Notes1: So this was supposed to be for Pocky Day, but then this got larger than intended (AS USUAL) and very much late on arrival due to work, so these are just going to be a bunch of silly, short one-shots that take place within the Impressions!verse in the span of a single day - obviously November 11 (or somewhere in the week, depending on which Nexian calendar a particular realm follows, but for the sake of clarity it'll be King's Crest and thus 11/11, during the 2017 Era chapters).
Notes2: This will only be a few chapters, since it'll just cover Valeera, Nova, and Li-Ming, but if I'm so inclined - and I probably will - I'll throw in a couple troll-route chapters (because, even if it's been largely brushed aside so far, Leoric is still trying to impress Sylvanas even after his in-universe rework) or mix them in with the standard 'main route' chapters.
Notes3: Somewhere along the line I ended up describing Jaina as the kind of person who insists she's straight (KT, Arthas, and Kalec say hello) but the longer she stays in the Nexus the more that iron-clad rigidity is softening and, sooner or later, is going to break eventually. I've somehow conjured this image of her being more curious than going "BUT THAT'S FORBIDDEN!" a'la Shizuki Hitomi of Madoka Magica because she's that studious kind of person...and it's very funny to me imagining her flail around like that.
i. vanilla
"You know, if you keep staring at it, it's still not going to jump into your mouth."
She says it so suddenly, so out of the blue, that Valeera whips her head up and just about throws the box in the air. Thankfully she's a stick-thin rogue and not some hulking, muscle-bound warrior, so she only gets it up a good foot before she gets on her tiptoes and snatches it back in her hands. Her arms aren't weak and her knees aren't spaghetti, but her heart may as well be a blender ready to lose its top and paint the walls with something that resembles marinara. Or stomach acid. Maybe even her soul, because goddamn how long had she been staring at that stupid thing, an eternity?
"Don't do that," she gasps, bent over and why, why is she clutching it as though her very life depends on it? It's just a stupid box of treats! She looks over her shoulder and—of course it'd be the Banshee Queen; every undead person sounds like they ingested a subwoofer. However, not many undead could pull off the uninterested, mulish expression the Nexians described as The Big Cat Face and still intimidated the lesser, weak-willed to cower and soil themselves.
It's a miracle she hasn't outright dropped to the floor and…what? Not everyone had the luck—or the balls—to stand in the presence of the Banshee Queen (future Warchief, a voice whispers in the back of her mind, and that to this day the possibility, the confirmation that somewhere out there in the multiverse she is and has been, still shocks her) and walk away alive or even unscathed, physically or mentally. Perhaps it's the transition. Maybe it's the fact that she's spent three years in the Nexus surrounded by the Feng Shui of positivity and the lack of standards and practices among the better part of the population (regardless of social status) that she's not going around killing people as much as she used to when she got drawn her (that you know of), that she's gotten more accustomed to socializing with others that would otherwise either make her go on the run again or throw herself into the aether of the Anchors for a moment of respite.
It could be because Valeera identifies as a blood elf, Sylvanas is an undead high elf banshee, and finds it easier to communicate instead of some pompous blowhard like Kael'thas. It probably doesn't matter at this point.
And yet, it still doesn't solve the ever pervasive question: What more would Valeera Sanguinar do, in front of Sylvanas Windrunner, default or variant?
Well, for starters, you can try not to have a heart attack and remember to BREATHE.
Not that Sylvanas would hear any of it (Can banshees read minds? Valeera asked herself, and felt a thrill both hot and cold slither down her spine). "Well, you're just standing there," she says, as simply as could be, shrugging. "Unless you're going to do something else with it that doesn't involve eating in any capacity, that is…."
"I-I'm going to eat it! I was just, um, reading the nutritional value on the back! See!" Valeera faces her fully and all but shoves the rectangular box in Sylvanas's face, who doesn't flinch in the slightest and deigns her with an arched brow.
Sylvanas reads the tiny print. "That's a lot of sugar for such a small thing. This…pokey thing should be called sugar sticks instead."
"The sugar comes from the vanilla frosting on the top," says Valeera, and pops the top open to slide a pocky stick out. "And it's not 'pokey'; it's pronounced 'PO-KAY'! Or 'pah-key', like the word hockey. Pokey is that cactus…thing…that shuffles around in Luxoria!"
"An apt name, if ever there was one. And, pray tell, Valeera, just when are you going to eat this pocky?" Sylvanas plucks the stick from the box and turns it over, frowning. "This isn't mana-flavored," she grumbles.
The box crumples under her tightening grip. "I-I was going to eat it…r-right now!"
"Any second now, you mean."
"That's right!"
"Then why do you sound so nervous? It's just a treat. Unless you're, oh I don't know, testing some new poison and want to see how effective it is."
Well, Valeera thinks, she had considered it, but the truth was more…innocent than that. Could it even be called innocent, when Sylvanas was standing this close to her, the chill of the grave rolling off like fog on a cloudy day? In spite of the morally questionable acts she had done in the name of the Forsaken, she is, in a way, still the Ranger-General she had admired from afar way back when—almost as if from a different time and plane, when the universe solely consisted of Azeroth, the moons, and the Nexus, when taken into thought, was but a passing fancy of entertainment and insubstantiality. Time has changed and so have the people, but some things, some ideas, last forever; and even when they are forgotten, the thought that is passed on from one person to the other never truly dies.
In which case, seeing the Banshee Queen here, this close…and with that damn pocky stick in hand….
Valeera swallows.
Oh. So that's what marinara tastes like. "W-Well—"
"Is my undead counterpart giving you trouble, Valeera?" says a voice, silky and teasing and no-nonsense, and later on, when she's at the bar and Hammer is too busy laughing her ass off to pay any more attention while Kerrigan smirks over the rim of her shot glass and Jaina is trying not to spontaneously combust in her seat, she'll be able to better pinpoint the exact moment the proverbial floor opened under her feet and her throat and stomach fell through, into the abyss. "Figures," the Ranger-General scoffs, sidling out the door. "Wherever the Banshee Queen goes, some ill luck is sure to follow."
Sylvanas snaps an annoyed glare at her variant. "Yes, and look what it brought me."
The Ranger-General puts her arms akimbo and levels her default a reproving look. "That's not a nice thing to say to Valeera. You need to be nicer to children."
Now it's Valeera's turn to snap her head up. "I am not a child—"
"I wasn't talking about her," the Banshee Queen intercepts brusquely. "I was just passing by, getting a bit of fresh air, and just so happened to chance upon Valeera standing here, staring at a box of pocky for whatever reason."
Oh, if she knew what that reason was…but given how many times default Nova died, would that really change anything? Somewhere inside her, a part of her swelled with smug pride and stated: NOPE.
"Pocky…? Ah." Ranger-General Sylvanas's face lights up in a grin fit more for a hungry shark than a young, pretty (who the hell are you kidding, Valeera, she's BANGING), living high elf adult woman. "That's right…it's Pocky Day, isn't it? At least in some parts of the Nexus."
Valeera licks her lips, mouth suddenly feeling dry, and it's another detail she doesn't remember until nightfall. "Y-Yeah. It's a day where you eat pocky and pretzel sticks."
"It's a day for marketing sales, you mean," says the Banshee Queen. "Have you seen the flavors they have? You'd think these were Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. You know Japan's in trouble when the Wizarding World of Britain outdoes you in performance."
"Oh? How interesting! Perhaps I should pick some up myself." The Ranger-General laughs good-naturedly. "Good thing Alleria's not here to hog it all, eh, counterpart? She'd be all over this." She is rewarded with an incoherent grumble and a downward twist of her lips. "Ah, but Valeera, you shouldn't have to eat those all by yourself. You should share those with your friends. Like me." She splays a hand on her chest—a chest full of breath and vitality, and it takes all of Valeera's willpower not to instinctively draw her eyes…down…there. Because mother always taught her that when you talk to people, your eyes should be up front and center on the person's face, not…there.
And when the variant says is true, because the Banshee Queen sure as hell can't ingest anything when most of her innards are functionally useless and aren't being powered by necromantic magicks. "You're right," she says, lamely, and loosens the death grip on the poor box long enough to draw forth a white-tipped stick. "Would…Would you like one, General? It's, um, vanilla. Unless you're lactose intolerant; I have green tea."
The Ranger-General feigns surprise. "Hardly! But thank you for your consideration. You're such a thoughtful little girl."
She grins. She grins, hearty and mischievous and so unlike the aloof (tsundere), coolly confident Banshee Queen sulking behind her, and that makes Valeera seethe. "I'm not little, goddammit!" she explodes. "I'm a woman!"
"Then let me be the first to make one out of you," she says, low and smooth. She plucks the vanilla pocky stick from the box, plops the uncoated end between her teeth and leans in, left hand going for one hip and the right hand going for a shoulder. Her lashes lower to half-mast. "Come here, sexy—"
Valeera bursts into smoke. Black and dark gray smoke, and when it clears the Ranger-General pulls away she glances at her hands. They're covered in a fine, white dust. "…Vanishing powder?" she parrots.
"Well would you look at that," the Banshee Queen drawls sardonically. "You killed the girl with your gayness. You monster."
The Ranger-General Sylvanas glares, affronted, and dusts off her hands. "Screw you, bitch. At least I put effort into my advances."
"And that's where you're wrong: you have to work for it. I could just stand here looking stupid and all the ladies will flock to me."
"That's because they're zealots! They're the kind of people that think that when two girls look at each from a hundred yards away, they're suddenly gay for each other!"
"And they're the same people that think holding hands is a cardinal sin…like Artanis." She makes a disgusted sound, because no one talks about Artanis. "But hey, whether you like it or not, it works like a charm." The Banshee-Queen Sylvanas goes through the motions of pulling down her hood and tossing her brittle, pale blond hair back in a display of alpha female confidence. It's a wonder, the variant thinks, sheaves of it don't go flying off her head into the wind.
"Oh, like murdering your friends when they say something nice because you don't know to respond like a normal person." The Ranger-General scoffs. "You have a very weird, very macabre way of expressing your affections. And people say Spectre Nova is a tsundere." She mumbles this last statement under her breath, but it's still loud enough for the default to pick up on it.
"I don't do subtlety."
"No, of course not," says the Ranger-General, words dripping thick with sarcasm. "A blind person can see that."
"I'm just not one for exhibiting gap moe to the point of diagnosing myself with undead diabetes. That's not me, and like hell I'll let the transition force me to act like that." She puts a hand on her hip and juts the other one out.
Ranger-General Sylvanas cups her chin, thinking. Then, quietly: "Maybe we should ask Auriel to lend us Al'maiesh again. If it worked for Nova, then—"
"NO," the Banshee Queen exclaims, firm and scandalized. "No! No, we do not want to ask Auriel for Al'maiesh! We think it's a very bad idea!"
"I can't decide what's more appealing: seeing you devolve into Gollum-speak or peeling away the onion layers of your hardheaded demeanor that reveals the aching, lonely, pining maiden underneath. Let. Me. Think…." The variant taps her fingers and hums thoughtfully—and very, very loudly.
"I WON'T LET YOU!"
That's when the default lunges at her, and her cue to get out of the way and keep going. "AURIEL!" the variant cries, (as though the angel can hear her—and Valeera's pretty sure she does, she's an angel—when her particular haunt is miles away on foot), screeches at the top of her lungs, and doesn't need to look back to see the Banshee Queen bull-rush after her, dagger in hand.
("I didn't even want to know if they got Al'maiesh," Valeera says that night, one cheek quashed between the arm thrown on the counter and the other planted firmly on the dark wood top. "I just…I just had to get outta there, 'cause if I'd stuck around—"
"If you stuck around, General Sylvanas would've done something like this, eh?" Kerrigan asks, and then she's on her feet and behind Valeera before she can guess what she's going to do next. She places both hands on the girl's hips and gently presses up against her. "Or do the kabe-don with the Banshee Queen in front of you and whisper some sweet careless, Thalassian come-ons in your ear like—"
She doesn't get started, because Valeera chooses this moment to make a high, garbled sound that's reminiscent of a chicken getting punted. Hammer breaks out laughing again ("GAAAAAAAY!", and then she's face down on the counter, crying and pounding a fist against it) and Jaina tries not to think too deeply of the scene that's playing in her head, but she sees Valeera pushing away Kerrigan—bolting out the door with a face too bright to be called scarlet—and totally, completely sympathizes with her.
Because by the Light, if she hangs around with these people for too long, she'll be swayed to the dark side, too, and she is so glad Artanis isn't here to see this. One heart attack could be enough to floor a person. Three hearts? Artanis would drop dead on the spot, and she's almost—almost—certain even the transition won't be able to save him from that.)