Author's Notes: Welcome one and all to Scepter Two! I am aware the name is long: feel free to shorten it to Lingers in your mind, since that is what I have been doing for close to a year now.
This story will not be as vast as the original Scepter. But unlike all the stories I've written in the meantime, this is a true sequel. This is Zarabethe and Elforen on an epic adventure once again. Writing them feels like coming home: I hope that reading them feels like coming home to you, as well.
For new readers: Scepter is the must to read before this story. All others are nice but not 100% necessary. There will be a few easter eggs and I hope a few surprises along the way as well.
There is cover art on my deviantArt account, zarabethedraws, and there will be chapter illustrations as well along the way. The beginning will be a little sporadic as we finish up Winter's Tale, but I hope we can get going faster as the story progresses.
Enjoy!
This story is set thirty years after the beginning of Scepter.
Elwynn Forest, situated directly mid-continent, was one of the few locales on Azeroth to boast four completely different seasons. Fall was decidedly rainy and gloomy, bringing with it the advent of raucous drinking holidays. Winter was cold and icy. Many a Winter Veil was spent among its residents snowed in, fires blazing to keep away the chill. Spring again was rainy like the fall, but also energetic, the promise of new life in its chill mornings and warm afternoons. Summer however, could be unpredictable. Some years it was temperate, with periodic rains and farmers enjoyed a lengthy growing season. Some years however, it felt more like the demon homeworld it was so hot, and everything green dried up and withered away. Unfortunately, this year was one of the latter.
Zarabethe took what felt like the fifteenth break from translating to rub her burning, gritty eyes and wipe the sweat from her forehead. It was so hot that she couldn't concentrate at all during the day and had taken to working after the sun sank below the horizon. She took a minute to pull her hair down and run her fingers through it. It was feeling a little thin lately, and more than once she had almost cut it off: just taken the kitchen shears and started hacking until it no longer bothered her. With a sigh, she began to coil it into a knot on top of her head and pin it into place. She had kept her hair long all her life. Even if she were tempted to take a page from Lorel's book, she thought the dissonance of having a different hairstyle would annoy her for years until it grew back. And to be quite honest, as unhealthy as it had been looking lately, it might not ever get this long again.
Finished with her hair, Zarabethe leaned back in her chair and stretched. The candle flickered from its base with her movement, throwing shadows across the kitchen. The words and symbols from her translating pages spread out on the table seemed to dance in front of her eyes, and she scowled at them crossly. It would make sense, that the last big project she was taking on before they left for their vacation, would be exceptionally difficult. Yes, it was going to pay well, and would go a long way towards funding their trip in the first place. But right now it was doing nothing but giving her a headache.
She refused to admit it, but for a couple years now, it was getting harder for her to concentrate on little things like that. It wasn't that she couldn't see them-it was that when she tried to focus on them the words swam in her vision, and she had to stop and completely take a break, rest her eyes, and try again. It bothered her on a level that was so deep that it was barely formed in her mind. Something that should only haunt her during the blackest part of the night.
Aging.
Like almost every other Kal'dorei she was acquainted with, she had been born during the period of Immortality. She had become accustomed with the idea that her life was her duty, that the ages would stretch on with only studies and defending against the unnatural to keep her company. As she had never intended on taking a mate or even getting close to another, this had always been enough for her. With the loss of immortality and the return of things that she never intended on being cozy with: emotions, fertility and a desire to be around others, the consequences of not being immortal anymore simply faded to the background. Namely, aging and dying.
The truth of it was, she literally had no idea when this would happen. She was 566 years old, merely a sprite compared to the old way of counting. Raene Wolfrunner, one of her closest Kal'dorei friends, was an astounding 10,457 years old, and looked only a bit older than she did. But she had confided in her, the last time they had spoken, that she was getting arthritis in her knees and was considering retiring from the birth compound soon due to mobility issues. The conversation had left her feeling unsettled, but soon there had been nieces and nephews to play with and life in general lifting her up, and she had pushed the thought aside. In fact, she thought she had been hiding it pretty well, but a few months ago her husband had left a pointed flyer on the kitchen table. A pair of gnome brothers had opened up a new-fangled eyeglasses shop in Stormwind, one called Zenni and Pearlen's Hightech Eyewear. At first she had been insulted, then she laughed at it and balled it up to throw it in the trash. She put it out of her mind completely until that evening when she found it again on the table, this time wrinkled from its time spent in the garbage bin. She had gritted her teeth, grabbed the paper, and stalked into the living room, where Elforen was reading over an order list. She stood in front of him, barely able to voice the magnitude of her irritation. He must have surely known both the reason she was standing there, and the source of her foul mood, but he did not lift his eyes from his paper. His patience, as always, exceeded hers, and she shoved the paper into his lap.
"If you are suggesting that I am somehow incapacitated, that I am unable to do something as mundane as use my eyes the same way that I always have, then you are gravely mistaken."
He did raise his eyes to her then, one eyebrow higher than the other and his mouth pressed into a line. He picked up the flyer, smoothed it flat, and put it with the rest of the things he had been working on.
"I was actually going to suggest reading glasses, to ease your headaches during your work, but if you are going to fly off the handle over it, then I guess not."
Zarabethe had felt horribly flustered during the conversation, like she knew that she was over-reacting but at the same time, fully justified in the slight tremble of panic that settled in her stomach at the idea of a visual aid (reading glasses, really, how preposterous) . She crossed her arms and sniffed loudly.
"Well you are right then. That you guess not. Because my vision is perfect."
And she had stomped out of the room, not sure whether she had won the argument or lost it before it even began.
They didn't talk about it again, although Zarabethe knew he kept the flyer. And even though she was insulted, appalled, and dismissed the idea of something so ridiculous as reading glasses completely out of hand, nights like tonight, when her eyes really gave her trouble and she just wanted to be able to read something without it blurring, she wished that she had an option to make her sight better. Growling in frustration, she pushed her chair back, and left off of it for now. It was still impossibly hot, and it was too hard to see by candleight. She wet a washcloth in the sink and pressed it to her eyes, finally feeling some relief as the cool water washed over her face. If she went to bed now, she could get up with the sun, and get everything done well before noon when it was due. And then she would have nothing left to do for the trip except finish packing and going over her gear and purchasing arrows. Which, with the chunk of gold she would be getting with this project, would be no problem.
Unceremoniously stripping off her sweaty clothes on the way to bed but keeping the cool cloth, Zarabethe poked her husband in the side until he grumbled in his sleep and scooted over. She flung herself down on top of the sheets and fell asleep before she could even take up a single worried thought.
Elforen whistled cheerily as he prodded Emeril home a little faster than his usual amble. He was always happy to be home: he was not one of those detached spouses who stayed at their job longer than was necessary to avoid the mundanity of home life. It was that calmness, the quiet, the time spent with just his wife, that he craved more than anything, even more than the wanderlust that had been itching in the back of his head for over a year now. In fact it was that attachment to peacefulness that had caused them to stay home so long anyway: they were happy here. It was orderly. They had built a far-reaching family that was as close as roughly ten people with different interests and walks of life could be. But lately, with their daughters moving out, growing up, and relatively stable (as stable as Genne could be expected to be, at least) they had both felt that pull to get back into adventuring, at least part time. Elforen would take time out of his regular blacksmithing to update his armor, to try out a slightly new shape of axe, to hone his skill at throwing hatchets. He had caught Zarabethe deep in books of maps instead of her usual history, and her bow had gotten updated recently as well. It was time.
Both of them were no stranger to adventure. They had each, in their own time, spent a considerable amount of time exploring and wandering in their younger years, and so the dilemma of deciding where to spend their vacation was a little more complicated than usual. What part of Azeroth hadn't they thoroughly explored yet? The answer, after much deliberation and weeks of back and forth, was simple: the only place they had never been.
The mists that protected Pandaria for millenia had lifted during the period of time when they were still raising their little girls. They had remarked on it to each other in passing, but in between washing diapers and catching toddlers trying to walk out the front door, it had settled into the back of their minds. Elforen had heard Mae talk excitingly over the southern continent as if it were her own paradise, then heard his brother dismiss it and grudgingly admit its beauty in the same breath. If it were up to Mae, they would probably live there. But it had never really stuck in the back of his mind until one of his customers, a particularly stout dwarf that was good buddies with Hemet Nessingwary (or so he claimed; it was always best to take these statements with a grain of salt and a mug of ale) talked to the whole shop about the mysterious island off the coast of the Pandaria. The dwarf had brought with him a legbone from a bird called a crane, and he wanted it made into a handle for a knife. The bone was nothing Elforen had ever seen before, and he remarked on it as he took the order. The dwarf went on and on about the hunting and the expeditions planned for the island, and a few weeks later even brought him a flyer.
But even all of that might not have convinced him to mention it to Zara except in passing. As he glanced over the flyer, it boasted its manned hunting expeditions and curiously replenishable game all over it, but the real reason the safaris were manned is because the island was so large and so dense in foliage, that it had never been fully explored. There were miles and miles of uncharted wilderness, and literally no one knew what was in it. He didn't even have to convince Zara-he handed her the flyer, and as soon as she read that part she pointed it out to him and nodded her head. This would be a vacation, an adventure, a hunting expedition: even if they found nothing more interesting than a bunch of old rocks, they would still be going places that no one had ever been before. It was perfect.
Now here they were: boat tickets had been purchased. Money had been saved up. Supplies had been gathered, weapons and armor had gotten a reboot, or in the case of Zara's, been completely purchased new. Brekke was going to come stay and take care of the animals, and Genne would be joining her at some point. Two whole months, completely free.
Emeril pulled into the gate at the back end of the property, and Elforen jumped off to secure the latch. He remained on his feet as he unhitched the cart and led the horse to the stables. He had no projects to bring home today. He had secured extra help in the Goldshire shop for two months and taken on no big projects for that time, only repairs and existing projects. Zarabethe had gotten extra food for the animals and cleaned all their enclosures so Brekke didn't have to worry about it. Everything was in good repair and all bills had been paid in advance.
As Elforen brushed out Emeril and got him settled in his stall, he felt a pair of eyes of him. He rustled around in the hay on the floor of the stable without turning around and located a red hard rubber ball. He turned and threw it in one motion, and he was rewarded by a scrape and scramble of claws as Dagra, the biggest nightsabre in their possession, took after the ball from where he had been perched on the rafters. Elforen chuckled out loud as the sleek and proud nightsabre batted the ball around like a kitten, until finally catching it in his massive teeth and trotting up to him like a puppy. Elforen held out his hand, and Dagra gave him the drool-covered ball without so much as a scrape of teeth. Zarabethe had done very well with him: he was tame and obedient, although still feisty and liked to play. He was clever and responded well to commands. His siblings were well on the way to joining his level of training: Asa was sleeker and leaner than her brother, but sometimes would get an attitude and refused to cooperate. Soren was smaller and more rambunctious. Lyra, despite her name, was not as graceful as the others, although she liked to make noise as if she were actually responding to instructions. All four of them had kept his wife busy and himself much entertained in evenings, when they were all let out to play. The four of them also seemed to ease the silent hole that existed between the two of them: the one that ached every time they had a new niece or nephew born.
Not that they were not thrilled with the expansion of their family. Elforen in particular, enjoyed seeing Kalibose care about someone other than himself for once, and got a particular pleasure out of seeing him change diapers or get spit up on, and take it in stride. And night elves in general, did not have a lot of children or a lot of children close together. If this were several hundred years ago, several thousand years ago, they wouldn't even be thinking of having another yet. But the notion that the option had been taken away from them was worse than anything else. Their family was happy, their living children were doing well, and they had much to be thankful for. There was no reason to not be content, except that the choice had been made for them, and not together.
So if Zarabethe spent long hours with the cubs when there were other things around the house to be done, he didn't fuss. If he chose to spend an afternoon playing with them instead of catching up on work, he didn't feel guilty about it.
Night elves lived a long time, and sometimes that meant getting over a loss took a long time as well.
Elforen literally had the thoughts shook from his head as the other three sabres, who had been lounging outside, came bounding in to play as well. Lyra rubbed up against his legs like a housecat, nearly knocking him over, Asa bumped her head against the hand holding the ball, and Soren threw restraint aside and stood his full height, putting his great paws almost on his shoulders and worrying his head against his chest. Elforen lost his balance with a cry, and it was several minutes before he could extricate himself from their affection.
"Elune above," he laughed breathlessly as he finally got to his feet. "You four are a menace. Go find Zara, leave me alone."
He waded through their furry enthusiasm, and they finally got the hint, bounding out of the stable before him. He shook his head as he watched them disappear in four different directions, after taking a few swats at each other for good measure. It was a good thing that Brekke had grown up around animals: she was going to have her hands full with them over the next two months.
Elforen went back to making his lists in his head as he strolled to his shop. All of his armor had already been revamped, but there were a few weapons that he wanted to check the sharpness of, and there was a handle on an axe that needed looking at. Well before he reached the building, he heard the familiar zwip-thunk as his wife practiced her archery. The sound brought a smile to his face as he detoured around the side of the smithy to watch her. There had been many things about her lately that had worried him: how she seemed to have more and more trouble seeing small print on pages, how she seemed to be restless a lot, and how she would get headaches more often. But this right here, was her element. Watching her pull an arrow and hit the target square in the middle, reminded him of just how lethal she could be. Her movements were sinuous and sure, and there was not even a moment of squinting or hesitation. She hit three targets in a row, and he was just turning to leave when he saw the midnight blue bounding figures of the nightsabres. He waiting, watching them as they approached Zarabethe. She didn't turn to look at them, but made a tiny hissing noise through her teeth. Immediately they lined up to the side of her, sitting at attention and waiting for her to shoot two more times, before she lowered her bow and turned to them. Only then did they leave the quiet stance they were in to greet her enthusiastically. She praised them and scratched their ears, and Elforen nodded to himself as he turned back to his shop. As much as they could act like giant kittens, their training was coming along nicely. He would leave their care to her, and as for him, he had weapons to attend. After all, they only had a few more days until they left.
Everything was ready except for last minute details. Both he and Zarabethe had been working to get back in shape. Their weapons and armor had been updated, and plans had been made for everything at home. He wondered to himself, quietly enough he barely acknowledged it, why he had this trickle of anticipation at the journey ahead of them. Pushing the thought aside as ridiculous, he got to work.