1
Illidan preferred his mornings to be uneventful.
You know, just wake up after an eventful night of stewing in his own self-pity and proceeding to adjourn to a chamber full of beautiful blood elf ladies to—no, not that—go into a babbling tirade about how he was betrayed and completely blameless for all of—well, most of what happened in the past several years; this nightly event often ended in the young blood elf mistresses looking no more ruffled than when the night began as the great Lord of Outland collapsed in a blithering pile of wings and horns. This tradition was why the Chamber of Mortal Desires became The Chamber of Impromptu Therapeutic Sessions—to the chagrin of the blood elf ladies.
But there were the heroes—the heroes that sought to vanquish all evil, and then proceeded to camp out evil's rezzing grounds and annoy the mana outta Illidan, literally. The demon-elf damned himself to where there was no relative obscurity in the dark confinements of a prison cell. His prison was not truly physical, but he still languished like a malnourished pet.
He knew that Kil'jaedan the Deceiver would never make him pay, torment him past his threshold, push him to the brink—because this was it: Illidan's punishment. This was his hell.
"Where are Vashj and Kael'thas?" Illidan asked. There was a committee meeting the Betrayer simply couldn't miss, though he wished he didn't have to peer at a long table of thick-browed blood elf women, only to realize that they were actually of the same gender as he.
They shuffled and coughed, unaccustomed to their master adorning a faded, very large bathrobe and torn slippers with smiling Pandarens on the top. Nor were they used to thef undignified mopings, as the council was so accustomed to the undignified tantrums of Illidan Stormrage.
"They're, uh, incapacitated, sire," Raelon, the treasurer of Sunfire Point, replied. "There was a, uh-hum, 'major wipe' of our forces in their domains."
"Humph, figures." The demon-elf could just imagine Kael flipping back a golden lock and requesting that his countenance be spared of a brutal "tanking," whatever the hell that was. How was Illidan supposed to keep up with the latest terms when he was chained up and his only, hmm, "company" often stared at him in a conflicted manner or paced in front of his prison murmuring obscenities?
And Vashj—well, nobody cared really. Kael often lamented on she being the only naga woman in the good ol' days that did not show her breasts in full glory.
The sole difference between the temporary losses of his two greatest-ranking subordinates was that nobody cared if Vashj was gone and everybody was happier with Kael gone.
After that announcement, there was talk of population densities and other such nonsense. Apparently, more heroes were moving on to Northrend to fight a raid boss that might actually put up a fight and, you know, be a badass and stuff and give the heroes a faint sense of accomplishment and not abject disappointment.
Well, good for them, Illidan thought. Maybe they could feel agony akin to his agony at the hands of Arthas—and maybe they'd stop bothering him. It was a pain to keep having blood elves retrieve his blades when some poor sucker that looted him stumbled and fell off a tree in Terokkar.
And there were, of course, frequent interjections in the course of the meeting questioning Illidan's lucidity and mental state in the wariest and utmost respectful ways.
These conversations often led to Illidan grumbling incoherently as he clutched his horned, hideous head and asked wearily, "Why would you say that?"