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It was soft--soft and warm and stuffed with a mix of wool and hawkstrider down. When no one and nothing else could soothe the easily disturbed little elfling, merely handing him his favorite stuffed toy could lull him from a squealing, sobbing fit to peaceful slumber in under a minute.
It was nearly as big as he was, if only because his was an early birth and he had the tiny size and muscle weakness to show for it, and he curled around it eagerly in sleep and in waking. It didn't matter to him when one of his people--as he thought of the handful of elves who most frequently appeared around him--was absent; when no one else would hold him, he could hold his soft thing and feel just as content and just as safe.
~~~
It was purple, magenta, and pinkish-red in color, with shiny black beads for eyes and black fabric for its beak and talons. It reminded him of the austere magi who walked the grounds of the Magisterium, who were also very pretty but who, like his hawkstrider, represented very real power and--when provoked--very real danger.
It was often the center of his disagreements with other children his age, most of whom believed he clung to childish things too desperately and too openly. The times his teachers and the older apprentices at the Magisterium were made to break up shrieking, squalling, bloody fights over the stuffed hawkstrider toy were innumerable--and so were the many resultant meetings with his parents about the young boy's behavior between lessons.
During such meetings, it was his hawkstrider that kept him calm when his teachers made scathing, thinly-veiled comments about his intelligence and competence, and it was his hawkstrider that gave him comfort when his mother once again furiously insisted that her boy was not to be underestimated, that he had the potential and needed only the guidance to become a great mage in his own right.
It didn't matter what the adults said about him, or how poorly he got along with the other apprentices. His hawkstrider would be a stalwart companion just the same, and as long as he had it with him there was nothing and no one who could upset him for very long.
~~~
It had gone a little limp over the years, and its head and legs flopped about almost as though it was flailing in panic as it dangled helplessly from his teacher's hand. Its beady black eyes stared at him in silent panic as the other apprentices laughed at the boy who only refrained from jumping or reaching for his hawkstrider because the teacher was giving him a look that could peel the carved stone walls surrounding the Magisterium's outermost grounds.
"Comfort objects," the teacher proclaimed in a voice that carried over the cackles and jeers of the apprentices, "are useless things, proof of a fundamental weakness at the core of those who cling to them."
He could feel his eyes grow round in his face, could feel his heart hammering against the inside of his ribs. Little Bird wasn't a comfort object! He was a friend, a companion to stave off the horrors of the night and the pain of being unwanted here when he knew he belonged here!
"I do not teach weaklings, little master," the teacher was saying, and his voice dripped with such sarcasm that the other apprentices began to howl with laughter. "As this toy appears to be the cause of your inability to improve under my tutelage, I find myself forced to take necessary action and rectify the situation."
Necessary action? Surely he didn't mean...?
He barely saw more than the glow of a destroying spell in the mage's free hand before a brilliant blue-and-purple blast of energy hit the older elf squarely in the stomach, blowing him back and over the top of his desk and sending the hawkstrider toy flying through the air until the boy caught it safely and fled the classroom. The other apprentices stared after him in stunned silence, and two or three stumbled forward to help the magister up as he screamed obscenities after the fleeing upstart.
~~~
It smelled like his mother had, like lavender and honey and bloodthistle blossoms. Over the years the scent had become like a stain on the soft fabric, not marring but enhancing the doll that was now no larger than his face. He no longer walked about in public with it, but it remained safely at his bedside, there waiting for him to hold it close to his breast each night.
He was grown now, though he had yet to reach his legal majority, and the hawkstrider doll was hardly bigger than his hand anymore. But this was a good thing, because occasionally he needed to hide it when messengers or even colleagues came knocking while he was resting and its small size made the number of places he could hide it almost innumerable. Later, when he began bringing women (and men) into his rooms, he would tuck the toy into a safe place and claim it was a gift from an imaginary niece on the odd occasion one of his partners discovered it anyway.
At such times, he would say he kept it to indulge the little one (who did not and would never exist, because he had no siblings). This occasionally earned him a little teasing, and ran off one or two of his stiffer companions, but the rest were generally satisfied with the explanation, and even tended to find him all the more charming for going out of his way to please a younger relative at the potential risk of looking silly to his fellows.
In truth, he kept the doll near and slept with it when he could because even in a city like Dalaran it was easy to grow homesick, and because the hawkstrider toy was one of the few possessions he had packed, along with his clothes and a few large, heavy books, before leaving Quel'thalas. His stay was only meant to be for a few years--really, it was more of a chance to study different types of magic abroad, and perhaps carve a niche for himself among the magi of Dalaran--but it helped all the same that he had something of his home and family to fall back on when even living in such a cosmopolitan setting and being surrounded by so many eager bedmates failed to distract him from his loneliness.
~~~
It was soot-stained, its cloth plumage faded here and scorched there, and the seam on its right wingtip was beginning to come unraveled. When he uncovered it, the doll was buried under ash and a half-charred, still-smoldering plank of wood. How the doll wasn't also on fire was a mystery, but perhaps having been buried under so much inflammable material and found before the wood could set it ablaze contributed to that small bit of luck.
He held it close to his heart with his off hand as he continued to stumble through the ruins that had once been his family's estate. Through the smell of soot and magic, the hawkstrider toy still faintly smelled of lavender and bloodthistle, and it helped to keep him calm as he sifted through fallen furniture and rubble for any sign of his family or their people.
Only one other came with him to search--a younger elf he had taken as an apprentice a few months before--and she said nothing until it became painfully clear they would find no survivors here, nor were they likely to find many bodies. Only when he began to search the lower level for the third time (the upper levels were too unstable, and were later scoured from the backs of dragonhawks, to no avail) did she finally lay a hand on his shoulder and urge him to leave the ruins to rest.
"There is nothing here," she told him softly. "Nothing but that one doll. We should leave this place."
And though every part of him shrieked that there must be some dark corner or pile he had missed the first two times he'd looked, he was eventually forced to acquiesce and follow his apprentice back to the relative safety of the broken capital, where there were no trolls who might surprise them in the growing darkness, and where the undead were at least kept at bay by the survivors.
He held the hawkstrider doll close to his heart as they traveled away from his ruined home; for once, no one who saw the thing had the will to mock him for carrying it with him in public--not when many of them so desperately clutched mementos of their own.
~~~
It sat openly on his desk in the years that followed, still mottled with magic scorches and soot stains, though the right wingtip was mended early after its rediscovery. The beads that acted as its eyes had begun to grow dull, and the left toe of the left foot now hung limply--sone of its stuffing was gone, and the stitchwork he'd needed to do in order to keep it attached has effectively sealed the toe off from the stuffing in the rest of its foot.
It still smelled faintly of lavender and woodsmoke, but now those scents were overpowered by the smell of burnt bloodthistle and the imported cherry perfume he now preferred to wear. He kept it as a reminder of what he'd lost, a reminder that nothing was safe--no stronghold impregnable, no loved one truly immortal--and he no longer cared if someone saw it and commented snidely about his desire to cling to the past.
It was sometimes the only thing that could keep him grounded, particularly when he clashed with the Grand Magister--which was so frequent he sometimes wondered how he was still allowed in Quel'thalas at all. Surely by now he was such a nuisance that no one wanted him to come back home again... but he had his second home in Dalaran, and all the reminder he needed of his first home in his battered hawkstrider toy.
~~~
It's been a few days since the Purge of Dalaran, and though he's still rather pale and has yet to eat a full meal, Halduron can tell Aethas has begun to shake off some of the horror and is coming back around again. The archmage swears it's been mostly Halduron's doing that's pulled him out of his gloom, and as long as the come-around continues, Halduron is content to let the redhead believe whatever he wants.
Although this discovery, made as he's helping Aethas unpack the last of his scant belongings and settle into his now permanent rooms at the Spire, makes the Ranger General wonder if perhaps there's something else helping him along, as well.
Its colors are faded now--the magic-bleached areas are a sort of dirty off-white, the soot stains are dark gray where they were once likely a dull black, and what colored patches remain are leeched, so that the red and pink are pale and greyish, and the purple seems more a faded lavender. Even its beady eyes are cracked and sun-bleached to a milky gray, so that only the feet and beak retain a deep gray hue that's probably very close to the original color. The stitchwork around its right wingtip and the toe of its left foot looks to be in need of redoing, and the doll smells of bloodthistle smoke, cherry perfume, and very faintly of lavender.
"What's this?" Halduron asks, holding the hawkstrider doll up as Aethas turns to look at him. The weary apprehension that flickers across the other man's face is enough to warn Halduron not to tease Aethas for whatever answer he's about to give him.
"It's a hawkstrider doll," the archmage sighs, turning back to the books he's setting away. "An old one, obviously."
"Was it a gift from a sweetheart?" Halduron asks, carefully turning it over in his hands. By some morbid twist of irony, the 'tailfeathers' are the least damaged part of the doll.
"Y--" Aethas stops, then sighs again and says, "No. It was a gift from my mother." His voice grows bitter as he adds, "It's nothing but a reminder of my own failings. I don't even know why I thought to bring it with me. It would have been better if I had left it to be destroyed."
"Mmm."
Halduron narrows his eyes thoughtfully, then turns and heads out of the study and out until the hallway, seemingly unaware of his route as he continues to study the time-worn toy in his callused hands. Aethas watches him go out of the corner of his eye; he's certain the ranger's off to throw the thing away, and good riddance to it.
It isn't until later that night, when Aethas discovers the doll sitting on his bed--wingtip newly stitched, toe on the left foot restuffed and sewn back in its proper place, cracked eyes seamlessly replaced with gleaming new black beads--that he realizes how grateful he is still to have his most constant companion to turn to when the shadows close around him.