#ithaen

[dawndwelling]

mom and dad :)

[ilikeyoshi]

“ Q: Will Void Elves be stuck in Void Elf form? A: It isn't like metamorphosis but they definitely have a void form and a more normal form. It is similar to worgen. They will go into the void in combat.”

HIGH ELVES???

ARE U FUCKS GONNA MAKE ME REROLL ITHAEN??????

[dawndwelling]

“I can save us,” she says. “This is the solution!”

“Look at yourself, Al'ara,” he snaps back. “Your eyes—”

“And you’re any better? You’re sickly; you look like undeath itself.”

For a moment, dead dots flicker on the ceiling. Raein blinks them away.

“Look at your son, Ithaen! Let me—”

“You’re not taking him anywhere near those tainted crystals!”

“He’s suffering!”

[ilikeyoshi]

hey what’s up i wanted to write Sad Embereye-Dawndwelling Happenings so naturally i picked the day between the worst event of their lives and the second-worst event of their lives

so here’s like a thousand words about one sad as fuck al’ara & ithaen

It's two weeks before Ithaen hears from her.

Two long, grueling weeks in the Farstrider Retreat, close enough to the horrifying swath of destruction the Scourge freshly left through the middle of Quel'Thalas, through Silvermoon proper. Ithaen has witnessed a lot of things in that time: mages and healers are falling ill to some kind of dire fatigue, one that seems to target the most magically gifted the worst. The rangers, for example, barely seem bothered—a little tired, a little irritable, but they manage. Magisters, however, are positively bedridden, and unable to conjure so much as a spell.

And though the priests' magic burns on faith more than mana, Ithaen has watched the former burn away in many of his colleagues too. Disillusioned healers, oathbroken paladins—he has seldom spoken to Soralis in all this time, but the man hasn't mustered a flicker of holy Light since the day Silvermoon fell.

No, but rather, since the Sunwell fell.

The Farstriders know a lot of non-magical means of medicine, but Ithaen isn't surprised when they recruit him to help manage Raein's condition. The boy can barely breathe on his own, for hells' sakes, and despite Ithaen's persistence, medics warn him every day that the preservation of a ravaged leg may well not be a choice he gets to make. Ithaen scorns this, haunted by a child's hysterical pleas; he spends every waking moment fighting a mess of trauma and Scourge magic.

It's all he can do. It could still be the very last thing Raein ever asks of him, and it's harrowing. It's lonely. He doesn't even know if she's alive.

Not until the end of those two weeks, when his son is precariously stable, and Ithaen's one of the few healers left with the faith in his magic to circumvent a bone-dry mana pool, scurrying from patient to patient in a desperate attempt to keep what few elves are still at the Retreat alive. Many have died just maintaining the Farstrider's outpost as a refuge, and all at once, Silvermoon is realizing just how direly they've relied on magic all this time. They're being slaughtered when they're not just wasting away.

She arrives early one morning, when the sky dimly glows but the sun hasn't broken the horizon. Ithaen knows within minutes, as word of a regiment of Magisters spreads through the Retreat faster than fire, and he rushes to the yard, eyes darting, never in his life so afraid she wouldn't be among her colleagues—

"Ithaen."

He freezes, right as he finds her face, and oh, she looks deathly. "Al'ara—"

He runs into her, a crash of his bloodied robes and her filthy steel; he hears a blade drop to the grass as her arms wind around him, as tight as they can in her weakness. It's a frailty he's become so uncomfortably familiar with in these two weeks, and yet he hadn't realized of course it would plague her too. She's never felt so fragile before, like her armor is only glass, like she'll crumble in his arms.

She must realize he's in better shape, for once in their lives, because she resigns to let him support the both of them. Her knees buckle but don't outright give way, and her grip becomes as much a desperate attempt to stay righted as it is her holding fast to something familiar. "Ithaen," she rasps, too tired to cry, as if she ever would. "You're—"

"You're alive," he laughs, and only laughs again when she buries her face in his neck. "You're safe."

"Raein," she pleads. "Is Raein with you? Is he—"

It breaks his heart. He swears it could kill him when nothing else has managed it just yet. "Come with me," he says, draws away, holds her steady as he ushers her into the Retreat.

It's the longest walk of their lives. He warns her Raein's been hurt, that his leg's at risk of amputation, that he hasn't woken up since Silvermoon fell. He sees her hearing this, but something isn't clicking and he knows it, knows her, knows how she locks out what she needs to in order to carry on.

She tells him she saw her little brother fall. She tells him her home in Quel'Danas is in ruins, her family slaughtered or drowned, more than he's heard her speak of Embereyes in years.

"I'm so sorry."

"You're alive," she pitifully says, like it's a comfort; like it's enough. "Raein is..."

And they reach his room. Ithaen opens the door, standing aside, because he was given this moment two weeks ago and he'll give it to Al'ara now, as excruciating as it is to watch her finally shatter.

"Oh—"

Her greaves clatter loudly against the floor, as her knees hit it, as her hands hover and tremble around Raein's still face, terrified to touch him and terrified not to. The tears are immediate, in a way they've never been in their lives; she speaks in whimpers and murmurs, surely sentences that've been mangled in her throat. When she does finally brush the hair out of his face, he doesn't react. She feels a life force in him, faintly, like an ember in the impenetrable dark, and she curses Sunstrider for obliterating their Well before she could rekindle it.

"Sunshine," she chokes out. "Oh, Raein, I never should've left you—"

Two hands gently rest on her shoulders, and she shuts her eyes and buries her face in the bedding beside her son. She cries, sobs, and all Ithaen can do is rub into her shoulders in deep and soothing strokes, kiss the top of her head, mutter reassurances to her. But he knows he's not reaching her anymore, knows they don't reach each other anymore, knows she will feel as harrowingly lonely as he has throughout this.

Soon, they'll burn their lives apart. Soon, she will return with a devil's bargain, and he'll rebuke it, and they'll both do everything to save their son and she will win.

But, for a moment longer, they're almost a family again.

[dawndwelling]

me yesterday: ithaen has PROBABLY chilled out about the blood elves a little ever since they’re not literally following kael’thas anymore right

me today, rereading this fic: hoo god okay yeah no he hasnt got it ok

[dawndwelling]

ithaen, who spends every waking moment cooped up in either his church or homeless centers feeding people: raein nobody knows about this netflix thing trust me you have to tell them

raein, about to massage his eyeballs right out of his head: your phone has wifi please use it sometimes

[dawndwelling]

"I can't trust him." Raein considers his own words for a moment, and then amends them: "I can't need him."

And there are a million things Soralis could say. (All of them pertaining to the day Silvermoon City fell to the Scourge; the day Raein should've died and no one can believe he didn't. The day Ithaen Dawndwelling changed right before the knight-lord's eyes, into a man Raein has never known, was never given the chance to know, and then didn't take that chance when he finally had it.

But then, the truth is, neither did Soralis.)

[dawndwelling]

what do u get when u get the man who understands the nuances of people but will not under any circumstances sacrifice his passions and the woman who lives by her way and only her way but also will sacrifice for the greater good

the embereye-dawndwelling family