Hello there. A friend of mine asked me to write a Lor'themar and Jaina short story after what happened between them on the Isle of Thunder when Taran Zhu called everyone out on their BS. Personally, I don't think this pairing would ever work out for many reasons, but I suppose it's not completely impossible so I decided to give it a go. It's certainly an interesting thought and I haven't come across any stories on this pairing so far, not that I've honestly been looking. Neither has my friend, however, until now :)

I'm going to be honest, this is a tough one to write. I usually work with my own OCs, actually this is my first time for any of my stories- unpublished or otherwise- to be working with canon characters. Plus, I really ship Lor'themar with Sylvanas, or even better Liadrin, and Jaina with Thrall or Arthas, so I'm not quite as enthused about the pairing as a writer should be.

I should also note that chapters will be rated M in the future and when we reach that point I will be changing the entire story's rating to M, so you'll find it there.

Anyway, please enjoy this story, and for anyone reading Assimilation and wondering where I've been, I got into a car crash that has taken some time to recover from, both physically and mentally. I will update soon, don't worry!

I don't own anything in the Warcraft universe, I just mess with things I shouldn't. ._.

Waves pounded against the shore and for once Lor'themar found himself at peace. With each swell the responsibilities that came with being Regent Lord were washed away. Rommath's nagging, Halduron's pestering, Sylvanas's dark requests of him, Garrosh's blatant use of his people- All of it lost in the tumbling waves below.

He was left with a stunning emptiness and for the first time since Pandaria's discovery he was able to take a calm, clear breath. Often he felt that people forgot he was just a person anymore. Even the attendants that doted over him to an almost uncomfortable degree back in the Sunspire seemed to forget that while he was the Regent Lord of Quel'thalas, he was also a man and he was no different from any other in his needs.

He had found, lately, that more than anything else, he needed a break. He needed moments like this one where his head was clear and he could just revel in existing without worry. Moments where he could be alone, without guards standing at his back, without Rommath watching his every move, without Halduron fretting over the recent death threats he'd been receiving.

He closed his eye and turned his face into the wind. He let it fill his ears, cold and sharp, and fought the urge to open his eye and check his surroundings. Even now, while trying to have a moment where he didn't need to have his guard up, he was unable to fully relax. He sighed and removed his gloves to rub his face.

Damn it all, Lor'themar thought, I am going to make the most of this moment… He brought the hand on his face up to let loose his hair, an odd sense of relief and freedom flooding him as the wind whipped the white strands about, no doubt tangling them. A rather daring, rebellious, foolish thought came to him then. Piece by piece he shed his armor. Layer by layer it fell into a heap at his feet. He kicked off his boots and yanked away his socks as an afterthought.

At last he sat in only his breeches and shirt, a giddy sense of satisfaction overwhelming him. Slowly, steadily, and perhaps a bit nervously, he laid back against the dark stones on which he'd been sitting. He felt them, cold and damp through his thin undershirt, pressing into the muscles of his back. He let his lungs fill with fresh, salty air and his skin prickle under the intensity of the wind and spray of the waves.

Yes, he was only elven. Just a man, a man who had apparently been reduced to sneaking away like a youngling. And for what? Shame bit at him as he thought of Halduron and Rommath. Both of whom were probably going mad with worry if they'd noticed his absence, and they had to have by now.

Selfishness reared its head, red and ugly, and stole him away again, appealing to the desperate elf who hadn't even wanted this position in the first place, who had done all this solely for his battered, shellshocked people. But all he asked was a few hours of peace, minutes even, uninterrupted.

Oh how he wished, sometimes, to throw away the title of Regent Lord. He was so sick of people chasing after him like lost puppies. Lord Theron, this or Lord-Regent, that. He'd been tired of people pushing for him to take the throne, once. Now he was bombarded with advisors and self-serving Lords and Ladies who sought to pair him with their daughters and produce an heir. An heir to what exactly, he wanted to ask them. He was no king, he had taken no throne, just as he'd vowed. And as if he'd doom his own child to a fixed fate, one not of their own choosing. Enough, Enough, Enough-

A raindrop splattered onto his forehead and broke the turmoil in his head. He remembered once more why he was here, lying exposed and armorless on the rocky shore of the Isle of Thunder, of all places! He'd come here to escape it all just to be sabotaged by himself.

The rain trickled down his face and he shut his remaining eye yet again. He'd lost himself in the wrong direction, perhaps if he just went back to listening to the waves he could grasp at the peace he was so desperate to attain.

He did just that, closed his eye and let himself listen. The waves were rhythmic, pulling and pounding, hitting the shore with such force that he could feel it in the rocks against his back. Once he'd found the soft grasses of Eversong to be his relief, now he had a new haven that was nearly the former's opposite in every way. How funny life could be, how vastly an elf could change in just a decade…

He let the cold numb his fingers, allowed the rain to continue to sprinkle over him, each drop coming a little faster than the last. It would truly begin to rain soon, pour as it usually did. He found that he didn't care.

"Let the storms come…" His whispered challenge was swept away by the wind.

Time was nonexistent as he lay there, still as death under the wind's scrutiny. Cold gnawed at his skin and stung his heart, filling him with the familiarity of the wilderness. He recalled distant memories in which he was simply a ranger, his time spent in the trees, the wind in his hair and two eyes to see with, a cold- much like this one- that both chilled and exhilarated him.

He took openmouthed breaths, gasping for the cool air of his memories, longing to resurrect those days. Days spent with a much younger, much less serious Liadrin. Memories of the Sylvanas that was.

A shadow swept over his heart at the thought of compatriots lost and friends mourned, and most especially of people changed. Those days would never return. He hummed his sadness into the wind.

Something shuffled against the rocks behind him, then, a foot scraping against the stone and his eye opened as another shadow, literal this time, stepped over him. He found himself staring up into the face of yet another very changed woman.

Proudmoore...

It was wrong of her to do this. Jaina knew, yet couldn't help but to do it anyway. After everything she'd been through in these past months she deserved a moment at rest, yes? The bottle of conjured wine in her hand certainly agreed with her. She glanced down at it, thankful and spiteful toward its presence all at once.

This was incredibly stupid. Stupid, dangerous, foolhardy, thoughtless- All of those other words that didn't seem to matter to her alcohol addled brain. Vereesa would tell her that she shouldn't be out here stumbling over the rocks along the edge of the treeline against the shore, in the rain no less, and alone. She stopped, leaning against a tree for another drink. Hadn't she earned the right to wander on her own? Had she not yet proven to them that she could handle herself just fine?

Shouting from behind her answered that question. No, apparently, she had not. They, meaning mostly Vereesa, had already taken note of her absence. With a sigh she eyed a spot further up the coast, a point that stuck out defiantly against the tumbling waves. Closing her eyes she focused her magic, a bit worried she wouldn't stick the landing in her current state, and teleported.

She took a relieved drink when she opened her eyes again. She'd landed the spell just fine, only a hundred yards or so further down the coast, quite a bit off. She made a mental note not to teleport drunk anymore, but least she wasn't in the water, she supposed.

She continued to walk, further and further from the stress of the Silver Covenant and Kirin Tor soldiers who were actively intent on hunting her down. She glared bitterly back in their direction. She was tired of escorts and guards. She was tired of pouring over attack plans and missives from Pandaria's mainland. She was tired of Varian's letters, tired of Vereesa's sullen eyes, tired to death of Garrosh.

The bottle was empty when her lips sought another drink, this time. She threw it against the rocks with a smash, the sound barely heard over the roar of the sea. She stopped to listen, delaying casting another bottle into existence. Someone would have to cut her off, anyway, and there wasn't anyone else around to do it.

This time her sigh was one of comfort. She stepped further away from the trees, mindful of the rocky edge and the water below, to feel the wind on her skin. It billowed her robes and swept her hair away from her face. She found solace in the sound of the crashing waves, remembering fond days in Theramore. She thought of the other moments of escape she'd taken, much like this one, on the shores where the marsh met the sea. The environment of this island wasn't too different from her marsh, really…

The nostalgia bit chunks from her heart. She longed for her tower, for the golden days of books and diplomacy and long nights planning for a future that might be worth fighting for. All of that was gone, now and forever, but the greatest loss had been the people. Kinndy and Rhonin…

Herself.

She had lost herself. She'd lost the woman who thought that peace with the Horde was possible, who held optimism and hope, who fought for diplomacy. She'd lost her curiosity and the last shreds of her youth when Garrosh bombed her city. She'd thought that betraying her father had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, that turning her back on Arthas had been monumentally difficult. But now she knew that when all of this was over and done with, when Garrosh was dead and gone, when the lives unfairly taken were avenged- the hardest thing would be to move on.

She knew this because already she being pushed to do so. She almost feared the day when Garrosh met justice. Where would she next turn? Would she suffer as Maiev had when she finally felled Illidan? Already Kalec pushed for her to forgive the Horde, pushed for her to readmit the Sunreavers. But how could he ask this of her? He was there when her city was destroyed, he knew her reasons for expelling them after what happened with the Divine Bell.

No one understood, not even her Kalec. She'd begun to wonder if they would last after all… She had hoped, but her hope had been fading so quickly-

-Until recently.

Words from only days ago echoed through Jaina's head. "It ends today. Here! The cycle ends when you, Regent Lord, and you, Lady Proudmoore, turn from one another. And walk. Away."

She remembered the narrowing of his eyes, the breaths she took, and then his words, "Rangers. Lower your weapons."

And her own, "Very well. We will stand down." She remembered Vereesa's anguish and, for once, feeling uncertain about her own pain. "This won't bring him back…"

"But know this, Blood Elf: There can be no peace while Hellscream is Warchief of the Horde."

"That is precisely why I wish to conserve our strength today." His response had intrigued her, rattled her even, clearing away the fog of hatred that had so clouded her. It still lingered, as fog always does, but no longer did it obscur her so.

In its place was confusion.

"Lady."

"Lord."

Since then there'd been something of a truce. Time would tell how long it lasted, but for a moment as they turned from one another to watch over their two peoples, there had been but a flash of the hope for diplomacy that the Jaina of OId had striven for.

Perhaps this was why she was so distraught today, because she'd had a taste of what she'd loss, it had ghosted over her the way memories of Arthas used to before his final fall. And now that she'd been reminded of the feeling, she missed it more than ever. What a shame that this was how things had turned out, that this had become of Jaina Proudmoore and her dreams…

She stared at her feet as she continued her trek toward the point, watching her every step, both out of fear that she may fall and the need to let her mind still as she focused on the task at hand. She did not see the still figure lying upon the rocks until she had rounded the point and was almost upon him. It was just as she was about to summon forth another bottle of wine that she looked up and saw him, white hair fanned out against the grey stones, a pile of red armor beside him, feet disappearing over the edge of the rocks to where they dangled over the waves. The spell died on her fingertips.

He was so still that she wondered if this elf were dead, but as curiosity and alcohol urged her ever closer she could see, squinting against the wind, that his chest rose and fell in deep breaths, as though he were sleeping. But surely not one could sleep in such a place. Just who was this elf…

The red armor screamed Sin'dorei, it was certainly nothing like the blue of the Silver Covenant troops, nor was it anything like the purple robes of the Kirin Tor. So why did she dare edge closer?

She emerged fully from around the corner, step by step, knowing that this was perhaps the stupidest thing she'd done so far on this wayward, drunken journey. Logic battled the wine in her veins and for a moment she was tempted to turn back. But then, as she looked at him now, close enough to call to him over the wind and waves, she recognized the elf before her. She could see, now, his armor in detail and noticed his sword lying discarded beside it. She now saw the scar peeking out from beneath the patch that covered his ruined left eye.

The Lord himself… She could hardly believe her own two working eyes. She stumbled over her shock and curiosity, slipping on the stones as she stared down at him. She froze, now standing right over him, as his ears twitched and his eye opened.

Damn my curiosity!