A/N: I don't own Warcraft or Ralo'shan; this is only my telling of what her life would be like if Blizzard finally gave her the attention she deserves and finished her story. There are references here to the three part story "Vigil of Ralo'shan," and details here in this sequel may require a reading of that story first. This also ties in to the upcoming "Four Nights in Gorgrond," though how, I will not reveal. This is a slower, low-key story with a sort of philosophical tone, but I categorized it as spiritual as it's the closest thing I could think of.
An odd sense of calm had descended on the Shattered Beachhead that morning. It had been almost two weeks since the first wave of Azeroth's heroes – both Alliance and Horde – had marched through the Dark Portal leading to an alternate version of Draenor and destroyed the Iron Horde's portal on the other side. There was no news for more than a week, with many back on Azeroth wondering what had occurred on the other side.
Laborers wearing blue-and-gold tabards unloaded crates of food, materiel and fuel from the cargo ships waiting at the docks, piling the crates high on the red, cracked soil beyond the reach of the high tide. There were no roads nor even beaten paths given how young the settlement was, and aside from a storage hut constructed of piled stones and a wood thatch roof, every single structure was either a tent or some other kind of canvas tarp held up by poles or planks. There were at least thirty such tents now, some of them quite large, in addition to a number of adventurers waiting their turn camped out on the beach with towels and sleeping bags. Uniformed officers from all four of the major Alliance capitols had set up tables out in the open, scribbling down notes about how much food, pairs of gloves, bandages and armaments were being sent from where and at what time.
The sheer number of people roving around the camp that morning, most of them talking loudly and all very very busy, was impressive given that there were only thirty tents. The large majority of the people – from all the different races of the Alliance as well as some neutral, unaffiliated peoples – were in transit. A line had formed at the portal to Shadowmoon and the mages managing it were experiencing difficulty with the sheer number of unregistered, unknown irregulars lining up to join the campaign against the Iron Horde without having registered properly. The line stretched all the way into the first row of tents at the camp and the chaotic scene had caused many of the new recruits and enlistees to hang back at the beach, mingling around the refreshment tents to relax, wait and meet possible companions and contacts before they traveled to what could be their end.
Situated at the far south end of the camp was a wide, rectangular tent with a low ceiling. A small placard was hung on a slightly open flap at the entrance with elven script written on it. The ground inside the tent was covered with a handwoven light green carpet laced with gold geometric designs, though it was difficult to see from the outside given that the entire tent was unlit. Roughly thirty people were either in the process of leaving and making their way to other facilities at the camp or meeting new people just in front of the placard. All of them were night elves, all of them women save a single apprentice druid and one armored male who appeared to have chosen the path of a sentinel. Though outsiders wouldn't be able to tell, the tones of voice among the thirty as well as the topics of conversation and certain cues through body language indicated that the majority of them were young for their kind – almost all between the ages of a few hundred to only one-thousand years old. Like most of their people they all had martial training as could be seen by their weapons and armor, but the fact that so many of them were also carrying various pieces of trade equipment and tabards or armbands for a plethora of service organizations made it apparent that they, like the majority from other races at the camp now, were irregular enlistees not a part of the official military orders.
One of the elves chatted politely as she parted ways with two of her armored sisters, sharing words in a familiar tone as though they knew each other quite well. Her simple yet elegant evergreen dress with a gold trim conflicted with the metal armor the other women around her had donned, yet the adventurers listened attentively to what she was saying with the sort of reverence held for authority figures. After thanking her and giving some parting words, the white-haired authority straightened her dress out and took her leave. The two adventurers - one an unusually tall warrior and the other wearing a flashy pair of day-vision goggles - watched her as she slowly weaved in and out of the tents and politely greeted other well-wishers as that evergreen dress gradually dropped out of view on its way to the far south.
By the time Ralo'shan had exited the last row of tents, she could already see the two lone beach chairs situated around a small table. While the shorter elf with the goggles had told her she was expected, the two glasses filled with lemonade were a welcome touch - in a makeshift war camp thrown together in a matter of weeks, such luxuries were never taken for granted.
Ralo'shan gripped the fabric of her dress lightly and pulled up to avoid dragging the bottom hem through the sand as she made her way to the chairs. Stopping briefly, she leaned down to removed her sandals and took them up in her free hand, enjoying the feeling of the beach beneath her bare feet as she continued. It was only once she had approached closely enough to hear the ice cubes clinking in the two glasses that she spied the storm crow seated on the chair to the left of the table.
She smiled warmly at the sight of her old friend.
"I am honored that you went to the trouble of finding lemonade out here," she spoke demurely.
With a flash of green light, the crow lifted off the ground and transformed into that familiar light-blue skinned druid within seconds. His robe of animal fur was also bunched in his free hand as he leaned on his staff, though other than that Geldor looked the same as the day they had met more than six years ago.
"The honor is all mine, my priestess," Geldor answered with that low, deep-yet-soft voice of his as he just barely managed to suppress his smile.
The priestess waited for a moment, and only sat down once the druid had lifted two fingers from his staff to motion to the chairs. She walked around the side of hers and sat down politely, though he straddled the chair before sitting straight back, likely due to his knee acting up again. She watched him as he set his staff against the arm of his chair and shiften his weight.
Noticing her noticing, he raised an eyebrow. "You don't need to wait for me to situate myself," said with his smile finally spreading wider.
She shook her head. "No rush, my druid. It has been...what is it now, two and a half years?"
They both sipped on their lemonade as Ralo'shan observed Geldor calculating the time in his head. "It really has been," he said with a warm, non-sarcastic smirk. "To have waited so long in the Emerald Dream seemed like nothing. Now, in this brave new world, time seems to go by so fast."
Ralo'shan looked thoughtfully at the waves crashing on the shore for a moment before turning back to him. "Irien could pass for your daughter, you know," she said coyly.
Geldor chuckled, focusing on the waves as well. "How did your surprise meeting with that friend of hers go?"
"It went far better than I had expected," she replied, trying not to let slip how guarded she was about the conversation. "She had had much difficulty adjusting to our new lifestyle...but they're quite supportive of each other." She sipped some more of her lemonade before continuing. "Irien is lucky to have her as a friend."
The priestess and the druid marvelled at the soft sound of the high tide sweeping in, suddenly able to ignore the hustle and bustle of the war cramp above. At their age, there was no need to rush into the conversation though she knew he could see her smile out of the corner of his eye.
"I've read your book three times," Geldor admitted, hesitating before he spoke for the first time since she had met him.
She raised an eyebrow before deciding to drop the act, relaxing and allowing her joy to show through. "I hope you found it to be beneficial," she said as she turned to face him.
Geldor shifted in his chair again, actually turning to face her partially. "I read it three times," he chuckled. "That should speak for itself. You've...changed since Silithus. Considerably. I knew you would be able to regain your social skills, but I had never imagined you'd become such a sought-after motivational speaker."
Reverting to an old habit that was hidden from anyone else, Ralo'shan adjust her dress despite there not being any creases in it. "I must offer the world whatever I can, as you said," she answered congenially. "My experiences seem to go over well with those preparing for the war effort on Draenor. It seems so mundane to me, but I'm delighted that people find some sort of inspiration in my words."
Turning her body to face him as well, she released much of her tension by trying to flip the conversation back onto him - something she knew he wouldn't prefer. "Your neice said you were giving some sort of a crash course in disenchanting? For the contractors and irregulars about to walk through the portal they've opened up?"
He hummed to himself in amusement, dragging his eyes along his staff for a moment. "Basic dispellation of curses and other malevolent magics, to be exact. It isn't nearly the depth required even for a basic understanding, but time is of the essence." He returned his gaze to hers. "I haven't received any negative feedback yet, so I suppose I must be doing something right."
"You're the best one for the job."
Geldor crooked his neck back when she didn't seem shy to compliment him so openly. He marvelled at her for just a few seconds. "You've come a long way from your independence," he quoted from the newest edition of her book.
"On my way to interdependence, hopefully," she chortled, thrilled that he remembered exact lines she had written. "So...Sonja is actually pregnant, then?"
He snorted with a grin now, and Ralo'shan couldn't help but feel flattered that he was less reserved in front of her than most anyone else. "May Elune's grace help them," he murmured as his smile disappeared. "I'm glad she and Erikur were finally able to reconcile, but the world will not make it easy for such a pairing to live. Neither faction is likely to welcome them with open arms."
Ralo'shan furrowed her brow. She hadn't seen Erikur in almost three years and Sonja since before that, but she still felt for them. "Your neice seems to have made it in neutral zones without issue. I hope the same for them."
Her smile faded slightly as the uncomfortable topic they both knew was coming crept into her mind. It was with the guild - the 'Revenge Seekers,' though neither she nor Geldor preferred the name - that Ralo'shan was finally coaxed out of her open-air prison and beckoned into the world of the living. She was asked to become an adviser to the guild just like Geldor, and despite being members of the younger races, they had taught her so much about life and happiness - especially now that her people's immortality was lost. Death was now inevitable, just as it had been before the blessing of the World Tree, and the reality was that the night elves had a lot to learn from their youngers.
She decided to broach the issue. "I still find it difficult to accept that Esmerelda is gone," Ralo'shan said wistfully as she watched her toes bury themselves underneath the sand. "Their lives are so fast and short, yet they still understand death so much better than we do. I think I took her death worse than Erikur did when I heard."
Although she didn't raise her head, Ralo'shan could sense Geldor holding his breath for a moment as he felt the pain as well. Both of them had cared for Esmerelda like a daughter, as strange as it was for beings so different from one another to feel that way. They both knew, upon accepting positions as advisers to the guild, that they were preparing to see many people they would grow attached to leave them. It was a reminder that, with their own immortality gone and much of their own lifespans already depleted before it had even come, they themselves would pass on to the next life soon enough.
"We still...have so much to learn," the druid murmured just loudly enough for her to hear, his wise old voice as comforting as it had always been. "For all our years fulfilling our duty to nature and to the dragonflights, we were so unprepared to face even things as simple as chronic illness and the inevitability of death. Beings whose entire lifespans are but a blink of our eyes have mastered a stage of life which is so unknown and terrifying to us."
Turning to face her again, the sense of loss was no longer hidden in his eyes. "Her whole family took it better than we did. But we are not simply observers anymore; our kind has already begun feeling old age. I sat with Watcher Jarod Shadowsong...just after Shalasyr's funeral. His soul was nothing but loss, save a brief moment of solace at the end. And though we all felt that sense of loss, I saw something else - even in the eyes of High Priestess Tyrande and Shan'do Stormrage."
Ralo'shan was leaning forward slightly now, her hurt being overwhelmed by anticipation as she sought for some sort of a cure for it, some sort of respite.
"I saw fear," Geldor continued. "Even in the eyes of my Shan'do, I saw fear. Our people have defeated the Burning Legion twice, had our world literally ripped apart twice, seen our entire civilization crumble and suffered numerous other calamaties. We have witnessed more than any other beings on Azeroth, but at the thought of our younger Shalasyr finally leaving this world which we have defended for millennia, we all became afraid. All of us except Jarod. We do not fear the horrors of the Twisting Nether, but we fear death, even despite our faith. We fear it because we do not understand it.
"And yet, I would like to believe that Jarod did not display fear precisely because he does understand it now. Losing loved ones to accidents and war - as you and I both have - is different. It's preventable, and we can rationalize it by thinking of what could be done differently the next time those close to us are threatened. But to simply grow old and die...even High Priestess Tyrande, once she was done with the last rites, experienced that fear. I could feel it. But not Jarod."
Geldor furrowed his brown as feelings Ralo'shan had forgotten people their age still felt washed over his face in quick succession. She sensed the just barely detectable sadness well up in him, only to be washed away by his realization.
"Jarod let go of his fear through his experience. And he believes in his heart that one day, he and Shalasyr will be together again. And now that he has faced that fact of life, it is no longer so abhorrent to him. I...I'm glad to have known Esmerelda. Her young race's ability to love life despite tasting it for such a short time was inspiring, I'm honored to have known her up to her passing, and I'm glad to have experienced the pain of separation from a daughter-figure and a dear friend. I'm glad for both the joy and the pain."
Geldor's voice strengthened toward the end of his sentence, though he had looked down and was tracing a hangnail on his middle finger with his opposite hand. Though Ralo'shan hadn't known him for a particularly long time in comparison to their long lives, she knew him fairly well. And for the first time, he was actually opening up. It would have been considered improprietious in almost any other context, yet now, between the two of them, it couldn't feel further from that.
Resisting the urge to reach out and touch his hand, Ralo'shan instead cleared her throat and brought out the motivational speaker again - with a personal touch to avoid sounding rehearsed.
"We run the risk of pain by reaching out to the world," she said after clearing her throat. She sipped some more of her lemonade before continuing. "But it isn't simply about risking the pain for the joy. The pain itself is a joyous phenomenon. We cannot truly live without pain. And it is the inevitability of death that helps us to enjoy life so much. Our people never knew such happiness and such love for being alive during immortality."
The druid left his fingernail alone, a smile creeping across his face again. Bringing those smiles to the faces of their youngers was a talent Ralo'shan used constantly at her speaking engagements across Kalimdor. To bring such a smile to the face of Geldor Rainsong, however, was significantly different. She could almost feel the warmth that reverberated between them as he turned his head partially to glance at her.
"You've changed so much," he said with a look of admiration. Ralo'shan felt sincerely flattered that the roles had reversed so much since that fateful nighttime discussion at Staghelm Point all those years ago. She could almost feel him squeezing her hand as he led her into Cenarion Hold, guiding her across that first huge step to rejoining the world outside of her tower; it made her want to squeeze his all the more.
"What do you mean?" she asked sincerely, a curious caution present in her tone.
"I always knew you would make it," Geldor explained, straightening up in his chair as he sounded quite certain. "You only needed a catalyst; but I knew that when you were finally shown that others in the world thought about you and desired to listen to your story, you would be able to cross the gap. I never imagined all of this, though. I've seen copies of your booklet on overcoming social anxiety translated into Gutterspeak in Gadgetzan. I passed by a group of young pandaren women recounting a speech you gave at a closed session in Ironforge while I was surveying the regrowth efforts in Stonetalon."
"Geldor Rainsong!" she exclaimed, her cheeks blushing for the first time in many, many years. "I only relate my experience as a friendly advice to those coping with...well, things I have coped with. I'm not some sort of philosopher changing the world."
"I didn't intend to gush," he chuckled, the soft hair of his beard moving almost unnoticeably as he did. "But I'm very proud of you, is all."
She nodded in thanks, both of them reaching to drink from their glasses simultaneously. After sharing another soft chuckle, she deftly fought off the silence.
"There are so many adventurers already lining up for this alternate version of Draenor," Ralo'shan started a bit dryly. "It seems they have all they need for the war effort."
Taking the cue, Geldor was suddenly thoughtful again. "We do our part training the new generation, to fight this new war, and defend our new world," he said while studying his glass. "I don't think I would be of too much use, with my knee and all." He pinched his kneecap for a moment, likely thinking of an issue with his meniscus he had mentioned to her before the destruction of Theramore and the breakup of the guild.
"I haven't strung a bow since the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj were closed," she added, reveling in their ability to admit their faults away from prying ears. "This is part of that inevitability, I suppose. We both pass on what we've learned to the inheritors of this new life, and help them to enjoy what we were blessed with. Wash, rinse, and repeat!" she punctuated with her pointer.
The two of them only rarely laughed, and when they did so it was quiet, congenial and without the animation of the mere thousand-year olds. Ralo'shan could only imagine how Geldor's neice would react were she to be spying on them with those green-lensed diurnal goggles of hers.
They paused and she allowed the silence to wash over them like the waves crashing on the shore. It was hypnotic in how closely it mirrored the perplexing mix of emotions she felt about her ageing. She was almost surprised with herself, just an hour ago having privately advised that overly tall companion of Irien's about their quickly approaching end so successfully. Turning to the side, she saw the same wistful, complicated feeling in her heart plastered on Geldor's face.
"So where do we go from here?" Ralo'shan asked him only half-rhetorically. "Part of our lives are spent passing our wisdom on. Do we not deserve something for ourselves as well? Some sort of epiphany as we watch our fleeting years tick by?"
To add to the curious perplexion present in the pregnant pause, the druid forced his eyes to stay focused on the waves in front of them yet failed to conceal the focal point of his mind.
"With all the upheavals in our fourteen-millennium old society during the past decade, opportunities and new life choices about," he said with a surprising amount of control. "I don't think I've seen so many of our own race rekindling the old marriage rites that existed in our society before we were split in half with the Long Vigil and the Emerald Dream."
And there it was. Subtle enough that someone Irien's age without her snoopiness may not understand, though direct enough that, for the first time since what faded memories she had of Zin-Azshari before the Sundering, Ralo'shan raised her hand to her face, covered most of her left cheek and could only stare at the air in front of her as she tried and failed to stop her eyes from widening.
She cleared her throat, fighting the urge to start thinking all of her sentences before speaking them as she had done during her own personal vigil. "Well, I suppose with the rekindled ability to raise children, our society has had an easier time accepting some things and not others."
A pair of seagulls passed overhead, and both elves waited for the cawing to disappear before he spoke again. "The description seems like a rather utilitarian viewpoint," he said while pretending to examine the exact extent of the high tide. Like an actual stag, his antlers held a slight reddish glow in the sunlight, the peachfuzz lining their surface reflecting the light if he were sitting at the right angle.
"It rather does," was the only answer she could muster as she wondered whether she was fourteen-thousand or just fourteen.
"The faith of Elune views nature not merely as a set of tools," he quietly preached to the one-woman choir. "Nature accepts beauty for the sake of beauty, without the presence of objective usefullness, in some contexts." With his attempt at rationalizing his own statement, it became clear to her that the apprehension was mutual. It wasn't until Geldor peeked with his own peripheral vision that she was sure he knew she was doing the same.
"And it certainly isn't proper for Elune's faithful to even humor utilitarianism," Ralo'shan added with a sudden confidence.
The sun had begun to ascend to its highest point in the sky as its light reflected off of the clear blue waves. It was almost as if the ocean was dragging away all the tension that had disappeared so quickly after the last few sentences spoken. The two elves relaxed in their chairs, still unprepared to release their mutual sighs of relief out loud but comfortable enough to let the silence roll in.
Nozdormu the Timeless himself couldn't have planned it better when the two of them twisted sideways without a millisecond's difference between them.
"Would I-"
"Would you-"
One brief pause and an inescapable glance later, and the two ancient elves were laughing again. Oh, if Tyrande could see her now!
And yet, the tension never returned. Two very subtle but very honest people were content to sit a little while longer, feeling no desire to rush things even after the acceptance of their mortality.
"So," Geldor asked with his long, feral eyebrows arched. "Your ship to Stormwind leaves tomorrow afternoon? For your next focus group?"
In celebration of having washed out her apprehension in the salty ocean water, Ralo'shan shiften in her seat to face him now. "Irien has informed you of quite a bit, hasn't she?"
He took his glass in his hand again, humming his affirmation as he shifted as well. "That, and I know your aversion to portals."
"Did she tell you I already reserved the room across from mine as well?"
Ralo'shan, Priestess of the Moon, sat and watched as Geldor Rainsong, Archdruid of the Talon, turned to her and for the first time was not immediately ready with a response. Finally feeling that her transition from a shut-in to the social butterfly she felt she had metamorphisized into, she turned her head away, a triumphant smirk on her face.
The hustle and bustle in the war camp no longer existed as the ancient night elf pairing finished their lemonade there on the beach. Content to bask in their mutual bravery, Ralo'shan and Geldor began a short vigil, an azure dream, sitting on their two chairs as they made up for the lack of roses to stop and smell by allowing the crashing waves to fill their long ears. Unlike the vigil and the dream they had respectively experienced before, this one wouldn't be alone.