, mind the light, mind the light.
He'd kissed her forehead and pried the babe out of her grip the way you'd pry a bottle from a drunkard, slow and careful, as he reassured her. Sleep, love. I got 'im. I got 'im.
Ridley stopped by the window, the glass cold near his cheek.
Westfall stretched out below the homestead in silver and black, the grass pale as ash under a fat autumn moon. The sea was a dark line at the horizon, restless and glinting where the moonlight caught the chop. He could hear it from here if the wind was right, and tonight it was. A low, rhythmic shush that sounded nothing like Boralus—there was no creak of rigging, no drunk singing, no slap of bilge against hull. Just open water and open sky and the dry rustle of wheat. Their homestead wasn't much, just a stone cottage with a patched roof, a chicken coop Ridley had built twice because the first one leaned, and a garden where Sybil grew things he couldn't name that smelled of rain and old bark. But the land was theirs and it was bought honestly, or as close to honestly as a man like him could manage.
It was quiet here, quiet enough to make a man's thoughts too loud.
Ridley shifted the baby's weight again and let himself look at his own reflection in the dark pane. His shaggy hair had fallen over one eye as always. His beard was untrimmed and his shirt rumpled from being slept in for three days running. He looked like a man who'd been dragged backwards through a hedge and then handed an infant. Which, near enough, was the truth of it. Ridley had never known what to do with peace. He understood noise, because to him noise made sense. Noise told you where trouble was coming from, like a bottle shattering in an alley, a woman shrieking three streets over, or boot steps behind you that were too measured to be drunk and too slow to be harmless. Merrick’s laugh booming through a room before someone else’s teeth hit the floor, gunpowder cracking in the damp air, coin clinking, men cursing, and the ugly wet sound of a knife finding somewhere soft. Peace was different, because peace had both space and time to it. Peace let a man hear the blood moving in his own ears and wonder what, exactly, had been left behind in him after all the shouting stopped.
Merrick's face came to him unbidden, the way it always did in quiet moments. That was the bastard of it. Not the shouting, not the ugly words or the uglier blows—those he could handle, those were the language of Dampwick, the grammar of brothers who'd been built on the same broken foundation. What haunted Ridley was the look on Merrick's face the moment he'd understood that Ridley was actually leaving.
Not threatening.
Not posturing.
Leaving.
Betrayal, raw as a wound, and underneath it had been something worse—confusion. Like Merrick genuinely could not fathom that his brother, his brother, the boy he'd fed and taught and dragged through every gutter in Boralus for over two centuries, would choose someone else over him.
The split had not been clean.
Nothing with Merrick was ever clean. The fight started over Sybil because of a vision. She'd told him the deal in Freehold would go sideways, that the man he was meeting would bring iron instead of coin. Merrick heard the man will betray you and acted on it, he put a knife through the man's hand before the meeting even started, torched the arrangement, and lost the cargo and two contacts in one evening. When the dust settled it turned out the man had brought coin after all, the iron Sybil had seen was the Watch, three officers who'd been tailing the deal for weeks, Merrick didn't blame himself for misreading it, he never did, he blamed her.
The shouting had been bad, but the rest had been worse. Ridley remembered the exact moment his loyalty snapped, not bent, not frayed, but snapped—the sound Merrick's open hand made against Sybil's face, the way her head turned with the blow, the collar at her throat buzzing like a hornet. Ridley, who had spent his whole life standing at his brother's shoulder, stepped between them and said that was enough. The beating Merrick gave him was thorough, professional even. Merrick knew how to hurt a man without killing him, and he knew how to hurt Ridley specifically, because he knew every old break, every scar, every spot where the body remembered pain the most. His brother had cracked two of his ribs, split his eyebrow to the bone, and dislocated his left shoulder with a move he'd taught Ridley when Ridley was fifteen. But Ridley had gotten up. That was the part Merrick hadn't expected. Ridley always got up, because he'd been getting up his whole life every time something or someone knocked him down. But this time, he got up and he didn't come back to heel.
Merrick had called after him. Not with rage, at first, but with something much worse. "Ridley. Rid. Come on, bruv. Where you gonna go, eh? Where you gonna go that ain't with me?" That facade of familial warmth fell apart quickly when Ridley hadn't stopped: "You're nothin' without me, you stupid bastard. You know that, right? You've always known that. You don't walk away from me, little brother.”
“Watch me.” The scar above Ridley's eyebrow itched sometimes, in the cold. He had others from that night—a white line along his forearm where he'd blocked a bottle, a burn on his back from where Merrick had unleashed a blast of arcane fire, and a crooked knuckle on his right hand from when he'd finally hit back and broken Merrick's nose. The first time in his life he'd ever raised a fist to his brother, and it had felt like cutting off his own arm. Some nights he still dreamed about Dampwick. Not the bad parts, or rather, not only the bad parts. He often dreamed of the early parts during those nights. Merrick boosting him up through a bakery window to steal day-old rolls, Merrick showing him how to tuck a blade flat against his wrist so it didn't print through his sleeve, Merrick sitting on the edge of his cot after their mother passed, not saying anything, just sitting there, hand on the back of Ridley's neck, heavy and warm. And now it all meant nothing, or it meant too much. It was hard to tell the difference on some nights. He exhaled through his nose, and Giddeon made a sound. A small wet mnnh against his chest, and Ridley's hand came up to cup the back of the boy's skull before he'd even thought about it, his palm swallowing the whole of it. He wondered if Giddeon would have magic. Real magic, not Ridley's patchwork rune carving and the jury-rigged traps and inscriptions he'd cobbled together because his blood wouldn't cooperate—but the arcane that had come easy to Merrick, liquid and obedient, proof of their Elven inheritance that Ridley had always reached for and never quite caught. Sybil's gift was something else entirely, older and wilder, tangled with antler and root. Between the two bloodlines, Giddeon might carry something. Or he might carry nothing. He might be like Ridley, reaching for a fire that he cannot light.
Then I'll teach him runes, Ridley thought, with a stubbornness that felt like pressing a bruise. I'll teach him to shoot. I'll teach him to build. He won't need it to come easy. He'll have hands and a head and that'll be enough because I'll make bloody sure it's enough.
Somewhere in the dark, a nightjar called. Westfall was louder at night than people expected, with crickets and frogs in the creek down the hill, and the occasional far-off bark of a coyote out in the dust plains. It wasn't the forest sounds Sybil grew up with, the deep dark forests of Drustvar that were full of rustling undergrowth and stag-calls. But she'd planted things from that home already. They had herbs along the windowsills, lavender by the front step, and a hawthorn sapling near the fence that she talked to when she thought Ridley wasn't listening, murmuring in that lilting half-rhyme of hers, blessings or prayers or whatever the old Drust words were that she carried like seeds in her pockets. The whole homestead smelled like her now—dried rosemary, wool, beeswax, and the faintly sweet earthiness of whatever she brewed in the kettle that wasn't quite tea.
Ridley still didn’t know if he'd earned all of this, and a part of him suspects he hasn’t and never will and that's a thing he was going to have to carry. But Sybil told him once, back when he'd said something close to that out loud, drunk on bad wine and ashamed of himself for being drunk. She had just touched his jaw and said, Earnin' is just doin' it again tomorrow, love. Just doin' it again tomorrow. That's the whole of it.
And he’ll do it again tomorrow, and every tomorrow after.
This will be a connected, multi-character view into the early events of Stormblood in FFXIV. Spoilers will be put beneath the break when needed.
@daily-writing-challenge
TW: none
Spoilers: Beginning of Stormblood, and a big reveal related to Yda. You have been warned!
“We should approach them!”
It was everything the seasoned warrior could do to keep his mouth closed and the grind of his teeth to a minimum, his silver eyes flashing with anger as he rose to his full height and crossed his arm over his chest, a clear sign to anyone who knew him that he was displeased. But while Kaleh'a shrunk away, keeping to the corners of the meeting room after giving his report and downing two canteen of water, the young blonde dressed in red stares right back at him like she didn't have a hint of fear in her body. Or perhaps she lacked the sense to be afraid.
“Are you forgetting we are in this mess because of them?” His voice was low, angry, practically a growl, a growl that didn't dissipate until a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and made the native Ala Mhigan fall silent. If there was one man in this meeting who he had the utmost respect for, one of his own countrymen no less, it was Raubahn, the Bull of Ala Mhigo. His gaze cut to the towering one-armed figure, who even dwarfed Bryn’s six fulm frame, and the look of understanding and sympathy in his gaze had the Silver Wolf relaxing slightly. He understood probably better than most the turmoil in Bryn’s mind being so close to home, all while still shouldering the loss of a friend.
The loss of two friends.
His gaze slid back across to Lyse as Raubahn did his best to cut through the middle with, “He’s right, the false flag attempt by The Griffon has landed us in this situation, and I can understand the hesitance to reach out to the rebels. Which is why we three are here. We all have a stake in this fight, in our homeland. It is–”
Bryn’s hand raises, shaking his head. “I'm sorry, but what stake does she have?” Lyse looked like her long blonde hair might bristle into a porcupine’s back at his words, and Raubahn shot him a look. A look he returned with narrow eyes. Maybe the shock of her reveal still stung. The shock that the woman he had fought with years and years ago was gone, replaced by her sister. The shock at the audacity of the lie… It was all too fresh as he met her gaze and rumbled out, “Your father was a brave man, I don't doubt that, and I don't doubt that you were born in Gyr Abania, but you were younger than us both when your sister spirited you out of this land. So I ask again, what stake do you have in this beyond your time pretending to by Yda?”
He felt as much as saw Raubahn tense at the name, at the mention of the deception, and Kaleh'a coughed from somewhere behind them as the sudden silence stretched on. Until Lyse, staring up at Bryn from across the war table, turned up her nose, let out a breath of air, and turned away from them, marching to the door while throwing over her shoulder, “You can say what you want about me, it doesn't change the fact that I'm going, and I'm taking the Warrior of Light with me! We will have allies! And I will keep fighting for my country!”
The door slammed behind her, leaving the two older men standing there, until Bryn sighed. “She's hot headed, idealistic, and dangerous.” Raubahn grunted, leaning his one good hand against the table and looking over the map.
“Aye, she is all those things. Which the resistance needs.” Bryn’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed silent, for a moment.
“Maybe. But there will be no resistance if she leads them into a fight they can't win.” That got a heavy sigh from Raubahn, who nodded and pushed off the table.
“Which is why you will go with her.”
“What?”
“What?! Sorry, sorry, I'm just gonna…” Kaleh'a was quick to slip out of the room when both men’s heads snapped his direction, the hard pairs of eyes not softening until he was gone, and Bryn could shake his head.
“I cannot work with them if they planned the false flag.”
“I know,” Raubahn said softly, “but we don't know they did. Look, Bryn.” That heavy hand on his shoulder again, his blue eyes boring into Bryn’s silver. “I trust you. You've proven yourself in the field. You know this land, how dangerous and beautiful it can be. Find out if the Resistance can be trusted, and if they can, guide her.”
Bryn’s brows knitted together, his eyes gleaming with displeasure, but…Raubahn was right about one thing. Someone needed to be there, to work with the Resistance, and to lend a hand to Lyse. Her fire might be what the Resistance needs, but it couldn't be allowed to burn unrestrained. He sighs and the weariness flashes across his face, years of fighting evident on his face, and a tiny kernel of hope.
“We are so close, Raubahn, we are so close.”
“The closest we have ever been,” he agrees, before patting Bryn’s shoulder. “I’ll go ask the Warrior of Light to join you. Between the two of you, surely it will be enough to keep things moving in the right direction.”
Raubahn just barely caught the grumbled words from Bryn as they both headed for the door. “And keep me from throttling her.”
It had been calculated that it would take a solid three days to get where they were headed.
That was a total of seventy two hours of sailing morning and night. They had nearly seven hours left to sail before they would reach their destination. So far they had sailed through two storms and a bought of three hours which no winds were mustered by the oceans. For those three hours they the ship and it's inhabitants had been left stranded beneath a night sky.
Barely had the Madam gotten her sleep in, she'd spent every moment since stepping foot on this ship buried in the logistics to make this plan of Emily's a success, and subsequently prepare for the thorough search to launch upon landing.
She was always working on something. Desperate to keep her hands moving and mind focused on a task. Even now the brunette had found a way to busy herself.
Against her better judgement she had taken to the cargo hold of the ship with the intention to find the belly of the sizeable vessel. It was here that a group of gryphons are currently stalled, their heads covered in leather hoods to calm the beasts in enclosed spaces. She had remembered Emillie's answer as to which gryphon would be Susan's in this assault, a well bred retired war gryphon dubbed Static for her brindle pattern along her feline body. A mutation in the beast's genes had seen it born with this unusual pattern, but little did it affect her loyalty and bomb proof persona.
"I was told you'd been through quite abit, seen enough wars to justify never being ridden again. A well seasoned bird like that ought' to be able to handle this--," in one deft movement the Madam loosens the hood and releases the head of the gryphon. At once she herself is perceived with bright eyes, the beast observing Susan with the tray of cut up pieces of bloody meats before blinking around at her compatriots. The other gryphons had not stirred with this rustling going on nearby, nor do they seem to stir at the smell of fresh food.
The gryphon targeted by Susan in this exchange fixates the woman with another stare, this one seemingly patient in nature. As such Susan would collect bits of the gore, hand held out for the beast to make the next move.
"I figured what better way to establish ourselves to one another than over a meal?"
The calm timber to the woman's voice had settled any rising nerves in the gryphon. It tilts it's head, a clicking noise emitted from it's beak before this very mouth starts to nudge and nip at the meat in the woman's hand. The treat is scooped up before just as suddenly the beast is thrusting it's head back to make swallowing an easier effort.
For the next few moments they share in each other's company doing just this. Susan scoops another collection of meat for the gryphon to delicately gobble down. It was a mindless gesture, something Susan was able to lose herself in for a moment. Inevitably the weight of the choices leading to this moment in time would come baring down. Susan casts a wary glance around to ensure no aid or hands had entered the space before turning her full attention to the gryphon she continues to feed.
"You and I will be riding into an unknowable situation tomorrow. I figured it would be best I introduce myself before the day of," Susan almost starts to condemn herself for rambling aloud to the beast, but ultimately she continues. "I have unintentionally brought you and your kind into a war that none of you were responsible for. Alas... Your contributions are invaluable. Without it, I would be steps further from saving my daughter. Gods willing that is what we will be doing, with this amount of effort."
A silence fills the air between them as the beast eats eagerly, careful to not nip the woman's skin. Though the creature would
"I hope you wont judge me when I say I am... Nervous," she confesses. The words are spoken with a bitter undertone to them, as if remorseful to feel this way. She would pause in her feeing to eye the gryphon closely. There was an intensity to Susan's stare that stills the beast, it's eyes blinking in response to her. "As such I have only one request of you when the plan launches. Put your heart into it. Fly true, and do not falter no matter how the tides may churn."
Before Susan could admit to anything further, a disturbance to their peace and quiet in the form of Oakley Oswan occurs, this would startle the Madam and gryphon. The creaking of wood beneath his weight causes both heads to snap to attention, the charming golden irises of the Madam and the haughty blazing orange of the gryphon nearly shock him to the core when first noticing them.
He comes to a screeching halt with a bag of feed in his arms, eyes blown wide with the realization of seeing the gryphon not only staring back at him, but doing so with a calm expression to her eyes. At once the teen's blue eyes shoot over to meet Susan's indifferent golden stare. He frowns, but not out of displeasure for the Madam's presumably sullen mood...
More so, the indication that he had trampled into something bothered him. He was all too aware of the currency that Susan traded in and didn't want to be misunderstood as an eavesdropper.
"Apologies," he clears his throat. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything-?"
"Not at all," Susan quips in response, her tone matter of fact as she starts to feed the gryphon another handful of the bloody treat. "Just familiarizing myself with the gryphons your mother has collected for the assault."
Oakley hums in acknowledgement, but otherwise has resumed with his original reason for being in the cargo area with the birds of prey. Choring. The feed bag would be sliced open with his pocket knife before it's contents are measured and divided out amongst the collection of gryphon in the room.
With her personal bird of prey fed, she'd clean her hand before reapplying the hood to the gryphon's head, later offering to help Oakley in his chores only to be politely shutdown. This leaves her with only the work of cleaning the tray she carried the raw meat on, as well as wash her hands. As expected afternoon continues in this familiar silence for Susan. With only the sights of the open sea on all sides of their ship to pass her time with, Susan would be allowed the time needed to reflect and come to terms with what awaited her extraction team.
What if this was another dead end? A failed endeavor before it's even begun?
The only saving grace to being in her lonesome was the unfettered front row seat to the changing of the sky. From afternoon into evening, the sunlight would begin to wane the further it sank. The many colorful changes to the sky bring her to sigh in appreciation. The swath of purples and pinks bleeding into dark blues would cast against the deep blue waters. A perfect reflection would bestow itself unto it's viewer, the remaining sunlight glittering in bright sheen against the very top of the water's surface, leaving a lasting memory to all who'd look upon it.
"Better to have tried and failed than to live with never knowing what could have happened if you had only tried," Susan speaks out into the air, resigning herself to this mantra for the remainder of the boat ride.
June 2 / DAY 3
SHOCK / REFLECT
content warning(s): none!
@daily-writing-challenge
If one to ask me, "What makes you who you are?", I would only need but a moment's reflection.
Others may answer for me, thinking they know my answer. "It is that you are Huojin." No; my experience as Huojin, from my time in Master Shang Xi's academy until the day Warlord Garrosh committed great sins against my mainland kin, is not what defines me.
"It is your time as Tushui, then!" No; though I am grateful for Master Aysa for accepting me within the ranks of the Tushui, it is not such a spiritual life which makes me who I am.
"Surely it is that you are Shado-Pan!" Serving under Lord Taran Zhu is a great honor; to have been chosen and deemed worthy is a feat near-no Isle-borne pandaren can lay claim to. But it, too, is not what defines me.
Looking inward, it is simple to me what makes me who I am. The mark I bear on my throat, the spearhead denoting my fallen tribe and order that I swore loyalty to now stands as a symbol of what makes me who I am.
It is a mark of loyalty. Of love. Of a desire to stand by my brethren, no matter who they are.
I do not need to reflect deeply to know that.
I hope that you, too, are one day able to so easily know who you are, friend.
(Warning: Adult situations, mention of drugs, magic, battle, slightly NSFW).
Bond
Ozzy and Tartt.
Tartt and Ozzy.
What can I say about us? Well, I can say a lot about us. We met in a nightclub under the Deeprun Tram, (A goblin knows her ways around Stormwind. I got connections). Spent all those nights being entranced and entertained by the man. And we’ve been inseparable ever since.
Every night that we spend in a lavish room is simply divine. We both tend to be a bit… naughty- Ozzy sometimes being the dominant one. I don’t mind it at all. The aura that I feel when he’s like this is simply pleasurable. A jolt of magic here, a puff of hookah smoke there. His touch is always something that tantalizes my skin. And I can’t help but be drawn to it every time; whether it’s for his tailoring skills or something devious.
But when I get dominant, it tends to be a bit more like an interrogation. Though the sounds that come out of him are music to my ears.
When we are together on the battlefield, that too is a bit of a date. And the date is slaughtering enemies- whether it’s cultists or creatures. Everything dies around us. I find it fascinating when I can hear him mutter a spell or two before firing a chaos bolt.
I love him so much and I protect him. The both of us protect each other against threats.
“Oh, look darling. My pawn is on the move once again. The sands of Fate shift once more~” The ethereal’s voice giggled teasingly to his partner.
“N-no! I simply... had dust on my lens was all. Anyone would have read those signs wrong!” The broker protested his loss.
The holoboard before the two changed once more, a pawn morphine into a figure of a ship moving diagonally across the board.
“He’s moving quite expeditiously this time! No doubt he’ll be delighted to see us once more!”
The pawn comes to a stop at the edge of the board and then vanishes. On another level, the same figure appears and then morphs back into a humanoid form. Blocks illuminate and dim as the figurine moves towards a representation of a tent on the board. As the two symbols phase together, the flap of the canopy flies open. A small figure clad in atmospheric armor barges in, and a filtered voice erupts from the helmet.
“You!”
The rotund broker turns slightly on his floating cushion, barely addressing the guest.
“Oh, if it isn’t everyone’s hero. You know you cost me twenty dinars on that last wage-”
Ruzzell marches right up to the opulent entity, grips his robes and promptly punches his ornate faceplate off his shoulders!
“Te’zpiel!” shrieked the ethereal in shock as his partner was assaulted. The goblin and broker tussled on the sandy ground as Zheshad wrestles weakly to pull the small man away. A contingent of Ren’dorei scouts arrives and help sort out the dispute.
“Settle down everyone! What’s going on here?” says one of the elves. The goblin is pulled away with the dented faceplate still gripped in his gauntlet as he struggles, not finished with his fight.
“That windbag almost got me and my friends killed back on K’aresh! And now they’re playin’ another sick game!”
The scout manages to free the metal plate from Ruzzell’s grip and hands it back to the broker. Pale blue flames settle once more where the man’s head would be, though not without a large crack along the edge of his plate.
“This little green beast assaulted me! Arrest him at once!”
The Ren’dorei scoffed at the broker’s demand.
“This isn’t Tazavesh. This is a forward base. We keep the peace and boot out any belligerents.” The woman rests her hand on the hilt of her spellblade, then turns to Ruzzell with a scowl. “Try that again and we’ll personally escort you out into the wastes.” The elf nods to her fellow scout and lets go of the two. Before heading out, the woman makes a parting remark, “Also, a helmet isn’t needed to breathe out here you know...”
Glancing around, Ruzzell realizes that none of the other people in the camp are wearing any specialized gear. He’d been overly cautious in K’aresh and assumed that Voidstorm would have been the same. Removing his helmet, he let out a deep sigh.
“Well... this is all very exciting! I had hoped this would be a more favorable reunion Mr. Goldgrin. After all, I helped set you back on your right path.”
“You almost got me devoured by a Void monster!” Ruzzell flailed.
“But you succeeded! As I anticipated! Clever of mind, swift of feet! I saw you lure M’azzon towards Dimensius; a marvelous play!”
Biting his lip in anger, Te’zpiel finally rose to his metallic feet and hovered back to his partner’s side.
“Yes... you are an ‘unpredictable’ pawn in our game” he said as he straightened out his robes and seated on his cushion once more. Pulling up a bowl of glowing fruits, he plucks a morsel and offers it to his guest. “Void date?”
Ruzzell turns his nose at the offering; the broker shrugged and dropped the fruit into his fire, the sweet flesh vaporizing almost instantly. “Suit yourself.”
“Why did you send me a letter to come here? Haven’t I amused you two weirdos enough?”
Zheshad gasps and fans out his bandaged fingers across his breast in feigned offense. “Ah! Such venom! Should you not call yourself Goldfang instead?” The otherworldly indigo of the inner lights shifted behind those vaguely humanoid bindings on his face, as if to smirk deviously. “But in all honesty, my friend, we called upon you here because Fate once again is at play.”
Eyes wild, Ruzzell huffs in bemusement. “What Fate? I already played out that ‘story’ of yours.”
The ethereal raises a finger to interject. “You have played out but one Chapter in this story, Mr. Goldgrin.”
“A Story that persists for you until the Final Chapter” the broker adds to the riddle.
“Chapter? Story? You make this out like I’m some kinda character in a novel you’re writing.”
Cocking his hooded head to the side, the Zheshad looks to his partner and then back to Ruzzell. “In a way, we all are actors in a grand play. Such is Fate. Intertwined. Stories written and rewritten. Sometimes even collaborating narratives together.”
Blinking in confusion, the goblin clicks his tongue and waves his hand dismissively at the notion.
“You guys been hittin’ the hookah too much. Better lay off that magic zaza and buggin’ me for anymore of your hokum crap.”
As Ruzzell turns to leave the tent, Zheshad stops him on the way out.
“Your past is already written, solid as stone. But your future is always shifting like so much countless sand. It is in the present that you can see the cobbles of the paths before you.”
Zheshad’s words managed to strike Ruzzell in a way he was not expecting. The goblin’s expression softened in some understanding of the expression.
“Just reflect on my musings, hmm?” The ethereal assured then let go of the man’s arm. The goblin said nothing in turn but gave a nod before walking towards the portal back to Silvermoon.
Tycil did not move. She had been perched on the branch of an enormous tree that rose high above the pathways winding through Zul'Aman's forest. A lifetime of training kept her poised there, muscles relaxed; no body could hold tension for that long without betraying itself.
A small green lizard emerged from a knot in the wood and scampered along the branch. It paused beside her hand, flicking its tongue. Sensing no danger, it continued on. Tiny claws clicked softly against leather as it ran across her wrist, over her shoulder, and along the dark fabric covering her back. The creature crossed her neck, climbed over her black hair, and vanished into the foliage beyond.
A creek wound alongside it, fed by waterfalls higher in the mountains. Water rushed over smooth stones, carrying leaves and broken branches downstream. Dense vegetation crowded both banks. The humid air hummed with the sounds of insects, birds, and distant beasts, but Tycil ignored it all.
Across her lap rested two daggers. Their metal was nearly black, forged to betray no glimmer of light, even if the sun managed to pierce the canopy overhead. One blade sat comfortably in each hand, balanced and ready.
A faint rustle drifted through the undergrowth and Tycil's attention sharpened. Several moments later, a troll emerged from the greenery. She carried a staff across one shoulder and walked with the relaxed confidence of someone moving through familiar territory. Tycil watched her follow the path beside the creek,stopping near the water's edge just as she had every day for the past five days.
The troll crouched beside the creek and lowered a hand toward the water, preparing to wash her face. Her gaze drifted across the surface then he froze.Tycil saw the shock register as the water reflected eyes that faded from bright blue around the pupils to a deep, void-like purple at the edges of the iris. Fear flashed across the other woman’ features but it was too late.
Tycil moved, one moment she was part of the tree, the next she dropped from her perch. Air pushed her hood back past her hood as she descended, the troll barely had time to begin turning before she slammed into him. Both daggers struck home, one burying itself into the left side of his neck, the other hilting as it slid through the space behind his collarbone.
The force of her descent drove him face-first into the muck at the creek's edge, a wet sucking sound escaped him as he choked on his blood. His hands clawed desperately toward his throat. Blood spilled between his fingers, dark against green skin. He struggled for breath, body convulsing as instinct fought against fatal wounds.
Tycil twisted both blades, the first severing his spine the other scraping against a rib as it tore into his lung. The troll's resistance vanished almost instantly. His body shuddered once, then went limp. The quick flash of death hadn't even disturbed the sounds of the forest around them, not acknowledging it more than it would have a falling leaf.
Tycil remained crouched over the corpse for several seconds, scanning the surrounding vegetation. Centuries had taught her caution, experience had taught her never to assume anyone was truly alone.
Only when she was satisfied did she withdraw her blades.Blood dripped from the dark metal and she wiped them clean on the troll's clothing before sliding them into hidden sheaths.
Grasping the corpse by the arms and despite her slender frame, she possessed more than enough strength to drag the body into the creek. Water churned around exposed roots as she maneuvered it to float under one. Beneath the surface, movement caught her eye, the scavengers that hunted these waters had already sensed the meal she provided.
A larger shape emerged from the depths, jaws snapped shut around the troll's arm before the creature vanished once more beneath the churning water. Tycil observed for a few moments longer. Nature was efficient, by morning, little would remain.
Another troll killed in Zul'Aman by her hand. She had lost count long ago, but the sense of satisfaction never faded, the only difference was that this one had belonged to the Twilight’s Blade.
"D'ya ever miss th' guy I used t'be?" Valou asked, voice unusually soft as he rearranged his tools, tail swaying and flicking lazily.
Bax slowly turned and stared at the back of the Illidari's curly-haired head in shock, the corner of his lip curled up in a rather nasty grimace.
"What kinda question is dat?" He grumbled out, the rough tone edged with irritation and confusion.
The goblin stopped with what he was doing, suspension chains set down across his lap as his ochre gaze bored a set of holes into Valou's skull. He'd been checking over them, making sure there wasn't any flaws in the construction of them, ensuring that they were safe to use.
Valou turned his head, golden felflame flickering behind his glasses, an ear twisted back towards Baxlebankle, "Do ya miss th' way I was? I know I was kinda... Cold 'n mean. Careless. Aloof. I talked down t'ya lotsa times despite everythin' ya did for me."
His head turned forward again, staring at the tools he had laid out, voice softening again, "I just. Ya don't miss that, right?"
Confusion further twisted Bax's expression, shoving the chains off from his lap as he slowly got to his feet, muscles protesting as he did, a crackling noise in his knees.
The sound of metal clattering to the floor caused the satyr-bound to turn, looking down to his old mentor with his own confusion. A finger beckoned Valou closer, turning into a much more insistent wave when the elf didn't immediately comply.
Folding his legs beneath himself, Valou sat and stared at the goblin in curious confusion, head tilting slightly until a pair of olive-colored hands grabbed either side of his face.
Bax pulled the Illidari down closer to his own face, frowning, "What in da name of ya dragon-mommy's scaly green ass got into dis thang?" He huffed, turning and tilting Valou's head in his hands, leaning to the side as if to examine an oversized pink ear.
"Hello?!" Valou interrupted, taken aback by the way his head was being handled like some faulty bit of machinery, sitting up and pulling away out of reach, "I mean it! I wanna know- I wanna make sure m'not like-"
"Shaddap." Baxlebankle interrupted in turn, giving the Illidari a literal slap on the wrist.
"Sayin' I miss dat would mean I don't like seein' ya as ya are now, youse dumb goat." The goblin snarled, arms crossing over his chest, "I like seein' dis version, I like knowin' ya not hurtin' an' sufferin' like youse was. I honestly wish ya could told me den- I'd have tried to make things bettah."
"I did like ya, 'Lou, an' I still like ya now." Bax said firmly, glaring up at Valou in that way he knew was honesty, "Fel, I like youse more like dis dan ya used to be, I like knowin' ya not fuckin' starvin' anymore!"
The Illidari's shoulders sank slightly, brows squishing together slightly as he listened, ears wilting. Yet, he wasn't upset in the way one might usually be after being scolded, instead overturning a gloved hand to offer.
As much as Bax tried to not react to the hand, arms unfolded just to hold it, thick leather and sturdy seams protecting the soft hands and perfect claws underneath, "Youse happier now dan Rune n' I coulda ever made ya when Dalaran was still floatin'."
"I say good fuckin' riddance to da place if it was da reason ya couldn't find what ya have now." The goblin's harsh tone softened, easing to something that could be considered as neutral, but that Valou knew was fully caring, "'Cause if ya nevah got to be happy like dis, I'd nevah gotten da chance to be happy too."
The corner of Valou's lips twitched upwards, even despite the outward callousness that came with his old mentor and former client's everyday behavior. Though the goblin didn't reflect the smile, he squeezed the gloved hand he held between his own.
"Ha-ha, ya got a crush on meeee~!" Valou abruptly teased, shaking both of Bax's hands around as he reclaimed used of his own hand, reaching to ruffle and thoroughly mess up the lazy combover the goblin had.
Baxlebankle's volume skyrocketed, pitchy and painful for any normal being to hear, yet getting only amusement from Valou as the goblin screeched in unintelligible orcish, swinging and flailing his fists at the Illidari in a way that was entirely harmless.
Despite the violent-looking outburst, Valou only laughed, bubbly and bright as he pushed Bax away by his forehead, teasing the goblin even more with cooed continuations of 'you liiiiike me, ooooo you're a gay little gob'.
But the two knew full well it was true. Not exactly romantic, but there was undeniable platonic love between them. No longer client and escort, no longer teacher and student, they were friends now. Friends that could roughhouse and tease each other, of course.
Nobody escapes this sort of wake-up call: Early into the expedition, a good soldier died to shield us so that we could salvage a single dragon egg. Why she thought we were more important than her: Easy. She was a good soldier. Even I understood that much.
And all I could do was follow along, get additional protection for the long way to the others from our Voidwalker friend, be grateful, and let her die.
Sitting morosely in our next camp, egg and report delivered, I kept thinking, if I’d learned a single useful thing for anyone but myself, something like throwing up a shield or fighting on my own instead of delegating to other planes, she wouldn’t have had to die.
Along with her remains, once they’d salvage them, it was time to burn all remnants of an idea of myself as a military man or protector of any kind. I had protected exactly three people today: The spirit who lives with me, myself, and that unhatched dragon. In that order. There were things best not to admit outside of your own head.
Arthas called attention to his presence and leaned his mind against mine in a by-now casual habit. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“I know.” A warning. He’d been there.
“You know. Careful now. Don’t try to be the paladin. That’s neither of us.”
“You somewhat are,” I said. “It just went a little wrong. Happens to many of them.”
He snorted. “Here’s another view that wouldn’t make you very popular. You’ve got a knack for them.”
“I do, don’t I?” I felt myself brightening up already. Unduly so.
“If anything,” he added, “you’re more the paladin than me. Don’t forget I can read you. Just because we’re being polite about it doesn’t mean I can’t. Your thoughts, your reactions; you make the Light humour you and even me again.”
I smiled, glad we were sitting aside under a darkening sky. “That’s just because I want to protect you. You’re seeing a skewed image. Doesn’t nearly translate to the rest of the world.”
“See, how you are benefits someone. Someone selfish enough to like it.”
My smile widened. “Well then, that isn’t so bad.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You don’t even want to be a soldier.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Neither do I. I was an idiot child with an idiot child’s ideas, trying to please the wrong people. Be the wrong kind of good. I don’t want to go back to that. I say we take your suggestion and actually burn those ideas and live with who we actually are.”
I leaned my mind against his and tipped my head back to look at the dusk fall behind a wall of black smoke. Not much of a night sky. “You’re right. Stupid moment.”
“What can I say? More we have in common. That’s why we shouldn’t be left on our own.”
“Wise words.”
“They should have woken you up years ago,” he added. “That’d have made the difference. Of course I’d have raised all kinds of trouble then to bring you home, traditions be damned. Ah well. I’ll be selfish again; I’m glad I get to have this, as who I am. Wouldn’t want to leave this to idiot child me.”
I had to laugh, quietly but visibly, and caught myself to keep it contained to the mental realm, pulling him closer, wrapping myself around him, edges of thought blurred in lightning. “I’m glad, too. Wouldn’t want anything else.”
The message was well received, like its kind always was.
“And maybe,” I pondered, “we can do something with what we can do. More words and delegation perhaps. We’re warlocks. Both of us now.”
“If we want to do anything on this kind of scope, and if the Alliance can tolerate us, people will die for us. Soldiers and others. Can you get used to that? I can. And you already do it when wrangling timelines. It’s still different when it’s direct.”
The question deserved serious thought and got it. Then I barely nodded. “Yeah. I can, too. Suppose that’s the part that made me feel…”
“Presumptuous? Improper? Like you should turn back around lest you lose something of how you’re supposed to be?”
“Ah. Been there too, huh.”
“Mhm. But hey. We saved a baby dragon today. Doesn’t matter how, does it? Wasn’t what I expected I’d be doing with my life, I’ll be honest.”
“Not so bad at all,” I agreed. “I never wanted much to do with the reds. Not my theme for obvious reasons, and the farther away the better. But this is good.”
“Did you do anything for the fallen?” he asked after a pause. I felt him read my thoughts as soon as the memories and associations bubbled to the surface. “No, huh? Just, the weak have been culled, less effort? Well, not that I can say much.”
“I’ve done one memorial in my life,” I confirmed. He knew which one. With the aid of the Light, we’d put his horse to rest, back in Northrend, after I’d fetched him. A difficult but correct decision before returning to the present time.
“Something tells me,” he muttered, “we’re both terrible at this.”
Then I caught his own stray thoughts from earlier times. Pour out rounds of spirits, especially out in the field, fill the number of cups for the fallen, or a symbolic number If it was too many, and pour them out, repeat until all the bottles are empty. “Want to teach that to the others here?” I asked. “I bet they haven’t learned to live yet either.”
“What, me?”
“You’re the one who can do this sort of thing. I’ll get nervous even walking up to anyone, then I won’t know what to say, and what I’ll say will sound cold and weird, and they’ll see all their warlock stereotypes confirmed.”
He laughed. “What makes you think people don’t like that?” His presence hovered closer. “I do. But are you sure? This has to be a bad idea.”
“I’m right here.”
He paused, then relented and took over. “Alright, I’ll try. But I’m not doing this alone. We fail at this together.”
Altherei’s gaze lingered at the growing mounds of paperwork on her desk, scattered in varying states of disarray. It spoke to the amount of work and stress she’d put on herself that they were nowhere near as organized as she would like. She knew what most were and where in the stacks to find what she needed. Grant applications, bond applications, flyers for events and more- it was all there. The outside was just a reflection of the clutter inside her mind. She knew it, too.
She needed air, and she pushed herself away from the table before the mere sight of it all overwhelmed her.
She’d quietly known it for some time, but like so many other unpleasant things she told herself she just didn’t have time to think about, she pushed it aside. Except now, with the Summer Gala planning in full swing and with twice the workload and half the help.. Altherei didn’t arrive at the realization so much as crash into it abruptly. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t have seen it coming- she just didn’t want to.
The Reprieve had been struggling for months. Es’dai had been able to take it over for a time, but with her recent disappearance, Altherei had struggled to keep it afloat. While she was assured her fellow Speaker was alive and all right, her whereabouts remained unknown. Revlas could wash dishes, but that seemed about all he could- and would- do if he wasn’t permitted to put his feet on the table. Her growing concerns about their bratty baron-Advisor would have to wait until another day. Their conversation the night prior had drained her of all optimism, and the sinking reality was one she forced herself to push to the side. There were other things to deal with. He’d have to wait.
She was doing all she could to keep the Court afloat, but the weighty silence in Dawncourt’s hall pressed down heavily onto her shoulders. It lingered like an uncomfortable truth everyone in a room knew, but no one dared say aloud. She thought of Waylight Refuge. Waylight Outreach. Organizations before, attempts before to do the very same good she was trying to do now.
Always, it ended the same. Folded, disbanded, dissolved. Her lips pulled into a frown to think of it, and she shifted her weight in her chair as if changing position would free her from the discomfort of her thoughts.
Was she just.. bad at this? At running things that weren’t singular events? At leading organizations? Did she just not have what it took to gather a following- or was she not charismatic enough? Strong enough?
These and a thousand other questions piled in her mind one after the other, and she pulled her cardigan tighter across her shoulders before she realized she wasn’t actually cold. It was the unique chill that came with feeling horribly inadequate, worrying she wasn’t really cut out for anything but throwing fancy events, and fearing that she was staring down yet one more failure.
She didn’t want it to be. She wanted to succeed- she wanted the Court’s mission to succeed. But if she were to be brutally honest with herself, it meant acknowledging she would be, essentially, starting from ground zero. That there was no one to rely on- at least, not right now. That if success was what she really wanted.. she’d probably be at it alone until her friends either returned, or she found other like minds to bridge those gaps.
She could do it by herself. She had before. She could again.
But she didn’t want to.
But this time, as a woman grown, my legs did not fail me. My stride bounded as a deer through a meadow ahead of a hunter’s arrow. My ears keened to the garbled whispers, each cry becoming clearer as I approached the threshold. Unspeakable language twisted to my mother tongue in the form of prayers and pleas.
My hand reached sluggishly towards the handle, the air offering the resistance of water and sodden sand.
Corwin Bloodrose watched as Hesterlynn disappeared into the crowd.
The glittering chandelier overhead painted her crown-- a head above the rest-- a shade of blushed gold, like a sunflower at sunset. Soon enough, she was swallowed by the throng, lost among waiters weaving between guests.
Everywhere he looked, lipstick-kissed wine glasses clinked and nobles garbed in their finest silks flashed theatrical smiles. A pretty girl with an unfortunate mole asked him to dance when Caelia left, but he turned her down politely. He snatched a glass of bourbon from a waiter’s serving tray and grew impatient listening to idle gossip.
Inauthenticity hung in the air like a cheap, stagnant perfume.
Before long, a girl on the cusp of adulthood stood in front of him, wringing her skirt's golden layers while her mother listed off her academic accomplishments.
Contempt begged to curl his lip. The mother’s caked-on make-up was as slovenly a veneer as her sweetly mien.
"She'll make an excellent wife," Lady Swiftpride insisted.
"I'm sure," Cory murmured, standing on tips of his toes and scanning the crowd.
He knew the type-- miserable noble women all too eager to pawn off their daughters into marriages as loveless as their own.
Sinking back on his heels, he tore his gaze from the crowd and forced a smile.
The girl in front of him was fortunate. Taller than her mother, she had ribbons of black hair and a petite button nose. Her Light-blessed eyes remained on the floor.
His lips pursed. She didn’t want to be there either, but she remained dutifully silent.
“Have you considered settling down? As an only heir, you have that responsibility, don't you?"
Cory flinched inwardly. Responsibility. My father’s favorite word.
"I'll let you know if I've changed my mind.”
“You know, she has several good marriage prospects. You're not getting any younger.”
“Have you thought about your own marriage prospects?” he asked, gesturing across the room.
He hadn't found a golden crown, but something of note had turned up from searching.
Her husband-- Sir Swiftpride -- had a servant pinned to the wall and was drunkenly pressing a sloppy kiss upon her neck.
Lady Swiftpride gasped. Her wine glass shattered on the floor, and for a moment, the drone of conversation paused in the room.
A conspiratorial smile crossed her daughter's lips as she exchanged a glance with Cory, which quickly turned into a suppressed laugh as her mother waved wildly from across the room, sounding as though she were scolding a wayward dog.
He grinned, before turning on his heel and making his exit while her mother was distracted.
A flight of stairs behind the kitchen-- the servant's entrance, he noted-- led directly up, away from the throng of people chattering endlessly in the foyer. All of it became a faint din. To the right, down another hall...
Then, he found a bedroom door. Any bedroom would do; it didn't matter. On the far side, he found what he sought: a balcony, overlooking the courtyard where couples strolled hand-in-hand.
He threw open the double glass doors and filled his lungs with the crisp scent of pine and saltwater carried on the wind. The sky above was dotted with a million stars. He leaned his elbow on the stone railing, sinking his head into his palm and twirling his drink.
No golden head appeared above the others.
Did she think him a monster? Her eyes, wide with fear, replayed in his mind.
If only I could tell her the truth. If only I could trust her--
Guilt gnawed at his heart, persistent as a rat in a cellar, chewing holes through everything good.
The cycle would not end with the Red Witch’s death. Over twenty years grief turned to hate, eating Zelion alive. The little lord had been pallid, gaunt and thin, practically a corpse himself at the wedding.
Cory had searched for absolution at the bottom of every glass that night. Anything to quiet the voice nagging in the back of his mind: “It's your fault he's like this.”
And tonight, for all his talk of saving people, Cory intended to betray the friend he failed. Surely Hesterlynn knew what her husband had become, but if the fear in her eyes turned to hate--
“I'm sorry, Hesterlynn...” he murmured. “I only hope you’ll understand.”
“No one understands you, Corwin.”
Zelion didn't wait to be addressed before he was at Cory's side, overlooking the gardens below in tandem if with superior posture. He was dressed in funeral black; a choice that had remained unchanged since the untimely passing of his mother. His father's shortened chain of state glinted in the lamp light, the only visible tell of his high birth on an otherwise sedate ensemble.
Ever a somber fellow, a timeless sense of grief was coupled with a severity befitting his status. Something far more sinister lurked beneath the surface, observed by those who could be bothered to take the cherub lordling seriously.
Few were as intimately familiar with the blood on his hands as Cory.
By comparison: “--Well, you look ridiculous.”
Cory flashed a stellar grin, despite every circumstance. "That may be so, but I've been told by two women today that I look very handsome, and at least one still had teeth!"
The smile faded as he turned to look over his former friend, melancholy coming to claim the corner of his eyes. Then, Cory looked back out over the courtyard and cleared his throat.
"What do you want?" he asked, uncharacteristically placid.
“Too much, including what I have to ask of you,” Zelion admitted with a sigh up to the stars. “It’s about Hesterlynn.”
Cory's drink clunked softly on the railing. His adam's apple bobbed over his slackened bowtie and his eyes cast out over the courtyard. He felt a gaze upon him in the dark.
He looked to Zelion.
"What about her?" he asked.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Zelion’s cold regard turned back to the stars, his back straightening where his clasped hands pressed his spine. He was wearing a fine set of black leather dueling gauntlets, fleece lined against the chill of the icicles he once conjured.
Closer inspection of his earring and chain of state saw that each emerald and ruby had been refitted with those wretched stones: the very memory crystals Cory had forged in his shop and given to Zelion, but now bound with so much necrotic magic he could feel the chill wafting off them.
Cory set his jaw.
“Might I entreat you to let her stay with you a while longer…?” The request was not given lightly nor did it come easily. Zelion’s delicate brow furrowed just so as he squared his shoulders. “--I’m afraid it won’t be safe in Silvermoon for sometime yet.”
Cory’s heart fluttered at the prospect that the smell of her sungrass-laced cookies may permeate his kitchen once again. Even still, the joy was short-lived. The only reason he would have more time with her was because something awful would come of tonight.
"Damnit, Zelion!" Cory snapped suddenly with a twist of his brow, pulling off the banister. "What are you planning? What are you doing that's worth putting your wife's life in danger?"
“She shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place,” Zelion lamented with a sigh. “And I don’t want her to be involved now. It's far too dangerous. That’s why I’m asking this of you.”
Corwin’s pale blue eyes darkened. "It's the Mourningvale witch, isn't it? Why can't you let her go?"
“Let her go?” Zelion came about to face him, dainty chin tilted upward with pride and defiance. With great restraint, he lowered his voice, but his tone was all teeth. “My mother’s charred corpse was found on the floor of her own bedroom, and my father heaped upon the bed with that serving wench’s dagger through his heart, and you tell me to let her go?”
"Not that you harbored any love for your father,” Cory cut.
“-- That’s rich, coming from you--,” Zelion scoffed.
“-- And as for your mother, she seems to be getting along fine with her new body,” Cory said, scanning the treelines.
On cue, the ghoul emerged from the shadows.
She had hidden near an ivy choked trellis, and now her lichfire eyes stared unblinking upon Corwin from a hunter green cowl. A billow of gray and green fabric shrouded unknown horrors below, the memories of which turned Cory’s stomach.
“--Lady Mournvalor,” the inventor greeted tightly, not expecting a reply.
She responded to Zelion’s distress not as the doting, if arrogant, mother she once was but as a watchdog ready to bite. It was only a staying hand raised by him that ordered her still, a grim sentinel just off his shoulder.
"Killing the witch would change nothing, even if you could–” Cory went on. The stench of death filled the air. His hands trembled and his heart raced, his stomach threatening to churn its contents over the railing. He refused, swallowing back the bile. “--and I'm not convinced that she won't escape you this time, too--"
Cory had made sure of it, actually. If everything went according to plan, Caelia would break the Mournvalor curse and Kallarel Mourningvale would leave that night a free woman.
Perhaps even her dog would survive.
“You’re wrong!” The frigid timber of Zelion’s voice wavered with frustration. “With that heretic slut dead, then I can finally–”
“Finally what?” Cory gestured to the cursed undead standing over Zelion's shoulder. "Magically find the soul her corpse is lacking?”
“How dare you–!”
“Your mother would have never wanted this for you either, but she’s too hollow to disagree!” The vehemence of his words surprised even himself. “Lay her to rest and move on with your life, I'm begging you."
Zelion's eyes narrowed to blue strips of ice. The wind turned bitter cold with an abrupt chill. Frost crystals crawled on Cory’s empty glass.
"Hesterlynn was kind to me. I'm asking you to spare her what comes next.”
Cory’s lungs burned. He met Zelion's stare unflinchingly. "If I said no, then what would you do? Would you sacrifice Hester’s life for your revenge?"
Zelion shut his eyes and drew another tense breath. “The time for hypotheticals was years ago, Corwin.”
"Your obsession is destroying you." Cory ran his chilled fingers through his hair. "I miss my friend, Zels. I miss who you were before all this happened."
“The Red Witch dies tonight!” Zelion swore, composure cracked. “No one will stop me. I will have my vengeance, whether Hesterlynn is accounted for or not. I am asking you this simple favor: Will you do it, or won’t you?”
"Not for your sake," Cory replied, collecting his glass and storming off. "Hesterlynn deserves better."
It was only when the oppressive chill in the air vanished that Cory threw up in a potted plant. He wiped his arm on his sleeve and made his way down the stairs, then out into the courtyard, heart pounding.
Zelion intended to make his move soon.
I need to get Hesterlynn to safety, now.
He quite nearly ran into a couple. Another pair-- the woman had golden hair and he thought for a moment perhaps-- but it wasn't, and for his mistake he was given wide-eyed, condemnatory stares.
Security guards muttered amongst themselves as he passed, watching him closely.
Corwin Bloodrose, disheveled as ever without charm or grace-- or so said the rumors which sprung up in the minds of many as he passed.
How many times had it been that Marint was the one writing to a very particular redheaded elven man? It was always for work. The two of them never spent time together aside from professional means. Usually it consisted of choosing a meeting place, getting there, and discussing whatever job he was going to be putting forward. Or rather, if he had any leads on where jobs could be gotten. Some of them came from Madame Rudonthos. Many of them were simply things that Marint heard about.
Regardless, it was almost unheard of for him to receive something from his ever-so-reliable work cohort. When a courier delivered to his hand a neatly folded missive with a 'V' on it, there was no mistaking the way his eyebrows rose. 'Why' was the obvious question. It was for something important. Soryk never would have reached out to anyone if it wasn't. And even though it must have been important, there was still a sliver of surprise that Soryk would reach out at all.
...So what had gone wrong?
With a befuddled amusement, Marint didn't wait long to write him back. In his ever quiet study of books, sculpted worked in progress, drafted sketches, he leaned over a candle as evening began to fall. Sure. He'd meet with Soryk. Curiosity wouldn't let him do anything else.
Don't disappoint me, now.
He smiled with satisfaction when he finished it. He'd put it in the hands of the courier the next morning.
About a week after about a week following their back and forth, Marint and Soryk found themselves at the former's home. They could have gone to a tavern. He might have preferred it, even. Although he told Turleth about working with him, he tended to keep those two things separate. Soryk was involved in dangerous things and given Turleth's background, what happened to his parents, Marint didn't want to invite more potential danger.
But Soryk had insisted it was important and that a tavern wasn't going to do. So he succumbed, and they stood in the very room where Marint kept his sculpting tools. In fact, he was working on a fresh piece, just barely chipping out the core traits, which looked like... really nothingso far except pale stone missing some pieces. Soryk was pacing. Marint didn't see him, but he could hear him. Above them, sunlight poured in through windows, illuminating the entire room. It was why Marint worked in it.
Streaks of sunlight stretched across the walls and the floor, flashed across the stone in question, and sprinkled no shortage of cheer in a place that felt like it might be anything but with Soryk's presence. Perhaps that wasn't fair. The guy had a sense of humour. Sometimes.
"You're going to wear a path in the floor if you keep doing that," Marint mentioned somewhat absentmindedly. "You can sit down, you know." But he knew Soryk wasn't going to do that either.
For one reason or another, he was all up in arms about... something. Marint wasn't sure he could make sense of it, really. Something about him playing bodyguard to a young woman who liked jewellery? Or jewels or stones or something. Supposedly it was going to be a longer trip, which probably meant that jobs Marint ordinarily would have put his way were going to have to go to one of his other contacts.
He knew not to admit it out loud, but he was going to miss Soryk, honestly. They may have only been work comrades and Marint kept him at a certain distance, but at the same time, he genuinely liked the man. If circumstances were different, they could have been friends. In their own way, they already were. At least, according to Marint they were. Again, Soryk never would have put it that way. He probably never called anyone a friend. Who the hell knew why.
In lieu of Soryk still pacing, Marint sighed, pausing a moment, choosing to look over to him. "So, I don't really see what the problem is. You're guarding this young woman and... what. What exactly do you think is going to happen? Someone happens upon you. You take care of them. Easy. You could get laid. That wouldn't be the worst thing. I daresay you could use a little of that, actually. You're wound so tight. Maybe she could loosen you up. For like, the ten seconds you'd last anyway."
When he was met with the transparent scowl that Soryk shot him, Marint immediately laughed. He could never resist. Soryk was so easy to get under the skin of. For him, anyway. Maybe he didn't react that way with others. Or maybe those others weren't brave enough to poke and prod at him the way Marint did. He could believe that. Soryk was, objectively, a fairly intimidating man. He almost never smiled and even when he did, it was usually pretty obvious that it wasn't real. He rarely laughed. And when he spoke, he often sounded unamused and a little bitter.
"No, seriously," Marint continued, freeing a sigh that was somewhere between resignation and disbelief. "What's the problem?"
"The problem," Soryk began, gesturing absently with a hand for no rhyme or reason. "is that it's just the two of us. Where I would prefer to say a lot of nothing, she is not like that. I do not have enough material to carry on multiple weeks of conversation."
"...You sure sleeping with her isn't an option? You don't have to talk then." The pause Soryk gave was far longer than Marint felt was really normal for him. Setting down his chisel, he lifted an arm to lean gently on the block of stone he'd been working on. "You've thought about it."
"I didn't say anything," the sin'dorei countered.
"You didn't have to," Marint replied. "So you've considered it. Or at least... considered what it might be like. She's got dark hair, right? This is because you like women with dark hair." With his free hand, he pointed, like he thought he was putting the pieces together. "And this is something to do with before. Like before we met."
Whenever Soryk clammed up, Marint tended to think he was on the road to being right. For if he hadn't been, likely Soryk would have argued. When he was met with silence, he felt like he put more pieces of the puzzle together, though trying to get information out of him was impossible. He didn't know the details, of course, but he was able to pick out one or two things. Soryk got weird around dark-haired women. Well. He got weird around all women. Marint might have thought he had a preference for the other side, but that didn't seem to be the case. He didn't ask. Wasn't going to. But he had a fairly good read on people. It probably wasn't that.
Maybe had his heart broken by a woman once. No. That was unlikely. Soryk didn't seem to care much what other people thought of him, much less women. He was never trying to impress anyone, and usually he was avoiding that kind of attention.
"Okay," Marint began, lifting a hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I can't read your mind here. You're going to have to help me out. Presumably, there was a dark-haired woman before we met. And you... Something about that. And for whatever reason, this dark-haired woman you're guarding makes you... think of this other woman. Or... something."
He snorted. "Or am I totally off base?"
Soryk shook his head, "This was such a mistake." He brought up in hands in surrender, "Just forget I said anything."
"Well. I can't really do that," Marint replied, raising his pale eyebrows. "I mean, you're the one who came all the way out here and obviously this is really bothering you. I've never seen anything bother you, which means this is serious." But he couldn't talk about it. Whatever it was, and it felt like it was right there in Marint's grasp, Soryk couldn't get over whatever that last hurdle was.
Maybe over a bottle of bourbon. Except that wasn't how Marint wanted to get information. It sure felt like he'd pushed hard enough. It'd taken a lot just for Soryk to come out to Suramar. Let alone to even try having a conversation of that magnitude.
I suppose it's just not time yet.
Good thing they had a lot of time. Well. Maybe not Soryk if he wasn't going to survive this trip he was going to go on. Assuming he didn't cook up some half-assed excuse for why he couldn't do it. That didn't seem like him, though. Soryk had never been that sort.
"Alright, alright," the shal'dorei conceded. "How about we forget about it for now. We revisit it later."
Assuming they revisited it at all. He questioned the likelihood of that, though. After some moments, he wondered if Soryk would just leave. When he didn't and the two of them stood in silence for some moments, he also considered offering Soryk his chisel. Maybe that would help release whatever beast he had inside of him. In the end, he decided on something considerably more empathetic.
"Why don't you join Turleth and me for dinner." It felt like he was breaking a rule, trying to keep that clear divide. But if it was just dinner, it'd be fine. And it wasn't like they were going to make a habit of it. "It won't be anything fancy, but it'll be better than the stuff we usually get at the tavern."
Without even waiting for a response, he turned, lifting a hand, and gestured for Soryk to follow along. He couldn't help feeling, as he listened to the steps their pairs of feet made on the stone floor, that they'd grown a little closer. Even if that hadn't been Soryk's intention. In some ways, he had gotten nowhere with trying to figure him out, but in others, he thought maybe he was gaining a little more understanding.
After all, Soryk couldn't remain a mystery forever. Someone was going to crack him open eventually.
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