Almost everyone had the opportunity to have their own space. A research lab, an office - Lisaerys needed no additional space for her medical studies and the med bays didn't have any free space anyway. So she had made a forge out of hers. A small one - if she ever really committed to it she would need a larger space. But her projects were all small scale - she wasn't exactly trying to mass produce her armor.
It was time for a change. She had been walking around in this place for the better part of a year. In basic armors. Well made enough but it wasn't hers the way it could be. The way it would need to be. She needed to get her weapon back, and soon. As that apparently meant sneaking into a dragon's lair and possibly facing an infinite down with only a small handful of people… She needed more than basic.
It wasn't just about the metal itself. That had been a consideration enough - Leystone was incredibly versatile and what she ultimately went with but its peculiarities made it difficult to work with. She kept a large amount of foxflower nearby while testing what metals she could mix with it besides the corrupt felslate.
But there was a step she wanted help with. She didn't need the help… but someone else could do it better.
"You want me to what?" Lyren blinked at her, standing right next to the glowing forge without a hint of discomfort. She was sweating, covered to protect herself from sparks. Lyren was in robes still heavier than he had worn a few months ago and didn't appear to notice the heat at all.
Her brother could be incredibly obvious when he wasn't paying attention. When everything had become so normalized he didn't even notice. Of course, considering she had called him in specifically because of that particular skill he was treating so casually she couldn't very well complain.
"I need the armor enchanted," she repeated, "while it's still in the process of being shaped. While it's still its base metal. And then again later."
He cocked his head, the quizzical peering look birdlike in its curiosity. "The same enchantments?"
"What - oh, no," Lisaerys waved a hand. "Different ones. One needs to be to the metal to… when you enchant something in its base form, especially when its a metal so magical in and of itself, and then you reshape that, if you do it right - "
"You change the nature of what you're making," Lyren finished the thought, frowning. "I suppose I do the same thing a bit with… but the process is much different. And the metal is already basically enchanted just by being mostly leystone."
"Exactly. What the base metal once was has been changed by the arcane energy in Broken Isles," she said triumphantly. "So. I want you to change it again. And the easiest way to change a metal is when its state is already changing. I heat it up, you infuse it, carve the runes while it's hot. We let it cool. We keep doing it until the process takes… and then we reshape it into armor."
"What, exactly, are you hoping to get out of this?" Lyren asked, his voice flat but his eyes glowing bright, flickering hotter than the glow of her forge.
She smiled at him, full of teeth. "You know, I love Star. She's a darling. And our new brother - he might not be so bad despite what you think." She paused and reached for his wrist. The left one, the one wrapped up. He stiffened beneath her fingers, frozen as she pressed down where she knew there were scars.
"But the Void is full of monsters," she said, keeping her gaze level. "Monsters that have hurt people I care about. I can feel it, the mark its left on you. And somewhere out there is another. It has something of mine. And when its gone there will be others trying to hurt people that can't protect themselves. But I can."
She dropped his wrist, leaned forward and up to kiss his forehead as he started breathing again, the only apology she could offer. Turning, she took down the protective metal covering part of the wall - and the drawings there. She was never quite the artist her brother was but she had learned to be accurate, for the purpose of her armor making. For a moment, she watching him absorbing the drawings, the notes she had left - the schematics to things half remembered.
She knew when he realized and grinned as he leaned forward, double checking everything before leveling her with a look that she knew meant he was all in. "I'm a paladin," she said, shrugging. "I don't need to wear the Silver Hand's tabard but it's high time I start acting like one again. You going to help?"
"Yes," he said, smile just as sharp as hers had been earlier before it softened, settled in to something else, "But we're warding the door to keep any of the damage in. We're definitely going to have some accidents with this first and I can handle keeping the heat off of us - but the Light is a different story."
"Whatever you want," she said cheerfully. She assumed at this point the more fel-tainted of the population knew to stay away but if he wanted to put in the effort she wasn't going to say no.
"And we should probably have a discussion about what you've been teaching Arenlia," he said, a little more grim as he swept a hand over the door, feeling it out.
"Eh," she said, unconcerned. "Let's leave it until after the first explosion."
He huffed a breath back at her and then shrugged one shoulder. "Works for me."
Her fingers clenched tight over the coin Ellyri had given her. Blue eyes stared sightlessly out toward the ocean. Behind her, the hangar for the airships bustled with normal activity.
Activity she wasn't allowed to be near. Ships she wasn't allowed to hitch a ride with. And when she went searching for, asking for, mages willing to open a portal somehow they were all busy. It could be a coincidence. Perhaps it wasn't even new for her and was a constraint still in place from when she had been dropped here. She hadn't checked, hadn't had a reason to before…
Before.
The coin had gone warm from her body heat. What was it Ellyri had said about it? Something about helping her acclimate. Help her make it home.
If this was home, if she was a part of this universe…
Then was it so wrong to consider him her brother?
Different, yet the same. Or so she could only assume. It would help if she could meet him. Ask what had happened to her original version here. Ask… Ask about his husbands.
(Married? Him? That had never been the plan but… plans changed when half of you was dead. Hers had.)
On top of it all her only source of information was a demon. A demon Ellyri had said she absolutely should be careful of - if not why. And yet in contrast - the succubi here seemed happy. Cared for. Demons yes, but warlocks that weren't total assholes had certainly persuaded succubi to work with them instead of the Legion without having to force it. And she had seen little evidence of Legion bias.
And yet…
He was a self admitted dreadlord. Betrayers, manipulaters. Powerful, charismatic leaders.
And yet.
Lothraxion.
So. perhaps there could be something in between two extremes.
And perhaps he was fooling her. Perhaps she was letting herself believe. That her brother was alive?
Maybe. But that seemed a stretch. How would he even know about Lyren?
(Old Gods. He had asked about Old Gods. They would know.)
If she went off the assumption he had at least been telling the truth that much, then in this universe, Lyren was alive.
And she was being kept from him.
The question was… why?
( @darnath for mentions of two of yours, @ashenvald for same )
Eerie green cracks riddled the stone beneath her feet as she danced back from another blow. Clean blue lightning flashed behind her enemies to show the plateau covered in the endless legion striding forward on patient hooves. Scattered around them were the crumpled forms of her comrades, wonderful artifacts glowing with power abandoned where they had fallen. Hooves stepped on and over them alike and only a few dim shapes moved against them still in the darkness.
The Maw of the Damned still drank in the fel blood of its enemies, her wielder moving against them again and again, seemingly tireless. Aluneth's power sang out across the darkness - but Felo'melorn lay shattered in the midst of an unending blaze. The Tirisgarde they had brought with them numbered but few now.
As for the Silver Hand or the Netherlight Temple... hers was the only Light left in the dark. Prophet Velen was the only one of priests or paladin she had distant hope for if he could withstand the endless torture that was to be his punishment. No, she was the only - the last for where at least one member of the Uncrowned had slipped away to try and regroup, where the Council of the Black Harvest had managed to retreat with at least one of their artifacts intact - she was all that was left of the Silver Hand.
And she would fall here, where their Ashbringer had fallen. She would fall with Master Demorith's sword strapped across her back and the legendary pole arm in her hands blazing brighter with each stroke. She would take as many with her and have hope - she just have hope that something would survive. If not her planet - then another.
She swung, again and again and again. They fell around her even as she stepped back, as her heels struck the edge of stone and empty sky hung behind her. The long blade glowed with unending promise, healing her wounds between each stroke. Aluneth's magic sang in answer across the plateau - until it didn't. A winged body dropped from the darkness and she cried out as the arcane glow was snuff out.
From where the mages had been a voice snarled, "ENOUGH. WE ARE DONE HERE."
She knew that voice. Her stomach churned as it came closer, the thing that moved in the fel laden body that had once belonged to a great icon of the Kaldorei. Often villain but never one that would have done this.
Sargeras stared out of the eyes of his Avatar, Illidan Stormrage. With one sweep of his hand he had crushed the remains of the Tirisgarde. Yet it was not them he bothered to spare any more attention to.
It was her.
Hooves chimed against fel riddled stone. The demons surrounding her parted and she found herself gazing into the most powerful evil the universe could ever know as it closed the distance in long, unhurried steps. She trembled, for just a brief moment knowing that there was no hope. There would be no survivors, no future for her people.
Her weapon wavered, the glow dimming.
The whistle of steel cut the silence and from the darkness an axe, bloodied and marred with gore, left a glancing blow over Sargeras' wing. A cut, nothing more.
But it was enough for the Fallen Titan's gaze to fall away from her, to drop to where the Maw of the Damned hungered for his blood fallen upon the stone.
"Remember yourself, paladin!" The Maw's wielder snapped - and she did.
The blaze from her polearm was a blinding halo that filled the plateau. It was as unending and unrelenting as her own will. She swung one last time.
The blade was caught in one clawed hand. Her entire forward momentum was checked with a seemingly effortless shift of his weight. Sargeras didn't look at her, but instead inspected the weapon he had caught, lifting it higher to his eye level.
She went with it in stubborn refusal to let it be wielded by this creature, this madness from the great void in the form of one altered night elf. His blazing eyes did seem to shift to her then. "INTERESTING."
His other claw was a blaze of movement, fel glowing bright sickly green as five points of pain flared through her. He let go of her weapon, holding her up on the claws through her stomach and abdomen as he studied her. "BUT USELESS."
To scream would have required breath, to swing the sword strength left in her limbs. It was all she could do to hold it up, to send just a little more of her will into the weapon - to keep his attention on her as he flicked her out off of the cliff like she was no more than a pest to be disposed of.
It gave her some satisfaction to hear him snarl in anger as the Ebon Knight took up his weapon straight into Sargeras' stolen ribs. If they could not defeat him then she would take the fact they had at least hurt him to her watery grave.
The waves rose up to meet her and she did not welcome them - but neither was she aware enough to realize the glow around her was no longer her weapon. It was darker, deeper, and had a flash of a sideways hourglass before darkness took her.
----------
Lis sat up with a gasp, scrambling to throw the blankets off of her, fingers clawing at her skin.
She found the healed scars with a breath of relief. A dream. A memory - but behind her.
If only what had saved her had been any better than the evil that killed her.
The glimmering Light glowing between her fingers turned the medical bay white-gold as power curled into damaged flesh, seeking out where the hurt was worse. Lyren sat quiet and still as Lis worked but the energy beneath his skin was all the more obvious when her own was coursing through his system - especially with the way it reached out toward figures not there. From her own observation he probably didn't even realize the way he shifted his gaze at times, following something she couldn't see.
She was aware of what it looked like when someone was talking in their mind. She had observed it, been there. It wasn't quite the same. It was something else - something he wouldn't talk about. She took a breath as the Light faded. "Are you ever going to tell me?"
He stiffened, peering up at her through narrowed eyes. "About the relic hunt? I just did."
She leveled him with her best unimpressed look. It didn't phase him the way it had when they were kids (a universe away, a step to the left… for her) except to have him arch a brow in response. "You know that's not what I meant. The fact that three out of four members of your relic hunting team were badly hurt says enough of its own. But how about why you wanted so badly to go to a Titan facility? Or we could talk about Arenlia, and how you haven't even let me give her a physical. Or maybe why you never portal directly in anymore? Don't give me bullshit about not wanting to upset the delicate recovery of the island. You were starting to. You stopped."
"Then you already know," Lyren shrugged like an insolent brat she still remembered him as. "You said it right there. It's not bullshit."
He didn't even have the decency to avoid her eyes when he lied to her. She balled up her hands, taking another deep breath. "Lyren - "
"I need to go. I have work to do," he said, slipping by her.
"What are you so afraid of?" she asked - because he was. She knew it, he knew it, but he wouldn't just tell her and she no longer had the ability to just see it. It was natural, to reach for something that wasn't there, to go beyond, brush mental fingers against a mind frustratingly well warded against her. "Why won't you let me help?"
"That really won't help right now," Lyren laughed, bitter and sharp. "Or ever. You need to stop trying."
She scoffed. "I will if you actually tell me you don't miss it. Don't miss our belonging. I'm your sister. And you won't let me in, won't let me help. I can't help if you won't let me know. And if you can't tell me out loud - "
" - then maybe I have a good reason to not get you involved," Lyren snapped. Sparks flickered where he dug his fingers into the fabric of his robes. She tracked them until they hit the floor and smoldered there, far longer lived than they should have been. He didn't seem to notice. "It's nothing you can do anything about. If you really want to help - then stop poking it. Stay on the island and away from Quel'thalas for a time. That's - that's how you can help."
She raised her eyes to meet his, and could practically feel him begging with her, could almost hear the thoughts that would have once been there open and trusted.
Practically. Almost.
"I can't just stay here. You're not safe. I don't mean your relic hunts. Something is going on. And I can't just let it go. It's my job to protect you. And I failed in that once." She shifted forward a step, eyes pleading with him. "You died."
He flinched - and the sparks around his fingers became flames. She pretended not to notice. But it was impossible not to see the way the orange-red of his eyes blazed bright as he bit out, "That wasn't me. Not this me. And the you that died here wasn't you. My sister died that day and we're going through these motions that are pale imitations of what we once had. Your brother - "
"Is you," she said, cutting him off with ease. "However we came to be. We followed the same paths until that day." She smiled at his glare, stretching it into a grin. "And your tactics haven't changed that much since you were young, you know."
The noise he made couldn't quite be called a growl - there was an inhuman hiss behind it and she went still. She knew that noise. Where had she heard it?
She nearly missed him stomping off. "You're so infuriating! Just - damn it Lis! Stay on the island."
Of course, he was out of hearing range, cheating as he short range teleported out of the hall (so much for that bullshit excuse). She smiled ruefully after him as knelt, thoughtfully pressing her fingers to the floor of the medical bay where he had stood.
The metal was warm. Out of her pocket she drew out a feather. Very much like Sunsoul's pinions. Except significantly smaller. And now matched by another she had found more recently, even smaller and dull colored, fluffy like down. Both were too warm for her to have been holding them for weeks, like the first, or days like the second.
He wasn't very subtle, her twin. She wasn't even sure he really wanted to hide it so much as… couldn't speak it. She had more than enough clues to put together at least some of a picture. But Arenlia - darling little Areni. Her niece's appearance had coincided with her brother's newest emotional state which seemed to be stuck on two degrees from panic at all times.
And whatever was happening, it seemed anyone who did know about it was unable to fix it.
She would figure it out. Because she didn't have the luxury of failing again.
She was quiet a long moment, frowning a little. “Life’s so… weird right now. I can’t wish I was back home - I’d be dead. I guess - no, I know I wish that I could find my path again. Find where I can be of use in this world. I have a lot of things I can do to be useful, bot not the knowledge of where I can be of use - or where I want to be of use, anyway. It’s a new feeling. I don’t like the uncertainty, and I want it gone.”
Snowstorms didn't really happen in Quel'thalas… unless of course a weather mage made a huge mistake. Lyren was first aware of this when he woke up sputtering, his face cold and wet and cold. There was immediate giggling nearby and he was glaring before he had even focused on her. There was no doubt in his mind who it was and indeed, as he cleared snow from his face, a small lean priestess in training was by his door, her blue-green eyes twinkling merrily.
"What ice mage did you flirt with for that?" he grumbled, flicking his fingers at the mess until it began to steam.
"Oh, I didn't need an ice mage. Get up Ly. Up, up, c'mon - " she was dragging him out of bed on wobbly feet, not caring he was wearing nothing more than a thin pair of comfortable pants. "You have to get out here before they clear it up."
"Good, you hate that stuck up little show off. Mostly because you're too similar, I think."
"Wait, I am not - "
"Here!" she said brightly, and shoved him out the door.
Right into a snowbank. He wouldn't have been surprised - except there was a snowbank! He shot up, climbing out of it with all the grace of a newborn deer and didn't even care. The grounds were white, covered in over a foot of snow that had whirled up seemingly overnight. "Light, someone just got fired."
"I know right? Its like this here right to the city," his sister chirped, cheerful. There were other students outside - including some that had ended up like Lyren more purposefully and were now popping out of the snow like overly large peacebloom blossoms.
Thoughtfully he scooped one hand into the snow, no longer caring about his lack of shirt - the air was warm, the snow wouldn't last long… and his sister had yet to have even a single flake of snow hit her.
She cried out in outrage as it went straight down the back of her robes and he snickered as he bolted, dodging behind someone making a snow fort when her next salvo came toward him.
The fire mage opened his eyes just as a snowball would have hit him and sighed, stretching. It was not a bad memory to dream of, and the constant ache of grief for his sister had turned into something warm and content. He considered the fireplace with half opened eyes, turning the memory over in his mind. His relation to ice magic was unfortunately cut off… but fortunately he had other options now.
He rolled over, climbed across Lyn and shook Ashenvald's shoulder gently. "Hey Ash? I need a favor…"
