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It had been a year.
Azeroth was not what it had once been after Deathwing’s rampage across it’s continents.
The Horde was not what it had once been, or promised to be.
Sylvanas, well, who could say what she was at all nowadays?
She had kept her word to Jaina Proudmoore. She had remained in this empty shell of an existence without a clear purpose or reason. This empty shell of herself.
Her purpose, her claimed purpose of struggling on, was gone. Arthas was gone and she had been robbed of doing the deed or even joining the battle and seeing him fall. Objectively, Sylvanas and the Forsaken had done more than most to undermine and hinder the Scourge and pave the way for the former Lich King’s fall but thanks to worthless traitors like Putress and Varimathras they had ended up barred from the long awaited finale, and there was no satisfaction to reap for Sylvanas.
The first thing Sylvanas had done upon returning home had been to withdraw her Forsaken from Gilneas. She had ridden into an argument between an enraged Chieftain, and nowadays unfortunately Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream and a desperate Apothecary Lyndon and indifferently passed on invading an ignoble nation occupying a forgotten stretch of land in a forgotten corner below Lordaeron. Garrosh had met her gaze with characteristic fury and Sylvanas had stared him down with dispassionate detachment. What did a barbaric orc upstart or his opinions matter to her now? He was a fleeting and peripheral speck of dust on the frayed and burned edge of the tapestry that had been Sylvanas’ life, nothing more.
Yet for all his shortcomings Garrosh Hellscream had still been made Warchief. It was quite possibly Thrall’s most witless decision to appoint him, or allow him to rise to the position – Sylvanas did not know or care enough about the inner workings of the rest of the Horde. And suffice to say things deteriorated rather quickly form there. Nowadays only the immense strategic importance of Lordaeorn as a Horde stronghold and staging ground, and the fear of the Alliance diverting more resources and attention to Kalimdor if it would fall or defect, kept Garrosh from throwing her out.
Sylvanas had nine val’kyr with her now. They were a closely kept secret and as far as she knew only vague rumours about them and what they could do circulated among the most informed of the rest of the Horde. They had sworn themselves to Sylvanas to escape a drearier bond to the new Lich King and she had heard them out. What they had to tell about the kind of afterlife that awaited any Forsaken who died had caused a rarely felt dread to rise inside Sylvanas but she did not necessarily take their word alone for it. She would not have put something similarly cruel past the Lich King though.
There were times when she wanted to just…let it all go anyway. The rule of the Forsaken required more than enough of her to keep her occupied but she felt an increasingly prevalent sense of pointlessness. For all her speeches and insistence on the contrary, Sylvanas questioned what purpose they now served. She no longer had a vision or a goal to lead her people towards. She, and her rule, felt increasingly like a thing of the past that belonged there. But she could not be sure about the val’kyrs’ warning. They needed her in some way, so it was in their interest to keep her in this world. But they could never the less be right.
And she had still given her word to Jaina Proudmoore.
It was bitterly ironic then how Garrosh’s first thought after the calamities of Deathwing had been somewhat contained should be to move against the Alliance in Theramore. The island and adjoining peninsula was near worthless in itself, it only had value as the well fortified and guarded Alliance position it was. Sylvanas had as usual been the last one to be notified – through what was essentially a rude request for troops more than anything else – and been forced to rely on her own spies for information along with the few allies she still had in the other Horde factions.
Eventually she had contributed as token a force as she thought she could get away with, made up half of overeager troublemakers who itched for raiding an Alliance position just for the sake of it – Sylvanas hoped that Jaina would roast them with an especially hot fireball as soon as possible – and half of the weakest of their ranks whose losses would be felt the least. She had passed them secret orders underlining their priority to survive rather than ensure a Horde victory at every cost but held no illusions about Garrosh not making his utmost to use them up as arrow fodder just for the sake of it.
When the attacks foundered against Theramore’s defenders Sylvanas had smirked in the solitude of her chambers. She lamented the loss of Forsaken who deserved better, and those few of the other factions who remained on good terms with them. As for the rest, good riddance. If the new Warchief was too arrogant to realise what he was up against it would only please Sylvanas to learn in what amusing ways an archmage of Jaina Proudmoore’s mettle would put that overgrown grunt in his place.
When the first vague reports came in from her forces and informants in Kalimdor of what Garrish Hellscream boasted about shortly after those, Sylvanas did not smile anymore.
***
The sea roared, boiled and thrashed.
In the eye of the howling winds and storming oceans was a desolate piece of lonely rock.
And on that rock were two lonely figures, each tormented in its own way by what had brought them there.
Watery shapes gathered and formed up almost like soldiers in ranks around Jaina Proudmoore, the makings of an army at the behest of its summoner.
Winds battered against the power of the tides, called on and channeled by Thrall. A hurricane to meet the storm from below. Belore have mercy on anything caught inbetween.
Only Belore did not have mercy on anyone. That commodity was in short supply in Azeroth.
Sylvanas landed and resumed her physical form about the middle ground between the antagonists. The winds tore at her and threatened to toss her about like a leaf before she regained her footing. As banshee she was less affected by the wordly forces. It was as if wind and water did not quite catch on to her contourless entity.
Thrall was the easier to spot, given his size. Even from a distance and with the great winds in her eyes Sylvanas had no difficulty discerning the lines of woe and effort that contorted his face. A strong-willed Warchief he had been, and a mighty shaman he may now be, but this was a struggle that Thrall was slowly and surely losing and he had no illusions to the contrary. Still he gave it his all none the less.
There was a conversation of sorts going on along the clash of elements, if one could apply such a term to the exchange of shouts that must surely have been amplified in some magical way to be audible above the mayhem around.
”…we HAVE failed you, Jaina! All of us!”
”YET YOU HAVE THE GALL TO STAND IN MY WAY!”
”YES! The children of Orgrimmar are innocent! You know that!”
”And what of THERAMORE’S?! What of MY people?! WHAT! OF! KINNDY!”
The last word was a crack of thunder. Until now none of them had apparently tried to outright attack the other but even such old and heavy bonds – for the shortlived humans and orcs – could not be counted on lasting indefinitely.
”They deserved none of this!”
”You stood by and let it happen!”
”I knew NOTHING of Garrosh’s madness!”
”It was RIGHT before you!”
”Not THIS!”
”IF IT HAD NOT BEEN A MANA BOMB IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ANYTHING ELSE! BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE HORDE DOES! THAT IS WHY THE HORDE HAS A WARCHIEF FOR A LEADER!”
”Kings and princes have shown themselves just as capable!” The retort lacked spirit. Jaina needed no lightning bolts to hit where it hurt.
Sylvanas could make out the archmage now. Even amidst the storm there was enough of her visible to confirm that she was hardly recognizable.
White hair but for a speck of gold. Ash-like skin, neither her innate fair complexion nor the ruddiness that cold weather brought out. Uncomfortably similar to the grey of a death knight in fact.
When Sylvanas came closer she could also discern the reddened eyes.
”You?”
”Me.”
Whether out of shock of seeing Sylvanas there or a deliberate concession to let her speak, the storm of water magic around her held back. There was no better term for it. It held back but was not diminished.
”I walked through the ruins of Theramore.” Sylvanas said evenly as if she had described any stroll anywhere. ”The blackened stone. The magical residue that…clings to you, does it not? Something particularly vile about it, that even one such as I can feel.”
Jaina was a lynx on the verge of leaping for her throat. The small moment before the legs would extend to bring flaring claws and teeth into her. Though Jaina’s might be of ice.
”The charred bodies fell to dust when you touched them, I assume. I did not take the liberty myself but the mounds here and there speak plainly. There was some scavenger bird trying its luck too that I witnessed. I shot it.” Sylvanas allowed herself to look right into the other woman’s eyes. ”I can only imagine how much more there would have been to see for those that stepped onto that ground before me.”
Ice took shape around Jaina’s hands, sharp blades ready to be hurled like spears but only so much quicker.
”You have dared to TRESPASS there?”
”Apparently. And as to your impending question of why I am now here, attribute it to my curiosity turned into interest. I wish to discuss something with you, Jaina Proudmoore.”
The power behind the tides around them intensified, and the winds matched it as Thrall strained to contain the vengefulness of the archmage. Jaina had dismissed her as unworthy of her concern, and returned her focus to what she was doing.
”I revoke your promise if that’s what you’re wondering! Go ahead and die in whatever way suits you, Sylvanas! I don’t give a damn!”
”That makes two of us then! Will you join me?”
”What the hell?!”
”After drowning all those orclings of course! I can wait, I have all the time in the world as you well know!
A sharp bolt of ice, swift as an arrow, shot from Jaina into the ground right in front of Sylvanas.
”Or are you otherwise occupied?!” Sylvanas casually took a couple of steps closer, completely undeterred. ”Instead of threatening me with the icy death that you forcibly prevented me from seeking, would you indulge me and tell me what you were going to do next?! I admit to being curious!”
That admission struck true.
As engaged as they both were in the contest of wills and magical ability, both Jaina and Thrall flinched and the winds wavered momentarily.
”I will kill Garrosh Fucking Hellscream and every Horde leader with him! I will stamp out this traitorous Tides-damned band of murderers from the face of Azeroth!”
Sylvanas smoothly closed in on her. She knew that Jaina knew that she had great reason to be sincere. Jaina had not heard the warnings of the val’kyr, she had not seen Sylvanas at all since Icecrown.
”Then you had better start with this one. Take it from someone who has been there, you do not want to regret a missed chance at that.”
Ice encased Sylvanas at once, powerful beyond anything she could have expected even from an archmage of Jaina Proudmoore’s level. A thin but nigh impenetrable layer coated almost all of her, reaching up to her shoulders and making it hard to speak physically and impossible to move.
”Don’t tempt me, Sylvanas.” The ice had little on Jaina’s warning voice.
The battling winds had abated, or at least they seemed more distant.
”Jaina Proudmoore, you are letting Garrosh get away!” Sylvanas may be impeded from physically speaking without great difficulty, but she was not an altogether physical and material being after all. Her banshee voice echoed strong still. ”Trust me when I say that is not a realisation you will want to face.”
”Trust you? How dare you, you conceited banshee creep?” The ice…tightened arund Sylvanas. She would not be able to withstand much more of this, at least not without shifting into her banshee form.
”How dare I, indeed? What do I know of losing my home and all I held close to a cruel and petty warlord whose brutality should have been plain to see for all the world?! What do I know of an existence that is torment and a soul that is in ruin?! WHAT DO I KNOW OF VENGEANCE DENIED TO ME?!”
Sylvanas forcefully reined in the Wail that brewed and boiled inside her. Jaina did not constrict her further and while Sylvanas knew some part of the archmage was aware of the crushing truth behind her words they had little effect on her.
”Make your point.”
”Wipe Orgrimmar from the map for all I care, I will not stop you. But do it after Garrosh lies dead. Do not be stupid enough to give him this gift.”
The winds have died down almost completely now and Sylvanas sensed, or imagined sensing, a most troubled silence from Thrall.
Other winds were taking their place.
Winds from the sky, wild and ridden and not conjured and tamed, heralded the coming of the blue dragon Kalecgos. He circled the small island once and dropped between Jaina and Thrall like a small mountain of horn and scale.
Sylvanas had seen worse.
Compared to the average frost wyrm Kalecgos was positively decent.
He lowered his high and mighty head like an overgrown wolf submitting to the pack leader. Or at least the angriest of the pack, in this case.
”Jaina.” he rumbled.
Jaina did not bother with false pleasantries or irony. They both knew exactly what they were here for and they both knew that the other one knew.
”Step out of my way, Kalec.”
”Would you have, if our roles were reversed?”
”You know nothing of my role!” Jaina bit her words off like she chewed through bones.
”Because ’I’ never cared for anyone in my life? Because ’I’ never knew loss? Is that what you are saying, Jaina?”
It was odd how the dragon’s voice could be so loud yet still so collected. It reverberated throught he air and the ground in some way that reminded stangely of the banshee echo in Sylvanas’ and her sisters’ voices.
”If you claim to know what I feel you will stand aside, Kalec. I will not ask again.”
”I am not in your way.”
Sylvanas almost wanted to snicker. True, technically the sapphire wyrm that dwarfed most houses by far was a step or so to the left and not directly in front of Jaina. But sometimes size made technicalities just that.
”Perhaps Sylvanas Windrunner is?”
”She was just leaving.”
”I can understand that. She must have much to prepare for tomorrow when Garrosh can call upon a unified Horde behind him.”
Could that winged pest stick to his own arguments and preferably take them somewhere else?
”Do you truly think Garrosh Hellscream cares for the lives of his peoples? That what you are about to do would hurt him? The Horde is a tool for him! A tool you will only help to sharpen!”
”As it has been for every Warchief!” Jaina positively reeked of malevolence when she continued. There was more than anger, Sylvanas noted, there was a will there to hammer the point into that obnoxious dragon about just how far the archmage was about to go. ”Make no mistake, Kalec, I will not stop. Not with Orgrimmar, not with Garrosh, not so long as the smallest remnant of the Horde still exists! I will TEAR. IT. APART.”
Sylvanas waited almost expectantly for the ensuing returning barrage of admonishments and probably more or less condescending counter-arguments and the resulting explosion of thoroughly unpleasant magics in his blue snout.
Unfortunately Kalecgos did not oblige her in the slightest. He only bowed closer to Jaina and blatantly refused to regard her as the furious and lethally dangerous force of magic that she currently was.
”I did not know and love Theramore like you did, Jaina. I do not dispute that. I did not know Rhonin, Pained and Kinndy like you did and I will never claim to have had that honour.”
Honour. Sylvanas grimaced in contempt where she stood with her arms crossed and still mostly frozen to the spot. The word had a tendency to lose its weight when you had been robbed of yours.
”So tell me instead.” Kalecgos continued. ”If this is what they would have liked to see.”
Jaina screamed at him. No other word did her strangled sound justice.
”You…will not…dare!”
”I will! I will dare to ask!”
”They were denied the chance to answer!”
”As YOU will deny every living soul in Orgrimmar!” Kalecgos roared.
”Rather sooner than later!” Jaina spat.
”So they will inevitably grow to be the next generation of monsters, is that what you are saying?”
”Do I need to spell it out to you?!”
”Just like the people of Lordaeron, who needed to be culled lest they turn into the same kind of monsters?”
”You! You know nothing of what you speak –”
”TELL ME!” The blue dragon reared and dust and wind buffeted Sylvanas in the face. ”Explain to me the difference between what you will do now and what you told me yourself happened at Stratholme! At Silvermoon! At Dalaran!”
Sylvanas bristled at once when hearing that overgrown lizard take the name of Silvermoon in his fang-stuffed mouth. How dared he?
”You would compare me to him?!”
”I will count us all lucky he had not a tenth of your brilliance or we would all be ghosts. But I was not there. TELL ME!” Again, Kalecgos’ voice rose form almost human to a dragon’s roar. ”Did Arthas Menethil spare the young of Stratholme?! Did he stay his hand against the elves when he could?! Did the Scourge show mercy?! If so, then no, then he did not do what you are about to do!”
The grey in Jaina’s face gave way to white.
”How many more sisters forever lost will it take to bring Rhonin back?” The dragon had stilled now, and closed his eyes, Sylvanas barely registered. Jaina was glancing at her of all things. That insufferable lizard wuld use her to talk the mage out of avenging herself on the Horde?
”He will never come back.”
”Then what is the point?”
”The…it…” Jaina looked around herself as if she only know could see what lay around her. ”I…”
Kalecgos lowered himself to look into her eyes, wordless and all too expressive still, Sylvanas reckoned. Sickening…pile of scales.
”I nearly… I nearly…” Jaina suddenly noticed the mage staff in her hand and stared at it with wide, shocked eyes. ”Almost…”
”But you did not.” Kalecgos hummed, or whatever dragons did when they whispered. ”You did not. You can still let them live.”
When Jaina showed no sign of following he nodded slightly to the score of water elementals around them.
”Let them go back to the water. Please.” Jaina followed his gaze. ”Let them live.”
”They…”
”Is that not what Kinndy would have wanted?”
Jaina Proudmoore was crumbling.
The waters around the island...stilled.
She let her staff fall to the ground.
Sylvanas felt a colossal wave of...nothing...sweep across her and watched as watery shapes everywhere around the little island hesitated and then became one with the waves, disappearing like a spooked school of fish.
It was over. Orgrimmar would live another day.
The ice chaining Sylvanas to the ground was also dissipating, in wisps of steam and smoke around her. She watched with some curiosity as Thrall leaned down with his hands on his knees and too exhausted or too wise to say anything.
Kalecgos and Jaina had in the meantime exchanged some words that Sylvanas did not quite catch. Not that she particularly minded.
Eventually Jaina shook her head, much calmer but still decisive.
"No, Kalec. For now, I am keeping this close at hand. Consider it the property of Theramore, confiscated from its enemies."
"I fear for the misery I can see it bringing you, Jaina. But if it is your will I will trust you to use it wisely."
Jaina let out an ironic huff of a laugh, a sickly excuse for joyfulness.
"You are ready to trust my safekeeping? Really?"
"I am. You are still Jaina Proudmoore."
Even if Sylvanas loathed to admit it, she had to note that the wyrm somehow managed to sound creepingly sincere.
"I appreciate it. You not making this into an argument."
"I believe we have had enough for a day. May I offer you a ride? Wherever you so wish. So long as we keep our distance to Horde watch towers."
" Thank you, Kalec. I believe I have something to hear from the Banshee Queen. Jaina finally turned to look at Sylvanas again. "Meet me amid the purple."
***
The ruins of Theramore were undisturbed. All was still.
So still and thick and close it was somehow cloying.
”You…” Jaina let a spear tip of ice hover warningly over her hand. ”…will be respectful.”
Sylvanas could look closely on the archmage now. Jaina…bristled with magic. Not only what she held under control but something…erratic about her. In her.
”What matters to you, Jaina Proudmoore?”
Jaina’s eyes widened a little, but they were glassy and distant rather than conveying any clear emotion.
”Matters?! MATTERS?!” She was hitching for breath, choking on her own outrage. ”NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE! LOOK AROUND, YOU MINDLESS BANSHEE!”
Sylvanas could practically see how their surroundings were inflicting pain on Jaina. And the agitated human was welcoming it, drinking from it and baring herself to the emotional scourging it meant.
The protective veil of her wrath had fallen to the ground.
"Not even Kinndy? Your apprentice, am I correct?"
"Kinndy?! Oh, you want to meet her? Follow me!"
Jaina swept through the surreal debris along what had once been a street and square of the small stronghold. So very small, if abnormally well fortified. Such a tiny little rock in all of Kalimdor's vastness. Sylvanas had not enjoyed the blistering sun and trackless expanses of Durotar and Mulgore, with its dreary broken rocks and dried trees that seemed barely more alive than those in the Plaguelands, but the land was large, that could not be denied. And still the Horde had worked itself up to the frenzied panic that had resulted in this all around, over tiny little Theramore.
A native thunder lizard jumping and bristling over a mouse would have retained more dignity. Was Lordaeron about to bear the brunt of an Alliance counterattack for this?
"Here is Kinndy!" Jaina had stopped in the middle of the street. There was nothing particular in front or around them. Just purple-black dust. Not even in a pile.
"Kinndy Sparkshine, meet Sylvanas Windrunner!" Jaina said in a mockingly bright voice. It would have unsettled most people to hear. "Sylvanas, meet Kinndy!"
Most people were not Banshee Queens of the Forsaken.
Whatever that counted for.
Sylvanas had buried whatever tenderness she may once have been capable of and buried it deeply. She could be...not threatening if she made an effort.
Not threatening, she stepped quietly up to stand next to Jaina Proudmoore in the middle of the scorched ruins that had been her home.
"Obliterating Orgrimmar would not have returned anyone you loved." Sylvanas spoke calmly out in the air next to her, without any hurry or insistence. "But what if it would have...? Would you go through with it?"
"What do you mean?" Jaina asked quietly.
"What would you have given, to have Kinndy Sparkshine back?"
"Everything."