Two elves busied themselves in the small apartment, nearly identical in appearance and posture if not in behavior. Two emerald ponytails were tied back as they performed their different tasks with a certain lack of finesse that marked their jerky movements. Though one washed dishes and the other stacked books, they had the same tendency to splay their feet outward when they stood, they both leaned more to their left than their right, they both tended to take steps backward without looking. Like two leaves from the same tree, they worked, tidying up their living space.
Life in Moonglade was simple; not even the high ranking leaders of the Cenarion Circle lived luxurious lives. With few exceptions, domiciles in Nighthaven proper consisted largely of high, naturally grown hollow treehouses, the various spaces inside walled off into flats and accessible via winding ramps and rope bridges. Not only did it save space, but it also reduced the feeling of crowdedness due to all the green space. Since social life had always been outside in the community among both the night elves and the tauren, most of those flats were quite modest; in Amandil and Vindra's space in particular, they only had a single bedroom, a single chamber with naturally flowing water that was their bathroom, and a larger room at the front that functioned as the living room, the anteroom, the dining room, and the kitchen all in one despite its relatively cozy nature. It was good enough to sleep and study in, and usually to eat in, though both daughter and mother usually spent more time than that at home.
As stifling as the environment could be at times, Amandil was thankful for the privacy they had; people living in Nighthaven who were single or away from family often lived in communal lodges where one's business was everybody's business. She'd never be able to survive like that.
Having rearranged her books for the fourth time, Amandil took a deep breath and realized that she was only delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, she'd need to poke and prod her mother for the information she needed.
Really, there was no reason to worry...the scheme she'd thought of should have been sufficient. Knowing how clingy and protective her mother could be, Amandil wouldn't directly inquire about her roots. Instead, she'd glean answers about her mother's life before she'd been born, searching for clues or, preferably, a location. Seeing as how she'd lived so long already and her mother had never mentioned her father at all, bluntly asking for a name probably wouldn't work. If possible, she'd venture out into the world and seek the man herself.
Gathering up the nerve to delve into subjects that night send her sensitive mother into a tither, Amandil pattered out to the main room where her mother was still washing the wooden dishes and cutlery. Unlike most night elven women, Vindra had never been a warrior of the night; of their ancestral village of twenty five women, Vindra had been the only one relegated to full time domestic duty, repairing the armor of and serving food to actively enlisted sentinels back during the Long Vigil. The woman had been to poorly coordinated for combat, and for her own good hadn't usually been allowed outside of the grove's completely hidden territory.
Except for one period...a period that the twenty three other people knew about, but never told Amandil much about. Everybody talked, but not to her; it was as if her origins laid in some deep, dark secret she wasn't supposed to discover. That, in part, drove her to finally know.
"Mom," she said while standing behind her mother in the kitchen area. "We need to...erm...are you busy? Do you need help finishing?"
"Hmm? Oh, thank you so much, dear. Don't worry, you just rest and get ready. Your training will resume next week!"
Vindra promptly started to do the dishes again, ever happy to maintain the entire apartment by herself without assistance. Always busy with her training, Amandil often didn't even have time to feel guilty, but the sight of her oblivious mother unaware that she was about to be proved about a possibly painful subject did cause the druidess to feel bad.
Still, some things couldn't wait forever. "Well, mom, could we take a break for a few minutes? There are some things I wanted to talk about."
As if the words didn't fully register, Vindra continued scrubbing a wooden salad bowl for a few seconds. Then her ears twitched in wide sweeping movements, making her surprise rather apparent.
"What...you...oh!" Vindra set the bowl back into the sink despite having just cleaned it, spinning around and drying her hands on their cat when she couldn't find a towel. "Sweetie, you always seem in such a rush when we talk! Of course I can take a break!"
Remorse nipped at Amandil's heels again. Did she really make a habit of trying to escape conversations with her own mother?
"Yes, well, that's good then...mom!" Amandil yelped as her mother over enthusiastically tried to drag her over to the low sitting cushions opposite the front door. Unfortunately her mother's poor coordination led to the woman grabbing Amandil by the pinky finger instead of the wrist, nearly pulling it out of the socket. "Anyway, there's something I wanted to ask you about."
"Mhmm!" Vindra hummed in affirmation, laying her chin on her palm and leaning too far forward for a simple midnight chat.
"Right...well, it's sort of about Serenity."
Raising an eyebrow in pleasant confusion, Vindra already appeared to be jumping to conclusions. "Our hometown? What's there to know?"
"Well, it's more about the rotation system. You know, how during immortality, sentinels would be occasionally lended to other groves for decades or even a century in order to spread experience and knowledge?"
Vindra's eyes lit up. "Ah, yes! The rotation system! I remember when Madrieda was sent to help found Stardust," the woman said with a wistful twinkle in her eye.
"Yes, for military service. But you know, mom, the sentinels couldn't function without those supporting their efforts. When they were out on patrol all the time, they always needed people to provide meals and laundry service. Logistics workers were just as important to the preservation efforts as military personnel."
A decidedly sappy smile broke out across Vindra's face, her expressions much more animated than other night elves born prior to the War of the Ancients. "Aw, sweetie, that's so...sweet of you to say!" Vindra chirped almost as if she didn't quite believe it.
"Well, it's the truth, mom. But I always wondered...didn't you ever end up stationed somewhere else? You're just so humble, it seems you never brag about your own exploits."
An almost fake congenial expression washed over her mother's face. "Well, Elune teaches that the best deed is one that you keep a secret," the woman replied with less enthusiasm.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and Amandil decided to start to push gently. "I'm your daughter. Come on mom, I want to know. When my friends speak proudly of what their moms did during the Vigil, I want to be able to contribute. Because your function is so pivotal, and so necessary, that I'm just as deserving of that pride." Although there was an ulterior motive mixed in there, none of Amandil's words were a bluff; she meant all of it, and that sincerity might have been what caused her mother a measure of shyness.
"Oh...well, nothing much, to be honest. You know, just like how most men were druids, most women were sentinels. That meant that the minority doing other things were in high demand." Vindra sighed, not in exasperation so much as from the memory of a long life that was long past. "For men, you had the barrow den guards; the male warriors who would protect the druids while they slept, and some who performed administrative jobs for the Circle. For women, you had the domestic workers at groves and lodges who served the huntresses and archers. They were quite rugged, and they weren't well suited for chores; that's where I came in."
"Where did you come in?"
"To do the chores and serve our shield sisters-"
"I mean, where, as in where where?"
"Oh...well, sweetheart, I stayed at Serenity. Because men who weren't druids and women who weren't warriors were relatively rare, commanders and priestesses were rare to give up any. Priestess Lamynia was very hesitant to release me into rotation, and she only agreed because she received promises for two other domestic workers in return."
Alright, now they were getting somewhere. Dancing around the central topic, Amandil avoided asking about time frames too directly. "So where was that? Did you have to go somewhere awful like Silithus?" she asked innocently.
"No, by the night no," Vindra chuckled. "The only people sent that far away were proper outrunners and cavalry - sabre and hippogriff riders, like Tirith or Rithradia. For women in more stationary roles and men in general, rotational transfers were generally within the same region. Unelia, for example, once spent a century in Desolace with her sister, but I..."
When Vindra hesitated for a moment, Amandil allowed her curiosity to get the better of her. "You weren't sent to Desolace?" she asked with the best poker face she could muster, attempting to help her mother relax about the topic.
Hook, line and sinker. "Ha! Ha ha, ho, not your old mama! No, I would have freaked out. I can't even deal with the tarantulas we had down in Ashenvale, much less those scorpions down in Desolace," she laughed out loud. "No, I stayed in Ashenvale."
Trying to push without making her goal overt, Amandil thought of more general things that a person inquiring casually would ask. "Oh, was it Raynewood? That's the provincial capitol, I bet they needed all sorts of workers all the time," she said irreverently as if it wasn't that big of a deal.
Chucking awkwardly as if she really wanted to change the subject, Vindra patted her daughter on the hand. "Nothing that major, I'm afraid. Just a typical highway huntress lodge on the road north toward Felwood. The Cypress Pallisades, they called it back then." Abruptly cutting the conversation short, Vindra rose and then bent over to kiss her daughter on the scalp as if Amandil was a child. "But don't busy yourself with the past. Your future is bright, and it's just beginning."
For about half a second, Vindra's face became as close to serious as was possible for the laid back career civilian. "Now go study!" she said, unable to hold a straight face even when trying really hard.
"Of course, mother dear," Amandil replied, diligently following her mother's instructions so that the conversation faded from memory as an uncomfortable few minutes that would soon be forgotten.
After all, Amandil had gotten what she wanted. She had a location, and a former name, as well as her mother's information. Night elves kept meticulous records of births, deaths, residencies and relocations, par the course for a people who'd borne so few children for so long. While Ashenvale was huge, the road to Felwood was long and the huntress lodges many, the information she possessed was sufficient. She'd be able to check at the area command for a history of lodge titles, and then once there use her mother's name to search for service history.
That had to be it, because Serenity had no men during the Vigil. Since her mother never left, it would have been the only time and place where she could have met somebody. And somehow, some way, Amandil knew that she'd at least be able to find out who her father was by snooping around the barrow dens and other stations in the area. A small part of her even hoped that asking around about Vindra would even cause the man who realized that the young druidess snooping around was his daughter to step forward. If not, she could always prod other people about Vindra's relationship history.
That night, she waited for her mother to fall asleep before rising. Her travel pack full and hidden under her bed, her pocket containing a map of that region of Ashenvale, Amandil snuck out of the house after kissing her mother on the scalp.
"I'm sorry mom, but I have to know," she whispered to her sleeping mother, knowing that the woman couldn't hear her. "Even if I don't find him, I need to know who he was...but I promise I'll be back soon."
She'd left via the Nighthaven flight point before the first owl's even hooted to announce nightfall.