The recollections and writings of Ley Walker Taleyriel Starsworn McGowan of the noble house of Starsworn. Ambassador of the Kirin Tor working closely with the Nightfallen. Location: Dalaran, Broken Isles and Quel'Thalas Seeking 1 apprentice. Able to work with organizations and groups as translator, consultant or crafting runes. Always looking for new contacts!
Sig and Leon’s 2nd wedding anniversary was over the weekend! which gave me the perfect excuse to draw my two favorite things: flowers and gays. The traditional flowers for a second anniversary are cosmos and lily of the valley. :>
+sorry for posting at a weird time, I wanted to finish this days ago but life, etc…. actually sorry for not posting at all lately! ;w;
🌸BFA story updates:🌸 Sig was discharged from active combat for the heart condition he developed by the end of Legion, much to his despair. However, the blood knights saw no reason his skills and experience should go to waste so they offered him a job training new recruits in Silvermoon. He’s still not wholly convinced he’s qualified, but he’s starting to like it. Seeing an opportunity to settle down, he and Leon bought a rather modest home outside the city on the western coast of Eversong. Leon splits his time working with the knights in Silvermoon and helping at the orphanage in Shattrath. They haven’t technically adopted Edi yet but they visit him often. Despite the volatile political climate on Azeroth, Sig and Leon are becoming more confident in the little patch of peace they’ve managed to create for themselves, so perhaps they can bring Edi home sooner than later. In the meantime Sig made the mistake of feeding a stray dog on his lunch break, and naturally she followed him home. Leon wasn’t happy about it but eventually yielded to Sig’s incessant begging to keep her.
bonus kids:
the dog’s name is Mimo(sa). Sparky learned how to be chicken-sized
Almost his whole life, Zaderick refused to choose a side. Raised in Dalaran, he hadn’t known what real nationalism was until later in life.
The Horde and the Alliance always seemed to be at war with each other from before he could even remember until the present. It always seemed pointlessly redundant and unnecessary. Vying for resources, the assurance of survival and continuity, and defending territories. Fanatic loyalists and war mongers seemed to thrive everywhere in Orgrimmar and Stormwind– not that the redhead ever willingly went to the former. Not after the last time he chose to use his powers to help. It ended up with him blowing himself through a rip in time and space, and losing three years of his life.
He had vowed to himself to choose no side. Zaderick had loved ones who lived in Quel’Thalas, and friends who considered themselves a part of he horde. He also had family in Stormwind, and many who were also a part of the Alliance. To choose a side and perpetuate a hatred that seemed to stem from nothing but racism seemed wrong.
But after witnessing the events of Teldrassil, losing a family member and seeing how dangerous things were getting, he knew that his neutrality would be tested. He would never be welcome in Quel’Thalas as a human. His only saving grace was that like his husband, he was Kirin Tor and had the protection of the Violet Eye. He had given up a life of freedom and piracy, but the call of adventure still beckoned him, and it was not one he could easily ignore. As Captain Zaderick McGowan, he worked under the Kirin Tor and by extension with the League of Explorers to recover magical artifacts. He sailed a ship called the Violet Drake, commissioned for the purpose of sailing the high seas under legitimate business. Wasn’t that the dream of an adventurer, after all?
Zaderick had everything. A loving husband, five beautiful children, and a big, boofy dog– but he had to be careful. One wrong move and not only would his husband be accused of treason for fraternizing with a human, but the entire village could be implicated. The captain worked diligently to continue building an estate for himself and his family at Star’s Rest Cove. In the months before the fall of Teldrassil, it had been completed: a home by the sea, protected from the outside world. Turrets had been mounted around the island with plans in the works for using the strong leyline magic of the isle to power arcane missiles, but those were not yet complete. Everything was interrupted on that mission to retrieve a time-locked orb for the Kirin Tor, only for Zaderick to return to a world at war with him thrown right into the middle of it again. The Black Maw rescued survivors, shipping them to Stormwind under the command of Oriel Emberstorm. The ship that had been raised from her watery grave not six months prior came under fire from the Horde fleet as it turned back to rescue more survivors. Zaderick had stayed behind to deliver his husband and his brother to Dalaran, and the fatal news of the Black Maw’s fate hit him days later.
Zaderick came to, feeling fresh air filling his lungs as Allan began dragging him towards the portal to Stormwind. He wrenched himself away, rolling to his side and coughing. “Al,” he rasped, clawing away from the portal. “We have to save them,” he rattled, doing his best to get back to his feet.
Allan’s soot-covered face had twisted in anger and despair as his heart went out to the kaldorei. He thought of every elf he knew and of their families that were here and his heart broke. Chi-ji, guide me as I hold hope that they will not be lost. Finally, the monk gave a nod, holding his hand out to his brother. “Teldrassil is lost. Let’s go back to the beach, find any survivors there and retrieve Nicolas,” he said, doing his best to remain calm. Mist swirled around his hands as he helped Zaderick up. What Gilnean and kaldorei survivors they managed to pull from the flames were slipping through the portals with the priestesses.
The McGowan brothers ran out together, heading towards the hippogryph post where a single abandoned hippogryph remained steadfast by its deceased owner. The sight was heartbreaking, but the creature wouldn’t die there. Allan and Zaderick mounted upon it and urged it forward, back to Lor’danel. The Horde had begun to scatter once the elves had retreated, but it was dangerous to remain a human in the sacked village. After releasing the hippogryph of its saddle, they watched it make off towards Moonglade. The brothers pulled their vantus runes around their necks and slipped into their sin’dorei disguises to get past throngs of forsaken and orc grunts that were spearing survivors along the cobbled path. Sceolang was nowhere to be found, and Zaderick hoped the wolf had gotten away with the crew. Nicolas’s body was no longer where it had been before. Zaderick found a tent that was still standing and spotted two young kaldorei huddling within. They nearly screamed when they saw him but he brought his finger to his lips. Before any words were exchanged, he conjured a portal to Stormwind. “Get through before my magic is interrupted again!” he hissed in common. They quickly nodded and slipped through, just as his magic wore out.
Zaderick was weak, but he couldn’t leave just yet. Something beckoned him to that beach. Allan remained near, urging him to leave until something caught his eye. He gripped Zaderick’s shoulder and turned him.
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
-Ernest Hemingway
“Captain, we must return to Dalaran, we’ve got the relic!” one of the sailors shouted.
“We cannot turn our backs on them and do nothing!” The voice came from Nicolas. Despite not being affiliated with the Kirin Tor, Zaderick hired him for his impeccable tracking skills and because the boy needed gold, and even though Nic got on his last nerve at times, he owed it to Rolance to help his nephew out.
“With all due respect, this is not our fight,” another sailor chimed in.
“With all due respect, fuck you,” Nic replied. He was without a doubt Rolance’s son. Thick, full brows knotted on the fair face of the half-elven ranger. He reminded Zaderick of a younger version of himself– not that he was that old at twenty seven, but some days he felt like it. The boy mostly kept to the forest, scouting with direwolf and surviving on his own, but even so, he had a tendency to help lost travelers or those who could not help themselves. In a world full of enough tragedy, he was Elwynn Forest’s best kept secret. Now, off the coast of Darkshore, that desire to help burned more than ever.
Fire reflected in Zaderick’s eyes, barely paying attention to the argument behind him as he surveyed the smoke on the shore. He pulled his spyglass out, pointing it towards the horizon. Far in the distance, away from the ship, he saw a scattering wall of wisps, and he knew something was wrong. The human had always stood on the ground of neutrality. Not because he was afraid to fight or choose a side, but because he didn’t believe in the senseless divide between the Horde and the Alliance. But he couldn’t turn the other way when he spotted orcish trebuchets on the shore and battling on the shore. The Horde was invading.
Rolance hadn’t been in Lordaeron when Arthas betrayed his people, but she had heard stories about it. The survivors, few that there were, spoke of mass carnage and heartless ending of lives. The Scourge’s genocide had been a rallying call for generations of her people. They called for revenge and extermination, they called the Forsaken monsters allied with beasts. Rolance had defended them. And now she came to realize she was wrong to believe in them.
The battle leading up to the burning had been gruesome. By her count, she had downed eight orcs, five blood elves, four trolls, and a goblin before the Horde advanced towards Teldrassil. But it wasn’t enough, she knew it wasn’t enough. After every fight she opened a glass vial filled with red liquid and drank deeply. These vials of power, power that had once been concentrated in a ring on her hand, failed to measure up to the real thing. The difference spared too many Horde lives, and Kaldorei blood paid the price.
The world was a sharper place after drinking eight vials. In the past, this had been her limit. The Eldritch couldn’t kill her anymore (Or at least, that’s what she guessed), but going above eight chanced too much. Rolance became painfully aware of her surroundings. She could smell the sea mixed with blood, she could see every splinter in the burning houses of Lor’danel, she could hear every scream of every soldier cut down. Eight vials downed and she could feel every organ of her body working together in unison and she knew all too well how easily her body would fail if an arrow punctured one or more of them.
But the most concerning, across the sea and on the shores of Teldrassil’s base, she could see flame catapults and smell the azerite that laced their ammunition.
Eight vials turned to nine. Her thoughts raced. The Black Maw had arrived, how long had Zaderick been here? The inn’s second floor was about to collapse. There were three, no four siege machines and they were burning the World Tree. The troll five feet in front of her spat out blue blood. If so many races had blue blood, why was the water red? The light of the flames hurt her eyes, and for a moment Rolance’s vision shifted from blurred to crystal clear. Saliva began to burn the back of her throat as smoke filled her lungs and she coughed, though after the first she was able to stop the coughs on command.
A green hand tried to shove her to the ground, but she didn’t move. Instead she turned. An orc. He looked young, barely older than her Nic. She watched his youthful face twist from anger, to confusion, and then to fear. Her grip on him brought audible cracks of his bones. He howled like the dog he was. Rolance turned again.
A goblin shredder, one of the large ones, wasn’t too far away. The orc followed her gaze and began to struggle. She barely noticed it. She marched towards the shredder with the Horde soldier, who was getting more and more frantic, before picking him up with two hands and hurling him at the machinery. Blood sprayed and screams let out.
❝ FOCUS! ❞
The tree. She had to get to the tree.
As she ran towards one of the hypogryphs, she world lost color. In an instant, she didn’t see a battlefield before her but a mass of spirits crossing over from the world of the living and into the shadowlands. Wisps flurried around in a panic, spirits of the Horde roared out in anger—
And then she was back.
Rolance rubbed her eyes with a hand and reached for another vial of eldritch, though before she could a familiar sensation washed over her. The bone gauntlet on her hand began to glow with a soft light, and the spirit housed within embraced her. In that moment, her body was no longer her own, and the rush of power slipped from her mind, soothing her.
“You overexert yourself, Titan Child.” It said to her, scolding her like a stern father would.
“I have to.” She said as she watched her possessed body smoothly and calmly mount the hypogryph and soar into the skies. “There’s people dying here.”
“And what good would a dead champion do them?”
“I’m not dead.”
“Not yet. You came close.”
Rolance was silent after that, watching numbly as her guardian preformed her work for her – saving civilians, putting out the flames of Teldrassil, and eventually escaping with their lives in tact.
“I was wrong about the Horde,” she confessed to the spirit as they lay in the medical ward of Stormwind. The healers had other people with other injuries to attend to, stealing them a moment of peace and privacy after the battle. “They all carried this out. This genocide. I was wrong about them.”
“So be wrong,” the voice replied dismissively. “Accept it and move forward. Do not be wrong in the future.”
The spirit gave her control of her body back, now that the Eldritch had worn off and she wasn’t in danger of killing herself. As she settled in, she expected to feel a sensation of dread or guilt, but she didn’t. Instead, all that waited for her was a divine rage.
Taleyriel made his way down the wooden pier just as he had done every night for the past month as the final words he had uttered to his husband played across his mind. Each footstep thundered in his ears and drowned the tranquil lullaby of the waves beneath him. He began his daily watch just as he had countless times before, with the flickering ember of hope dancing within him. Tonight, tonight would be the night Zaderick would come home. He quietly repeated under his breath as though by will alone he could conjure his other half. As the hours trickled by, the naïve hope he had felt waned and the ache of another day without the love of his life weighed heavy on him.
Safe travels, my love.
He stood there for hours, long before the stars were sprinkled across the heavens above and long after the dawning sun had chased them off. That once vibrant gaze of his never strayed from the horizon. If Zaderick comes back, he grimaced at the thought of an if. No, when. When Zaderick came back, he had to be the first to greet the other.
- We’ll be back before you know it.
- I won’t let anything happen to him, brother.
Piracy came with risks, all which Taleyriel had been well aware of when they married. It had been foolish of him to think the sea was no longer a danger now that Zaderick worked for the Kirin Tor. A simple mission, same as all the others he had done before: retrieve an artifact. No more than a few days tops.
If only he had known…
He would have kissed him a bit deeper, held him just a bit longer… Begged him not to go.
“Ley…”
At the sound of the voice, Taleyriel shrugged off the burden of a broken heart and shrouded his pain behind a cold façade. He turned to meet his friend’s concerned gaze. His only answer came in the form of a slight tilt of his head.
“A summons from the Warchief.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed in the painful scent of the sea. With the rumors he had been hearing of rising tensions and impossibly fantastical resources, he knew very well this was something he could not refuse. “Have someone keep watch for my husband.”
Lor’danel, Darkshore
War had done nothing to prepare the Ambassador. As he rode down the once peaceful roads of Darkshore, the carnage he saw along the way was enough to pull him away from the grief that had consumed him and thrust him back into the world of the living. Even as he gazed at the remains of an elf barely a summer older than his twins, he forced himself to look. Death was difficult to confront, but he owed it to history to bear witness.
Someone had to raise the flag, someone had to tell the world what had happened.
A young mother knelt by the corpse of her husband. It was the wails of the child in her arms that had brought the Ambassador to her. Taleyriel didn’t flinch when she struck him nor did he move to stop her. He sat quietly and waved away the soldiers that came their way. “I am truly sorry,” he whispered once exhaustion had taken ahold of her.
“Why?”
As skilled as he was with words, there was nothing he could have said in that moment to justify the pain his people had put hers through. Still, he looked for them; not to defend their actions, but simply offer some solace. His ears flickered when he heard his Warchief’s cries echoing in the distance.
“BURN IT!”
The catapults that had lingered at the outskirts of the village began to move forward.
It wasn’t until the first round had been fired that Taleyriel realized what was happening. He pulled the woman to her feet. “Run!” He barked before he shoved her towards the forest.
This was it.
This was where he drew the line.
He moved towards the closest cluster of catapults. With a violent flick of his wrist he compelled a torrent of ice to freeze them in place. “ENOUGH!”
All eyes moved to him.
“This has gone far enough! As Ambassador to the Kirin Tor, I must intervene.” He brazenly made his way to the grotesque forsaken that was in charge of that squadron. “The Horde has already won. There is no need for this.”
Golden hues trailed slowly from the catapults to the sin’dorei. The rotting corpse canted his head to the side until one by one the bones in his neck cracked into place. Thud. Thud. Thud. He stepped closer. Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
“Are you one of usssss?” His raspy voice finally emerged. “A member of the Hordesssss?” One bony finger reached out to poke the Leywalker in the middle of his chest. “Well?”
“I am.” A cold dread washed over the Ambassador as he watched the forsaken circle around him.
“Light. It. Up.”
“Horde or not, my hands are tied.” He looked to those around him, both the ones that had helped and those that had consented to the crimes with their silence. “As yours should be too.”
The forsaken continued to stumble around him. “Tied hands, tied hands,” he stammered. “What to do about tied hands?”
Adrenaline coursed heavy through the Leywalker’s veins. Enough so that he had felt nothing more than a prick. His ears flickered as he picked up the sound of another dull thud. It hadn’t been the forsaken, no. Those dead, golden eyes still lingered at his side. He felt a warmth trickle down his side and watched as the forsaken knelt to take something.
“Hands can’t be tied now.”
In the distance, the roaring flames of Teldrassil dimmed. Darkness consumed the world around him. The last he saw was the familiar sight of the Kirin Tor eye and the numbers 70812 as the forsaken triumphantly waved the sin’dorei’s severed arm.
Zaderick dreaded opening his eyes. That meant living the same day he had been for the past… how long had it been, now? He felt like he was stuck in one of those stories Taleyriel sometimes told him not to tell the babies. The ship’s boards creaked in the exact same way at the exact same time, and it seemed like the only person who seemed to be aware of the anomaly was him. It had been a mistake to take this mission through the Caverns of Time. Somehow, the had ended up in the Great Sea, only it wasn’t the actual Great Sea, it was a version of it: a moment stuck in the timeways.
Before they were shouted, Zaderick mouthed the words that bellowed from his brother’s lips. Land ahead! As if part of a ritual, he called out, “All hands shift the course forty five degrees to starboard!”
Whatever the item was, they were painfully close to it. It kept them trapped in this repeating bubble of time, and Zaderick was loath to think of how much time had actually passed. Days? Months? Years? How the hell was he going to get out of this? He knew he had until the stroke of midnight to find the item before the he was cursed to repeat the day yet again.
Allan jumped down from the shrouds and slapped Zaderick’s back with a big, dimpled grin. “You look like you haven’t slept in days,” he mused. Zaderick wrinkled his nose, verging on irritation at the pat he had anticipated. “Maybe you should–”
“Try to take a nap and wake up when I’m clear headed? No thanks. I’m clear headed enough. We’re close to this thing, I can feel it.”
Allan blinked at his brother’s words, snappy as they were, and nodded. “I can feel it, too. How do you–”
“Propose we find it? It’s got to be underwater within radius. Whether it’s on a sunken ship, sunken ruins, or something else, I can’t say with certainty.
“What if–”
“An arcane eye won’t work.”
“How do you keep guessing everything I’m going to say?”
“If I told you, you’ll think me insane.”
I hope you are doing well! <3 hope to plot with you in the future. :)
Im doing quite well! Between new job opportunities and finishing my B.A., I haven't been all that active in WRA. I plan on returning full force once Battle for Azeroth is out with Ley and Winter.Can't wait to see everyone's stories!
on Tapas (full sized): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | [Part 4]
SORRY THIS IS A COUPLE DAYS LATE I’ve been exhausted lately lol but this year’s comic is FINISHEd
YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING why they didn’t take him home today – WELL with Sig still healing and the uhh uncertain future of Sylvanas’ horde looming over them, they’re not quite ready to bring a kid into their life.. BUT perhaps they WILL be ready sooner than they think. >__>
Until then don’t worry about Edi! Leon visits the orphanage semi-regularly to help Matron Mercy so he sees Edi fairly often, but Sig will have a harder time getting out there as long as he’s still recovering and figuring out if he still has a future with the Blood Knights (he doesn’t want to quit but health might force him to). It’s clear Leon’s in love with this lil baby and it’s not hard for Sig to understand why. He WILL come back soon, when he can.
Anyway Edi thinks Sig is really cool for some reason so he’s happy he likes his art :> and Edi prefers to draw animals so it’s only a matter of time before he starts drawing weird spiky lobsters with angry antenna brows.
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OH NO this year’s comic is a little too big for one post and too big for one day! The next part will be posted tomorrow!
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Part 1 is mostly about them running into Salandria, the little orphan girl from previous year’s comics. For years I drew her as a tiny baby child even though she should at least been in her teens by now, so I finally addressed that somewhat..? I say she’s 12 for no reason except that WoW timeline/elf aging makes no sense anyway so hey she’s just 12 lol. Who is Edi?? You’ll meet him soon!
Folks in my patreon know how busy I’ve been trying to get this whole thing finished and how I’ve bitten off quite a lot more than I usually do, so unfortunately I cannot post the entire comic today.. because it’s not finished yet. SO this is part 1 of 4.
Any typos or bad lines etc. happened because I am VERY tired lol.
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This comic looks MUCH better on Tapas! I also have the whole Children’s Week series posted there for easy viewing.
Thanks for your Support! 🌺 [Patreon] • [Ko-Fi] • [Twitter] • [Tapas]
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