Only a few short years ago, an eyeblink in the span of a person's life, this was a different world, and we a very different people who lived on it.
I speak of the tumultuous years after the Third War, when Alliance and Horde were words with far less importance than they have now: scattered, disorganized coalitions, mutually suspicious but only peripherally involved with each other, and comprising between them a fraction of the world's population. Combined, a fraction of the power and importance that either wields now. That world was a bigger one, harder and more dangerous to travel across. Mages who could open portals from one end of the planet to another were few and mostly in the employ of kings; a gryphon or wyvern could only carry a person so far, for established flightpaths and trade routes were fewer and more hazardous. Most people could not claim to have seen a dragon, and would have laughed at the thought of riding on one's back.
In this world, Northrend was a lost land of ice and death. Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms might as well have been different planets, inhabited by different peoples and nearly unrecognizable chains of nature, only newly aware of each other and with the gulf between them enforced by the fury of the Maelstrom. Mechanized aircraft were but gnomish fancy, and goblin zeppelins fragile and unreliable. In this world, passage between these two lands was on the sailing ships that crawled from one end of the Great Sea to the other, and back.
And that was my world.
If you are so blessed as to know of me these days, you will likely know me as the Lady Avanda, matriarch of the House of An'sadarr, a lesser family among the surviving elven nobility of Quel'thalas. If you are acquainted with maritime history during the years between the Third War and the reopening of the Dark Portal, I flatter myself that you will likely have heard of Captain Ann Dawncrest of the Maiden's Quarrel, one of the most successful privateers of the Blackwater Raiders. We are one and the same woman. While I certainly enjoy the luxury of my present life, there are times when the treacherous currents of Silvermoon politics make me long for the honest storms and pirates of the open sea.
One might wonder why, after all this time, I should only now choose to tell the tales I accumulated during my tenure with the Raiders. In truth, it is a matter of ego.
In the seven years of my command, my ship destroyed ninety-three pirate vessels, of the Southsea and Bloodsail fleets, as well as various unaligned ships, in addition to a Thalassian dreadnought (not my fault; the Regency has cleared me of any charges) and a Gilnean coastal fortification (and if Greymane has anything to say to me about it I invite him to come do so), not to mention the two ships of the kaldorei armada that we disabled but allowed to sail away mostly unharmed. I did this in a single light caravel with a crew never exceeding a dozen. So when I describe myself as a genius, it is not boasting: it's mathematics. However, I have never been able to properly brag of my exploits, because only secrecy protected the tricks and stratagems that made me so successful.
But this, as I have noted, is a different world. My maneuvers have been mimicked and (I confess) improved upon by modern navies, and the then-advanced gnomish weapons and devices with which I outfitted my ship are now long obsolete. Besides, I have come ashore and my crew have moved on to safer occupations, so I have nothing left to protect. You cannot imagine the frustration it is to be phenomenally clever and unable to take credit for it. Thus, it is with great relief that I can finally tell the world of my exploits.
Certain personal details have been omitted from my account to protect my privacy and that of several other individuals. Aside from that, I attest that I have related these events faithfully, without embellishment or prevarication. Doubtless, some among my readers will choose to call me a liar. If you must, feel free to regard this as a work of fiction; I will tell it anyway.
Because, true or not, it is a damn good story.