Chapter Text
S omething different was going on in Boralus. Like, there is always something going on in this hellish city , but it was different this time. A strange ship arrived to the harbor, decorated with a combination of colors that he had not seen since he was a child, or at least not after the shocking news that Daelin Proudmoore was murdered and Lady Jaina, his daughter, was to be blamed. He did not know much about families, but it was awful to be betrayed for someone that you cared for, and he definitely knew about that.
Ah yeah, the colors. Well, to be honest, golden is a color that almost every human faction he knows use: the Kultirian, the mages of Dalaran, even the Gilnean. But if he wasn’t wrong, these specific colors, deep blue and that golden lion face, were the ones of “The Alliance”, the new one, conformed by Humans, Dwarves, Elves and others.
He put his hands inside the pockets of his coat as he hummed an old shanty. Whatever happened, it wasn’t his business since Kul Tiras cut their bonds with that “Alliance” years ago. But even so he couldn’t help but feel nostalgic: when he was a kid and still working for the Ashvane, he saw for the first time the golden lion over the bright blue. The ship was magnificent, he remembered, and the sensation he felt when he saw the soldiers in their silver armors, carrying proudly the Alliance flags and marching down to the harbor… He was so innocent back then, and he imagined himself as captain of a beautiful ship like that one, with brave mercenaries up to fight in his name.
Ha.
Whatever, that was many years ago, and that was the first and last time he saw one of those ships in Kultirian shores, and normally, as almost everything in his life, he would give a fuck about who’s arriving or who’s leaving, but this time it’s different. The ship arrived yesterday and this morning he got a message from old Sir Harbormaster Cyrus, asking for him to come down to his office immediately. In any other occasion he would have surely ignored the message or wouldn’t have bothered in coming so early (he had a fucking, painful hangover) but it wasn’t casualty that that magnificent, rusty Kultirian ship decorated with the Alliance flags arrived and the next day Cyrus is asking the services of the best mercenary in whole Boralus . And hell, Flynn Fairwind was definitely loyal to Cyrus: the old sea wolf knew exactly how much his loyalty worths. In gold.
Besides, he was curious. He had a strange tingle at the back of his neck that felt almost like the one he felt that day when he left Freehold: that he was fucked, and that interesting things were waiting for him. This time, however, both sensations were even more intense.
When he arrived to Cyrus’s office he sneered at the guards who stared at him with narrowed eyes: he cannot blame them, honestly. However, his shit-eater smile dropped when, once he walked stairs down to face Cyrus, he found Taelia as well. And don’t get him wrong: he really likes Taelia, but the last time that Cyrus sent him on a mission with she, he was almost beheaded, and woke up inside a huge barrel with fishes, half naked, stinking like sour, cheap beer (or that he believed -made himself believe) and hugging a Tortolian.
However, now Cyrus and Taelia stared at him in silence and Flynn walked to them as if he were walking to the gallow.
“Flynn” said Cyrus “Come, I have work for you”
He got closer and took a seat. Cyrus handed him a pint of dark beer. Dark beer. The one that the old wolf keeps locked.
He was now pretty sure that he wasn’t going to like this.
“I’ll be quick” said Cyrus with a sigh. “I need you to go to Tol Dagor and free a special inmate”.
“Tol Dagor” Flynn raised his brows and had to take a long sip of beer. Now he was thankful for that. He felt like a burp was trying to make its way through his throat and he was very tempted to free it over their faces but decided to be serious. This was a business meeting after all. “Not like I even care who is it, but why?”
“I need him out” said Cyrus raising a brow and Flynn scoffed.
“You’re asking me to steal a poor bastard from that rat’s nest. You know my price and you’re not looking for someone else to do this. I means that I’m your best choice. And I’m not planning enter there without even knowing why I’m risking my hide”.
Taelia huffed and shook her head while Cyrus let out a hoarse laugh that sounded a bit forced, as if he didn’t want to laugh but couldn’t resist.
“He was unjustly imprisoned. If I’m about to raise more tensions than the ones that already are, I’ll need him out”.
“With ‘tensions’, you mean that Alliance ship out there, isn’t?” he yawned and put his leg over a free chair while he sip again his beer. “They pretty, by the way”.
“I’m paying you for your services, not for you to stick your nose where you’re not called!”
“Easy old man!” said Flynn raising his hand in surrender. “You know I wouldn’t refuse a job from you. ’m just curious”.
“I know, I know” Cyrus sighed and turned down his face, holding the bridge of his nose and dropping down over a chair. Taelia, besides him, grabbed his shoulder. “Is just- there are many things happening at once…”
Cyrus’s voice was strangely deep and dark, so dark that Flynn stopped in middle of another sip to stare at him over the edge of the pint. The Harbormaster’s face changed a bit. He seemed older and weak. It didn’t fit him at all.
Flynn wondered if that “many things at once” meant the rumors that had been whispered not just in Boralus, but in all Kul Tiras. He, just like everyone else, heard about what happened to that huge tree called Teldrassil (rumors said that there were only civils. By the Tidemother’s tits, fucking civils) and also they said that the Alliance was trying to retake the old kingdom of Lordaeron. Cyrus had said (twice, both times being drunk and upset) that the Horde would attack Kul Tiras and they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from an attack that burned a huge, magical tree. Flynn agreed on that and he wasn’t worried: he could always jump on a boat and sail to the mainland. Maybe live in Booty Bay, a city filled with pirates, goblins and turquoise sea. It sounded like the perfect place where a mercenary could be happy, get drunk and find a fuck friend once in a while.
But this time there was something different, and it was serious. So much that he had to sit straight and stare at Cyrus.
“Cyrus…? What’s going on?”
“You have to see it yourself, lad”
Cyrus handed him his old spyglass, golden with some jewels missing, and somewhat confused Flynn took it and raised up. His shoulder hurt a bit when one of Cyrus’ heavy hands gripped it to guide him out to the harbor. When they were far enough and closer to the sea, he pointed a specific place over the sea. And yes, over there, far away, there were a few ships sailing fast. Flynn opened the spyglass and looked through it: the ships were fast indeed (though couldn’t be compared to the Kultirian ships) and strangely, they didn’t seem to be directed to Boralus or Kul Tiras in general, but they were traveling to Southwest…
Southwest. And the red of the sails was unmistakable.
A sudden salty breeze hit Flynn’s face and moved his hair, but that breeze had a strange sound, like a war horn, and it was a sound that bristled his skin because it brought memories of war, blood, destruction. He didn’t need to ask anything else.
“So” once Flynn managed to recover from the horrible goosebump that ran along his back after hearing the orcish war horn, he turned around to stare at Cyrus and Taelia. “When I start?”
Winds of change were coming this way, he knew it, and somehow he felt that these winds were going to drag him as well.