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"Seo-yun…?"
Aranya gently reached out and touched the pandaren's shoulder. He groaned, rousing from what looked to be a half-nap. He peered up at the source of the voice from his pillow.
The dark-haired elf gave him a lopsided smile. "Welcome back to the world of the waking," she said, softly. "…For now."
Seo-yun blinked, but returned the smile. It was a friendly, yet inquisitive one.
"You barely know me," said Aranya, sounding somewhat apologetic for the fact, and she gestured to herself. "I'm Arcanist Aranya Ver'Sarn. Kurel hired me." The pandaren's beady but expressive eyes lit up at her introduction, and he gave her a warm nod. The sin'dorei woman's clear voice and fel-touched eyes were quite noticeably concerned as she asked, "How are you feeling?"
Seo-yun breathed a gruff but hearty laugh, which was interjected by a cough. "Shitty," he grinned.
Aranya's eyes brightened and her face pulled into a wide smile, chuckling. She was happy to see that the shaman still retained his humor in this state.
"Your…" she struggled with the words for a moment, "family… left a note to the port," she explained. "Said that you went to find Kurel… I wanted to make sure that you were alright." She looked away, huffing out a breath through her nose in a short, silent sort of little laugh that wasn't a laugh at all. "May sound a little silly, coming from someone who's only just seen you around, but still."
One of the tuskarr ambled by and exchanged words with Seo-yun, after which the shaman's fur-faced smile widened. "Awful sweet of ya," he said.
Aranya couldn't help curiously asking about the exchange of words that just took place with the tuskarr, and Seo-yun explained that the tuskarr had asked if the ailing pandaren would like some more soup. Then he asked the arcanist what her business was at Sunspire Port, as he, too, had seen her around.
Aranya didn't answer right away, but seemed to choose her words carefully. She answered that she and Captain An'Diel had met rather recently, at a summer festival event. "We… Well we didn't start off exchanging pleasantries…"
Seo-yun chuckled, a fit of coughs heaving underneath his voice. His grin was knowing. Yeah. That sounded like Kurel An'Diel.
Aranya recalled the memory of Kurel walking over to stand beside her for a performance at the festival. She knew they had started talking about… Hell, she barely remembered what about. Something ridiculous. Something unimportant. Followed with more things that weren't important.
What she did remember was his smile.
It wasn't until after that smile was gone - after she had noticed his blindness out loud, and that he couldn't actually see the performance or what she was looking at - that their conversation turned to introductions and talk of who they were and what they did. What business they were in, what they could do for each other.
"But in any case," continued Aranya, "he hired me to do some work for him, when I told him that I'm an arcanist."
The ailing shaman remarked how being an arcanist must be hard, but she replied that it really wasn't at all. It just took the right mind and kind of fortitude for it. A certain awareness of the way of things in existence that some would never understand… As shamans had for the elements.
"Like you, in a way," she said with a warm smile.
Seo-yun tilted his head into his shoulder, trying to shrug under his blanket. "Everyone's got their niche," he said. "I'm not th' best. But I hear the water fine."
Aranya smiled again. "The work I was hired for was to help An'Diel see. Replicate the shadow runes on his ship for him…" she said, but then she trailed off, her luminescent green eyes going a little distant. "I'll be damned if I can guess how that's all going to turn out now," she finished quietly. The elf brought her gaze to meet the pandaren's again, searching, but she couldn't tell exactly for what. "Words like 'betray' keep flying around the port now."
Seo-yun lifted his brows at her description of what work the sorceress had taken on for the captain, impressed. "Ya really are awful nice," he told her. "Still think ya should do it." His furry face became more resolute as he continued. "He did betray us," he said. "I'm not givin' up on 'im. 'S why I searched for him."
The blood elf's face pulled into a warm smile again. "You care about him a lot," she murmured.
"He has become my brother," replied the pandaren. "I don't give up on family. Ever."
Aranya nodded, understanding.
Family.
How many times had she found herself in an argument with someone telling her that Valtheras Ver'Sarn didn't deserve to be forgiven? Her father abandoned her in the wake of the kingdom being broken. And for what? Because he couldn't stomach the direction their people were going after the Alliance's betrayal. He gave up his home and his daughter for that, and left her to pick up the pieces. Aranya didn't even know his reasons until they were reunited during the war in Northrend, in Dalaran.
But she forgave him.
Sometimes old friends still asked her why. Her answer was always the same: whether he deserved it or not, the cost of what she would lose in not forgiving him was too high for her to bear. She loved him. She hated him. She forgave him, let him do as he may, and though it pained her to still have him absent so often, she had her father back.
Did Kurel An'Diel deserve the same such forgiveness from the people whose trust he'd broken?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
But perhaps the more important question was: what was it worth, and what would it cost, if no one did? To Seo-yun, Dimue, Onyx, Riz, and more, he was family.
Aranya took a deep breath.
"Well… If you won't give up…" she said, "Then I won't either."
Seo-yun smiled, "Glad t' hear it."
The rest of the arcanist's visit passed pleasantly. A tuskarr woman offered Aranya some hot stew, which she very gladly accepted, admitting to her "shit tolerance for cold" with a dramatic shudder. Aranya asked Seo-yun how the pandaren and the blind captain had met, and he gave her a very brief telling of how after his restaurant fell apart, he realized he missed the sea. He wanted to sail again, and after hearing about Sunspire Port, the rest was history, he said. Both agreed that the ocean - water in general, in fact - had a certain seductive way of making you miss it.
Before she left, Aranya asked if there were any messages or regards that the shaman wanted to send back to the port with her.
Seo-yun shifted under his blanket, a wily smirk tugging over one of his fangs. "Yeah…" he replied gruffly. "Tell th' crew t' get their asses here. They're missin' out on the best stew of their life. Also me."
Aranya laughed, eyes sparkling, "I'll tell them that."
"Good. Th' bastards," he laughed, and started into another coughing fit, which made the sorceress frown a little, concerned again.
"I think I should let you rest now," she said. "It was good to see you." As a parting gift to cheer him, she handed him a translucent shell, which he accepted gingerly with wide, surprised eyes and a sweet smile of gratitude. They said their farewells, and she walked out of the hutch.
Aranya turned her eyes up to look hard at the cold, northern stars.
A hard, clear whistle left her lips and a streak of chaotic blue curled through the air, making a sharp turn around the tuskarr village. Aranya ran up the hill at the center of the village and leaped from the point where it dropped in a sheer slope, just as the netherdrake glided through the little settlement. She connected square in the saddle, and with another powerful curl of its body, the nether-born dragon carried her into the sky.
She had work to do.
I owe half the credit for this to whalecarver, who is DELIGHTFUL! Mentions to kurel-andiel, dancesinshadows, aesonissa, and rizzythemonk, all from tumblr. Takes place subsequent to a post made by Seo-yun.