A/N: still Corrianna's perspective here.
If there's one thing Corrianna learned while they scaled that small mountain (definitely not a large hill), it was that the environs of New Kel'Theril were absolutely huge.
From the town below, the distance from the base of the mountain up to the second flat level where Mister Montanha's cabin was located had looked like the greater distance. Once they'd passed that level, however, she found the rest of the walk to feel much longer. Toward the surprisingly flat summit, the trail forked twice, wound around the mountain a few more times and even dipped in between some crevices and miniature woodlands. She understood why the sentinels preferred to use that place when seeking rest and relaxation: as a normal lodge for patrolwoman, it would be useless due to its remote location, and that quality was exactly what made it a great recreation spot. They passed more than one sentinel facility in their way up, though aside from the single armory that was locked up, all of those facilities were solely recreational.
Only when the group passed their third sitting gazebo did Corrianna finally decide to speak up.
"Uniol, this really isn't a normal huntress lodge, is it?" she asked once he and the tauren had fallen into an amiable silence.
He smiled warmly, tilting his head down as if remembering family holidays past. "I almost wouldn't even call it a huntress lodge; nobody did any hunting or patrolling up here. Basically if they could get in the good graces of mom, then they were granted the right to stay here on rotation for a few years at a time. Now that immortality is over, nobody stays more than a few weeks, but this place is still the envy of all other proper lodges in the region. This is basically the reward for hard work."
Though he might have continued gushing had he been able to, the laughter from the trio behind them cut everyone else off.
"And so then he said, 'you can't tell me about my own pet monkey! I trust it to wash the dishes, so of course I trust it to do the laundry!" Henaia laughed hysterically, nearly doubling over in laughter as Thelios followed suit.
"Sounds like he had a major malfunction in his own trophy machine!" the male blood elf laughed back, red in the face as the pandaren just stared at the snow in front of her feet.
What on Azeroth does that even mean, Corrianna thought to herself.
Fortunately, she didn't have to speculate about the bizarre, decontextualized conversation for long. The last bit of the uphill trail evened out as they reached what wasn't quite the summit of the mountain, but was an unbelievably wide, flat level below it. The lodge, accordingly, was the largest she'd ever seen.
"Here it is," Uniol sighed happily.
Henaia immediately sprinted ahead of the group, running halfway toward the enormous, three story lodge before she stopped. "Oh wow! Sizzling sunbeams, this place is amazing!" she chirped before doing a few cartwheels in the snow.
Not to be outdone in the silliness factor, Thelios promptly flopped himself down next to her and began making upside down snow angels. He sounded like he was saying something, though it was inaudible since he had a face full of snow like a big kid.
Corrianna squeezed Uniol's hand even more tightly, whistling as she took in the whole scene. Authentic Kaldorei architecture arced toward the sky, joined by more of the tall, thin pine trees which seemed to grow even on the top of a small mountain. Unlike the huntress lodges of Ashenvale which were open air and featured railings at the sides, this one featured actual walls - likely due to the fact that the winter air could become quite cold at night. Every square inch had been intricately grown by priestesses praying in tandem with druids, leaving the entire face of each floor carved and unique from every other lodge on the planet. The width of the structure was even greater than the height, and Corrianna wondered just what they used all that space for.
"I love your mom so much," Corrianna gasped, still a little awestruck; she was used to seeing huge buildings among the humans or blood elves, but not her mother's race. "Really, I need to thank her so much when we see her again. She's really doing us a great service by letting my bring my family and friends here."
"I think she feels bad about how heavily she criticized you in the months before the wedding," he replied softly, ignoring the two idiotically frolicking Sindorei. "Mom doesn't know the word 'sorry,' so this is typical of her way."
"This way is good enough. I almost feel embarrassed-"
"So anyway, if you're all done here..." Mister Montanha said, letting his voice trail off in a very blunt, obvious manner.
The couple turned around to find the tauren already backing away, impatient and exasperated even though he'd done most of the talking on the way up himself. His pandaren lady friend still looked quiet and preoccupied, and Corrianna almost felt bad for keeping them.
"I think we have everything we need, don't we?" she asked her husband in a very obvious way.
Uniol probably didn't need the hint, and didn't hesitate. "Of course, if inventory has already been taken. Mister Montanha, thank you so much for all the help."
"You're welcome," the white tauren replied before bowing and walking back down the path. His pandaren companion just folded her arms and walked beside him, leaving a few inches of space in between until they disappeared from view.
Once the two of them were alone (Henaia and Thelios looked like they were in their own immature little world as they pelted each other with snowballs), they began to walk up toward the steps that lead to the front door. Inside, Corrianna openly gasped again at the central atrium that Rose all the way up to the ceiling of the third floor.
"This...this is too much," she giggled, no longer able to contain herself. "I'm almost afraid to...everything just looks so nice." She eyed a shoe rack with a number of ancient highborne statuettes lining the top, most of them abstract.
"This is meant to be a place of healing and rest. Though to be honest, with twelve of us total it won't exactly be empty. A lot of the rooms you see here aren't bedrooms. Take a look up there."
He motioned toward the three separate ramps leading to the second and third floors, all of them twisting and intertwining in fascinating ways. "On the second floor we have some bedrooms but also the library and study on one side, and the game room on the other. The showers are here in the first floor as is the kitchen. Laundry and the armory are in the basement."
The two of them walked forward to a circle of comfortable looking cushions in the atrium, setting their luggage down before they even bothered to put it anywhere. Seeing as how they were indoors and it technically was a night elf lodge, Corrianna began trying to kick her boots off before Uniol knelt down to remove them for her.
"Let me."
"Uniol, don't!" she protested weakly, though she didn't resist. The act was actually flattering, though she would have been a bit shy to let others see it; both of them were rather reserved people. Fortunately, the less reserved elven couple didn't stumble through the front door until after both she and Uniol were in their socks.
"Whoa! Holy shit!" Thelios laughed while looking everywhere like a child. "This place is like Light's Hope Chapel!"
"Helloooo!" Henaia bellowed up toward the ceiling. After twirling around a few times, she promptly tripped over one of the cushions and fell down onto it. "Uniol, your mom rocks!"
He smiled as he watched the Sindorei couple beam at his family lodge, and Corrianna could tell that he was considerably less irritated at their behavior than she was. "Thanks, she'll be glad to hear that you guys like it."
Corrianna moved to sit down, but noticed that the two men remained standing. Thelios suddenly looked a bit concerned. "Uh, guys, I chugged like an entire liter of lager before our last pit stop on the hippogriff. Where's the hole?"
Grimacing, Uniol hesitated momentarily before stepping forward. "In the back, past the kitchen. I'll show you since it's kind of hard to find. You two will watch the door, right?" he asked Corrianna before leaving.
"Don't worry, we'll be on the lookout for the rest of the guests," she replied, watching the two men disappear toward the back of the cavernous first floor. Once the two of them were alone, she found Henaia staring at her curiously.
"So are you like, half human or something?" the air headed blood elf asked.
Or something? "That's correct; my mom is a night elf and my dad is human. Uniol, obviously, isn't mixed-"
"And what the hell is Navarion, anyway?"
Corrianna grit her teeth again. "Well, I would have assumed that you know since he's your friend, but my mom and his mom are sisters. His dad is a jungle troll-"
"What's that?"
"A troll, but from the jungle instead of the forest."
"So your cousins are trolls?" Henaia asked sincerely, honestly not seeming to get it.
It took every ounce of Corrianna's willpower not to slap the woman. "No. Listen. Four of my cousins are half troll, half elf; two of them are full blooded night elves because they're adopted," she tried to explain.
For a second, Henaia almost seemed to understand. She poked her tongue against her cheeks back and forth and appeared to count on her hand, destroying every stereotype of blood elves all being brainy magi. "So they're all like trolls?"
"What the f-"
The knock on the door prevented Corrianna, a volunteer at the temple of Elune with her mother at Astranaar, from breaking her goes against cuss words.
"Just open the door!" came the familiar voice of Selia, the girlfriend of one of Corrianna's cousins and a person she liked even less than Hanaia.
Tiondel's reply came back at her hard and fast. "What do you think I'm doing? Just be patient for two seconds." A second later and one of Corrianna's cousins who would actually be staying with them for the weekend entered in all his grumpy glory. His extremely short haircut and circular goatee clashed with his long ears, creating a look that led to most people remembering him rather easily; he had to be one of the few elves on all of Azeroth with short hair.
"Del!" Corrianna chirped as she leapt up out of the chair and ran to give him a hug. "We haven't seen you since the wedding, what's going on!"
Two more people filed inside after Selia entered behind him. "Oh, mostly in Stonetalon with Selia's family," he replied while nodding toward his girlfriend (who conveniently failed to say hello to Corrianna). Though he didn't press the issue due to bad blood between Selia and literally every single member of the family, he did motion for his two other companions to come over. "Corra, these are Selia's friends, Kirana-"
"Greetings," a night elf woman with her hair dyed bright red said while bowing to the group.
"Charmed!" Corrianna replied, happy to see someone who remained a little more reserved when meeting new people.
"-and Jalfaren."
A highborne youth with silver hair posed with his hands in his pockets, staring off to the side as if he were too tragically hip to make eye contact. "Hey," was what the word he mumbled roughly sounded like.
"Nice to meet you, too!" Corrianna told the silverhead in a robe. Already, she liked Selia's friends more than the actual woman herself, including the mumbly mage guy. "Everybody, this is Henaia - she's one of Navarion's friends!"
Already having bounced up next to everybody, Henaia proceeded to do her fake kissy greeting with the two night elf females, and then offered a daintily limp wrist to Jalfaren who tugged on it awkwardly. "Heneurithia Hephaestia Heatseeker at your service!" she absolutely said by mimicking the sound of a dragonhawk; the sound was uncanny. "Henaia for short!"
"Heatseeker, is it? I think I've heard of that family," Kirana replied, already warming up to the woman upon their first greeting.
Henaia's eyes lit up. "Oh, really? That's so cool, I think we're totally one of the original highborne families from Kalimdor!"
"No," Jalfaren mumbled to nobody in particular.
"And you're...Del? Corra's cousin?" Henaia asked, a perplexed expression on her face. "You don't look like a troll."
"Well, he certainly acts like one," Selia huffed while staring out the peephole in the door. Like most night elf buildings, there were no proper windows, thus keeping the place relatively dark save everyone's glowing eyes.
Obviously taking the higher road, Tiondel scowled for a moment before continuing, and Corrianna felt a twinge of protective anger for her family burn at her until the man spoke. "I was adopted, miss Heatseeker, but I'm a hundred percent my father's son," he replied, the very hint of a Zandali accent on his Common once again clashing with his appearance.
From the kitchen, a bellowing Sindorei voice reached the atrium, echoing regardless of Uniol's attempts to shush him from yelling. "Hey everybody, the moo moo guy left some snacks out for us already!" Thelios yelled across the entire first floor.
The camel's back all but broke under the straw as Corrianna's jaw dropped open. "That's racist-"
"Snacks!" Henaia cried while dragging Kirana along toward the kitchen despite literally having just met the woman. Jalfaren soon followed, his pricey silk robes flowing as if enchanted with an aesthetic breeze.
Tiondel dropped both his and his girlfriend's bags near the couch. "We've been flying for a while, Corra. I'm going to go splash some water on my face if you don't mind."
"Take your time; we're finally here, so there's no rush."
She watched him disappear toward the kitchen and waited for a few more seconds, considering whether or not to confront Selia right off the bat. The woman made no secret that she disliked Corrianna as well as Tiondel's sisters, and the feelings were mutual. But even if there was no chance of reconciliation, she at least wanted them to agree not to directly engage each other for the sake of the trip.
"Selia, listen...uh, hey?" she asked in confusion when she turned and realized that the woman was still staring out the peephole. "Hello-oo?"
After a few seconds, Selia finally turned away from the door and looked at Corrianna without contempt for the first time ever. "Huh...yeah?"
Corrianna raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?" she asked, almost surprising herself by the question and who she was directing it to.
Shaking her head, Selia looked like she'd been watching something rather odd. "Nothing...I thought I saw something." Quickly regaining her composure, she finally shot that look of contempt again, ever familiar. "What do you want?"
The half elf returned the full elf's scowl tenfold. "Never mind, I-" She ended up stopping herself short when Selia literally just walked away when she was in mid sentence, following the rest of the group toward the kitchen and leaving Corrianna by herself near the front door.
For a little while she just watched her cousin's girlfriend walk away, wondering what on Azeroth such a great person could see in such a wretched creature. Once on her own, however, she realized that the kitchen had somehow become the new congregation area while the atrium had simply become the dropoff point for everybody's suitcases and duffel bags.
She tried to follow, but curiosity pricked at the back of her neck. Indulging herself briefly, she looked out the peephole of the door and saw nothing but snow angels and densely growing pine trees in front of the lodge. Shrugging it off, Corrianna turned tail and followed the others into the kitchen.
