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Captain Kurel An'Diel belongs to kurel-andiel on tumblr.
Vethoreas the dreadlord belongs to his owner, Vethoreas on twitter.
It had gone according to plan. Aranya had enabled Vethoreas to move against his brother's old pawns without tipping his hand, but only by the blood elf acting as an informant to the Banshee Queen of their moves and developments on his behalf. Anonymously, letting it be assumed that the leads were found by her efforts alone. The Dark Lady's grudge for the other dreadlords she had history with would be sufficient enough to keep outside suspicion away from Vethoreas. Sylvanas wanted anyone or anything in connection with her enemy to be destroyed.
Leaving a different dreadlord to tip the balance of the game in his favor, unbeknownst to anyone but Aranya.
Better the devil you know… She had come to him with the idea, thinking those words in her mind. All it took was a few reasonable words to persuade him to say yes. She had teleported into the Royal Quarter later that same day with just what Lady Windrunner had wanted to hear.
It still wasn't enough to repay her blood debt to him. But honestly, Aranya hardly felt that it mattered anymore. Even after she was finally free of him, sooner or later, the demon would sink his claws right back into her life again. They had been too useful to each other at certain critical moments in the past for the nathrezim to just quit wanting to keep the blood elf as an asset somehow.
She would have to consult with him soon… After an important journey.
The Ver'Sarn heiress traced over the magically-drawn sketches in the pages of a leather-bound notebook of hers. Pictures of the naga tablets that she and Anton had been translating and studying ever since she had accompanied the human on his trip to Vashj'ir. The endeavor was meant to study the evolution of magic among the scaly creatures. When did their culture start to slowly evolve away from the Highborne ways that they had known to adapt to their newer, aquatic existence?
Well, they found exactly those answers, and more. One set of tablets spoke of a dark and terrible, "blessed" prophecy. Yet… Aranya had suspicions - hopes, really - that maybe this prophecy had already happened. Left its mark and passed with time.
It was known to the arcanist that when certain prophetic things came to pass, one could tell how old the foretelling of it was by how widely spread the knowledge of it was. Artifacts within a smaller radius meant that it hadn't taken long for a seer's sooth-saying to manifest, because the news of it was not so widespread with the short years that it had taken to happen. But tablets, parchments, sayings that were spread the world over… That meant time had dragged on long enough for what-was-yet-to-come to be widely anticipated.
It had taken a fair number of generations for the naga to adapt to the colder waters of the north, and settle there. Aranya hypothesized that whatever she needed to find - or not find - could be found in those distant extremes, in Northrend.
She hoped that she would find nothing.
The sorceress heaved a sigh as she began to stare at flashes of light on the watery expanse that bordered her family home.
Her thoughts turned to the new efforts she was making to revive Ver'Sarn involvement in trade on the seas.
Aranya would never say it aloud, but she felt… a little ashamed of how the ships had never been at even a fraction of the potential they could have achieved, in her possession. Not like her father had done with them. And then they had become without purpose once she quit this world for another one.
Why? Because she was just like her father, to abandon her home and everything she swore she loved because she couldn't live with the destiny she saw for it all?
No.
She came back. She took responsibility and picked up the pieces. Re-forged them into something that could be respected and admired or feared.
That was the difference between Aranya and Valtheras Ver'Sarn.
She retreated, and then she returned to press forward. Valtheras could settle for a path that was comfortable, but she couldn't. She had too much fight in her to do that.
"No freedom, no glory… Nothing worth having… Without sacrifice," the old wisdom of her last Highborne ancestor spilled in a paraphrased whisper from Aranya's lips. How was her father the one to teach those historic words to her, but she the one to live by them when it mattered most?
The sea-wind picked up, blowing a section of her long, sleek black hair across her eyes.
She couldn't help how it brought to mind the flash of a thought for someone else who had covered eyes, who she had recently met. Her mouth pulled into a smile. Everything about Captain An'Diel set her at ease and set her on edge in equal measure at the same time. She wasn't used to that.
She wasn't afraid of it, either.
A nerve-rattling CRASH, followed by some loud commotion in the area of Aranya's sanctum on the grounds of the villa had the sorceress leaping up to her feet and running towards the din.
Within the sanctum, there were a couple of overturned chairs and some strewn books all across the floor. The gossamer curtains that had hung across the entrance archway were torn and wrapped around a thrashing grey bird, shrieking and snapping its beak as it struggled with them. It looked like some kind of sickly vulture.
What the fel was it doing here?
The first thing Aranya did was speak a few arcane words to flash-incinerate the curtains from the carrion bird's form, lest it become injured in any further struggle. She quickly had to follow this with a magical snare to slow its movements and then blink to the other side of the room as it aggressively charged for her.
"Whoa," she urged it, calm but wary. "Easy, nothing's going to hurt you."
The vulture flopped around a while more, frustrated with the invisible force that made it such an effort to move.
"Easy…" Aranya told it again.
Eventually tiring of its efforts, the bird took to pecking at something that was on its ankle, looking up at the blood elf every now and again to glare at her.
What was that? A closer look at the thing revealed that it was something made of paper. Deliberately tied to the vulture's ankle. When the woman started to move closer to try and take it, the bird started to lift its shoulders and wings in a more menacing fashion.
Aranya narrowed her fel-lit eyes and held up her palm, fire encradled within it. The eyes of the grey carrion bird widened, but otherwise it stood perfectly still now, motionlessly regarding the flames in the arcanist's hand.
"Don't test me," the woman admonished in a low tone of voice.
The vulture continued to be still as Aranya approached, and carefully untied what was clearly a letter from the bird's leg.
The wax of the seal was embossed with a scarab beetle. Flicking it open, the letter very shortly read:
Lady Ver'Sarn.
I have a challenge for you. When the time finds you, find me in Sunspire. ~ Captain An'Diel
Aranya read it once. Twice. Enough times.
She glanced back at the grey vulture on the floor, crouched down, and looked it dead in the eye. "Fly back to him who sent you," she told it. "There will be no written reply. No tokens sent back. Nothing but the imprint my magic leaves you with when you leave here today, like a fingerprint on a dirty bar-glass." Too suddenly for the sickly creature to do anything about it, she grabbed the carrion bird, hoisted it from the floor and out the open archway, dispelling the slowing spell that she had cast on it as she did so. "Now go."
The vulture seemed only too eager to do just that.
Aranya gave a heavy exhale as she flopped into a still-upstanding chair. She read over the letter again.
Lady Ver'Sarn…
It always made her uncomfortable anytime anyone ever erroneously called her that.
The Ver'Sarn family had wealth, resources, holdings, pride in what they built for themselves with every generation. But not title. The last Highborne lord of their line had cast off that title and all the privileges that went with it ages ago, when he joined in rebelling against Azshara. He had every right to take up that title of nobility again when the Thalassian kingdom was founded. He and all his heirs. None ever did. A testament to past sacrifices and the knowing of what was really worth having.
Lady Ver'Sarn… The captain could not have known. But if he ever called her that again, she would have to set it straight. "Mistress" or "arcanist," but never "lady." She wasn't going to pretend to be something that she was not. Not with a man who gave every indication that he took no pleasure in pretending to be anything he was not.
The rest of the letter's contents had her tilting her head to one side, as lynx who is curious or intrigued does. A typical mannerism of hers when she was in the same such set of mind. The makings of a smile played at the edges of her mouth.
Kurel An'Diel's words could be construed in any of a few ways. Regardless of whichever way she could choose to look at it, though, there was a challenge to be met, but what was it, exactly? Did it await her in what he might say to her once she met with him? Was the challenge literally in finding him, wherever he stood, at the port? Or was the challenge simply coming at all?
The impish side of her entertained a few scenarios in her mind of how any of those - however unlikely - could turn out. It amused her, brought a sparkle to her eyes and a smile to her lips.
A challenge, hm? Well then…
It would be several hours until nightfall, after which, a ripple in the air would appear in an out-of-way, dark corner of Sunspire Port. After it vanished, the tall, slender shadow of a sin'dorei woman would be seen in its place, but for only a few moments, looking up to the roofs. After that, she would disappear again.
And thus Aranya would spend her evening, observing the goings on from the rooftops, being up high, near the stars, just as she liked it. Finding her bearings, seeing what there was to see, never letting her boots make more than the scantest sound as she tread. She would later choose a place to room for the night, and hear out whatever the captain had to say the next day, once their paths crossed.
She had a strange sense lurking in her mind that she wouldn't have to seek that moment out. That it would just happen, and that it was better for her to just let it happen.