#hamearis

[dendroica]

A Duke of Burgundy butterfly, which is back from the brink of extinction [in parts of Europe], sitting on a lady orchid

Photograph: Iain H Leach/Butterfly Conservation

(via The week in wildlife – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian)

[goldmysts]

The day Argus appeared in the skies over Azeroth was the day that Zosine and Essalie went home.

They paused, looked at each other, and mutually agreed that they “did not sign up for THAT bullshit”, and requested their discharge orders. All things considered, they were granted.

Zosine had Very Important work to do back home, anyway. His mind was a rushing, reeling track of information, and he needed to catalog it and start his experiments. He was mute on the way home, not even bothering to babble his ideas to Essalie. They were too fresh, too precious for him to let loose just yet.

Vistara and Ellathedar had not yet returned home when he finally arrived, tired and restless at the same time. Neither, he discovered, had Ithise and Eronais.

It was Eronais’s meddlesome twins who saw him first. They dropped their shovels and sprinted toward the house, shouting for Hamearis. The eldest Goldmyst brother emerged, shoving the shock of white hair from his eyes, and his face lit up to see his brother-in-law striding up the drive.

“Zosine!” he called happily, trotting out to meet him, his ever-present train of children right on his heels. “I… I honestly can’t believe you made it back alive.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Zosine sniffed, but he embraced him anyway.

The children flocked around his feet, tugging on his sleeves and begging for hugs as well. He knelt to them and let them wash over him with affection, and that was when Hamearis noticed it.

“You bent your knee,” he observed. “You just… bent it. Like that. And your cane is gone. Where…”

“Don’t need it anymore,” Zosine told him proudly as he rose without the barest hint of struggle. “This is one of those tremendously rare cases where the soldier comes home from war better for wear rather than worse.”

Hamearis had every right to be bitter, Zosine realized as he glanced to the space where his left arm should have been, but he was still beaming and looking relieved. “That’s great, Zosine,” he said, and he truly meant it.

In the days that followed, an odd routine was established. Hamearis and Zosine had almost never been around each other without their spouses acting as buffers, so it was a new sort of getting to know one another. Hamearis understood what it was to come back from war, so he gave Zosine as much space and peace and quiet as he needed.

Zosine, meanwhile, began disappearing off to one of the small storage barns multiple times a day. He said nothing of what he was doing there and left no traces of anything amiss, so of course the curiosity was eating away at Hamearis like a disease.

He went to investigate.

He was not pleased.

He stormed into the kitchen, where Zosine was making a cup of tea to take out to the little barn. He glared at him, eyes narrowed, fist clenched.

“Zosine,” he thundered, barely in check. “What is in my barn??”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zosine blatantly lied, steeping his tea.

“There’s a fucking Wretched in my barn, Zosine.”

“Ah yes. That.” Zosine replied. “You should have been more specific.”

“So you do know about this!” Hamearis exclaimed, aghast. “Zosine. It’s a Wretched. In my barn. Where my children play. It has to go.”

“First of all, he has a name. It’s Stumpy,” Zosine sniffed. “Second of all, he has no arms, and is chained rather securely to a hitching post, and is of no threat to your children. They rather like him, in fact. They bring him flowers.”

Hamearis just stared at him for a long time. The seconds ticked by and Zosine simply tended his tea.

“Stumpy,” he finally said.

“Stumpy,” Zosine confirmed. “I hope I don’t offend with my name choice.” He nodded to Hamearis’s own stump.

“None taken,” he replied, still staring at him in disbelief. “I just. Can I just know why there’s an armless Wretched in my barn?”

“Research, of course!” chirped Zosine. He grew very serious, eyes flaring with the intensity of his brilliant mind racing. “In Suramar, they had Withered, much like our Wretched here but farther gone. They cured them, Hamearis. Brought them from skin and bones, from mindless husks to healthy, intellectual beings again. I must know if we can do it, too.”

Satisfied with his tea, he brought the cup to his lips, took a sip. “There are so few of us left,” he said, growing quieter, his eyes guttering again. “We’re rebuilding, repopulating, but we are such a slow species to grow. If we could turn back the clock for those we already have… It could mean the difference between existence and extinction.”

Hamearis swallowed. He often forgot how far the depths of Zosine’s mind reached, not only in spells of madness, but also in those of sheer genius. If anyone could find a Wretched cure, it would be him.

“Vistara will never allow it when she gets home,” Hamearis said, almost reluctant to crush Zosine’s ambitions.

“Vistara will have no choice in the matter, unfortunately. The Magistry is very keen on my hypothesis. If I’m right, it will be a breakthrough for us all. They no longer want me dead, for once. I’ve finally earned my place back as a somewhat respected Magister, if only until this experiment fails.”

He gave Hamearis a level look, and at least had the grace to look somewhat sheepish.

“They’ve also commissioned the Farstriders to help me catch and subdue more test subjects. I do hope my dear sister won’t mind too terribly much.”

As one, Hamearis and Stumpy both groaned.

[podartists]

Hamearis lucina | Biodiversity Heritage Library | Flickr (Dominio public)

[goldmysts]

“You'll walk unscathed through musket fire, No ploughman's blade will cut thee down, No cutless wound will mark thy face And you will be my ain true love, And you will be my ain true love.”

Vis,

I’m sending this to you because Light knows that Hamearis and Ell won’t read it and Zosine would not listen to a lick of what I have to say.

It’s worse than we feared. Much worse.

Suffice to say we are thoroughly fucked and I am positive that your Ranger-General will call upon you and all his other striders to willingly give yourselves for Quel’thalas. They’ll only ask once before the forcibly remove you.

I’d recommend making it easier upon yourselves. Rip off the bandage before it sticks too deep.

I’m not coming back. After my wounds heal I am taking the first ship to the Broken Isles.

Yours,

Ero

Vistara let the parchment slip from her fingers and drift to the desk like an autumn leaf caught on the breeze. She stared into the tiny flickering flames on the candelabra beside her, watching the wax slowly melt away.

Two fat letters sat unopened at the corner of the desk, far longer than the one’s Eronais had sent to her. They were meant for her daughter and son. She wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to them in person, afterall.

There was no mention of Ithise, but Vistara was unconcerned. She knew she was alive, Eronais would’ve said otherwise.

With a sigh, Vistara pushed out of her chair, crumpling up the letter in her hands and floating down the hall to Ell and Zosine’s room. She leaned against the doorway, knocking thrice on the wall.

“Ell?” she called. “Ell, could I talk to you a moment?”

If Ell closed his eyes and breathed deeply enough, he could still smell the lingering scent of fresh lumber in their home.

The Goldmyst clan had built and moved into their ranch house with relative ease. The stables had been erected, breeding stock from the Blood Order had been brought in, and Hamearis had been busy with the chargers from day one.

It was good here. Perfect, in fact. The four children, walking and talking all of them, had plenty of space to play and explore, and the adults had plenty of places to seclude themselves from the, should they find the need. There were enough rooms that no one had to sleep on the sofa or the kitchen table when they were visiting, and every member of the family could do whatever they desired whenever they desired.

Ell had been stringing a bow when Vis leaned into his and Zosine’s room. Zosine was downstairs, locked in his study, constantly filing away paperwork to send off to the Spire so that he could put off appearing there in person one more day, one more week. The youngest Goldymst brother flicked the hereditary white streak from his eyes when he looked up, smiling until he saw the strain that pulled at Vistara’s features.

It was a good thing, he found himself thinking, that Hamearis would be down at the stable for hours yet.

“Sure.” Ell rose, setting the bow carefully aside, wondering how long it would be before he could get back to stringing it. “What’s going on?”

“Eronais sent letters,” Vistara said. “One for me and one for each of her brats.” The brats in question were likely lurking in the stables, making fools of themselves. Eronais had forced them under Vistara’s roof before she was shipped off to the Broken Shore. She didn’t want them to be alone in Silvermoon, and Vistara was happy to force the pair to do chores.

“It’s brief,” she started slowly. “But the gist of it is that she’s...terrified by what she saw at the Broken Shore. She thinks that there will be a conscription, it seems like, and that it would...be better to volunteer early.”

She stared down at Ell, still as a predator stalking its prey.

“No matter what we do, Ell, we’re going to the Broken Isles. You’re a good shot and I’ve a good century of experience on the battlefield. Zosine and Hamearis will be excluded, but we’re prime candidates.”

Terrified. Broken Shore. Conscripted.

Part of him had known, had been expecting as much. He had hoped for the opposite of course, all of them had, that it would just be a small little fight and be over with, but it was never that simple. Certainly not with something like this.

“I know,” he said, not a heartbeat after Vistara was done speaking. She’d come ready to drag him to the battle herself, kicking and screaming, but no fight was needed. “I know. We need to go. We… we have to.”

Ell had never seen war. He’d only become worth anything with a weapon in the past decade, really, which was remarkably behind the curve for his kind. It wasn’t until he was over a hundred years old that he could even hit a target board. But this.... He couldn’t turn his back from this. None of them could.

He sighed, running a hand through his long blonde hair. The hard part wasn’t getting the news or even going. The hard part would be telling the others.

“Zosine…” he trailed off quietly. “I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m most worried about him.”

That was easy. It surprised her. She had not expected her gentle brother-in-law to be willing to fight beside her so easily. To her, he was still the timid ranger she’d dragged out to the shooting range to scream at until her voice was hoarse.

He’d finally grown up.

“Me too,” Vistara said softly, her eyes squeezing shut, tight with pain. “Hamearis will be...difficult. He’ll be bullheaded, but Zosine. This will break him.” Her voice was barely audible, a whisper, terrified that the man in question would come crashing through the door at any moment.

“Without Cor-” she faded, wincing at the name that rose in her throat. Cornelia could have used her Light. She could have helped him, but she couldn’t even help herself in the end. Vistara sent up a silent prayer to whatever gods were listening that her soul had found peace. “...without us Hamearis won’t be able to keep him together. Especially not with the children running around underfoot.”

And what if they call upon Zosine Goldmyst to fight for Quel’thalas one last time? What if that’s the final piece of the puzzle they’ve been crafting to rid the Magistry of him forever? She didn’t dare voice the thought.

Ell slumped against the doorway, gnawing at his lower lip.Things had been so much better for them since they’d moved out of the city for good. Zosine no longer jumped at shadows or startled when a door opened too quickly or a child squealed too loud. The shaking in his hands was almost undetectable, his penmanship finally returning to its former glory. He didn’t even depend as heavily on the drink to keep him anchored anymore.

This was going to ruin all of that.

Ell opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but the thundering of feet up the hall made them both freeze. The footfalls were too light, too even, however, to be Zosine. Instead it was Euphemia, with Aurelia hanging onto her skirts, wailing. Euphie looked at them with her even, matter-of-fact look.

“Daddy fell in the well,” she reported, sending Aurelia into another round of hysterics, even as Vistara snorted and scooped her daughter up into her arms.

Ell deposited Euphie up on top of his shoulders, ducking to safely get her outside as he trailed behind Vistara. Ero’s brats were leaning over the lip of the well in question, snickering and punching each other’s arms to stop when Vistara approached with the inconsolable Aurelia perched on her hip.

Ell and Euphie joined them, looking down into the well where Hamearis stood up to his chest in water, red and white hair stuck to his face. He scowled up at them all, glaring especially at the twins.

“And how did this happen?” Vistara asked them all. When the twins wouldn’t meet her gaze, she looked down at her husband, who waved his arm in exasperation.

“Can’t you imagine?” he exclaimed. “Will you just throw me a rope? It’s freezing down here.”

Vistara looked up, glare shifting from Taliesin to Arienne and back again. The two teenagers stood, blank faced, mirror images of their mother when she was between a rock and a hard place. “Did you do this?” Vistara hissed, stepping towards them, still managing to scare them shitless even with an infant perched on her hip.

“N-no, Aunt Vis, promise,” Arienne blurted, staring straight into the eye of the storm whereas Taliesin fell back several steps. “We just found him like this.”

Vistara growled, prowling back to the stables to hunt down a rope while simultaneously whispering sweet things to her daughter. She’d been gone for a week with no shenanigans. Of course they would resume the second she stepped back on the property, because that’s what they did once Vistara was back. It was like herding cats.

Vistara returned a few moments later with a rope, which she handed to Arienne. “Help him up,” she barked.

“Y-yes ma’am,” Arienne stammered, rushing to tie the end of the rope to something.

Aurelia had calmed down, burying her face in the crook of her mother’s neck. Vistara turned to Ellathedar, giving him a meaningful look as Hamearis scaled up the side of the well.

It was a rather impressive show of strength, given that he only had one arm to pull him up.

Ell met her gaze, but only for a moment. He instead focused on the teens struggling to pull Hamearis up, and rolling his eyes and nudging them aside to do it himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to haul his brother’s deadweight around.

Hamearis finally emerged, dripping and fuming, and pulled himself over the edge of the well. He rolled onto the ground gracelessly, laying there and staring up at the sky. Aurelia wriggled in her mother’s grasp until she was let down, where she flung herself onto her father’s soaked chest and wailed until he patted her back and assured her he was alright.

Aurelia would have no memory of the way her father used to be, but Ell always would. He’d never be able to forget how Hamearis had held her when he was born, both strong arms safely cradling her to his chest, staring awestruck into her sleeping face. How he used to sweep her up off the floor and hoist her over his head before he’d been called away to Draenor, how she’d laughed and kicked her legs that couldn’t yet bear her in walking as he’d spun them around the room.

Every day Ell looked at him, Hamearis served as a reminder as to what war could take. Every night he woke screaming Ampharius’s name in the other room, every time Zosine dropped a cup that had shaken out of his hand, every time Vis froze for no reason and locked every muscle in her body until someone reminded her to breathe, they were all remnants of the wars and battles and scars on their bodies and minds that would never fully heal.

Scars that he, too, would now come to bear, as was penance for keeping the children safe and securing their future generations.

It scared him so badly that he felt the blood drain from his face. But it had to be done.

Hamearis propped himself up on his elbow, squinting through the white hair that was plastered to his face, the same shock of white that both brothers shared, inherited from their father. He tilted his head curiously, twitching a drop of water from his ear.

“Ell? It’s alright, man, I didn’t drown or anything. You feeling okay?”

Ell quickly bobbed his head, forced himself to smile. “Fine, just fine. I’m glad you’re safe.”

Hamearis sat up, Aurelia clinging to him, but he shrugged his shoulder and moved to get up and go dry off.

Vistara was looking at Ell again, and he found himself wishing that war did not exist.

It was silently decided that they would tell them after supper.

Another letter had arrived before they sat down, sent by Vistara’s captain.

She already knew what it said before she even opened it, but she read it anyway.

“Take the children and leave,” Vistara ordered Taliesin and Arienne. Their grins slid off their faces. They scooped up Aurelia and the boys, Euphie following at their heels, and they fled the room. Their plates were abandoned on the dinner table.

She steepled her fingers, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against the sides of her hands. A thick and airless silence unfurled between the four of them, and no one wanted to be the one to break it.

Several heartbeats passed before Vistara finally spoke, forcing her chin up and staring at her husband and brother.

“Hillsbrad Foothills is burning,” she said softly. “It’s in danger of spreading north. Not to mention the demonic armies that are rising west of the Maelstrom. I am going to be called to do my duty as a Farstrider of Quel’thalas in a matter of days, and so will Ellathedar.”

Dinner ticked by uncomfortably slow. Zosine, who had holed himself away all day, finally came stumbling to dinner, but he didn’t deign to eat anything. When Ellathedar sat beside his husband, he could smell the alcohol burning on him. Drunk, he realized. But why? Has it been a bad day, or…

He didn’t dwell on it, however. Soon enough the children were gone, and Vistara made her announcement.

You could have heard a fly drop in the silence that followed. Hamearis stared steadily at her, as if waiting for her to continue. As if waiting for her to say that they weren’t going, that she was figuring a way out to dodge it.

It was Zosine who broke the silence. “I know,” he croaked, voice hoarse from misuse through the day.

“You know?” Ell asked. “How do you know?”

Zosine gave a snort. “Because,” he sighed, withdrawing two envelopes with the Silvermoon and Horde seals on the front from his sleeve, “I got the mail.”

Ell was about to something else, when Zosine gave a flick of his wrist, shaking a third, opened envelope from behind the others.

Zosine’s name was on it.

No.

Hamearis gave voice to Ell’s cold fear. “No,” he said firmly, rising from the table and leaning on his hand. “No, you hear me? It’s suicide. You can’t go. We… the children, your knee, you....”

He was stumbling over his words, his hand closing slowly into a fist. Vistara was saying something to him in a stern yet gentle tone, but all Ell could do was stare at Zosine beside him and quietly take his hand on the table between them.

Hamearis swung out and sent a plate flying into the wall, shattering into pieces. Zosine jumped so fiercely that he came halfway out of his chair. Ell stood and came to stand behind him, hands on his shoulders, calmly kneading the tension that had built there. It was just one of many techniques he’d figured out to bring his damaged mind down from its plane of fear and madness. He wondered how on Azeroth he was going to keep it at bay now.

Vistara was on her feet now, too, trying to talk sense into Hamearis, but he wasn’t having it. He was shaking his head, his red hair flying, his voice raising so that there was no chance the children couldn’t hear him, unless they were all the way out at the stable. Maybe even then.

“We’re going,” Vistara said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Hamearis turned his gaze to Ell, daring him to agree or begging him to refute. He met his older brother’s gaze firmly. “We’re going,” he confirmed.

“No you’re not,” Hamearis repeated. “You can’t. There’s a dozen reasons why, a laundry list of things you have to stay here for...”

“I want to go,” Ellathedar insisted, and that was when Hamearis snapped.

“You want to go?” he hissed, turning to face him fully. “You’ve never seen war, Ell. Is this what you want?” He tore open the lacing on his tunic, revealing the ugly runeblade scar that ran diagonally across his chest from left shoulder to right rib. He pulled at the empty sleeve on the left side of his tunic, reminding them all that no limb filled it.

“You’re mad if you think this is what you want. You can’t go. You can’t!”

The end of his sentence ended in a choked sound, and he ducked his head. The light overhead caught the glint of tears as they fell, and Ellathedar felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. Zosine shakily lifted a bottle to his lips, but Ell carefully plucked it away. He contented himself with stroking Zosine’s hair and focusing on not letting his heart break in half.

It was the breaking of her husband’s voice that forced Vistara to fall back into her chair. She buried her face in her shaking hands, a curtain of raven dark hair glued to her cheeks. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening-

Amber eyes glinted in shadowy corners-

No.

Vistara straightened, her own face wet with silent tears. Her ears were drooping. “We have to,” she said, her own voice crackling. “It’s the end of the world. If we don’t there won’t be a Quel’thalas to come back to.” She stared at Hamearis with unblinking eyes, her eyes hot and heavy.

Her head snapped around to Zosine. “It would be suicide to send you to the front, you’ll be put on the backlines to do scientific research and create wards. I’ll...I’ll talk to my aunt to pull some strings.” Nesselde Tala’vel hadn’t spoken to Aramara’s daughter in half a century, she’d only seen her in passing at Nel’s wedding.

She was far more reasonable than her younger sister.

“Or...or Thradia, she’s been going to all those fancy Magistry parties, she has to have some sort of sway.” It was all about Zosine, they had to protect Zosine, he was already so fragile-

“Ell and I...we’re too good to stay behind. I may have no love for the Forsaken and our new Warchief,” she spat out the word. “But I have no desire to see Lordaeron burn. Lordaeron is the only thing between us and the Legion, Hamearis. We don’t have a choice in this. We have to go to protect Aurelia, and Euphie and Sath’aen and Malrien. If we don’t it will be Taliesin and Arienne fighting and dying on that beach, and when they fail it will be your children who suffer. I will not allow another one of my children to die when I could have stopped it.”

By the time Vistara was done with her desperate spiel, Hamearis had guttered out and sunk to his knees. His head hung down, staring at the floor, at the shattered plate that now littered the tiles, not five months laid.

Though dozens of plans were being made up to spare Zosine, the Magister had long since clocked out. It was likely he’d been drinking ever since he’d gotten the letter, burning his pain and terror away with alcohol rather than bother the rest of his family.

My life, Ellathedar thought. They are my life, and I’d give my life for any of them. For all of them. I may yet be forced to do just that.

Hamearis wasn’t getting up, and Ell was worried he was kneeling on broken glass. Making sure to take Zosine’s wine bottle with him, he rounded the table to kneel before his brother, whose arm struck out to grab him tightly around the back of his neck. He headbutted Ell with such force that stars danced in his eyes, but he didn’t fight him. They knelt with their foreheads together for a long time, Ell’s knees aching, the white streaks in the front of their hair mingling together.

Finally, Hamearis lifted his gaze to his wife over Ell’s shoulder. “Take care of him, Vis,” he said, a low, hollow sound. “He’s my baby brother. He’s all I have left.”

You’ve never seen war before. And he hadn’t. Vistara had. Hamearis had. Zosine had, and it had threatened to ruin him. It could have ruined all of them, but it hadn’t. They’d survived. They knew that they could survive.

Which left Ellathedar as the sole untested soldier being thrown to the demons.

Vistara’s voice died in her throat. She nodded mutely, looking to Zosine, unsure of what was flying through his head.

She looked back to Hamearis and Ellathedar.

“I always do,” she murmured.

The days slipped away painfully fast. Ell and Vistara honed their aim in the practice range at their home, Zosine conflagrated every bundle of straw put before him, and Hamearis watched all the while, his broken heart plain in his eyes.

They didn’t have much time between the arrival of the letters and their departure. The Legion was only getting worse, and everybody was desperately needed to attempt to quell them. Early in the morning, even before the children had risen, they gathered their bags and their weapons and armor and prepared to leave. Vistara kissed her sleeping children and saddled her war strider. Zosine had his ill-tempered bird as well.

Ell went to fetch his own, but Hamearis stopped him by approaching leading a saddled charger. “You’ll take this one,” Hamearis stated, handing over the reins.

Ell recognized the horse as soon as he looked him over. “Firebolt?” he asked, stunned. “I can’t. He’s yours, Hamearis. He- “

“He carried me home from Icecrown and Draenor and he’ll carry you back from wherever they send you on this Light-forsaken campaign,” Hamearis said sternly. “I trust no other with your life.”

The horse bobbed his head, as if to agree. He was older now, gray beginning to fleck his muzzle, but he was still sprightly enough to take on the younger Goldmyst. He was small, he’d always been small, as he and Hamearis had served as outrunners, but he could still bear Ell’s weight. No longer able to wear the red and gold finery of the Blood Knights, he was saddled in simple gear with green and gold details. Farstrider colors.

Hamearis patted his neck. “Would that I had three of him, one for each of you. He can be a piece of home to keep with you, Ell.”

Unable to look at his brother any longer, Hamearis turned to Vistara. “Come home to me,” he said, a tired, broken plea. “Come home safe and sound and help me raise these babies and make some more. I can’t do it alone.”

Vistara pecked him on the cheek and brushed the white hair out of his eyes. “You didn’t do so well in keeping your last promise to me,” she reminded him, caressing his cheek.

“No, but I did my best.” He looked at her for a long time, memorizing the sad smile on her face, the rising ghosts in her eyes. Ell had to look away, had to focus on helping make sure the tack on Zosine’s mount was properly secured.

Hamearis backed away to let them mount, and Ell knew he was fighting to keep from weeping again. His own throat burned, and he nodded to his brother. “We’ll be back before you can miss us. Try not to fall in anymore wells.”

Hamearis ducked his head.

The three of them headed off toward the main road, and Ell took a last glance over his shoulder of their home. He prayed it wouldn’t be the last he’d see of it.

“And as you walk through death's dark veil, The cannon's thunder can't prevail, And those who hunt thee down will fail, And you will be my ain true love, And you will be my ain true love.”