#daurian

[explorearound]

Blooming of daurian rhododendrons

by danielkordan

[the-toast-to-be]

Some poly Dom, Taurtis, and Grian art I did for @mysticalfriendlyintrovert my beloved :]

Tall Dom, Buff Grian, and Chonky Taurtis

[the-toast-to-be]

Psst *pap your forehead* Grian Dom and Taurtis playing gang beast and whoever won got a recreation of their hoodie

*intense breathing* HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mysti please don’t make me draw this :,]

[dawndwelling]

I have changed, I have changed Just like you, just like you. For how long? For how long Must I wait? I know there’s something wrong.

[dawndwelling]

daurian embereye is a fucking himbo send tweet

[dawndwelling]

young lovebirds daurian embereye and fenrin seabough was just reversed aladdin and jasmine where daurian was a high society dumbfuck trying to impress fenrin with his 12 phd’s in magic and general riches and generosity and fenrin could see straight through it to the dweeb idiot and he was CRAZY about him but the act was so bad daurian baby just drop it

[dawndwelling]

Velerith is eight years old.

She has always known the Embereye Estate to be a beautiful and impenetrable place. Safe. Home. She is not allowed to claim her name yet, going by her father’s Seabough instead. Something about a scary man that would hurt her. She isn’t scared of anything though.

There’s a cold in the air. Not like Grandma Serawyn’s magic; this is angry and hateful power that licks at the walls of the estate, the horizon of Quel’Danas.

Her bedroom door opens. She sees her father, one of them—the one whose name she has. Fenrin’s dark complexion is full of fear like Velerith has never seen, but she is not afraid.

“Vel,” he says, soft and breathless. “Come along, it is time to go—“

“What about Dad?” Velerith asks. “He hasn’t come back from Silvermoon—“

Fenrin’s eyes water for reasons Velerith doesn’t understand. But she is not afraid. He gently pulls her arms to him, hoisting her into a hug as he carries her through the estate. Outside the windows, she sees a frigid storm, utterly unlike any weather that’s ever struck Quel’Danas.

“Daddy?” she calls to her father. “Where is Dad?”

“I can tell you soon,” Fenrin manages. “But we have to go now.”

The front doors open, and a buffeting, freezing wind tears through both elves’ clothes and hair. Fenrin secures a hand to the back of Velerith’s head and presses on, flanked by a pair of residence guardsmen.

“Is Lady Embereye’s apprentice safe?” one asks him.

“Yes, she is well—please, take us from here.”

“At once, Sir Seabough.”

Velerith watches the dark and cold isle. She hears magic and screams, and she knows the fighting has reached the Isle. She is not afraid.

“I can help,” she tells Fenrin.

“I know you can, seabird, but first we must go.”

“But they need us here!”

“Lady Serawyn is helping. It’ll be all right.”

Velerith is sated. Her grandmother is powerful. Surely she can calm this raging ice storm.

They board a ship, guarded heavily from the carnage. Fenrin quickly ducks into one of the cabins, dropping himself into a cot and hugging Velerith tightly to himself. Velerith tucks her head under his chin, listening to the fighting and the storm outside.

“Daddy?” she calls to her father. “Will Dad be here soon?”

Fenrin only breathes a ragged breath. Velerith pulls herself from his chest, looking up into a face soaked in falling tears. She is not afraid.

“Daddy?”

“Dad is...” He sniffles, groans at his own weeping. “Dad isn’t coming, seabird.”

She doesn’t understand why, but she sees hopeless fear in Fenrin’s crying face. So after a moment of thought, she tells him, “I’ll protect you.”

He smiles miserably, for just a moment, and then drags her back into the hug. Velerith listens to him as he tries not to cry, and just lays silently in his hold. She isn’t afraid, but she wishes she could make him unafraid too.

Time passes. Then there is commotion above deck, sailors scrambling to raise the masts and shove off the Isle. Fenrin stirs, his eyes full of fear. Unwilling to leave Velerith’s side, he carries her back into the storming open, searching feverishly for something.

“Excuse me!” he calls to one of the sailors, decorated nicer than the rest. A firstmate? A captain? “Where is Lady Serawyn?”

The sailor’s face falls. “I—I’m sorry, Sir Seabough. She...”

Velerith can tell they will not be specific with her right there. She can also tell that whatever’s happened to her grandmother is horrible, because Fenrin’s grief comes crashing back.

“Oh, Light,” he cries. “I...—“

Velerith’s ears prick up. “Daddy! Daddy, I feel her!”

“What? Seabird, shush—“

“I feel Lady Serawyn!”

As Velerith shouts it, the entire ship lurches with a horrible groan. Fenrin falls, shielding his daughter from the crash. As he looks up, ice crawls over the deck, creeping in from the edges of the ship. His heart sinks.

“It’s Lady Serawyn!” Velerith says. “It’s her magic! I feel it!”

“Seabird—“

“Look!!”

Velerith Blinks herself free, stopped from running to the edge of the ship only by Fenrin’s mortified scream. She stops and whirls back to him, a flicker of shock and apology on her face. She didn’t mean to make him scream like that—

“Oh, no,” a sailor wheezes.

“Arthas—he took—“

Velerith turns around, and walking over a landing of ice is—her grandmother. But not. Something is wrong. She’s too cold—

“Gramma?” Velerith calls.

Their eyes meet, for a moment, and Velerith swears she feels ice crystallizing within her. The next thing she knows, Fenrin has retrieved her, fleeing back behind the remaining soldiers on the ship as they mournfully raise their weapons.

“Wait!” Velerith cries out. “Don’t hurt her!”

“Lady Serawyn,” one soldier musters, his voice weak with grief. “It cannot be. Please—“

More people climb upon the ice landing. Elves, humans, dwarves—all with the same dead, haunting eyes.

When Serawyn speaks, Velerith hears it as one would see their reflection in broken glass. A dozen voices, all hers, all slightly not hers.

“Surrender,” she coldly orders. “This vessel is to be delivered to the Cult of the Damned. There, your fate awaits.”

“Gramma??” Velerith calls, distress at last piercing her heart like the ice infesting her veins.

Fenrin immediately hugs her tightly to himself. She trembles—not quite afraid. Confused; upset.

“What’s wrong with her?” she asks him. “Why is she so cold?”

She knows the face he makes when he doesn’t know how to explain. Serawyn ushers the—the prisoners?—down into the lowest level of the ship.

There, they are held captive.

Days pass at sea. The breeze steadily gets colder, colder than Velerith has ever felt—and dark. Fenrin’s skin grays with hunger, as do many of the few elves trapped with them. But she is eight, and when they ask her to eat what little food they can scrape out of the supplies around them, she does.

People with the haunting eyes come and go. Velerith sees a few humans, and one elf with skin falling apart, no eyes at all in her head...

“She looks dead,” Velerith whispers to her father. Fenrin only hugs her tightly.

Slowly, elves disappear, and always with commotion. Screams and pleas, and bloodshed if the knights with the haunting eyes grow irritable. Fenrin shields her eyes each time, until the night he can’t. Until the night they try to take him.

“No!” Velerith screams, held back by another prisoner. “No, that’s my daddy! Give him back!!”

The knight ignores her, or tries—Velerith is hungry, tired, and gone ignored for countless days. She snaps, and when she does, fire explodes from the hand she throws out.

It scorches the knight’s eye, causing him to shriek and drop Fenrin. He scrambles away, quickly pulled in by the other prisoners, as the knight whirls on Velerith.

She stops. Beyond all his decay are scars, burns older than the one she’s inflicted on him.

She thinks she understands what her father felt when he saw Serawyn now. “Dad?”

Daurian sneers, and grabs Velerith by the collar of her tunic. She screams and thrashes, but she is small, and he cuts off the other prisoners from helping with a wall of blue, dead fire.

He drags her above deck, and to one end of the ship. Effortless, he hauls her whole body over the edge, as she clings to his arm.

“Dad!” she cries. “It’s me, Dad! It’s Velerith! It’s your seabird!!”

And he hesitates. Velerith’s heart bursts with hope.

“You’re in there,” she weeps. “You’re still my dad—“

“Silence,” he orders.

“Nuh uh! My dad never says ‘silence’!” Velerith punches his steeled arm. “Who are you?! The weird voice using my dad’s body! Who are you!”

“I will throw you to the sea, girl!”

“Then do it, dummy! You can’t, can you? My dad is too strong for you, huh? He’s the strongest ever! I knew he’d come ba—“

Suddenly, Daurian yanks her back onto the deck, and throws her across it. She yelps, shielding her fall with the burst of a frost barrier, like her grandmother taught her—

She looks up to a blade of blue fire pointed between her eyes. Daurian’s hand trembles as he holds it. “Kill her,” he says, but it sounds even less like him now. “No mercy. Kill her. Kill her!”

“Dad,” Velerith hushes. “It’s okay. I’m protecting Daddy... I’ll protect you too.”

She has seen grief on Fenrin’s face so many times in the last weeks; it’s easy to recognize how Daurian’s angry, struggling face still cracks with hints of it now.

“It’s okay, Dad.”

For a moment, the haunting blue in his eyes flickers. Velerith’s ears perk, sitting forward a little—

But the tremble in his sword arm has vanished. The cracking grief seals back up behind a stoic mask. He brings the sword back, fire crackling against the sea breeze—

Velerith shrieks, shielding herself with her arms, but the blade does not land. Daurian cries out, the spellsword exploding into motes across the deck, a mix of the dead fire and—frost? Velerith scrambles backwards a few feet, and bumps her back into a pair of legs.

Her eyes dart up, and above her, with an outstretched hand swirled in ice and rime, is Serawyn.

“Daurian,” she calls. Velerith can hear one voice, stronger than all the echoes. It’s her. It’s her grandmother.

Daurian sneers, shaking the clinging ice from his sword hand. “You are... weak. Unfit to serve the Frozen Throne!”

“Shut your mouth, princeling,” Serawyn growls back. Then her voice is soft again. “Daurian, my dear, you must fight—“

Daurian lashes out in a flurry of blue hellfire. Velerith screams again, clinging to Serawyn’s leg, but the fire is squashed by a wave of the woman’s frost magic. She throws up a wall of solid ice when Daurian attempts to march closer, and then scoops Velerith into an arm.

Velerith hugs her neck. “I knew you’d come,” she weeps.

In a blink of arcane power, the pair teleport below deck. Immediately, Serawyn seals the entrance to the ship’s bowels with even more ice.

“Velerith!!” comes Fenrin’s cry.

“Daddy!” Velerith wiggles, and Serawyn lets her down without hesitation; she runs to her father and hugs him. “Daddy, I saw—“

“Don’t you ever ever scare me like that again,” Fenrin scolds, no hint of anger surviving his tears. “It’s my job to protect you!”

“But Daddy, I saw him!” Velerith says, pulling back to meet his face. “I saw Dad!”

Fenrin looks heartbroken. “Seabird, that isn’t—“

“No, no, under the bad man’s voice!” Velerith insists. “I saw him! He didn’t want to hurt me, but the bad man was making him. I saw him.”

Fenrin is clearly at a loss, but before he can argue more, he hears the motion of makeshift weapons. Looking up, he spots three elves blocking in Serawyn with a semicircle. She does not move, but her hands are unarmed and raised, and her face is twisted with what, were she alive, would be tears.

“And Gramma—I mean, Lady Serawyn!” Velerith says. “She saved me!”

Fenrin sees it too. He bundles Velerith into his arms, wobbling to his feet. “W-wait, hold,” he tells the elves. “... Lady Serawyn?”

Serawyn’s eyes meet Fenrin’s, and her face glows with a happiness he’s never seen the undead bear. “Fenrin. Velerith...”

“See! See!” Velerith cheers, pointing wildly. “It’s her!!”

“How?” Fenrin rasps. He takes a step closer, as the elves lower their weapons completely to let him through. “H-how—you broke free?”

“I cannot explain it,” Serawyn says. “But the vice the human princeling’s master holds over the undead has weakened. I am not the only one to break away from its control.”

Fenrin laughs in disbelief. “Th-that is... C-can we free the others? Can we—“

“I am trying,” Serawyn says. “Some are... unbreakable. But some are fraying.”

“Dad,” Velerith says with serious eyes. “Dad tried to stop. I saw him.”

Serawyn smiles, almost miserable. “As did I. I can try t—“

A battle cry roars above deck, a million fractured voices at once. Daurian’s is mixed somewhere in the middle. Velerith pins her ears back, as Fenrin hugs her tight.

“You’re going to save him too, right?” she pleads to Serawyn.

The woman’s face has gone stony with purpose, but she still musters a flicker of a smile for Velerith. “I will try. I will send some of my allies below to protect you. I hope to return with more—Daurian included.”

So Serawyn parts the ice blocking the stairs, and several more undead are ushered in. Mostly elves, a few humans—Velerith recognizes the one with no eyes.

And they wait. Battle rages above them, and even Velerith knows not all survive or can be saved. It isn’t until dawn when all has gone quiet, and no one below dares to move.

The ice barricade thaws, the armed dead ready in case it’s one of the Scourge. But it’s Serawyn’s face that appears, and as the ice melts away entirely, more faces are revealed. Citizens of Quel’Thalas and of Lordaeron, wrenched from death during the Scourge’s northward march...

Here, now. Dead, but with something more than death in their eyes.

And at the back of them all, as they file in with awkward but relieved welcome, is Daurian. Head hung low, slouched. He looks tired, and ashamed.

But Velerith only feels joy. “Dad!!”

It startles him to look up. At the same time, Fenrin has leapt to his feet, daughter in tow. He hurries a few steps forward and stops, as they stare in disbelief at one another.

Daurian fractures first. He cannot look away from his family, but it leaves his guilt on full display. “Fenrin,” he rasps; and like Serawyn, there are several voices, but his own is the strongest. “I...”

He can’t finish, because Fenrin throws himself onto the man in a weepy hug. Velerith, lovingly squished between them, hugs Daurian’s neck while Fenrin cries into his chest.

“It’s okay,” Velerith says, when all Fenrin can do is cry and Daurian stand shock still. “You’re back.”

And Daurian melts, wrapping them both up in guilt and relief and a hug as warm as any other.

[dawndwelling]

Daurian has been here a thousand times now. Per protocols, he is escorted by a Blood Knight into the trenches of Silvermoon’s dungeons. Deep below the Hall of Blood, he can sense the total suffocation of magic within the stone halls. Not even visitors may keep their power; it is suppressed and snuffed without one of the enchanted bracers Knights such as Daurian’s escort wears.

The Knight leads him to a wall thoroughly etched in enchantments. She raises her hand, and the wall glows, then unravels. Within is a prison cell, one side comprised of enchanted glass and bars. The other three sides are more stone.

Like every time before, Daurian steps through the entrance. The wall reforms behind him, leaving him in the small passage between it and the beginning of the cell.

He sees her. Sitting on her cot, legs crossed and head hung. Her blonde, matted hair hangs freely, obscuring her face. Daurian can’t tell if she’s asleep, or brooding, or...

“Al’ara,” he calls, knowing his voice passes easily through the magic glass.

She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even twitch.

Daurian begins pacing. He doesn’t keep staring at her, instead slipping into conversation. He knows she’s listening. “The war effort is coming to a crossroads,” he says. “Regent-Lord Lor’themar and First Arcanist Thalyssra of the Nightborne have tentatively formed a truce between Horde and Alliance forces in Nazjatar. It is clear to them we must deal with Azshara first.”

He spares a glance. Al’ara still hasn’t moved.

“They will be pushing an assault into the Eternal Palace in the coming weeks,” he continues. “Azshara is perhaps the most powerful sorceress alive... They will need everything they can get to stop her. If they do not, an Old God will be set free. Can you imagine?”

No response. Daurian grows agitated, pacing faster.

“Azeroth will die. We will all die. You told me once you were going to shatter and blow up the Nightwell; you told us all you were going to slaughter an entire people to take what the Legion wanted.”

Nothing.

“You told me you were going to do it to save Azeroth. You told me you’d do anything for our world. Our home...”

She doesn’t respond.

“Al’ara!” Daurian strikes the glass with the bottom of his fist, leaving not even a smudge of sweat on its surface. Al’ara doesn’t move. “You can still come back from this! From the Eclipsion, the Illidari and Kael’thas—you can be my SISTER again!”

Silence, so long Daurian almost gives up. He turns away, gritting his teeth. Just as he raises his hand to open the wall, though, he hears her voice. Wasted. Hoarse. She hasn’t spoken in months, and barely speaks when she does.

“Silvermoon will never let me walk free,” she rasps. Her head turns, and Daurian can see the faintest glint of fel-stained eyes. The heavy shackles on her wrists and neck almost completely extinguish the light itself, but Daurian can see the intensive scarring around her eyes, blackened and cracked skin. She looks haunted. “You know this.”

“You have given them no reason to try,” Daurian says. He returns to the bars, his face pleading. “You have fallen down a dark path, Allie. You are not the only Embereye that has. Our mother was willing to give everything to bring me back from the Lich King’s vices.”

His fists ball. He can see the faint reflection of his own dead, lichfire eyes in the glass. “My atrocities are many. It took me years to move past them... But I did. I have. I know you can too, Al’ara. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“You flatter me,” Al’ara deadpans. She glares across her cell now. “Do you not see? They have stripped me of everything. My magic lays dead within me. My mind unravels in the darkness, the silence. They plan for me to waste to ash here, and I will.”

“No,” Daurian says. “You do not give up. You never have.”

She doesn’t answer. Daurian falters in his frustration.

“... You’re waiting for them,” he whispers. “The Eclipsion. You’re waiting for them to break you free.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Why?” he prods, growing agitated again. “Why do you choose them over us? Over your family?”

“My family has forsaken me.”

“You ruined that boy’s LIFE, Allie! You puppeteered him around, ruled him with fear and fire! You dragged him and his beloved to the brink of death! He will never forgive you. He shouldn’t.

“But Light scorch it all, Allie, I’m still here. I know it’s been a long time, I know you moved on from me and Mother—but we are here. We love you. There are still people in this world you can be good for.”

She’s slow to reply. “Are you finished?”

“Scorn me all you like. I know you can see reason. I know the Scourge wronged you as much as it did the rest of us. As much as it did me. But we’re not broken, Allie.”

She grows impatient at last, twisting away on her cot and slumping one shoulder to the wall. She curls up in a ball, and she ignores everything else he says.

Finally, he leaves, slow to readjust to Silvermoon’s bright sun. But he laughs. Soft, tired. Infuriated, a little.

She only curls up when he’s won the argument.