Chapter Text
Wars come and wars go, but the inevitability of conflict never really changes. Vereesa’s sons start growing tall, and the nature of the world can no longer be hidden from them. Giramar still brags about every new spell he learns, but no longer are they simple ones, conjured lights and showers of sparks, but great spheres of flame, and ice shards sharp enough to kill. Galadin still follows her like a lost duckling, like she used to follow her sisters, only these days he copies the way she holds her bow, carves deep into his bones the same knowledge of how to draw an arrow back to your cheek, of how much force is needed to send an arrow tearing through your enemy’s throat. Her sons are almost men, she realises one day, watching the two of them practice. Nearly old enough to join her on the battlefield, but not nearly old enough to understand how awful that simple fact is.
In Vereesa’s eyes, they are still so, so young, and her heart breaks every time she has to leave them behind to join some new campaign.
New orders take her west, have the Silver Covenant serving as extra manpower for the Kul Tirans. The way the orders came, a fancy letter handed over by a minor officer who barely knew her name, had her bristling, half-tempted to force a mage to send her to Stormwind to give High King Anduin a piece of her mind.
But Vereesa’s people had been languishing in Dalaran too long, itching for something more exciting than listening to reports of every battle they are kept separate from. And the new war that’s coming, the one twisted out of shadows and ash and the inexplicable Void has them jittery, more than eager to find some way to fight back.
And none of them have ever visited Kul Tiras, either. So, she lets her anger go, finds layer upon layer of excuses to hide behind that all wash away like sand as soon as they arrive in Boralus, and Jaina greets her with a tight hug that isn’t at all proper or formal.
And she returns the hug just as fierce. Some part of Vereesa’s mind whispers on and on, tries to remind her that she is still a commander, that they’re still glued to yet another war, that she didn’t even get to choose to come here. But for that handful of seconds, she ignores it. Wars will come when they will, and orders will have her moving about as aimlessly as driftwood, but in the end Vereesa is only a mortal woman.
Jaina’s touch makes the world feel normal again. Like it did so many years ago, when she was just a ranger in training, hiding the fleeting crushes of youth from her sisters.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Jaina whispers, pulling back to sweep her eyes over the ranks of soldiers behind her. The sight seems to remind her of reality, and she steps back, straightens.
“Welcome to Boralus!” She says to them, her voice firm and controlled. But her eyes drift back to Vereesa, as inevitably as an anchor sinking through deep ocean, and the corners of her eyes crinkle in a smile she doesn’t let anyone else see.
Jaina finds her at the archery range, pulls her aside before she can walk onto the grounds proper. The day is warm, or as warm as days go in Kul Tiras, but the light is strong, and the sea breeze passes over it all, and Vereesa had been looking forward to burning away a handful of hours at the range. It’s one of the first things they set up when the Silver Covenant arrived, before they had even moved into the small set of side rooms in Proudmoore Keep that the Admiralty had so graciously allowed them to use as headquarters.
It’s not just an area for training, even if the tides of war will carry them away soon enough. More so it’s a place to forget about every other awful truth in the world for a while, to forget fear and loss and whatever other heavy emotions squat upon the mind, and focus on being little more than a hand pulling back string, to squash the world down into a single straw target. Most of her mages shoot too, for those very reasons, even if their aim is laughable.
Still, she follows Jaina to the side, one hand still fiddling with the fletching of an arrow.
“What news?” She asks, keeping her voice low. “Has there been an attack? Ships sighted? How much time do we have?”
“Oh.” Jaina says, surprised. “I didn’t- I’m not here as the Lord Admiral, only as. Well. Me. There is no present danger.”
“Oh.” Vereesa feels more than a little awkward at that, but she forces the feeling aside. “What do you need then?”
“I had someone make… well no, actually, I made it. But I promise it works, or at least it should. I tested it a few times. But still.”
“Do you want to try that again?” Amusement sinks into her tone, and the slight blush on Jaina’s face cuts deep enough into her that she almost wishes she were on the range, washing her mind clean of the endless twisting distraction. Even if it’s pleasant to dwell on. Maybe especially because such things are pleasant.
Jaina breathes in slow and visibly regains control of herself. “When I heard you were coming,” she says, “I started making something that I thought would be useful. Maybe not quite a present per say, but something helpful. I’m rambling again. Here.” She reaches behind her to pull out a plain wooden box, unclasped and unlocked, and she hands it to Vereesa, motions for her to open it.
Inside is a set of leather bracers, made of finely crafted leather with small runes inset all along their length, but tooled in so delicately that she’d almost believe the design was simply ornamental. But the leather hums slightly when she brushes the runes with her hand, the magical potential in it more than easy to sense.
She’s never been trained in magic, not formally. But Quel’dorei blood is sensitive to the arcane, and she has spent so many years in Dalaran that being around magic feels more natural than not. So maybe a mage could read arcane runes, transcribe their meaning, but Vereesa only knows what she feels.
It makes her think of the ocean, of great crashing waves freezing right at their peak. Of fields of ice and howling winds, of a bitter cold than sinks ice into your bones. She touches the brightest rune of the set, and for a second it feels as if she has grabbed a hold of an icicle and refused to let go, waiting to see if her blood burns hotter than the spreading, devouring cold, risked losing fingers for a game of pride.
And then she lets go, draws her hand back to meet Jaina’s eyes again. Jaina’s was still watching her, almost unfocused, but she snaps back to attention when she notices Vereesa move.
“What are these?” Vereesa says, a tone of awe in her voice.
There’s an almost wicked glimmer to Jaina’s eyes. “Fire a handful of arrows, and you’ll see.”
“Is that really easier, or simply more dramatic?”
Jaina just smiles, sudden and fleeting but bright.
“You’ll see.” She says.
“Am I allowed to walk onto the range?” Jaina murmurs, leaning in close enough that none of the rangers nearby can hear her. Too close, Vereesa realises, as her breath brushes against her neck.
“Just don’t step in front of anyone holding a bow.” Vereesa tells her, catching her by the arm before she does just that, and telling herself it doesn’t mean anything when she lets the hand remain, guides them to a spot a good hundred metres from her chosen target. Jaina leans forward, squints at the target, only stops when Vereesa taps her arm.
“Are you already doing calculations?” She asks, and Jaina only confirms her suspicion when she draws back, crosses her arms.
Vereesa tilts her head slightly, and Jaina shrugs. “Maybe a little.”
“A little is still some.”
“I just want to make sure it all works properly. But fine, I will only watch.”
The flicker of a smile returns, and Vereesa looks back towards her equipment before she can lose herself staring.
Her arrows are sharp, her bowstring freshly waxed, and there is little more to do than check the straps of the new bracers, run her fingers over those same runes again. The magic is just as strong as before, so too the sensation of frost, and she can hardly stop herself from reaching for the sensation over and over again. It’s a terrible brand of curiosity, like unconsciously reaching out to bury your hands in snow. No matter how familiar the sensation is, no matter how cold your conscious mind knows it will be, how unpleasant the thoughts of frostbitten fingers, it is still impossible to crush the instinct down.
“How exactly do I use these?” She asks, and Jaina’s arms uncross, immediately eager.
“It’s like a spell.” Jaina says. One of her hands starts unconsciously tracing runes in the air as she speaks, so subtly charming that Vereesa has to force herself to listen to her words. “Or 95% of a spell really. All it needs is that extra push to activate, like when a spell is…” She drifts off for a moment, lost in thought, but comes back with even more intensity, leaning in to tap Vereesa’s bow. “It’s like when an archer has an arrow pulled back and ready to fly. All it needs is to be released.”
Vereesa nods, and Jaina steps back to give her more room. And Vereesa slips into a carefully honed sense of concentration, lets the rest of the world melt away as she adjusts her stance, nocks an arrow to the string. She reaches out with her awareness, tries to connect with whatever magic is caged within the bracers, and draw it into her, breathe it in like air. She feels something as she does. No grand image like before, but something, and the air she breathes tastes like that from the peak of a high mountain, cold and sharp.
She draws an arrow back in one fluid motion and fires it, breathing out as she does. And something travels with it, wreathes it in a subtle shimmering blue that she can only just register before the arrow hits, and the entire target erupts in a burst of ice.
From beside her, she can hear Jaina’s sharp intake of breath, notices every one of her soldiers pause their conversation and stop shooting, but she ignores it all, draws back another arrow. This one she fires with confidence, as cold and sharp as the magic she can feel curling within her chest. Her arrow almost seems to shift in mid-air, to grow as large as a ballista bolt, and it collides with the frozen target with a crack that sounds like thunder. Or like a great mountain of ice breaking in two in the middle of the ocean, too isolated for any to hear.
The ice explodes into thousands of sharp shards, and where each lands it grows, spreading until every single target on the range is frozen solid, and several elves jump back from the growing frost, fearful of what the ice might do to living skin.
Even the seabirds have gone quiet, and the distant murmur of the rest of Boralus seems een more distant than before. And every single soul on the range stares at Vereesa, not even the wild destruction of ice enough to distract them from the woman who summoned a frozen storm from her bow.
“Wow.” Vereesa says, her voice quiet. But even still, she knows everyone there can hear. But she doesn’t quite care enough to pause, and she turns to gather Jaina into a crushing hug, laughing against her shoulder. And maybe her people will stare, and whisper. But they likely whisper already, and Vereesa is far too caught up in the thrill of it all to let it stop her.
Jaina’s arms wrap around her too, warm and encircling, and the touch of her makes what’s left of the cold twist of ice in her chest melt, and settle in her stomach.
“You like it?” Jaina asks from too close to her ear. It’s enough to make her shiver, and Vereesa makes herself pull away before Jaina can notice.
“Yes, I… You made this?”
“Yes.” Jaina might be trying to hide it, but there’s a noticeable hint of pride in her voice, even with just a single word. Jaina reaches out, touches one bracer with a single finger, and each rune lights up with their maker’s touch with the blinding white of pure snow.
Magic comes to Jaina as easily as breathing, as ingrained as archery to any Windrunner, and it rolls off her in waves without thought. Even something as impressive as these bracers holds barely a candle to what Jaina could do with her magic if she set her mind to it.
It’s incredible, really, to imagine. And in truth she is proud to be able to call Jaina a friend, not just as an impressive ally but also as the woman beneath all that, with her brilliant mind and passionate heart. The tides of war have come time and time again to drown her, and every time Jaina has clawed her way back to the surface.
But Vereesa is only a broken woman with a bow. She can never truly hope to compare, or come even close to climbing her way up to the same level.
“Thank you, Jaina.” She says, ignoring her own thoughts. “You are truly kind. I can only hope to use your gift to help aid Kul Tiras in these trying times.”
Jaina’s expression seems to falter for a moment, with a brief flash of something deep and painful, but the expression fades all too soon, and Jaina just touches a hand to her shoulder, plasters on a smile.
“I’m glad.” Jaina says. “But I won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you wish to train without me distracting you.”
She twists away before Vereesa can even attempt a protest, slips through a portal to who even knows where. And Vereesa misses her, immediately, bites down on the wave of loneliness that floods her as soon as she’s out of sight.
But there are a million distractions to save her from such pain, and she motions for her soldiers to start cleaning up the remnants of their training range, and tells herself to ignore the way her own people stare at her, their gazes lingering for the rest of the afternoon.
They give the Silver Covenant rooms in the least used wing of the Keep. The rooms are either bare or strictly utilitarian, and more than a handful are so full of dust that Vereesa has to wonder if they’ve actually been touched since they were first constructed. But the space allowed is generous, and they have it cleaned and set up as a military base within a handful of hours.
Jaina drops by just as the sun sets, when all Vereesa’s soldiers have left the range and started the graceless task of arguing over which room to take. She pulls Vereesa aside, keeps her voice low.
“I just wanted to check how you were settling in.” She says. “I am sorry for the mess, by the way. No one’s used these rooms since-” Jaina cuts herself off. “We haven’t had so many people in the Keep for a long time.”
“I should hope we are not too much of an inconvenience.”
“Oh, no. It’s been good, actually. It makes the Keep feel less like a giant stone cage.”
Two rangers pass them in the hallway, look curiously at the two of them in the second it takes to recognise who they are, and then they gracefully look away, and walk on faster. Vereesa can already hear the whispered gossip that will surely have spread through the ranks by morning.
“Actually,” Jaina starts, leaning in closer, “can we talk? And not about matters of war, for once. I only- I feel as if it has been a decade since we last talked about anything but politics.”
“We could talk in my quarters? Fair warning however, if the boys see you there, they’ll never let you leave.”
Jaina laughs softly. Only for a second. Only for just long enough to count as a laugh before she folds it back away and buries it within her chest.
“I think I can take that risk.” She says.
The boys have long since gone to bed, but Jaina stays still. She has her paperwork spread out across Vereesa’s table, but even with the endless signatures, the notes she scribbles on the sides of pages, and the not so small cluster of calculations she works out on a notepad, she still manages to hold a conversation. Vereesa glances over at her notepad once, while Jaina’s telling a story about some foolish thing Tandred has done lately, sees enough equations and numbers to make her eyes hurt. But it doesn’t slow Jaina down, not even when the night drags further on.
By all rights, Vereesa should be the responsible one here. She should insist that Jaina put all her work away, go back to her rooms and just sleep for once. But she is selfish, and the company is too pleasant. She lets Jaina stay, and the sound of her voice drives out some of the loneliness from her heart.
“Here.” Vereesa says, dropping a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table. “I brought a few bottles with me.”
Jaina raises an eyebrow at her, but Vereesa doesn’t even ask, just uncorks the bottle and pushes a full glass towards her, draining half her own glass before Jaina has so much as touched hers.
“I’m almost surprised your sharing.” Jaina says, but accepts the glass regardless, takes a single sip while Vereesa refills her own. “I’ve been told you can be quite protective of your wine.”
“I’ll have you know that I am an excellent host.” Vereesa tells her, watching as Jaina hides a smile behind her glass. “I am!” she repeats, almost indignant, as Jaina’s smile only grows.
“Of course.” Jaina tells her, her eyes flickering towards Vereesa only for a moment, before she looks back to the endless piles of her work. She is sketching lines on a map now, tiny runes set out around what looks like a city. It’s not a map she recognises by sight, but she saw that very same harbour with her own eyes just this morning.
Vereesa taps a finger on the map, on the edge where it won’t disturb her markings. “What exactly are you working on here?”
Jaina lights up in an instant. The map is spun around to face Vereesa, and she points out several of the runes. The shapes are familiar, Vereesa has spent enough time around mages and magics to recognise such things on sight, but their meanings are lost on her.
“I’ve been working on this in my spare time.” Jaina says. Even her voice is louder, more animated. “It’s an improvement to Boralus’ magical defences…” Jaina slips into a mess of complicated words Vereesa only half understands, a type of magic so complex she is sure most mages in Dalaran would struggle to grasp, and Vereesa is so utterly lost in it. But Jaina’s passion is infectious, and utterly charming, and Vereesa sits there quietly listening to the sound of her voice.
Life is full of risks. Vereesa knows that far too well. She has taken so many, and lost so much in return. Most days she takes that as a sign to try and be brave, an encouragement to kick her out of wallowing in the losses of the past. Even trying to avoid risks only opens you up to danger further down the line.
But some things, she is not brave enough to do.
“I’m sorry.” Jaina says. Her voice loses its excitement in an instant, drops down into something Vereesa almost has to strain to hear. “This isn’t at all interesting to you.”
Vereesa touches her hand. Only lightly, but it makes Jaina look back up at her. She can’t quite force a smile, so she slips her hand into Jaina’s and holds it tight.
“I like hearing about the things you care about.” She says. “Please don’t stop.”
Jaina’s smile is still brief, but she starts talking again, and she speaks slower this time, tries to explain every single topic she brings up. In truth, it feels like trying to sail for the first time, being left adrift in an ocean with only the vague hope that you will be able to decipher the mess of ropes. But Jaina always seems genuinely thrilled to talk about her spells, and she needs more space in her life to feel happy, now more than ever.
Jaina’s voice fills the late-night air, lingers on deep into the night. Her paperwork covers Vereesa’s table, and they share one bottle of wine, and then another. And all it does is make Vereesa want. She wants this to linger on, she wants to ask Jaina to stay the night, and then to stay on tomorrow night, to blur the lines until these are no longer Vereesa’s rooms or Jaina’s home but theirs. She wants Jaina to look at her with as much passion as she looks at her arcane theories. She wants Jaina to love her like she loves Kul Tiras. More than anything, she wants Jaina to be as distracted as she is, to break off their conversation to touch her, to pull her in close enough to steal a kiss.
But Jaina doesn’t notice, and Vereesa doesn’t ask, and eventually Jaina just returns home to her own wing of the Keep, none the wiser.
There’s a sighting of Naga off the Northern shore of Stormsong Valley, and Jaina insists on being the one to investigate, makes all manner of claims about the speed of her vessel, the lack of need for a crew, but her insistence is so strong that Vereesa doubts anyone believes her motivations are anything but a desire to cure her restlessness.
But they agree to let her go. And somehow, despite Vereesa’s repeated reminders of exactly how badly the sea disagrees with her delicate constitution, Jaina manages to convince Vereesa to accompany.
There’s only a handful of things to be packed on board, but between that and waiting for their turn to exit the harbour, they have time to spare, and for once Jaina doesn’t run to find some more paperwork to do.
She stands by the railing of her ship instead, leaning on it to watch the entrance to the harbour, the ships passing in and out of the massive sea-gate, the sailors climbing up and down ropes and scurrying about on deck.
Here, with the salt spray filling the air, and the endless echoing calls of the seabirds, Jaina looks more alive than she's ever seen her. Jaina looks genuinely happy, she realises, in a way Vereesa has only seen before in fleeting moments.
But Jaina doesn't look at her. Her gaze is drawn out instead to the ocean, the distant ships slowly crawling towards the harbour. Vereesa is an afterthought here, unneeded and unnecessary.
She settles beside Jaina, squints out at the waves with her, and pretends she knows anything about the incoming ships. Most of all, she just ignores the familiar dull ache that sinks in her chest like a leaden weight.
Once they escape the harbour, their passage is swift. Perhaps it’s an unnecessary show of power, but as soon as they have slipped out of the harbour, granted themselves room to manoeuvre, Jaina weaves another spell, one complex and powerful enough that Vereesa can just about taste it in the air, like a drop of salt on her tongue, the sensation only growing stronger as the ship itself hums, and rises up from the waves.
Vereesa catches her balance on the railing, and leans over it to see the ocean far below, once large waves shrinking rapidly until they are little more than tiny creases on paper, and their ship hangs over it all like some watchful moon, adrift in a new ocean made of little more than air.
Boralus is in the distance, and they are high enough to see the entire city. From here she cannot see any people, but the tiny harbour with its well carved ships, the endless canals and the looming Keep in the distance make her wish she had some way of capturing the sight, immortalising it better than just as a thin memory.
Vereesa turns to Jaina now, wide-eyed, seconds off babbling incoherently about a sight Jaina has doubtlessly seen hundreds of times, but her words run dry and slip out of reach when she finds Jaina watching her, gaze soft.
“I told you that you didn’t need to worry about getting sea-sick.” Jaina says. The softness fades away as soon as it is seen, like a fluttering candle blown out by the wind.
They don’t find anything on their patrol. Jaina casts several spells, trying to track the slightest hint of any void presence, but each one finds nothing. Somehow the lack of evidence doesn’t settle her, and Jaina tries one magical test after another. Each one runs empty.
No matter how large the ship, being trapped on all sides by the sea unsettles Vereesa, and she insists on them stopping by several uncharted islands, burns away an hour or two on each one hunting for tracks, or even just the slightest sign. Mainly she just finds loud seabirds, and eventually even she has to concede to defeat.
Not quite willing to run back home yet, Jaina stops her ship in the middle of the ocean, sets it back down into the sea and insists that they at least get some training done while they’re out.
“Are you expecting me to shoot holes in your vessel?” Vereesa asks at that, but Jaina only waves her hand, summons a dozen pillars of ice from the sea, and settles back to watch.
Vereesa has always been good at ignoring a million possible distractions while her bow is in her hands, but she doesn’t quite retain her confidence in that ability now. The ship shifts under her feet, in a rhythm she hasn’t quite managed to trace yet, leaving her to continually grab the railing, or change her stance, the ever-pressing fear of sea-sickness pressing on the back of her mind. And Jaina hasn’t found herself any spells to practice, only insisted on standing nearby, watching and analysing. And maybe human eyesight isn’t quite so clear as elven, but it would hardly take much to notice any of Vereesa’s more obvious tells.
But she forces herself to breathe instead, to remember what her sisters had taught her when she was young. About how to let the rest of her worries slip away, to melt away your sense of self until you can move like water, to dodge enemy blows and still retain calm focus.
She breathes in, and out, and adjusting to the shifting boards beneath her feet is like moving on a battlefield, something familiar and easy to forget as she raises her bow, draws it back, and summons that same cold twist of ice as before.
It hits the first target with enough force that the arrow shatters and the ice cracks beneath the blow, but she barely hears it, only aims at the next. This arrow hits like a siege weapon against castle ramparts, and the pillar of ice splits, half of it crashing down into the ocean. And she fires again, and again, until the final pillar explodes into shards of ice, several pieces flying with such force that they embed themselves into the solid wood of Jaina’s ship.
Vereesa is turning to apologise, but before she can Jaina is throwing her arms around her, barking out a short and ungraceful laugh. It lingers almost too long, without any of the usual interruptions or distractions to remind them of responsibility.
Eventually, Jaina slides out of the embrace, and reaches for one of Vereesa’s arms. She stops an inch from touching one of Vereesa’s bracers, glancing back up at Vereesa.
“May I?” She asks, and Vereesa just nods, confused but not unwilling.
Jaina holds Vereesa’s arm steady with one hand, the other tracing down the finely stamped runes, watching the way each one glows white as she touches it, the light almost blinding. It makes the bracer hum, slow but melodic, a subtle kind of song. Vereesa wonders quietly if it’s a kind of language that Jaina can understand, if her touch is curious or strictly academic. Her own question is answered only moments later, as Jaina takes Vereesa’s other hand, guides it to brush over the same runes.
They glow under her touch. Only weakly, but the glow is there, the colour a pale blue rather than pure white. The runes still feel cold against her fingers, but the cold is familiar now. Like diving into a cold river, waiting for your body to acclimatise to the temperature, the biting cold only making you feel more alive.
“You’ve learnt how to use these very quickly.” Jaina says. Her eyes search over Vereesa, as intense as when she focuses on any of her maps, her dusty arcane texts. Cutting, evaluating. Looking a touch too deep to be comfortable. “I was honestly expecting it to take much longer.”
“It almost feels natural to use them.”
Jaina’s gaze is still too intense, and Vereesa looks away, looks off towards the empty horizon, the wide expanse of ocean and sky that surround. It’s private at least, with no Kul Tiran sailors or elven rangers to stare and whisper endlessly. Somehow the privacy is almost worse. There are no other distractions, no one to interrupt with reports, summon either of them away to meetings. Nothing but Jaina and her too wise eyes.
And Jaina squeezes her hand, drags her attention away from the sea. Her gaze is softer now, but no less focused, and she drags a thumb over the back of Vereesa’s hand, slow but controlled.
“Have you ever actually tried to do magic?”
“No?”
“Never?” Jaina presses.
“No. As soon as I was old enough, I was learning how to shoot, or gallivanting in the forest with my sisters. But it’s not like it- I doubt I could so much as summon the smallest of flames, even if I tried for days.”
Jaina waits for a moment. “I’m not sure I’d agree.”
“Jaina…” Vereesa sighs out.
“Listen. Within minutes of putting those bracers on for the first time you froze half the archery range. That’s- I don’t think you realise how impressive that is.”
“That was just the bracers. Not me.”
“It was you.” Jaina tugs at her hand, frustration starting to creep into her expression. “I’m not trying to say that you’re secretly an archmage. But maybe there’s something there. Don’t you want to find it? Even if you can only ever learn a handful of party tricks.”
“Jaina, there’s- Who would even teach me this? We’re in the middle of a war.”
“I could teach you.”
“Jaina.”
“I’m serious! I’ve taught magic before.” Something like a shadow briefly passes across her face, but Jaina presses on. “I’d get to boss you around, make you write essays on magical theory. It’d be fun!”
“This is sounding much more enjoyable for you than me.”
Jaina giggles suddenly, the sound high and girlish. She slaps a hand over her mouth, crushing the sound, but it still sneaks through. It’s so far detached from the rest of their situation, the endless war plans and movement of troops, the training and the endless fear of the unknown, that for a second Vereesa forgets about the rest. Forgets that they’re on a patrol, that anything could lie in wait under the waves.
Something like a smile cracks its way onto her face. “It would make you happy if I said yes?” She asks.
“It would.”
“Then fine.”
It’s days later by the time they manage to carve out time to start. Jaina just about drags Vereesa out of a meeting about ship movements and vague sightings of Naga, and Vereesa feels like they are less distinguished leaders than wild children, running before anyone more responsible can pin them down with work. Vereesa catches a glimpse of Katherine Proudmoore watching them as they slip out. Only Vereesa is looking her way, but Katherine nods at her, before turning and capturing one of her advisors in yet another discussion.
She doesn’t get a chance to ask why before Jaina is dragging her upstairs, sweeping open a door to a wide room filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves.
“With so many books, this has to be your bedroom.” Vereesa says, and Jaina shoves her lightly.
“I am not that bad.” She insists, only to shrug a moment later. “Not yet at least.”
“Give it a few years.”
“But no. This is… Well, technically it’s the Keep’s library. But I started adding more and more books back when I was still a child. Originally it was just a handful of shipping manifests, old sailing logs, things like that.”
“Did you read those too then?”
A bright flash of a smile, then Jaina leaves her side to stroke the spines of a handful of books. “I may have.” She pulls a book out, a heavy thing with decorated with gold leaf, twisting gold patterns that Jaina drums her fingers on for a few moments before slotting the book back into place. “This was the first place I went to after I became Lord Admiral. I expected to see it gutted bare, my childhood books long since ash. But it was all still here. Dusty and untouched, but here.”
“You thought they’d burn your books?”
“I didn’t exactly have a good reputation here, you know.” She coughs pointedly. “Still. I’m sure there’s something in here we can use.”
And Jaina is off, only a step off dancing among the shelves, brushing her hands along spines as she moves, occasionally stopping to pull a book out. Sometimes she reconsiders, pushes the book back in its place, but many she keeps, until there is a small mountain of old books covering the single small desk in the room. After hours and hours of war plans and ceaseless circular discussions, the mere sight of this room seems to have animated her, and there’s the faintest twitch of a smile at the corner of her lips.
It makes Vereesa jealous, for a second, but she crushes that awful swell of emotion, moves to look out the wide window, resting her elbows on the stone windowsill. Outside is Boralus, intense and human and alive, full of tiny scurrying figures with a thousand personal worries. From here, she can see the harbour, the wide array of Kul Tiran ships. Their pride as a nation, tangled up in distant furled sails.
A hand touches her arm, drags her focus back away from the window.
“I found you a few books to start with.” Jaina says, eyes bright.
“Just a few.”
“More than a few. I couldn’t find you any picture books unfortunately.”
“Jaina.” Vereesa starts, and Jaina flashes her an innocent smile that she doesn’t at all believe. “If you had handed me a picture book, I would have just left.”
“You have no sense of fun.”
The pile of books is intimidating, but Vereesa lets Jaina guide her to them, set her down with a small pile of note-paper and a charcoal.
“This was my favourite when I was eight.” Jaina says, handing her a heavy book wrapped in worn leather.
“Did you really spend your entire childhood reading books like this?”
“Yes. When I wasn’t trying to convince father to teach me how to sail.”
“Just curled up in whatever corner you could find, reading dense arcane theory?”
“Yes.”
“That’s adorable.”
“Shut it.” Jaina says, clearly flustered. She slaps Vereesa’s shoulder lightly, barely more than a brush of her hand. Vereesa almost laughs.
“No one else comes here,” Jaina says, “So you can stay as long as you’d like. I’ll just be around the corner, doing some of my own research.”
“Thank you, Jaina.”
Jaina’s smile lingers a second longer this time.
She starts with the book Jaina had claimed as a favourite. It starts slow, and remains so throughout every page she flicks across, a hundred looping sentences that seem to wriggle out of understanding as soon as they leave her mind, until she is reading and re-reading each paragraph a hundred times. Within five minutes of opening it she is already skipping pages, trying to make sense of the handful of diagrams rather than brave the ceaseless torrent of words.
They look interesting, at least. But they are little more than unexplained shapes, twisting lines that she cannot intuitively understand.
She gives up on this book, chooses another. And then one more, each more convoluted than the last. It sparks a pulsing headache, one only made worse by the compounding frustration that none of this makes the slightest bit of sense. Is it the books, or simply her? Jaina might have been a prodigy, but she had torn through these very same books when she was just a child. Vereesa’s own sons never seemed to have this much trouble learning their spells. And they were tempestuous when they were young, throwing anything they found too difficult by the wayside.
Maybe Jaina was wrong, and there is not even the tiniest spark of magical potential in her, and these books are only willing to reveal their secrets to those with magical talent.
But still, she doesn’t quite relish the idea of giving up so soon. Especially not after how genuinely excited Jaina seemed by the simple thought of it.
In the end, she crumples up what thin attempts she made at notes, picks the first book up, and goes searching through the twisting maze of shelves for Jaina.
She finds her in the very corner of the library, surrounded by even more books than she had found for Vereesa. What’s more amusing is the woven pile of blankets she sits in, like a giant bird’s nest. She doesn’t even notice Vereesa approach, her sight blocked by a dozen open books she has floating in mid-air.
Vereesa raps her knuckles on the bookshelf nearest to her, and every book falls in an instant, before Jaina manages to recover and give her a tiny wave.
There’s a handful of things she could say. Even if they all just amount to the same thing, an admission of failure and a desperate plea for help.
And yet.
“Did you really make a study nest?” She says instead, deflecting.
Jaina looks embarrassed as she moves to gather up her fallen research, sweeping it towards her in a wild mess of a pile.
“It’s comfortable.” Jaina says.
“You’re adorable.”
And Jaina flushes bright red. It makes Vereesa feel as if she has taken a step too far, and she immediately backtracks.
“I know you’re busy,” Vereesa starts, “but I thought…” Maybe it’s her pride speaking, but she switches gears mid-sentence. “Can I join you?” She asks. “Only if it’s no trouble.”
She’s already regretting the intrusion, taken a step back before Jaina flashes another smile, shoves a half-dozen books out of the way and pats the space next to her.
“You barely have to ask.” Jaina says, and finally, Vereesa moves, takes up the spot next to her. There really isn’t much room. Sandwiched between a shelf and the bare stone wall, there’s only a comfortable amount of space for a single person standing, and to remain forces them to sit shoulder to shoulder. Vereesa feels stiff and awkward for that first minute, but Jaina doesn’t ask her to move, or awkwardly tense herself away. She only picks up her books again, starts the very same process she was sunk in before Vereesa interrupted.
Jaina holds each book suspended in the air, spinning between them regularly, bringing one in closer to her face to read briefly before she switches to another one. There’s a small pile of notes in Jaina’s lap, and every handful of seconds she leans down to jot something else down. There’s a rhythm to her movements, like she’s working to the beat of a song no one else can hear, a music so enrapturing that she often has to pause her note-taking to drum her fingers along the pages in a steady rhythm.
This Jaina is different to the hundreds of others known. The Lord Admiral is one woman, the Jaina she used to be as a young girl is another. Even the Jaina Vereesa thought she knew is different to the quiet one here, the woman alone to herself, lost in aged words and her own theories.
They don’t even exchange any words, but it still feels so intimate, to catch a glimpse of the woman Jaina is when no one else is watching. That familiar sense of want snakes its way back through her, until she can imagine what a future might be like if she could have this sort of thing more often. That’s what she desires more than anything. Not so much the grand romantic gestures, but the small things. Sharing spaces and secrets. Pining down that elusive chance at happiness, catching it, and this time, never letting it escape. A second chance, an escape from the quagmire of the past.
But she’s still too terrified. Because it had to be Jaina, didn’t it?
It couldn’t have been one of any hundred of half-strangers, people she could risk losing. Even if it had been one of her own soldiers she might have been able to take the chance. Some nights, she almost wishes time had never passed, that she was still mired in hate and loss, that her heart had never healed enough to want again. Because Jaina she can’t lose. Not after everything they’ve been through. Not when it feels as if there is only one person who really understands.
“Are you alright?” Jaina whispers. Her hand is touching Vereesa’s face, wiping it clean. And she is close. Far, far too close. Too close to hide secrets from. And Vereesa has never been a particularly talented liar.
“I’m worried about the future.” Is all she says, the only thing that cuts close enough to the truth to not be a lie.
“We’re going to get through it.” Jaina tells her. The assurance in her voice is calming, believable. But it has always been hard to doubt her. “Together.”
Vereesa lets her eyes close, until all she really knows is Jaina’s touch, her hand on her face, and where Jaina reaches with her other hand to rub her back, slow and rhythmic but still almost too much.
“You know,” Jaina starts, voice low. There’s no one to hear, but Vereesa appreciates it still. “I’m still really glad you’re here.” Vereesa can hear Jaina draw in a breath, unsteady and slow. But she keeps her eyes closed, just focuses on the sound of Jaina’s voice. “It’s been years actually, since I came back here. But I still know that no one quite trusts me yet. I feel as if I’m always trying to prove myself to my people, my family, to anyone who so much as glances my way. To show that I’m not the traitor they thought I was. Or the madwoman I almost became after Theramore. Sometimes I just want the space to feel like just a person again.” Another shaky breath, with not even the slightest effort made to disguise it. “I don’t feel like I have to pretend to be anyone with you.”
“I feel the same.” Vereesa says, softly so it doesn’t sound like a lie.
But she feels brave now, brave or made foolhardy by the mess of emotions still roiling through her, and she shuffles the small amount she can, drops her head down on Jaina’s shoulder. Jaina is steady, weighted and so very human against her, and for now at least, she crushes that sense of guilt like one would crush a bug beneath their boot.
She opens the single book she brought with her, starts again from the beginning. The words still flow over her, but she has a touch more patience now, her restless mind settled by the small movement of Jaina’s shoulder as she breathes.
In the end, Jaina is alive, and safe. And that’s what really matters.
She wakes up much later, to the gold of late-afternoon sunlight and the soft press of Jaina against her side. Jaina’s breathing is still steady, and Vereesa doesn’t dare move for fear of waking her. Jaina needs whatever sleep she can get, Vereesa tells herself. She works herself to the bone most days, a fact only made worse by the insomnia she is plagued by. She can’t wake her.
She’s still an awful liar.
Vereesa stays still for much longer, until Jaina stirs. She grumbles quietly, half asleep, leans more heavily into Vereesa’s side until her mind returns to her, and then she pulls away slightly, hanging her head forward and grumbling more.
“Maybe I was a bit too comfortable.” Jaina murmurs, rubbing her eyes. She brings her hand up to touch her own shoulder, where Vereesa had been pretending to sleep only moments before. “Did you drool on me?”
“No.” Vereesa says, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand.
“I think you did.”
“I think you’re delusional.”
Jaina is growing more and more awake, albeit slowly. She leans forward a bit more, grabs one of the scattered notes that litter the floor. She squints at it, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I have water-damaged notes that might disagree.”
“You’re mad.”
Jaina turns to smile at her, crooked and half asleep. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I think it’s adorable.”
She turns away too soon to see the very tips of Vereesa’s ears go red.
Vereesa waits until much later that night to bring Jaina’s book back out, listening to her sons rattle on about their days. She still keeps them separate from politics, and certainly from the chance of ever entering battle, so this entire trip is like a vacation to them, no matter how much they needle her on ways they can help.
Giramar tells her about his attempts to imitate a spell he once saw Jaina use, and he has half stood out of his chair, his hands moving to summon a tornado of ice before she reminds him not to cast such spells inside. He smiles sheepishly at her, but won’t abandon the topic until she agrees to watch him try to cast it early tomorrow morning.
Galadin is just as eager, brings out from his pockets a great deal of pages, shoves them across the table until she can see his smudged attempts at making maps of Tiragarde Sound, the drawings recognisable enough to the maps she’s seen laid out in the Keep’s war room. He went out hunting, he tells her, which she takes to mean he went out exploring. He claims to have brought back a string of rabbits, however, and when she taps the scattered drawings and tells him he should mark down good areas to hunt in he nods rapidly, and eagerly gathers the pages back up.
Some things change, but the innocence of youth will hold them in its grip for a while longer, and she sends them off to bed wondering if she should be glad or worried about their callous lack of fear for the future.
She should likely do the same, but she lingers still, brings Jaina’s book out. For a while, she doesn’t open it, just brushes her fingers down on the worn leather cover, so old it has become soft, tells herself she is only dwelling on how well-loved the book has been, and not on trying to imagine where its owner is right now. Has Jaina slipped into sleep already, or does she work still? She knows the answer to that question at least. Part of her wants to slip out of her rooms, to sneak off into the other wing of the house, to find Jaina’s study and spend more time in her company.
But she has intruded enough today, so she just lets the loneliness slink like venom through her veins, and does nothing to burn it out.
She opens the book back up to its place instead. She’s made enough headway in it that it has started explaining some very basic spells, ones she distantly remembers her sons doing years and years ago.
But she feels a fool sitting in the quiet of her rooms, twisting her hands in unfamiliar motions and stuttering over unfamiliar words. Especially so when nothing happens, when ten tries at summoning a small shower of sparks does little more than make her hands ache strangely, in a way that she can’t tell if it is some tiny trace of magic or only her hands complaining about the unfamiliar movement.
After a while, she gives up, instead gathers up a quiver of arrows and the enchanted set of bracers. Strapping the bracers onto her arms feels strange for a second, the piece of armour clashing awfully with her nightclothes, but as soon as they are firmly strapped against her skin, a cool sense of peace settles over her, tears away the growing frustration from her chest and crushes it.
She still doesn’t know what potential Jaina saw. This day of failure after failure proves that. But there’s something so intoxicating about having magic pressed up against her skin, about reaching out to grasp it as easily as reaching to draw an arrow out of a quiver. Vereesa takes out one of her arrows, spins it in one hand while she focuses on maintaining that same connection with the bracers. Before, she only held onto the connection for long enough to draw and fire a single arrow, and it takes much of her focus away to retain it. It feels like she has suddenly been transported to the coldest parts of Northrend, or been on the wrong side of one of Jaina’s spells, frozen in a way that is more shocking than unpleasant. The air she breathes is sharp, almost hurts to breathe, and after a minute she breathes it all out at once, severing the connection in an instant.
Her lungs welcome the change, but her fingers don’t, growing suddenly and ceaselessly cold, and she drops the arrow when she looks down and realises it is encased in ice.
Katherine Proudmoore finds Vereesa at breakfast with her soldiers, hands her a stack of reports and asks her to bring them to Jaina when she can. Katherine offers no explanation for why she asked Vereesa to do so rather than finding Jaina herself, and lingers only long enough to give Vereesa one last look, offering her a half smile no one else manages to catch before she slips back out again.
Vereesa ends up having to ask a passing Kul Tiran officer for directions, but she finds Jaina in the first place she looks, knocks on the door to her study to immediately hear a tired voice inviting her in.
Jaina looks exhausted, dark circles visible under her eyes as she leans her head on a hand, frowning slightly at the door before she recognises Vereesa, and then her posture straightens, and she wipes her clothes free of some invisible quantity of dust, her eyes settling on Vereesa for a second before she looks down and notices the steaming mug Vereesa brought with her.
“I made you coffee.” Vereesa says. She has to shove aside two large piles of notes to even set it down on Jaina’s desk, and even then, it’s precarious, and she spends more than a moment hoping no stray hand will knock it, ruin countless irreplaceable documents. But it’s worth it when Jaina’s tired eyes move back to her, and she breaks out into a grateful smile.
“Oh, I love you.” She says, reaching for it already, not noticing Vereesa freeze next to her. Her hands settle around the mug, and her eyes drift closed for long enough for Vereesa to calm the deafening drum of her heartbeat, wipe some of the shock clear from her face. Because she knows she doesn’t mean it. Jaina is tired, under slept and overworked, barely aware of any of the words drifting from her mouth.
Jaina tries to take a sip too soon, hisses under her breath when it doubtlessly burns her tongue. For a handful of seconds however, Jaina looks at peace, and Vereesa hates the way that shatters when she hands Jaina the bundle of reports.
There’s a half-dozen reports tied together, and Jaina flicks through them all, a frown returning to carve deep onto her face, something no amount of coffee would be able to cure. Vereesa hesitates, then leans with her back to Jaina’s desk, watching her carefully.
“Bad news?” She asks, and Jaina nods.
“There’s been casualties.” Jaina says. She grabs the mug of coffee with one hand, casts a quick spell over it to lower the temperature before drawing a long sip. “We’ve lost three entire ships over the last two days. And that’s just in our waters.” She sighs out, flicks through the papers on her desk, grabs out one inlaid with gold leaf. “There’s an offer of a joint war expedition against the Naga from Queen Talanji. I’m not even sure if we can trust it, not after what we did to their capital years ago. Maybe it’s a trap. Maybe it isn’t. But we’ll likely accept it regardless, sail off and start this new war now. I just…” She breaks off for a long moment, and sighs.
“I don’t know what to do.” Jaina admits quietly.
Vereesa moves to stand by Jaina’s side, reaches out and squeezes her shoulder.
“We’re going to get through this.” Vereesa tells her. “Together.”
“Together.” Jaina echoes softly, and her hand moves to cover Vereesa’s, keeps it in place. “You promise?”
“I do.”
In the end, Jaina accepts the deal with the Zandalari, and within a week the fleet in mobilised and sailing away.
The first night at sea is awful. Sleep is hard enough at the best of times, but here she does little but thrash, dwelling too deep on the knowledge that whatever war is coming will likely start tomorrow, and that she has no way to predict what will come, what new dangers they will have to endure.
She carries a small table and chair out from the galley below, unable to bear staying below deck much longer. At least here she can see the stars, hear the snap of the wind as it plays with the furled sails of their ship. The stars are familiar, and a corner of her mouth twitches as she wonders what differing names the Kul Tirans likely have, whether they too painted stories about long lost heroes in them.
There’s an old candle set into the table, previously melted wax sealing it tight to the wood. But it lights well enough when Vereesa takes her tinderbox to it, and albeit small, the light is warm and comforting. The light of it does nothing to hide the stars, or break the endless surrounding dark, but it does enough that if she drags herself close to it, she can open Jaina’s book, try to force more of its words into her head.
It serves well enough as a distraction, if nothing else. The words are still frustrating, as if each individual one fights with her as she reads them, but that frustration is preferable to her own fears of the unknown, so she reads still.
A board creaks from far behind her, and she can hear the sound of someone’s slow stumbling walk, their pace loud enough to be easily traced as a tired and graceless human. Vereesa turns slightly to see, gives a tiny wave as she sees Jaina, arms tightly crossed, looking as if she has had enough luck with sleep as Vereesa did. Or worse really. But Jaina’s posture melts as she walks closer, like frost under the morning sun.
Jaina waves her hand slightly, and the light from Vereesa’s candle brightens threefold, and the sudden light makes Jaina hiss under her breath and shield her eyes from the light for a few seconds. All the magic in the world can’t stop you making ill-advised decisions, it seems.
“Have you had any luck with that?” Jaina asks, gesturing at the book in Vereesa’s hands. Vereesa hesitates for a moment, and then she lays the book down on the table, facing up.
“Honestly? No.”
In the candlelight, at this late hour, Jaina struggles to hide her emotions, and Vereesa feels as if she could read her a thousand times easier than any book. She looks tired, disappointed, and almost guilty. Her mouth twists down, and she moves to take Vereesa’s hand in hers.
“I hope you don’t think I’ve been pressuring you.” She says quietly.
“I’m sorry?”
Jaina hesitates a moment, then continues. “I only wanted… I thought you learning magic might be nice. That it might make you happier, or distract from…” She waves her hand broadly in the air. “All this. But I feel like instead all I did was give you another thing to be frustrated about, something else to stress on even while everything is going to hell.” Jaina has to cut herself off for a moment, and Vereesa squeezes her hand in comfort. Somehow it doesn’t seem to help. “You don’t have to keep reading this if you don’t want to.” Jaina says, as she runs the touch of a hand down the pages of the still open book.
She moves to close it, but Vereesa stops her with a touch.
“I do want to.” Vereesa says. “I don’t understand much of what it says but I… I want to understand. I would have given up by now if I didn’t want that.”
“But you haven’t had any luck yet?”
“No, I…” Vereesa cuts herself off, remembers in an instant the cold biting touch of frost against her fingers, the arrow encased in ice. “Actually, I might have?”
Vereesa looks back to Jaina now, sees her watching her carefully, her focus brought back in, sharp as a razor.
“You might have?” She repeats.
Vereesa tries to explain what happened, every failed attempt at casting spells following the looping explanations of the book, and that final attempt with the bracers, the way it felt to hold open the connection to the enchantment for so long. She stumbles over words, backtracks multiple times, distracted by the way Jaina watches her, her gaze almost too intense to bear.
“I have an idea.” Jaina says quietly, after she’s finished. She leans in to the table, close enough to brush Vereesa’s side as she moves, and drags her book in closer. She flicks through pages, searching, lands on one Vereesa hasn’t read yet.
“I doubt we will get much sleep tonight.” Jaina says, and taps the page. “So why don’t we try this one? Together, this time. I’ll help.”
Vereesa frowns, but she pulls the book back from Jaina. Looks down at the pages and tries not to feel intimidated by the amount of text covering it, only broken up by a single small diagram, some small swirling thing that makes her head spin. “Frostbolt?”
“Yes. I was thinking…” Jaina starts.
“That’s always dangerous.” Vereesa says quietly, and Jaina slaps her shoulder lightly.
“But I don’t think reading a hundred old books is going to help you the way it did for me. I really should have thought of that before, and not gotten quite so caught up in the thrill of it all, but still. I don’t think words illustrate the way magic feels to you, that your kind of understanding is more… kinetic. Like… tracking, or hunting. Picking up evidence from the things you observe and feel, boiling it all down into a single answer, a guiding path.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Jaina leans in close. “I think there’s a lot you do understand about magic. But it’s all intuitive, guesses made on the way it feels, and not from theories or any kind of rote learning. I’ve been trying to teach you the wrong way. No wonder it never worked.”
Jaina slowly takes Vereesa’s hands, moves them into place, one hand hovering over the other, a small space of air in between. And then she stands back, leaves Vereesa sitting, still holding her hands in the same position, trying not to feel like a fool once more.
“Don’t think about what the book said about magic.” Jaina tells her. “Try to remember how it feels, whenever you’re close to someone casting a spell. Do you ever feel strange, near magic?”
“Yes. It’s like… I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes I get flashes of images, or a sudden taste of something on my tongue.”
“Focus on that. The way it makes you feel.”
And she tries, focuses in deep, thinks of the taste of salt on her tongue whenever Jaina makes her ship fly, the warm buzz that fills her chest whenever she summons conjured lights, and the strange half remembered images she gets sometimes, standing too close to Giramar while he practises his spells. But still nothing appears in her hands.
“Remember your bracers.” Jaina says, her voice almost distant. “The way it feels when you use them. The bitter cold, the sense of frostbite, the way it feels when you open yourself up to the enchantment. And draw deep into yourself, and try to find that same cold. It might be buried, hidden, but don’t rush. Only breathe, slowly, and focus.”
Vereesa breathes, and focuses in. Let’s the rest of the world melt away, like it does when her bow is in her hands. The strange position of her hands is forgotten, so too the fears of tomorrow, even the nervousness she holds about Jaina. She lets it all flow away, like so many discarded objects floating downstream.
She thinks of ice instead. She doesn’t so much search for the cold, but wills it to come, imagines that tiny point of frost is back within her lungs, freezing the air she breathes, and focuses on it until it builds up slowly in her chest, until it feels like there is a tiny snowstorm inside her, turning her blood to ice with it. It fills her mind, washes it full of the blue of submerged icebergs, the hiss of wind against ice, and the dull pain of frozen limbs. And then she breathes it out, wills it to live outside her, until her hands grow almost too cold to bear, and she almost drags them away before a hand covers her own, keeps it in place.
“Keep your hand steady.” Jaina says from far too close, her other hand leaning on Vereesa’s opposite shoulder, burning hot. For a second, her concentration slips, and she almost loses control of what spell there was. Any other day and this amount of contact, the hawklike focus on Jaina on her, would steal her chances of functioning normally. But the cold is sharp, and the pain of it grounding, and she lets it all slip away once more.
And something is swirling between her hands. Only a small thing, but the cold of it is intense, and even half a spell is an improvement on all the failed attempts at before.
There must be some way to finish it, to tie this spell up into its final form. But Vereesa couldn’t understand the book at the best of times, and she doesn’t trust her tongue to ask questions any more. Instead she reaches out with her awareness, connects back with the wild twist of the spell in her hands, and asks it what it’s meant to be. It is almost alive, almost conscious, and it whispers back.
Vereesa ties the spell closed, and a small bolt of ice shoots out, slices into the candle in front of her, the light flickering out in an instant. She swears under her breath, and then again in her thoughts as Jaina throws her arms around her from behind, laughing into her ear.
“I told you.” Jaina says, more proud than smug. “I told you that you had something.”
“You did.” Vereesa says. She can’t quite hug her back from this angle, but she reaches up with her hands to touch Jaina’s arms, and bends her head upwards to the ever-watching stars.
In the end Vereesa manages to steal a handful of hours sleep, but she still emerges back on deck to the grey of the very early morning. Their ships are surrounded by dense fog, dulling even the tiny amount of light available. The morning is dead silent, no wind, no bird calls, nothing but the occasional quiet creak of the ship as it rocks in what small amount of swell there is.
She finds Jaina still awake, leaning on the railing near the helm, staring off into the endless fog. Whether she managed to sleep at all last night Vereesa can’t tell, but she has put on a heavy cloak, the hood pulled over her head. Lost in her own world.
For a moment, Vereesa hesitates, unsure if Jaina wants this moment to herself alone. But she approaches her still, makes her steps heavy and loud, and Jaina quietly pats the section of railing next to her without turning, until Vereesa too leans over it to stare into the thick silent fog.
“Did you sleep at all?” Vereesa asks softly. Even quiet, her words shatter something delicate.
“No.” Jaina says.
Vereesa lets the silence linger on between them. She can feel the unspoken questions hang in the air like something physical. But she doesn’t reach for a single one, only waits to see if Jaina will talk herself.
And she doesn’t stare at Jaina either. Somehow this conversation feels easier to have like this, in the quiet of the early morning, hidden from even the sight of the other ships by the dense fog. Their ship rocks in the water, but only slightly, nowhere near enough to turn her stomach. It feels rhythmic instead, the tiniest of movements proving just enough to remind them of where they are.
“I have spent a lot of time thinking.” Jaina says finally. She sighs out slow, something low and almost hissing, and pushes her hood down. Vereesa glances at her only briefly, but a single second is enough to make her heart hurt. Jaina looks worn, and frayed, like an old rope pulled too tight.
“About what?”
“Far too many things. But lately? I’ve been worried about you.”
“Me?”
“I worry that I’m already forcing things too far, dragging you into my war. You could get hurt, any of your people could be hurt… Tides, we don’t even know if Boralus will get attacked, Vereesa, what if something happens to your sons?”
“It’s going to be fine.”
“Please don’t lie to me.” Her words cut like a knife, and settle in Vereesa’s chest like cold biting steel. Because she is a liar. An awful one, but a liar nonetheless.
Jaina breathes in deep, steadies herself. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Vereesa.”
After so long, honesty is terrifying. Even if part of her wants it. Wants an end to endless dances of words and action, of hiding everything that matters.
“None of this is your fault.” Vereesa tells her. “None of it.” She repeats, when Jaina tries to argue.
“But this isn’t even your fight.”
“And yet, if I had the choice,” Vereesa says, slowly, “then I would not change a thing. I’d still come here, I’d still fight with you, I’d still risk it all.”
“But why?”
The answer lies heavy on her tongue. Her entire self feels leaden, weighed down, like someone has tied her to an anchor and pushed her off the side, sinking down endlessly. The pause lingers on, stretches out until it’s an answer in its own right, outlining the shape of the why that Vereesa still doesn’t dare to put into words. But Jaina’s continued silence is the most terrifying of them all, and Vereesa doesn’t even want to look at her. She wishes there were some way to shift topics, to cut Jaina’s focus away from her. Even if it is only a delay of the inevitable, an extra minute before the fall of the axe.
“Oh.” Jaina says, finally. “You honestly…?”
“Yes.” Vereesa makes herself say. She forces the word out through her teeth, like trying to pry some attempt at honesty out from behind bars of steel. It shouldn’t be so hard, but even with what thin mask she had burnt away, the terror of being known remains.
But Jaina quietly takes her hand, squeezes it softly, and lets the touch linger for a second more before she pulls it away.
“I’m sorry.” Jaina says, her voice as soft as the endless fog surrounding them. A quiet sound, but inescapable nonetheless. Vereesa tenses, holds the railing far too tight, and glances to Jaina out the corner of her eye, not yet brave enough to face her properly.
“But if I’m honest, this is a terrible time for this.” Jaina continues.
“I know.”
“There is so much uncertainty these days, and if we are to soon face the creatures of the void who knows what uncertainties will follow. And we- We don’t even know what will happen today, and I-”
“I know, Jaina.”
Jaina touches her elbow, until Vereesa turns stiffly and faces her. Exhaustion has deepened all the lines in her face, like deep cracks in sandstone. Pressure building up and up until even the strongest of foundations begins to splinter, and erode into so much sand.
“Vereesa, I…” She tries, “I think that we…”
Vereesa decides to spare her. “I’m a grown woman, Jaina. I can handle rejection.”
Jaina’s eyes widen. “I didn’t, I only meant… By the tides, I’ve made a mess of this.”
Only now, looking beyond the weariness in Jaina’s frame, does Vereesa recognise the same strain of nervous energy threaded through Jaina. But Jaina reaches up to grab a hold of Vereesa’s shoulders, ground her in place. Or trap her. Either way, she is stuck, like a pillar of rock buffeted by incoming waves, unable to move or escape from her place.
Jaina visibly takes in a breath, exhales slowly. “I cannot say what today will bring,” she says carefully, “Nor tomorrow, or any day after that. And that uncertainty unsettles me. I have so many responsibilities, as do you. A family and a people to protect. But I… I don’t know if it is right, to ignore the more mundane of fears and desires.”
“What are you saying?” Vereesa says softly. The nervous energy twisting through her grows worse still, turns into an electrical storm within her chest, sending off sparks she almost thinks could be visible.
Jaina’s hands are burning hot, and she digs them in tighter into the fabric of Vereesa’s shirt. There’s something swimming in her eyes, a swirling confused mess of emotions that has Vereesa convinced she will talk more, on and on, endless mazes of words that will trap Vereesa within them, trying fruitlessly to carve her way out and into a meaning she can understand.
“I think I do want you.” Jaina says instead. “And I know there is a much longer conversation to be had on this, even if now is not the time. But that is the truth. As honest as I dare.”
Somehow the fear still remains. And maybe the fears of rejection are gone, but there are still a thousand other stresses. What if it doesn’t work out, and an ugly breakup only drives a wedge between them. What if something happens today, or tomorrow, or in any thousands of dangerous days to come. What if, what if, what if. Fear has been drowning Vereesa for far too long.
“May I kiss you?” She asks, honest in turn.
A smile worms its way onto Jaina’s face, a flitting, nervous thing, but it still lights up Jaina’s face, eases some of the exhaustion from her. “Yes.” Jaina says, but she is already leaning in, the hands on Vereesa’s shoulders now only serving to pull her closer. Jaina’s touch is still burning hot, and Vereesa can’t tell if it’s her magic she can sense, or only the intensity of the woman herself. Whichever it is, it brands Vereesa’s skin, and she can feel the fears of a lifetime start to melt away, like an iceberg drifting into warmer waters. She’s not free yet, not quite. But she will be.
And the fog that surrounds them will lift eventually. But for now, this quiet morning is theirs alone.