Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/15637968.
Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: World of Warcraft, Warcraft - All Media Types Character: Sylvanas Windrunner, Nathanos Blightcaller, Eitrigg (Warcraft) Additional Tags: World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Spoilers, Protests Stats: Published: 2018-08-10 Words: 1114 Restless
by Juliska
Summary
Everyone else is doing a post pre-patch drabble, so I will too.
Author's Note: World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth and associated characters, locations, etc. are all copyright Blizzard Entertainment, used without permission or profit being made. The quote at the beginning is from the book Before the Storm by Christie Golden. Highly recommended. Wonderful author.
Anyway, this scene MIGHT be changed and later inserted into Revenge, but it's a standalone right now. Everyone else is writing reactions to the BfA pre-patch events, so I might as well too.
You are the leader of all the Horde - orcs, Tauren, trolls, blood elves, pandaren, goblins - as well as Forsaken. You must never forget that, or else they might. - Varok Saurfang, Before the Storm
"The Warchief's here!" Atas said excitedly, shaking the other orc child by the shoulder in the orphanage. The girl blearily woke up and stared at him. "I heard her!"
"You didn't hear her. It was probably someone else," the girl, Etzi, replied.
"Nuh-uh. I got to talk to her one time. It's her. Come on, she's yelling about something. Let's go see."
The girl rubbed her eyes and slid off the cot, getting up and padding alongside the boy. Now that she could hear it, it did seem fairly loud, and fairly close. They walked more quickly outside and down the Drag toward the noise. Finally, the found its source.
Indeed, it was the Warchief, standing on top of the inner city battlements with that Forsaken man who was always with her. She was indeed yelling. Screaming, actually, in a mixture of orcish and some words that neither of the children knew, but they sounded like they were probably bad words.
"I think she's angry," Etzi whispered. Even standing on the ground, it was hard to be heard over her.
"Uh huh," Atas said. "She gets angry a lot, I think. Oh, look." He pointed. "Someone must have messed up one of her slime machines. Maybe one of those guards was playing with it."
Atas hated when one of the other children in the orphanage broke his toys too. He could relate.
"We only have a few of these things left!" Sylvanas snapped at the Deathguards. "Why were these not guarded?"
"My queen, our numbers are spread thin. They're over the Drag. We did not think that anyone would sabotage them here," one of the guards explained shakily.
"You didn't think is what happened," Sylvanas snapped. "There are Alliance spies crawling all over this damned city."
The guards exchanged glances, then looked back at her. "My queen, the Alliance does not seem to be responsible for this. Look closer."
Sylvanas did not like being told what to do, but she did it anyway, walking over to the two destroyed blight cannons. They were meticulously dismantled. Whoever it was was careful not to let any of the blight escape and had set its payload down beside it. They had taken the time to keep it from being triggered or any blight from being dropped onto the street below.
Which meant that they had been unguarded for a long time. She started to turn on the guards once again when something caught her eye. Writing, in a variety of Horde languages. Almost all of them, in fact. Sylvanas had always been a great student of languages.
Butcher.
Murderer.
Demon.
The list went on, but she had stopped reading. "It seems the natives are growing restless, Dark Lady," a voice said from behind her. Nathanos.
"The orcs put who in charge of this city's defense?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes.
"In Saurfang's . . . absence, I believe it's Eitrigg."
"Let's go have a talk with him, then."
Eitrigg rubbed his eyes as he walked to the door of his home. It was barely dawn, and someone was already banging on the outside of it. The old orc was usually an early riser, but he had had more work to do than he ever had after the 'battle' from yesterday.
He opened the door. "Ah, Warchief, Champion Blightcaller," he said, bowing his head. "How may I help you?"
"It took you long enough to answer the door," Sylvanas snapped.
Eitrigg suppressed a sigh. The Forsaken often forgot that their allies required sleep. "My apologies, Warchief. I was up quite late last night finding suitable housing for the refugees from Undercity. The Regent Lord has begun evacuating children and other civilians from Quel'thalas as well, so I've been speaking to Bloodhoof about taking in the overflow. I'm afraid I overslept."
He could see some of the anger dissipate from her red eyes. Not all, but some. "Two of our only remaining blight cannons has been destroyed."
That woke the orc up. "Were there any casualties?" he asked gravely.
"No," Blightcaller answered. "It appears it was sabotage from within the Horde."
Eitrigg fought to keep his expression neutral. When the survivors of the battle had returned to Orgrimmar, they had, by and large, not been a happy lot. Of course, they had lost the city, but it seemed to go much deeper than that. Finally, he had pulled one - a young troll shaman - aside.
"What happened out there, exactly, boy?" Eitrigg whispered, pulling him behind the armor shop.
"She killed them all," the young troll had whispered.
"I don't know why they would do that, Warchief," Eitrigg said calmly.
"You need to bring the citizens of this city to heel, Eitrigg," she said lowly. "Either you do it, or I will. I think you would prefer your way."
A threat, not even a veiled one. The orc nodded. "Of course, Warchief. I will see what I can do."
Sylvanas and Nathanos made their way back to Grommash Hold. It was her residence by right and besides, High Overlord Saurfang no longer had use for it. The sun was beginning to reach fully above the horizon at that time, returning with it the hot, dry Durotar climate. Hopefully it would be agreeable for the newly established Forsaken citizens. It was all they had now.
"Petulant…" Sylvanas was saying, then sighed. It did not matter, in the long run. The goblins could quite easily rebuild the two blight cannons, build more when necessary. Although there had even been goblin writing on one of them.
"They will understand, my queen," Nathanos was saying. "It is hard for the living to see what we do. In time, they will…"
He stopped as they approached Grommash Hold's entrance. She sighed and stopped ruminating on her thoughts to look up.
Her face turned into something terrible. Even the guards here were worthless, or complicit. She would be sure to find out which soon.
Scrawled on the door, this time in Thalassian, her old native tongue:
Lich Queen.
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