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Chapter Text

The forest was still and silent. Clouds had set in and hid both the moon and stars from vision, keeping it darkened. It was the perfect environment for a skilled predator, but there were no living animals for several hundred miles.

The forest itself was scarred and damaged. With enough light, anyone could see that the ground itself was black and blue like the face of a beaten man, could see how the trees bent and curved to hide scarring. The leaf litter that should exist in this mostly deciduous woodland had rotted out a year ago, with nothing new to follow. This glade, like so many in what had once been Lordaeron, was dead with only the trunks of ancient trees rising like admonishing fingers to tell of its existence.

The silence was preternatural - dominating in a way one would usually expect of a great din. There was a cacophony of soundlessness in these places that frightened man and beast alike. The Scourge had torn and bitten and hacked at the soul of the land itself, and it was unlikely anything alive would ever wish to reclaim it.

Even the open spaces between the glens were ruined. Many of them still contained ruins from the Kingdom that had once stood proud here. The Scourge had not been interested in conquest, but neither had they been interested in total destruction. They never stayed in one place long enough to rip every last slab from a building - never had a supply chain to augment with wood and rock. Instead, they had ruined at their Prince’s whim, broke only what had to be broken to kill.

And they had been very efficient.

The most common kind of building in what had once been the rich trader town of Brill was one that stood almost untouched but for the windows and the door. The ghouls had been like a flood, at times, finding the path of least resistance and bursting through to get at its inhabitants. And, of course, the blood. Bodies were rare in what had once been Lordaeron - if they were dead, they were raised. Men, women, children, didn’t matter. All were flesh for the army. Many of the less useful - the elderly, the infantile, the crippled - would be used for abominations or fuel for the various war machines that the Scourge employed.

The Scourge was many things, but inefficient was not one of them.

None of this had stopped their thoroughness. When Brill was attacked, not a single person who had been within its walls had survived. Some had avoided being raised by burning themselves or other, more sorcerous, methods. The Church of the Light that had once stood on the central plaza was one of the rare buildings to have been razed to the foundation stones - because it had been done by the people inside it. The piles of ash they had become had been the closest all of Lordearon had to a mass grave after the Raisings began. But time had taken its toll, and the grains had scattered to the winds.

Some of Brill’s people had survived - those convinced beforehand to sail west. Half a world away, a few thousand of Lordaeron’s people remained alive in a small port town named Theramore. Initially founded by Lady Jaina Proudmoore, heir to the Kul Tiran admiralty and apprentice to the Archmage Antonidas, it had fallen into a council regency after she had sailed eastwards once more.

She had told her people that she went to seek survivors. The lands of Lordaeron would prove a disappointment. All the way from Silvermoon’s walls in the north to the Thandol span in the south, the land was held only by the dead. That is not to say there were no living to be found, no small holdouts in areas where the undead had mostly passed by. But they were oases in a desert. A desert that consumed more of them each day that passed.

There were three sights that were visible from almost anywhere in these lost lands. The first was the Alterac Mountains, a white redoubt that any survivors could dream of reaching one day. Hungry ogres seemed like little threat when the end times came to your door, hungry. The second was the city of Dalaran. Or, perhaps, its remains. No-one who had seen the sack of Dalaran firsthand yet lived and no-one who now resided in it had ventured outwards.

The city was protected, now that the danger had mostly passed, by a great pink dome of magical energy, maintained by the strongest mages that still lived - those who happened to be out about other business. Fortunately for the Kirin Tor, that had been more than usual but nothing could recoup the loss of Antonidas, unarguably the greatest mage in several generations.

Rescue for the living would not come from Alterac, and it would not come from Dalaran.

The third sight, visible from the Ghostlands to the Greymane Wall, was Capitol. The greatest city south of Silvermoon, even its name stank of arrogance. The first king of Lordaeron had called it such in a foolish belief that someday it would be the capital of the world. Now it lay in ruins, its palatial domes shattered, its cobbled paths buried, its fine botanical gardens overturned and scorched. Most of its towers had crashed back down to Azeroth, but still some few stuck upwards.

They had been designed in elven style during a period when elegance in human circles meant elvish. Any elf would have turned their nose up at such a shoddy copy but their number and size had made them the envy of Stormwind and the rest of the human nations. Capitol might not have become the capital of the world, but it had been the home of the Alliance, the centre of human culture for almost two centuries.

Then Arthas Menethil had killed his own father in the throne room.

The now king of Lordaeron (though not even he called himself that) had long since fled the site of his patricide, retreating to lick his wounds in Northrend. But still, his presence lingered inescapably. The stench of death and decay was everywhere and the towns and cities that had dotted the landscape were stark reminders of what had happened. They were not being reclaimed and overgrown - no, there was too little vegetation left after the Scourge had passed.

The Scourge had not just killed people. It had tried to kill the very world they trod on.

Instead, the settlements looked like someone had paused time in them, always keeping them as close as possible to the moment of their deaths. The land itself was experiencing rigor mortis.

Some said, always in hushed whispers, that if one stayed in the throne room long enough they would hear again Terenas’ final moments, hear the cold words of his son and the colder sounds of Frostmourne. And no-one living was well placed to find out if they were being lied to. Everyone knew the dead held Capitol, had slaughtered Grand Marshal Garithos and the remnants of Lordaeron’s army to get it.

The living would not be saved from Capitol, either.

But that did not mean they were without hope. Around campfires at night, and in taverns to the south, survivors and refugees all told versions of the same story. They would be beset by scourge on all sides, sure that they had finally met their deaths. And then a miracle would appear - a rider on a dark steed, (or two or three depending on the teller) dressed all in black with a bow in hand and a scream in her mouth. Soon enough the undead would be no more, and the rider lost back into the dark woods.

Their listeners would laugh them off, asking how come none of them ever got a good look at these mysterious screaming archers. But when they slept, those cynics would pray to her anyway. Hope was hard to come by and, to the starving, beaten, dying people of Lordaeron, false hope was better than no hope.

They nicknamed the riders the Dark Lady, for her cloak and her horse. It became custom for the survivors to say “Dark Lady watch over you,” when two people parted - after all, there was a very real chance that they would never meet this person again. Lordaeron, the kingdom, had died, and now Lordaeron, the culture, looked set for extinction. It was through these small idiosyncrasies that some of them survived.

By the time Jaina Proudmoore arrived back on the coast of Lordaeron, there were less living humans left in the northern Eastern Kingdoms than there were in Theramore. Perhaps if she had known, she would not have come. Likely, though, she would have anyway - such was her way.

Chapter Text

When Jaina’s boat finally hit the shore of Silverpine Forest, it was dark. The skies were blue-black and the stars were hidden away behind cloud cover. The land was almost as deep a shade as the sea and the three together made her feel like she was in a world the colour had been sucked out of. The insects that had harassed her face as she sailed had fled as she neared the coastline until the last one finally flew away as she hit the sand.

She knew the sand here was usually a bright yellow, more like a tropical beach than that of a temperate forest. She knew because she had walked this exact beach with Arthas before the world had gone mad. But now the grains seemed grey as they moved under her boots. She had come here on a real ship, of course, one she had sailed herself through magic and judicious application of water elementals. Now it sat just far back enough to be out of range from any conventional cannon and she had come ashore on its boat. She was happy to abandon the one, but not the other. She had always had a soft spot for ships - call it the Kul Tiran in her.

She got out the two bags she had stowed and swung them over her back and shoulders. They were enchanted (as were most things she owned) both for protection from the elements and to make them feel lighter as she carried them. She was far from weak as magic could be physically demanding work at times, but she did need an extensive amount of supplies given she was going to be in hostile territory for an uncertain amount of time.

Not for the first time, she wondered if this expedition had been such a good idea. Still, she owed it to Nathanos. And, perhaps, to herself.

The forest was far quieter than it had been when she last visited. Then there had been the shouts of people happy to see the royal couple; of course they were missing. But there had also been the chirping of birds, leaves rustling in the wind, the pounding of hooves as deer fled the large procession.

Now, though, the only sounds were made by her. Her boots crunched through the grass and her breathing sounded louder than gunshots in the dead silence of the forest. She had a long walk ahead of her. But Jaina had never been cowed before and she would not start now. So she simply pulled herself to her full height and began to walk inland.

Directly to her east should be Lordamere Lake. And on the southern coast of that was the city of Dalaran. She had heard nothing out of the city since its sacking that had killed her tutor, and figured that if there was news of survivors, that was probably the best place to find out. It would also give her an opportunity to find out how many of her own friends had avoided the Scourge.

She did not hold out much hope.

Her whole first day of walking, she didn’t see a single undead. She had arrived just before dawn and continued until past dusk but still she did not encounter any Scourge. Instead, the forest remained eerily quiet and still. There was no sign of the cause of all this - it was like even the undead had abandoned it. Still, she was not so arrogant that she didn’t employ proper wards for her resting spot.

She slept in a tent that was stored improbably in one of her bags, tucked into the lee of a small hill. She placed three separate arcane circles for protection and she lit no fire. She drank conjured water and ate conjured food. Doing so for extended periods was extremely unhealthy but she had grown used to it as a student who often forgot to pull her face from her books long enough to take meals.

She awoke the following morning with her defences unmolested. She ate and drank, then packed her camp away and began walking again.

Lifeless, all of the forest looked the same. Some of the largest of the trees did yet live but they were vanishingly few between the rotting boughs. All the trees were leafless, the forest floor wiped out but for the most tenacious of grasses. There was no canopy, no understory, barely a forest at all anymore. She did at several points consider stopping to do something about it, but life magic had never been her speciality. Some of the wreckage did make her wonder, though, if the whole continent might not be better starting over.

A cleansing flood? Now that she could do.

In these dark thoughts, she almost missed the sounds that started to emanate from somewhere before her. Instead they knocked her straight from her own head and back to practicality. After such a long time of almost total silence, even the quiet sounds of laughter seemed deafening.

Wait, laughter?

That was discordant with her view of the undead. So, someone living must be before her. She still readied her staff - the Cult of the Damned was almost exclusively made up of the living, after all - and prepared a frostbolt as she moved to the top of the ridge before her.

Below her, in a slight depression that she had a horrible feeling was caused by some Scourge war machine, were four men. Three were humans and one was an elf, the former dressed in the garb of Lordaeronian soldiery and the latter in the robes of a spellbreaker. All four were standing in a defensive formation looking directly at her. She hated spellbreakers.

As she rose over the ridge fully, though, one of the men recognised her. “That’s the Lady Jaina!” The other two cheered and the elf gave a haughty sigh. Elves. They waved her over to their camp and she followed, thankful that the first faces she had seen weren’t hostile. The camp itself was just a few logs pulled around a currently unburning fire but despite everything the sight of footmen of Lordaeron still put her at ease. She knew there had been some living men in Arthas’ army, that not everyone involved in the fratricide at Capitol had been undead, but still it was hard to move past the comforting feeling they represented.

She took a seat and so did the men. The elf, of course, sat apart.

She opened her mouth, but one of the guardsmen spoke before she could. He had started sharpening his sword and the rasp of stone on steel gave a probably unintended threat to his question. “What are you doing here, Lady Jaina? Last we all heard you had got away.”
“I did.” She breathed deeply. This was her first chance to complete her mission, and she would not squander it. “A few thousand of us got away and sailed west.”
“To Kul Tiras, then?” To her surprise it was the elf that spoke. His accent was just as posh as she had expected, but his tone carried genuine curiosity.
“No. Further west, to Kalimdor.”

The three soldiers laughed, a sound that quickly died away as it dawned on them that she was serious. Once it had faded completely, she continued. “We landed on a small island just off the coast and founded a town there - Theramore. Lordaeron survives there and so does its people.”
“Pardon me, ma’am,” the next to speak was the one who had initially recognised her and his voice was hesitant, “but if that’s true then what are you doing back here?”
She shook her head slightly. Something in her wanted to tell these men the whole truth - the web of obligation that had brought her here to look for people she didn’t even know except as names and physical descriptions. But if the Third War had taught her anything, it was distrust. So she went with the simpler version, a half-truth at best.

“I came to find survivors. We had to leave so many behind and I… I couldn’t stand it. I came back to find those I could and bring them back to Theramore. I don’t want anyone stuck here.”
The final soldier sighed softly and cursed. “Stupid girl.” His tone was light and she didn’t feel insulted. “Putting yourself at risk for dead men like us.” There was another round of laughter, but this one was darker. He turned to face her directly and she could see the tiredness in his eyes. “Lass, I think you’re incredibly brave and I don’t doubt your story of this Theramore, fanciful as it may sound. But none of us intend on leaving. I swore my life to Lordaeron and I intend to give it defending it.”

She looked at the men and all of them nodded solemnly. She turned to the elf who looked like he had been expecting it. He sighed again, and this time it was less haughty and more sad. “I imagine you’re expecting what I’m doing here. I swore no oath to Lordaeron, of course. I happened to be in Capitol when Arthas returned, investigating the plague on the behalf of Magister Drathir. Of course, none of us knew he was a traitor back then.”

He stopped for a moment, and Jaina could see real tears in his eyes. His ears, already held low, drooped like a dead flower. “I survived by hiding myself in a berry bush in one of the Queen’s old gardens. I heard the slaughter of innocents around me, of elves, humans, dwarves and gnomes, anyone who had been foolish enough to be there. And I did nothing!”

One of the soldiers moved across and put his hand on the elf’s shoulder. He was crying freely now, and his voice had risen in anger. The human spoke softly and calmly. “There was nothing you could have done, you know. One day we’ll make the traitor prince bleed and that will have to be enough for all of us.”
“If he even still has blood.” One of them muttered darkly and got a vicious glare in return.

Jaina knew that there was no chance of convincing these men to come back with her and she also knew that every minute she waited, more of the survivors she was trying to save would die. She stood. “Thank you. I wish you the best luck, but I have to try and find others.”

The soldier nearest her nodded. “Good luck to you. Dark Lady watch over you.” He must have noticed her bewildered look, because he smiled slightly. “Of course you don’t know about the Dark Lady. Thelmar tells the story best.” He said, indicating the elf.
“Fine, fine.” He said it wearily, but she could see him smile and his ears lift slightly. Clearly this was a story he enjoyed telling. He looked somewhere distant as if recalling something. “About three months ago, before I met these fine gentlemen,” a small snort from one of the footmen, “I was travelling alone. I had been being chased the whole day and, finally, the geists after me had surrounded me. I was in a small grove and there were perhaps a dozen of them. I was out of energy, out of mana, out of rope.”

He stood, clearly getting into the performance. He was making a very elvish go at it, with grand hand gestures, always moving as if it was flowing through him. “Then, suddenly, three of them fell with arrows in their backs. A rider burst through the trees. She had a bow in their hand and a warcry in her mouth and she put the Scourge to flight like it was nothing. Two dozen geists and as many ghouls, and she eviscerated all of them. And then she rode away before I could even thank her.”
“It was half a dozen geists last time you told it.” One of the soldiers jovially opined.
The elf put a hand over his chest in faux hurt. “You wound me. Besides, I’m a storyteller, not a historian.” All five of them laughed at that, then he turned to Jaina. “That’s the Dark Lady. I’m far from the only person that she’s saved from the Scourge - she’s a hero around these parts.”
“I reckon it’s the princess,” one of the footmen said, “After all, Calia wasn’t in Capitol when it fell.”
“Unless Calia Menethil has managed to grow elf ears and become a master archer in the last two years I don’t think so.” The elf was smiling as he spoke. “I’m more sure she’s an elf than I am she’s a woman.”

“Of course you didn’t notice she’s a woman. A male elf wouldn’t know a woman if she shoved her tits in his face.” The soldier broke off and turned to Jaina, his face turning red. “No offence, ma’am.”
Jaina just laughed. “I grew up amongst sailors, I’ve heard far worse. But, if what you say is true, then I hope the Dark Lady watches over you four too.”

Then she took her leave and continued her march eastwards.

-

The next day she had her first encounter with the restless dead. It was not a short walk from the coast to Lordamere and she was starting to wonder if she might have overestimated her own physical capabilities. The land continued to be dead and dreary. She may be stubborn like few would believe, but the dread the place inspired was starting to wear on her. If anything it got less lively as she moved further inland and it made it hard to believe that anyone could still be alive.

She was glad she had met with that group the previous day. Otherwise it was quite possible she would have driven herself crazy wondering if there was anyone even left to save. She had not lied to them when she said the left behind weighed on her mind even if she was only here specifically because of Nathanos. She could not let herself feel, could not crack, when she had such an important mission driving her.

It was shocking how quiet the undead could be when they wanted to. She didn’t even notice them until they were nearly upon her. As she was walking through an open plain, a group of geists suddenly leapt down from a grove of trees ahead of her and began galloping towards her in their loping mockery of free motion. Their decaying brown skin and rotting brown cloth strangely acted as dots of colour in the forest made of black and a green so dark it might as well have been. They were fast and near silent as they ran at her, the only sounds they made being the pounding of their limbs against the wet grass and the stretching of the stitches that held them together.

They were fast. Jaina Proudmoore, last apprentice to the Archmage Antonidas and member of the Kirin Tor, was faster.

A blast of ice burst forth from her before she could even think, shooting forth at a pace that made it almost invisible to the eye. Where it met the Scourge, it utterly eviscerated their shambling corpses, cutting them to ribbons. It sliced through flesh and bone and stitchcraft with such force that it slammed itself against the trees behind them as if there had been no obstacle.

Less than two seconds had passed between the geists dropping from the trees and silence coming back over the forest. Not one remained animated. She stood there, panting. Such a blast of power was fast, but it was not controlled or efficient. She could already feel the physical cost of such a forceful expulsion of mana settling into her body. But before she leaned down, she noticed a flit of movement to her left. She lifted her staff again and turned to face it, already preparing a frostbolt.

Out across the plain was a rider. They were mounted atop an elvish unicorn, its great horn broken near the base. Its coat was black and only covered perhaps half of its body. The missing hanks exposed not just bare skin but flesh and bone. The beast was undoubtedly dead - if that wasn’t already obvious by the sickly looking glowing green eyes.

It was also huge, a steed built for a large elf. And it was definitely an elf on its back. The rider was tall and slim. From this distance, she couldn’t distinguish sex or any defining features but she could see the clear ear holes in the cloak’s hood. This was an elf, alright, an elf in what she recognised as ranger garb. She could see a bow in their hand, with an arrow nocked but not pulled tight. Yet.

The only thing she could make out of the woman’s appearance was her glowing red eyes.

Then, the rider turned and rode away.

Jaina dropped the spell and ran.

-

That night Jaina added a fourth circle to her wards. Not that she managed to sleep because the moment she sat down in her tent the silence of the woodland was broken. At first she thought it was the wind but as she sat there listening to it she realised it was something else. She only noticed when the wind stopped to take a breath.

The whistling through the branches was not a natural phenomenon - someone was singing. The sound was coming from all around her though. Several people were stood around her, and they were singing. She had never fought any undead who did something similar but the harsh dual-tones of the voices meant they could not come from the living. The sounds had started wordless but eventually she started to pick out Thalassian.

Several undead were singing in Thalassian to her. She spent the whole night sat up in her tent holding her staff close until morning came and the voices left. She wasn’t sure if she welcomed - or even believed in - the safety that her new loneliness brought her, but instead of worrying about it she got up and started walking.

Throughout the day, she thought she heard snatches of music and she was never quite sure if she had imagined it. Each time, she tried to move in a direction away from them but she never seemed able to escape it. She almost wondered if she was being corralled and then shook it off - the Scourge was not exactly known for mind games and subtlety. Their way was brutal and efficient. If a necromancer was pursuing her they would have played their hand by now. As such, she had to assume that she was just hearing things and keep moving.

She found no more survivors and no more undead. She did find a pool of what looked like blood but there were, of course, no bodies to be seen. When night came, she once again did not sleep. The moment the sun set the once-silent forest was filled with the sounds of song. The voices were beautiful and definitely elven as they formed the Thalassian words, but they were also horrifying.

They were sharp, and raspy, and dual-toned. Every word they sang raised the hair on her nape and sent a shiver down her spine. The voices felt cold in a way that shouldn’t be possible. They were wrong, unnatural, uncanny. There was, undoubtedly, something beautiful about them, something that only made it more heart-wrenching when the singing turned to screeches and screams. Even that seemed controlled, though.

Jaina felt like she was going mad.

This time, the voices were closer. When dawn came and she began to move, the singing stopped instantly. She had a spell prepared the moment she stepped out of the tent.

Directly before her was the same rider she had seen two days before. She was less than a dozen paces away. This close, Jaina could see that below the cape the woman was in the traditional armour of a ranger officer. She didn’t know the exact rank it denoted - military history had been about her fifth subject priority-wise - but she wasn’t sure that the information would have mattered anyway.

The traditional dark blues and golds of Quel’Thalas had been replaced with silvers and deep purples. Feathering had been swapped out for spikes. She looked less like a defender and more like a hunter. The woman’s skin was blue, clearly drained of life, and she held herself unnaturally still. Living elves, from her experience with Vereesa, were always moving whether it be their ears, their hands or their feet.

This woman, though, didn’t move a single muscle. The only motion was the slight floating of her cloak in the wind. Her ears were held high and proud and in her hands was, once again, a bow with its arrow nocked.

“I can shoot you four times before you get that spell off.” Her voice was definitely one of the singers that Jaina had been hearing - sharp, raspy, and with a frightening dual-tone.
The woman was imposing, but that just reaffirmed Jaina’s determination not to cower. “Are you sure about that?”
The other woman smirked and, okay, that was more attractive than it had any right to be. Something in the set of her ears told her the elf knew exactly what reaction she had just caused. “Yes, I’m sure. You don’t get to be a ranger without being able to kill an exhausted mage.”

Jaina was unsurprised that this woman was behind her inability to sleep, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t upset about it. Still, she hadn’t been shot yet and that was something. “But you won’t.”
“Why’s that?” The woman’s tone was smug and extremely elvish. She had a thick accent, but her Common was surprisingly good.
“You must be the one they call the Dark Lady. I met an elf who told me you saved him and vouched that others had the same story. You’re supposed to be a hero.”

The rider looked at her in sheer confusion for a second, then laughed. The laugh spread to several more voices, until she was surrounded by horrible ethereal laughter. She counted maybe a dozen individuals. Not only was she probably outskilled and outmanoeuvred, but also horribly outnumbered. She dropped her spell, and the rider spoke still with a smug tone. “It’s hardly practical to give the Scourge more bodies.”
“Then you’re not Scourge?” Jaina sniped quickly.
At that the rider’s eyes blazed, the red brightening and glowing angrily. Smoke began to rise from her skin, black and blue. Her mouth split into a rictus grin, her long canines on display. The attractive, though undeniably dead, woman before her seemed to disappear and was swallowed up by an angry spirit.

She fell backwards. The woman had been scary - now, she was truly horrifying. Any sense of bravery could only hold her up so long. The rider looked hard at her and sat in stillness for a moment. Bit by bit, the smoke faded and the glow of her eyes dissipated bit by bit until they returned to their natural sunken red. They looked like a dying star.

When she spoke, the mocking tone had gone and been replaced with a much more serious one. The elven voice was almost entirely gone and replaced with what she now recognised as a banshee’s tone. “You will accompany me and my rangers back to the Undercity. From there, I will get the answers I seek. Form up, rangers! We return to station.”

Chapter Text

Compared to the elven furnishings Sylvanas was used to, the remains of the vaunted city of Capitol were shockingly unimpressive. She currently held council in what had once been one of many meeting rooms. She didn’t understand that - could humans not hold a meeting in a parlour? - but she was certain that any elvish attempt at it would have blown this dull grey box out of the water.

It had a large square table of dark mahogany and, once, perhaps a score of chairs. In the here and now, though, all of them were missing but one. Anya was lounging in it currently, pushing it further off its legs than was strictly safe with her feet up on the table. She had often sworn before the arrival of the Scourge that her rangers were going to be the death of her. Instead, she had been the death of all of them.

Anya glanced down briefly and Sylvanas followed her gaze to find her claws digging into the flesh of the wood. She took a moment to regain control of herself - she was still not used to many of the changes that undeath had brought upon her body and her connection to it was shaky at the best of times.

If they were alive, Anya would be spinning a dagger between her fingers. She was so unbelievably fast at it that the blade would appear to cut through her own fingers without ever drawing a drop of blood. Her ears would have been in constant motion, her feet lightly tapping on the table. She would have done all of this while holding a conversation and, half the time, holding one of her fellow rangers in her free hand.

But now, Anya sat perfectly still. Her ears were held high in a position of attention while both her hands sat motionless close to her body. Even as her chair hovered halfway off the ground, her legs that held it there did not shake or even visibly tauten. Undeath had given them all more strength than they knew what to do with. She supposed Anya using it for small tricks like this was better than her own usual methods of expelling it - hunting down the nearest group of Scourge and killing them.

And that reminded her of why she was with Anya in the first place. Her rangers often had to be patient with her when she summoned them. It was not uncommon for her to stand in such silence and stillness that she could be comatose for several minutes before she spoke. She didn’t like to think how much of Anya’s time she’d wasted this time.

“So,” she drawled. Anya showed no overt reaction, but her ears turned just slightly in her direction. “We now have the bastard’s little girlfriend in our prisons. Who have you got guarding her?”
“Areiel.” Anya’s response was short and professional - strange from her.
“I am sure she is thrilled to be put on guard dog duty.”
Anya laughed softly at that. It was quiet enough that the banshee’s tone was hard to hear under the elvish one but it was still far from the sound she would have made three years before. “She wasn’t, but I told her that you said our new prisoner was top priority. She grumbled but that’s what you get from our old hag.” A half-laugh, half-snort. “Do you think she recognised you?”
Sylvanas sent her a glaring side-eye without actually moving her head. “And why would she?”

“She was close with your sister.”
Sylvanas just huffed. “That girl would have been a babe when I last spoke to Vereesa.”
“And your letters?” Anya was giving her that look that suggested she knew Sylvanas was being dishonest but wasn’t quite willing to call her out.
“Last time I checked, those didn’t include an imprint of my face. And,” she continued before Anya could interject, “I am not exactly the woman I once was. I doubt Vereesa herself would recognise me.”

Anya sighed and her ears wilted but otherwise she did not reply. “Now, I want her questioned soon so that she doesn’t have a chance to rest.”
“I can’t believe the one time I’m not on patrol with you, you all start singing. It’s not fair.” The juvenile pouting sounded very strange in her deathly voice but Sylvanas supposed everything did.
“It was a military strategy, hardly the kind of jaunt you enjoy. And besides, that’s why you don’t beg off time to spend longer with your favourite girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a favourite!” She spluttered, offended.
“Well you would say that. But,” Sylvanas leaned forward, “We all have our favourites. And, right now, you are far from mine.”

Anya sighed and stretched out one of her hands towards Sylvanas’ but she didn’t quite touch her. “None of us get to be your favourite anymore, Sylv.” The look on the ranger’s face shifted as, at the nickname, she hissed and bore her teeth subconsciously. “And besides, we all know your favourite was Vereesa.”
If Sylvanas had been alive, she would have thrown herself at Anya for the disgusting implication. They would have rolled together and laughed and probably done many other things. But, instead, she just gave her a sharp glare and left.

She had a prisoner to interrogate, after all.

“You’re Sylvanas Windrunner, aren’t you?”

That was not the first thing Sylvanas expected to hear when she came down to the dungeon. Although most of the free undead lived in the fledgling Undercity, she and her rangers preferred the ruins themselves. She did not like the idea of being so far from the sky and the sun. Her body and soul might be those of a banshee, but her mind was still elvish.

As such, it was a long trek down several flights of stairs to the dungeons. They had remained relatively undamaged during the sack - Lordaeron was hardly worried about imprisoning criminals during the days of the plague, leaving them unpopulated and therefore uninteresting to the Scourge. They were rarely used even now, though, because Sylvanas rarely took prisoners. An average ghoul did not have much in the way of useful intel.

That meant only one of the four cells was occupied. Jaina Proudmoore was pushing herself up against the bars as she came down the spiral stairs and onto the landing, whereas Areiel was leaning as far away from the human as she could. She seemed shockingly unimpacted by the two days she had spent without sleep in a way that suggested to Sylvanas she was more than used to insomniac nights.

The mage was blonde with hair like the sun and tall. Tall for a human, so tall her height was more comparable to an elf. Sylvanas was not - in life she had been the shortest of her sisters even before she had spent every day hunched at a desk. Something primal in her wanted to hiss and scratch and bite, prove who was the more threatening. But she pushed those instincts down and continued to analyse the other woman.

She had seen when they captured her that Proudmoore was skinny. Up close she could tell it was not the kind that came with natural litheness or musculature but privation. The skin on her face bagged slightly, her clothing all hung loose. Sylvanas was intimately familiar with such a look; it had been on almost all the Quel’Dorei by the end. She would guess that she hadn’t been sleeping or eating properly for weeks.

Usually she would assume it was just an academic getting carried away with their newest thesis or whatever they were up to now. Given the circumstances there were as many possible explanations as there were walking bodies in Lordaeron.

She had been dressed in a greatcoat that Sylvanas recognised as Kul Tiran in fashion even if it seemed far too large for her but, whilst the dungeons were not warm, the above freezing temperatures indoors had led her to cast it off. If Sylvanas were alive she would have buried herself in coats and layers - high elves were creatures of the sun and its warmth, and they had no taste for the cold - but Proudmoore seemed happy enough to strip off her overcoat.

Underneath she wore a set of Kirin Tor robes above a set of steadfast trousers and blouse. It made her wonder if the robes served some practical purpose. Vereesa would know better, with her mage husband that Sylvanas had never met. Alleria or her minn’da would definitely know; both of them had had encyclopaedic knowledge of seemingly everything to do with every nation on the continent. Sylvanas tried to keep up, but there was only so much she could do.

Vereesa had mentioned Proudmoore in some of her letters, when she was in her more open moods where the letters would show signs of sobbing and she would nigh on beg Sylvanas to fix whatever it was between them, let them be “real” sisters again. But she ignored the feelings that brought up in her and focused on what the letters had told her of her current prisoner. She remembered the words ‘stubborn’ and ‘curious’ being mentioned and, when she really thought about it, she was sure ‘devilishly smart’ had been used. Vereesa had written her letters in Common for over a decade even if Sylvanas had always used Thalassian. Forcefully, she wrested her mind from such thoughts and focused on what was before her.

This scan was a normal part of how she did interrogations now. The still, standoffish image of a dead woman staring at someone was usually more than enough to unnerve someone on its own. The implication, usually a lie, that she was in no hurry at all tended to give her the dominant hand in any later negotiations. She much preferred that to the alternative.

With that in mind she checked her nails as she responded, to make sure Proudmoore knew that she was of no great import. And if the motion has the side effect of showing off her claws, showing how dead she was, how dangerous she was, that was all the better

“And where did that idea come from?” Sylvanas had run many an interrogation in her time - and that was ignoring Thalassian politicking, which operated much the same. Her goal was simply to keep the other woman talking.
Proudmoore counted each point on her fingers as she spoke. “One, you’re undead. Windrunner was quite famously killed and raised by Ar-” Sylvanas hissed at the name, and the human seemed to get the point and sped past it. “Two, you’re a ranger in charge of other rangers. Windrunner had been Ranger General of Quel’Thalas for a decade and a half. Third, you match the description Nathanos gave me if a bit more…” She hesitated and just sort of gestured at Sylvanas’ body. She heard the word Proudmoore wasn’t saying - dead.

“Fourth. You look a bit like Vereesa. You’re definitely sharper and a bit shorter but I can see the family resemblance.”
Sylvanas listened with an expression of faux indifference on her closely schooled face. With that much evidence it seemed unlikely that the other woman would accept an alternative explanation. Then the mention of Nathanos filtered through. “You know Nathanos Marris?”
Her tone must have been just slightly too hopeful, because her captive sent her a smug smile. “I might have information on him. I might even be willing to trade it to you.”

Areiel’s muscles tightened minutely next to her and if Sylvanas was living she might have done any of a huge number of things to calm her down. Instead, she just sent a quick glance her way that told her not to do anything stupid and a pair of ranger signs. She sighed and left up the stairs. Then, Sylvanas leaned against the bars in a way that forced the human back. She thought of thrusting her chest forward slightly, but ultimately decided she was best suited with a different weapon.

Instead she left one hand on where her dagger rested at her hip and smiled in a way that showed all her teeth. The hand around the bars of the cell was splayed in such a way to showcase the claws that ended them and her ears pointed high and forward so they seemed more like horns. She would have liked to let out some smoke, too, but she had little to no control over that. “And what, praytell,” she spoke sinuously, emphasising the banshee tone, “makes you think we won’t just extract that information from your body by breaking it?”

But while Proudmoore had reeled from her physical approach, she was quick to reply. Her tone was hurried, but not panicked. “Because torture is inefficient. I’d be more likely to say whatever I think you wanted than the truth; and you want the truth.”
“And what if I just want to see you hurt?” The woman was starting to earn her grudging respect, but she didn’t plan to let her know that.
She didn’t get an instant reply to that. Instead, the mage put a hand high on her chest, where a pendant of some sort might sit. The motion was made slightly strange because she had been thoroughly searched already, and she definitely didn’t have one on her. “Ah. So you did recognise me. I thought you might, you know. But I want to say,” and here she looked directly into Sylvanas’ eyes, “that I did not know what Arthas intended. If I could go back to Stratholme and put an ice lance in his heart, I would.”

Something about the inquest had changed in that final answer. Previously there had been a slight hint of bemusement in Proudmoore’s answers and an unbridled curiosity. When she spoke the bastard’s name, though, there was real acid in it. Sylvanas had absolutely no doubt that she meant it and it was rare for her to lack doubt in anything, anymore.

She leaned back, just slightly, still with her hand on her weapon. She needed to take control of this situation again, and she needed to do it soon. Even the mention of her killer’s name had started the smoke releasing from her body, had threatened to release the wail from her chest. But she kept it down. Much to her own disgust she did need this woman. If she had information on Nathanos, that was worth something.

Proudmoore seized on her hesitation. “Clearly, you are not Scourge. Scourge would have killed me, and Scourge would definitely not be worried about Nathanos. We should make a deal here.”
Sylvanas felt like she was losing her grip on this. It should be her offering terms, not her own prisoner! She had to shut it down, take back control. “Before I consider such action, you must answer me two questions. First, is Nathanos alive and well? Second, where is he?” She hoped her desperation didn’t show in her tone but a slight glance from Areiel told her it definitely had.
By the smile on Proudmoore’s face, she’d picked up on it too. “Fine. “ There was something in her eyes that suggested a deeper emotion than smugness, but she couldn’t tell what it was. “Nathanos is alive and well. He’s currently in Kalimdor, in a small port town called Theramore.”

About three hours later, Sylvanas was sitting in another council room - seriously, why did the humans need so many of them - with four of her senior rangers. Cyndia had, rather against her will, been put on guard in the cells and brought the mage food and water. She was no use to Sylvanas if she died of starvation of course. She might threaten to kill and raise her but she had no intention of doing such a thing; if she even could. Of the relatively few red lines she held when it came to protecting her people, that was perhaps the one she was most determined to never cross.

Velonara was, as always, standing looking out the window. She had never been able to sit down, even in life, and it had led to all sorts of ribbing from her fellow rangers. Anya was sitting in a chair far down the other side of the table. Sylvanas would ask why she had decided on a seat so far from her if she didn’t know that it was so she could see all of them.

Areiel, the only woman in the ranger corps besides herself with a sense of propriety, had taken the seat directly to her left. Unlike the other rangers further down the room she sat upright at fierce attention. In life, Areiel had had troubles relaxing and sitting back and sometimes Sylvanas suspected that she might have picked up the habit from her Captain even more than she had from her minn’da. In death, she seemed completely incapable of it.

Truly, the two of them were cut from the same cloth.

Velonara, the only one of them yet to see their new prisoner, was the first to speak. “So why exactly have we taken a prisoner? You’ve never shown an interest in the living before.”
“Because she is Jaina Proudmoore.”
She whistled. “The bastard’s girlfriend? I’m surprised you didn’t kill her.”
It was Areiel who responded. Her voice had been the least affected by undeath because hers had always been raspy and deep. “Our General believed she may have had useful information. I advised to just kill the mage once we’d tired her out as she suggested but I was overruled.”
Sylvanas sent her a dangerous look. That was about as close as Areiel would come to open insubordination.

“She says she has information on Nathanos.”
All three sets of eyes in the room locked onto hers. Areiel spoke first. “How.”
Then Anya. “Yeah, how would she have information on a dead man?”
“General. What have you not told us?” Velonara was, as usual, last to speak. And, as usual, the one with the greatest insight.
Sylvanas took an entirely unnecessary breath and leaned her weight onto the table. She spoke slowly - she did not want to have to repeat itself.

“When the second gate fell, I knew we were beaten. We had a traitor in our midst and every day our forces fell and his grew. Yet still our allies did not come to our aid - surely someone must have heard something? Of course, in those days I did not know about Terenas’ fate or that of Lordaeron. I knew our only hope was the arrival of a large Alliance force who could do… something!” She was growing loud and impassioned as she continued. “I was desperate and we had no other chances.”

She breathed again. She could see Areiel reaching a hand out to her, but she stopped before she touched her. “I sent Nathanos away to see if he could find anything. I thought the Menethils and Wrynns would be more willing to listen to a human than an elf and it was the closest I could get to saving him. When Silvermoon fell and time passed I assumed he had died like so, so many other rangers. When we became free and we could not find him I thought there was a chance he might have survived.” Story done, she went silent.

“But why didn’t you tell us, Sylv?” That was Anya. Everyone else had learned to avoid the nickname by now but this time it didn’t even pull a reaction from her.
Velonara next. “You were worried we’d desert, weren’t you? That the usual suspects would accuse you of favouritism and that they’d start abandoning you.”
“No, it’s more than that. You thought that if it got out it would be as good as giving up. And,” Areiel looked hard at her, red eyes boring into the side of her face, “Your minn’da wouldn’t give up, so neither would you. Am I right?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she continued. “According to Proudmoore, Nathanos is alive and well. But he’s on Kalimdor, in a port town she established of Lordaeronian survivors called Theramore.”

Areiel was still glaring at her and Sylvanas had the feeling she wanted to put her head in her hand. “And we trust her why? Nathanos joining the ranger corps was source of human rumours for years - he’s almost as famous as you are.”
“Though you always were better with it.” Anya interjected, unhelpfully.
“Because,” she hissed, “There are so many better lies. If she wanted to fool me she would have come up with something that didn’t sound so insane.” Her reasoning was weak, even to herself. But she was desperate and just as desperate not to be called out on it.

Maybe her rangers believed her or maybe they just sensed her distress. Either way, the three all nodded at her and, one by one, filtered out of the room. Once they had left, she looked at the table before her.

Then she Wailed.

Several hours later she was sitting in one of the towers that dotted the outer walls of Capitol’s ruins. One of the few survivors had once belonged to Lordaeron’s court mage, a personal favourite of Terenas’ wife. Sylvanas still hadn’t found him and so she had assumed he had killed himself to stop the Scourge from getting him. Now, if Proudmoore was telling the truth, there was a possibility he was alive and across the sea.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. A part of her simply didn’t care - he was gone, and this land was hers and her people’s now. Another part felt a deep-seated rage; he was a coward to have fled, to not have suffered as she and hers had. There was a degree of jealousy there and she was not stupid enough to ignore it. But primarily there was, as always, fear. The Forsaken had claimed the ruins but what if living survivors came back, wanted it back? She knew whose side the Alliance would take - or what remained of it, anyway.

She looked out at the moon that hung low in the sky, dusk only having passed a couple of hours beforehand. Like all Quel’dorei, she had preferred the bright light of the daytime sun but her death had changed that. Now looking at Belore in the sky only made her think of betrayal; that their goddess had, in their time of greatest need, abandoned her people. Abandoned her.

Much like her family had done.

It was these feelings that had kept her staring at a blank piece of paper. She had been trying to compose a letter, write to Nathanos to alert him to what had happened. But then, she thought about what he might think of her. All her interaction with the living since her death had been coloured with disgust and contempt. Garithos had been a useful tool, but both of them had been hoping to betray each other as quickly as possible.

Usually when confronted with an issue like this she would talk to Varimathras. Not to listen to his advice, though he sometimes possessed information she did not which she took on board, but to simply have a bouncing board for ideas. When it came to more privileged matters, she discussed with her Dark Rangers instead though she often found their disagreement tiresome. Sometimes she just needed to justify something to herself, not to have all an idea’s holes poked at and exposed.

For personal matters, though, she kept her own counsel. In life she would have gone to Alleria but after Lirath’s death she had never been the same again. Shortly after that she vanished and Sylvanas had not been on speaking terms with Vereesa. It was into this space that Nathanos came. It had been less than a handful of years since the Second War, she had lost her sister (and in many ways her other sister too), her brother and both her parents. And she had become Ranger-General.

Nathanos had, despite his race, been determined to be a ranger. Despite human rumour they had never been lovers - she had had quite enough of those and little interest in romance anyway, at the time - but he had become like a brother to the whole Corps. He had not shared her bed but, more than anyone on the planet, he had shared her confidence. Many a night had been spent with the two of them getting drunk (which really meant her getting drunk and him remaining sober) in her official quarters and coming up with more methods of defence. Not that any of them had held in the end.

She had known his chance of survival was slim when she commanded him to find out what the fuck the rest of the Alliance were doing but she had also known that her chance of survival was already at zero, and that it was likely that every ranger with her was also destined to be trampled by the Scourge. Sometimes she hated being right. She had spent over four centuries studying under her mother and she had always had a keen analytical eye. She had known the moment she first saw the bastard that the elf gates were their only chance.

When they had fallen, all she could do was slow him down. And for that crime, she and her rangers had been made into what they were. She remembered a conversation with Kel’Thuzad early on into her slavery where he had told her that she was the first ever banshee. The monster had invented a whole new kind of undead just to inflict as much suffering as his petulant mind could think of. The lich’s tone had been one of paternal pride. He was perhaps the only entity on Azeroth she despised as much as the one that had killed and raised her.

But it seemed that at least Nathanos had gotten out. She had to believe so, believe that at least someone had escaped. Something in her stomach seemed to scratch at her insides for news of everyone she had known, all the Quel’Dorei surely slaughtered, some even at her own hands.

She still didn’t know if Vereesa was alive but she suspected that she was. Sylvanas was certain that if the prince had gotten her sister, he would’ve made sure she knew such. She could see the expression he would have on his face as he presented her with her own sister, dead or raised. She closed her eyes against the image and managed to force her fist to let go of the edge of the desk. The wood beneath it had been almost pulped by the strength of her grip.

None of this helped her write this letter to Nathanos. Her problem was that she didn’t know how he would react. Would he treat her exactly the same as the Ranger-General she had been in life? Would he think she was an abomination to be slaughtered? What were the real chances he would want to abandon whatever he was doing in this Theramore to return to a group of dead women?

She didn’t know if Nathanos would want anything to do with any of them anymore, and she wasn’t sure if she could take one more rejection. It had been more than a year since she had last seen him - humans could change a great deal in that time. She knew she was letting her stress get the better of her, starting to grow distraught.

Then she stood up and Wailed.

She hoped the mage would not want his tower back in pristine condition, she thought bitterly as she saw the consequences. The fine desk had been eviscerated as had what had remained of the wall tapestries. The lanterns on the walls had shattered and gone out - it looked like the room had been attacked by the Scourge.

With that thought in mind, she turned to mist and flew down into the heart of the ruins. There was someone who had seen Nathanos more recently and perhaps she might have some information that could help her write this letter. Although it burned against her very nature even to think, let alone say aloud, she needed Jaina Proudmoore.

Chapter Text

As far as dungeons in ruined cities now occupied only by the dead went, Jaina figured that she could have done a lot worse than she had, really. She actually preferred it down in the cells rather than up above - during her entrance to the city she had been escorted through many areas that sent her mind reeling back to memories of Arthas before it all went wrong. Those had been far more painful than anything the undead had done to her.

In fact, they had done her no harm at all after her capture though she was not sure that that would remain the state of things. They had brought her food and water which she had quickly consumed - even if it had all been unpleasant imperishables clearly stored before the sack. After all, the Scourge had no need to steal all the food in the city. Whilst she knew, academically, that there had been some living Lordaeronians who had sided with Arthas it was a fact her mind liked to shy away from.

She was currently watched by another dead ranger. She was now certain that they were rangers of Quel’Thalas, not just imitations both because she had recognised Sylvanas Windrunner and because she had recognised the ranger sign language. Vereesa had tried to teach her some once, when they were both very drunk. Whilst that had gone predictably and she didn’t actually understand any of it, she did know that was what they were using. Better than nothing.

She was continuing to focus on her ‘better than nothings’ because otherwise she felt she might start panicking. She had been captured by some sort of group of free undead and, because they were all rangers, she didn’t know any of them. She had gotten lucky that Sylvanas clearly cared as much about Nathanos as he did her, but that could only get her so far. She was still in a prison cell and there was nothing actually stopping the undead from torturing or killing her. Could they raise her if she wanted? She didn’t like thinking about that.

While it was warmer down in the dungeons than it had been in the ruined forests she had been wandering through, it was still far from comfortable or homely. She wasn’t sure she felt safe enough to manage to sleep and that could pose a serious risk if she was imprisoned for a long time. Whilst the undead holding her clearly weren’t Scourge, neither were a variety of other evil things.

Pained was going to kill her when she found out, if Nathanos didn’t get to her first.

She sensed her new visitor before she saw her. Unlike more basic undead such as ghouls and geists, the rangers all gave off a level of necromantic power that hung in the air like the smell of rotting eggs. She didn’t know what they were; how they fit into the classifications of undead she had been taught. Dalaran had never specialised in the necromantic arts - in fact, until the ousting of Kel’Thuzad she had, perhaps naively, believed they were not practised in the city. Oh how wrong she had turned out to be.

It did make her worry, though, about Nathanos. She had never met Sylvanas herself and therefore had little to go off of when it came to understanding if she had changed. Besides, she was an imprisoned enemy who they all knew as their murderer’s girlfriend - it was hardly a situation that would lead to the kind of care that Nathanos clearly remembered so well. All she knew of Sylvanas she knew from Vereesa and her friend had hardly spoken about either of her sisters. Jaina had been a child when Alleria entered the Dark Portal to end the Second War: to her, both of the older Windrunner sisters were near legendary figures.

She got the feeling that the two had had a falling out - when Jaina went drinking with her (which was often; she was a student, after all) Vereesa would always turn morose, and the most obvious source of her lethargy would be her family or, rather, what was left of it. The Windrunner matriarch had died during the Second War and so had her husband - information Jaina knew from her education as heir to Kul Tiras. Although that education had started late, only beginning in full after Derek’s death, her training as it related to Kul Tiran allies had been thorough; after all, that was important information to someone who was to marry into one.

Her engagement to Arthas had been a true fairytale romance for the two of them - for her parents, it had been an opportunity. She imagined that now her mother viewed it rather differently, as the first step towards calamity. Her father’s opinion didn't matter anymore.

She had a vague recollection of meeting Lireesa Windrunner when she was an infant but all she remembered was that the woman had been tall and everyone had been busy all day and not willing to pay her any attention. Maths and her understanding of history told her she must have been three years old, during a tour that the then Ranger-General did to meet with her allies in the Second War. She died less than eighteen months later.

She had seen many portraits of the woman, though. She had visited Quel’Thalas a few times - a rarity for a human - and there she was celebrated with statues and paintings everywhere. She was always depicted as an absolute titan of a woman, steely eyed and stalwart with bright blonde hair and a natural grace that made her look more sabrecat than elf. Her father had spoken of her with begrudging respect, recognising her position as perhaps the best general on the continent through gritted teeth. He never had liked elves, though it took a more banal form than the hatreds that had led him to Theramore.

Jaina would not make his mistake.

Instead, even as everything in her body cried out for her to run or fight or both, she tried to make deals and negotiate with undead. While they had been threatening so far, she honestly didn’t think they’d been too unreasonable given their circumstances and she was willing to focus on what could be done. After all, if these rangers could be free from the Scourge, couldn’t other victims? Maybe some of Theramore’s populace could once again know at least some of the friends and family that Arthas had taken from them. Perhaps she was stretching, but her mind was racing a million miles a minute. She always had worked best under pressure.

As she expected, her new visitor was once again Sylvanas. She was in the same armour that she had worn when Jaina had been captured and she wondered if the strange woman ever wore anything else. Once again Jaina studied her as she grew closer. She hadn’t been lying when she said the family resemblance was clear - although she was a few inches shorter, Sylvanas looked more like those portraits of Lireesa than her youngest daughter ever did. Her cheekbones were high and clear, her jawline sharp, her ears longer and narrower than her sister’s.

Vereesa already had the body of a ranger - powerful arms, accentuated upper body, lithe and gracile form. But Sylvanas took that to a whole new level. Her midriff, bared by the strange design of her armour, seemed to be purged of anything that wasn’t hard muscle. Her arms were thicker than should be possible on such a small frame as if she did nothing but drew overweight longbows. The upper section of the armour covered little more than was required by decency and worked to accentuate what Jaina would bet were small breasts. She chased those thoughts out of her head and noticed thin spidery black lines that peaked out of the top and bottom of the metal, emerging from either end of her sternum.

She didn’t know why, but just looking at it made her feel sick. Of course, none of Sylvanas’ body inspired comfort - the pallid blue of her skin was so obviously, remarkably, dead, that there was no way to look at her without being reminded of her wrongness. She was a walking corpse, a living thing that did not breathe or eat or drink or grow. The ashen hair that Jaina could just make out under her hood looked flat and lifeless. She didn’t even know hair could look lifeless. Vereesa had white-blonde hair - this was not that. It was the colour of polished bone, an ash white that could never be mistaken for a result of age or injury.

It was worsened by the fact that Jaina knew that was not Sylvanas’ natural hair colour - Vereesa had often complained that she had been the only sister without her mother’s golden hair. Truly bright yellows were held in high esteem by elves, said by some to be a sign from Belore herself, and Sylvanas and Alleria had both possessed it. Now it seemed it was just another of so many things taken from the elf by death.

There was only one sign of imperfection on her body that Jaina could not attribute to her death and raising - attribute to herself for not stopping him - and that was her nose. The bridge of it was crooked in a way that clearly suggested a long-forgotten break. It fit her fierce countenance, yes, but also undermined it. In a way, she thought, it made her all the more beautiful. Then she shook her head to get rid of that thought and moved on.

Sylvanas used the same sign to the ranger outside her cell that she had used in the last interrogation and, once again, the other woman left the two of them alone. Jaina wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since Sylvanas’ last visit but it couldn’t have been more than about eight hours. If she understood this woman at all, she was certain that Sylvans would’ve liked to drag out this inquisition for longer rather than visiting so quickly. That implied need, desperation.

The elf stopped directly in front of her cell and just stared at her for a minute. It was unsettling how still she was, without the movement of breath through her body or the flitterings of ears or the movement of hands and feet she was used to from elves. It was weird to see one who wasn’t constantly in motion of some sort: it was just another thing that reminded her that the person she was about to talk to was dead.

She did not walk up to the cell; she strode. She fell into a very militarist position, feet shoulder width apart, hands together behind her back. The look of her eyes were imperious and her face conveyed an utter lack of emotion. Whether that was deliberate or just the nature of these undead, Jaina was unsure. When she spoke, her voice carried an undercurrent of violence, of threat and horror even besides the strange dual-tone nature of it.

“I have some more questions for you, Proudmoore.” And then she stopped.
Jaina had the distinct feeling that whatever it was Sylvanas wanted to say, she wouldn’t let herself. She let the silence hang for just a moment before she responded, “About what?”
The elf’s mouth tautened and Jaina knew she was holding herself back from hissing again. “About Nathanos.” Her voice sounded more like a gust of wind than speech.
“Sure. But I want an exchange.”

Sylvanas’ expression still gave nothing away as she looked Jaina up and down. What she would give to know what was happening inside that mind. The silence hung for long enough that Jaina began to think that she might have overstepped and Sylvanas really was just going to kill her. But, eventually, she ground out. “What kind of exchange?”
Jaina breathed out. This was much safer ground. “Simple - I answer one question honestly, you answer one in response. Fair?”
The elf hardly looked pleased but to be fair she hadn’t since Jaina had arrived in Capitol. Still, though, she said; “Fine. I agree. Now, what colour are Nathanos’ eyes?”

Jaina had expected this - after all, Marris was hardly an unheard of figure. His rise to a ranger of Quel’Thalas was before her time, but the gossip had still hung around even into her adulthood. It would not be hard for someone to reference him when they ran into Sylvanas. But she had met him, so she smiled and responded, “Brown. Light brown. Now, how many of you are there?”
Sylvanas pulled that same grin she had worn at Jaina’s capture and she already knew the mistake she had made. So she was unsurprised when she was answered with “There is only one of me. Was he accompanied?”
“By two Quel’Dorei chargers, one mare one stallion.” This time she was more careful. “How many free undead reside in this city?”
Sylvanas didn’t reply for a second. Jaina wasn’t sure if she was considering the numbers or considering whether to tell her at all. “Perhaps five or six thousand, in all. Our numbers swell each day.” Jaina’s heart sank at that - Capitol had been hundreds of thousands strong at the time of the sack. It seemed her dreams of families reunited would be possible for vanishingly few.

In fact, if Sylvanas was telling the truth, Capitol had about half the population of Theramore.

Sylvanas’ countenance had sharpened again. “How did you meet Nathanos?”
“He came across us as we were still gathering ships. He told me he went to Dalaran first, then Capitol. Dalaran he reached before it was razed - Capitol he didn’t. By the time he reached us the burning of Quel’Thalas was common knowledge. He wanted to go back on his own, try and find survivors and round them up. He’d heard Kael’Thas had survived and intended to meet up with him. I convinced them that it was lost and that if he didn’t come with us he’d just die. He got on my ship and we sailed to Kalimdor.”

She remembered a good deal of that first encounter - the man had seemed so broken, so shattered by the revelation he had been unable to help. She had known instantly that he was not returning because he thought there was a good chance of saving people but because he had longed to join the rest of the rangers in their fate. But she had been unwilling to let anyone face that. He had taken a good deal of convincing, but he had proved invaluable in Theramore. She was glad she had taken the time.

Then she remembered it was her turn for a question. Still focused on her memories, she stumbled onto the same question. “How did you meet him?”
Sylvanas glared at her in response. Jaina was starting to think she was incapable of looking at anything without that level of intensity, though it was hard to tell with the glowing red eyes. “Did you not hear? I understand his appointment was of much interest to the court at Lordaeron, after all.”
“I heard at least twelve different versions. I’m interested to know which one was true.”
“Fine.” The tone was harsh, harshened further by its undead characteristics, but it was still technically a positive response so Jaina was happy with it. “I found him by tracking an Amani raiding party. He was on the same trail and we ran into each other when I caught up with them. He was in the middle of dictating terms to them - a lone man, trying to order six armed trolls!” Jaina got the sense that Sylvanas would have laughed at that, but instead her mouth just hung open a moment. “He was lucky I showed up when he did.”

“Still, after we had dealt with them I spoke with him. He had learned the Amani language and Thalassian in his determination and I found that admirable. His archery was exceptional for a human and his woodcraft was skilled. When I asked why he was after the trolls, he said they had broken into his kennel and killed two of his dogs. We did not have dogs for the ranger corps back then - any elf who could not keep a scent as well as a bloodhound would not be admitted - but I saw a possibility. Besides, I knew it would annoy Kael’Thas and that was reason enough.”

“I brought him back with me to Silvermoon as a prisoner. I set his terms of release as compulsory military service, in the ranger corps so I could keep an eye on him. Everyone knew it was a farce, but there was nothing they could do about it.” Sylvanas smirked again but this time something about it was… rueful? Then she focused back on Jaina and the expression turned dangerous. “Despite what you might have heard, I was not convinced by his skills in bed or some such. No man could ever do that.” She snorted derisively.

Despite everything, Jaina found herself laughing too. It was ridiculous with all public understanding of Sylvanas - a ruthlessly efficient general who put nothing before victory. And her little interaction with the woman suggested someone who would not be swayed by such things. As for the man comment, that could be focused on later. After all, it was the elf’s question. She took a while to think of it and, to Jaina, her expression seemed to have softened just slightly. “Do you have a method to communicate with him?”

This was another easy answer. “Yes, though not precisely. I can teleport a letter into his room at the fort and I could enchant it so it should only open for him. There are ways around it, but I only know one person in Theramore who could bypass such wards.” She reconsidered. “Maybe two or three more if the Night Elves or the Horde are visiting. I haven’t tested how well they’d hold up against druidic or shamanic magics.” She hummed. “Or Elunite, now I think about it. Though really that’s just light channelling of a different form, so my existing protections against priests and paladins should work…” She looked at Sylvanas and realised she was rambling. Blushing furiously, she stopped talking. The elf had a slight smile on her face but it wasn’t quite mocking.

Then she remembered it was her turn for a question. Determined to seize the initiative after that minor blunder, she went on the offence. “Would you like to send him a letter?”
Sylvanas was taken off guard by it - Jaina could see how her body tensed, how she took in a breath she didn’t need, how she rocked back just slightly. She regained control quickly, though, and her voice was as dispassionate as ever. “If you have a method of communicating with my subordinate, I would certainly appreciate an opportunity to commune with him. Though, of course, I have no evidence that any letter for him would reach him but your word.”

Jaina could feel irritation rising in her that Sylvanas didn’t believe her but she couldn’t really blame her for it. After all, proving that she had met Nathanos was not the same as proving that she would forward a communique. “Fine. I believe it is your question.”
“Will you swear on your father’s life that if I gave you a letter, you would do the best you possibly could to make sure it reached Nathanos?”
Jaina wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry - it seemed that news travelled slowly in Lordaeron. Her close relationship with her father had been well known across the whole Alliance; Kul Tiran sailors brought that blasted shanty to every port they visited, after all. It made sense as a lever for Sylvanas to try and pull at, not possibly knowing what she was doing.

But the elf didn’t need to know that. Let her believe that the tears gathering in her eyes were a result of the clever blackmail, not bereavement. Not the frozen, stolen grief she would not allow herself to feel. She did not deserve it. “I will do so, if you swear on your sister’s life that you shall release me and that none of your people will harm me”
Sylvanas hissed at her. Not in the way elves sometimes did, but something else entirely. Her face morphed into a vision of threat, her sharp teeth exposed and violent. Her limbs tensed like she was going to pounce and smoke began to billow from her form. Jaina looked down and saw that her captor was actually floating. Where her feet had been had faded completely into black and red vapours.

There was a sound of footsteps at the top of the stairs and Sylvanas looked away from her to glance in that direction. Her expression shifted to one of immense effort and, slowly, the smoke crawled back into her body like insects writhing along the skin that swallowed it.

Eventually, before her once more was an elf that was still clearly, unmistakably dead, but no longer looked eldritch. Jaina dropped the mana shield she had prepared in her panic. The only obvious threat now was the harsh glare the woman kept on her. “Fine.” The dual-tone was completely gone, the voice of the elf entirely lost to whatever spirit inhabited the body of Sylvanas Windrunner. The raspiness had previously sounded like a sword being sharpened - now, it was two rusted blades being dragged against each other, almost screeching in its intensity. “I swear on the life of Vereesa Windrunner, should she yet live, that I will free you and protect you from any of the Forsaken that would harm you, should you prove capable of sending messages to and receiving messages from Nathanos.”

Jaina was tempted to point out the additional clause the elf had snuck in but ultimately she was confident the best deal she was going to get. “I agree. I swear on the life of Daelin Proudmoore that I will do everything within my power to allow you to reach Nathanos.”

The moment that her speech was done, Sylvanas’ body relaxed slightly. It was still held at attention, but it seemed much more natural - like a well-trained soldier rather than representative of rigor mortis. Then she nodded, and left.

It was about three hours later that Sylvanas returned - or, at least, as well as Jaina could tell. She did not speak a single word as she came into the dungeons and passed her an envelope that had been sealed with the traditional seal of the Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas. Jaina, keeping her eye on Sylvanas the whole time, cast her portal and placed the letter on the other side of it. Then Sylvanas left again.

She received a response perhaps ten minutes later. She didn’t know the time in Lordaeron well enough to calculate the time zone differential so perhaps she had caught Nathanos while he was in bed. The Forsaken must be extremely lacking in mages, because the portal ripped open in front of her face with absolutely no trouble. A small gnomish hand passed her another envelope. She took hold of both envelope and hand for a moment - a silent promise of I’m alive, I’m alright, I could escape if I so choose - then let the portal close again.

Her guard had, of course, noticed. Jaina leaned forward against the bars and spoke, in her slightly broken Thalassian, “I believe this may be of interest to your general.” The ranger smirked at her, took the envelope, and went up the stairs.

Leaving Jaina completely alone in the unwarded dungeons.

Chapter Text

Our loyal wolfhound,

Proudmoore assures me that you will read this and, despite all that has occurred, I find myself praying to Belore that she is telling the truth. She also tells me that you have heard of my death, and that you know you are one of only a handful of living rangers remaining. This is true. But through the bastard’s cruelty I was reborn, as I am also sure you know. I hope the fact I am currently writing this letter proves my freedom from the monster who bore me.

I am free, wolfhound, and so is every ranger I could reach. We have clawed our way out from under him and by the ruins of the Sunwell I shall make sure every last one of those he stole from their rest is too. I shall slay the traitor prince, and I shall slay his pet lich.

But this is not why I am writing to you. You know more than any but perhaps my lost sisters how I struggle with this and you may be wondering why I am bothering. I am writing because I am glad to hear you are alive, and you are safe, and because it would unburden my mind to turn these hopes into confirmed facts. I do not expect you to return to my side - by all accounts you have served honourably and performed your duty in a way that none could question.

But I would have you know, and I would have you know there is a space if you should return. The songbirds are with me, as is the old hawkstrider. I hold Capitol’s ruins and they call me a queen. Can you imagine it? I do not wish it - General was bad enough. But no-one else was proved willing to lead but the dreadlord who serves me and his mere existence is bad enough without giving him power.

I suppose you might require some explanation for that, but there is only so much paper and this script is oversized. Proudmoore assures me she has some way of bringing me returning letters. Write back as quickly as possible. You know how I feel about being left uncertain.

I assure you, my death has not made me more charitable.

Signed by
Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas, Matriarch of the Windrunner Household, Keeper of Windrunner Spire, First Gate of the Ban’dinoriel, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken, Lady of the Moon,
Dark Lady,
Sylvanas Windrunner

P.S. Use code 5J in your response to confirm your identity.

Nathanos was just finishing a bath when he heard a portal tear open in his room. He didn’t bother to put on a towel or clothes, instead going straight for his axes. He never let them stray far - Sylvanas had sometimes teased him, saying they were the closest thing he would ever have to a partner. Generally he would respond by throwing one just close enough to her that it would seem for a moment like he was actually trying to harm her.

Focus.

He held his axes loosely. After the initial furore, there was utter silence. He took two breaths, then threw open the door, dropping into a fighter’s stance. The room was just as he had left it except for a letter on the bed. He was no elf and wasn’t capable of sensing the arcane but there seemed to be a smell of it in the air and it did not smell pretty. Instead his room stank of a damp grass fire.

The thing screamed of a trap, so he pulled the bell rope that hung next to his door. Then he went back into his bathroom to put some clothes on. Kinndy and Pained arrived in less than thirty seconds, the two entering through another, much less violent portal. Even over a year since her arrival, he still found Pained intimidating. She was taller than any high elf he’d ever seen, easily over seven feet. While Sylvanas and her ranger sisters looked carved and polished, dangerous in the way of a well-maintained dagger, the night elf looked sharp and violent, more like a ragged sabrecat.

When she had ridden in with Tyrande’s personal guard, mounted on tigers, he hadn’t been sure which had been more dangerous - beast or rider. Her face had the litany of scars that came about from a life spent in close quarters. The ranger corps preferred to fight their enemies from as far away as possible; Sentinels seemed to want to be able to bite any foe they came across. And they could do so, with impossibly long canines and fiercely sharp incisors.

He could think of only two people’s smiles he feared as much - Sylvanas, whose predatory visage always reminded him that he would never quite match up to an elf; and Lady Jaina, whose smile probably meant another arcane experiment or something else that would cause him a headache and six weeks of paperwork.

Kinndy next to her was the polar opposite - a gnome whose head barely came up to his hips who had the slightly starved look of an academic three weeks into a thesis they wouldn’t let go. Her hair was bright pink in a way that looked dyed despite it being her natural tone. She did not look intimidating because she was not, in fact, intimidating. The only threat she posed was to any wooden objects anywhere near her when she and the Lady Jaina were performing their ‘research.’

“Why did you summon us, Nathanos?” Pained’s voice was quiet but threatening, a snake amongst the flowerbeds.
Kinndy just yawned. “Yeah, Nat, I was sleeping!”
He just pointed at the letter on the bed. “Someone tore open a portal and deposited that. I need to know if it’s safe.”
“Fair enough, I suppose.” Kinndy opined, walking up to his bed and crawling on top of it. She didn’t even touch it before she said confidently, “Jaina sent it. Though it’s got a weird seal on it, definitely not one of hers.”
“So it’s safe?”
“Should be.” Kinndy picked it up and passed it over to him. But then he dropped it again.

The gnome just looked strangely at him but Pained asked, her voice flat, “What is it, Nathanos?”
His hands shaking, he picked the envelope back up. He had been right - the seal was definitely the one he thought it was. “This is sealed by the Ranger- the former Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas.”
Pained looked askance at him but Kinndy clearly understood what the problem was. “But she’s dead.”
“She is.” Even saying it made him want to be sick, two years after he had heard. “Sylvanas was killed and raised by the Lich King. There is no way she could send this letter.”
“Could it be the new Ranger-General?”
He turned to Kinndy and showed her the detail of the seal. “No. You see this upside down bow? That’s the Windrunner sigil. Sylvanas doesn’t have any children, and the rest of them were last in Dalaran. There’s no way Vereesa would actually step up to the responsibility.”
“Who should have succeeded her, then?” Pained’s voice cut across his shaking one.

He ran a hand through his hair. Parts of it were already turning grey, despite his age. “Depends on who survived. Technically the line biases towards the House so it should be Vereesa next but Sylvanas didn’t have a set successor. There should be a vote of the remaining rangers. She probably would’ve wanted Lor’Themar or Halduron, maybe Areiel, though the old hag would never say yes.” He snorted lightly. “I actually might have had a decent shot at the position.”

Kinndy put both her tiny hands on his, the one still holding the envelope. “What if Arthas made her send it?”
“No.” To his surprise, it was Pained that spoke. “There is no chance Lady Jaina would be involved in portalling such a thing. We won’t learn anything until you open it.”

Nathanos hated that he agreed with her. With his heart in his throat, he broke the seal and unfolded the letter. It was a single page and the letters were immediately recognisable as Amani script. The further code took him just a moment to decode and then he read the letter. The ink ran as water and tears dripped from him.

The first line was enough to convince him that it truly was Sylvanas writing it. Any in the ranger corps might call him ‘wolfhound’ - they used animals less as codenames and more as a method of claiming closeness. Many would call him loyal, most notably Anasterian whenever he was forced to acknowledge the human’s existence. But no-one but Sylvanas would combine the two, and she would be the only one to claim him as ‘ours’ - not hers, but belonging to the whole corps.

He read the letter quickly, then re-read it, then re-read it. The list of titles was a nice touch as a way to confirm her identity, even if it was unnecessary at that point. Sylvanas had enjoyed undersigning letters to the crown with every title she could possibly come up with. He knew the origin of the Lady Moon epithet, and also knew that he was one of only two people currently alive who did. Maybe more, if Vereesa had told her family, but he rather doubted that.

He did not agree with Sylvanas about everything and, initially, Vereesa had been one of those things they frequently clashed over. But as he spent years with the rangers and she still failed to try and close the gap he started to give up. He lacked the vitriol that his friend felt for her sister but he had never met her in his years of being constantly at Sylvanas’ side and that fact alone told enough of her actions, he thought.

If Sylvanas was telling the truth, though, he might not be alone as he thought. Not only did she - not live, exactly, but remain - so too did at least a dozen of his closest companions. The hawkstrider was Areiel, of course, but the songbirds meant Anya, Velonara, Cyndia, Lyana, Kalira, Kitala, Anthis, Clea, Mira, Nara and Somand. If they were all freed, perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps there was something left of the life he had lost fleeing Lordaeron.

He almost spat at himself at that framing in his own head. He, unlike every other he named, had not lost his life. He had kept his by running as far and fast as he could go.

“What does it say?” Kinndy’s enthused voice cut through his spiral and he started.
He placed the letter back down on the bed. “It is from Sylvanas. She- she’s free of the Lich King’s control somehow. She holds Capitol with an army of the free undead.” His voice was awed even to his own ears but how could he not be? He was constantly amazed by the sheer strength of his friend and this seemed to more than confirm it. She had beaten the Lich King in a game of willpower. He felt on the edge of hysteria. His friend was free! He would see her again!

He took a series of long breaths to calm him. Rushing in would aid no-one - there was always a need for caution. “She asked me to write a response, and said that the Lady Jaina had a way of getting any letters back to her.”
Kinndy hummed for a moment. “I should be able to. She put a lot of power into that portal; I should be able to pinpoint where it came from and send it straight back there, presuming she hasn’t moved.”
“Wait. Was there anything regarding Lady Jaina in this letter?”
He turned to Pained. “No, sorry. Nothing at all on her.”
“How do we know your friend hasn’t harmed her?” She firmed her grip slightly on her sword, hanging as it always did from her back.
Kinndy tutted. “Well, not only did she open the portal, Jaina also put wards on the letter. Strong ones, too - I couldn’t have broken them. If she’s got the energy and willingness to do that she can’t be in too much trouble.”

Nathanos sent her a look from the side of his eye. “Why didn’t you mention the ward before I opened the letter?”
“You were fine! It was clearly meant for you anyway!”
“And,” Pained’s voice had a slight lilt to it that told of bemusement, “Just out of interest, what would have happened if it hadn’t been for him?”
“Oh he would’ve been consumed with arcane fire too quickly to know what was happening.” Kinndy’s voice was far too excited for his liking, and he swore up and down in Amani. He always had found cursing in the brutish troll language most satisfying; sometimes there just weren’t words in Common or Thalassian.

He went straight to his writing desk. 5J was a simple cipher - in fact, it was the introductory code that any ranger officer had to learn though they didn’t know that name for it. Because of that it took only a few minutes to scrawl down his own response. Thalassian lettering had always flowed for him in a way that no other script did and he found it easy to write at a blistering pace. Soon enough he was done. He folded it into the envelope that the letter had come in and stamped it with the seal of Theramore. Usually he would be careful with using it - Theramore was the Lady Jaina’s domain, after all - but he felt it was the clearest sign he could give of his own power in this place.

Sylvanas would know what his entrustment with the official seal would mean and he hoped it might allow her to trust the woman. He took a deep breath, then handed it to Kinndy. The gnome just stood there for a second before she pulled open a (thankfully much quieter) portal. She only opened it to about the size of a postbox and pushed her hand through it. Because of its small size, he couldn’t see what happened on the other side but a few seconds later she removed her now empty hand from the portal and closed it. “Jaina has it!”

Oh Belore,

I have indeed received your letter and am glad to hear of your continued existence. If there was anyone who could break out from under the Lich King’s thumb, perhaps I should have known it would be you. Please pass on my good wishes to whoever does remain.

I am writing this in my bedroom in the port town of Theramore, settled on a small marshy island off the coast of Kalimdor. The fortress I sit in was built by the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras, but explaining that would take too long for your requested speed and, as you know, I live to serve. With me are a night elf (a real night elf? I hope you are as amazed as I) and a gnome, both of importance to the Lady Jaina.

They are both rather worried for their friend. I, of course, know better but they would appreciate some proof of her health. Perhaps you should suggest she write a letter herself? If she has been injured on her brave but foolish journey perhaps she could dictate it to you. I know you don’t take instruction well but perhaps if I ask it of you, you shall do so anyway. I shall owe you a favour.

I am glad that you have rescued those you can. We have done the same here. We have Lordaeronians, high elves, dwarves, gnomes, Kul Tirans, all sorts. The Horde is here, too - but we are at peace. I never expected to use my Amani in peaceful settings.

I do not know how much of Lordaeron you control, but I would like to inform you of something. I buried every piece of ranger equipment I could find under Marris Stead. That includes a variety of bows - well protected of course - and the knife you gave me. I hope you can retrieve it. It saddened me to leave it behind.

I believe we have an opportunity here, my friend. A whole set of opportunities - and I believe you and Lady Jaina may well be the centre of them. Also, 5J is not a complicated cipher that proves my identity, which of course was the test itself. If me knowing that isn’t proof of my identity then I would say, instead, something only four people alive would know.

You last saw Vereesa at the raising of Alleria’s statue in Stormwind. You said only one word to her, which I shall not repeat here. I know how you get when it is mentioned and I would rather you not rip up this paper. Instead, I will say that you both cried though you claimed to all others that it was just the rain that had ruined your makeup.

I hope that should prove my identity. I hope to hear more from you, and soon. I would also like to know who is still around, and if there is a possibility of me reaching out to them. And, while you will not like it, I think you should reach out to Vereesa. Surely she cannot abandon you even now.

Undersigned,
Ranged-Lord of Quel’Thalas, The Man of Eversong, Brother-Ranger,
Your trusted wolfhound,
Nathanos Marris

Chapter Text

Sylvanas was, as usual, alone. She had spent so long alone in the decade and change preceding her death that it hardly felt different to be so utterly isolated. She was used to the suffocation it brought - but she was not used to that suffocation longing for its own violent enactment. All negative feelings since her death always funnelled into her rage; that was now her nature as a banshee. She had been far from rageless when she was alive, of course, as the many bruises she and Alleria had inflicted on each other in various play fights could attest, but she had always had a handle on it.

Elves, despite their pretensions to the contrary, felt all things strongly. Just as the world around her could make her thrum with life, just as she felt she could commune with the woods she inhabited, so too did she feel betrayal and hurt and anger. But ever since the death of Lirath and her parents, she had tended towards moroseness over fury. Her time as Ranger-General had been marked not with outbursts of violence but with quiet breakdowns where no-one could see.

Nathanos had seen. Nathanos had understood. She still had felt she had had to hide her lowest moments from him but he had been his stubborn self and refused to let her lock him out. Sometimes literally - she remembered one time she had locked herself in her room in the Spire to cry, only for him to chop down the door and sit next to her. He hadn’t said a word in the hours they’d both sat there; he’d just stayed, silent, until eventually she sobbed herself into exhaustion and passed out.

She had maintained the traditions of the ranger corps, of course, shared her embraces and her body with her sisters-in-arms. Before the Second War she had real relationships with many of them, but she had drifted apart as her new responsibilities slowly crushed her. The others did not break off theirs, of course, and she still rutted with them often. But true emotional connection she did her best to strangle.

She did not feel she could take another loss.

Nathanos had wormed his way into her life because the man was, like her, stubbornness incarnate. But he did not replace what she had lost from the corps - he was more like a brother to her and sometimes she thought of what would happen if he had met Alleria. She was sure that the two would either have killed each other or got on like no-one else she had ever known. It was weird, sometimes, how much a man several centuries her junior could feel like the older sibling she no longer had.

If he was there with her, she knew exactly what he would do. He would pull up the chair from the other side of the room and start whittling. He had picked up the habit from her because, like the elf he was always trying to be, he never could sit still. Perhaps that made him more of an elf than she was now, she thought bitterly.

She was shaken from her brooding when someone flung the door wide open. She had Deathwhisper drawn and aimed before the intruder even entered the room but when they did it was only Cyndia. She had in her hands an envelope, and if she were alive she would most certainly be waving it. Her arms did not move at all as she spoke, “The mage has received a letter through a portal. It should be the response we want.”
Sylvanas stood, then walked over to the door to take the envelope. “Return. She must be kept under watch.” It was a clear dismissal and fortunately the ranger understood, turned, and left.

She closed the door and, now once again with privacy, studied the letter. It was sealed with a sigil she was unfamiliar with - an anchor with solar rays connecting the arms. It reminded her of the Kul Tiran icon which made sense given who had supposedly founded this city. If she was correct, that would mean whoever had written to her had access to the nation’s official seal; not a small amount of trust. When she had become Ranger-General, only Nathanos had had uninterrupted access to her stamp. He had done much of her paperwork as she had managed things in the field. Technically, he had his own as a Ranger-Lord, but he barely ever used it. She wasn’t even sure it had escaped the Sack of Quel’Thalas.

Slowly, cautiously, she opened the letter.

The handwriting was definitely Nathanos’ or at least a fair imitation of it. The letters were too flowy as if someone was pouring them instead of writing them and it had clearly been written in exceptional haste. But still, it was legible and that was all she needed.

Most of it was written in the 5J cipher she requested, but the address and signoff were both written in a much more complex cipher that was preserved for communication between the Ranger-Lords. That should prove his identity on its own, but the details he had included were enough to assuage the worst of her paranoia.

She remembered that day in Stormwind. It had been three years since Alleria disappeared through the Dark Portal and ended the Second War, five years since the death of her parents and brother. She herself had been mostly absent during the final campaigns - Alleria had stolen a company of Farstriders and gone south seeking vengeance. Vereesa had been involved somewhat, though it was clear even she had not expected their sister to abandon them as she did.

Not one of Alleria’s company came back to Quel’Thalas. Sylvanas was far from the only ranger grieving in those terrible years. Stormwind, though, had not seen the harm her selfishness had done to her nation. They called her a hero and they raised her a statue. Sylvanas wished she had not attended, wished she had had the strength to say no but she could not, as if Alleria was somehow going to stroll out of the city to greet them. She didn’t, and Sylvanas had spent the day amongst humans who hardly knew who she was and didn’t seem to care about her sister at all before her final moment on Azeroth.As if she was not a woman, but an action.

Rhonin had been holding Arator, just old enough that he might remember this moment when he grew up. She hoped he did - that statue was likely all he would ever actually see of his own mother. Vereesa had been managing the twins, themselves only able to cry and scream. She had met Arator before but technically it was her first time seeing Vereesa’s own children. Giramar and Galadin.

She had brought Nathanos with her - actually, that wasn’t quite true. Nathanos had insisted he was coming along so that she ‘wouldn’t spend the whole time moping and getting drunk in some tavern.’ She hadn’t appreciated his concern at the time but over the years she had become thankful for it. Him and Rhonin had been the only thing that stopped her from physically attacking Vereesa.

And, despite everything, she knew she would have come to regret doing that. She hated her sister more than she hated perhaps anyone alive (Alleria, the bastard and Kel’Thuzad didn’t count) but something in her heart still choked when she thought of her little sister hurt. Despite it all she had maintained communication with her, sending her letters for over a decade before her death. When Vereesa had sent her them, tear-soaked, begging for them to just be a family again, she had cried over them too.

But still she had stayed in Dalaran. Vereesa had not visited Quel’Thalas since before she met Rhonin and now it seemed she had all the family she needed. She had done nothing but hurt Sylvanas for more than fifteen years and, still, Sylvanas did not want her hurt. She was, perhaps, a poor excuse for a banshee.

Nathanos asking her to reach out to Vereesa may as well have been a joke. She would not - and even if she did, Vereesa would not answer. Sylvanas had died trying to defend a home her sisters had abandoned and nothing would ever change that fact. She didn’t even know how she would be able to get in contact. Though technically, she supposed that if Vereesa returned to Quel’Thalas now she would be appointed Ranger-General on the spot. That thought almost made her laugh.

So, too, did Nathanos’ method of address. In informal letters, he always called her Belore. It was a long running joke between them where he would pretend to fawn over her and grovel before her by claiming that no animal could possibly match her for grace or beauty. Then he would say, in the exact same tone, that the gnomes reckoned Belore was almost as full of hot air as she was and that her head was so large it blotted Her from the sky.

Much of the rest of the letter intrigued her. A night elf? Peace with the Horde? Both of these were strange and almost fanciful, but Nathanos was not a fanciful man. He was not one for exaggeration or overstatement, always too practical for poetry and all the other frivolous things that elves preferred. Sylvanas had, despite herself, loved much of the Thalassian court even if the politics had driven her up the wall. She loved the beautiful clothes and the beautiful dances and the beautiful women. Alleria had hated all of it, only loving the natural lands whereas Vereesa had loved the court and hated the wilds.

Sylvanas, though, had loved both. She had been excited whenever her minn’da took her out on field trips and just as thrilled when her ann’da had taken her to court. She had disliked Kael’Thas, of course, but much of their mutual distaste was performance. They both enjoyed winding each other up and few people in the whole kingdom had been as fun to spat with as the prince. She hoped he was alright.

Politics had bored her, yes, but she had ever been vain and the glamour had appealed to her. Now she had neither. The world around her was ruined, and any life that was out there sensed her wrongness and fled. The ballrooms of Lordaeron were shattered and inhabited only by spiteful ghosts like herself. She had fallen out of practice at court after her ascension, often pushing Nathanos in her place even if he had the same view on all of it as Alleria had. Kael’Thas had fun fighting with her - he absolutely hated Nathanos with a passion that few rivalled. The feeling had never been mutual; Nathanos hadn’t considered the prince worth the effort.

She had laughed for hours when he first told her that, knowing how much it would piss Kael’Thas off if he ever found out. But it now seemed unlikely that he would.

She shook off the past for a moment, even though it clung to her like a web to a fly. She had a mage to talk to.

-

It had been less than half an hour since she last saw the mage so she was unsurprised to see her looking much the same. Cyndia was, once again, standing guard but Proudmoore seemed in no hurry to make a break out attempt - if anything, she looked more relaxed now. Sylvanas supposed that made sense - the woman was clearly capable of opening portals in her cell. Which meant that she had chosen to stay behind: whilst she was guarded, Cyndia could’ve killed her before she made it through such a thing. But when she was alone? There was nothing stopping their prisoner from simply portalling away.

Sylvanas squirrelled that information away in her brain somewhere and stared down at her captive. She intended just to stare for a while, but this time Proudmoore spoke first. “So, I believe you swore I could leave.”
Sylvanas stayed stock still as she thought about her reply. She would have to let the mage out - there was no way they could contain her, and violating any trust so easily was an unnecessary risk - but that didn’t mean she had to make it easy. “And if I told you that that letter was not from Nathanos at all?”
But the human just rolled her eyes. “It had my seal on it. Nathanos holds that whilst I’m away which means either he wrote it, or he signed off on it.”
“And if the seal was taken from him? If he were killed, the town overtaken?”
For just a second, genuine pain seemed to cross Proudmoore’s face. But then it smoothed over again. “Then it wouldn’t have been passed to me by my apprentice.”

She could feel her face trying to form a scowl, but she didn’t let it. She could not show weakness. “Then I suppose I should free you if I value the life of my dearest sister.”
Silence hung in the air as the mage clearly expected her to move - but she didn’t. Eventually, she sighed. “What, is this the bit where you claim you don’t care about her?” She snorted. “She showed me some of the letters, you know.”
“Then you should know I have seen her but once since the end of the Second War.”

Proudmoore looked hard at her, clearly trying to read her. Sylvanas let her - she was confident in her ability to hide any emotions she might display. Finally, a second sigh and then she spoke again. “And I haven’t spoken to my mother since I moved to Lordaeron. That doesn’t mean I don’t love her.”

Sylvanas could feel herself fraying at that. Did she love Vereesa - no, it wasn’t even worth considering. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She could not be vulnerable, could not express any weakness, could not be less than untouchable. She was not built to love, not anymore. And, even before her death, duty had crushed it out of her.

As had Vereesa’s betrayal.

She could feel her body slipping away from her: sense the way the smoke drifted up into the air above her. Cyndia was off to her left and she could almost feel the fear roiling off of her. But she couldn’t see it - her vision was growing tunnelled, turning red. “And how,” she spat, her voice rasping and ethereal, “would you feel if she had killed your brother?”
The mage reeled backwards, her hands raising as if to cast a spell. Cyndia raised her bow, but Sylvanas was faster. She phased out of corporeality, feeling the freedom that the weightlessness brought if just for a moment, then slammed into the woman on the other side of the bars. Her hand appeared back in the physical realm just in time to throw her into the back wall. Only the upper half of her body reformed, because that was all she needed.

She could taste the mage’s fear, her ears twisting forward to hear the hyperventilation. Her hands had dropped and been lost in the smoke that made up Sylvanas’ lower half. She smiled, her mouth hanging open and her fangs clearly exposed. They were long, even for a Quel’Dorei, and sharper than any knife. She hovered them near the young woman’s throat, as though she would rip her beating vein out of her throat. “You do not know me. Sylvanas Windrunner died at Fairbreeze Village. I am a bow, built to destroy the peppercorn of your fiancé’s heart. He will die, and I will kill him, and then I will rest. Vereesa did not know who I was, and she certainly does not know who I am.”

She was breathing hard, even though she had no need for it. It was as if her body had retreated into memory to keep a lid on her stress. She could already feel the violent need that drove her leaving her body - knew she would hate herself in an hour or two’s time when she would think back on this moment. But for now, she had the woman in her grasp and she would not let go until she had satisfaction even if she had no idea what that satisfaction would be.

Proudmoore’s eyes were wide, holding the look of a panicked animal. But, eventually, she spoke, her voice tight and weak. “The Horde killed my brother. But I don’t hate them. A dragon killed my brother. My best friend freed their mother.” She took a steadying breath, and her expression calmed somewhat. She looked directly into Sylvanas’ eyes as she continued, her voice stronger, “Do you want me to believe you would do this to your sister?”

For just a moment, the tableaux held. Then Sylvanas dropped the mage to the floor, and phased back out of the cell. She looked to Cyndia, desperately failing to gain control over her voice. “Take her to the princess’ quarters. She is not to be harmed, and there are to be two rangers watching over her at all times. Then collect Varimathras, Belmont and Putress. We have many things to discuss. I will meet them in the Royal Quarters once I am prepared.”

Then, deliberately not meeting either the ranger or the mage’s eyes, she turned back into her spiritual form and fled for the surface.

Chapter Text

It was surreal to be in the princess’ quarters again. Only two years ago, Jaina had spent nights here with Calia discussing various rumours and all sorts of other small things. That felt like a lifetime ago. Now when she sat to talk, even with friends, it was never to focus on such fripperies. Kinndy would talk of her magical progress, Nathanos the state of the food stores, Pained her safety and the deployments of the Theramore guard. She hadn’t spoken to Vereesa since Antonidas sent her to investigate the plague, since before the Sack of Dalaran. She wasn’t sure her friend was even alive.

The chambers consisted of four rooms - a main lounging room for meeting visitors, a once well-adorned bedroom whose sole remaining decoration was a torn tapestry depicting the view over Lordamere Lake, a much smaller servant’s chamber, and a frankly palatial bathroom. It was similar to the prince’s wing, though it lacked the armoury and the small chapel.

Before she started taking stock of what remained, she turned to the door and started setting wards. Some were simple alarms - some were much harsher, all sorts of nasty icy traps in the doorway. Whilst she was fairly certain Sylvanas would hold to her end of the deal, the events that had transpired in her cell had convinced her not to be too trusting. She didn’t really know what Sylvanas or any of her rangers were, technically, and while her being grabbed had assisted in that research, it was far from enough to act on.

So, she thought, treat it like a logic problem. Antonidas had loved setting her various riddles, mostly of a magical nature. He had always smiled like a proud grandfather as she worked them out. She could almost imagine him sitting on the (slightly damaged) sofa that sat in the centre of the room, eyes bright, cheeks slightly red from laughter. He had rarely looked like that in the final days she had known him and, once again, she felt a pang of loss that she would never see him again. Still perhaps this, in its own strange way, was an act of remembrance.

First, what were the indisputable facts. Sylvanas had been killed by Arthas, personally. That was well attested by various elves who had fled the destruction of Silvermoon. She had been killed by the sword Frostmourne, which was some sort of cursed blade from Northrend. Arthas had always been petty - it was one of the flaws she had known intimately when they were together, though in her experience it mostly manifested in harmless pranks and crude jokes.

Sylvanas could turn into some non-corporeal form. She had a voice with a dual-tone. Her body was physically different than it would’ve been whilst alive, as the bruises she could feel on her chest proved. She clearly retained her memories and at least most of her mind. She had limited control over herself, and occasional spurts of anger, especially at the mention of her sister. The Windrunner sisters had had a messy relationship before Sylvanas’ death.

Second, less certain information. She and the rangers had sung to her, and the living elf she had met had referenced her voice as if it were a weapon itself. According to herself, she was unique and was clearly in charge of the free undead in Capitol. She didn’t seem incapable of softer emotions - there had been genuine care in her voice when she spoke of Nathanos. As far as Jaina knew, she was yet to be outright lied to by the Dark Lady either. Oh, and she didn’t consider herself a hero.

Third, inference. What did those facts suggest? That Sylvanas must be two entities at once - some sort of angry, lost spirit and a physical body. It didn’t match any forms of possession she had been taught about and her education had been thorough after Kel’Thuzad’s expulsion. But, to be fair, neither did Arthas. It was not impossible that she had been telling the truth when she said she was unique - perhaps she was a truly novel form of undead.

Her closeness in the cell had allowed Jaina to get a sense of her arcane signature, but Sylvanas was no mage so it was hardly detailed information. She gave off a powerful necromantic aura but that was all she could tell. Maybe a specialist in necromancy would know more, but as far as she knew Kel’Thuzad was dead and his Cult pushed to the brink of extinction. She had heard of a lich by Arthas’ side - wait. A series of pieces fell into place for her.

Jaina had always wondered why the campaign in Lordaeron had taken the path it had. To begin in Capitol and go all the way to Quel’Danas, only to then turn back to Dalaran seemed horribly inefficient. And if the Scourge was one thing, it was efficient. He had needed the Sunwell - but what could he have gained from its power that would have sent him to Dalaran? Perhaps the mind of a former archmage, who might have all sorts of grimoires tucked away in hard to reach places.

Jaina had never technically reached the position of archmage, but her position as apprentice to Antonidas had given her far more privileges than most of her rank were able to access. She knew not all of Kel’Thuzad’s library had been found because, years before, her mentor had told her how surprisingly small it was. Back then, she had assumed much of it was just kept in his mind or some pocket dimension somewhere - he had been an archmage of some renown, after all - but now she was sure that some of it must have been hidden away in the city itself.

And for that knowledge, Dalaran had burned. In a strange way, for that knowledge Quel’Thalas had burned.

Although she knew it was wrong, some part of Jaina wished that she had those books right now. Perhaps they would let her know more of these strange dead elven women, or perhaps they were beyond even Kel’Thuzad’s mastery of the craft. Both thoughts were, in their own way, equally grotesque.

With her wards set and her initial speculations complete, she took a seat in a deep purple armchair. She waved her hand carelessly as she did so, and the various rips in it fixed themselves near instantaneously. She might still be tired after two nights of no sleep, she was more than used to casting while exhausted - such was the way of a student a little too familiar with caffeine induced insomnia. Such trivial spells were no trouble to her. Both Antonidas and her current mentor would be disappointed if she could not manage them even in the worst of states.

And she was not exactly in the worst of states. While Sylvanas’ sudden shifts had frightened her somewhat, she had not exactly been frozen by terror. The dead elf had been so focused on her face that she had been completely unaware of hands preparing an ice lance. If those fangs had so much as touched her throat, she would meet a second death. Presuming an ice lance would kill… whatever it was that she was.

Still, perhaps her need for diplomacy had gone a little too far. As she had been slammed against her wall, the only thing she could hear through the ringing in her ears was the voice of her father -

“They are monsters, Jaina. You do not talk to monsters: you shoot them.”

It was that thought, more than anything else, that had stopped her cast. Being held above the ground or frightened was not enough to prevent a spell - but her own unwillingness was more than enough. She had accused Arthas of being petty, but maybe she was, in her own way, just as bad. She wanted to spit in the face of her father, even as thinking about him always made her want to cry. And maybe, just maybe, part of the fear had come from one little note her mind had made as she prepared her spell. This will be the second time she’s killed by ice through the chest.

Besides, it was hardly the first time she had been held up by her robe by an elf. As a race, they tended towards touchiness and tactility. That stretched to threats just as much as it did to acts of comfort and as someone who had spent a lot of time in Dalaran, she was used to such actions. In both threatening and… less than threatening circumstances.

She blushed slightly at that thought, and refocused on the issues in front of her. She reached out in front of her, opened a small portal and shoved her arm through it. She vaguely groped around in it for a while until she found what she wanted and pulled out a bag. She closed it behind her; leaving a portal open any longer than necessary was not particularly energy efficient, after all.

In the bag were pens, paper and a variety of literature. Most of it was rather dry texts on magical theory that she - and quite probably her alone - found absolutely fascinating. But for now it was the paper she cared about. She might not have an envelope or a stamp of any kind, but she had other ways of making unforgeable letters. So, instead of writing with a pen, she wrote with mana. Doing so pressed her arcane signature onto the paper in a way that would be unmissable to any mage (or high elf) who knew her.

The letter was technically written instantly - technically it was less like writing, and more like impressing the image of writing onto the paper. But doing that meant she had to have the entire letter written out in her own mind in the instant of casting. But she had always thought faster than her writing hand could keep up with so she actually found it easier than using a quill. Once it was done, she passed it through another newly formed portal into Nathanos’ room, and waited.

Whilst she waited, she cleaned up the room. Most of the work was done with magic, dusting and wiping and fixing. The fireplace on the left wall had no logs in it anymore, but she could set a fire anyway. Well, technically, it wasn’t actually fire, just extremely hot arcane that gave the impression of fire, but it was good enough. She righted the grate, fixed the massive holes in the marble mantle, and through yet another portal pulled through a table to sit between the sofa and the armchair.

After that, she reached outwards with her magic. Doing so tended to sense powerful magical presences and, unsurprisingly she found two sources of necromantic magic just outside her suite. That would be the two rangers. Both of them were nowhere near as strong as Sylvanas’ seemingly bursting font of it but she didn’t know enough about any of the other rangers to tell more than that. She knew some of their names from Nathanos, but he had only rarely spoken about his time in Quel’Thalas after they landed in Kalimdor. She had had the sense he was desperate to leave it behind. That was a feeling she had understood - her locket with a lock of Arthas’ hair was somewhere out on the floor of the bay.

If it hadn’t been taken by the Tides yet and vanished somewhere deep within the Great Sea. She hoped, spitefully, that it had.

Two rangers was not much of a concern to her. She didn’t want to hurt them, of course - many if not all of them were friends of Nathanos - but if she had to she was confident she could win. That was part of the reason she was relatively comfortable with staying technically imprisoned by them; she did not seriously think they could stop her if they wanted to. Only two people in the world knew the kind of training she had been doing in Kalimdor, and one of them was her. The undead wouldn’t know what hit them. Still, though, her goal was not to come in and kill everyone.

She was here to rescue survivors and it seemed that, in a way, these people were survivors. Whether they might come with her to Theramore was a different matter but that seemed rather like putting the cart before the horse in this situation. Perhaps she should take this easy opportunity to leave; even with high elves’ sensitivity to magic, there was no way that the rangers at her doors could break into the room in time to stop her escape through a portal. But whenever she thought of that, her father’s sneer would appear in her mind. His words would echo in her head.

“They are monsters, Jaina. You do not talk to monsters: you shoot them.”

Her father had been wrong about the orcs. The Horde that had enslaved the red dragons and killed Derek was not the Horde that Thrall led - it would never have been supported by people like Cairne or Vol’Jin. Similarly, these undead were not the Scourge. Maybe she was being brave, maybe she was being stupid. But, ultimately, she was determined not just not to be her father, but to prove him wrong as well.

Not only were the orcs not monsters, but perhaps you should talk to those that were.

In the most literal sense, Sylvanas was a monster. She was a magical beast that should not be, a corpse puppeteered by necromantic energy that any living thing could feel was wrong. But that did not mean that Jaina would shoot her. Her father had not just been wrong about the specific situation of Theramore: his entire ideology had been wrong. And that had been why he had to die.

She did not cry. She would not shed a tear over the hateful, spiteful beast her father had become. Maybe in one case he had been right - he had been a monster, and sometimes she wished she had had the strength to shoot him herself. Before he had the opportunity to seize Theramore, before he had even landed on Kalimdor’s shores. Maybe if she had, so many people would still live. But she had not and they did not. She had tried to talk him down and he had not listened and innocents had paid the price of her mercy. Of her cowardice.

She would not grieve for him - no-one should grieve for him, and she most definitely shouldn’t. She didn’t have the right to grieve for the man she had allowed to die. She had buried him and the only dampness in the soil had been from the beating rain. She had thrust his sword into the dirt and some small part of her had wished it was him she was stabbing instead. That night, Nathanos and Pained had both sat in her room, him whittling and her making something with a tiger tooth. All three of them had drank, though she was sure at least most of the alcohol had gone into her glass. Possibly all of it. Probably all of it.

It had taken months before she could look any of the Horde in the eyes, and that feeling had just deepened her shame. Thrall and Rexxar had done the right thing, and she knew it. She had agreed to it and she understood it. Both of them had given her space, and when she had next seen her orcish friend he had just given her a hug. They never spoke of what had happened those awful weeks.

But now she had new concerns. And it was for those that she sent a second letter, warded tightly and delivered directly to a small hut in the Bladescar Highlands of southern Durotar.

To Nathanos, Pained, and Kinndy,

I am not only alive, but entirely unharmed. I am (technically) held captive by Sylvanas Windrunner who seems to command the free undead of Capitol; though I presume you knew most of that already. She herself seems to be a novel form of spirit and I would appreciate it if I could be sent through my library on matters of necromancy. Kinndy knows who to ask as to where it is.

She has little control over her emotions, and is particularly upset by any reference to her sister. I intend to see if I can convince her either to come to Theramore or to allow those who wish to return safely. I do not know her well personally and therefore could do with any advice on how to best convince her. If it works then I’ll owe you a drink.

Presuming I can get away without causing a diplomatic incident I should be briefly back in my tower sometime in the next two days. Otherwise, though, this may take longer than anticipated. In the meantime I’ll be expecting you, Nathanos, and you, Pained, to hold it all together. I know Kristoff can be difficult sometimes but do try and work with him. He’s good at what he does and we only have so many good administrators in Theramore.

I’ll be sending another letter to request help of a magical variety in case you run into any issues. I might not be able to get back in time for Vol’Jin’s visit. I trust all of you to behave well and not to admit I’m all the way across the world. I’d really rather my mother doesn’t try the same thing my father did.

Oh, and information on the rest of the rangers would be appreciated. I’m sure you’ve got a dossier or a journal somewhere Nathanos. Pained, if you could watch over Kinndy and make sure she actually completes the work and reading I set her on arcane constructs that would be excellent.

Please reply rapidly,
Jaina.

Magna,

I know you don’t like the title, but I am appealing to you as such. I am currently absent from Theramore and am likely to be for some time. The town is never without threats, and my apprentice is far from up to the level required to defend a whole city on her own. As such, I would request your assistance. In payment I have found a series of books written long after your last presence in Dalaran that I think may be of interest to you.

Please, come to Theramore. Seek out two men named Kristoff and Nathanos and introduce yourself to them. I trust them both with my life, and would also with the secret of your identity. I know you know how they are and I know you have watched over the city - I’ve seen a rook sitting over us often enough. I ask you only to hold the city in case of magical attack until my return.

Thank you,
Apprentice of the Kirin Tor
Jaina Proudmoore.

Apprentice.

I shall. Have those books ready. If you wish to contact me, send it to your tower. I will be occupying it. Be careful, Daughter of the Sea.

Chapter Text

It was not a short distance from the Bladescar Highlands to Theramore Isle. The shortest possible route was across the ocean, due south over the gulf flanked by the Echo Isles in the north and Dustwallow Marsh in the south. But that was still a long journey, and even someone like her needed her rest. Decades ago, she could fly the length of the continent without a second thought moving faster even than the wind. But those days had passed with her son.

So now, a rook took off from the roof of a small, out of the way hut and flew east-south-east in the direction of the port town of Ratchet. Southern Durotar was beautiful in its own way, she had been assured, but she had never appreciated deserts. The cracked red landscape made her think of bruises: and, more pressingly, the Legion. While the sharp hills and their geometric formations were impressive, she had not chosen this place for its prettiness but for its obscurity.

Despite being a notorious eyesore, she preferred the soft yellow savannahs to be found on the other side of the Razorfury river. The Barrens were mostly empty and it made it easier to believe for a moment that the Dark Portal had all been a bad dream, that the orcs had never come through, that her son yet lived and that she was not wasting away in some backwater.

Then she passed Ratchet. Ratchet was a thriving little port which meant it stank of fish and oil and industry. The goblins had not spread their destruction across much of Kalimdor yet, but already the continent was far from unspoiled. She had been here before them and, much to her own chagrin, would likely be here long after they were gone. She paused in a grove perhaps a league south of the town. She tacked close to the coast - quillboar, orcs and all sorts of other peoples would not be opposed to trying to eat her and she would rather not draw attention to herself by killing them.

The fewer people that knew she was still alive, the better.

She did not wait long, though. Her apprentice had requested her presence and that itself implied some desperation. And besides she was, if nothing else, a protector. A defender. A guardian.

Navigating the mountain range between the Barrens and Dustwallow was always difficult. Besides being filled with all sorts of creatures that could try and attack her, it was oddly shaped and surprisingly tall. She had never quite got the hang of high-altitude flying, preferring her human form when she was required to visit Alterac or, Titans forfend, the Wildhammer dwarfs.

The most immediately noticeable thing about crossing those peaks was the humidity. Durotar and the Barrens were dry and arid, but Dustwallow was a patchwork of marshes and fenland. Her apprentice had begun mapping out exactly which areas were marshland, which were bog and which were fen but, to her, they all looked much the same.

There was a low hum of life magic in the air that thickened the dark green stems, lengthened the vines and energised its creatures. To a non-mage, the land might look imposing or dead. But to her, it was brighter than any verdure she had ever seen. The various shambling elementals she could see were like torches in an ambient twilight, glowing with the power of the magic that animated them. The water may look dirty and unsafe to the naked eye - and often was - but to her heightened senses it seemed to shimmer pearlescent. She wondered how it would look to an elf; perhaps a question for her apprentice.

In many ways, she was nothing like the mages of the Kirin Tor that had birthed her power. But in others, she was still an Archmage of Dalaran at heart. And that meant getting apprentices to find out the answers to questions that she would like to know but didn’t want to have to put in the legwork for. That was about half of what they were for, after all. Still, she had not had an apprentice for decades - maybe she had fallen out of the habit.

The books would be a good downpayment on her assistance. After all, she was not so arrogant to believe that Dalaran had made no progress since the Dark Portal opened that she herself would not have matched. And whilst much of her magic was now beyond her, she still found an unquenchable thirst for knowledge at her core. Perhaps some mages never stopped being apprentices, even if there was not a mage on Azeroth who could mentor her.

Maybe she could dig up the corpse of Queen Azshara sometime and ask her - after all, necromancy seemed all the rage at the moment. Perhaps she could dig up her son.

At that her mood turned sour and she decided to focus on something else again. Flying towards Theramore Isle, it was impossible not to feel the amount of blood spilled there. The island did not look like the rest of the marshland, a light green grass coating a solid rocky outcrop. It lacked the ambient life magic of the mainland, beaten out of it by cutlass and pistol. She fancied she could almost smell the blood even if she knew it was only the magical imprint the deaths had caused.

Bloodshed never came without a cost, as she felt her apprentice would learn soon. She did not know where she had hurried off to that would leave Theramore totally unguarded, but it was not hard to guess. She would be back in Lordaeron, trying to rescue all those who had certainly already died. Her history had given her a certain view on such actions - that they were foolish, and naive, and would only end in heartbreak. Some people could not be saved and Proudmoore had saved far more than she should have been able to. But she didn’t want to be the one to give that message personally - let her apprentice learn it the hard way, as she had.

The town itself had grown up fast. It had a sizable foulburg sitting on the mainland, mostly slums and home to Horde traders, but the main settlement itself was sat on the island. The walls were high and built of white stone, interrupted by two gates on their west and north face. The south of the island was dominated by its large harbour, and the east by the keep built by the Lord Admiral during his occupation. But the centrepiece was, of course, the great tower that sat at its heart. Jaina’s personal accommodation, as well as the home to most of her household and various magical facilities that she had installed herself.

It rose like a hand reaching for the sky, defying those who had tried to drag it down. It also made for a comfortable resting spot, as she settled on top of the banner that flapped in the wind. After taking a mere moment to settle herself, she flew back to the courtyard in front of it and took her own form once again.

The rook vanished, and in its place a woman stood. It did not take long for a crowd to gather, and from that it did not take long for a military presence to arrive. The Theramore Guard were an odd bunch, mostly dressed in uniforms she recognised as common to Lordaeron but with a large Kul Tiran anchor. Some of them were definitely Kul Tiran, easily towering over her and their comrades and she could sense the druidic magic on some of them. She wondered if Jaina knew about that, the strange nature of Thornspeaker magic, the way both life and death hung from some of her own soldiers.

But their commander was not hard to find. Out of the crowd stepped a night elf. She had a pale white sabrecat at her side, a tiger someone had doubled in size and given great protruding fangs to. Unlike lions, this thing was not supposed to kill in a single decisive bite, but to rip veins and leave its victim weak and bleeding. Then it would follow it as it tried in vain to escape. A fitting animal for a Sentinel, she thought.

The elf was tall, of course, and heavily scarred. Her fangs, like her beasts’, poked out of her mouth as if to threaten. She carried a greatsword in her hands, not quite at rest. “Who are you and what is your business?”
She shook her head. She didn’t have the patience for this sort of conversation. She snapped her fingers and, suddenly, everyone around them froze. Even the tiger stopped exactly as it was, eyes currently widening in panic. She would probably get an earful from the bronze dragons about using time dilation so freely, but she could handle it. Nozdormu hadn’t changed her mind yet and wouldn’t now.

“Now, I believe you are going to tell me your name.” She put a smile on her face, but her voice was still threatening. If you wanted to be taken seriously by a predator, you proved you were more dangerous.
The night elf lifted her sword as if she could somehow regain any agency in this situation. “I am Pained, bodyguard to the Lady Jaina.”
“Oh, Whisperwind’s pet owl. I should have guessed that, I suppose. Now, I have a letter from your ‘Lady Jaina’ requesting I meet with two men named Nathanos and Kristoff. So that would be my business.” She took two steps forward but, to her credit, the elf did not back away. “And as for my name; well, that would be Aegwynn.”

Chapter Text

The town was completely dead, as were most in Lordaeron by now. It was a small one, a set of farmhouses built around a small chapel and tavern, and completely empty of life. Built of wood and stone, it was scarred with ash and blood and muck. The glass that had once filled the windows had been shattered by whatever undead had taken the people - most of the other physical damage had been done by erosion and the elements.

Some had had doors pulled off, but in most buildings the Scourge had, like a flash flood, found the weakest point of a structure and poured through it into their innards. This was the third village they had checked that day, and it was the third empty one. Vereesa sighed, and got back on her mount. It was a Thalassian charger, one that Alleria had gotten her for her hundredth birthday. Like their elven riders, the unicorns were long-lived; Felo’Dracon had been with her for over a century.

She glanced upwards at the sun’s descent. They had perhaps an hour before sunset and no-one wanted to be caught out past dusk. Though all four of them were elves, perfectly capable of seeing in the night, the undead got more active at night. And that made staying out in the darker hours dangerous. She made quick signs to her fellow rangers, all already mounted up. Yet another day spent with no survivors, no sign of anyone who had made it out of the clutches of the undead.

She turned and they rode back west. Back towards the great pink dome that covered her home - the city of Dalaran.

Dalaran was a shattered, broken city now. The streets that had been her home for two decades were split and fractured, the cobbles ripped out and the mud trampled below it. The walls were charred and sooted, and with the occasional brown splatter that was best not to think about. The only reason the shell of the city still stood is that the Lich King had been so narrowly focused on whatever it was he had wanted.

Much of the damage could have been cleaned up by mages of what was left of the Kirin Tor, but they were all busy and exhausted. Holding up the dome was not easy to do. Most nights Rhonin came home only to immediately collapse onto their bed. Most mornings he was gone before she woke. After years of him doing most of the household tasks whilst she managed her role as Ranger-Captain and later Ranger-Lord, it was strange to be acting the housewife. Not that she had much time at home either.

Arator had had to step up in many ways. He was just shy of twenty, now, and her own children were just a few years younger than that. They grew far faster than any elf she had ever known, of course - Lirath had been barely more than a boy when he had died, but had been almost a century old. Half-elves grew at the speed of their human parent and sometimes it was weird to think that her own husband had seen only two-score summers.

Rhonin was surely in the Violet Citadel, working to hold up the defences that protected the city. After the sack and the death of Antonidas, he had been declared leader of the Kirin Tor and he was throwing everything into defending the city. He was being slowly broken by the needs of a broken people and some nights, as she lay there sleepless, she wondered how long he could hold on. How long any of them could.

The Kirin Tor was small and splintered. The kingdoms of Lordaeron and Quel’Thalas had been put to the torch. Past the Thandol Span and the Greymane Wall, there was not a whole nation left to be found. Her sister was dead, and her best friend was missing across the sea somewhere. Vereesa was, in a way she had never been before, alone. She had her new family, of course, the one she had built in Dalaran.

But Windrunner Spire, the home that had always been open to her, was gone, turned to ash and bone and dust. Her mother and father and brother all killed, weapons in hand, and her sister murdered and raised against her will. Sylvanas, Lady Moon, the older sister who she had loved and who had been so instrumental in raising her. The sister who hated her, whose last word to her had been Dorei’talah - the killer of the child. And she had not said anything back, because she had not even disagreed.

The sister who had tried to attack her at the raising of Alleria’s statue, only stopped by Rhonin and that human friend of hers that she didn’t know the name of. Marris, she thought - he had been a Ranger-Lord by the time of the Third War, but she had never met him even though he had been important to Sylvanas.

Past Lirath’s death, she had not wanted to speak to her. And Vereesa could not blame her - it was not just her sister who held her to blame for his death.

Vereesa and Rhonin had a small flat just off to the left from the Violet Citadel. It was relatively put together when compared to much of the city, though most of that was from the hard work of the children. It reminded her of something Alleria had told her when she had led her campaign of rangers south -

“When war comes, it comes for everyone. You want to protect your children? You tear out the root.”

Then she had dumped Arator in her arms and gone south. And, eventually, all the way through the Dark Portal in her search for that root. It seemed to have done poorly at protecting Alleria’s child, given that currently Arator was living in a small side-room in a flat in a broken dying city.

A city that had been broken by the same root enemy that Alleria had been going to fight - the Legion.

Her home had been well cared for before the sack, but after it was shattered and damaged. The walls had been cracked, much of the decor had been stolen or ripped and in the room Arator was staying in part of the wall had been knocked in. But the boys had managed, and neither Vereesa or Rhonin spent long enough in it that they had an opportunity to be upset by it.

She would go speak to her children but she neither had the time nor the energy to field their many questions. She definitely did not want to see Arator’s understanding looks, the way the boy she was having to care for was being forced by her own negligence to grow into a man.

She went to her room, stripped and took a militant shower. Then she put on a night robe and went to bed. Like every night, she spent a few hours staring at the ceiling until sleep finally came for her.

But the resting world was no respite for her, and had not been since the letter had reached her. She knew she was dreaming but that did not lessen the nightmare, did not vanish the terror and the pain. It was almost a lucid dream, but not quite. Though she was aware of her own state, she did not control her dreaming - it wondered as it did without asking her permission.

She was in a field of flowers, the near side of it painted bright yellow and orange with the open tulips. The sky was blue without a cloud in sight except for the dust of an oncoming army, marching from the south. To the north and east was a small elven village that Vereesa remembered from her child - Fairbreeze. It was small and pastoral, only made up of a few homes and stores with an inn for those travelling towards Silvermoon. It sat on a series of small, gently rolling hills just at the edge of the treeline.

To the south was only death.

The south side of the meadow was grey and blue and white, the colours of ice and decay and pallid undeath. The tulips were dead and rotten, the ground itself sucked of verve. As far as the eye could see, an army stretched across the horizon. It was a forest of the restless dead, ghouls and ghosts and geists. And at its head rode a pale rider.

Vereesa had never seen the Lich King herself, but she had heard enough descriptions that her dream could construct him. He sat astride a horse of pale bone, with shattered red barding across its back. His armour was an accursed metal of a cold grey, covered in spikes and ribbing like the skeleton of some monstrous legendary beast. He wore no helm and his hair was the colour of freshly fallen snow.

His face, though, was shaded with pallor mortis.

And on the other side of the field stood a lone woman. Where the Lich King was white and silver, the elf was yellow and gold. Her pauldrons and breast plate were blue, with golden faux-hawkstrider feathers on each shoulder. All the gleam and polish that Sylvanas was usually so proud of had faded. The armour was dusted and dented, rent in several places. Her cloak was torn and lost but for half the hood, still hanging off one ear which was held high in defiance. She had no bow in her hand - the remnants of it lay shattered at her feet. If she had had Thas’Dorah, perhaps she would still be firing until the end. But that weapon was lost to some other world.

And instead, in her dream, Sylvanas had only two knives to face down the wrath of the Scourge. She had heard some of the stories, of how her sister had fought Arthas for longer than any person should have been able to, clung on so doggedly so that more of her people could get away. She had died a hero. Vereesa was fed up of her family dying as heroes.

Sylvanas stood alone, and the Lich King alone rode to face her. When he was perhaps a dozen paces away from her, he dismounted from his horse. He did not speak, he did not breathe, he did not blink. He was not a living thing anymore - it was no man that Sylvanas fought against but some force of un-nature. Death had come for Quel’Thalas and she was the last thing in between him and Silvermoon.

They circled each other for a while. The Lich King hefted his blade, the cursed greatsword Frostmourne. Down its centre ran a series of harshly glowing blue runes. Everywhere he stepped the flowers died and it looked almost as if the sword sucked the life out of them, something in them flowing into the lettering down the blade.

When Sylvanas moved, she was faster than should be possible. Of course, it was only a dream, but still Vereesa felt awed by the skill she showcased. She danced in, gouged, and danced out again before the thing before her could even react. But as she stared at him, he continued not to react, as if the thrust directly into his kidney, sliding into the gap between the sections of breastplate, had done nothing to him at all. He did not laugh, he did not grin, his face did not react at all. Instead, he began to swing.

He was slower than Sylvanas, of course, but still he was faster than someone carrying his weight should be. Every attack was deflected, and many times his opponent used the windows his great arcs created to slice and stab but each time he showed no reaction. Instead, his strikes just grew stronger. Soon, Sylvanas had to use both her knives just to hold each blow.

Then it all went wrong. One particularly heavy over head blow shattered the knife raised to stop it. Sylvanas’ eyes widened in panic for just an instant, but she dodged the ricocheting sword. She discarded the ruined hilt and faced off against him one more. This time, when he went to thrust, she sidestepped it and dug her dagger to the hilt directly into his throat. But instead of keeling over dead, he just backhanded her across the face and sent her sprawling. She did not rise again.

Instead, the thing puppeteering the body of Arthas Menethil walked over to the fallen elf, and lifted Frostmourne above her head. Vereesa tried to scream, but no sound emerged. The blade dropped and, just before it met the skin of her sister, Vereesa awoke.

She awoke panting, but at least she was not screaming this time. She was alone in her bed, which was unsurprising if disappointing. Rhonin had, though, left behind three mana crystals on the drawer. She could feel the weakness and the fever setting in from withdrawal so she was deeply, deeply thankful for them. They glowed just slightly, almost opalescent as she held them. Then, as quickly as she could, she siphoned them. Some elves found the experience of siphoning mana pleasant - she found her requirement for it so deeply unpleasant that the passing feeling could never make up for it, never make it worthwhile.

She stopped at Arator’s door and told the half-awake boy that she was heading out for her mission. She didn’t bother to make food - the children would have to do it themselves. Her watch said it was six in the morning when she arrived at the ranger’s stables. She mounted Felo’Dracon and rode out of the city, flanked by four other elves.

First town - no-one. The buildings looked the same as they did everywhere, though there were signs someone had lit a campfire a few days ago in one of the buildings. Then they killed a pack of ghouls.

Second town - no-one.

Third town - no-one. This time there were some geists within the settlement itself, but they were no trouble.

Fourth town - no-one.

Fifth town - an abomination surprised them. One ranger killed. Kill the abomination, burn the bodies, move on.

Sixth town - no-one.

Seventh town - no-one. Then the sun was setting, and they had to move back towards Dalaran. No more survivors, one ranger and two horses lost. But they had to keep trying.

Ride back into the city. Go to the stables. Put away Felo’Dracon, and take care of him. Walk back towards the flat. Stop a robbery from a withering elf. Burn the body. Enter the flat. Cook something that passed for dinner. Thank Arator. Hug Giramar and Galadin. Send them all to bed. Get ignored by Arator. Go to the master bedroom. Strip. Take a shower. Put on nightclothes. Get into bed.

Stare at the ceiling for three hours. Pass out.

It was late in autumn, and the world was a sanguine red. The leaves had turned and were beginning to fall, the grass was coated in dew and blood and all sorts of toxins the Amani had left behind. The Spire rose alone in its clearing, the village down the hill’s westward slope. Usually it looked proud, powerful. Today it blocked the sun as it set behind it, casting it in shadow. It looked imposing, like a skeletal finger breaking out of the grave.

Vereesa already knew what she would find at the base of it. She had known back then, too, but now in this cruel recreation of her worst memory she knew the exact shape it would take. It was true to the events of that awful day - she did not stumble, but walked slowly and deliberately. The grass spread and broke beneath her, strengthened and rigidified by the blood that coated it. It had congealed enough that it was almost sticky under her boots.

Sylvanas was kneeling in the dirt only a few strides from the door of the Spire. Her cloak was pulled up, though the hood drooped on her wilted ears, and the blue and gold patterns were spattered with the brown of mud and dried blood. She knew it was Sylvanas, not because she could recognise her form but because she knew what had happened here. Neither of her ears perked as Vereesa drew near. She showed no sign of recognition, at all.

Beyond her was a body. In the woods between the Spire and the village she knew they would later find another two, but it was never those bodies she dreamed of. Some nights that worsened the shame, when the lucidity of her nightmares would come back purely to kick her in the teeth. Instead, it was all the body in the dirt between the doorway and Sylvanas.

The body itself was in rough shape. Both its legs were intact, though clearly one of the knees had been shattered. By the form of the calf, it looked to have been done when the body was already lying down. An act of cruelty, not necessity. The ribs had been caved in on the left side, with bone white poking out like extra buttons on the robe that covered them. She was far too late to see the blood still flowing out, of course, the heart long ago stopped so instead it pooled in the obvious hole in the corpse’s chest. A hammer blow, too regular in shape to be anything else.

The injury was so old now that the blood had gone brown from exposure to the air. The only red on the whole corpse was the ruby at the base of the dagger in its left hand.

The right arm was missing in its entirety, sheared off at the shoulder. The remaining skin hung like the offcuts of a torn dress, the humerus gone Belore-knew where and the scapula just visible from the right angle, glittering like a sick pearl in the sea of slowly rotting flesh. Bodies in better condition had made her sick before but this one just left the bile in her abdomen. The feeling hurt, but she knew she had to look up, knew she had to stare into his face one more time. Even if she knew she would regret it.

Lirath’s face had been brutalised, most of it post-mortem. Both his ears had been taken, as was not uncommon amongst victims of the Amani, and his nose had been broken though that was likely to have occurred during the actual fight. One of them had carved a rictus grin into his face, used his own canines to pin the flesh of his lips to his face so it hung in a wide smile. Blood red lines had been carved into his face to widen his mouth just to make it all the clearer what they had done. His beautiful blonde hair still remained, the hair that all the Windrunners but her shared, though now it was stained and torn.

He had not just been killed. The death had been cruel, violent, sadistic.

Once she had taken all of it in, Sylvanas spoke. She did not turn to look at her sister and her voice was utterly dispassionate. There was no emotion to be heard in it. “He tried to fight them. He was just a boy, Little Moon: why did he try to fight?” She tried to speak, but she could not. She had not on that dreadful day, so she could not now. Sylvanas’ voice did not gain more emotion even as she continued. “He thought he could stop them because you taught him, didn’t you? Even when I told you this would happen.”

Sylvanas did not stand and walk away. She did not get angry or violent even as Vereesa prayed she would. “You have done enough. Go down to the village - I will deal with the bodies.”

Then the memory betrayed her. All those years ago, she had turned around and left. She had not seen her sister’s face - even now, she did not know if she had cried. But this time, this nightmare, Sylvanas turned her head with a sickening crack. But it was not Sylvanas.

Her skin was grey, her hair ashen white. Like her brother in the dirt, her ears had been taken but unlike him, where her eyes should be were dark black sockets. They were not empty; instead, they were filled with some strange fluid, thick like ink and seeming to swim in those deep, deep holes. Her face was cracked and leaking a white pearlescent blood. Her teeth were longer and sharper than they should have been. She looked less like the sister Vereesa knew, and more like some strange ghoul.

It was from this realisation that she reeled back, falling over something below her. Lirath’s other arm.

Just before she hit the ground, she awoke.

Chapter Text

The nights were often cold, at sea. There were no trees or mountains to break the wind that filled the sails, no warm campfires to huddle around. When the sky was as cloudless as it was tonight, it grew hard to tell where the horizon was, air and ocean blending together into a beautiful facade of darkness. The stars glimmered, tiny pinpricks of light reflected in the gently lapping waves below.

The wind was bitter, as the northerlies beating down on the Kul Tiran coast often were, but it was not strong and so the tides were calm, almost tranquil. Or at least as close as they got in this part of the world. They were quiet, so the soundscape was dominated by the creaking of timbers common to any ship this size.

Proudmoore’s Mercy was an absolute leviathan of a craft, past the point of heavy warship and halfway to maritime city. As a baby she had hardly been able to tell the difference between it and Proudmoore Keep for both felt so monolithically massive. It was made of a veritable forest of wood, polished and painted to a fine sheen. Still, though, weeks into a sea voyage those things had faded. But the threat the Mercy presented had not died away one bit.

The figurehead of the ship was built from an especially hardy Drustvari ebony, which when exposed to air turned as grey as stone. It depicted a screaming siren - for the only grace from her mighty cannons could be found at the bottom of a watery grave. Many ships had run aground trying to outrun her for whilst the ship was slow, it was also inexorable. You did not escape the Mercy. As the orcs had discovered at Theramore.

She was standing just in front of the aftercastle. The thing rose easily as tall as a house, so large that only her father’s booming voice ever seemed up to the challenge of being heard from one end to the other. Of all the things she had gained from her father, her mother often said she was least pleased that her daughter had his massive voice. There were times, before she moved to Dalaran, where Jaina really felt like they might shatter their windows during their fights.

The door looked more like it belonged in a castle, thick and reinforced as if to defend from boarders. May the Tides preserve any who tried to board Proudmoore’s Mercy.

She wasn’t sure why, but something was compelling her to enter the ship’s hold, through the door into the bowels of the monstrous floating castle. She took one final look at the beautiful sky above her, and then she opened the door and went through. It looked directly into a corridor with various quarters on either side. But in front of her was a man, humming quietly.

He was clearly a Kul Tiran in build, tall and broad both at shoulder and hip. She was sure he couldn’t be as tall as Pained but still he seemed larger. He wore a naval greatcoat, though from the back she couldn’t tell the rank it denoted. His messy brown hair was partially obscured by a tricorne hat raised high at the front but he was wearing practical dark blue trousers and boots. It was standard uniform, but there was still something of him that screamed he was of the sea in a way deeper than any regular sailor.

His voice was deep and rumbling but still quiet in the gently swaying ship’s interior. It was like a lullaby, almost, though she was too far to make out what it was he was actually humming. As she stood there, the sounds grew slightly louder and the man’s shoulder began to move, like he was turning around.

And then a sound of screeching woke her.

-

An ice lance was formed in her hands before she even fully awoke, standing up and looking wildly at her door in only a few seconds. She had left the door of the bedroom open allowing her to see directly to the main suite. That door had been closed, but no longer. Instead in the doorway was an elf. The elf was stuck in a temporal lock, hovering slightly and completely frozen in time. As far as magical traps went, it was probably the most complex she knew. It certainly hadn’t been learned in Dalaran.

The elf was clearly one of Sylvanas’ rangers, skin pallid and eyes bright red. She had the same build as Sylvanas or Vereesa with broad shoulders and powerful arms but otherwise appeared narrow and gracile. Her legs were long and thick, but her stomach looked too sunken to be natural. Her cheekbones had a prominence that spoke not of genetics but of privation. Her eyes were deepset and her ears were high in surprise. Her whole face was forming an expression of shock - clearly she had had just a moment to process her error in trying to enter a mage’s room unannounced.

She did not dress like Sylvanas, in cold plate of purple and silver, but in dark leathers that she recognised from Vereesa as standard operational uniform for rangers rather than the parade dress that her captor had been wearing. Her hood was down, revealing shoulder-length hair of the same dead ashen white as her commander. There was certainly something beautiful in her form, but it was only beautiful enough to be disconcerting. There was no escaping the uncanniness of the ranger’s deadness. And there was no escaping the wrongness that viewing her body caused somewhere deep in Jaina’s gut.

Before she let the mystery ranger go, she checked if any of her things had been displaced. Everything seemed to be as she had left it, except for an envelope now located on the central table. Her wards should have triggered at a portal opening in her room and the fact it hadn’t suggested it had been sent by her mentor. Kinndy certainly couldn’t have done such a thing, and she couldn’t think of another mage who would know where she was.

She left the ranger hanging and went to open the envelope. Inside it was a short note. She almost laughed at its brusqueness - her mentor tended to write like that. After she read it, she took a seat on her armchair and clicked her fingers.

The ranger dropped as the temporal lock holding her dissipated. Instead of falling onto her back, though, she managed to catch herself in the half second before she hit the ground, making a three point landing with her other arm extended gracefully. From that position she stood in a single motion, sinuously like a serpent, or a wave. Her face had a slight smirk on it that almost reminded her of Sylvanas, but there was something more genuine about it, about the way it shaped the ranger’s face.

“Suppose I should have expected something like that.” Her voice was just as ethereal as her commander’s. It had the same thick nasal Thalassian accent, but the elvish tone was higher-pitched, not as deep and booming as Sylvanas’. “Though the General would have wanted you shot for that.”
“And you?” Jaina responded.
The smirk only grew. “I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to keep the creepy dead elves out of your room. Now can I come in?”

Jaina considered for a moment, but eventually waved her in. Now fully rested, she felt extremely confident in her ability to thwart any attempt from the ranger to harm her. She dropped the wards on the door for just long enough for her guest to enter, then reinforced most of them. One ranger was more than enough, without the other in the hallway coming in as well.

The elf took the sofa, sprawling across it like a spoiled cat. Jaina didn’t want to let her get too comfortable, though, and so took the initiative; “Why are you here?”
She seemed completely nonplussed, though. “A few things. First, because I wanted to see you myself. The Jaina Proudmoore in the flesh, girlfriend of Arthas Menethil and darling of Dalaran. Vereesa never stopped going on about how excellent you were.”

Pointedly, the ranger dragged her eyes over Jaina’s form. She was still in her robes from yesterday as she did not feel secure enough to change into nightclothes, even if Calia’s various shifts had fit her which they hadn’t. Once the impromptu inspection was complete, the ranger grinned like a cat with a mouse in its paws, ears high on her head. “Now I can see why.”

It was odd to hear a clear attempt at sultriness in the ethereal, ghostly voice of whatever kind of spirit the rangers represented. The double tone gave it a certain sharp edge that if it hadn’t been so very dead might have been attractive. As it was, though, it remained firmly uncanny, offputting. Jaina didn’t dignify it with a response, and the elf just sniffed.

“Second, to check if you could, as you swore, actually send letters to the wolfhound. And receive them back.” She gestured at the letter Jaina had left out on the table. “It would seem you were telling the truth.”
“And why would you be interested in that?”
The elf gave her a look that suggested she knew exactly what Jaina was doing and ignored her. “Third, I’m here to give you a warning. Stop mentioning Vereesa - it upsets the General, and none of us in the corps appreciate that much.”
Jaina stared at her in a way she hoped was intimidating, but the other woman seemed unmoved. “Are you threatening me?”

Then the ranger had a knife in her hand. How the knife had gotten from belt sheath to her hand so fast was a mystery to Jaina - whether it reflected pure martial prowess or some sort of capability related to their construction, she couldn’t tell. But instead of trying to stab her or throw it at her, she simply looked into its blade. Her body was utterly still, no twitching in her fingers or ears or legs as Jaina was used to from elves. When she spoke, her voice had the same nigh-jovial tone as it had had throughout the whole encounter.

“In Thalassian, we have over a dozen words for such things. Some might translate better to ‘mating display’, ‘claim staking’, or maybe even ‘politics.’ Yes, this is what your language would call a threat. If you continue to upset Sylv, we in the corps will kill you even if it means we have to explain to wolfhound that we killed his new friend. I suppose you want me to elaborate, tell you what not to talk about. It’s simple, really.”

The knife disappeared again, and instead it was a necklace that sat in the ranger’s hand. It was of a blue crystal though exactly what Jaina couldn’t tell. It wasn’t magical, and she was hardly a geologist. “Do not mention Vereesa. Sylv doesn’t like it, and the rest of us don’t take kindly to it either. And the only thing that she likes talking about less than Vereesa is Alleria. Do not mention either of them. I should hope the other things to avoid are so obvious I shouldn’t have to spell them out.” She stretched out a dead hand that Jaina could almost feel the coldness radiating off of. It made her point quite thoroughly.

But Jaina was not going to surrender the first major advantage she had gained over Sylvanas. “And why should I not mention her? Vereesa is my friend and Sylvanas loves her. She seems the most obvious common ground we have.”

The elf made the motion of spitting, even if no fluid came out and the sound was barely audible. “Because she abandoned all of us to die and Sylvanas does not like being reminded of that. Because Vereesa eloped to go live with her human pet instead of staying by her sister’s side. Because the moment she saw an opportunity to abandon her real responsibilities she left all of u- Sylvanas.” She was still perfectly still, but the red of her eyes was beginning to glow brighter and smoke was beginning to peel from her body. She recognised the signs of coming fury from Sylvanas but this time she was prepared.

She put up an ice shield around herself before the ranger could fly at her but, the moment she did it, those red eyes widened slightly in realisation. She remained deadly still but, over the course of perhaps a minute, the smoke slowly dissipated back into her cold, dead, body, and the glow of the eyes dropped back to a low ambient level. When she spoke, her voice was gravelly and the ghostly tone almost overrode the mortal one. “What title did Vereesa call herself when you knew her?”
Jaina was uncertain at this point, and maintained her shield even as she responded. “Ranger-Captain.”

The elf snorted. “That’s what I thought. Sylvanas made her Ranger-Lord after they saw each other in Stormwind to try and get her to come back. None of us thought it would work, not even wolfhound, but she was desperate. Vereesa never even responded. She didn’t even acknowledge it even if right now she’s one of the highest ranking people left in all of Quel’Thalas. But that hasn’t mattered to her for years now.”
That did not match Jaina’s thoughts on Vereesa at all. To her, her friend had always seemed absolutely desperate to make back up with Sylvanas. She wondered which of them had it right, but she wanted to keep the conversation moving. “And Alleria?”

Jaina knew very little about Alleria. Vereesa hadn’t spoken much about her eldest sister, and Jaina had the impression that they hadn’t been as close as the youngest two sisters had been to each other. Jaina had only been about six when the Second War ended, far too young to really understand what was going on. She’d seen the statue in Stormwind, of course, but that was as much she knew about the woman.

So she wasn’t ready for the level of vitriol that came out of the ranger before her. “The only thing Alleria did for Quel’Thalas was send two hundred rangers to their death. And she lost Thas’Dorah somewhere unknowable and unreachable. If she hadn’t got herself killed in her stupid crusade, she’d have been murdered within a week. She abandoned her post and left Sylvanas to pick up the pieces of her stupidity.”

Suddenly the anger dropped for a second, and the elf’s face turned almost morose. “There was so much shouting that first week as she assembled her troops. We never heard from any of them again, though Vereesa did. But that was always Alleria’s way - if she wanted something done no-one would convince her otherwise and she would get it done, no matter the cost.”
“I’ve heard people say similar things about Sylvanas.” Technically, it was a much more diplomatic way to rephrase things she’d heard Vereesa say but she wasn’t going to admit the provenance of such information.

But the ranger laughed, whole-heartedly. It wasn’t Sylvanas’ sick half-laugh, but a truly joyful sound that cut through the oddness of the dual tone for just a moment. “That’s true enough, I suppose. All the Windrunners are stubborn bastards. The difference is Sylvanas’ priority has always been the safety of Quel’Thalas. If an action comes with a cost in rangers’ lives, she’ll only do it if it saves more. Alleria never cared about that - she wanted to kill Amani and after the attack on the Spire, she wanted to kill the Horde. She didn’t care whether doing so would be good for Quel’Thalas - she cared if doing so made her feel good.”

“I hope it felt good when she got herself killed, along with her stupid boyfriend. She had a son, you know. I’m surprised she didn’t dump him on Sylvanas too.”
Jaina somehow had the feeling that mentioning that Arator had in fact been dumped on Vereesa instead would not be a very good idea. Fortunately, she was saved from any further awkwardness when a portal opened in the centre of the room.

Instantly, the ranger moved. Jaina reinforced her shield which had started to drop as their conversation had continued, but she was not attacked. Instead the elf threw herself directly in between her and the portal, arrow nocked and bow taut aiming at the portal. Jaina was slightly taller than her, so the attempt to cover her didn’t quite work in its entirety but she was sure that if the opening had been followed by a bullet the ranger would have protected her with her own body.

Odd.

Instead, out of it peaked a small, gnomish hand holding an envelope. It felt around for a while until it found the table it had opened over and placed it down. Then the hand withdrew and the portal closed. Jaina walked around the ranger who still seemed frozen in place to pick it up. It was sealed with Theramore’s stamp which meant it was written by (or at least signed off by) Nathanos. Presuming her mentor hadn’t wrestled it off him yet, which she may well have done. It was also very heavy - it would seem she may have gotten that dossier she wanted.

Then she turned back to the elf. “This should be a letter from Nathanos. I suppose that might be of interest to you.” When the ranger nodded, she went to take a seat once again on the armchair. “Oh, and you might as well invite your other friend. I can feel her just outside the door, you know.”

She didn’t wait for a response, but instead cracked the seal and opened the package.

Chapter Text

They did not gather in one of the dozen meeting rooms in the ruins of Lordaeron. Most of the Forsaken preferred the fledgling Undercity and Putress rarely wanted to wander too far from his alchemical works. He said he was always worried about his juniors ruining it and destroying something, but she had the feeling he was merely slightly obsessive, the kind of person who could never trust his lessers to do his job. She was sympathetic to that plight.

So instead, they met in a side room in the Royal Quarter. The main chamber was fine and fancily decorated, but it was secrecy and privacy that she valued in her councils now. The Forsaken were a knife in the back, a chill up the spine - they were not here to expose themselves.

She stood, as ever, at the head of the table. On her left were her military advisors: Belmont, Commander of the Deathstalkers guild of assassins; Areiel, the highest ranking ranger amongst the Forsaken besides herself; High Executor Anselm, the field commander of her infantry, the Deathguards. The Dreadguards, those Forsaken who had determined to be her personal bodyguard, were technically unrepresented but that was because they only took orders from her.

On her right, though, sat her civil advisors. There were fewer of those - only Grand Apothecary Putress and Varimathras. The dreadlord towered over all the undead present, barely fitting in his chair. Which was, of course, the point. Both of them preferred that chair - him for the emphasis it placed on his size, and her for the discomfort actually sitting in it brought him. Neither of them were exactly thrilled with the situation they had ended up in, and she often wondered why she didn’t just send him back to the Nether where he belonged.

She did not sit down. Instead, she placed her hands on the table before her and looked at each of her advisors in turn. “Report.”

Anselm went first. “Our hold on the Glades is unsure. The Eastweald is still lost to the plague, and I’ve lost a few scouts to the living near the border. They’re killing any undead they see. Our control of the passes that protect the southern flank is strong, though - I have with me a report complied of everything that has left and entered the Glades over the last month.”
She nodded. “Give it to Areiel. She will make sure it gets to me. Captain?”
If her old friend hadn’t already been as straight as a rod, she would’ve straightened at the address. “We’ve made some progress, General. The Scourge as a whole have learnt not to wander. Rangers have, by my count, prevented the raising of around two hundred refugees through either defence or fire. None of them have been in a position to be raised. Our enemy has responded by digging in - it seems there are at least a few liches or the like amongst their number.”
“Only one thing from us; the living are praying to you, and it’s started to spread amongst the Forsaken. They call you the Dark Lady and believe you will deliver them from the Scourge. Of course they don’t know it’s you - as far as we know, the most common theory is that it’s the princess.” That was Belmont, and it almost made her laugh.

“So I have been told,” she responded drily. “Does anyone actually know where she went?”
Belmont shook his head. “Last anyone saw her was Southshore. We know she got out but nothing past that. Her family didn’t make it, so where she went we have no idea.”
“I had the bodies burned. The princess might be the only person alive with a legitimate legal claim to the Kingdom of Lordaeron, and I do not think such things should be allowed to stand.” Varimathras’ voice was deep and booming, but there was always something snide about it. Even when he was shouting orders, his tone sounded like he was denigrating someone to a friend in a corner.

But he was right and she nodded her approval. “Good. The more time the living fight amongst themselves as to who should get to keep the ruins, the longer we have to prepare for them. Anything on the Blight, Putress?”
“Yes, my Queen. We have made some progress on weapons that will allow a more… direct application of it. We are only in an early prototype stage, but if we succeed it should allow us to Blight an entire city within a week.”
“Excellent work, Grand Apothecary. I’m sure our Queen understands the value of a scorched earth policy, the power of a firebreak on attacking armies. Yes?”

Fire. So much fire. The burning licked up the trees. The smoke hung in the sky. The squirrels and birds and mice screamed and howled as they burned. She stood with a torch in her hand and bile in her mouth and smoke in her nose and tears in her eyes. And the trees blackened and spat and curled.

For two weeks of time, she would destroy half of Eversong. For a single stumble in the Scourge’s path, her own homeland would burn. She looked across, west-south-west, where she knew Windrunner Spire stood. The village was empty and something in her spitefully hoped the damn thing would finally topple. She knew, even then, that she would never return there.

The forest burned, and the Scourge marched, and the elves fled. It had not bought her the time she needed.

When she came back to herself, her claws were digging through the wood of her chair. She glared at the dreadlord, who she knew had done this on purpose. It took her over a minute to get herself under control, as her entire council sat in complete silence. There was something dark and petty in her that thrilled at the fear she instilled in them, but her overwhelming feeling was disgust and shame. She could not control herself - how could she control the Forsaken? She had failed once before. Why would she be any better now?

When she could speak again, her voice only slightly ragged, she managed: “I have news to share with you all. First, we have a prisoner. Yesterday, I captured Jaina Proudmoore, former fiancée to Arthas Menethil, former heir to Kul Tiras and member of the Kirin Tor. I have no reason to believe she will be a threat to the Forsaken.” Lie. “I have her well in hand,” lie, “and believe she may have information that will be of use to the Forsaken.” Lie. “I shall be continuing my interrogation of her soon, and will keep you all informed of anything that may be of import to you.”

She pushed forward before anyone could react to that. “Second, I am intending to send diplomats to the Alliance states that remain. Many of us, including most of us here fought for them loyally and died in their service. We need recognition and certainty, and I believe this will be the only way to achieve it.”
To her surprise, it was Putress who responded first. “I think that is an excellent idea, my Queen. If the living are willing to work with us, we would be able to reclaim Lordaeron much faster and much more safely. It would reduce the risk to the Forsaken massively.”
Anselm’s response was slower, more measured. “I think perhaps, my Queen, you might be overlooking one small thing. How will the living recognise undead as diplomats?”
“I can sort that part out.” Belmont. “Either through magic, disguises or just enough signs of parley. Dalaran should be our first target - it’s close, well-defended and could support us magically. Our own arcane capabilities are limited, and we could do with supplementing them.”
“Now now now. There is no way the living will accept it - all it would do is play our hand early, bring us attention we may not be able to survive. You think men like Garithos would do anything but shoot any so called diplomats on sight?”

“Fortunately, my most loyal servant, not all men are Garithos.” Her voice was cold, offering her dry humour only as a thin cover for hostility. “It is decided - Putress, gather a list of volunteers. We shall send out pairs of emissaries to whichever Alliance nations remain. You are all dismissed.”

She didn’t wait for them all to stand, or bow, but immediately began walking towards the door. She needed to find something to kill.

The nights in the Glades were dark and, she presumed, cold. Her more tactile senses had died with her but she could feel the wind that howled through the copses, could see the cloudless night sky. Many of her rangers preferred going out at night for a variety of reasons - part of her still feared the eyes of Belore. She had failed her goddess, and did not like to be reminded of how She still hung in the sky, immovable. Alleria had often yelled at the sun in the few days between Lirath’s death and her journey south.

Sylvanas had failed Belore. Alleria thought Belore had failed them. She had been so angry in those days, shouting and screaming at everything and everyone. Sylvanas had done her best to confine her to the tower but that had never been sustainable and soon enough she went south with two hundred rangers and Thas’Dorah.

In their little family, they each had titles. Alleria had been Belore’annalas, Lady Sun; she had been Elun’annalas, Lady Moon; Vereesa had been Kim’elun, Little Moon; and Lirath had been Kim’belore, Little Sun. But sometimes Sylvanas thought that Alleria would’ve been better called Felo’annalas - Lady Fire. Lirath had been like the Sun, bright and joyous and nurturing.

Alleria had never been any of those things. She was gruff and abrasive and, after the attack on the Spire, had become violently destructive. Sylvanas did not like fire, had never liked fire, but so much of her death revolved around it. In Quel’Thalas, fire was rare - buildings were constructed to catch the most possible sunlight, it was rarely cold enough to justify campfires and much of their diet needed no cooking at all. Most flames in the kingdom were magical but for a Forsaken, fire was perhaps their most common tool.

It was their most important weapon against the Scourge - burn the bodies, burn the land, do anything to deny them. And how well that had worked for her.

With an effort, she pulled herself from the past. She could feel the low, gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach. Even without that, she was stressed and angry and there was only so much that destroying furniture could help. She needed to kill something and she needed to feast. Hunting was different now from when she had been alive - before her death, she could have easily made it within a handful of paces before taking her shot. She would stalk through the woods until she was as close as possible to the weakest member of the herd.

Then she would shoot.

Then she would say a prayer over the body. She would carry the whole corpse back to wherever she was camped at that time, then butcher it. Every part of the animal would be used: its meat for eating, its hides sold to the tanners, its bones for all sorts of odds and ends. Nothing would go to waste - killing was an important part of her relationship with nature, but to maintain the balance of the rangers she killed only what she needed and she used everything when she did. Death was never a thing to be taken lightly, not in battle nor in the hunt.

Until she had burned half of Eversong just to buy a few weeks. Some part of her had known, even then, that she could not stop the Scourge. The Ban’dinoriel had been their only hope and she had never liked trusting in it overmuch - a reliance on it led to her forsaking her duties as Ranger-General. A blind trust in it killed her mother and father: when the invasion came, she believed only in her corps. And they had done their job, each ranger selling themselves as dearly as possible. They had slowed him like quagmire and made the bastard bleed for every inch of ground he took.

But he had blood to spare, and he took the ground. She had not stopped him - she had led her command to slaughter, and she had not even managed to stop him. Quel’Thalas had burned and, in Silvermoon, she had been one of those holding a torch. He had unleashed her on the city to scream and wail and tear at the citizenry, to murder the people she had sworn herself to protect. She had been left behind when he sailed on Quel’Danas, left as a monster stalking the city.

She had been left little of her vanity in her death, but still she concealed the tracks that ran down her cheeks, imprinted by her horror at her own murder and reinforced by her desperate need to cry at what she was being made to do.

She felt something move, somewhere out in front of her. As an elf, she had relied on four main senses whilst hunting: sight, sound, smell and her magical sensitivity for stranger beasts. As a banshee, however, her primary sense was more archaic - she could feel the life essence of the creatures around her. It was certainly less good than her suite of senses when she lived; after all, living things ran from her long before they saw her. They could sense something was wrong and unnatural, and they fled.

It was for that reason she moved quickly the moment she felt that beating heart in front of her. She dissipated into smoke and shot from her hiding place atop a tree like an arrow, straight for the centre of whatever it was. She could only see it for an instant before she solidified with her mouth on its throat and her hands digging into the barrel of its torso.

She was not a lion, to break its spine in a single bite, so it screeched in pain as she set to sucking its blood out through the cut she was quickly widening. She could tell from the sounds that it was a deer, the hoarse pounding in her ears her only identifier. She drank of its blood and marrow, but also of its agony.

Banshees didn’t just feed on the physical remains of their prey, but of the dark burning thoughts that dominated a dying mind. In a beast, that mostly meant fear and pain. She always tried not to remember how an intelligent mind felt. Feasting cost her, too - to prolong the thing’s suffering, to increase its flow of emotions, feeding consumed part of her own energy to keep the thing animated a little longer.

The deer fell to the ground on its side and her hands moved on autopilot. She took hold of its rib cage and she pulled. The thing’s chest shattered in a shower of blood and bone exposing its still beating heart to her burning eyes. She pulled off the throat only long enough to open her mouth wide and rip it to pieces with her fangs. She ate the ribbons of heart in her hand, then sucked the leftovers from the ground where they had fallen. As the deer’s very mind and thoughts were consumed, the cooling corpse disintegrated into ash.

One thing had not changed about her hunting habits - she still used the whole animal.

Sylvanas lay alone in a creek somewhere in the east of Tirisfal, bathing. Bathing was another experience that had massively changed since her death. The rangers had bathed communally, and it had been the site of all sorts of mischief. It had been loud, and chaotic, and she had loved it. In the years after Lirath died, the years of her Generalship, she had withdrawn from much of her life but in the baths she could pretend she was still just another ranger.

Now, her body barely needed washing. It did not sweat or cry or bleed or bruise. The oils and lubricants that a living body made were no longer part of her: as far as she knew, she had but one bodily fluid - the dark, ink-like ichor that made up her blood.

Bathing now was an opportunity for solitude. She lay at the bottom of the creek in her full regalia. Doing so wasn’t good for the armour, but it was preferable to being naked, bare, exposed. Of course it was heavy and so she sank and the water was just deep enough that her whole body remained under the surface even as her dead hair tried desperately to reach the air. She didn’t need it anymore, of course, and she found it almost cleansing to remind herself of that some times - that there were some things that she had gained from her death, even stacked up against so many losses.

Elun’falor anar dal’alah. Even moonless nights have starlight.

She had spent years in that mindset, desperate to claw absolutely anything of value. And it had kept her going, kept her upright. Unfortunately not even the stars could defend against the greatest storm in ten millennia. Against it she had stood alone, without any of her family with her. And she had died alone.

She found it easier to reflect in moments like these, with her anger quietened by a fresh feast. In the cold, and the dark, and the damp, she felt like she could - for just an instant - be herself again. She probably would’ve used these moments to cry if she could anymore and that thought reminded her that she would have to reapply her makeup soon, for the water had once again washed her face clean of it.

Part of her was unhappy with the need to reach out to Dalaran. After all, it was her sister’s city - she didn’t know if she would be more hurt by the knowledge Vereesa had died or had lived. In the moment she had needed her little sister most, she had not come. The last thing Sylvanas had said to Vereesa before her death had been an insult borne of anger, both genuine and false. On the nights when she got so drunk she would pass out sobbing on the floor of her room, she would admit one thing to herself - that it had been her fault all along. That she had taken it out on Vereesa because that had been easier and had, perhaps, driven her sister from her by doing so.

She had maintained some part of her dignity, and the price had been her relationship with sister. It had been a poor exchange.

Perhaps she was just as to blame for their strained relationship, but admitting that meant accepting even more guilt than she already carried. She had not had time, still did not have time, for grief and shame. In the hours following the death of her mother, father and brother, she had been out riding and commanding the ranger corps to oust remnant Horde forces from Quel’Thalas. She had not stopped since, not really. She had never exactly been opposed to alcohol, but she had moved from a social drinker to a binge drinker who drowned her sorrows underneath waves of whiskey she didn’t even like. In her time at court she had been something of a connoisseur but her sense of taste had fled long before her death.

Slowly, her armour creaking and whining and weeping river water, she stood. She did not sleep and neither did her enemies. She did not have time to reflect. She had a mage to interrogate, and emissaries to instruct. As always, there was another job to do.

Her body dissolved into black and red smoke, and she sailed across the lightening skies as the sun struggled to rise behind her.

Chapter Text

To Lady Jaina Proudmoore,

We are all very glad to hear from you. I am also amazed by the nature of the magical support you have provided. I knew little of the Lady Aegwynn before her arrival and now I think I know more about her than I do myself. Sometimes, it is like looking at where you might be in thirty years - or, from my understanding, a thousand. Imagine that, a human living as long as an elf. It makes me wonder for Rhonin.

She has taken roost in your tower like a particularly territorial hen and has taken on much of your role as Lady of Theramore. I presume you agreed this with her in advance and thought it was worth mentioning in case you didn’t. She has called me more names in two days than the ranger corps came up with in over a decade. I can’t decide if I love her or hate her, and I imagine that by my deathbed I will know no better.

I do not have a dossier on my sisters-in-arms, and most of my journal is in various ranger codes that I’m honour-bound not to tell you. Besides that some of it is in Amani which I do not think you can read though perhaps you have learned a seventh language without me knowing. I would not be that surprised.

I must admit that I wish I could be there with you. I would like nothing more in the world than to see Sylvanas again, and I think I may be able to talk to her in a way that you will not be able to. You are an excellent diplomat, my Lady, but Sylvanas has been a special case for as long as I’ve known her. With your permission, I would also like to try and make contact with your friend Vereesa Windrunner. The Lady Aegwynn believes she would be able to, but I would like your sign-off before I attempt something so drastic.

May Belore guide your path,
Nathanos Marris

To Lady Jaina Proudmoore,

I am ever-tempted to strangle your Lady Aegwynn. I have technically taken on the duty of guarding her but there is not a force on Azeroth that I could stop that she couldn’t. Kinndy has completed perhaps half of her assignment. Kristoff has ordered an extra contingent of men to Northwatch Hold as a method of projecting strength. I agreed with him and Nathanos didn’t have the energy to fight back. He has not slept well since your first letter.

He needs to see his battle-sisters. It is not a feeling I am unfamiliar with.

May Elune light your way,
Pained

To Lady-Castellan Jaina Proudmoore,

I am pleased indeed to have seen the letter you sent to Marris, which he presented us all with. Though of course I counselled against your journey I am, as always, happy to be proven wrong by the exceptional nature of your talents. In fact, I must ask if you have had any news of Grand-Marshal Garithos on your journeys. Though I know it is unlikely, I do hope he has survived all that has befallen Lordaeron. He is a loyal soldier, and Theramore could do with some more of his ilk.

I shall not update you on the minutiae I have managed in your absence, my pile grown even larger without your pen’s presence. I know you should relish such a discussion, but I also know that all these missives have to fit in an envelope at the end of this. The trolls shall be here in two days, though you already know my objections so I shall not restate them here.

As for the arrival of the Lady Aegwynn, the less said the better, I feel. She is certainly a singular woman.

May the Light watch over you,
Kristoff

To Mage Jaina Proudmoore,

I finished the assignment! I now know all about arcane constructs - can I move on to chronomancy please? I know it’s probably skipping a few steps, but Archmage Aegwynn is so good at it! I’d never guess she’s more than forty, but apparently she’s over a thousand! She’s so amazing! Not that you’re not of course - apprenticing to the most powerful mage alive, and then the most powerful guardian ever! Short of Azshara herself, I don’t think you could find a better mage!

She doesn’t get on very well with anyone, to be honest. But I suppose you don’t need to when you’re the Aegwynn. Anyway, I hope everything goes as well on your end as it’s going here!

Good luck!
Kinndy

Apprentice,

Something is wrong here. I can sense fel energy in your city, more than I would expect even from a small warlock population. Do not feel the need to rush back - I do not imagine I should require assistance. If there is something I should know that could cause these strange readings let me know shortly. I would like to return your home to you in one piece.

Jaina only read the first one out loud. It technically only contained one state secret, though both of the rangers laughed at the description of Aegwynn. She couldn’t stop herself from snorting, either - her mentor had always been rather singular. Once she was done with Nathanos’ letter, she moved onto the next in the stack and passed it over to the nearest ranger - the one who had come into her room initially.

They held it for a moment, and the smirk they were making was evident in their tone. “Ah, it seems wolfhound has still not learned to write.”
“As if anyone can read the scritches you make with your talons, little lark.” The other ranger said mirthfully.
“I’m only two centuries younger than you, owl.” Being reminded of how old elves were always made Jaina reel slightly, even with Vereesa as a best friend. She never had got a straight answer out of her as to exactly how old she was.
The other ranger seemed to notice it and her smirk turned predatory. “Just how old are you, little mage? Just out of interest?”
“Twenty-two…”

The ranger who had asked her laughed. Jaina had the feeling that she should be bent over herself if not for something. “Twenty-two? She’s barely even a toddler, and you wanted to,” she pointed at the other elf and started talking in rapid Thalassian. Soon the two of them were arguing so quickly she couldn’t possibly keep up so she just sat back and let them.

Then one of her outer wards triggered. All it did was warn her and it was set just outside the door. In an instant she had an ice lance in her hand and, though it was entirely silent, both rangers instantly glanced at her hand as she summoned the magic. Then there was a knock at the door. The sound was harsh, the clash of metal hitting wood.

The two rangers instantly stood at attention. If that wasn’t enough for Jaina to know who was at the door, the necromantic power she could sense on the other side would have been. Sylvanas had come to her door. She dismissed her wards and shouted, “Come in!”

The door opened to reveal the former Ranger-General in her full glory. She wore dark leathers like her fellow rangers, with a wide black cloak floating out behind her. The hood was far enough down her face that it shadowed her face, hiding much of her hair. It was held up by her ears, standing high and proud through the earholes in the side of the fabric. Over her leathers, she wore the same fine silver plate she had worn when Jaina first saw her. It was spiked and silver and steel. It looked cold and harsh which, she supposed, was rather the point. Besides her breastplate, she had pauldrons, bracers with gauntlets, sabatons and of course a quiver filled with arrows sat at her hip. Jaina supposed the cloak made one on her back non-viable.

She glanced at the two rangers with her, and her face contorted with something Jaina couldn’t quite identify. “Anya. Velonara. You would not be committing treason right under my nose, would you?”
“Of course not, Sylv.” That was met with a hard glare, and the speaking ranger rushed to correct herself. “Sylvanas. We wanted to see if it was true that the mage could talk to Nathanos.”
“So you merely believed me a liar?” Jaina couldn’t tell if Sylvanas’ tone was genuinely threatening or merely mockingly so. The dual tone made it hard to tell.
The other ranger snorted. “Please, you know we had to see for ourselves. We all miss wolfhound, you know. Some of us can even admit it.”

That bought the ranger a scowl and a hiss from her general, who finally stepped into the room properly. Still, though, she did not start smoking and she seemed to get control of herself much faster than before. She sat down on the floor, settling into a cross-legged meditative pose in one smooth motion. For just a moment there was silence.

Then Sylvanas looked up, staring directly into Jaina’s eyes. But she spoke to the rangers. “And what have you learned?”
The first ranger, Anya it seemed, leaned back in her seat on the sofa, settling her head in the lap of the other one. “Not much yet, silly. We were about to get to that.”
“So you were going to extract information from her?”
At that Jaina felt the need to butt in. “I’m sorry but no-one’s going to be extracting anything from me, thank you very much.”
“Oh it need not be unpleasant.” Anya’s grin was positively lascivious - or at least it was, until the other ranger (who must be Velonara) smacked her head and she yowled in clearly exaggerated pain.
“Will you leave any women for the rest of us? Honestly, how many felo’nore do you need?”
“You know I always share, owl. You have nothing to complain about.”

Jaina’s mind was reeling in a way that she was completely unfamiliar with. Absolutely nothing Sylvanas had done had unspooled her quite like the rangers’ blatant flirting. She could feel her face reddening but fortunately Sylvanas stepped in to save her from further embarrassment. “And what was your actual intended method of information gathering, then?”
“A game!” Anya cast her eyes to her general, looking extremely hopeful. It was strange seeing such a childlike expression on her cold, dead face. “Two truths and a lie.”
The other ranger hummed. “I do like that one.”
“I don’t.” Sylvanas’ voice was grim but, after a few seconds of Anya looking desperately at her she conceded. “Fine. If our… guest is amenable, we may play your foolish game.”

Anya did not shout in her victory, even if Jaina certainly got the feeling she wanted to. Instead, she turned to the only human in the room. “The game is elvish, but I’m sure you humans have your own version. You say three things and everyone else has to guess which one is a lie. Now, who is going to go first?”
Velonara started to stroke the other ranger’s hair. “I believe that should be you, little lark. It was your idea, after all.”

Anya took a moment to build composure, and then quickly rattled off her three. “Common is a stupid language. I’m the one who bullied Areiel into restarting the ranger rites. Capitol is at least as pretty as some parts of Silvermoon.”
“Come on Anya, that first one is an opinion. If we’re going to play your foolish game at least do it right. But the last one is the lie - nothing humans have ever built could challenge the wonder of Silvermoon.” Sylvanas’ voice was lightly chiding, a much gentler tone than Jaina was used to hearing out of her. It was so shocking it almost made her miss what she had actually said.
“Hey!”
Velonara smiled thinly, but she didn’t look away from the ranger in her lap.“If you want her to be nicer, build something prettier. But that makes it your turn, General.”
Sylvanas just snorted. “Nice try, Velonara, but that’s not how it works. We go clockwise, which makes it your turn.”
“I serve at your pleasure.” Velonara said, only slightly sardonically. “I’ve slept with all three Windrunner sisters. I have made a token. I stole arrows from Sylvanas’ quiver when I was training with Lireesa because I hated fletching so much.”
Jaina took her opportunity to answer one she was actually confident she knew.“That one’s easy. Vereesa was never interested in women.”
“Sounds like someone got turned down.” Anya smirked at her.
Jaina made a gagging face. Vereesa was her friend and thinking of her like that was a bit gross. “Ew, no.”
“If we could all remember,” Sylvanas said, her voice only half-mocking, “we are currently discussing my sister.”
“I thought she wasn’t family anymore, Sylv.”
“You are treading a very fine line, ranger.” This time the lighter edge was completely gone from the tone leaving only the coldness.
Velonara picked back up, not letting the silence linger too long. ”You’re wrong anyway, mage. Me and Vereesa used to share a bunk.”
“A dirty trick, owl.”
“Only as dirty as the corners of your mind, little lark.” The upright ranger shot back.
Sylvanas answered next, her voice calm and light again now the conversation had moved on. “The lie is obvious - you would never steal from me. I would have known immediately.”
“The General is, as ever, right. I stole from Alleria instead. She was never as meticulous as you, so she just assumed she’d misplaced them and made some more.”

Sylvanas nodded in affirmation. Her recitation was slower than either of her subordinates’. “That does make it my turn. I’m the oldest person in this room. I hope Kael’Thas is okay. I did not want to be Ranger-General.”
“You know some of the rangers were running a betting pool as to when you and Kael’Thas would get together?” Anya said, an irrepressible smirk on her face.
Sylvanas looked shocked, an expression Jaina didn’t think she’d ever seen on her face. “What.”
“Yeah, wolfhound found out and gave them a very long lecture.” Velonara seemed just as amused as Anya. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angrier.”
Jaina remembered the elven prince quite well - he had hit on her fairly shamelessly which maybe should have prepared her for the rangers’ sense of humour. But she had still been with Arthas, then, and had turned him down. He’d taken it gracefully, but still she could not see him as the kind of man Sylvanas would be interested in. And then she remembered what she’d said about men pleasing her and decided to speak to cover up her own blush. “I’m not sure I could ever see you with Kael’Thas. I’m actually not sure which of you would like that less. You know he tried to date me?”

Sylvanas looked over at her. “I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. He did tell me about a pretty apprentice from Dalaran who had taken his fancy but I didn’t listen that much. He had a new obsession every week and he was sure each one was going to be his soulmate or something.”
“Maybe if he’d told us how pretty she was.” Anya shot her another flirtatious grin.
Velonara slightly tightened her grip in the other ranger’s hair. “Remember whose lap you’re sitting in, lark.”
Sylvanas just sighed. “Does anyone actually know what the lie is?”
Jaina decided to answer because she got the feeling the rangers were busy in their own little world. “The first one. It has to be the first one. Someone here is older than you.”
“Yeah, I am.” Velonara admitted.
“How old are you, exactly?” Jaina asked before she could think about whether that was a good idea.
Sylvanas seemed to notice her instant regret. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask that?”
She flushed slightly again. “Oh don’t you start as well.”
“Fine, fine. I’m approaching my ninth century. Velonara had her nine hundredth about ten or so years ago. Now I believe that makes it your turn little mage.”

“Fine.” Jaina took a moment to think about it. If she wanted to know more about these people, she felt like she had to take the first leap. So she did. “Sometimes I’m glad my brother is dead. I love my father. I regret the choice I made at Theramore.”
There was a while of silence before Anya sputtered out, “That’s not fair - none of us know what choice you made!”
Jaina was about to take back the question, but to her surprise Sylvanas spoke up. Her voice was quiet but confident. “Shush little lark. The last is the lie.”
At that, Jaina could only marvel. “And how did you know that?”
Sylvanas explained slowly, building her logic like a house of solid brick. “The second is true. All know how much the Lord Admiral doted on his daughter and how much his daughter adored him in turn. Nothing can change those sorts of things - you love them, foolishly, no matter what they did. The fact you say it at all means there is a reason it might be a lie. You made a choice against your father, because he was wrong and you knew he was wrong. And that is why you are glad your brother is dead - because at least he did not have to see how it all went wrong. Am I close?”

And Jaina could only react with shock, “By the fucking Tides, Sylvanas. You’re right.”
“She gets like that, sometimes. Freaky, right?” Anya sounded awed, but Sylvanas responded quickly, as if to shut her up.
“I believe it is your turn, no?”
Anya didn’t seem upset, though. “Yes, Sylv. I guess we’re getting to the juicy stuff, hmmmm? I also have a token. I miss Vereesa. I wish I knew what happened to my family.”
“Oh, lark.” Velonara’s voice was sad and compassionate, odd with the dead dual-tone.
“What?”
The upright ranger closed her eyes for just a moment, then she spoke. “The last is the lie. None of us want to know how we failed.”
“You know me so well darling. Your go.” There was something fake in the mirth in Anya’s voice as she said that which hadn’t been present earlier. It was unsettling.

Velonara did not smile, and her voice was neither particularly light nor heavy. “I know, I know. I wished that Lireesa was still Ranger-General. I’m glad I never made Ranger-Captain. I want Alleria executed if she ever comes back.”
Jaina considered what Anya had told her early and began to respond, “The last one must be true, I suppose-”
But Sylvanas interrupted her. “No it isn’t. The last is the lie.”
Anya agreed. “I’m with Sylv. You would never want Alleria killed, even if she definitely deserves it. Rather like someone else here.”
“You’re right. That was the lie: I do want to beat some sense into her, though.” Velonara sounded entirely serious about that.
Anya reached one of her hands out to tangle with the hands reaching at her own hair. “Of course you do. Get in line. Now, I think that makes it your turn Sylv.”

Sylvanas was silent for a long, long moment. When she spoke, her head was down and her voice was flat. “Lirath’s death was Vereesa’s fault. Lirath’s death was my own fault. Lirath’s death was his own fault.”

For a moment, there was total silence. And then there was a knock at the door.

Chapter Text

The woods were dark and full of terrors. It was fortunate for her, then that she was one herself. The darkness did not scare her - as a ranger the shadows had been a tool and as a banshee she was more at home in them than she was in the sun. She sat near the top of a tree, an old oak with branches wide enough to hold half the ranger corps and a canopy thick enough to obscure her from sight.

She checked her quiver. There was something deeply unsatisfying about hunting Scourge to the archer in her - there was so little strategy in it, so little of the problem solving that made her feel intelligent and worthy. Most of her forms of poison were useless, and she certainly kept no paralytics anymore. Most of her serrated tips were of scant help as well - after all, a ghoul was not going to attempt to tear it out.

A longbow was a precision weapon, especially in the hands of one as skilled as her. But it was also absolutely devastating - a single shot could easily pulverise a limb or shatter a ribcage. That was the kind of destruction the undead needed to stay dead; blows so utterly devastating that the spellweave that tied their limited intelligence to their bodies was shattered. Against some of the fastest moving ones, geists and the like, broadheads had some use as they tore up a monster’s innards as it ran but for the most part her vast array of arrow types were all of no more use than a standard bodkin.

She counted her arrows - twenty-three, as she had already known. But still, there was no such thing as too prepared. She had made each one by hand, fletched them with feathers from her own kills and shaped the tips with her own hands and hammer and whetstone. Several of her arrows had been with her for decades now, leading to a strange variation in the colours of the feathering depending on which birds were available. Peacock had been her preference as Ranger-General (she had never claimed not to be vain, after all) but she had seen no such thing in the ruins of Lordaeron. Now, her arrows were bedecked with goose feathers like most human archers used.

Phrased like that it hurt more than she thought it would.

She took a very slow breath. She did not need to breathe anymore, and most of the time she chose not to do so. But sometimes when she needed to release tension she fell back on old habits. So much of her time was spent trying to kill the Ranger-General she had been, leave behind the foolish elf who had led her command to the slaughter, but in those low moments her body, as always, betrayed her.

She sat stiller than any statue in the branches of the tree she had chosen. No animal would come near her, able to sense the necromantic energies that kept her body moving and her mind working. Kel’Thuzad had explained it to her once when she had mentioned that the living Lordaeronians that marched with them were struggling to hunt and forage. He had told her that any living thing would feel them close by and be gripped by fear. The mortals might try and hold their homelands, as she had, but the deer and rats and birds would run. Even the grass would fear their coming, he had said giddily. Even then, before she was free, there was something about him that had made her want to Wail. The joy he took in the ending of her world, what had seemed like the apocalypse, would have made her sick if she still could be.

But there was one thing that could not sense her presence - the dead. Some intelligent forms of undead could; she could and liches definitely could. But the near mindless underclasses that the bastard and the plague had brought about to bring ruin to Lordaeron had only their living senses worsened immeasurably by the decay of their bodies and minds. And so that was why she was sitting in a tree, her bow at the ready.

Her bow was new. Talah’Ental she had called it, Deathwhisper. It was made of the spine of an ettin she had killed after the taking of Capitol. She had never used Thas’Dorah outside of practice - it had been minn’da’s, and when she had died Alleria had taken it past the Dark portal into death. But her bow had been hers, until the bastard had shattered it with Frostmourne. She supposed this was more fitting for who she was now, at least.

Something moved through the leaf litter below her and her ears perked up with such strength she felt it throw her hair. She looked down through the tree to see the party of Scourge as they strode through the forest. As she had expected, their patrol path took them directly under her tree. They were moving towards the southern pass that lay between Tirisfal and Silverpine Forest, not far to the west of Capitol. She counted them as they moved below her - four ghouls in the van, two shades and an abomination in the rear. They almost moved in formation - they must have been under the command of the necromancer that Kalira said she had slain.

They remembered their orders and acted on them, but they could not match them with precision. They could not escape the command, but they could not quite follow it either. Slowly, and in utter silence, she nocked an arrow and tautened her bow string. Of her twenty-three arrows, only four of them were Wailing - imbued with part of her own strange shadow magics and capable of harming the ethereal shades. Like all Scourge, though, it was impossible to guarantee a clean kill on them. Different necromancers built their spellweave slightly differently in ways that made it hard to predict where she had to hit to maximise the effectiveness of her shot.

So instead of aiming for the formless head-blob of the nearest shade, she targeted lower at its centre-mass. Then she let the arrow fly and, before it even collided had another nocked as she took flight and hit the ground.

Her arrow exploded into the ghost in front of her, the white-blue edges of its being fraying as the miniature banshee Wail contained in it screamed out and its chest nearly burst with the force. The thing was thrown backwards, the arrow landing in the only solid part of the entity - the invisible core that, in this case, rested roughly where a living human’s diaphragm would be.

The rest of the pack turned to her but one of the ghouls sprouted an arrow from between its eyes before it could do much more than look dumbly at her. As the lumbering abomination turned towards her, she dissipated into smoke and moved around them. She turned corporeal only long enough to take her next shot, finishing off the ghoul she’d already hit by turning its stomach into an ichorous ruin.

The abomination swung its hook towards her and once again she was vapour before it. She reappeared behind the shade with the arrow poking from it and used one of her daggers to stab deep into the core now that its location had been revealed. It made the motion of crying out in pain and vanished, her arrow falling to the ground. Then the ghouls were on her and she leapt backwards, shooting three more of her regular arrows rapidly into their bodies. Both stumbled but neither dropped. Eighteen arrows in the quiver.

She soared over them in her banshee form once again, dropping onto the abomination’s head. She thrust her first dagger into its cranium which barely seemed to register, then the second into its hook arm. It wouldn’t go deep enough to dislodge it, but it might do enough nerve damage to prevent its use. But the arm swung towards her as she leapt from its back and pumped three arrows in between its spinal vertebrae. In any living thing that would guarantee permanent paralysis if the bloodloss didn’t kill the victim first. It seemed merely to annoy the hulking construct. Fifteen arrows - and only knife, strapped to her calf.

One of the ghouls reached her as she dodged a blow from the abomination, tearing at her armour and cloak. She spun her head farther than any living elf would be able to, twisting her neck to Wail directly in its face. The thing disintegrated into dust and she, too, dissipated as the next blow came down.

She landed far enough away that she could take stock for a moment. Two ghouls, one halfway to being a porcupine and one unharmed, one shade and one angry abomination. As they began to run at her, she smirked. She fired two Wailing arrows at the shade, blowing holes where its head and stomach should be. The thing stopped moving but did not vanish. Her third arrow went into the injured ghoul, slicing a weak point in its leg and sending it stumbling to the ground. The undead continued to close the distance and she pulled out the last of her enchanted arrows. When they were less than two paces away she fired it deep into the gaping hole in between the abomination’s ribs. She watched even as she, again, fled as smoke as the Wail exploded within the body of the construct and then pushed out the other end of it, leaving a bloody tunnel the size of her forearm out the things back.

She soared past the unharmed ghoul and grabbed hold of it, slamming its body onto a particularly sharp looking pine branch until the wood protruded from its sternum. There was no need to Wail at that one, and she would rather not if she didn’t have to. Already she could feel how her frequent change of form was pulling at her hunger even though she had eaten two days ago.

That left only the abomination as an active threat. Eleven arrows and a knife - that she could work with. The thing was notably stuttering now, even if it was far from down. It swung its giant axe at the base of the tree she was stood on, and that gave her an idea. Four arrows, rapidly, in places she knew would pain it. She aimed for elbows, wrists, knees - any joint she could reach. That would be where the magic animating it was most concentrated; the remaining bones and soft tissue wouldn’t be enough to maintain the massive thing without magical support.

An abomination was not built the way she was - her body was exactly as it had been at the time of death physically besides the colour of her skin, which was one of the results of it being frozen for the months of her enslavement so that Arthas and his death knights could do whatever it was they wanted it for. It was not that she could not figure out what the reasoning was - she just did not want to.

An abomination, though, was a flesh construct built as a mockery of a humanoid form using dozens of corpses and filled with just as much of a mind as was required to take orders. But they did have a mind - abominations usually took on a childish mindset which she suspected was because a more mature one would have to be aware of what it was. A sensible person would not cut down the tree directly in front of it; but a child who just wanted the pain to stop might.

And so it did. As the tree began to fall, Sylvanas threw her full unliving strength behind it to make sure it fell as she wished. The abomination only had time to say the first word she had heard from it - “Oh.” And then it was crushed beneath the tree, which also happened to pulverise the ghoul that had been stuck to one of its branches.

She used her knife to finish the unmoving shade and ghoul. Then she counted her arrows. Seven remained in her quiver and she went about collecting the rest. Three from the shades, six from the ghouls. That got her back to sixteen. She collected four from the abomination but the last three were now, undoubtedly, shattered under the pine tree. She sighed, and began to move back towards Capitol. Arrows were valuable, and she mourned the loss of those she could not recover. But they were ultimately tools, tools that could be discarded if required.

Her arrows had done their job. And that was what mattered in the end.

-

The hallway that led to the old princess’ quarters was fuller than usual, though that was only because the norm for it was utter emptiness. Instead, Anya and Velonara stood guard at the door to prevent any possible escape from their prisoner. Of course, that could not stop the mage portalling away if she so chose but Sylvanas’ main goal with their placement was to make that a more attractive option than attempting to escape through the city. If she had to lose an important hostage, she would rather it be done bloodlessly. She was relatively confident that her rangers could take Proudmoore in a fight, but it was best to leave that assumption unproven.

After all, her mother had paid the ultimate price for underestimating an enemy. And, despite everything, she had fallen for the same thing. In so many ways she was like her mother - except, of course, rendered worse.

She tried not to think too heavily on past defeats; folly, given that her life was now entirely defined by the worst of them. But this hallway was, in the angriest, saddest parts of her mind, now the site of her most recent defeat. Carried away by the atmosphere, sunk into empathy and thoughts of comfort, she had revealed a weakness. She had pointed at a hole in her own armour. At least Areiel’s arrival had prevented it from going further, the knock on the door allowing her to beat an almost dignified retreat from the parts of her heart she had exposed.

Worst of all, she could not even blame the mage. She had not been tricked or suborned, had made a deliberate decision with full knowledge but little forethought. She was not Vereesa, to be easily open with the way she felt and pray that no-one ever took advantage of such things. When it came to that, she had always been more like Alleria - preferring to hide what she was truly feeling. That had been true even before Lirath’s death; her relationship with her fellow rangers had been an exception. Lireesa had never been the kind of mother to go to with a broken heart or grief, and Alleria had hardly been better.

She had determined to be better with Vereesa, doing what she could to make her little sister feel safe but now she wondered if she had made a horrible mistake. And she felt bile rise in her throat at the thought of how well that attempt had ended, with her bent over a corpse and Vereesa standing somewhere behind her. Always too late, she was always too late.

(Of course, she didn’t have bile anymore. But still the physical sensation of it manifested regardless of the literal state of her body.)

Neither of her rangers turned as she approached even as their ears rose. They would know who it was drawing closer. She stopped in front of the doorway and quickly glanced at them - they had seen her defeat, after all, and she felt the need to make sure to make sure this would not break their faith in her. Nothing had so far, but many things should have. She often thought she did not deserve the loyalty of her rangers. They scorned Alleria and Vereesa, she knew, and as far as she was concerned she deserved far worse than they did. Both of them had failed the corps, but Alleria was despised for the death of just two hundred rangers. She had been responsible for the destruction of them as a fighting force.

Before the start of the Third War, the rangers had been the dominant portion of Quel’Thalas’ military made up of exactly eleven thousand, six hundred and forty five elves and one human. How many had survived she did not know, but she knew at least ten thousand of them had not. Her dark rangers numbered in the dozens, not the thousands that had been under her command as Ranger-General.

The scale of the loss was so great that it lost all meaning to her. There were only so many casualty reports that could make you feel emotional before they were just pieces of paper, only so many lists you could read before the people became numbers. She had passed that point long before the Third War had even begun - it was not like the war with the Amani was bloodless for all that the razing had overshadowed it.

Both Anya and Velonara looked slightly flushed, their pallid flesh carrying just a drop of pigmentation like a drop of red paint in an ocean of white. She knew why intuitively, even if she’d never seen the phenomena before. They must have absorbed some of the mana the mage was putting out. As a living elf, not only was such sustenance necessary but also often intensely pleasurable when it was more active than the passive draw all Quel’Dorei made from the Sunwell. When she had been raised, that hunger had withered with all the rest of her mortal needs. But still, it seemed that her rangers were still capable of absorbing it, even if they no longer needed it.

Sensing the magic inlaid in the door, she did not try to force it. Instead, she knocked at the door and waited for a response from within. She had unfinished business with the mage and, though it pained her to admit it, perhaps Proudmoore could help her.

Chapter Text

Jaina was very glad she had placed sound wards on the walls of her current quarters, because when there was a knock she squawked and dropped her heavy book. For just a moment, rational thought had fled her brain at the fear of the consequences that would come from anyone in Dalaran discovering what she was reading. She had of course forgotten, for just that instant, that she was no longer in Dalaran and most of those who might catch her were dead. The thought made her miss Antonidas even more sharply than usual even if he would hardly approve of her new reading material.

When she met Aegwynn, the woman had given her access to her extensive magical library, located in a pocket dimension that she could no longer get rid of even if she had wanted to. Jaina had not been able to believe it - the Council of Six talked about such things as an example of impossible ambition but Aegwynn treated it as if it were nothing special. She was truly singular in her power, mightier by far than even her own son.

Besides that, she had spent the last eighteen months desperate to expand her own set of tomes. After all, she had an apprentice now despite the fact she’d never officially finished her own apprenticeship. She had a lot of reading to catch up on and, with the Third War, she felt the cat was rather out of the bag as it came to the spread of necromantic knowledge. And so the book she had been reading was On Those Who Will Not Die, by an ancient necromancer named Kerghan. In Dalaran doing so would be enough to be instantly expelled and she had absolutely no idea how any of the free undead might react.

So she quickly used a little telekinesis to fit into the (now slightly struggling) bag she was using to hold the books Kinndy and Aegwynn had been passing her. Then, after quickly patting herself down, she called for whoever was at the door to come in.

It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Sylvanas. She was in her usual armour but this time it was not clean. Instead, viscera still hung from sections and her leathers and cloak were visibly stained by blood. The glow of her eyes seemed harsher when supported with the sanguine decorations all over her body. She had a quiver on her hip, as always, and a dagger sheathed behind it as well as another opposing. There was a third on her thigh, and her bow hung in a sling over her back.

Jaina had seen Thas’Dorah during Lireesa Windrunner’s visit to Kul Tiras, but she did not remember it. Her only reference for how it actually looked was the statue of Alleria raised in Stormwind - a city she had only visited a handful of times. Still, the skeletal mass on Sylvanas’ back seemed like an exceptionally close recreation of what that bow looked like in her own mind. It seemed to be formed of the vertebrae of some giant creature though she couldn’t tell exactly what. It seemed slightly oversized for the woman wielding it who, for all her musculature and breadth was still short for an elf. It was almost hard to believe given their interactions thus far, but Jaina was easily taller than the legendary former Ranger-General. In fact, since Jaina was about the same height as Vereesa, she realised that meant Sylvanas was shorter even than her younger sister. That was a funny thought, and served to distract her from the pretty horrifying image before her.

A dead woman standing. A killer coated in the blood of her trade. No-one could ever accuse Sylvanas of lacking in presence as she strode through the door.

Jaina had been sprawled out in the sofa to read, sitting up to greet her guest. Sylvanas confidently took the armchair, placing her muddy bloody boots on the edge of the table as she stretched out. It seemed she was about as good at formal seating as her underlings. Jaina was about to ask what she wanted when she spoke, her voice clear and confident.

“These were the Princess’ rooms, once. I suppose it is fitting that they go to the woman who was once princess-in-waiting.” Before Jaina could react with affront, though, Sylvanas pushed on. “I had heard you were close to her, in your time here. Do you know where she is?”
Jaina stared at her for a moment, but the elf was utterly inscrutable. Her ears were high, and she had a slight smirk on her face. “No. I don’t know if Calia even survived the sack.”
“Then I suppose I have good news for you.” Sylvanas’ grin broadened, turning positively wolfish. “She survived the sack. In fact she was last seen about six months later, fleeing a Scourge attack on Southshore. Leaving her husband and child behind, of course.”

That was better news than Jaina had expected, but none of that mattered as her mind focused on one element. “Child?”

Jaina had known about Calia’s romance with a Lordaeronian footman, had even been involved in hiding it from Terenas. She had known about the marriage, too, as she had attended it - one of only about half a dozen people. But she hadn’t known about a pregnancy, let alone a child. She had last seen Calia about five months before the Sack, when she had last visited Capitol. By that time her parents had found out about it, and the Queen had successfully convinced the King to let it be. Terenas was often a hard man, and the only one able to consistently soften him had been his wife. He had not been a bad man, not really, and he had been a good king. But now, of course, he was dead, his body probably defiled in half a hundred ways no-one had even come up with until Arthas had culled Stratholme.

That thought always made her sick. And now it seemed that his rampage may have killed his brother-in-law and young niece or nephew. For just a moment, the sense of loss that she kept so carefully compartmentalised broke through. She felt something inside her snap as the sheer weight of it all, of all those who died, all those who were disturbed from their rest, hit her at once. She forgot about the other woman in the room as, suddenly, the world shrunk to the size of the head of a pin. She could feel, abstractly, that somewhere out there in the real world her breath was speeding up, her eyes were starting to fill. She had found out that one of her best friends had had a child, only in time to find out that that child was dead.

Distantly, she heard a voice. She couldn’t distinguish tone in her state, could barely make out that someone was speaking to her at all. “Do not worry. The Princess will never have to see mockeries of them - we made sure of that.” But any meaning she might gleam from that was gone in, lost in the ocean of grief that had finally smashed the dam she held it behind.

Then in an instant, everything changed.

For a moment, her magical senses broke through her panic. A powerful source of necromantic energy was closing the distance to her rapidly. In her panic and her sorrow and her nigh-fractured state, she responded in the simplest way she knew how. She unleashed a pure blast of mana, brute force with no control flinging whatever it was away from her. The sound of a crash finally was enough to shake her out of her state - it was that loud and dissonant - as did the triggering of her wards as the door, too, was slammed open.

The first thing she noticed was directly in front of her. Up against the base of the wall was Sylvanas. Above her, were smudges of a dark liquid, the inky, bloody ichor that replaced most fluids in an undead body. The woman below it should be dead - her ribs had visibly curved outwards, with some breaking her skin, and Jaina could count at least four spots where the plate she wore had broken and turned into her body. There was no way the impact hadn’t broken her spine either, but it was hard to tell with her sitting as she was like a marionette with its strings cut.

At the door, both the rangers had been careful enough to avoid her temporal lock. They were stood in the hallway, both with bows pulled taut. Jaina recognised them as Anya and Velonara which was to be expected. She had wondered if Sylvanas might change her guards after their game, but it seemed she had had no such intention. She cast an arcane shield on instinct and looked back to the woman she might have killed.

She fell to her knees - when had she stood up? - and looked at the elf. There was still no sign of movement from her except for the slow pumping of ichor from at least two dozen wounds of varying severity. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Then, Sylvanas’ head moved. It tilted just ever so slightly upwards and, to Jaina’s shock, she started to laugh. The sound was broken and wet, and the ethereal overtone was almost overpowering the elven. At least one of her ribs must have punctured a lung - or, with the force Jaina thew her, it could be one of her vertebrae pushed through a rib instead. She wanted to be sick.

Sylvanas went to lift one of her arms but all that happened was her shoulder twitched slightly. She laughed again, then spoke in Thalassian loudly. The rangers lowered their bows, though they looked none too happy about it. Then her eyes turned to Jaina. One of her ears was high and proud, the other mashed into the side of her face. “So finally you lose control.” She spat more ichor. “Sinu a'manore, Jaina Proudmoore.” Another globule of inky blood. “Shame.” Jaina began to crawl towards her, but Sylvanas shook her head as well as she could on a clearly broken neck. “I think we have established that you do not wish to be close to me.”
She sat there on her knees and took in the scope of Sylvanas’ injuries again. This would have killed any corporeal undead she knew about, even an abomination. But the elf was still talking, seemingly unbothered by the state of her body. “Can I help?” was all she could think to ask.
For just a moment Sylvanas hesitated, before settling on a firm “No. Though,” a slight grunt of pain, the first Jaina could remember her making, “if you could be less afraid that would likely be good for both of us.” She coughed weakly, and Jaina could see how more of her ichor was staining the bottom of her teeth.

“Now, believe it or not I did come here with a purpose.” Sylvanas’ tone was still strangely nonchalant as she sat in a growing pool of her own essence. “I have a favour to ask of you, and I believe you may well owe it to me now.”
Jaina did not like owing Sylvanas a favour, but she didn’t really feel she could disagree. She had just nearly killed this woman for no reason. Though Sylvanas had been antagonistic she had not, for the most part, been hostile. And so she just nodded and, when she realised Sylvanas’ vision might not be any good, said out loud. “What is it?”
The dead elf looked up at her, ever so slightly tilting her head. Her tone was utterly flat, lacking the lightness she had imbued it with throughout the rest of the encounter. “I need to get a message to Vereesa, and you are going to help me do it.”

Inwardly, Jaina was reeling. Sylvanas had, up to this point, shown no interest in realigning herself with Vereesa. Then she remembered the end of their game and her mind started running ahead of her again. “Then the first was the lie. Lirath was your brother and you blame yourself for his death. But that hurt too much, so you blamed Vereesa for it instead. But you don’t really think it was her fault.”
Sylvanas looked at her, as hard a glare as she could manage in her current state. Then she raised her voice, only the ghostly half of it managing to be loud. “Anya, Velonara. Leave. Now.”

Both rangers protested in Thalassian, but Sylvanas just barked at them. Jaina heard them walk away, presumably deliberately making noise so that their General would know her orders were being followed. When she spoke again, Sylvanas’ voice was quiet. Her accent, always noticeable, was more prominent than ever as though she were drifting back to a time her Common was not as skilled.

“I have seen Vereesa only once since she arrived at Windrunner Spire the day of the attack. I do not know if I know how to speak to her anymore, and I also think she would be unlikely to return a missive I sent her. More to the point though,” she coughed again, “I have no way of reaching her. But I must try. I am in need of allies amongst the living, and perhaps she will remember what sisterhood meant before ours withered and burnt.”
Jaina thought for a moment. She had no way of contacting Vereesa herself, but Nathanos had told her Aegwynn had a way. Thinking on it, she knew how her mentor was likely to construct the spell. But that could cause a problem. “I’ll need something Vereesa made or had for a very long time. Something her arcane signature would have imprinted on.”

For a long time Sylvanas was silent. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and flat again. “My breast.”
“I’m sorry, what the fuck?”
“At my breast there’s two necklaces.” Her voice did not shift into levity as Jaina might have expected as she blushed. “One blue, one amber. Take the amber one.”
Jaina only blushed farther. “How?”
“I’m sure you can figure out something with that big brain of yours. Besides, I can hardly remove it myself.” Sylvanas coughed again, but her eyes remained fixed and her gaze harsh.

She moved closer to the elf which only highlighted how wrong the shape of her body was. Not just in light of her recent injuries, but the way privation had marked her body. She was still muscular, of course, but much of her body looked malformed and somehow rigid. Her skin radiated cold and the feeling of death. She did not smell of anything, but Jaina’s magical sensitivity filled in that gap. That gave the sensation of death, of rot and decay, of a fruit turned green and white, of maggots and bones and flesh and misery. It raised every hair on her body.

Still, she could see that Sylvanas did have two necklaces on. They were on small golden chains that would glitter in the sunlight, but were almost invisible in the relatively low light of Capitol’s ruins. She followed their path with her eyes. They rode down the top of her chest and breasts before vanishing underneath the leather and plate of her chestplate. Slowly, and ever so carefully, she took hold of them and pulled. Sylvanas sucked in a single breath, but otherwise remained utterly silent even as Jaina must have been pulling at her various injuries. Eventually, two gems revealed themselves from under the armour. As Sylvanas had said, one of them was blue and one of them was amber. They were clearly part of a matching set, forged and polished in the same style and bracketed with the same golden ring. Both were utterly beautiful and had clearly taken hours and hours of labour. “Vereesa made this?” She breathed.
Sylvanas grunted. “We all did, together. The three of us worked on them - a green one for Alleria, a blue one for me, a red one for Vereesa and an amber one for Lirath. When he died, I took his necklace. Will that suffice?”
Jaina spent a moment really concentrating on the gem in her hand. If she focused hard enough… there! She could catch the thread of Vereesa’s familiar signature. It didn’t surprise her - something the product of so much physical and emotional labour would certainly have been imprinted.

“It will.” She confirmed. Then, even more carefully, she removed it from around Sylvanas’ neck. She pushed back the hood of the cloak and then struggled to lift it around the elven ear. When her fingers brushed against it, Sylvanas made another grunt though this one was a bit different. How and why, Jaina didn’t know. “With this, we should be able to send a message directly to Vereesa.”
“Good.” Sylvanas managed. “Now I believe you may need to get pen and paper. I rather doubt I shall be able to write myself.”

Jaina nodded and, not really sure how she felt about anything anymore, went to do just that.

Chapter Text

The day was golden, bright sunlight filtering through the red and amber leaves of the vast trees just south of the Spire. Whilst it was common for elven noble families to have large manicured gardens, the lands of the Windrunners were dominated by wild forest. Windrunner Village, approximately two miles west from where she stood, was famed for its boulevards covered over by the ancient trees that dotted it.

But the Spire absolutely dominated the space. Despite the name, it was actually three separate towers. The primary one, the central one, was topped by a set of curved wings as if the building was a phoenix just beginning to take off. The ones on either side each had just one wing, with a great sphere of magical light floating in between its curls. Construction on it had begun when Lireesa Windrunner, Ranger-General for over two centuries by then, had first fallen pregnant. It had expanded with each addition to the family, including a variety of discs floating over the cliff it backed onto for Lirath’s birth.

But they were not there yet.

Instead, a very young Vereesa stood holding a practice bow, having missed her fifth arrow in a row. Her target was painted on a tree perhaps fifty paces away and the grass before it was home to all her shots thus far. There was a laugh near her, but its singsong nature made it hard to be genuinely upset by it. “Nice try, sel’rei.” Sylvanas’ voice was musical and smooth, as it always was.
But Vereesa was tired and growing frustrated. “It’s not fair! You can only hit it because you’re bigger than me!” She turned towards her sister and huffed.

Sylvanas had always looked at home in the woods, and that day was no exception. She had been a Ranger-Captain back then, but she was not dressed in her uniform. Instead, she wore a simply cut tunic and trousers. But their colours were unfathomably rich, looking painted with blues and purples and golds. The sleeves were decorated with embroidery of a variety of woodland animals and she wore two pendants around her neck - one the sisterhood necklace they had all made together, and the other a token.

Vereesa had asked about it once - who it belonged to, and whether Vereesa would meet her soon. Sylvanas had just laughed, ruffled her hair, and said she had already met the subject of Sylvanas’ affections. But she still hadn’t. In thirty years Vereesa had often found women around with Sylvanas, but she’d never been introduced to one of them before and they’d never stayed more than a night or two. Most of the times Sylvanas brought visitors, she brought her ranging troupe - Velonara and Areiel and Cyndia and Somand and Anya and the rest of them. They all called each other ranger names anyway, and Vereesa was still at least four decades away from induction into the corps.

But Sylvanas was not moved by her childish anger. Instead she just laughed and unslung her own bow. As she stringed it and checked her arrows, she spoke in an indulgent tone. “Now, now, Little Moon. Back when I was your age, Lady Sun wouldn’t let me leave until I could sink my whole quiver into whatever target she’d chosen. Now, watch me.”

Vereesa tried to pay attention as Sylvanas took her stance, tried to watch the way her body flowed into it as if she’d been shooting before she was even born. The contrast between the easy grace her sister held and her own clumsiness only made her more frustrated. Sylvanas nocked her arrow and waited for a moment, minutely adjusting the angle of her arm. Then she let it fly.

“You missed.”
Sylvanas smiled at her. “Look closer and to the left.”

Vereesa peered into the woodland. Sylvanas had completely missed the target she had been aiming at but she couldn’t see the arrow anywhere. She felt hands on her shoulders as Sylvanas twisted her to face the right direction. A second, skinnier tree, now had an arrow sticking out of it. It was at least three times the distance from them as the tree she had been aiming at. “Wow.” She breathed. Then she turned back to her elder sister. “And that’s not even with Thas’Dorah?”
Sylvanas laughed again, but there was something slightly different about it and there was something almost rueful in her voice. “If I was using Thas’Dorah, that tree would no longer be standing.”
“Why don’t you use it then?” Vereesa asked, her hand tugging at Sylvanas’ tunic.
“Because it is the weapon of the Ranger-General, Little Moon.” Sylvanas unstrung her bow again and began to walk in the direction of the tree she had shot, Vereesa scrabbling to keep up. “It is minn’da’s weapon now, and someday it will be Lady Sun’s. After that, it will probably be her daughter’s. It’s not mine to wield.”

“And,” she said as she swept Vereesa up onto her shoulder, “it is not for practice. We don’t want to destroy the woodlands. Uff, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this much longer - you’re getting big.”
Vereesa giggled, a little breathless as she hung onto Sylvanas’s hair for balance. “I’m gonna be taller than you!”
“I should hope not. My rangers would never let me hear the end of it if even my sel’rei was taller than me.”
“Lady Sun would mention it always.”

At that Sylvanas grinned. “If she should try, I could always challenge her to an archery competition.”
Vereesa gasped in horror. “But minn’da banned you from challenging Alleria after what happened last time!”
“I know Little Moon. But my ear is perfectly recovered now and I think I look better with my wonky nose anyway.” She turned her head to poke Vereesa with said nose as if to prove her point, and both of them started laughing again.
When she could breathe again, Vereesa poked at the token hanging around Sylvanas’ neck. “Did your love tell you that?”
Sylvanas gave her a look from the corner of her eyes that said she knew exactly what Vereesa was trying to do. “In a manner of speaking. Now, what do we do with our arrows?”

Vereesa was sorely disappointed when she was set down, but did manage to respond without sounding too sulky. “Collect them and check for damage.”
“Well done, Little Moon. One day you may well be the greatest ranger of all of us.” Sylvanas said as she ruffled her hair.
“But not Ranger-General?” Vereesa asked. “Because that has to be Alleria.”
“No, and you can count yourself lucky. There’s not a job more miserable in the kingdom than the generalship. I would rather not end up like minn’da if I can help it.”
That confused Vereesa. “What’s wrong with minn’da?”

Sylvanas gave an expression that looked like she had swallowed a toad. “Nothing, of course. I just mean that she’s always drowning in work.”
Even as a child, that had seemed not quite right to Vereesa. But she let it go as she collected her arrows. Sylvanas strode off to get her own, and somehow she was already back before Vereesa had even finished with hers. Sometimes she thought that their family name really did fit her sel’da.

Amongst the trees, her breath just slightly heavier than normal, she really did look like the picture of an elven ranger. She smelled of sap and arcane and petrichor, her hair was as golden as the sunlight. Vereesa had always been jealous of her siblings’ hair, her own silver instead of the bright blonde that the Quel’Dorei adored so much. Vereesa had seen more women fondling her sister’s hair than anyone should have to in centuries, let alone a mere three decades. Sylvanas always compared her hair to the moon - that was where her nickname came from, after all - but the moon had never been held in the same regard as Belore herself amongst the high elves.

But Sylvanas’ eyes were less typical. Most quel’dorei eyes, regardless of their birth colour, took on the gold of the Sunwell. Her own were naturally blue, and Lady Sun’s naturally green. But Sylvanas’ were as stubborn as she was, and maintained their steely grey colouration even after centuries. That was why Alleria had, all those years ago, dubbed her Lady Moon. She continued to stare at her sister, who just gave her a slightly quizzical look.

“I love you sel’da.” She said it so confidently, and flung herself into Sylvanas’ abdomen to give her a hug.
Sylvanas chuckled, and threw her own arms around her. “I love you too, Little Moon. Of course I do.”

And then she woke up.

-

Her room was cold but she was burning as she sat up, panting. She could already feel the tears on her face, rare for her after a set of nightmares. Screaming was common for her: crying was not. But the memories of what she had had before everything always hurt deeper by far than the fear inflicted by dreams of what might have happened or recollections of the worst of her days. At least those she knew could not grow worse.

Rhonin lay beside her, sleeping like a rock. He had not been there when she had fallen into bed, nor when she had managed to get to sleep two hours later. He must have stumbled in some time afterwards and she had little interest in waking him. Laying together, skin to skin, had for now quashed her mana addiction. Siphoning directly from him was far better and easier than the crystals he often had to leave her, and she felt more like herself than she had in weeks as she stood and got dressed.

She went downstairs to find Arator already awake and cooking. She often struggled to believe that the boy in front of her was a man grown already, just past his twentieth birthday. If he was a full elf, he would be barely more than a babe at that age but he took after his human father in that way. Or at least, she presumed so - she had never actually met him, only been confronted by his existence the night that Alleria had dumped the boy on her before she went south and through the portal.

He turned to her as she came into the room, giving her a tired smile. “Hey, Auntie.”
“Hey, Arator.” Her voice was still hoarse with sleep and it sounded, to her, almost monstrous.
But he just got back to his work. “Have you got time to eat anything? Or drink?”
She shook her head and, when she realised that that wouldn’t work, spoke up. “No, I have to get to the office.”
“Hmm.” He grunted, then turned to face her. “Well make sure you do eat something today.”

She almost mocked him, made a joke about how he was acting more like the parent than she was. But the guilt of its truthfulness stopped her. Instead, she just nodded and slipped out the door. She walked to the rangers’ office and let herself in, sitting at her desk. The building was empty except for her - there were very few of them left now, and most of them had to be in the field at any given moment. She would much rather be out there with them as well, but unfortunately her de facto position as Ranger-General brought so much responsibility with it. Sylvanas had been right all those years ago. Then again, Sylvanas had been right about most things.

She filled out the casualty report, filed it and got up. For now, that piece of paper was the most important one she had and, with it done, she could get back to work in the field. The stables were nearly empty too when she got there, with just a few hands running about. She took Felo’Dracon and rode out. Technically she wasn’t supposed to ride alone anymore, given her position as head of the rangers left in Dalaran. But on the other hand, she should still be subservient to the Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas and she didn’t even know who held that position.

It should, probably, be her. But that was not a challenge she was able to rise to. She wouldn’t even know where to start.

So instead she rode about the dead towns and villages that surrounded Dalaran. She picked off ghouls and geists where she could, recovering what arrows she could. But so many of them ended up lost to the accursed woods. The Scourge generally moved in packs, and she was usually able to drop two or three but she could hardly fight the full groups on her own. Against an abomination she didn’t stand a chance. What she would give for some spellbows. Or, as her sister had been fond of saying, she needed more artillery.

Some of the undead were visibly elves, ears often dangling and torn. She tried not to look too closely at any of those. When she came across bodies, either Scourge or undisturbed, she burned them. The survival of her people was on the line - there was no time for the grief she felt at the number who would never receive proper burials. All she could give them was the dignity of rest and hope that that was enough for their spirits. She often thought of what Alleria or Sylvanas or her minn’da would think.

She had never been close with her parents. As the third child, much of her raising was left to her elder siblings. Besides that, Lireesa had been Ranger-General and Verath, her ann’da, had been an important mage in the court at Silvermoon. That left them little time to be parents even if they had been so inclined. Most of the time that Lireesa had spent at home in the Spire, Sylvanas had deliberately shooed her away. At the time she had been upset about how little time she got with her own minn’da but, now, she wondered why that had been such a fixation. Why had Sylvanas kept her away from Lireesa so much? She supposed that there was no longer anyone to ask. Lireesa was dead almost two decades, and Sylvanas had joined her now almost two years ago. The only other person who might know, Alleria, was missing beyond a portal and almost certainly dead herself.

Vereesa did not have good parental role models. She often felt she was unprepared, unqualified, for the role of mother. When she thought of what kind of mother she would like to be, she could mostly only think of what she didn’t want to replicate. Though she supposed if there was anyone she would replicate it would be her sel’da who had always been there for her, always putting up with her with a slightly resigned smile and a dry joke at the ready. But of course that sel’da now hated her because the duty of care that she had so carefully executed had been repaid with Vereesa getting their younger brother killed.

Lirath had been only seventy when he had shown interest in fighting lessons. He was not a soldier by instinct or by form, with a predisposition towards magic and a natural music talent refined through decades of careful practice. Their ann’da had often joked (though never in his token-bearer’s hearing) that this one at least he could be certain was his. An empty joke, of course - though it was not uncommon for elves to maintain extremely open relationships with multiple partners even when dedicated to one another, neither of her parents had ever taken another after they met. It was one of the few things Vereesa did not mind her replication of, though neither Sylvanas or Alleria had matched it. Both of them had always been drowning in beautiful women and, in the eldest’s case, men too. She never had got a clear explanation from Sylvanas as to the token she bore but, over a century after that afternoon in the woods, she was sure she understood anyway.

Sylvanas, even then, had been too dedicated to the corps to take on a true partner. It seemed an awfully lonely way to live, to her. Though she supposed Sylvanas had given tiny parts of her heart away to each of the rangers; it made her think about whether any of it was left for herself.

That was when something appeared on the horizon. Even near midday, the forests were dark. It was as if the Scourge had sucked the essence of Belore from the world when they had destroyed the Sunwell. Without it the world was darker, and crueller, and sadder. The grass was such a dark green to be almost black as if it had been burned and the pine needles hung heavy with water as if weary. The sky was clouded grey and black, a blanket of ash across the sky.

But still, she could make out two figures ambling amongst the trees. They were humanoid in form, but bent at back and knee in the shambling posture of the undead. That would be enough to fire at them if not for the flag one of them held. Flag was a generous term, a white shirt torn and ragged hanging from a half-stripped log. But still, it was an attempt at a parley flag. The undead had pulled similar tricks before, necromancers using perfidy with the bodies of relatives and friends to catch her rangers off guard. But many different illnesses had spread with the Plague.

People were poorly fed, and poorly watered. Waves of refugees stressed already breaking sanitation systems. People slept in the streets. As the walls came down, wild animals roamed cities. Water gathered in cracks, turned still and choleric. Perhaps the only winner of the Scourge’s war had been the plague bringers.

They clearly saw her - she saw hands raised, indicating her - but they did not pick up their speed as they drew closer. She kept her arrow nocked, even if she did not yet tauten her bow. Though she could hold it as such for perhaps a minute at a time, doing so was difficult and impractical. Besides, privation and mana addiction had left her far from her physical peak. If she did not have to take a risk she would rather not. She really did not want to find out the level of her incapability.

They made it to fifty paces before their nature as undead became clear. They seemed to be speaking to each other though it was in a language she couldn’t speak. The moment it did, she loosed five arrows into the two bodies. Both fell to the ground, dead once more. She rode up to them to collect her ammunition only to find something strange.

One had been carrying the false parley banner, of course, and his other hand had been empty. The second, though, had also been carrying something. A letter. Odd, but not impossible. After all, necromancers were not necessarily portal mages and still had to rely on runners. But as she picked it up to read it, she turned it over to see the seal. Then she dropped it again.

With shaking fingers and a scream building in her throat, she dropped to her knees and lifted the envelope once again. The envelope was sealed with what was, indisputably, the seal of Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner.

-

The letter sat on the table, unopened. She had banished the children to their rooms when she entered, refusing to let them get a look at it before she had an explanation. She knew she should just open it. It was most likely that someone had just stolen it during the Razing, or maybe whoever her successor was had taken it up. After all, she doubted that any elves who remained in Quel’Thalas were particularly worried about seal symbology. But something deep set in her told her that wasn’t true. Her gut told her that this was more than that.

She knew that Sylvanas had been raised, her body defiled and used as a living weapon by Arthas Menethil. Survivors from Silvermoon who had fled to Lordaeron and ended up in Dalaran all told her that. There were precious few things they did agree on - but Sylvanas’ control by the Lich King was one of them. So perhaps this was a report she had sent, perhaps she was some sort of general in his army. But if so, why would he leave her behind when he fled north? No-one knew why, but Arthas hadn’t been seen on the continent for over a year and his ships had been sighted travelling due north. The Scourge in Lordaeron certainly didn’t act like they were under the command of any sort of general at all - and there was no way Sylvanas would oversee such a dismal campaign.

She looked at the fireplace roaring away. Perhaps some things were not meant to be know - perhaps she would be better simply burning the thing and pretending she had never seen it. Two undead had been carrying it, perhaps under a true banner of peace. Which would make her a literal murderer instead of just one through negligence. But the thought of possibly abandoning her sister again would not let her discard it.

And then, quite suddenly, there were two letters before her instead. There was no sign of a portal, no sound or visual of a rip being torn in space, just a faint scent of a coming storm. This one, too, was sealed with Sylvanas’ stamp. And, when she put a hand to it, she could feel Jaina’s arcane signature - like a tide crashing against a rocky coast. But she could also feel something physical. She pushed the envelope aside and underneath it was the locket they had made for Lirath all those years ago, the amber still utterly perfect.

She hadn’t even known Sylvanas had kept it.

Fighting past the tears in her eyes, Vereesa broke the seal and began to read.

Chapter Text

“She survived the sack. In fact, she was last seen about six months ago, fleeing a Scourge attack on Southshore. Leaving her husband and child behind, of course.”

She watched as, to her surprise, the mage’s expression turned to one of pure shock. She had been expecting some hope, maybe some pain. But such shock? She wondered what about such news could deserve such a reaction from a woman who was - according to all her sources - Calia’s best friend.

And then, horribly, she said, “Child?”

And it all clicked. Jaina had never known her best friend had had a child - and now she would only be finding out in time to learn that the child had died. That thought scratched away in her mind, and she was reminded of a late night at the end of the Second War when she had received a letter from Vereesa telling her of Alleria’s fate. That was when she found out about Arator’s existence - a babe that her sister had kept secret for an unknowable amount of time. Vereesa speculated about two years. And she had only found out when she had learned that the child’s mother was lost to it for all time.

Lost to her, for all time.

The mage’s face was shifting rapidly and while the exact nature of the expressions were unfamiliar with it, she could sense the anxiety and fear and loss radiating off her. Sylvanas had to put effort into not sniffing after it like a bloodhound. She could see tears building in Proudmoore’s eyes, could hear how her breathing was speeding up. She had wanted to poke and prod at the mage, reinforce her dominance in the conversational sphere but this brought her no joy. The sadism she so often relied on had retreated and she was left with the image of a young woman nearly crying, panicking, because she had been loose with her words.

She thought of how often she had hidden in her room as a child, fighting back tears after something her minn’da or sel’da had said.

Her reaction was almost involuntary. She made an attempt at a soothing voice, thought of what she might say to calm the mage before her. “Do not worry - the Princess will never have to see mockeries of them - we made sure of that.”

But it made no difference. Jaina seemed beyond understanding words and Sylvanas had a sickening feeling that there was something else going on beyond the literal news of her best friend’s dead child. So, ears flattening, she stood and approached her. She thought of times she had come across Vereesa or one of her rangers sobbing, sorrows soothed through embraces and calming touches. Elves were tactile by nature and that was the only way she thought might calm Jaina. Part of her mind was still screaming at her that no-one would want her touch anymore, that this woman especially would not. But instinct overrode all of them.

And then her body exploded in pain.

It took her a moment to put together what had happened. She had the very strong feeling that if she was not what she was the pain would have sent her into a shock-induced blackout. She was never the most connected to her body and the sensations were detached enough that she could catalogue the damage in a dispassionate way. One of her legs was broken with the femur shattered, as were both of her arms. Her ribcage had been shoved out her skin through the sheer force of whatever had happened to her. When she tried to breathe, she could feel the way one tore at her lung. Her spine was more dust than it was bone and half her face had been slammed into the wall, too. She could only feel one of her ears.

The room was utterly silent, to the point she wondered if she might have lost her hearing in whatever blast might have been to blame for her predicament. Then she heard the mage start to speak.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

Oh! She knew what that meant. She had not been attacked by some mystery assailant, not victim to some great bomb dropped on them. Instead, she had been attacked by Jaina herself. And it had been an accident. She must have, in her panic, lashed out - a feeling Sylvanas was not unfamiliar with.

She started to laugh. Doing so was painful, tearing at dozens of injuries throughout her shattered body, but she couldn’t help herself. She had come here not only for the mage’s help, but to reassert her control and power. She had to make sure that, even as she requested something from her, that she had the upper hand in their interactions. And as she lay with her body broken she realised that she had done just that. She was still in control of herself, whereas the mage had slipped. Her steely grip on herself had slipped at the sadness of a pretty woman, but said woman had forced her back in control. And as long as that was true, she held the power.

So she called off the rangers at the door. She barked at them in Thalassian, doing her best to maintain the air of command in her voice even as her rib continued to dig into her lung. The mage had not meant to injure her - she would certainly not be taking the opportunity to enforce her second death. And, a little voice in her head whispered, would it be such a terrible thing if she did? But she brushed that off, maintained her almost gleeful attitude towards the injuries that had befallen her. And if some of that joy was from a less than dignified source, if the proof of the mage’s power had perhaps influenced her slightly, that was no-one’s business but her own.

She could not help but gloat a little. “So finally you lose control.” She had to take a break to split out the blood building up in her own throat. “Sinu a’manore, Jaina Proudmoore.” The woman before her just looked more and more disturbed, and it took much of the joy from her victory. She was perhaps closer to breaking the mage than she had intended and she could only think one thing - “Shame.” Then Jaina, who had at some point dropped to her knees, began to crawl towards her. She was thinking with her brain now, not the leftover reflexes of the elf she had once been, so shook her head as well as she could. “I think we have established that you do not wish to be close to me.”

She could feel the fear and guilt bubbling off of her assailant, could feel her body trying to put itself together again. It hurt so much more, the re-knotting and rebuilding, so much more than merely sitting there. Change always hurt more than stasis.

“Can I help?” The mage asked, and she almost laughed. Of course there was a way she could but it was not one Sylvanas could possibly offer her. So instead she settled on “No. Though,” a sudden sharp spike of pain as something in her rib tried to snap back into place, “if you could be less afraid that would likely be good for both of us.” That set her to coughing, and even that movement was weak. She always hated weakness. “Now believe it or not I did come here with a purpose. I have a favour to ask of you, and I believe you may well owe it to me now.”

She could see the conflict in Jaina’s eyes as she considered the nature of a possible favour. And, eventually, she nodded. But that wasn’t enough for Sylvanas - she needed verbal confirmation and soon enough she got it. “What is it?”
And now they had come to the crux of it. Even reassured of her own power, there was something about asking for something that left Sylvanas feeling even colder than usual. And asking for this specific thing made her fight to keep her voice and body controlled. “I need to get a message to Vereesa, and you are going to help me do it.”

Jaina’s face shifted and Sylvanas could feel herself prickle with concern. When Jaina spoke, she did so rapidly and it stole her breath away though she didn’t need it any more. “Then the first was the lie. Lirath was your brother and you blame yourself for his death. But that hurt too much, so you blamed Vereesa for it instead. But you don’t really think it was her fault.”
Sylvanas could only glare. To be so undone, so rapidly. None of the damage her body had received had unarmed as harshly as that one observation. And Jaina was right. But that, she could not say. She could feel the mage’s eyes digging into her, could feel her control slipping away from her as she sat in silence. So she commanded her rangers away - it would not do to have them see her weakness. They complained, of course, but she was their General and they would always listen to her in the end. They stomped down the hallways in retaliation; half to show they had followed her orders, and half to register their complaints.

She had to reply to the mage somehow, though. She could feel her mind drifting backwards, back in time to when she still lived and her heart still beat. Her voice quietened and her tone turned, to herself, almost wistful, rueful. “I have seen Vereesa only once since she arrived at Windrunner Spire the day of the attack. I do not know if I know how to speak to her anymore, and I also think she would be unlikely to return a missive I sent her. More to the point though,” she coughed again, “I have no way of reaching her. But I must try. I am in need of allies amongst the living, and perhaps she will remember what sisterhood meant before ours withered and burnt.”

Silence settled for a moment. Sylvanas often liked silence, but with this woman (who she knew so much about and yet so little) she mistrusted. It felt as though Jaina may well be using this time to prepare the perfect attack. She was almost taken aback when she did speak: “I’ll need something Vereesa made or had for a very long time. Something her arcane signature would have imprinted on.”

Of course. Of course even this little request would require baring yet another part of her soul. But she was, now, dedicated. It seemed there was unfortunately no other way. So, she spoke her voice tightly constrained, “My breast.”
The mage’s pretty face turned a shade brighter than fresh blood. “I’m sorry, what the fuck?”
At any other time, if this was any other woman, Sylvanas would have played to that. But in between her breasts, now, was a dark gaping hole, bleeding black ink from the scar that made her who she was now. They were not things for a lover to appreciate anymore. Most of the time, her body barely felt her own anymore. It made those sorts of jokes much harder, and much less enjoyable. So instead she stayed practical. “At my breast there’s two necklaces. One blue, one amber. Take the amber one.”
But the mage just glanced at the way her chestplate had folded into her body, and said, “How?”
Internally, Sylvanas sighed. “I’m sure you can figure out something with that big brain of yours. Besides, I can hardly remove it myself.”

Jaina moved closer to her. So near to each other, the guilt and fear and revulsion she had been passively (and unwillingly) feeding from faded away and instead Sylvanas could feel that taste crushed underneath the force of the mage’s mana. She could not taste, anymore, but she could feel the magic on her tongue. The magic sensitivity of elves was hard to describe in the language of human senses - it was like a smell, like a taste, but also like a blanket settled onto her skin. She could feel it through the hairs on her skin, feel it flood through her nose and her ears and her pores.

It tasted like a building storm, the acrid taste of greying clouds. Like the salt spray of waves breaking on the rocks, like the sublime isolation of a view off a cliff of the dark grey sea. It felt like a boat rocking, sounded like a rigging straining in the gale. And then Jaina touched her.

The brushing of fingers was like the first strike of lightning, that moment when you can’t be sure whether it was real or just a blink before the thunder settles in. When Jaina took hold of the chains around her neck, she had to suck in an involuntary breath. Senses she had not felt so active since before her death were firing in a way that drew her attention away from the pain and agony that still dominated her body. She had been in physical contact with the mage before, of course, when in her rage the banshee inside her had taken control and threatened her. But this was different - there she had grabbed her coat with gloves and been drowning in the anger that came so easily to her now.

But this time, she had been relaxed enough that those feelings were seeping into her. She had been with plenty of mages in her many, many years and siphoning mana had many, many rather pleasant memories of such things. She had to forcibly stop herself from purring. It was good to know that she could still do that, even if she only found out in time to suppress it.

It took a while for the mage to manage to extract the necklace gems from under her chestpiece. Once she managed it, Sylvanas wasn’t sure whether to stare at them or refuse to look at them at all. There was her own sapphire and Lirath’s amber, both picked out by her minn’da and then polished and shaped by all three of the sisters. It was so like Lireesa to give them something only for them to have to complete it but it was not her minn’da she thought of when she thought of the necklace.

She thought of her sisters, the sunny days and the evenings spent in the shade of the broad Eversong trees, polishing and chipping. Both her and Alleria had loved the work of chipping and whittling, but Vereesa had preferred the role of polishing and engraving. But the gems of their necklaces had been left perfectly smooth and bracketed within a golden oval. “Vereesa made this?” The mage asked, her voice breathy and low. For a moment, some small molten part of Sylvanas imagined that perhaps she had been affected by that lightning blast of mana as she was, but she squashed that part of herself quickly.

It made her response slightly forced. “We all did, together. The three of us worked on them - a green one for Alleria, a blue one for me, a red one for Vereesa and an amber one for Lirath. When he died, I took his necklace. Will that suffice?”
There was a long moment of silence as Jaina sat staring at the necklaces in her hand. “It will.” Then she pushed back the hood of Sylvanas’ cloak. With one of her ears currently a mashed piece of skin and meat, it was not exactly held high anymore and so doing was so no trouble. But as she removed the necklaces, her fingers brushed her remaining ear.

The most sensitive parts of both the human and elven body are the fingertips. But the second most sensitive for a human is the palm - for an elf, the ear. If earlier it had been like lightning, now it was as if she was herself a conduit for the greatest storm the world had ever seen, as if she stood in the middle of the ocean with all the lightning in the world arcing towards her. She could not quite stifle the groan that left her mouth, though she wished she could. The sensation almost overwhelmed her to the point that she nearly missed what Jaina said next. “With this, we should be able to send a message directly to Vereesa.”

She found it difficult to speak, feeling like her blood was pumping through her veins even as her actual ichor flowed onto the floor in a puddle around her. She tried to put cold authority into her voice, but to herself she just sounded slightly desperate. “Good. Now I believe you may need to get pen and paper. I rather doubt I shall be able to write myself.”
Jaina almost scrambled away to get to it and when she stood up about halfway across the room, she huffed and spoke again. “There was actually something I wanted to say to you.” She was panting and her voice was breathy, but still clear.

Sylvanas spat some more blood and acquiesced. After all, she had no reason not to be feeling magnanimous. “And what would that be?”
“I need to return to Theramore for some time.” Jaina’s posture was uncertain but her voice was sure.
Sylvanas tried to raise an eyebrow, but her forehead was feeling uncooperative. “Has my hospitality insulted you so?” Internally, though, she was perfectly happy with a deal. After all, this was a possibility to extract something from the mage. She much preferred the idea of an exchange than her having to ask for something.
Jaina gave her a glare, but it was clearly half-hearted. “Something is wrong in Theramore. I need to return to help protect it.”

And, immediately, all thoughts of extraction went out of her head. She looked at the mage before her, a woman asking for her permission to go and defend her own home. How could she possibly demand something for that? She coughed slightly and her voice was raspy when she replied. “Then return. I will send Areiel with you - she is my second-in-command amongst my rangers and I believe she will be able to assist you. She was of much use to me during my defence.”
She could see the confusion on Jaina’s face at her words. It almost hurt that she seemed so sure Sylvanas was incapable of such an action but the colder part of her was rebuking it even harder than the shocked mage. Perhaps it was foolish, but she had ever been a fool. And, as Jaina continued to stare at her face, clearly trying to read her honestly or lack of it, slowly her shock turned to a smile.

She picked up a quill and some piece of paper and took a seat once again next to Sylvanas. And she only said, “Thank you. Now, what would you like to write?”

Chapter Text

Vereesa,

Please find enclosed within two messages - one from myself, and one from your friend Jaina Proudmoore. I ask that even should you wish to reject mine, you read Proudmoore’s. I had no input in her own writing. If you are confused by the handwriting, I assure you I have not suddenly taken up the strange blocky letters of humans. Your friend is generously transcribing for me since I have been temporarily rendered without use of my hands.

I wish to see you again.

As you have almost certainly heard by now, I died. The bastard murdered me and raised me to serve him against my will and then sicced me on Silvermoon like the hound he had made me. But I am free, and so are many like me. If Belore is good to me, this letter should arrive to you in the hands of two such emissaries. I hope the fact that they have not tried to eat you yet is proof enough that some of us truly have broken free of his control.

We hold much of what was once Lordaeron, though given the precarious nature of our grip I shall not disclose exactly where we are based in a letter that could be intercepted. I could not blame you if you wished me dead for good, even though I hope you do not. But still I find I must fall on your mercy and ask for help. The Forsaken, as we have taken to calling ourselves, exist for one reason only. Vengeance. We will make the bastard bleed, inflict upon him what he did to us ten thousand times over and we will destroy the Scourge that ruined us.

Only then can I rest.

But to do such a thing, we must secure our base of operations first. In order to do that, we need allies. Most of my people are Lordaeronian in origin but those who live are mostly fled west. Quel’Thalas, even if they have not yet reinforced the Ban’dinoriel, is a land of ruin and death. It is likely that the strength of rangers you hold in Dalaran may well represent half of the remaining corps, if not more. I must, instead then, ask after you and Dalaran. It is not my preference to do so - I think I have asked quite enough of you in my time, but it seems Azeroth is not done with me yet and therefore, tragically, neither are you.

I do not ask for a commitment, or a dedication. I know I would never do such a thing off such little information and I know you may not be likely to look fondly on my words. I wish to see you again. If you rode into Tirisfal Glades, I would find you but I understand the risks and I would not wish to present them with you. I do not know where this letter will find you - whether you are still in Dalaran, somewhere in the now accursed Eversong or perhaps south in some primitive city like Stormwind. And I do not know if I will be able to contact you again. But if your husband is available, I do know somewhere you might be able to portal letters to. There is a tree I am sure you recall, where we saw a cat catch a sparrow. You told me that my girlfriend at the time was like that cat as the sparrow squealed, and minn’da told us my girlfriend was surely the sparrow for the bruises she would always leave with. I believe the embarrassment may well have scarred you deeply enough to be recalled.

I do hope your husband is okay. I have of course only met him three times, but he seemed to make you happy and that is, in the end, what matters. He is certainly better than Lady Sun’s paladin damn them both. I ask that you also give my well wishes to Arator, and to your own children. It is one of my greatest tragedies that they shall never get to know their aunt, and I apologise for wasting the time I could have used to know them. It is easy sometimes to forget that we elves can die too, and that we do not always have forever. Perhaps I should have learnt that when, in an afternoon, half our family was taken from us, but I was never that wise it would seem.

I also enclose Lirath’s amulet. I took it from the body shortly after I forced you away as a sort of monument to my own failures, evidence to myself that I had got it all so wrong. But I find little need of it now my whole body does that for me. I hope it may be of some meaning to you especially when it comes with these words, that I have perhaps needed to say for too long -

I am sorry, Little Moon. It was not your fault, and it was cruel of me to say so. I have spent centuries trying not to be minn’da, trying not to be Alleria, only to act as them when you needed me most. You are too young to be left out into the world with nothing but yourself to guide you and it is entirely my fault.

I never should have called you that word - I shall not even repeat it here - and doing so threw away perhaps my best chance to truly be sisters again. I do not ask for that kind of relationship to return - I feel I have proven my own insufficiency in the role and I clearly do not deserve the responsibility that lays on you. But if I am to ask you for help, I feel I must first do what I can to undo the damage I have done to all of us for so long. It was never your fault, no part of it. I blamed you because facing the truth, that it was my own, was too painful. As ever, Lady Sun was right.

I shall hope for your reply,

Sylvanas Windrunner

-

Reesa,

So I met Sylvanas. I don’t know how she was before the whole undeath thing, but if she was anything like she is now I get what you said about her being difficult. I’d like to tell you where I’m writing from but she’s rather determined I don’t tell you. So instead I’ll tell you that most of the survivors of Lordaeron are now in Kalimdor. We have a small port town on the western continent - we even have peace with the Horde! I shall save more details for in person, where I hope to see you soon.

If I am right about how Magna intends to send this, you will not be able to reply directly because it doesn’t technically use portals. It’s actually related to the magic used for mailboxes but more advanced and personalised, fiddling around with personal anchors and the like. I’ll spare you the magical essay and save that for Rhonin when I next see him. Still, Sylvanas has enclosed a location for you to send a response to her and if you wish to send anything to me just send it there too.

Everything Sylvanas said about the free undead seems to be true to me - I have met several of her rangers including ones called Anya, Velonara and Areiel. I presume these names will mean something to you. I hope you’re doing okay, and I hope the kids are okay too. Please let me know - it would lift a lot of stress off my mind if I knew my best friend was doing okay.

If you are still in Dalaran, I’d also appreciate any news on anyone else in the city. Also if you’ve heard anything about Grand-Marshal Garithos or Kael’Thas I’d really like to hear it. The former for a friend, the latter because I worry for him. He was a nice enough guy, really, and I certainly hope he wasn’t caught up in the Razing.

I have learnt a lot about your family life in the last week or so. I’m sorry about almost all of it.

Best wishes,
Jaina

Chapter Text

Her tower looked much the same as she had left it, with bookshelves filled to bursting against every wall, the great wide windows that looked over the sea and the stained wooden floor she really needed to clean one of these days. Her desk was made of a dark oak, and ran the length of the chamber’s back. The top floor that they had entered into was split into three separate rooms - a small antechamber at the landing, this large workroom and her bedroom which took up the southern half, separated by a thin wall.

The room was packed when she walked through the portal she had opened, with all her various friends and advisors discussing in a series of chairs they must have dragged upstairs. There was Nathanos and Pained and Kinndy and Magna and Kristoff, all packed into a room made for perhaps two people. The reactions were fast. Magna and Kristoff remained seated, if for completely opposing reasons (Magna because she knew they were no threat, Kristoff because he believed they were.)

Nathanos and Pained both had weapons in hand almost before she could blink, the elf with her greatsword off her back and Nathanos with his axes he kept the Tides knew where. Kinndy stood up on her chair and Jaina could feel her pulling power into herself. Areiel, standing just behind her, had her bow up just as fast as well with an arrow nocked and nudging herself in between the room’s occupants and Jaina.

When they realised who she was, both Nathanos and Pained lowered their weapons, but neither of them put them down. There was a long moment of tense silence and eventually it was Kristoff who spoke. “Lady Jaina, what is it you have brought here?”
But Areiel spoke before she could, ignoring the man and turning to Nathanos instead. She asked, in Thalassian, “Really, wolfhound? This is how you greet us?”

And then he was upon them. For just a second, Jaina thought he had lost his mind and was going to cut them both down where they stood. It seemed Areiel thought so too, as she pushed herself in front of Jaina as though to take the blow for her. But instead, Nathanos slammed into the ranger in a massive bear hug. His voice was garbled by tears, but Jaina could still pick out his words. “Oh old hawkstrider, you have no idea how good it is to see you again.”
“Are you blind, brother? I am not the same as I was. I scream like a hawkstrider in truth, now.”
“Then it sounds as if nothing has changed at all.” Jaina could hear the smile in that declaration, and while the elf did not laugh, she did finally put an arm around Nathanos and sunk her head into his neck. She didn’t really understand what that was about, but she also didn’t ask. It didn’t seem her business.

Besides, she had a series of friends to deal with and none of them seemed happy. Pained had reaffirmed her grip on her sword and her voice was tight and harsh. “What are you doing bringing the undead here?”
Kristoff sputtered out an agreement. “You cannot seriously trust her! The undead are duplicitous and untrustworthy - they are Forsaken for a reason!”
“I wonder,” Magna drawled, “how none of you expected this from the letters. I believe my apprentice here did give you all plenty of time to voice an objection, and you did not. Besides, I believe she has rather a motto, don’t you?” She turned to Jaina for a second, but did not let her speak. “This town exists in spite of Daelin Proudmoore’s hatred. I believe if I can trust the orcs given all that has occurred, you can all manage an undead who has never wronged anyone here.” Kristoff looked like he wished to object, but she levelled him with a look. “Unless you know something none of us do, Chamberlain?”

At that Kristoff turned paler than the dead woman, and Areiel finally did laugh. Jaina didn’t think she was ever going to get used to how that sounded in the dead double-tone, but it was different to the laughs of the other rangers. There was something dry in the Captain’s laugh, but also something refined. It felt like the kind of laugh given over a glass of wine late into the night when the fire burns high both in the grate and in the blood.

But Pained was not so easily quieted. “She wrongs Elune merely by being. The orcs are a people, like the kaldorei or you humans. The undead are an affront to all living things.”
“It is good to see I stand trial already for what was done to me. I am sure Sylvanas will be thrilled to hear of the company you keep, wolfhound.”
Pained was giving the other elf a slightly odd look, as if she could untangle what she had said simply by looking hard enough. But Nathanos just huffed and responded in Common. “No-one is standing trial for anything, sister. You are here, and that is that.” He turned his head away from the woman still holding onto him and towards the rest of the room. “Anyone who wishes to harm her shall have to kill me first, clear?”
“No such great loss.” Pained said, but her tone had a teasing edge, and Nathanos just grinned back at her.
Jaina cleared her throat and every eye turned back to her - except for Areiel’s, as she was still buried in the juncture between Nathanos’ shoulder and jaw. “Ranger-Captain Areiel has very kindly been sent here as a bodyguard and proof of the Forsaken’s goodwill. There shall be no more discussion of killing her, thank you very much.” She magicked up a chair, then sat down on it. “Now, if you could all update me on what has happened in my absence?”

(The trick with the chair was one Magna had taught her. She kept a small shed in the Bladescar Highlands full of them, then used a mixture of telekinesis and portal homing to make the chair appear as though she had created it. Jaina knew of at least six such sheds her mentor kept full of various household items and she wondered just how many there truly were.)

Nathanos huffed and took a seat, whereas Areiel spun back around and took up a post about a step back and to the left from her own chair. It reminded her of Pained in the early days after Tyrande had assigned her, and it made her hope that this too might lead to a valued friendship.

“Your timing is, as ever, impeccable.” Kristoff opened. He always had a tendency of saying things that should be sarcastic but never were, his tone instead infused with zealotry. “The trolls had been delayed and should be arriving later today. Vol’Jin would most certainly rather meet you than me.”
“I wonder what he’d think of Lady Aegwynn!” Kinndy said, much too excitedly.
But Magna just laughed. “I am not much of a diplomat. I rather think he would get fed up of me the seventh time I called him an upstart, don’t you?”
“Oh, I’m sure you can be charming when you wish.” Nathanos grinned. “In respect to your centuries spent in service, of course.”
“There are those who learn nothing in centuries.” Pained deadpanned.
Nathanos’ face grew tight with faux seriousness. “Well, of course. I’m sure my Captain here has plenty of examples of that.” He turned towards Areiel, but she didn’t respond in Common but in some strange barking language Jaina didn’t understand. She spoke for a while and Nathanos replied rapidly in the same language, then sighed.

But it was Magna who spoke. “I am sorry. Really quite gross of your hostess not to think of that.” Both Areiel and Nathanos were staring at her shocked, but she just had a small smile. “What? I have a lot of time up in my hills and a lot of books. I speak three dozen languages - you think I wouldn’t have learned Amani? When I lived in Dalaran? Anyway, this will give me a good opportunity to test you, apprentice. A simple language spell - so we can all speak to each other properly, of course. Someone speaks their native tongue, and we all hear our own. Think you can do that?” Magna’s tone was definitely condescending, but her smile was friendly enough that Jaina knew it was just a tease.
She stopped to breathe for a moment. The spell was not too difficult, though it grew more complex with the number of people and languages involved. Technically, the people in the room had four native tongues: Thalassian for Areiel; Darnassian for Pained; Common for herself, Kristoff and Kinndy; and Old Lordaeronian for Magna. Still she reached for her mana, pictured the diagrams in her textbooks and cast.

For a moment everyone sat in silence, but it was Pained who spoke first. “I am not sure I wish to hear the accents of all of you in Darnassian.”
“I have heard a night elf speak my tongue. Truly, after mine own death I have seen everything.” That was Areiel. Her voice was unmarked by any accent and the way she spoke was falsely perfect like a particularly refined courtier. It was off putting to hear it out of the ranger’s mouth - and more off putting still to hear it appear in her ear, as the spell actually worked.

(Technically speaking, the spell silenced all of them and translated the words they tried to form in the abstract before projecting it into the minds of the other people in the room. This meant that non-word vocalisations were lost which always led to a sense of falseness which was why use of it was confined to situations where it was necessary rather than just comfortable. She never knew how much those little sounds made a conversation what it was until she was forced to go without. Magna had used it the first time they’d met to make a point and Jaina had grown no more comfortable with it.)

Nathanos spoke next, tone unclear but his position as he leaned back in his seat gave away his feelings quite clearly. “That would be heard, Captain. Not seen.”
“I’m not your Captain anymore, wolfhound. In fact you would be my Lord.”
“Please,” Nathanos replied quickly, “You’re still Belore’s captain.”
Magna cleared her throat. How that got through the spell, Jaina didn’t know. “This is all very sweet but I do believe we have actual things to talk about. I have sensed fel energy at play in Theramore and the source of it is familiar to me. I believe the demon Zmodlor is at work here.”
Jaina wracked her brain for the histories, because the name was definitely familiar. “Would that have been… the Burning Blade one?” The cult of the Burning Blade was an important part of the Guardian’s story, and Jaina had been slightly obsessed with Aegwynn during her education. And after it. And before it. Arthas had focused on Anduin Lothar - a man he had completely failed to live up to - but she had focused on Aegwynn.
And her mentor gave her a look that suggested she knew exactly why Jaina knew that little factoid. “Yes, apprentice. The founder of both the Azerothian and the Draenic Burning Blade. His preference is for subterfuge and I suspect he may be trying to once again expand the influence of his cults.”

“A demonic cult in Theramore?” Kristoff asked, though it was hard to tell when his tone was artificially flattened by the spell. “That would explain some things. The orcs have been more aggressive of late - that’s why I had to reinforce Northwatch.”
“Indeed. No-one has been killed as of yet, but there have been a variety of disputes.”
“Pained is understating it. Both orcs and humans have been pushing the limits - I think it’s likely that they have been pushed that way by the cults.” Magna’s voice still carried the undercurrent of magical power, even though it wasn’t truly her voice.
Nathanos stroked his chin. “Possible. The Legion are fond of such tactics, but they usually only act when they have someone in power.”
“How so?” Kinndy said, the person in the room least familiar with the Legion as an enemy.
“Against Lordaeron, the Legion used Arthas. Against Quel’Thalas they must have had the alliance of a magister. And with the orcs they had the Shadow Council. If they wanted to bring down Theramore they would need the support of someone in this room.” Jaina wasn’t used to hearing such thoughts from Nathanos - he was usually a man of little words and he didn’t talk much about the fall of Quel’Thalas.
Kristoff tapped on the arm of his chair. “How do you know they had a magister? Do they always have an inside man? The elves are a noble people; it would be odd for one to turn to the Legion.”
Nathanos opened his mouth, but it was Areiel who spoke. “The traitor was Drathir. He sold the secrets of the gatekeeper to the dead prince, then sought to betray him after he corrupted the Sunwell, and the boy himself ran him through.”

Then about four people spoke at once.
“Drathir?”
“The Sunwell corrupted?”
“The traitor?”
“The gatekeeper?”

Areiel lifted one of her hands and the room fell silent. Magna lifted an eyebrow in a way that suggested admiration. “Yes, Drathir betrayed our home for power. The dead prince used the Sunwell to resurrect his pet lich Kel’Thuzad and in doing so corrupted it. Then it was destroyed.”
“Ah, that explains some things.” Magna opined, and at everyone’s confused looks sighed. “Apprentice, could you not feel the disruption? Azeroth’s ley lines have been disrupted: as if the fallout from the attack on Nordrassil was not bad enough, a Well has been destroyed. It’s likely that magic does not function properly within Quel’Thalas and we should be preparing for arcane shockwaves any day now.”
Kristoff rested his head on his hand. “You think they are likely to pose a threat to Theramore?”
“Yes, Chamberlain, I do think ripples in the very nature of magic may well cause issues across the world. Azeroth has drained two fonts of power in as many years. The last time a Well was destroyed it caused the Sundering.” Magna’s voice was as patronising as ever, like a particularly disappointed teacher and Jaina had to stop herself laughing. Given the look Pained shot her, she didn’t entirely hide her mirth.
But it was Areiel who responded. “I’m sure the mother of magic is an expert - after all, she may well be old enough to have been there.”
“Ranger-Captain Areiel,” the former Guardian ground out, “You were already a storied figure when I was born.”
“Well of course. I was one of the original exiles, you know.”

Pained had let her sword dangle in her hand, but at that her grip grew stronger once again. “Oh were you, little elf?”
Areiel’s ears shot up as if to contrast Pained’s strained ones. “I jest, moon sister. Why? Would you only fight me if I was?”
“Please, old hawkstrider,” Nathanos cut across, his voice managing to carry a pleading edge regardless of his monotone. “Do take the flirting somewhere not in front of me. I get quite enough of it from the songbirds without you starting too.”
“Is that jealousy I hear wolfhound?” Areiel dropped one of her hands to a belt where, presumably, a dagger was concealed.
Nathanos went to speak but Magna was faster. “Not from him, perhaps.”
Jaina blushed. “Not you too, Magna, please.”
Pained had an expression on her face that told of both mortification and, horribly, interest. Her ears were high, and she finally slid her sword back into place across her back. “You have not had me sworn to celibacy, my Lady, though it is my understanding that some of your strange human orders do so. It is only right for sisters-in-arms to take joy in each other, is it not?”
“Pained, I do not believe it helps if you use the term sister. Humans don’t see it quite the same way as elves do.” Nathanos was shooting the night elf a slightly amused look, but she just ignored him and walked past Jaina to the other elf.
She did not touch Areiel, but stared into her eyes for quite some time. “Come, Ranger-Captain. Me and Marris shall show you around. Lady Aegwynn, I believe you may wish to come with us?”
“I certainly do.” She said, and Pained nodded sharply.
“Now, Kinndy you still have an assignment to work on. Kristoff, I presume you have something to do?”
That seemed to start the man. He almost jumped, but got himself back under control quickly. “I will be down in just a moment, Lady Pained. I still have some papers here that require the Lady Jaina’s personal signature and then I shall remove myself so she may take a well deserved rest before the trolls arrive.”

Pained looked at him slightly thankfully. It was clear that getting everyone out of the room had been her real goal all along, and she fairly shoved Kinndy from the room, laughing at the gnome’s complaints. Areiel glanced back at her, but Jaina nodded and made a shooing motion and she followed Nathanos out. Then she dropped the comprehension spell and sighed.

Eventually it was just her and Kristoff in the room. She took a moment to take a long look at the man. He was traditionally bookish in appearance for the most part - Jaina knew his background was military and he had shown some of that musculature when their boats had initially sailed to Theramore but nearly two years of purely administrative duties had stripped it from him. He was tall, not as tall as her or most elves, but still tall for a man from Lordaeron. His beard was close cropped and his hair was a reddish-brown, slicked back with oil. It had once been cut close in a buzzcut befitting his role as a soldier but he had been growing it out for the duration of their acquaintance. He was scarred (who wasn’t in these days) but mostly in small ways that almost disappeared under certain lights.

He was sweating but he almost always was. He was not used to the humidity of Dustwallow even after all his time at Theramore and she suspected he had been sweaty even before then. He wore the city’s sigil in at least six places and he had a pair of thick reading glasses on a chain around his neck. It was hard to believe he had worked for Garithos who Jaina had always thought of as a brute; even Arthas, who had ever been petty, had found him unpleasant. Kristoff seemed to believe much of that was affected, but Jaina was less sure. Still, who they had been before mattered considerably less than who they were now and now Kristoff was one of their two truly talented administrators and fiercely loyal both to her and to Theramore. He had told her that, whilst he had disagreed with Garithos on a number of issues, the man had been his general and so it was his job to follow orders. While the context of Stratholme made that a slightly uncomfortable train of thought, he had assured her there was a limit. The Culling had been monstrous, he had said, and he liked to think he would have had the courage to do what she had. That statement had almost made her physically sick the first time she heard it.

He had a tendency to endlessly adjust his glasses when he was nervous and so she knew something wasn’t quite right when he reached into one of his dress shirt’s many pockets and pulled out a handkerchief to dab at his brow. “My Lady, I have something to confess.” She took a seat and waited whilst he stammered over his words. His accent was Capitolian - but only in the way that people who didn’t grow up in the city developed when they wanted to come across as posh and trustworthy. She wasn’t sure if he would even be able to drop it if he tried.

He huffed slightly, but did eventually continue. “When I objected to your trip, I was not fully honest with you. The Ranger-Captain is a member of the Forsaken, yes? The undead who claim to be free from the Lich King’s influence?” Extremely confused, Jaina nodded. “Well I was aware of their existence. The Grand-Marshal made a deal with them to reconquer Lordaeron but I and many others advised against it. You are of course aware of the tricks necromancers can pull - the perfidies and the false pretences. I believed this was another of those. I thought that their freedom was a lie and that even if it wasn’t, they could not be trusted as damaged as they were.”
Jaina held a hand up and he went completely silent. He had started shaking slightly, and it was hard not to take pity on him. “Did you know who led them?”
“No, no.” He said quickly. “I knew they were led by an elf but that was it. I had never met the esteemed Ranger-General and well… you know how Garithos felt about our non-human fellows. We were not allowed in those meetings so all we had to go off of was that an undead elf had made a deal with him. If I had known the fate of Lord Marris’ fellows I would have informed him, of course.”
“So why did you keep this from me?” She asked. She was less angry and more confused.

“Shame, perhaps?” He said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a force that would surely leave marks on his skin. “Fear for you as well. You know I respect your view on the orcs even if I disagree with you and I worried that you might try and save these poor souls as well.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “And why didn’t you want that?”
“Because they are dangerous, more dangerous even than the Horde. The tauren and trolls are honourable peoples, in their own ways, and the orcs are led by Thrall who is a good man. A hero, even. But the undead are monsters. They are deceitful, and I knew nothing of their leader. I hope that, if she truly is the legendary Ranger-General, then perhaps she can be trusted. But I suspect it is only her corpse with none of her spirit.”
“Thank you, Kristoff.” She said, when the silence had begun to hang just too long. “Thank you for your honesty. Now I must get ready for Vol’Jin’s visit. If what you say is true, you may wish to ask the Ranger-Captain about Garithos’ fate; I’m sure Nathanos can work as a translator. I shall see you shortly.”

Accepting the dismissal, Kristoff stood, bowed and left. Jaina was left alone with only her own thoughts for company. Specifically one thought, the memory of her father’s sneer in her ear and mind:

“They are monsters, Jaina. You do not talk to monsters: you shoot them.”

And she felt her determination to aid the Forsaken double. She looked out her window, staring out east where, thousands and thousands of miles away, a city swarmed with the undead and her mind ran rampant with plans and plans inside plans.

Chapter Text

Alleria tore into the room, eyes blazing and fangs showing, ears high in a way that screamed threat. She had a shortsword in each hand, and she literally kicked the door open. Sylvanas startled from where she had been sitting, crying, but if she had thought she would get any sympathy for that (she knew better, but that did not stop the faint bubble of hope in her chest) she was wrong. Instead, the first noise out of Alleria’s mouth was a hiss as she walked straight across the room to get to her. One hand gripped her by her hair and slammed her into the wall hard enough to start blood slowly pulsing from her nose. “I am going south. If you do such a poor job in guarding our home as you did our family, I will kill you. You are not my sister, this is not my home, and I shall go do what needs to be done. As I always must with you thr-two. With you two. Clearly I was a poor sel’da but I shall at least be a good Ranger.”

So saying, she dropped Sylvanas, who slumped up against the wall. Alleria spat at her, smacked her once with the base of her shortsword, and left. The door banged against the wall on her way out.

That was the last time Sylvanas saw Alleria.

“I thought death was supposed to make you still.” Anya drawled from the other side of the room.
Sylvanas stopped her pacing for just long enough to glare at her, then went back to it. She didn’t say a word until Anya sighed at which point she ordered, “Out of my sight.”
But Anya, being Anya, ignored her. “You need to calm down, Sylv.” She ignored the next glare sent her way. “You wearing a groove in the floor isn’t going to make it more likely Vereesa will meet with you or even reply to your letter.”
“I know that!” She snapped, which did nothing to quiet her ranger.
“Then stop doing it.” Anya looked hard at her as she continued to pace. “You do have other things to do, you know. A kingdom to lead?”
“And in my current state anything else I do I shall do poorly.”
Anya sighed again and it was only an immense force of will that prevented her snarling. She couldn’t do anything about the way her ears were pinned tight to her head, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. “Sylv,” she said, all sarcasm gone from her voice, “You haven’t even given anyone command. If something comes up you will have to handle it, and I don’t have Nathanos handy to shake you out of your mood.”
“I am not in a mood!”
“Sylv.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe I am in a mood. But that doesn’t change anything.”
“Ranger-General.” That earned her a snarl. She had let ‘Sylv’ get by unchallenged, but that title she could not bear, not after she had failed so spectacularly. “You need to calm down, or delegate, or preferably both. If you don't, I shall make your life miserable for the next month.”
Sylvanas stalked towards her. “You would not dare,” she hissed.
“When have you ever known me to lack daring, Belore?”

Sylvanas wasn’t sure whether to Wail or cry or scream or fall about helpless. To have her own callsign thrown back at her, to be reminded once again all of what she had been to the rangers she had led to their death. It had been one thing in a letter from Nathanos: said out loud to her by one of the victims of her generalship, was different. Anya seemed to realise that as she stood and reached one hand across the short gap between them. Sylvanas snarled again, but Anya still, fearless as ever, took her hand and pulled her into a hug. She stood there completely still for a moment as her ranger whispered into her ear. “We’re here to look after you Sylv. You need to learn to confide in us again, especially with wolfhound a continent away.”
Sylvanas took a rasping breath and, slowly, reached her arms out and around her ranger. She had known Anya since before she had become a captain, over five centuries together. She took a moment to steel herself, then breathed out, “I’m afraid. I’m so afraid, shrike.” That hadn’t been what she meant to say, but her rangers had always been gifted in pulling the truth from her; it was part of why she had avoided their companionship as much as she could during her generalship.
But Anya did not mock her, as some might have. She did not tell her to be strong, or that she had failed. Instead, she just replied, “So am I, Sylv. We all are.” She laughed wetly and Sylvanas felt something drip down the side of her neck. “But if Vereesa tries to hurt you again, she shall face the full might of the Dark Ranger corps. You have my word as acting-captain.”

Sylvanas pulled back slightly to look Anya in the eye. “Oh, so you’re acting-captain now, are you?”
“We held a vote!” Anya said, grinning like a lynx. “Technically, you don’t get a say in it.”
“No, I suppose I don’t. I shall have to give you Areiel’s paperwork I suppose.” She drawled, one hand going up to rub her chin contemplatively.
Her ranger’s eyes widened. “Paperwork?”
“Well of course! Since my captain is off in this Theramore, I shall have to have someone else sort through her paperwork. If you’ve been elected as you say, then that should be your role.” She looked hard into Anya’s eyes, ignoring the earlier tear tracks still visible, “You didn’t think it would just allow you to boss your fellow rangers around did you?”
Anya snorted, full of faux confidence. “As if I need a title to do that.”
“I do agree a title would make little difference. It certainly didn’t in life.” Looking at Anya’s mortified face, she couldn’t hold the laugh in anymore. Her ranger hid herself against her general’s chest and made vaguely protesting noises as Sylvanas laughed, truly and openly and joyously, for perhaps the first time since she had died.

When Sylvanas came home, all she could smell was burning. Her nose scrunched and her ears flattened and she lengthened her stride. As she approached the Spire, she could see small furls of smoke flying through the doors and windows, all thrown open. Vereesa was shouting so loud that even fifty paces away she could feel her ears flatten against her head in response. She started sprinting, leaping from spot to spot with her feet barely touching the ground as she closed the gap to the foot of the building.

The first room was a wide entry hall, at the back of which was a floating spiral staircase going up to the bedrooms and down to the vast wine cellar. But Sylvanas instead turned through the first door on the left which led to the kitchen. There, as she expected, she found the source of the smoke. Vereesa was shouting as she desperately batted at what had once been some form of food but was now effectively a hunk of charcoal. Sat at the table and coughing slightly was Lirath. He was just old enough to be confident in his walking and Sylvanas knew that Vereesa’s cooking would be entirely wasted on his not exactly discerning palette. But she also understood the madness that being a sel’da brought, and did not feel the need to point out such a thing to her sister. After all, she would’ve been a hypocrite.

She slowed down and watched as her sister tried to put out the fire she had started. She would have intervened if she had any reason to doubt Vereesa had the matter in hand but she did not. It was very smoky, and Sylvanas rather doubted that the towel that was being used as a fire blanket would ever be usable again, but besides that there seemed to be no real danger. All the windows had been flung open, as was common in the Spire on a warm summer’s day such as this and it did something to reduce the heat in the room. Finally Vereesa seemed to put it out to her sense of satisfaction, and, ears wide in worry, turned to the doorway.

Sylvanas enjoyed teasing her sister but it did not take the centuries the two had spent together to know that, in this moment, that was not the right choice. Instead she moved quickly up to her and pulled her sister into her arms. Fifty years ago, she would’ve rested her chin on her head but Vereesa was taller than she was now so instead she settled on her shoulder, spitting out her sister’s moon-white hair and holding her close. She could feel that some sparks had caught onto her dress as spots of warmth burned against her but she ignored such feelings. The pain was not important. Nothing was, compared to comforting her sister.

Vereesa was sniffling slightly and Sylvanas only pulled her closer. “How did you ever manage me, sel’da?” She asked, and Sylvanas laughed lightly.
“With quite a few more fires. Minn’da almost killed me when I accidentally burned half the kitchen because I lit one of ann’da’s fanciest wines.” Vereesa snorted, and Sylvanas squeezed her gently. “Alleria got quite the earful that night.”
Vereesa nuzzled into her and a high purr started in her chest, haltingly to start with before smoothing out. “Thank you, sel’da.”
“Anything for my little ranger,” she said, mussing her sister’s hair then stepping away to the oven. “Now, what were you trying to cook?”
“Honey cake. Like you used to make me.”
Sylvanas started grabbing ingredients out of the various cupboards. “When did I last make it for you?”
“Some years ago,” Vereesa said nervously, her purr diminishing until Sylvanas turned and shot her a grin.
“Then I suppose I shall have to right that today.”

But whilst her purr recovered, Vereesa’s tone remained uncertain. “But I have to cook. I need to be a good sel’da.”
“Nonsense.” Sylvanas shot her down. “You are still my sel’rei. You are Lirath’s sel’da, so look after him. And I will look after you.” She walked briefly away from the countertop to place a single kiss on her sister’s crown. “Now, get some cutlery and look after Lirath. I will manage the cooking.”

Vereesa smiled, and that finally got Sylvanas purring as well. Lirath, still on his seat and clearly not following everything that was going on, seemed pleased that Sylvanas was visibly getting back to cooking and his purr joined theirs, a little choir of familial joy that filled the walls of the Spire and floated through the windows, chasing the smoke away.

The tree was not as she remembered it, of course. They had seen the cat during Vereesa’s first ever international tour. Although at that point Alleria was still the heir to the Ranger-General, Lireesa had wanted all of her daughters knowledgeable about the Alliance. And, Sylvanas suspected, wanted to show them off. Her minn’da had been an elf and would certainly not stand for any marriage arrangement, but Sylvanas got the sensation she very much would have liked it if one of her daughters had taken a shine to one of the notables present. She had made sure Sylvanas met Calia Menethil and danced with her at least twice, not knowing that she already knew Calia was married (through Vereesa, through Jaina) and likely wouldn’t not have been interested in a woman anyway.

Sylvanas remembered the tree as winding and wizened even then. It was an import from somewhere - Crestfall or Zul’dare, she believed - and so she wasn’t familiar with the species. Its leaves had been a blue-green and shaped like tridents, channelling the dew to flow from its points. But it had been scraggly, its branches obvious and visible as Sylvanas and her family had watched that cat hunt that sparrow. The wood had been a deep maroon and veiny, knotted and pitted all over.

Now, though, the colour had been sucked from it and it was the same cold grey as the stone of the ruins. The leaves were all gone, and the dirt it was sitting in had been disrupted and partly dug up. If the Scourge had done that, it would mean someone had tried to hide there. When the Scourge moved it did not like to waste energy. The hole was deep enough to be a grave and it wasn’t impossible (if unlikely) that someone could have hidden there and somehow dug their own way out. The first sack, the one that had killed Terenas, had only lasted a single day. It could have been done; Sylvanas hoped it had.

The dirt was of course walled off and most of the decorations that had embellished it were cracked off and stolen. Either the living men who had followed the monster, or the forces Balnazzar had settled in the city, or possibly the troops of Garithos before or after she had had him killed. The Scourge had no need for beauty or riches. The bench that would once have sat under its leaves (though not shaded well - it seemed the bench had been built before the gardeners knew what from the tree would take) was split in half, the left side still standing and the right plunging into the ground like a sword into a wound.

Ever since she had sent her letter, she had spent at least half her time staring at this tree. She could not get away from it, no matter how hard she tried. Somewhere out behind her was Velonara; as Anya had requested, she had put someone in charge whilst she was distracted. The dawning horror on the ranger’s face when she realised she was the one about to be put in that position had been delicious, but the joy of that memory was now crushed by the anxiety of anticipation. Anya had attached Velonara to her as a bodyguard and Sylvanas hadn’t bothered to fight it. She had more important matters to attend to.

She could hear the ranger sharpening a knife, and that sound almost covered up the noise of a portal ripping open. It was good, then, that she was watching as a large human hand poked out of a small glowing blue disc and deposited a small envelope on the wall. Sylvanas waited breathlessly as the hand went back through the portal, which shortly closed. She could taste the magic but that did not matter. Hands shaking (she couldn’t quite believe that) she reached out to it and took the paper in her hand. It was sealed with Vereesa’s personal stamp and, although she did not need to breathe, she could feel herself deliberately holding it and finally let it out as she broke the seal and opened it, pulling out a short, scrawled note. It read:

Sister,

Expect me noon the day after this letter arrives. I will be there.

Sylvanas dropped it in the dirt and fell to her knees. She was going to see her sister.

All of Eversong was bright, the life of Belore and the Sunwell diffusing through its golden glades. But the shores of Lake Elrendar were particularly painted in her glory. Trees clumped close enough that the sunlight was not yellow but a soft orange as viewed through the canopies. The lake itself was large but flat and calm, the water a pale blue that you could almost imagine was tinted glass when the sun hit it right.

On the lake’s southern edge sat Farstrider Enclave. The building was old and therefore relatively modest for its modern importance - a simple open centre large enough for perhaps a hundred rangers and stairs up to two covered balconies. It had grown a forest of its own outbuildings, barracks and lookout towers, storage spaces and archery yards. At the moment, though, Sylvanas was standing on one of those balconies: supported more by magic than structure they seemed almost to float. And in front of her was Lireesa Windrunner.

Lireesa Windrunner was the very image of a ranger. Everything about her seemed designed to make those around her feel inferior - her armour was so well polished it could be used as a mirror, her posture so fine and herself so tall that Sylvanas had to crane her neck just enough for prolonged conversation to be uncomfortable. Sylvanas’ eyes were a stormy grey, but Lireesa’s were truesilver. Her hair was black as the starless sky running in shocking rivulets down her front and back. Her face was statuesque in a way that made even her daughter, vain as she knew herself to be, feel not enough. She was regal, and proud, and noble in stature and mind alike. She looked down her nose at Sylvanas and she was never sure how much of that was from their difference in height or an accurate representation of her mother’s feelings.

Sylvanas never doubted her mother loved her - not because she was never given reason to, but because doing so simply hurt too much.

But she was not really her mother in this instant. Not that she was ever really her mother; Lireesa was always the Ranger-General. But in this moment that distinction was even further pronounced. “You are Ranger-Captain now.”
“Yes, minn’da.”
“They shall grant you a squad of your own, and you shall lead them to the best of your ability.”
“Yes, minn’da.”
“Do you wish me to ensure any certain ranger’s selection?”
“No, minn’da.”
“Correct answer. If you’d said yes I’d have demoted you again. Though I suppose this means you still have not found a belon, correct?”
“Yes, minn’da.”
“Good, you haven’t time for romance in the Rangers. Now, I believe you have a party to attend downstairs.”
“Yes, minn’da.”
A slight smile broke through on her mother’s face, like a cave shaping a cliffside. “So go down there and do me proud. Dismissed, ranger.”

The two of them saluted each other, and Sylvanas went downstairs to the celebration. In her heart she felt a suffusion of warmth, the pride of her mother burning through her long after they said goodbye. It was a rare enough feeling - she would have to make it last.

She opened the hatch, and came out into the courtyard. And there, before her, was an elf.

Stood in front of her, underneath the branches of a dead tree, was her sister. For a moment there was utter stillness; and then they moved at once.