Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
Liadrin loves a good sunset spar.
Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
Something about the way her sword glints when it catches the last light of day.
Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
Something about the evening air—the ever-advancing shade from Silvermoon's spires and the breeze in her sweat-soaked hair.
Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
Something about the scuff of boots on gravel when she's alone with her blade.
And her opponent, that is.
Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
He thinks it's "a bit redundant, if you ask me," and keeps pausing to tell her so, despite that she hasn't asked him, not once.
Dodge. Parry. Pivot. Thrust. Block.
It's routine for a reason.
Liadrin's days start at dawn, and they're never short. She has no time for meditation, not on nights like these. Not when she's got nineteen new trainees on her hands, nineteen new faces to learn, nineteen new weapons to hand out, nineteen new conditioning regimens to assemble. And her own form to keep, on top of it all.
So she spars at sunset, and clears her head in the seconds between each swing of her sword. Barely a breath's worth of silence, but that's plenty of time to remember.
Dodge.
"I don't know about that."
She's said it about seven times. Still shy and modest. She's spent most of the evening searching for a subject change.
Lor'themar tells her she ought to learn to take a compliment, instead of just avoiding them. "Because you're beautiful," he adds, "so you ought to get used to it."
So she shrugs, well aware when she skirts the subject this time, and asks if they're close. They've been walking since sunset, after all.
He sighs, throws his hands in the air in the least genuine gesture of frustration she's ever seen, and smiles, says she shouldn't be so coy.
She isn't coy.
She's just sixteen—as of that sunset, in fact—and she's a little shy, that's all. Sixteen and shy, sixteen and sweet, sixteen and smiling when they reach the crest of the hill. He'd lit candles for the occasion, half-burnt by now, because she's always hated the dark.
Sixteen and statuesque, stunned silent till he offers her a hand. She takes it, slowly, laces her fingers in his like a lattice, her nails the bright blue blossoms. Sixteen and not quite sure why this sticks out to her. It's so surreal.
Sixteen and shaking when she seats herself beside him. Sixteen and scratching at her shoulder when he says to lie back. The grass smells sweet—itchy though. Sixteen and shaking her head, because he should've brought a blanket if he wanted to stargaze, then sixteen and sorry if she sounded snarky, no, Lor'themar, it's perfect, really.
Sixteen and smothering a blush when he says that's all her fault. He's ridiculous; the weather's got to be somewhat responsible, at the least. Sixteen and she swears she's never seen this many stars in her short life.
She read in a story that some of the stars are actually alive, sort of—the stars, Lor—he's not paying attention, foolish boy keeps looking at her lips. Some of them are benevolent beings of light, righteous and just and pure of heart. The story says they sing the sweetest hymns you'll ever hear.
Sixteen and smirking as he falls silent, staring up at the sky. "Whatcha doing down here on the ground then, Lia?"
Sixteen and swallowing self-consciously when he rolls over, props his head in his hand so he can stare at her like she's some sort of star herself.
Sixteen and stifling a gasp when he kisses her—soft and simple at first, then sloppier around the start of the seventh, straying lower. So are his hands, she realizes suddenly, and she doesn't want him to stop.
Sixteen and slipping her skirts up a bit while he starts to unfasten his laces, steady in all but his breathing.
Sixteen and scratching her nails down his back, scrabbling for purchase on smooth skin, slick with sweat, smothering some strangled sounds in his shoulder as she stiffens beneath his weight, and then she's still, save for a shudder.
Sixteen and smiling while he whispers in her ear—something sweet, she thinks, but she can't hear with her pulse roaring in her ears.
Sixteen and sighing, serene—things are simpler south of the Elrendar.
Parry.
Liadrin doesn't stay sixteen, and life doesn't stay simple.
Time doesn't trickle like grains in an hourglass. It hurtles. It's an arrow, fletched by the ranger-general herself, gifted to Lor'themar last summer with twenty more like it and a quiver to match.
Lor'themar sees more of the ranger-general than he does his "little priestess," a title Sylvanas Windrunner had picked out—Sylvanas isn't very religious, and barely her elder, honestly—but he's not forgotten Liadrin. No, she can see it when he glances her way, the same way he's been glancing at her since she was seven years old. He was eight, and miserably small for his age. Liadrin hasn't forgotten Lor'themar either.
But she's not a girl now, no matter what Vandellor says. She's twenty-eight and too old to be thinking about Lor'themar's eyes when she closes her own.
Twenty-eight and too sensible to trouble herself over two months without word from him.
Twenty-eight and terrified he's getting distant. He said in his last letter that he's loved her all his life, and the Farstriders can't take him anywhere that'll change that. But Light, she still wishes he'd look at her, at the very least.
Twenty-eight and thankful for the encroaching twilight the next time she sees him, so he can't tell she's tearing up when he turns away.
He's been quiet the whole time, staring at the ground whenever he can, but he seems to be in good health, so Liadrin supposes she ought to be grateful. He kisses her before he leaves, and she tells him that he ought to hurry back, the ranger-general will string him up by the bollocks if he's late again.
She's proud of him—really, she is—but twenty-eight is too old to be fooling herself. He'll be gone within the year. She's sure of it. Vandellor thinks she's a "silly girl," but he's been calling her that since she showed up on his step.
Some things never change.
Twenty-eight and she'd trade everything she owns to count Lor'themar among them.
Two years later, she's thirty and thinking "well, at least I wasn't wrong."
But that doesn't help, not really.
Pivot.
Time trudges on like an army of undead—undeterred and determined to turn everything to shambles beneath its shambling steps. Usually at the most inopportune moment. But Liadrin guesses there's never convenient place to plan a nation's destruction.
Just two months ago, she'd been sitting at his ceremony, smiling when Sylvanas Windrunner slipped that scarf around his shoulders while he knelt at her feet, and he'd risen a ranger lord.
And just two weeks ago, everyone Liadrin knew had risen too—ranger generals and grand magisters and humble lowborn priests alike. The Scourge did not discriminate.
And neither does she.
She'll slay them all, that's what she says, she'll not spare a single one—no one's listening except the heavy cudgel that lies across her lap. It's a dull weapon, she's been told. Dull in more ways than one.
Made of solid iron and wood blackened with age, it's far from pretty.
But that's just fine with her.
She's got no need for luster. Nor brightness. Nor light.
Her mace can do its job without reflecting the sun on a scorching summer day. So neither will she. She'll find her own path. She'll be her own torch.
She used to kneel by her bedside every night, whispering words of reverence into the dark to protect her as she slept.
But she doesn't pray anymore. And she doesn't sleep so often.
She crawls beneath the blankets now, runs her fingers over fresh bruises—that's enough practice for today, little priestess, go get some rest—and as she lies in the inky blackness, she's not afraid of anything.
When she speaks to the dark, her words aren't reverent. Now, they're more like a threat.
"May the bridges I burn light the way."
Thrust.
When she's run out of bridges, she moves onto churches.
It's all fuel for the fire. They burn just as bright.
"Funny how those priests in the Plaguelands preach about Light and restoration and all that, and then when you give them a light to truly behold, a light that truly cleanses, truly restores—oh, you should've seen how the corruption bubbled and frothed when it burned—and all they want to do is pass out petitions to see you and your organization dismembered."
No one's listening now, except her spear, shining brighter than any flame as she polishes it.
"I'm doing Alonsus next. Alonsus Chapel. In Stratholme. Where it all started. Sent the new kid to do it. Wish I could've gone, but...migraines are getting worse, you know?"
She taps idly at her temple with two fingers, a gesture meant to clarify, but her spear says nothing. Not that she expects it to—Light, she's not mad, or at least, not yet. But she's got to talk to stay sane. She speaks her thoughts aloud because that's the only way she seems to hear them over the singing in her head.
The stories were wrong, by the way. She's going to tell Lor'themar the next time she sees him. Stars don't sing sweet songs of serenity. They scream and they cry until you line your mind with lead or you do the same.
Block.
The screaming had stopped at the Sunwell.
Liadrin is crying anyhow.
Quietly, in private, with a lock on the door to forbid prying eyes.
But Lor finds the loophole. He's only got one eye, see?
Foolish boy.
Some things never change.
She thinks she was incorrect before, because Lor'themar is still here, after all. She doesn't have to say it aloud, now that the screaming has stopped, but when she melts in his arms like she's sixteen and simple, she supposes he knows.
Liadrin doesn't mind being wrong, not now. She's learning that she needn't always be right to be righteous. If one never errs, one may never know forgiveness.
Now, that's something worth crying over. Unconditional love.
She still cries when she remembers redemption.
Or the messier bits.
She can hear M'uru screaming, crying, dying in her dreams. She can see Galell with half his head caved in, his blood hot on her hands. She can smell the smoke from the smoldering remains of churches all across the Plaguelands, holy soil turned to soot and ash.
But when she wakes panting, Lor is there. He's snoring into her shoulder, his shadow twitching with every flicker from the candlelight—he doesn't like to leave it burning while he sleeps, but Liadrin doesn't like the darkness, and if he can smoke his pipe in the house, then she can keep a candle in the window.
He'd started sleeping on top of her last September, so she couldn't thrash about when she found herself caught up in the throes of a nightmare.
Tonight, he tells her he's not much good with a shield—never has been—but he'll try to block all the bad things, for her. The words are slurred and sleepy, but they're sweet all the same.
"Lia—"
Lor'themar might not be good with a shield, but he seems to think that gigantic sword of his makes up for it. He lifts it just in time to deflect an overhead blow, wide-eyed and horrified.
"Apologies," she says, smoothing back a stray hair. "Wasn't thinking."
"I'd wager the opposite," says Lor.
He knows her well. Too well to ask what's on her mind, that's for certain.
"Suppose we can stop to rest a moment?" he asks then, stretching his shoulder as he sighs.
"Lor'themar Theron!" She jabs at his chest for good measure, just hard enough to nick the leather of his well-worn training tunic. "Are you telling me you're tired?"
"That's not what I said."
"Ah, excuse me. Are you implying that you're tired?"
"Well, we've been at it for a while, and I've—"
"You're out of shape."
Liadrin has a theory that Lor'themar occasionally forgets that most people actually do have a periphery, since his is a little lacking. Either this, or he just likes to be obnoxious, because he's flexing his biceps when she turns to gather up her belongings, muttering beneath his breath. "Oh, look, just made the Lady of Light a liar."
She loves him anyway.