A/N: hello, dear readers! Welcome to the final full length story of mine featuring my two mains, Cecilia and Khujand. Let me state up front that you do NOT need to read my other stories for this one to make sense. Of course, I'd love it if you chose to read them, but I won't force you to. Everything you need to know in terms of background information will either be contained in the narrative here or explained in the paragraph below.
There are some time skips in this story: chapters 1 - 6 take place in the year 33 on the Warcraft timeline; chapters 7 and 8 take place in the year 36; chapters 9 - 11 take place in the year 39; and chapter 12 takes place in the year 51. For perspective, keep in mind that the Warlords of Draenor expansion occurred in year 31 according to most counts. Enjoy!
Astranaar had become quite the busy city those days. Every other day, it seemed as if another one of the tall, hollowed out tree houses was being raised by the local Cenarion Circle representative, once again marking the gradual increase in night elf population after the loss of immortality. The structures were an efficient way of housing people: reaching three or four stories high, they provided a surprising amount of privacy due to the soundproof walls, and they also added other levels to the city itself: branches often grew from one tree into another, creating aerial walkways where much of the city's social life took place. Rope bridges attached other dwellings to one another, and multiple families could live inside of a single tree. Without any need to actually expand the island that the city was situated on, Astranaar's population had already tripled beyond what it had been during the Long Vigil, turning it into an urban area that rivaled many of the human and orc cities that had formed trading hubs.
While Cecilia didn't actually live in Astranaar, her biannual visits to her sister's household there were always pleasant ones. During the Vigil, the place had been one of a handful of true cities that the Sentinel faction had held, a strong contrast to the numerous small groves and hamlets that most of the night elven population inhabited. Even after their people's entrance into the Alliance (one that Cecilia was still hoping would be only temporary), the city had retained a more traditional flair not seen in a number of other settlements, right down to the very architecture that was technically in violation of Alliance safety regulations. Traditional Kaldorei rules were in effect, and even the worgen and draenei who'd made their homes there often wore night elf style civilian clothes when not adventuring.
Not that Cecilia didn't enjoy Ratchet, the goblin port city where she and her husband lived...but being a twelve thousand year old night elf who'd seen their society from the very beginning, she had a certain appreciation for her people's culture. Those trips she took there twice a year were generally the busiest and most fun of her regular vacations from work.
If only she had the energy to get up out of her chair this time.
She looked down at her belly, feeling her unborn child kick again. The duality of having been a warrior of the night for so long and then taking to the idea of being a mother so easily might appear strange to some, but to her, it was time. Immortality had ended, and night elves born before the Sundering like her had started to die of old age; her biological clock was ringing like a foghorn. As she hummed lightly to her little companion, she measured the distance from her naturally grown lawn chair to the back door of her sister's treehouse. Since the family was older and more established, her sister had her own tree entirely to herself, granting Cecilia plenty of privacy in her last month of pregnancy. But that cozy little grassy yard between the back of her house and those of the neighbors suddenly looked like an enormous, gaping valley.
"Don't worry, mama will get up and eat now," she whispered to her son who would soon come into the world.
For much of the pregnancy, her cravings had been rather mild: a simple hankering for ice cream at times, a moderate desire for pomegranates at others. Fortunately, her husband's doting and borderline clingy nature had led him to bring her whatever she wanted. Under normal circumstances, she'd refuse to be coddled in such a way - a warrior doesn't so easily allow themselves to become pampered. Under her current circumstances, however, she was more than willing to allow just a little bit of pampering when it was available.
"Up we go," Cecilia grunted as she braced herself against a large stone used as a small table in the backyard. At roughly the last week of the average length of pregnancy for a night elf, her usual fatigue had increased by leaps and bounds, and she felt as if she was carrying a mountain giant on her back. "Here we go, here we go," she repeated quietly as she just stood for a moment to keep her balance.
The feeling was uncomfortable for a former sentinel; concepts such as balance, weight and leverage were their lifeblood. When she'd retired permanently from adventuring two years ago, she'd felt no remorse when entering the civilian lifestyle. She'd retained most, though not all, of her former dexterity into retirement, and had still lived her life based on the assumption that she was an agile person in tune with her surroundings. Pregnancy changed that, and as fun as she found observing the subtle changes in her body as she brought a new life into the world, she still couldn't get used to her stunning lack of energy.
After taking the first step toward the back door of the tree house, she stopped and started measuring the distance...there were at least six more steps remaining.
"Gosh darn it," she muttered, not wanting to actually cuss when her unborn son could hear her. He wouldn't understand or remember, of course, but she just didn't feel right talking like that.
She lifted her foot, ignoring the fact that it felt like lead, and set it down in front of her. Unnoticeable to all but her, her shoulders swayed a hair's length outside of the imaginary box she always kept her ankles, knees, hips and shoulders inside of when marching. A mild sense of panic gripped her for a moment; she didn't enjoy the lack of precision in her movements at all. Taking a moment to feel steady again, she tapped into her patience and took a deep breath.
The second step felt a little more stable, but was agonizingly slow. The third step drained much of the energy she'd regained from moonbathing on the chair, and she felt a sudden drag only halfway to the back door. As if gravity itself had increased, she could feel her knees begging her to just sit down there in the grass and sleep, and her patience waned in frustration at her lack of energy. She'd slept for over fifteen hours the day prior...how could she feel drained this quickly?
I guess this is what it means to be twelve thousand years old, she joked to herself internally. Just another week or so...another week and she'd be able to hold a piece of life she'd brought into the world. She'd hold a part of herself and her husband in her arms and finally start to raise the family she'd waited for so many millennia to have.
And, hopefully, she'd stop feeling so gosh darn tired all the time.
Screw it, she'd been relatively independent for all those other months. "Khujand!" she called to her husband, breaking her own rule and asking help for what was only the fourth time during her entire pregnancy.
Though inside the house, she could easily sense him coming. Not only did his footsteps thud - he was heavyset by the standards of the Darkspear, his tribe - but her senses of hearing and smell had also amplified times one hundred. In a matter of seconds he'd emerged, pushing the tarp away to reveal his sky blue hide and scarlet mane. The color contrast somehow stood out in her vision even more when she was pregnant, pushing her near sensory overload. Thankfully, he was always so eager to spoil her that he leapt at an opportunity where she wasn't resisting it, and helped her walk the rest of the way into her sister's house without engaging in serious conversation that she didn't have the energy for.
A mixture of affection and concern washed over his face. "I finally get ta help ya again," he chuckled in his fluent if accented Darnassian.
He led her to a pile of cushions and blankets that always seemed to permanently occupy the center of her sister's house. "Only sometimes," she laughed and huffed at the same time. Suddenly, the cushions looked very inviting, and she found herself easing into a sitting position once again after only a small bit of walking. "Goddess, I haven't gone for a hike in a week," she lamented as Khujand joined her sister at the side of the circular home used as a kitchen again.
"You'll get plenty of physical activity when you travel to the birthing compound tomorrow," her sister Unelia chortled while engaging in her never ending quest to dust off everything in the house at least twice a day. "There's nothing to worry about there."
"I'm still a bit nervous about going...honey, are there any slices of pie left?"
Khujand immediately began pulling pieces of a blueberry pie out of the household's cold storage dugout. "Comin' right up!"
"Thank you so much, dear!" she chirped at him before turning back toward her sister. "But the birthing compound...I'm still nervous."
"It's fine, I swear. Elindir II was born there, and it was a wonderful experience back then," Unelia replied, referring to her second child. "They've known you'd be coming for a year, I've been writing them updates on your condition, they expect you to be there tomorrow...and once you arrive, there will likely be a volunteer right at the flight point to show you around."
"And, what..." Cecilia stopped herself before she discussed her husband in his presence.
There were numerous benefits and quirks to being in an interracial relationship; she especially hoped that the mix of cultures would enrich the lives of their children. Another potential benefit was a language barrier that could prevent the other partner from listening in on occasionally uncomfortable discussions. Unfortunately, Khujand was nearly a savant when it came to the language issue: whereas Cecilia spoke eight languages because she was twelve millennia old, Khujand simply had a knack for such skills. His Darnassian was far better than his Orcish, so there was simply no way to engage in conversation in front of him in her own language.
But she knew her husband was sensitive, and might feel bad if she openly talked about the race issue in front of him. Taking a deep breath, she reached into the back of her mind and switched her thoughts to Ursine, the language of the furbolg.
"And what about your brother in law, here?" she asked in the language of the bear people. Though his ears pricked up, he continued sifting through the drawer of napkins and plates to bring her a snack and didn't ask questions.
Being even more ancient than Cecilia herself, Unelia was able to quickly code switch to the very different language, as well as discern the reason why. "Look, they agreed to allow him inside the compound back when I first asked nearly a year ago. I'm sure there will be some complaints, just like every place he goes for the first time, unfortunately. Oh...and, uh, they mentioned that the resident druid might accompany your hubby as a 'guide.' Which I'm guessing means chaperone."
"Here you go, dear," Khujand interjected while handing Cecilia two pieces of the pie on a plate.
"Thank you so much!" she said in Darnassian as she accepted the plate and quickly inhaled the first few bites of pie.
As if he'd understood the privacy of the conversation when they'd code switched, Khujand went out the front door and walked up the ramp that led to the second floor of the treehouse. Unelia's children each had rooms up there, as well as Elindir I, the uncle of both sisters. At fourteen thousand years old, he was one of the oldest living night elves; his advice was widely sought after by younger druids, but his health had also started to fail, as was the case with many of his generation.
Pushing her worries about their uncle from her head and resigning herself to accepting the fact that he was at least surrounded by a caring family, Cecilia tried to focus on her more immediate issue - the birthing compound she and her husband would be flying to tomorrow.
"So basically they want to have someone follow Khuj around in case he's actually a Horde spy? That really doesn't sound like Raene at all," Cecilia said in regard to the founder of the birthing compound, a certain local notable by the name of Raene Wolfrunner.
"No, I don't think that's it," Unelia retorted. "I spoke to Raene about it about to months ago."
Cecilia stopped wolfing down the pie briefly enough to raise one of her long, gradually greying eyebrows that she dyed azure. "Face to face? You didn't mention that at all."
"I know, and I meant to, but honestly the house has been so busy ever since you guys arrived that I haven't been able to actually sit down with you."
"So what did she say?"
"Basically, the comfort and calmness of the mommies if the most important thing there. I remember when I went there for Elindir II's birth; everything was so tranquil. That was really the best part."
Cecilia frowned. "I know that politics have caused problems, but is our society so two faced that they can accept joining all the Light worshippers in the Alliance and even letting death knights reside in our lands, but a member of the most civilized of all troll tribes will upset the families?" she asked sincerely, her disappointment in her voice apparent even to her own ears.
"No, listen. It's not like that. Raene agreed to allow Khuj to stay like any other daddy, remember? She seemed reserved about it when I spoke to her, but she absolutely wouldn't ever refuse. So I don't think she's worried about Khuj herself; she just knows that some of the new mothers might get their protective instincts triggered tenfold and become stressed at the sight of someone they associate with a general stereotype. It's Raene's job to ensure that the mothers are informed of their new stage in life, not to educate all of them on racial tolerance. And even if she made the latter her job, I really don't think that she could."
Sighing deeply, Cecilia simply didn't have the energy to delve into philosophical arguments. "I guess I can see the logic behind her decision...I'm just disappointed that Kaldorei can accept the fact that the Shadowtooth, one of the most primitive tribes of dark trolls, pledged allegiance to the Sentinel banner but then bristle at a member of the Darkspear, a jungle troll tribe widely represented in the Cenarion Circle." Finishing off the last piece of her pie after just a few minutes, she spoke with a bit of the crust still in her mouth. "It's such a blatant contradiction."
"All societies are full of contradictions. In fact, that's really what a society is: a series of organized contradictions. Just look at how popular opinion on allowing the highborne reentry into our cities changes at least twice a year."
"Yeah...I suppose so..."
Unelia finished her feather dusting, and the two of them sat on the cushions in the center of the room for a few minutes while Cecilia picked at pie crumbs. A sort of comfortable silence settled in between the two of them, a microcosm of the taxing month they'd both shared after Cecilia and Khujand both took forty days vacation from their jobs back in Ratchet in order to spend the last month of her pregnancy at Unelia's household. Ever the diligent host, the older sister had exhausted herself while essentially caring for both their uncle and Cecilia herself, while Cecilia simply felt exhausted all the time from pregnancy. Being even older, Unelia herself had faced late life pregnancy, and knew how physically tiring the experience could be. Their husbands did their best, of course, always playing with Unelia's two children and keeping the sister and brother duo occupied so that both sisters could actually review the birthing books Raene had sent to them.
But it was still a tiring trip, as had been the entire year, comparatively speaking. Cecilia wanted a family so bad...to raise children was the crowning achievement of her twelve millennia. That didn't meant, however, that she couldn't admit to feeling a bit of fatigue, or lean on her husband a bit toward the end.
Footsteps from upstairs broke her out from what she realized had been an impromptu nap. Two pairs of feet vibrated on the ramp that wound its way around the treehouse's trunk, one of them the familiar heaviness of her husband and the other one entirely unfamiliar. The fact that such a familiar face went along with such an unfamiliar gait was unsettling, and an aching reminder of how little time the night elves of her generation had left.
Uncle Elindir, the first Elindir, was heard before he was seen. "I have a feeling that the blueberry pie is all gone," the jolly old druid chortled as he poked his head inside of the tarp covering the front door.
"Good evening, uncle Eli; I was wondering where you were!" Cecilia exclaimed, watching her reflection in the black sunglasses he wore everywhere.
Khujand didn't even bother poking his own head inside, and the fact that Elindir I was holding his white cane signaled that the two of them were likely going to follow Unelia's husband and children to the library, where they'd departed to less than an hour ago. The cane's red tip only added to the reminder of dwindling time, even as the druid's indigo hair - the natural color of the family, unlike Cecilia's azure dye - still looked silky and youthful.
"Oh, I've been moving about. There's always so much to be done...ack..."
Her uncle then proceeded to hack deeply in his throat, nearly choking as he cleared it out. He bristled as if the act had caused him physical pain, which caused Cecilia to grimace. Since he couldn't see her do so, she had largely lost her normal elven restraint when around him, and Unelia winced at Cecilia grimacing at Elindir I bristling.
"Uncle, please chew on the herbs!" Unelia said, referring to a treatment the man had often dispensed to locals for throat problems yet rarely ever took himself despite his failing health.
"Yes, of course, dears," he relied while walking straight into the house and the kitchen without feeling his way around. In a matter of seconds, he'd reached for the correct drawer, found the correct herbal concoction and began chewing on it, leaving the front door again unassisted. "We shouldn't be out that long," he said as he left.
"We'll need to start preparing lunch before midnight; you're going to love it tonight!" Unelia called after him as his unassisted footsteps thumped on the stairs leading down from the front porch.
"Everybody loves eatin' here!" Khujand called back toward the house. By the sound of his voice, the two of them were already a good distance away and soon enough they disappeared from earshot.
Drowsiness poked at Cecilia again, amazing her by how much she always felt like sleeping. Though the books that Raene had sent to her mentioned how tired she'd be - especially when pregnant in an advanced age - to actually experience the fatigue was quite the ordeal. Before she could drift off again, her sister's voice grounded her.
"Uncle is getting worse," Unelia remarked, her voice low and a bit melancholy, which was unusual for the Sisterhood of Elune volunteer who was almost always either upbeat and cheery or simply subdued and reserved.
Snapping right awake at the mention of a sensitive subject, Cecilia sighed and opened her eyes. "He goes through cycles; that's just how life functions," she replied, though more to herself than her sister.
"I hope you're right..."
"Well, I'm right that life functions in cycles," Cecilia chortled, finding the sheer power of will to smile when such an uncomfortable subject was brought up. "Uni, I'm supposed to give birth within a week up to another week beyond that, possibly."
Immediately understanding, Unelia looked a bit contrite. "Yes, there are more imminent issues to worry about, I suppose." She reached over to give her sister's hand a squeeze. "You're going to do great. The birthing compound is a safe and amazing place; you'll see."
"I hope you're right," Cecilia replied in good humor, mimicking her sister's lighter voice as she repeated the line.
The last thing she could remember before nodding off to sleep again was the sensation of her son kicking inside of her belly.