Chapter Text
Dear Mother,
I write to you with regards to certain recent events that I would rather you heard of from me, despite whatever lies between us of grievances and grief. You will most assuredly soon have the opportunity to confirm what I say from a multitude of outraged sources.
I am now a married woman, and for what it may be worth I regret not being in a position to invite you to the wedding but I assure you that you have not missed anything worth attending.
My wedding cake contained a goblin land mine but it did not matter because it rained apart before my spouse fed it to the kraken that tried to tear my ship apart. The ceremony was officiated amidst a boarding action of scores of naga.
Let me underline that I do not exaggerate however much I wish that was the case. The naga are back in force and with what purpose none can say for certain. They are every bit as vicious as the last times they have come out of the depths.
As for not exaggerating I shall have to make another such pledge when I reveal the identity of my spouse. I have married Sylvanas Windrunner, Warchief of the Horde, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken and in general a lethal and relentless foe that I strive to bind in a chain of two links. If you can find it in your heart to look beyond the acts I have committed in the past I hope that the news of a chance for peace between the Alliance and the Horde may bring some measure of comfort to Kul Tiras. If not, then you can at the very least rest assured that the Warchief will be well up to the task of making my life exquisitely miserable from now on.
Your loving daughter,
Jaina
Jaina put the finely crafted pen down and eyed the drying ink with distant, indifferent eyes.
It was almost time.
The city of Stormwind had not been her home at any point in time. Certainly she had visited the city on many occasions, and the fact that she had a permanent residence here by the courtesy of Anduin spoke clearly of, but it was not Dalaran.
Nor was it Boralus. Nor Theramore.
And how lovely still the city seemed today.
There were clear skies with just a scatter of woolly clouds. Gulls were screeching over the best pickings of whatever refuse the fishing boats would have left behind since yesterday. This was not yet a ruined day.
She walked down the stairs of the familiar too large castle with neither urgency nor delay. Delaying was pointless. She could have delayed as much as she liked. Never have gone through with this to begin with, and no one else would even have contemplated raising the ludicrous question of seeking a marital union with the Horde. Or rather not a union, for it would not be, but something of a bond to fetter this despicable Fourth War with.
Fetters indeed.
The delicate chain around her neck felt many times heavier than it should.
“Aunt Jaina.”
Anduin was waiting for her by the foot of the stairs. Out of his overgrown plate armour and out of his title as High King of the Alliance. For some brief time he would be just Anduin, and she could be his adopted and forever aunt and not the bride – no, wife, Tides preserve her – of a deranged megalomaniac of a banshee.
“You’re not…bringing any luggage?” Anduin was only half believing what he was seeing, no doubt the mark of long experience with archmages.
Jaina quirked her mouth up slightly and made a pointless theatrical gesture while she mentally called two trailing water elementals to her. Each of the huge forms carried a prodigious sea chest under either arm.
“I think we have it all.” Jaina said.
From then on they walked in silence through the keep, between bewildered guards and servants to whom water elementals were still out of the ordinary.
The streets were already busy at this early hour and she and Anduin navigated past and through the almost ordinary traffic with some difficulty before the sight of the water elementals and Anduin’s identity caused most to keep a respectful distance. Jaina walked with one eye on the surroundings and her mind half ready to let loose a half dozen defensive spells should she need it, and she knew that Anduin would never be far from channelling something similar from Light magic these days. She also knew that the discreet magical signature she had picked up from the close vicinity would be the familiar one of a certain Miss Valeera Sanguinar, with a hidden dagger or two ready for all eventualities.
All too quickly tall buildings gave way to rougher neighbourhoods, warehouses and quays. The smell of tar, salt and even old fish, the calling of gulls and dock workers alike, so refreshing in its own way. What woodenheaded imbecile would willingly exchange it for dust and blistering arid wasteland?
Out in the bay lay the bruised and battered Sea’s Daughter. She would have to be worked over for months and that was if there were docks and carpenters and materials to accommodate her in the first place. Her staying afloat was a credit to the emergency repairs already performed.
“Take care.” Jaina mouthed to her ship. “Anduin will look after you.”
Instead she turned to continue along the quays towards the down-beaten, weather-worn and cracking far end where the mercantile docks became a clutter of the fishermen’s boats and sheds and nets hung in every conceivable place to be inspected and mended.
Even further, beyond the last rickety pier, was a short stretch of sand and gravel, heaped with dried and festering kelp and accommodating the smallest and poorest, or oldest and most forgotten, crafts that made Stormwind their port.
A greying, cracking boat whose mast leaned and whose sail hung like a formless and sorry shroud of mourning was Jaina’s destination.
She found its state matching the occasion impeccably.
“I may yet be a novice in naval matters…” Anduin eyed the hull critically. “…but friends definitely don’t let their friends set sail in vessels in this state.”
“I’m sure friends don’t usually allow friends to marry murderous corpses either.” Jaina shrugged, and had great difficulty fighting off the rapidly rising melancholy settling over her. “But still here we are.”
“You could still –“
“Don’t. I could not still anything, without insulting the Horde and restarting this pointless, pathetic, wretched conflict. And you know that as well as I do even if you want it to be otherwise.”
Anduin could not find a proper retort no matter how visibly he struggled. And he knew that, and Jaina knew that he knew that, and it was all too human to want to look for a way out despite that knowledge.
“If nothing else we will give the Horde only the very worst of boats in the bargain. They won’t get to cheat themselves anything valuable in this transaction.”
“They will get to have our best archmage and aunt.”
Tides let her hold back her own tears just a few minutes longer. She cursed Sylvanas Windrunner and all there was too her yet another time, for forcing herself to say farewell and see Anduin like this. And Jaina was sure she looked just the same.
“Take good care of my ship now, and all the rest of them.” Jaina pointed to the bay but they both knew she meant the rest of the Alliance just as much. Then she could not stand to keep up the pretence any more and opened her arms wide.
“Half of them don’t know shit about what they are giving up for this.” Anduin hissed between clenched teeth.
“Language.” Jaina mumbled tenderly.
“You’re one to talk, who named her a yappy little bitch.” Anduin mumbled back, voice thick and choking.
“That fact remains a highly classified state secret.” Jaina let go of the embrace. “Stay safe, Anduin. I am very proud of you. Make this count. Make this mean something. Make this worth it.”
“Nothing is worth this…” Anduin muttered, while Jaina boarded her miserable boat and sailed off, carried by a conjured wind into an appearing portal.
***
Sylvanas Windrunner, Warchief of the Horde, awaited her wife at the Dranosh‘ar Landing just outside Orgrimmar. It was a bustling place as just about every port close to a larger city but it also held an ominous significance that for a lack of better wording was awkward. Around the landing and all along the road to the southern city gates the Darkspear offensive had laid siege to the capital when Garrosh Hellscream still defiled it with his presence. That blight upon the throne had never treated the Forsaken better than the dirt under his soles but Jaina Proudmoore and her city had suffered doubly.
Warchiefs rarely lasted long. That was a known fact.
More than once had Sylvanas envisioned the approaching enemy army coming for her, of what nations and what composition she could not tell but it mattered less. Thy would come one day for her and her Forsaken and the greater probability was that they would muster here outside the main gates if they choose a conventional approach.
With assets such as Theramore’s former archmage in their ranks they would of course be free to elect far more varied ways of approach. Unfortunately for them it would never come to that for the archmage would never live to partake in the war, whenever it came.
That was the plan.
The general idea.
Or hope.
Were it not for mere coincidence in the form of an intervening Thrall and Kalecgos some years ago this avenue of approach would very likely had been the one of an army of summoned water elementals.
Today their summoner would come without such a host and without possessing any devastating artefacts comparable to the focusing iris she had once briefly held. However much such trifling things would truly matter if it came to that.
It would not come to that. It could not be allowed to come to that and Sylvanas would ensure that it did not. She wrapped herself in shrouds of confidence and determination and banished any further errant thoughts. She had dealt with Proudmoore before and she could do so again.
And they were now married.
That particular little detail.
So when her retinue – of honour guards who had actual business being there, mixed with important people who had made up excuses to be present and satisfy their curiosity – gasped and murmured she only straightened her back and kept her expression impassive and unreadable.
A portal had appeared out of thin air just over the calm water’s surface. The calm before the storm, as humans were fond of putting it. Out of that portal sailed, on its own winds, a small vessel in seemingly decrepit state.
Jaina Proudmoore stood at the stern with her arms crossed and nudging the tiller by her knee. She looked like the epitome of an abandoned mariner at sea; forlorn, solitary, and every bit as proud as the surname she bore.
They had never discussed changing one another’s name. Funny thought. Jaina Windrunner or Sylvanas Proudmoore. It did not roll very easy off the tongue.
The greying boat came to a halt just next to the quay. Jaina stepped onto it as sure-footed as a ship’s cat without even mooring her vessel.
Sylvanas could not stop herself.
“Welcome to Dranosh’ar Landing. The mooring fee is an affordable one gold coin a day. Please see the customs office at your earliest convenience.”
The archmage of the Alliance cast her a long look. Then she turned her gaze to her boat and the water on either side of it boiled and bubbled and two huge flowing shapes of the very same rose to almost tower over it. The water elementals each hoisted two of her sea chests like humans would a light backpack and slithered, or walked, or flowed, or whatever you should call the way they moved, towards the dry land.
“Nothing to declare.” Jaina said without any engagement. “Honestly? Customs office?”
Sylvanas smirked and prepared for the expected and suitably biting comparison between Jaina’s current sorry piece of wreckage of a ship and the Sea’s Daughter, in favour of the first of course, but something about Jaina’s expression made her hesitate. Maybe things were hanging just a little bit too much by a thin thread today.
The archmage – well, her wife – spared her boat one last look and then held out her hand and made a grasping gesture with it as if taking and crumpling something in her fist.
The boat caught fire.
It was nothing natural about it, there was no smoke turning to a flame that spread gradually and ever faster. All of the thing everywhere transformed to heated embers simultaneously and a distinctly unsettling wave of heat washed over every spectator. Wood, canvas and tar turned to ash and fell apart and simply evaporated before the last skeletal pieces sank to the harbour’s bottom from the weight of the ballast of stone.
It all had an air of a funeral about it that gave Sylvanas pause. She would have put the act down to an equal part defiance – here Jaina demonstratively burned her ships, accepting her forever exile in the lands of the Horde – and niggardly denial of even the sorriest vessel to them in the bargain. Yet there was something about Jaina.
She had not crossed the sea like ordinary people. She would have come directly from one of the Alliance cities – Dalaran, or Stormwind likely – and a doubtlessly difficult goodbye. And she would not be in anything resembling an…agreeable state of mind.
Jaina was here out of duty and for the sake of the Alliance. She did not want to be here. It would be prudent to keep that firmly in mind.
So Sylvanas performed a flawless courtly bow.
“Welcome to Kalimdor, Lady Proudmoore. We are honoured by your presence.”
Kalimdor. Which was nowadays almost exclusively under Horde control after the invasion of Ashenvale.
Maybe she ought to have said Durotar instead.
Especially since the Horde conquest of the continent had included the detestable annihilation of Theramore not too many years before.
Yes, she definitely ought to have said Durotar.
“Greeting, Warchief.” Jaina said without any visible care for her choice of words. “Please lead the way.”
Sylvanas paid no heed to the rest of the company around them. They could introduce themselves tomorrow or any other day. Jaina would have all the time in the world to become introduced to the lot, if she wanted to.
Or not exactly all the time in the world but enough for that thing at the very least.
Her elementals carried the luggage a few steps behind them. The slightly formless but still very distinctive shapes – one clear blue and one dark teal – clearly made their company nervous, or possibly the as a matter of fact undeclared contents of the chests they carried.
Sylvanas dismissed those worries as insignificant. The danger was in Jaina herself, not whatever objects she was bringing with her.
“I hope that your baking skills have improved since our wedding, dear wife. Especially your seasoning has some room for improvement.” Jaina said absently as if she had heard every stray thought on the topic of worrying objects.
Well then. At least this was comparably familiar territory for the both of them.
The path to Orgrimmar’s gates was short, dusty and unremarkable. The southern gates did their very best to be anything but that. Sylvanas thought Jaina mae a small roll of her eyes as they passed through the towering – most literally – fortifications and came upon the Valley of Strength inside.
Not subtle by any standards. Orcs…
On the west side lay the Orgrimmar Embassy in the Valley of Spirits. Equally on the nose in a manner of speaking.
North the valley of wisdom – they would stop before reaching it – and northeast the Valley of Honour on its own, far removed from the rest of the city.
Sylvanas smirked at the symbolism.
And of course, Grommash Hold, situated right in the middle of anyone’s path, nose and gaze. Impossible to miss even if it had not been.
“Welcome to my picturesque little homely house!” Sylvanas spread her arms wide as they neared the stairs and overbearing entrance of the hall. “Grommash Hold.”
Jaina might as well have looked at a pebble on the road.
“Is there a Sylvanas building in the city yet?” she asked without so much as a twist to her mouth.
Sylvanas had to applaud the jab. At least Jaina’s tongue was everything Orgrimmar was not.
“In fact not. I have yet to fully put my mark on this city.” They passed through the high vaulted entrance. “Perhaps I’ll make it a stable.”
The figurative threshold of the Hold marked the end of the line for their tail of elevated hang-arounds. The looming shadows of the Warchief’s residence said ‘to here but no further’ in terms that could not be misunderstood. Unless one had a good reason for demanding her attention. Sylvanas had gone to great lengths to have that hammered into the Horde leadership.
Quiet, tip-toeing feet that still made an effort to be heard – otherwise even Sylvanas would have to strain her ears and other senses to their fullest to notice – approached from some shadowy nook by the side with familiar punctuality.
“Anya will show you to your rooms, and my staff will assist with your luggage, Lady Proudmoore.” Sylvanas said as a dozen of sombre Forsaken made their less discreet but equally punctual and precise entrance.
“Very well. Hello again, Anya.”
“Hi and welcome, Mrs. Warchief!” Anya looked with great interest at the water elementals who on Jaina’s unseen command put her sea chests down on the hall’s floor. Jaina nodded to them.
“Bye Mr. Waves! Bye Mr. Bubbles!” Anya waved to the two huge shapes and for all the formlessness to their features they both managed an impression of confusion before Jaina opened up a tall portal leading to a glittering sea somewhere far, far from Grommash Hold.
She somehow managed to emit a great sense of caring for what should presumably have been magically controlled minions. Two less beings within reach of the clutches of the Horde and perhaps free to roam the seas as they pleased. Sylvanas had no detailed knowledge of how elemental summoning worked.
Be that as it may, Sylvanas was so far pleased with her day’s work as she watched how Anya led the small procession deeper into the halls. Her wife was installed in the Hold and there had been no naga attacks yet and Orgrimmar was still standing. Now she would get on with the rest of the night’s myriad of items screaming for the Warchiefs attention.
She was not worried about Jaina making some sort of move against them. If the Alliance would do something like that it would not be this early and Jaina Proudmoore was someone who would like to reconnoitre and plan beforehand. All the better to then to take this opportunity to afford her some semblance of personal space and to show how little Sylvanas feared her, as opposed to saddling her with a dark ranger escort from the start or something of the sort.
She had barely stepped inside her own quarters and was about to close the door when Anya came running for her.
“Dark Lady!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Lady Proudmoore is seriously displeased.”
Seriously displeased. Prudent people looked for a hideout when archmages were seriously displeased. One with thick walls.
“No one counted on it happening so soon, well maybe Kitala did –“
“I do not want to hear about a single more stupid betting pool I seriously hope was a figure of speech! What the heck is this about?!”
“Lady Proudmoore’s accommodations. Or rather, their place in the Hold.”
“Belore and something else!”
Sylvanas stormed off through the building with Anya in tow to look in on her wife.
All was still standing when she arrived. Including Jaina, with her arms crossed by the door to the suite Sylvanas had allotted to her.
“Dearest wife, are your rooms satisfactory?” she asked with fake pleasantry.
“No, absolutely not.”
Sylvanas mimicked Jaina’s stance and barely moved one eyebrow a little higher.
“I am stuffed away in a remote corner of the stronghold.” Jaina accused.
“The building is round. Or at least closer to octagonal.”
“Not the point!”
“What is the point? What is it that you want, then?”
“To not be put away like some sort of…prisoner in a remote dungeon!”
“May Her Ladyship forgive us so much for not living up to the exquisite standards of Dalaranian luxury. I had thought she would appreciate not having Horde delegates running around her every day.”
“If anything of this was about what I would appreciate I would be anywhere else in anyone else’s company.” There were icy crystals forming on those words. “But I am here to play the role of wife like you are so don’t you bloody cut me out.”
“Fine! Where would Her Ladyship prefer to be quartered then?”
“Somewhere that is not the broom closet of Grommash Hold!”
“For the love of…fine then! Come on!”
Sylvanas whirled around on the spot and strode with long steps ahead of Jaina and Anya across corridors and halls up to the most guarded, most secure and also most visited part of the stronghold, being of course her own quarters.
“Here! You can have the Warchief’s private suite for all I care!” Sylvanas almost ripped out the door. “Is that close enough to the centre of events for you or will you make camp on the council table?!”
“This will do just fine! Will I have to worry about heaps of overcompensating weaponry falling over me every time I open a new wardrobe?”
“Overcompensating…?”
“As in absurdly proportioned, impractically huge and decorated over the top, yes. Just like this entire city and its inexplicable obsession with spikes and tusks in every conceivable and inconceivable place and direction. You must all have some form of serious inferiority complexes all around.”
“Like yourself then? Belated congratulations on the sure win of the crystal picking contest; it must have been a wonder at the magical harvest fare – like the biggest pumpkin or turnip.” Sylvanas jabbed back. “And the tools of my trade get the job done well enough, like you ought to remember…”
She stopped herself from all but running her thumb along her dagger. What in the blazes were they doing? Sylvanas made a mental effort to collect herself.
“Will I be allowed to remove my admittedly sparse personal effects first, or do you wish to pry and ogle them too since you so insist on sticking your nose into strange people’s private matters?”
Somewhere behind her Sylvanas thought she could hear a strangled kind of yelp, or squeak, from Anya.
“Maybe wives should not remain strangers?” the dark ranger whispered theatrically.
“Of course you should remove what is yours first.” Jaina huffed. “I could not care less about your things – take all the time you need, it is not like I have anything better to do nowadays anyway.”
Sylvanas stormed inside, almost feeling like bursting into her banshee form, and angrily begun to snatch up her personal things from here and there.
They were few. She had rarely thought about how few they were. The important and secret items that belonged to her were in her study, not these rooms for rest and recreation that she used so little. It was not even a home to her; she just had to be here to do her job.
Just like Jaina.
She paused, wondering why that thought had come into her mind. She should be angry with Jaina Proudmoore, shouldn’t she? Wasn’t she? That irritating shipload of snark and obnoxiousness and…
Why HAD she quartered Jaina in the opposite…direction of her own rooms?
To keep some private sphere for herself no doubt. If not a home, then an undisturbed corner for herself. And until the right time it would be easier to keep watch over the archmage and prevent any premature assassination attempts if she was in a wing – well, you might call it a folded wing given the shape of the building – of her own. Probably.
Did she even care that much where Jaina stayed? Apart from these practical concerns that were honestly not of vital importance?
Damn it.
Deeming that she had gathered up everything she did not want Jaina to nose about, Sylvanas left to deposit it all in more secure locations.
“Stay out of my study.” she hissed when passing Jaina. “I mean it.”
“No worries. The less I will have to see of you the better.”
“You just insisted on moving in here!” Sylvanas shook her head and refocused herself. They just had to get this over with. “Would you like your luggage brought up now?”
“Thank you, but I have that taken care of.” Jaina replied coldly.
She snapped her fingers nonchalantly and her chests floated on evaporating water streams through a portal and deposited themselves neatly on the floor.
“The Hold is supposed to be warded against teleportation spells…” Sylvanas muttered a little awkwardly.
Jaina waved it away most dismissively.
“Oh, I am sure your mages are trying their very best.” Her condescending tone was positively corrosive. “Inform them and anyone else concerned that I will keep a tighter regimen, and that unauthorized entry into my private quarters would be…inadvisable.”
With a resounding clicking of the lock she closed the door in Sylvanas’ face.
Sylvanas looked dejectedly at their mostly unnoticed spectator in the form of Anya, who looked back nervously.
“Not a word.” Sylvanas sighed.
“Has she had her coffee yet?” Anya asked in a frightened voice.
***
Bloody insufferable banshee queen.
Jaina looked for something to throw at the innocent door for good measure but gave it up. She was already well into acting the part of the proverbial ill-tempered wife of every stupid hundred-page romance novel without resorting to tossing objects around.
Besides, mages tossed fireballs and ice lances.
Jaina sank down on the edge of the bed.
Why was she so angry with Sylvanas? As in angry here and now?
Sylvanas was Sylvanas. That was reason enough. It was her fault Jaina had to be here, that they were in this pathetic, wretched, stupid situation in the first place. And she was an aggravating, yappy, little bitch!
Jaina was well on her way of acquiring a splitting headache, and a shoulder ache, and a back ache and a whatever-ache and she was behind with her stretching routines but that would have to wait to be a joyful occasion to look forward to in the evening or what would have been evening back in Stormwind.
Hurray…
What to do now? Unpack, maybe. Check how many spike traps and severed heads there were hidden further inside the dwelling. Was there a bathroom by the way?
Yes, apparently it was as it turned out, though decidedly not very used.
Right, no living Warchief to use it…
Otherwise, Jaina would grudgingly have to concede that it was surprisingly luxurious and spacey, if overbearing like everything else of the Horde. Smooth giant horns or tusks or something, without so much as a trace of a splinter anywhere, and smooth rocks plucked from a river formed a very inviting pool while pot plants that could thrive on low light added a verdant touch. She could inspect it all the more later. There would be many a pointless hour to pass from now on.
Drearily, Jaina begun to unpack. She threw out some spare robes and indifferently took out a long saved bottle of Kul Tiran whiskey that should honestly have been opened on a happier occasion long ago.
She glumly toasted her own reflection in a full length – meaning it was taller than herself – mirror on one of the walls near the bed and drained the glass in one drink.
“Welcome to your new home, Mrs. Warchief...”
***
Sylvanas’ study was no longer the meagre but dependable refuge it had been.
She could not bring herself to put pen to paper.
Could Jaina listen in on her through the walls? See through them, in some unbelievable way that should have been as impossible as sidestepping the magical wards in place like they were no more trouble than a thistle by the roadside?
If she could, then would proximity matter? Why would it matter, really?
Jaina’s powers of the overwhelming but clearly known kind were much more preferable to worry about. Sylvanas would take an honest ice storm any day than all of these potentials and probabilities.
She put the blank paper away and wondered if she was really cut out to play this charade for even a short time. How short, though? She could honestly not say for sure. But if the end of it did not come way sooner than expected, and way sooner than the Horde really needed, it would surely prove trying.
Could they not do even introductions properly?
Was Jaina setting them up for failure or were they both, really, such overwhelming failures at civility all by themselves?
She would find no answers seated by her desk.
She would however find worse things, or so she expected.
The pearly scroll had been shining for some time. Regardless of her paranoia it was too important to avoid looking into and too sensitive to share with anyone else.
Sylvanas held up her cloak as an imagined kind of cover but then thought better of it. Cloth would not suffice where massive walls did not. She opened one of the secret compartments and took out the elaborately crafted and strange means of communication. She could make an educated guess about the general message.
Reading through it still filled her with black fuming ire. The gall of that unknown correspondent. Though not completely unknown given recent events.
And now she at last deigned to reveal herself.
Sylvanas had to stop herself from crumpling or tearing the scroll to pieces.
To Queen Sylvanas Windrunner, with my compliments
Recent events force me to question whether our goals still align, Your Majesty. Did we not have the quarry that we seek, I to obtain and you to remove, within our grasp?
Perhaps my direct measures took you and yours so unawares that Your Majesty forgot her priorities?
I resolve myself to put faith into our bargain for one last attempt and I call upon Your Majesty to do the same. I would deem it unfortunate if I was forced to resort to cruder measures to obtain what I seek.
Azshara, Eternal Queen