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Yellow flowers adorn the ground near your feet. Yours are set in blue armored boots, fine golden swirls adorning the metal. You playfully nudge the purple satin slippers of the young mage next to you. She is casually leaning back on her arms, catching her breath from the spellwork she just performed. Icy formations had formed in the sky in front of you, not melting despite the sweltering heat of Quel’thalas. She had unsummoned them quickly, and her chest is heaving slightly from the effort.
‘That was quite the performance, Lady Proudmoore,’ you murmur.
‘Thank you, Lady Windrunner.’ Shyly smiling, she plucks one of the yellow flowers from the ground, smelling, then frowning.
You tell her that they don’t smell, but make for nice bouquets. You even suggest plucking a few for in the bedroom window. Then you take her hand, flower still held in it. Pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand, you savor the intermingling smells of Jaina, sea wind, salt and fresh ink, and perhaps a touch of the elven perfume that you gave her. ‘Dalah'surfal, it was nothing short of admirable.’
She giggles, blushing from her cheeks to her neck, then suddenly shivers. ‘Tides, you are cold!’
Cold? you think, as you feel the chill creeping into your body. Like a splash of icy water to the face, it trickles down over your front. Your breath is cut from your lungs, all sensation of warmth fading from your upper body as you-
~~~~~
‘Sylvanas! What are- what? I… aah!’ Jaina’s panicked scream, voice slurred as she rises from the bed, shakes Sylvanas awake.
Awake?
The penetrating cold is still in Sylvanas’ body. Or lack thereof. She is still tethered to Jaina, but only half. Her lower half is slowly turning into tendrils of smoke, upper half rising from Jaina’s back in full banshee form. She is looking for purchase, scrambling for it. And she finds it in her frigid excuse for a vessel, lying next to Jaina on the bed in leather breeches and a black undershirt.
Jaina retches, the sick feeling that she felt when Sylvanas possessed her the day prior returning in full force. Her skin is alight with surges of prickling pain as the last smoky trails of the banshee return to her preserved body. A pounding headache is starting to take shape behind her eyes. She falls back onto the mattress, the impact sending another shock of sickness and thudding pain in her skull through her body. Next to her, Sylvanas sits upright in turn.
‘I believe I told you… the process of leaving the vessel is far more unpleasant than entering it. Though I did not expect to leave your body whilst you were asleep. It must have been because my consciousness was not quite clear anymore.’
Jaina merely groans, cooling her left hand to a suitably frigid temperature to lay against her pounding head. ‘We shared a dream,’ she says, throat raw. ‘We were in a field with yellow flowers… weren’t we younger? I remember wearing those stupid purple slippers and gods the wide-legged pants I used to have.’
‘Such things can happen,’ Sylvanas muses while feeling her soul anchor into her body once more. ‘We were in Quel’thalas, if you did not recognize it.’
‘Indeed I didn’t… you looked so regal in that blue-golden armor set. Nice bird heads on the pauldrons and all.’
‘Hawkstriders.’
‘Bird heads,’ Jaina says tiredly. Her eyes close, brow creasing further. Then she spurts out a laugh. ‘Was it worth it? The food I made for us?’
The elf next to her inclines her head, just enough for it to be affirmative. ‘It was worth it, indeed.’ She slips out of the bed, no longer able to sleep in her current form. When she pads over the floor barefoot, on her way to her study to ponder until morning, Jaina half-whispers something:
‘What does dalah’surfal mean? I believe you said in the dream.’
Sylvanas freezes, face twitching into a sneer. Her mind had betrayed her once again, stuck in the fields of home, in a useless, traitorous vision that would never come to be. But despite herself, and perhaps because the feeling of contentment after a hearty meal still lingers in her body like a phantom pain, she answers through gritted teeth. ‘It means my beloved, or sweetheart. ’
The happy hum coming from Jaina’s throat sends another pulse of disheartening longing through her. She marches out of the room, nearly slamming the door shut, but stopping before she can let her anger get the better of her. Her elvish eyes do not need to get used to the low light in the tower’s living room. The plates from last evening’s meal lay forgotten on the smaller table by the window. Sylvanas doesn’t give them more than a lingering glance. She wants to sigh, but doesn’t have Jaina’s breath to do so. A strange tight feeling in her chest is all she achieves, when her lungs fail to draw in air.
The city of Kul Tiras is equally dark. It stretches out beneath the Keep, no longer the ants’ nest it resembles at day. The slightest touches of blue streak the horizon in the east, but it will take hours before the city properly wakes.
Sylvanas walks up to the window. She brushes the pad of her thumb over the glass, yet does not feel the cold radiating from it. From the wood of the windowsill, she can feel the fine grains, but not the contrasting temperatures of it and the metal of the window’s linings. Now she must look at the empty plates, remnants of sauce still present. Mindlessly she swipes her finger through them, only to very nearly gag as she puts it into her mouth. Ash, mud, sawdust, are the flavours that she tastes. No hints of sweet, spicy and salty on her tongue. Even the consistency of the sauce feels more akin to slime than a tart dressing for over the meal of the day prior.
She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. The skin feels nothing like Jaina’s; soft, warm and twitching with a heartbeat. It’s icky, pallid and even though she cannot feel it, she knows it’s frigid in temperature. Not able to stand the sight of the scraps of food anymore, she goes up to the top of the tower. A brazier simmers amongst the grey stones, it’s flames curling and twisting in a cruel mockery to her coldness.
Jaina would berate me for going here in but an undershirt and breeches, the undead elf thinks. She allows herself to imagine the mage’s warm hands on her shoulders, sheltering her unnecessarily against the cold. If she were alive, she would cry. But no tears have fallen from her eyes in years, ever since her last ones were burnt into her skin by the Lich King’s magic.
Very briefly, she thinks about admitting it to Jaina. But no sooner has the thought risen or she banishes it from her mind. Her legacy aside, admitting such a craving for true life would be a weakness. The Warchief of the Horde is not weak. The Banshee Queen is not weak. Sylvanas stares as the sun slowly rises above the horizon, unbothered by all but the cold in her heart.
~~~~~
Sylvanas has been absent from the breakfast table, unlike Jaina had expected. When she had woken for a second time, she had expected her elven lover to be lingering around the bed still. But there was no sign over her, nor had she turned up in the following hours. When she had finally spotted the Banshee Queen, her armor was impeccable as ever, her eyebrows haughtily drawn up, her mouth in a thin line. Nothing was even marginally reminiscent of the woman with who she had shared a meal the previous evening.
The elf takes her hand, cold leather gloves on equally frigid metal ones. Together they enter the war room in Proudmoore Keep. A disdainful Tyrande Whisperwind looks up from a map with trade routes. While Jaina sucks in a quick breath and tries not to avoid the Night Warrior’s icy stare with a jerk of her neck, Sylvanas’ glare does not falter. Her eyes do not even narrow, nor does her hand twitch in Jaina’s grasp. Bodily, she is as perfectly still as a statue, while approaching the night elf. She lets go of Jaina’s hand, placing it on the map instead. One clawed fingertip traces a line from Kul Tiras to Darkshore, and she begins what is bound to be a long day of endless debating:
‘We ought to strike a deal, Lady Whisperwind. The Horde and Alliance must start trading more than just diplomats, now that our peace has been consolidated by the marriage between Lady Proudmoore and myself.’ Her voice is as impeccable as her stature.
The meeting grinds on. Tyrande is reluctant to open a trade route, Sylvanas is smooth and her voice is laced with the tiniest but steadily growing bit of annoyance. Jaina suggests better routes for trade ships, avoiding areas with fickle weather. The night elf quips that she once had access to a much better port, but that it’s sadly burnt now. Sylvanas doesn’t as much as wince, eyes trained on the map. When the discussion ceases, it’s because the High Priestess needs to return to her people, the trade routes are barely planned still.
Sylvanas goes to a council with forsaken forces, Jaina needs to attend a meeting with her captains. The day barely gives her a breather until she can finally nestle on her couch in the living room of the tower. Book in hand, fire crackling away in the hearth, at last, she feels a semblance of peace. Then Sylvanas enters. Her face is unreadable, blank save for the tiniest glint of teeth showing when she speaks.
‘Good evening, Jaina.’
‘A good evening to you as well. Are you… alright? You seem a bit forlorn.’
The elf’s expression tightens, her lips pressing against each other. The red eyes smoulder a bit less brightly when she casts her glance downwards. She waits for a few seconds before making her move, crossing the distance between her and Jaina with a few big strides.
The Lord Admiral quirks her eyebrows at her approach. ‘I hadn’t planned another dinner, apologies for it.’ She senses a measure of discomfort in Sylvanas, judging by the gloved hands, clenched so tightly that the metal claws dig into her skin. When the Banshee Queen has seated herself on the couch next to her, she puts away her book and gently touches her lover’s arms. Coaxing her hands into relaxation, she spots three dark splotches of black ichor on each leather-clad palm. From where her metal nails punctured the skin.
When Sylvanas leans into her touch just marginally, Jaina lets her hands wander from the elf’s arms to her stomach. Tracing endless patterns on Sylvanas’ tunic, she can feel the muscles of her stomach flex in a strange rhythm. Almost as if she’s trying to breathe.
‘Are you alright, my beloved?’ she asks once again. The elf leans in closer, ridges of her pauldrons now digging into Jaina’s chin. Her long ears shake in quiet distress. She mumbles something into Jaina’s shirt. Jaina doesn’t need to hear it to know what Sylvanas wants. When pulling the elf closer, she brushes her lips against her lover’s cold ones. It cannot quite be called a kiss.
She reaches to the banshee’s back to remove the armor digging into her skin. Then she softly mouths along Sylvanas’ neck, to which the elf shudders and hoarsely whispers something again. It takes Jaina a while before she can piece the syllables together into something coherent.
You’re warm.
~~~~~
The next time that Sylvanas says those words is when she unexpectedly joins Jaina in the bed one evening. She lays a cold hand onto the mage’s chest. Immediately, her heartbeat picks up and Jaina represses an involuntary shiver. ‘Oof, your hand is cold,’ she manages, curling her toes and trying not to squirm underneath the frigid palm right above her heart.
Sylvanas instantly recoils as if struck. While Jaina isn’t quick enough to grasp her hand, she does try. Only to miss completely and land on Sylvanas’ shoulder, from the other arm with which she is propping herself up on the bed. ‘And yours is warm,’ the undead woman husks, though her voice is laced with a sadness that Jaina can’t quite place.
‘Can I offer you something akin to our shared experience? I am not quite ready for another possession at this hour, but perhaps we can get some rest in each other’s arms?’ she boldly suggests. A daring question, but because their relationship seems to have grown tremendously over the course of a week, she is willing to run the risk.
‘If you are not against lying against a pallid corpse, then… I suppose it could be alright.’
The unexpected venom in Sylvanas’ words takes Jaina aback. She is quick to shake her head and assure the elf that she is not merely a corpse. Then she maneuvers Sylvanas onto her back, drapes herself across her body and feels an icy arm snake around her back. It takes a few minutes before the undead body is warmed, but she closes her eyes and soon starts to slip into a deep sleep.
She does not see how Sylvanas stares up at the curtains above the bed, seemingly horrified about the contrast between her body and Jaina’s. The mage rests soundly, even comfortably. But the Banshee Queen finds herself wishing that she could breathe in sync with her. When she tries to do so, a strangled noise is the only thing she can produce. An intake of air solely causes the dead flesh of her throat to convulse uncomfortably, as her dead lungs cannot breathe like her living partner’s.
Feeling Jaina’s softly moving body against her does not comfort her. In fact, the mage’s small puffs of breath only serve to remind her of how her body is forever doomed to remain silent. A longing for a closer heartbeat rudely imposes itself within her thoughts. Similar to when she tasted for the first time in years, a memory boils to the surface of her mind.
She and her two sisters, still young. Alleria couldn’t have been more than thirteen winters old, Vereesa barely five. They used to sleep curled up, in a pile of spindly limbs and twitching long ears. Before everything went to hell, before they drifted apart. Before her pulse, breath were taken from her. Before her feelings were buried underneath a thick covering of ice and grief.
Sylvanas does not know why she seemingly has the time to think about those things now. It unnerves her all the more, and she cannot stand to lie in the bed for long. Before midnight, she slips out from underneath Jaina and leaves the room. The mage does not wake, she merely makes a groaning sound in her sleep. Another wave of longing crashes over the undead elf’s body.
~~~~~
The guards at the gates of Proudmoore Keep salute her as Jaina enters the courtyard. Her mother is speaking with tradesmen just outside of the Keep. They too salute their Lord Admiral, and Jaina gives them a small smile in return. She secures the parcel in the crook of her left elbow while opening the doors to the hall. Wrapped in brown paper with rough twine binding it, she hopes it’s inconspicuous enough. Not that she really needs to be afraid of bringing it into the castle, but she would still get a look of silent judgement if her mother were to ask her to reveal its contents.
Said contents are for Sylvanas, naturally. Her wife had been feeling and acting strange the last few days. It had been nearly two weeks since they shared the meal from Quel’thalas, and she hadn’t been the same ever since. Not as callous and frigid anymore, but also no trace of the happiness they were able to share that evening. The elf has been increasingly distant, with emotionless stares and listless gazing out of the window becoming daily sights that greet Jaina when she gets up to their rooms in one of the Keep’s towers. She wonders what occupies her beloved’s mind so, but Sylvanas won’t share a word of it.
Today seems to be no different, as Sylvanas is sitting by the windowside table, seemingly tracing figures into the wood. She doesn’t even look up when Jaina closes the door and greets her, only mumbling a greeting in return. It sounds like something she does out of politeness, instead of out of true intent.
Jaina walks up to her, the bounce fading out of her steps. Hastily, she puts the parcel onto the coffee table and attempts to put a soothing hand on her beloved’s shoulder. Sylvanas near flinches back, standing up tall and looming over Jaina with a sneer on her face. One of her long eyebrows twitches irregularly. Bearing the haughtiest expression Jaina has seen in a long time, she pushes Jaina aside with her shoulder and strides away. The elf’s ears are standing up like two flagpoles, indicating a great measure of stress.
‘I- I have bought something for us,’ Jaina says, forlornly waving a hand at the brown paper package.
Sylvanas doesn’t stop marching to the other side of the room. ‘Save it for later, I have things to attend to.’
You’re free of duties for the afternoon, Jaina poignantly thinks. She calls after Sylvanas: ‘I had promised you candied apples, that one evening, remember?’
Halting in her steps and turning her head just a few degrees back to Jaina, the Banshee Queen clacks thoughtfully with her tongue before saying: ‘Yes, I believe you did say that.’
‘Well-’ Jaina holds the parcel out for her. It is starting to feel slightly soggy on the underside. ‘Are you up for trying them? From ahem experience, I know they’re very sweet.’
Tenitavely, Sylvanas undoes the knot of twined thread on top. She carelessly lets it fall to the ground as the paper opens and two apples are revealed. Still warm, baked a toasty brown all over. They smell like cinnamon, sugar and the crispy tart smell of apple. The peel is covered with caramelized sugar, like a cloak of molten bronze over the surface.
Sylvanas’ jaw unclenches the tiniest bit. Jaina spots her eyes widening, her right ear swiveling to the sound of the paper unwrapping, then the left one following it curiously. ‘How attentive of you,’ the elf says.
‘Do you want to… you know, try it?’ Jaina awkwardly holds the apples just a bit higher and feverishly hopes that her eyebrows are drawn into an encouraging frown, instead of a nervous arc that reflects the timid stutter of a laugh she breathes out. With a simple nod, Sylvanas complies. She motions towards the couch, indicating that Jaina ought to sit down for the possession.
It is different this time. Not quite as fluid as when they haphazardly decided to have the banshee possess the mage in the kitchens. For Sylvanas, the pain, cold and moment of blindness that come with unshackling her soul from her body are no different. But the very moment she touches Jaina, she feels her worry and doubt. She hesitates, wavers in the air behind the mage.
For the Lord Admiral, the brief moment of indecision from Sylvanas feels like a stutter, a tremor going through her body. As the banshee’s hand is gliding into her shoulder, yet halting, she feels her muscles contract, pain sweeping along her arm as she grunts and tumbles forward. Then Sylvanas fully possesses her, and throws her backwards against the backrest of the couch with the force of it. An anguished scream sounds within her head, briefly flooding her brain with vague memories of sickening pain and a cold that freezes her to the marrow of her bones. Her body bucks forward, heaving as her hands claw at the fabric.
‘Sylvanas! Gods above, Sylvanas settle down!’ she yells as the panicking elf nearly hurls her body off the couch. Finally she comes to a stop, head rolling to the side, staring into the half-closed, dull eyes of the Warchief’s empty body. They don’t glow anymore. First, Jaina thinks it makes Sylvanas look calmer, nearly fully at peace. But as she gradually stops breathing heavily and the sick feeling fades from her stomach, she comes to the conclusion that without her smouldering eyes, the elf looks more dead, colder, devoid of even the little bit of emotion she exhibited. Hastily, she tears her eyes away form the sight.
‘Are you in there, Sylvanas?’ she asks shakily.
At once, a full body shiver has her clutch her arms to her chest.
Yes, comes the plain reply.
Her body stands, still shivering lightly. Sylvanas brings Jaina’s hands up, cupping them into each other, clenching them to fists and briefly pressing the fingers of the left hand onto the wrist of the right. Then, as if Sylvanas collects herself, she feels her shoulders draw back, her chin jut out just a bit more and her lips curling into the elf’s signature scowl. Jaina tries to relax, but her movements are curbed quickly.
She thinks back to what Sylvanas said the first time that she possessed Jaina. You are strong enough to dispel me completely. As she stiffly walks to the table, flicking Jaina’s short dagger form a sheath at her belt in the process, Jaina briefly considers it.
No, says the voice in her thoughts immediately. You promised to grant me this treasured moment. Do not take it away so soon.
‘Well don’t get so hasty then. Savour the moment, and do let me have a measure of control, please.’ Sounding harsher than she had hoped, Jaina manages to grind her body to a halt, a few feet away from the table. ‘Don’t act so impatiently, Sylvanas. We have the entire afternoon to enjoy this meal.’
Then get to it, Proudmoore. Lingering around here will do neither of us any good.
Her right lip twitches up, baring her teeth. She knows that Sylvanas means to show her fangs, if she had an elf’s teeth. The chair scrapes unpleasantly over the carpet when she swiftly drags it back, but Jaina sits down all the same. She snatches at the parcel, tugging it closer to her so quickly that grains of sugar fall off the apples, onto her black breeches.
Forcefully, she slices one of the apples in half with her dagger. It’s more a chop than a clean cut. Flakes of crispy caramel and powdered cinnamon fly everywhere. Some of it ends up on the floor. In comparison to last time, their combined movements are less defined, quicker, seemingly somewhat desperate. Sylvanas gives Jaina less control over it, forcing her body to act on the elf’s whims.
When she bites into the slice, she does so without having laid down her dagger. From the corner of her eye, Jaina sees that her knuckles are clenched white around the hilt. Surprisingly, the apple is still lukewarm. It is soft, easily giving way in her mouth as her teeth hungrily sink into it. The caramel on the peel crunches satisfyingly, mixing with the apple’s juices and the spicy cinnamon. She chases the stray grains of sugar in the corners of her mouth with her tongue. At least Sylvanas has the dignity to chew with her mouth closed, despite her apparent hurry.
Soon, she greedily swallows and chomps down on the next bite. Only after swallowing another mouthful of sweet apple, she seems to remember that Jaina must breathe. As the mage does so, she feels a strange longing bubble up in her mind. ‘Is the sweetness getting to you again?’ she playfully asks Sylvanas, attempting to bring a bit of lightheartedness into the situation.
If I could be swayed by mere taste, Jaina, what sort of Warchief would I be?
‘I don’t… that’s not how I meant to sound,’ the mage says while wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Of course you’re not easily… persuaded to just change-’ she stopped talking, very confused by what Sylvanas had said. Why did the elf assume that her comment was some kind of assessment, rather than just a joke?
‘Well…’ she sighs awkwardly while slicing the remainder of the apple. Deliberately, carefully cutting it into even parts, as opposed to Sylvanas’ rough hack through the fruit. ‘Are you enjoying the snack, then?’
I am.
Even her voice sounds somehow disconnected in Jaina’s mind. They are not as fluidly in sync as last time. The demeanor of her wife continues to unnerve Jaina as she eats the other half of the caramelized apple. No content little hmm sounds in her head after tasting another part of sweet sugary fruit. Her shoulders are tensed, partly by her own unease, partly by Sylvanas’ temperament. She gets no flashes of feeling, memories or emotions from the elf’s consciousness within her own. It is as if Sylvanas keeps a barrier between their minds.
There is another apple, lying in the creased brown paper. It is left untouched, slowly getting cold within Jaina’s room. She can see some of the fruit juice soak through the coating of sugar, transforming the crisp caramel into a soggy mess that threatens to be absorbed by the paper wrapping. ‘Finished already?’ she asks.
It is never good to overindulge, Sylvanas says without any hint of emotion. Lest I start to have some kind of craving.
‘Or we could just do this more often, if you’d like. I can get used to the dizziness that follows the possession, I think.’
Her head shakes to Sylvanas’ accord. A small wave of emotion washes over her. Difficult to define, like a wanton pull in her chest. Before she can question the elf about it, her lips move to Sylvanas’ words: ‘I ought to get back to my own body. There are duties I must perform before nightfall.’
The Banshee Queen does not wait for Jaina to agree, she simply stands up and walks back to the couch in the back of the room. Her body is slung sideways over its plush green pillows, legs hanging off the seat, mouth open slightly, twisting the face into a near fearful expression. The sight makes Jaina think of a corpse, a real, actually dead one. There is something grisly about the display. Quickly tearing her eyes away from the body, she shivers. The thought of Sylvanas being dead, gone from her life, is notably more frightening that she had expected it to be. For all the elf’s quirks and unpleasant characteristics, Jaina cannot imagine how to fill the dreadful void that her passing would leave behind.
Sylvanas jerks her out of her depressing train of thought with a curt: brace yourself.
Cold overtakes her as tendrils of black smoke spring forth from her arms, forming a pair of smoky hands that seem to grasp for purchase within the air. Jaina cries out in pain as a surge of magic sends a sickening wave of pain down her body. She falls backwards onto the couch as Sylvanas’ banshee form separates from her body. Strangely enough, the spirit seems to be in a similar kind of pain, making a grisly sound akin to a death rattle as she hovers in the air in front of Jaina, arms spread-angled, hands curling into fists. Then the banshee dissolves into smoke and enters the corpse she is bound to.
Sweat beads on Jaina’s forehead. She groans, sits up and rests her elbows on her knees, hands slowly rubbing her temples to relieve her headache. The couch dips and moves as Sylvanas too sits upright. She tugs on her sleeves, straightening out the folds in the fabric and whisking some imaginary dust off her leathers. Then she stands up near briskly. ‘I will see you in the evening, have a good afternoon, Jaina.’
Jaina looks up from her hands, feeling slightly betrayed by Sylvanas’ indifference to her pain. What in Tides’ name is going on with you? she thinks, yet doesn’t say it. Somewhat desperate, she looks for a way she can talk with Sylvanas about the way the elf has been acting recently. But her mind is weary and tired, not to mention her pounding headache.
‘It’s not the same as last time, is it?’ she eventually manages, when Sylvanas is nearly at the doors of the tower’s spacious living room.
‘I cannot see why it was not,’ Sylvanas says from between her teeth. She secures a burgundy cape around her shoulders and prepares to open the doors. ‘What do you mean, Proudmoore? We ate together, as we did last time.’
Jaina snaps her attention fully to the elf, ignoring the ache in her skull as she stands up from the couch. Her resolve, whittled away by the days of trying to deal with Sylvanas’ unresponsive, frigid attitude, now finally breaks.
‘No, it wasn’t the same!’ she frustratedly exclaims. ‘You were being unnecessarily impatient and aggressive, not to mention unkind and unreceptive.’
‘I still see no reason why it wouldn’t be the same. We shared a meal, as we did last time, ’ Sylvanas repeats, squaring her jaw, still not facing her completely.
‘Clearly there was something else on your mind. Last time you took care, now you… you were just different! In fact, you’ve been different ever since you first possessed me.’
‘I have my responsibilities, Proudmoore, as do you. Usually it is you complaining about how stressed they make you feel.’
‘T-that’s not… This is something else, Sylvanas. You are thinking about things, things you won’t share with me. We’re wed, for Gods’ sake!’ Jaina paces up to Sylvanas and grabs her forcefully by the sleeve of her tunic. Sylvanas tenses, rights herself up to her full length and bares her fangs to Jaina with a sharp hiss. Her ears jump up, pressed tightly against her skull. The red eyes flare, glowing with energy. The light coming from them reflects on the gaunt ridges of her cheekbones, nose and chin. It makes her face look all the more frightening, all the more like a skull.
Jaina flinches at the sight, yet pulls herself together despite her heartbeat spiking. She takes a deep breath, knowing that her eyes flare similarly, but with blue arcane energy. ‘This is not how we are going to solve our faction’s hostilities. Keeping secrets from each other, mulling endlessly by the window, suddenly disappearing from the bed!’
Sylvanas’ eyes flick away from hers in a moment’s notice. Taken aback, Jaina lets go of her sleeve, somewhat embarrassed by her own outburst. She had not expected Sylvanas’ resolve to waver first, even if it was only for a split second.
‘Listen,’ she sighs. ‘I am feeling tired and sick, thanks to your possession. I’m not in a mood to discuss about this until it’s midnight, but we will talk this out. At a suitable time.’
‘There is nothing we ought to speak about, Lord Admiral.’ Sylvanas sharply turns away from her. She straightens the creases that Jaina had made in her sleeve.
The mage cannot resist making another wry comment: ‘If there isn’t, there would be no need for you to be so cold. And callous. And not to mention so abrasive about whatever is on your mind all the time!’
She is trembling, her hands shaking in dirstress.
‘You truly have no idea as to what is on my mind. You have no rights to meddle in it, and it is most certainly no business of yours, Lady Proudmoore .’ Sylvanas turns to Jaina, lips drawn up in a snarl to show her razor sharp fangs.
‘Then at least tell me what is so seemingly important that it’s occupying you all the time!’ Jaina shrieks, her voice cracking. ‘Why can’t you just take a deep breath and spit it out? We’re-’
In a flash of dark reds and silver, Sylvanas crosses the threshold between them. She lifts Jaina effortlessly, crashing her into the wall and holding her there. Red light spills from her eyes, turning her face into a hellish mask of anger. The glare she gives Jaina is nothing short of terrifying.
Jaina’s breath runs cold, legs kicking against Sylvanas’ armored stomach. Unfazed, Sylvanas tightens her grip. ‘ That , that is exactly what is on my mind,’ she growls into Jaina’s face. Then she collects herself, dropping Jaina hard onto the floor.
The Lord Admiral looks up. Her wife’s face is twisted into a snarl, fangs gleaming, ears flatly pressed against her neck. She feels fear coil sickly in her stomach.
‘When I am near you, physically tethered to you, I feel!’ Sylvanas yells, leaning forward and slamming her fist into the wall above Jaina’s head. ‘I feel your breathing in your lungs, your heartbeat under your skin. But when I am inside my own pathetic excuse for a body, there is no movement in my chest! No pulse, no twitchy things that an alive body does!’
‘S-sylvanas, I didn’t kn-’ Jaina stutters.
‘Your skin, it’s warm. It’s soft, it’s living. Mine is sickly cold and pallid. My body is bloodless, all that I have in my veins is this black muck!’
Sylvanas tears off her glove and scratches two lines into her palm with the claws on the other gauntlet. Black ichor wells up in her wounds. ‘When you lie against me in bed, I feel everything! But I cannot have warmth, a heartbeat or breath. Nor will I ever attain any of it again, because when I died, someone ripped my very soul out of my body, so that I may never find peace again!’
She steps back from Jaina, flicking her black ichor onto the floor when she points a sharp finger at the mage. ‘ That has been on my mind. All the time. Ever since you had the preposterous idea to serve me a meal out of my youth. When I, must I remind you, was still alive!’
Before the dumbstricken Jaina can form words, Sylvanas shoots one last burning glare at her, before bursting into her wraith form and disappearing into the hallway.