To find fortune and value not sought for, in events unplanned. The luck with which one found those things.
It was no small thing for two people to meet, Andaeros thought.
People took a great many wonders for granted, it seemed to Andaeros. Portals were one that he thought about often. People jaunted, to and fro, hither and thither through swirling aether without a care for the intervening space. Distant lands and alien horizons became tourist destinations, but Andaeros never took for granted how vast the journey was that was saved each time he endured teleportation.
The Outlands. What would have become a graveyard if not for the Dark Portals, was somewhere people traveled often, given new life through trade and culture and pilgrimage. But, people hardly gave thought to the unfathomable space between, for how great a distance the Great Dark Beyond stretched between Azeroth and what was once the living Draenor. It was, to the greatest astromancers and telemancers of Azeroth, a guess, how many millions of miles separated those two titanic worlds. For all they, or Andaeros knew, they could have been on opposite sides of the Universe. Between here and there, could have been everything.
And between here and there, how many millions of worlds existed? How many millions of people on those millions of worlds? How many decisions made by each soul? How many of those worlds flickered out in apocalypse or were saved in utopia because of those decisions? A cosmic coin, flipped heads or tails, every time every soul chose. A trillion coin flips atop a trillion spinning plates floating in an unknowable expanse of Everything with Nothing in between.
How many of those decisions, how many of those coin flips, how many of those cosmic crossroads where two decisions met, ended in Love? With every soul born into the Universe, what were the odds that two similar flames could find each other in all that chaos and smoke and become something greater than they were alone? To choose one another.
No, it was no small thing for two people to Meet. And it was no small thing for two people to fall in love.
How many decisions and people and events outside the scope of two people did they have to pass by to find each other. How close had they come to never finding each other at all?
Andaeros couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he sat atop the overlook they'd cleared for camp, overlooking the pines and sat beneath the rolling auroras. He was a sap. Romance was such grand a notion in his head. He really needed to reign himself in, but it was hard with the ring in his hand. He afforded himself a bit of leeway, as a treat.
He'd agonized over it. He battled between tradition and vogue in his thoughts for weeks before he'd even begun to approach craftsmen. Laeynna was, in Andaeros's most esteemed sentiment, a woman of dissonance, of dichotomy. Laeynna in some moments respected tradition, and followed it, and in some moments he felt she raged and railed against it, as if she were trapped by it. Fashion, to Andaeros, could be fleeting. What was in vogue one decade was mocked in the next. And so he'd decided, instead, on sentiment. Sentiment was always warm, no matter the weather.
He'd not gone with gold or silver. Obsidium was a dark metal, and when it was wrought and shaped and folded, it lightened into a charcoal grey-black that reminded him of the dark colors of the dress he first saw her in. She had always seemed fond of dark things, as well. It was shaped, given the motif of vines, of leaves, of thorns, because of her great love for plants, so central to her. Its gemstone, not diamond, not ruby, not sapphire, not emerald. He had chosen Amethyst, or perhaps, she had chosen Amethyst so long ago. When they had courted.
Andaeros chuckled to himself, an inward thing that was more a huff than a sound. He still needed to keep quiet to not wake her. Courting. It was such an innocent word, full of butterflies and laughter. It was a word that felt like someone's hand in yours. It felt like a kiss on the cheek. But, it was what they'd done, even if they hadn't necessarily intended to. They had started as simple letters, sharing fondness and jokes. And then they became invitations. And then, before long, they became tokens.
She had sent to him an amethyst, so richly purple, unshaped, and raw. She had called it her favorite, and it became one of Andaeros's too. He had kept it, and he thought it fitting it should be the stone fit atop the ring he'd give to her.
It glittered as it caught the light, just as she did.
He opened the tackle box he'd brought with them to fish. It was one of those invitations. It was, to Andaeros's recollections, perhaps their first "date". It was a mutual love that they shared, and they shared it over getting-to-know-you questions and a little lake in the Hinterlands.
The fishing line wrapped once, twice, around and around, ending in a knot attached to the bobber. It'd keep the ring above the water when he cast it. He was putting an awful lot of faith into this fishing line and into this knot. It was, perhaps, not a terribly bright idea to tie such a precious thing to something meant to be thrown into the depths of cold waters. But, it was a decision. A coin-flip that the cosmos would answer if it worked out. A coin-flip that would lead to another decision, but one that would be hers.
It was, to Andaeros's mind, no small thing for two people to meet. It was, to Andaeros's mind, no small thing for those two people to then fall in love.
But surely, it was no tall order for the universe to flip a few more coins in his favor.
It had already flipped so many heads in a row already, what was one or two more?
Before the return of a specific couple of sin'dorei to Quel'Thalas…
In the dark of night, she had been beckoned by the chill lingering outside of their masterfully pitched tent. She didn't know when Andaeros had fallen asleep. She'd worried that he possibly wouldn't. That he might lie there in the dark, his gaze heavy with worry. His heart heavy with uncertainty. She really had… made a terrible impression of things. She wasn't proud of that either.
With a soft sigh, she pulled her robe around her as she sat by where the lingering fire remained for warmth, she stared up at the sky. Settling back onto a hand, she simply gazed into the dark nothingness that lingered and hung like a glorious tapestry. Sometimes she wished the sky would simply devour her. Swallow her up and make her disappear, so she wouldn't have to face herself and the sometimes foolish ways she responded to things.
It hadn't always been like that, of course. Once upon a time she didn't really care what people thought of her. Once upon a time she had been unapologetic, very selfish, and placed no one above herself. It wasn't to say that she didn't still do similar things. On the contrary, Laeynna remained as self-preserving as she ever had been, often under the impression that those around her would be more likely to hurt her than they would to be a supportive role in her life. She had no one to blame for that except herself, of course. She had once been an awful person who deserved that. No shortage of enemies. No shortage of people she had used and disposed of when they were no longer practical to her. No shortage of others she had promptly stepped on just to rise another tier of whatever made up ladder she was trying to ascend.
Had she thought Andaeros might do the same? In the beginning, yes. She had also assumed that his affections were fleeting. Convenient. That she was a momentary plaything for him. She had thought it for so long, in fact, that she had braced herself for that impact. Just assumed it was an inevitability. She hadn't really believed she was good for anything long-term and she had told him that as long as he had want for her, as long as he had need for her, that he would find her at his side. But she'd always assumed that one day he would wake up and decide that was it for him. That he had found the end of the pathway they were travelling together and it was time for them to go in different directions.
She’d thought it would happen in Silverpine originally. Then she thought it would happen shortly after moving in with him. She thought it would happen when he came back after his extended job that kept them divided. And she thought it would happen around the time that she cut her hair and let it return to that moonlight blonde colour it was naturally.
Yet he remained. Yet he still wanted her. But was it her he wanted or some concoction of her that he had drafted in his mind? How did he know that the ‘her’ he wanted was the real one? Wasn't it possible that… it wasn't? And what if she just sabotaged herself again? Every time she got close to something like Andaeros, like happiness, like comfort, Laeynna had managed to proverbially set the entire thing on fire. In fact, she had tried multiple times to sabotage her relationship with him intentionally. Perhaps out of a misplaced idea of doing what she thought was in his best interests, though she couldn't have possibly made that determination and it was insulting of her to even try. A lot of it was out of fear. More fear than any kind of self-perceived altruism.
Born a coward. She'd die a coward.
Andaeros called her strong. He'd said it so many times before. That for all she'd been through, for how she survived it, for acknowledging what she'd had to do to be where she was today, that she was resilient. She never felt strong or resilient. He wasn't necessarily wrong. She just… She could only see herself the way she did. She doubted she'd ever see herself kindly. She definitely would never see herself the way he did.
Pulling her thumb over the beautiful ring he'd bestowed upon her at the lake's edge, Laeynna's gaze dropped down to her hand where it graced her third finger. And now he wanted to marry her. They'd talked about it. When she thought he was either dead or simply having chosen not to return, they'd had to. Laeynna couldn't keep herself together the way she thought she could have. If something happened to him, she needed to know how to move forward and she wasn't even certain that she could. For all that she had tried to keep herself at a distance, for all that she had tried to remain somewhat emotionally detached, that hadn't been possible. She supposed that wasn't how hearts worked, though. There was no controlling something like that. In the same way that surely, Andaeros couldn't have controlled falling in love with her either or the undeniable pull he'd had to her when initially they'd met, despite the repercussions that came from just such a connection.
Talking about marriage, about a future, was entirely different than having it set in front of her. At the time, it had been a… A turbulent conversation. But the feelings they had were just as turbulent. Not for any lack of affection between them, but ideas like marriage and family were weighted and prominent. Terrifying for them both. Andaeros had loved once, a deep, intense, very devotional love. He had poured all of himself into it, and the results had devastated him. They'd practically hollowed him out, leaving him to be a shell of a man. Opening his heart to Laeynna had been no simple feat for him.
He had feared living with her. He had feared any kind of a future with her. She'd understood that. It was so much a part of the reason that she had assumed they would never find themselves where they were now. She never wanted to push him or to feel pressured. She'd never wanted him to think she was giving him an ultimatum. On the contrary, she had decided that when he had enough of her, she would quietly vanish from his life, perhaps like she had never been there at all.
And that would have been it for her. Love had been a… a frightfully unkind thing for her. Distressing and unpleasant in many ways. The kind of experience where she had felt more intensely than she could have endured. For a woman who didn't much like feeling anything except a lot of anger, love, compassion, devotion, those were clumsy things that contained an intensity she didn't know how to wield with grace or eloquence. Where she had found herself wondering if all of that turmoil, all of those nights in wine bottles had been worth it, she had still put herself through it. For him.
Maybe that was why he'd wanted to marry her to begin with. Maybe to him that was the amount of devotion he needed. Maybe seeing her shoulder all of that had encouraged him to understanding that Laeynna was a woman of her word. That she wasn't exactly fickle or short-lived and fleeting with her affections. A romance with Laeynna was never going to be a simple one or a singular night. But perhaps neither of them had realised it at the time. Certainly, that had become apparent as days and nights dwindled onward.
She could have theorised until she turned every colour in the rainbow and would have been no closer to the truth. Admiring her ring, the amethyst stone so perfectly set. The twisting of vines. The dark colour of the ring itself. It was a beautiful, sombre thing. He'd picked the perfect ring for her. No. More than that. The amethyst was the stone she had said she'd liked the most. It was the stone she'd given to him. And here it was, completing the cycle and returning to her. In the craftsmanship of this ring, Andaeros had thought of little else other than her. How terrifyingly lovely.
Did she deserve it? That certainly was a question. No. She didn’t think so. After all of the back and forth? After how difficult it had been, at times, for Andaeros to get her to communicate with him? Even now, instead of talking with him about her feelings and her concerns, she was sitting out in the dark, chilly night, mulling over them. He’d repeatedly tried to remind her that the burdens in life were meant to be shared. That joy and sorrow alike should have been shouldered together. That she didn’t need to be so caught up in what he felt he ‘needed’ to do rather than what he ‘wanted’ to do.
He didn’t need her, after all. He wanted her. She wondered, for a moment at least, did she require being needed? What was the difference between those two ideas, really? A need was a… compulsory thing. A want was more important, perhaps, for it incorporated the true sentiment. A need could be unhealthy. Certainly a want in excess could be as well, but it came down to where each feeling originated from.
Laeynna sighed and that breath, as so many others had before it, disappeared into the world around her, swallowed up by black darkness.
She’d always worry. About everything. If she was good enough. Worthy. Deserving. If she was who he really wanted. If she was who really was meant to be in this spot here and now. She’d wanted so badly to change the way she approached life. The way she approached her own perception of self. She’d tried, certainly. Tried not to care how others might have thought of her. Tried not to create some self-perceived reality. Tried to be more outgoing and conversational. She was always trying. And she was often trying so hard that it was exhausting and taxing.
If she didn’t think it was obvious, she was wrong. People always knew when others were trying, especially when they were trying too intensely.
At the same time, was it a crime to want to be liked? Was it a crime to want a place to belong? Was it a crime to want friends, joy, happiness, safety, and security? If everyone else in the world could have those things, why didn’t she feel like she deserved the same thing? And certainly there were worse men and women than her, those who had committed terrible atrocities, and likely they still had their own circle of support.
Were her flaws so terrible that she felt like she was doomed to a life of solitude?
No. Of course not. Laeynna Emberflame or Zinnvais Luridveil, no matter what name one used to refer to her, was no more or less flawed than anyone else. It was a difficult thing for her to see, but somewhere in her head, she knew that she deserved more. That she had every right to chase after more, to claim more, to speak up and say she wanted more. Knowing it and acknowledging it were really the first steps, weren’t they?
So she deserved happiness with Andaeros. Would she bring him happiness? By his reckoning, she already did. He wouldn’t have asked for her hand if he didn’t want her damn hand in marriage. She didn’t know how to be a wife, however. Definitely didn’t know how to be married.
In her younger years, plenty of girls she’d known had their betrothals, all a bunch of complicated relationships where there was no love. Instead, they performed their duties as was expected of them and hosted myriad affairs on the side. Laeynna didn’t want that. Not for either of them. The only real marriage she had seen in practise was between her parents. Reknon and Seilahs were betrothed as well and sometimes it seemed like one loved the other. She’d heard it said from time to time in younger years when she and Ankalei were growing up together. Just saying it, however, didn’t necessarily make it true. Laeynna couldn’t remember a single time seeing either of them actually be in love with one another.
Although she supposed there was a difference between just loving someone and being in love with someone, only further complicated by the notion that there were so many different types of love.
But if she didn’t know how a proper, healthy, constructive marriage was supposed to go, how could she be involved with one? How could she properly love Andaeros as his wife if she didn’t know how a wife was supposed to properly love a husband? Maybe she was just supposed to keep doing what she was doing. What if it wasn’t enough, though?
What she did know was that the more she spun around in this proverbial circle, fearing the unknown, and assuming she didn’t have the emotional fortitude, the only person she was really going to hurt was Andaeros. Hurting herself? Sure. She’d done it for years. She could do that again. But hurting Andaeros? That was unacceptable.
She couldn’t really know without trying. Laeynna had often been more of the mind to simply vanish when things got hard. Or ‘too hard’ according to her. It was what made her own attempts to stick things out so impressive, because to do so was uncharacteristic of her. This felt like another situation where she couldn’t give up so easily. Andaeros certainly deserved better. They had already gone through so much together. Being together hadn’t been easy for either of them and they had both paid consequences for choosing that pathway. If she backed out, it would have been like saying that nothing they’d done with one another had been worth anything.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Andaeros made her a better person. Rather, being around him, being with him, gave her the strength and courage to consciously make that decision. Things had been hard, but they had also been rewarding. She loved him. There was no doubting that. Fear, in and of itself, was not a terrible thing. Not the worst thing. It kept one alive, but if it was fed too much, as it had oft been in Laeynna’s case, then it would only prevent one from living. She didn’t want to live a life where she wasn’t really existing. She wanted to live and she wanted to do so at his side in any capacity.
As she eyed the sky, she wasn’t really sure she had stumbled onto any great realisations or found any answers to the questions she had. If anything, it only felt more weighted and heavy, that sinking of reality that she would, one day, become Laeynna Dawnflare. If he was interested in that, of course. She didn’t have to take his name. But as she mouthed it wordlessly to herself, she liked how it felt. She could imagine how it sounded. A bit lyrical, really, and more accurate in representation of her person.
She was neither an ember nor a flame.
She wasn’t dawn either, or a flare.
But to be married would be the dawning of a new journey. A new chapter to add to so many chapters that were in existence and yet unwritten.
There would be more difficulties in the future. She knew that, too. This wasn’t going to be the first time she sat in silence and thought about everything. Questioned everything. Worried about everything. Laeynna would always worry and fret and concern. Maybe that didn’t have to stop. Maybe she just needed to understand how to coexist with it. She couldn’t be fixed and she didn’t need to be. She simply needed to work on how to best thrive in the face of that adversity, to be as flowers when at a disadvantage.
And to come back from withering.
As she eyed the tent where Andaeros was sleeping, she eventually found herself sitting in its entrance, just watching the outline of him. She wondered what he dreamt of. Hoped that he dreamt of her. Of them. Of the future where so many things were uncertain, but where the certainty was that she loved him. And that he loved her. That perhaps, it was a very good beginning for a marriage.
(Mention for @andaerosdawnflare. I'm so sorry for taking so long to write this.)
I... admittedly try not to speak too much of him. Tis not shame that would have me do this. I have always been reserved. Modest. And before Andaeros, love and romance were silly, foolish things, unrealistic and nonexistent. To me, they were just stories of flights of fancy and little tales parents told their children simply to waste time.
Andaeros Dawnflare is a great many things. I will not pick a favourite trait of his. Cannot be done when I feel as I do. So instead, I will simply speak of many, how beautiful they are, and how wonderful a man they come together to make.
He is a very wise man, inevitably shaped by his past and the things that haunt him. He is touched by this adversity, and it streaks him in dark, brooding colours. In the face of that wisdom, sometimes this sombre nostalgia can be seen in his eyes. I believe when he feels things, he does so deeply that it is a wonder he does not crumble beneath that overwhelming prominence.
The man has humour. Clever. Witty. Cunning. Sharp. Sometimes rather on-the-nose and a bit obvious, but I believe that contributes to his excessive charm. Andaeros is a... force to be reckoned with. It is hard for my eye not to go to him directly. It is a hard thing to look at anything else when he is around, for he so does command a presence, I think.
He is gentle and loving. Treats me well. Treats those he cares about well. Tries to. Andaeros has good intentions and he has a fragile heart. He knows that he is flawed and rather than trying to hide them, he wears them. He is not free from error, from mistake, from social faux pas, but he always acknowledges that, even if, at times, he may seem stubborn. His every little imperfection is a glowing one. It binds me to him in a way that I need, for I too, am so imperfect and so flawed.
He is always teaching me something new. Making me think about things in a different way. Presenting life to me in a different way. He inspires in me the want for things that before him, I was so very adamant to avoid. What a magnificently dangerous man he is, with those eyes that make me think of blooming flowers and withering trees.
When he smiles, truly smiles, the lines pull at his eyes, and when he does that my heart swells so and I should think it might very well burst. He oft gets this... rather schoolboy demeanour about him, as if he has a bit of a crush, which is terribly endearing. He makes our romance come alive. He makes me come alive.
There is not a thing about him that I do not favour. Even when it comes to things that displease me or, on occasion, hurt me, it feels like these are things that need to happen. Andaeros always seems to know when that is. Unwilling to let me run from everything I want to run from, his persistence might one of the things that I value the most about his person. For certainly without it, I would not be here now.
What a man. A spectrum of colour from one end to the other and every shade and tint and alteration in between. Andaeros Dawnflare is a walking masterpiece. He is precisely as he is meant to be and he is splendid and exquisite for that.
And I, am a fool woman, in love."
( Thank you, @the-man-with-the-mohawk.
Obligatory mention for @andaerosdawnflare. )
A letter arrives on what appears to be scrap paper (client-copy of a work order to repair armor?), and the message is simple. The script, however, is exquisite.
Andy,
The rotters are acting up again. Feel like a job in Plaguelands? Some of the zealous want to make some big pushes. Light and cleansing up toward the homeland, yada yada.
Could use your help. Pays’ pretty good.
And I miss you. Don’t make it a thing. Just show up.
“I’m probably closer with Andaeros than I ever expected to be, but I still feel sort of weird about it. He’s Feywren’s family, not mine, if that makes sense. I know it probably doesn’t.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I said that time. It’s been a couple years now, and as much as I wouldn’t change everything that’s happened… that one thing, I could have done better. I didn’t need to hurt him like that. Lately it feels like maybe things could go back to how they were- well, almost, you know? Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. But I miss Kid.”
Andaeros had always had them, and he made use of them in his pasttimes and his work. In his calligraphy, in his art, in his tattooing, in his wards. He was not typically a man of pride, but he prided himself on the sharpness of his angles, the straightness of his lines, the roundness of his curves, and the cleanliness of his script.
Even when nerves touched him, his hands remained steady and still.
It was good, then, how stable his hands were as he drew the crafting knife down along the unadorned leather to trim scraps of excess material from the thick stock he'd used for the cover and back of the simple scrapbook he'd made. Featherlight nerves danced within him, like butterflies, while the softest worry insisted at the very back of his thoughts, like a whisper from another room.
Filled with sketches of her that he'd done from memory. Sketches that he'd done candidly, while she busied herself with her reading and studies. Sketches of her done in so many styles. In straight lines, in life-study, in minimalism. Excerpts of prose and poetry borrowed from romantics more eloquent than he, and his own attempts to convey the richness and depth and breadth and vivacity of his love for her. All of it bound in leather, tied off by deeply purple ribbons that held a satin finish.
He hoped she would like it.
Things had been somewhat stilted since his return. Their interactions had been… diplomatic, was the word he'd ascribed. Not for lack of trying on his part. But, their time apart had thrown off the natural rhythms and beats of their relationship, and Laeynna had displayed a measured composure that, to Andaeros, had felt somewhat cool, very slightly dispassionate on his return.
He understood it, he did. He had told her he was leaving for work, but he had been gone for a long while without word, without correspondence.
When she had been lost to the Nerubians, when he had learned she had been missing, he was plagued by worry in his private moments. Before they had even committed to one another, before either of them had realized the depth of feeling they held for one another, in the nascency of their love, he was still taken by worry. He could only imagine it more the harrowing for her, knowing how intensely she felt, how intensely she loved.
It had been a repeat client of his. The archmage had respected Andaeros's work, both magical and martial, and his discretion, and the gold he'd offered for a month's work was too rich to pass by. Warding a wizard's tower, a full suite of defensive magics to secure it from all manner of threats.
He hadn't known how isolated he was going to be. He'd not been allowed to travel there, only brought to and from the tower via portal, which was an unpleasant experience for someone with portal sickness. He hadn't known where in the world he was, though, he'd had some ideas when he stepped outside to work on the tower from the heat.
He hadn't been allowed contact with anyone outside of the tower. All reagents and supplies he'd needed were brought to him promptly and without question. He'd eaten conjured food, and slept on a mildly comfortable, but lamentably Laeynna-less bed. He'd had worse sleep and worse food when he was a soldier, he'd remembered thinking a few times over the course of his absence.
He had been blind-sided by the archmage's eccentricities, but he was there, the work needed doing, and he was being paid very well. Payment that could make both he and Laeynna just that little bit more comfortable.
As he tied neat bows in midnight ribbons, through each point of binding in the pages and covers, he found himself wondering if it had been worth it. It felt as though he had lost some of her faith, that he had lost some of her trust, had lost some of their intimacy.
He hoped all she needed was time. He hoped there was no love lost.
Things were getting better, he thought. They spoke more warmly, they touched more often, they smiled and they laughed and they played. But, there was still a certain discomfit he could sense in her.
He would just continue to love her, without condition or pretense, as he had before.
He ran his hand over the leather of that small scrapbook's cover, and smiled softly, breathing out through his nose as if in relief. Her birthday was coming soon, and this would be one gift of many.
He'd hardly settle for celebrating her for only one day.
How do you feel about Andaeros and Laeynna’s relationship?
There was a notion that when one knew to expect something, but didn't know when it would occur or the details that would, inevitably, accompany it, the seeds of anxiety would be sown and eventually would come to flourish. Although Ankalei couldn't exactly claim to experience it in the same way, when she received response back from her twin sister that she'd agreed to their meeting, echoes of that anxiety certainly seemed as if they were fluttering about her insides.
It wasn't really the notion of meeting Laeynna that bothered her. Even knowing she was planning to bring Andaeros along with her wasn't terribly surprising. She was probably using the man as some kind of protective buffer. Ankalei couldn't blame her for that.
She'd spent years tailing her sister, keeping an eye on her, making sure that from a remote, safe distance, if she could provide something to her when she desperately needed it, that she could do just that. She had failed Laeynna when she lived. She had decided so much earlier on that she would not fail her again. Not when she understood that things were so much worse than she'd realised.
What kind of sister ignored the plights of a sibling? What kind of sister prioritised her military service? One could have made the argument that Laeynna had never said anything, and certainly, not all of the responsibility rested on Ankalei's shoulders, but it didn't absolve her from her part in things.
Looking around her sparse living arrangements in the arid climate of Durotar's air, Ankalei dropped herself in a dusty chair, leaning onto an equally dusty table where she'd left a tome open, filled with what she'd deemed to be important events she wanted to go to. People she wanted to see. Most of the notes in it involved Succulent Tart, Nahilvi (though she couldn't exactly understand the draw there), the Horde Expedition, Zaihne, and a list of Laeynna's contacts that she'd made over the years.
As she took quill into hand, she carefully wrote.
— Andaeros Dawnflare —
What did she know about the man, really? He'd been amicable when they met for the first time. Not that she expected anything less of that whole plethora of people Laeynna had come to be spending time with. On the contrary, it had probably been the first time Ankalei noticed Laeynna was developing kinship with seemingly well-adjusted, civilised people, who probably weren't doing a bunch of black market, dirty-handed affairs. Fancy Cakes was an immediate step up from the nonsense Laeynna had been getting herself into when she'd been removed from Quel'thalas.
With a thoughtful expression, Ankalei shook her head. He'd been nice. Too nice, perhaps? No. She didn't know him well enough to make that assumption. She'd seen him. Without a doubt she'd seen him. In tracking her sister down and trying to follow her trail down to the southern continent, Ankalei definitely recognised him. And she recognised that when Laeynna was with him, she smiled in a way that Ankalei had never seen her smile in before.
He'd clearly worried about her when he realised she was missing.
As she reflected on it, however, she didn't know how close Laeynna and Andaeros were. She definitely couldn't say she knew how serious they were either. Laeynna had always been tight-lipped about her personal life, especially when it came to involving herself with others beyond the pragmatic and professional connections she'd built. Ankalei had just barely known of her other romantic affairs or the kinds that even stretched into potential romanticism and so many of those had gone silent just as quickly as she'd gotten slight word of them. It didn't surprise her at all that she found herself in a similar boat with this newer addition to her life.
Sure, she could have asked, but she doubted Laeynna was going to answer and it wasn't a very kind thing to go to Andaeros herself. That was out of the question. After Zaihne had retrieved Laeynna from Azj-Kahet, Ankalei had largely backed off. With her twin relatively safe and sound, it didn't feel appropriate to continue spying on her, even if the intentions behind doing so were meant to be constructive and helpful.
Does he make her happy?
That was probably the most important. Followed closely by the idea of reciprocation. In an ideal world, or what Ankalei imagined an ideal relationship to be like, both sides were happy. Plenty of people stayed in relationships where they weren't for one reason or another, of course, but given how precious life was, Ankalei certainly didn't want Laeynna or Andaeros to feel like either were caught in any such thing.
Does he treat her well?
It was hard not to want to immediately jump in and play the part of the older, protective sister. To grill Andaeros every which way when it came to the emotional and mental welfare of Laeynna. There were several reasons as to why Ankalei didn't do that, however. She knew there was already some preexisting tension where their relationship was involved and though she didn't know the gritty details of it, she could make an educated guess based on what she did know. If she started wagging a finger in Andaeros' face that seemed like it was only going to make things more complicated for them both.
What if something happens and we have a repeat of the past?
That was as much a concern as really anything else was. Perhaps even more so. What was her sister's state like? What if it drastically changed? What if something devastating happened and Laeynna couldn't endure it? How would that impact how she handled things? What if she took it out on Andaeros? Or, what if Andaeros did something awful to her? What if Laeynna never recovered from it?
Ankalei tried hard not to think too hard about that. Things had gotten as bad as they had in the past because she'd not known what Laeynna was going through. If she could begin to rebuild things with her sister, then surely she could invite an open line of communication. If Laeynna could do that, at the very least, just open herself up a little more, then maybe it would be easier to tackle a worst-case scenario.
She wanted to see her twin happy. Laeynna had spent so many years sentencing herself to misery. Ankalei understood why. She got it. But it was excessive and self-destructive. In doing so, Laeynna had essentially stopped herself from living. Now, she was behind in years. If Andaeros could make her happy, Ankalei wanted him to. Laeynna deserved that, she thought.
And if Andaeros didn't... Well. She'd have to have some firm, sisterly words for him. But given the way Laeynna lit up around the man, and Laeynna was not a woman who ordinarily did any kind of lighting up ever, Ankalei was under the impression that if anyone was going to be ruining whatever garden those two were planting together, it probably wasn't going to be Andaeros.
Next to where she'd written Andaeros' name, Ankalei continued.
Laeynna, let him make you happy. Give him that chance. I see a different you when you're with him, a you I never thought I'd see again.
I hope you can see how good he is for you. I hope that you appreciate it and I hope you're not taking it, or him, for granted.
After all of these years that you've been punishing yourself, maybe try breathing again. Maybe try living. You've condemned yourself enough.
Andaeros in his finest and most foppish frippery. Meant to evoke the image and colors of a nebula as "Sir Sidereal" or "The Starry Knight".
(( I was proud of this one, I think it came out well. ))
