The fading hours of the day soaked the world with the flaming colors of the descending sun, while at the same time casting many parts of it into long, deep, consuming shadows. Points of light were just barely beginning to show in the sky above, while other, living lights winked and drifted lazily over the ground below. The contrasts seemed... appropriate in some way, as they stretched over the walls, roofs, and grounds of the Thorne estate, painting the place in fire and shadow, and adorning it with myriad tiny jewels of glimmering white and phosphorescent green.
Respectfully choosing to adhere to the manners and propriety that her mother had brought her up with, Aranya had waited to ask to see Valéria until after their host, Lord Kethron Thorne, had been duly seen and greeted first. The young girl-elf was brought to the hall where Kethron had received Rhovin and Aranya, and immediately lit up like a fireworks display upon seeing the two again. Happy hugs were shared, and Valéria insisted that she had been "a good girl" for "Master Kethron," whom she smiled at fondly. Aranya looked to his lordship to verify the truth of this, and was pleasantly surprised that his response, while not what anyone could call outright agreement, was not altogether contrary to this. The very second that it was clear that they were dismissed, however, Aranya and Valéria made for the nearest door out, while Rhovin and Kethron remained inside, discussing "matters of importance" - a broadly-defined sort of subject that Aranya knew could mean anything or nothing.
The tall woman and the small girl skipped and strolled about the grounds, meandering in no particular direction, rather like the fireflies that the little one had her heart set on chasing. The evening airs blew lightly, catching at Valéria's wispy blonde hair and ruffling the clothes that she had been frocked in - which Aranya hoped would not get too stained with dirt and grass while they were out here. Not that Aranya's own clothes hadn't been stained with far worse before. She'd been covered in everything from blood to muck, to various kinds of arcane residue, and underneath the light but well-fitting robes that she wore tonight, her boots bore all the stains and scuffs that testified to her hypocrisy as a grown-up. It couldn't be helped.
One particular firefly seemed to have fallen into a pattern of taunting the little girl-elf, swooping down within her reach only to loop right back out of it, again and again. Valéria giggled with delight as she tried for it with increasing enthusiasm, snatching at it with both hands. She almost succeeded.
"No no no! Be careful," Aranya told her, a smile on her face but seriousness in her voice, bending to crouch down beside the girl, who turned her head to look the woman in the eyes. "Careful with the little things, you don't want to hurt them." The arcanist turned her own eyes towards another firefly that was idling about three paces away. "Now watch," she instructed, her voice dropping to a more hushed volume. "Watch, and learn." The dark-haired elf stood upright and fell into step with the flickering insect, her sharp eyes judging its speed, its direction. "You see, they're really much slower than you first think..." Aranya reached out, her hands poised together in a slight curve, waiting, anticipating the firefly's next movement - and then she struck, scooping it out of the air in a downward motion. She turned around, opening her hands for little Valéria to see. The unresisting creature flashed, unharmed, as it crawled along her palms. "See?" Aranya grinned. "Patience."
Valéria dashed over and gazed at the firefly in Aranya's hands with a brilliant smile, practically bouncing on her toes with glee, exclaiming excitedly, "You caught it! You caught it!" The tiny creature fluttered its wings, unknowing and uncaring of what its would-be captors thought of it. The green glow that it emitted flashed a few more times - almost the same color as the elves' luminescent eyes - and then it took to the air once more. Valéria's disappointment was immediate. "It flew away!"
Aranya's mouth turned in a wry angle of amusement. "Well of course it did," she said, eyes glittering. "What else would it do?"
"It needs to come back," insisted the girl, with all the imperative that only a child who felt truly and absolutely secure in their self-given sense of authority could possess. It only made the wry, smiling expression on Aranya's face even moreso.
"And it might come back," the arcanist said in placation of her young companion, as she started in another direction for their stroll. "But there are no guarantees."
The blonde elf-child tilted her head to one side, regarding the woman for a moment, and then she took a few quick steps to catch up, reaching out to take Aranya's hand. "But you came back."
"Of course I came back," she replied, with a hint of a chuckle. "Why wouldn't I?"
Then Aranya slanted a sly smile at the little girl, arching one whiskery black eyebrow. "You didn't actually think that Rhovin might be so cruel as to just take me away somewhere and never return me, did you?" Her tone of voice was comically exaggerated. It made Valéria giggle. "You didn't really think that he would do such a fiendish thing, did you?" Aranya queried, as she bent down and poked at the child lightly under the ribs, which made her squeak and set her into a fit of more giggles. "Hmmm?"
"No," admitted Valéria, eyes sparkling.
"No," agreed Aranya, shaking her head while crinkling her nose and the corners of her eyes with a grin, and then standing straight again. "No, he was generous enough to bring me back to you, all in one piece..." Her eyes directed upwards at nothing in particular, as if she was considering something, before adding lightly, "More or less."
Valéria brought the hand that she grasped to the side of her face and nuzzled it with her cheek, her little fingers curling around the woman's palm and the inside of her wrist - over the tiny phoenix tattoo. "I'm glad you came back," she told Aranya with a smile, eyes shining up at her.
Aranya looked down and smiled affectionately back. "I am, too, sweetheart," she said, ever-so-slightly brushing her slender knuckles against that little cheek. As much as she had enjoyed her time away with Rhovin (and he had made very sure that she had) it was good to see Valéria's bright eyes and even brighter smile once again, and to hear her little laugh once more.
No matter where she went, no matter who she served, or what unbelievable thing she did, one of the best things about any of it was getting to say in the end, 'I came back. I'm alive. I told you you'd see me again.'
That was the biggest triumph. Always.
Valéria fixed Aranya with her wide, green gaze. "You should stay," she said. Again, there was that childish sense of authority, but also a certain gravity, like she would know how things should be in the world.
"Stay?" Aranya echoed, brow furrowing slightly. "What do you mean?"
"With me and Kethron," answered Valéria, in a tone of voice that had Aranya thinking there might have been an implied 'you silly' in there somewhere. "You should stay with me and Master Kethron." She had a bright and hopeful look on her face.
Aranya blinked. She clamped her lips shut. Tried so hard not to laugh.
She ended up smiling and shaking her head as the pair of them strolled along anyway.
Somehow this one little girl never ceased to amaze her in some way or another.
A hand's worth of fireflies flitted across the elves' path, and Valéria broke off in pursuit. Aranya gave chase to another few close by, having more success than her small companion at catching her quarry. Some of the twinkling insects landed of their own volition on Valéria's shoulders and in Aranya's hair, which got a chorus of giggles and laughs as the arcanist made a valiant effort to disentangle the little creatures from the dark strands without damaging them.
Overhead, the stars grew less faint as the twilight ever-so-gradually deepened. Brilliant gems and tiny, sparkling specks of celestial sand, hung against a darkening blue backdrop. The fireflies drifting over the ground became less inconspicuous - and easier prey for grasping hands - as the dimming ambiance made them appear to be brighter and brighter.
"The stars came back!" Valéria noted, tugging on Aranya's robes and pointing upwards at the sky.
Aranya glanced up. "So they did," she concurred with a smile.
"They only come back at night," observed Valéria. She had said it as a statement, but the woman understood the underlying question conveyed in the girl's mildly perplexed tone of voice.
"This world isn't like Outland. Reality is more... restrictive here," explained Aranya. "The sun shines by day, the stars shine by night. Up is up, down is down. Time can be measured at a constant from anywhere in the world, as long as no dragons are involved-"
"Dragons?" Valéria laughed.
The arcanist grinned. "Oh yes, dragons," she continued, "and everything in the world is oriented around all these directions, rules, and immovable things that hold the world together. Not like Outland at all."
The fabric of existence on Azeroth was, for the most part, undamaged. But Draenor had been completely torn asunder. Stars shone in daylight. Surges and fluxes throughout what was left of its ley-fabric distorted time and gravity. Everything - from laws that governed between factions to laws that governed reality - was more loosely bound in that broken world. It wasn't difficult to understand how a world that stood so perfectly still, exactly as it was ordered to, could feel disorienting. Staring at a blank, empty sky by day, and feeling only the quiet breezes of patterned weather by night.
Aranya could only too easily sympathize with Valéria's point of view. Order was confusing, when one was so comfortably accustomed to chaos.
"But you know something?" Aranya prompted Valéria to look away from the stars and up towards her, eyes and ears open, anticipating hearing more. "They always come back. Even if you never see the stars by day, they won't ever forget to come back at night." The little girl smiled, pleased - after which she turned to her right and seized a firefly that had made the mistake of drifting too close.
All of a sudden, the hairs on the back of Aranya's neck stood up and the tips of her ears prickled. She glanced over to her left, at the high and grand hall of the Thornes. She stood very still, her fel-lit eyes flicking from point to point across its facade. She forced herself to relax, go back to chasing glowing bugs, smile and return an inattentive word or two to the bubbling child that she frolicked with.
She still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.
It didn't surprise her, really. Anyone in Lord Kethron's service, or even Kethron himself, could have been watching from one of the windows right then. But in that house, Aranya felt as though even the shadows watched her - curious, calculating, measuring - and underneath her blithe composure it made her uneasy.
"Haha! I've got you!" The sudden triumphant declaration, along with tiny tickling hands at either side of her stomach, snapped Aranya's attention fully to the here and now, and she let out a shriek of surprise that was followed by laughter and a hasty retreat. Valéria gave chase, gleefully taunting and promising to "get" her once more and sending up small clouds of startled, flashing insects in her wake, while Aranya ran at an easy pace in circles and figure-eights from her pursuer, bewailing her "impending doom" while laughing and grinning the entire time. It would have come as no surprise if they could be heard all the way to the groves of Quel'Danas, they made such boisterous noise.
Eventually tiring of the chase, Aranya made a show of "falling" to the ground in exhaustion, but Valéria was not so easily dissuaded from the game that they had started, and another shriek escaped the arcanist as the girl persisted in her tickling of the now on-the-ground and somewhat disadvantaged woman.
"Stop!" Aranya cried, still laughing. "Mercy!"
"No mercy!" Valéria crowed, unyielding.
Aranya's jaw dropped a little lower at the girl's words. "Aren't you the one who's always talking of wanting to be a paladin? Don't paladins show mercy?"
"No mercy!" Valéria repeated with a cackle, and she re-doubled her tickling of the poor mage.
Unbelievable.
Aranya swung her arms up, wrapped them around the tiny blonde elf-child, and dragged her to the ground beside her all in one fluid motion. "No mercy, huh?"
Now it was Valéria that shrieked with endless giggles as she was tickled with a vengeance. It wasn't until she begged "Stop! Stop!" that Aranya finally relented.
They both lay back on the ground, blonde and black hair spread haphazardly over the grass, catching their breath, with a stray giggle here and there, looking up at the sky.
It suddenly occurred to Aranya to wonder... When was the last time that such noise had been heard around this place? Sounds of happiness, laughter, of a woman and child killing an evening outside, just having fun. When had anything like that been heard around here? Did anyone even remember? ... Were there too few who had even bothered to remember?
She didn't know. She wouldn't ask. If anyone told her, she would listen, but she wouldn't trespass. Not with that.
The hour was late. None of the staff had been sent out to fetch the woman and the little miss inside to dinner... Which was odd, but probably just as well. The last thing that Aranya felt like doing was sitting down and being gracious company this evening. Another time, yes, she could handle it then, but not tonight. Not so soon.
Sitting up, Aranya murmured the words of a conjuring spell. Magic word and gesture created shining ripples of energy in an ultra-rapid rhythm around her hands, appearing like globes of light. When the magic was done, two large biscuits rested in her hands. She gave one to a very grateful Valéria, while keeping the other one for herself. They sat quietly for a time, watching the glowing vestiges of the sun's rays fall further and further away as they munched on their biscuits.
"The bear," Valéria said, pointing up at the ever-brightening stars. "Right there, see?" The little girl traced a pattern in the sky with her finger, moving from point to point across the stars. Aranya watched and stared in disbelief. Sure enough, Valéria had accurately traced one of Azeroth's constellations... Yet she had lived in Outland for most of her young life.
"Where did you learn that?" Aranya asked, brow furrowed.
"Master Kethron showed me," replied Valéria with a bright smile, wiggling her toes.
Aranya went slack-jawed, her eyebrows shooting up about a mile on her forehead. "Kethron showed you?" Valéria nodded brightly with an uh-huh. "When? How?"
"When we read one of his books," answered Valéria. "It talked about the shapes in the stars, and then he showed me, in the sky. See? Look." She pointed up into the stars again, tracing out more creatures and objects, correctly naming each one.
Aranya was amazed. She could barely believe it. "Lord Kethron Thorne... taught you all this himself?"
Valéria nodded happily once again with a broad smile on her little face. She seemed very proud to have impressed the arcanist with what she had learned. The arcanist herself was more stunned by the matter of whom she had learned it from.
Aranya struggled for something more comprehensive to say on the matter than mere dumbfounded questions. "That was... gracious of him."
Valéria nodded in agreement. "He's nice."
Aranya bit down on an outburst of laughter before it could escape her. "No, sweetheart, he really isn't," she informed the young child, while stretching out onto the grass. "He is as gracious as any lord has a right to be, but it's not the same thing as 'nice.'"
Valéria looked confused.
"You're very young, and you haven't been in his company all that long," said Aranya, rolling over onto her stomach and propping herself up on her arms. "You don't know him very well. You don't know a lot of the things he's done," the woman admonished. "There are people that he's hurt as much as helped out there, whether you understand that or not."
"Well he's nice to me," insisted Valéria. "He would never hurt me." She didn't even say it childishly. Rather, she said it as though it was something that she absolutely knew, and it gave the mage pause.
Unbidden, the question entered her mind, asking for an earnest answer: would Kethron ever hurt this girl? The first thing to surface in Aranya's thoughts wasn't what she expected.
Images played out in a flash through her head of what might happen if it were to ever come to Lord Kethron's attention if someone did cause real harm to Valéria, how exactly he might express his displeasure with them.
It was a dark thought.
It made her eyes glitter and the corners of her mouth twist up in a lopsided smile.
She glanced over at the Thorne mansion again, this time as though sharing a wickedly amusing inside joke with someone. "No," said Aranya, looking back at the small girl-child, running a hand over her soft, blonde hair, which had blades of grass caught in it. "No, I don't suppose that he would."
Valéria shook her head concurringly. "No, he's good," she said.
One corner of Aranya's mouth pulled her smile even more lopsidedly. "No," she said. "He is not."
Valéria looked confused again. "Is he bad?"
"No," said Aranya, shaking her head. "He is not."
By this time Valéria was looking thoroughly perplexed.
"Sweetheart, there's no such thing as good men, or bad men," Aranya explained patiently. "There are only... men. Men who do what they have to, or what they can."
Valéria seemed to consider this for a moment, and then asked, "Is that good?"
Aranya rolled her eyes and exhaled a long-suffering breath. Though the intended point might have gone over the innocent girl's head, after half a moment's consideration the woman was able to give back answer. "It is better than men who do nothing," she said.
This did seem to get through to the girl, and she nodded solemnly in agreement.
Aranya lay back into the grass with a sigh.
The light from the sun was completely gone now. Deepest twilight had given way to night. The only lights to be seen were the stars spread out in the sky above and the many fireflies drifting all around.
And as they play, Kethron is indeed watching them both, holding back the feels of the moments his wife would to the same with their children.
"The girl's curiosity is both exemplary and cutting. ...I'll be glad to be rid of her."
"You never were a good liar, father."
"That's because I never lie."
"Until now."
Kethron gives Rhovin a look. He remains quiet.
Author's note: Kethron and Rhovin Thorne belong to their player/writer, who wrote that last bit at the end there.