Zinia
For some, fighting was a calling. A lust that sparked a fire within the blood that burned hotter than love, sex, or ambition. A thrill that ached within one's bones, gripping them with anxious palsy when that person found themselves anywhere but on the battlefield, pitting themselves against fate and skill and passion and luck.
For Zinia, fighting was not a calling, but an exceptionally distasteful activity that detracted from her time refining new spells and exploring new avenues of magic. Its products were death and the ruination of land and creation and lore.
She was one of the most powerful mages Azeroth had to offer – not yet on the level of Khadgar or Jaina Proudmoore, but approaching their skill. Her power did not translate into fighting ability though; her greatest talent was her deep, instinctual knowledge of her craft.
How does one take the measure of a flame? How it curls and flickers like a newborn exploring the world with blind, fragile fingers? What flame is the most vibrant – readiest to stand for itself and consume all around it in a towering inferno – the most willful?
Her life was dedicated to the expansion and study of fire magic. Since her apprenticeship, she had crooned as a mother to a babe to her darling embers, feeding them the heat of her limbs and the spark of her soul and embracing the essence of flame understood only by the very elements themselves.
When she had accepted the post of Archmage of the newly reformed Tirisgarde, Zinia had known she would be thrown into combat frequently. She was powerful and destructive, both of which were traits vital in the fight against the Legion as they slogged their way out of their portals and into Azeroth.
She did not regret it. Her research would be for nothing if she was killed by the Legion. What she hated was the responsibility she now held over so many lives. It was never an ambition of hers; to lead.
But she had accepted, however reluctantly, to head the new order, and she was now responsible for each and every mage working within the Tirisgarde from Dalaran.
Which included the belligerent mage Jaina Proudmoore, who had abdicated her position in the Council of Six in Dalaran. Her rage was not so great that she would ignore the invasion to spite the Council, and she had sought to join Zinia's new order nearly as soon as it was reborn.
Which caused problems. Zinia was a blood elf, which apparently marked her as hostile towards the disgraced Archmage.
And if Jaina continued her path, that would soon be true, however much it would grieve Zinia to have to expel her.
The Sin'dorei watched from her position in the shadows as Proudmoore argued furiously with several other magi originating from the horde. What had begun as a light jab had quickly escalated; the blood elf would interfere when she had seen enough. She was patient.
Felo'Melorn, the Flamestrike, crackled quietly with energy at her hip. The iridescent blade flickered in time with her heartbeat; the result of her constantly injecting her magic through the blade. Flames licked at her fingers with affectionate warmth, dim enough to maintain her silent observation.
"-Mage bitch thinking that we are responsible for the mistakes of our predecessors. It was not I who ordered Theramore destroyed, nor the retreat from the Broken Shore called!" snarled one of Jaina's targets; a blood elf originating from eastern Quel'Thalas that Zinia had known for over two centuries.
"Nor," growled a Forsaken mage – Zinia had never met him before in her life – "was it my fault. You have a problem with the Horde's actions? Take it to the fucking warchief. Sylvanas would love to hear you out, I'm sure."
The disgraced Archmage's eyes had grown cold. They seldom warmed from their icy blue these days, which was a shame. Zinia had taken her first lover a long time ago – before the fall of her homeland. He had died during the destruction of Quel'danas, while she had escaped with her kin.
She had since taken other partners – short affairs meaning little other than to sate her body's occasional cravings – and since meeting her, the blood elf had admired the cruel intelligence that lurked behind the angry eyes of Jaina Proudmoore.
It was not to be, though, so long as those eyes could look at her with such hate, which she considered distinctly disappointing.
Zinia had missed whatever reply the Archmage had made. Her eyes snapped back to attention the instant her mages snarled in unison and raised their hands towards Proudmoore, each with a spell of incredible power primed and ready to annihilate the belligerent human.
She was already moving, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Kalecgos also moving in the direction of his former romantic interest with concerned wariness reflected all over his face.
Jaina was faster. Years of brutal training and combat had honed her reflexes to a fine point – Zinia would find herself hard-pressed to match her in combat, despite outranking the Archmage in brute strength.
A frostbolt the size of a fist shot away from her upraised palm. It took the blood elf – Mellia – between her shoulder and breast, throwing her to the ground where she began to shiver. The other mages had completed their casts, and, enraged by their comrade's defeat, threw their attacks towards the Archmage.
Jaina blinked forward, behind another opponent, and silenced her with a frozen hand across her mouth, freezing it shut and immediately knocking her unconscious with the deadly chill.
Zinia blinked forward herself, drawing Felo'Melorn and slashing Jaina's staff – a weapon she had used since before the exodus of Lordaeron – into two neat pieces of kindling.
The human immediately designated her as the greatest threat and unleashed a flurry of frost spells, forcing Zinia on the defensive as she sent continuous waves of firebolts to intercept each spell with precision she had worked and bled for since childhood.
Her blood sang as she fell into the hot, molten haze of her magic. Battle could not come close to the incredible thrill she felt whenever she immersed herself in the essence of her magic, transformed into fire.
Her eyes tracked each spell, obliterating each arctic blast before it could travel more than a few inches. Her limbs trembled with excitement, and her cheeks flushed. Jaina could outpace her over time; she knew. The Archmage was younger than her by several centuries but possessed precision she would never attain without centuries more effort. She was a prodigy.
The blood elf shifted her stance, marveling at how good it felt as her nerves sang in pain and arousal as the arcane energy she channeled through her body raced through every cell of her body. Her vision narrowed to the duel. Sparks danced in her eyes as she and Felo'Melorn blended together into one seamless identity as they fell into the thrill of the fight.
Her soft, delicately wrought hand drew Felo'Melorn from its sheath, and she began to slash spells out of the air. She enjoyed the mental exercise it took to intercept the bolts of magic with her own, but the blade called out to her with a siren's song of need so deep she could drown in it. It thirsted for magic; to drink of her essence and embrace her very being as they fought in tandem. It craved the taste and feel of Jaina's magic; lusting after her with a hunger only matched by the boundless, insatiable need born in the womb of a wildfire.
If Felo'Melorn were given the chance, it would consume the frost mage utterly, gorging itself on her essence. Zinia had melded with the sword – it no longer desired to destroy her to sate itself, but instead they acted as one force.
It was too bad the Flamestrike was a sword rather than an elf, Zinia mused with some regret. She and it were matched in so many ways that the blood elf could no longer imagine being parted from the artifact.
From her fingertips to her chest, she felt a flush of warmth as Felo'Melorn acknowledged her thoughts. The heat nearly broke her concentration as she fought not to sigh in pleasure.
Jaina's face was drawn into an angry snarl. There was a light pink just across the tops of her high, regal cheekbones. Besides the fierce, arcane glow emanating from her eyes, it was the only sign of concentration Zinia could detect. Her barrage of magic intensified.
She had to withhold a wanton moan as her body hit a fever pitch as she became more and more saturated with energy. She fairly vibrated with it; her eyes were alight with ethereal flame and her hair – the color of the sunset's molten gold – whipped around in delicate tendrils as crackling red arcane energy twined itself with the strands. It was time to end this.
She parried two more frostbolts. In the split second between the next cast, she drew on the immense energies within her and channeled them into Felo'Melorn. The sword purred in her grip, acknowledging her desire. Fire was born, erupting into a massive jet of flame with a ear-shattering roar accompanied by Zinia's breathless cry of ecstasy. The Archmage was immediately thrown on the defensive.
Zinia, still lost in the grip of her own magic, continued her channeling with the single-minded determination of an addict. A veritable inferno engulfed the human as Jaina desperately conjured water elementals to combat the roaring flames while also shielding against the heat with wave after wave of ice.
It was not to last forever. Zinia's relentless attack, compounding the loss of her arcane focus at the beginning of their duel, soon overwhelmed Jaina and as she fell to her knees with her elementals evaporating around her, Zinia strode forward, body alight was ecstatic pleasure, and slashed through the last wall of ice the Archmage had built around her.
Felo'Melorn's influence licked throughout her body; saturated as she was by its magic. Zinia shuddered as she felt it caressing her like a lover. Down her pulse. Along her spine. At the apex of her thighs.
Focus.
She motioned one of her mages forward. They had, thankfully, prepared for the eventual ending of the duel and had brought a pair of arcane shackles.
Zinia let her gaze drift along the carnage of their impromptu arena. Mellia was bleeding out on the ground – thankfully, the wound had quickly frozen over from the power of the frostbolt, so she was in little danger of immediate death – and the troll Jaina had suffocated was eerily still. The walls were scorched and frozen in several places. Arcane tomes sitting on tables were damaged; probably beyond repair.
Her eyes met Jaina's weary, defiant orbs.
"Jaina Proudmoore, as the leader of the Tirisgarde, I hereby excommunicate you from our order as a result of your actions against us," She said formally, fighting the urge to leave this to a subordinate and seclude herself with Felo'Melorn for several hours.
"Because of your efforts on behalf of Azeroth prior to now, you shall be remanded to Azerothian leadership to be sentenced to justice," she finished, motioning the mage with the shackles forward.
The night elf – a tall, handsome specimen with midnight blue locks and molten silver eyes narrowed in disgust – gripped Jaina's wrists with one hand and clapped the shackles around them. The thin, pale arms of the human looked positively diminutive compared to the elf's.
Jaina slumped as she felt the magical high – each mage felt it in some form or another – dissipate and the reality of her situation set in.
Zinia felt little regret. The Archmage had not initiated the encounter, which worked in her favor, but the human had been spoiling for a fight. Her actions were not one of a reluctant victim, but rather a bellicose assailant who had merely failed to lose her patience first.
While she could appreciate the Archmage's initiative – she herself would have reacted similarly, if less brutally – Jaina had obviously been waiting for an excuse to unleash on the Horde. That her actions had resulted in one of Zinia's mages being critically injured and another likely dead was a matter of greater import. They could afford to tolerate zero dissent while the Legion sought their destruction.
She would brook no arguments. Her work to weld Alliance and Horde into one seamless whole had progressed better than she could have dreamed since her rise to Archmage. Proudmoore's belligerence might not have shattered that effort – even now her mages showed nothing but distaste for the human's actions no matter their prior affiliations – but that would change were Zinia to be light in sentencing.
Better to excise the corruption immediately than allow it to grow. It was a lesson she knew that, even now, the Cenarion Circle and its druids were learning as they desperately fought the forces of the Emerald Nightmare in Val'Sharah. The entire area had become a virtual battleground, with the Dreamgrove and Temple of Elune turning into two of the only bastions of Azerothian power left standing.
At the errant thought, Felo'Melorn whispered to her. Begged her to take a contingent of mages to the horror-stricken area to wreak destruction upon their enemies. To show the dark of the Nightmare the searing wrath of the living flame.
'Soon, Beloved, soon,' she crooned back, her hand affectionately caressing the blade now returned to her hip. It shivered in delight.
As Jaina was lifted to her feet and marched off to the detainment area in anticipation of the next council, Zinia observed Kalecgos watching the human with acute disappointment. She felt a brief stab of empathy for the aspect. His could not be an easy longing to bear, given to such a shrew as it was.
"Mages, back to work. I want this room tidied, the books examined for any salvageable material, and for the sake of the blessed Light get those two looked at straight away!" she barked at the waiting crowd. They scrambled to fulfill her orders. Mellia and Ne'Tera – the troll – were quickly lifted onto stretchers and brought to the infirmary. Ne'Tera was likely already dead; Zinia hadn't seen her breathe in the last three minutes, but Mellia had an excellent chance for recovery.
If her own healers couldn't handle it, she would transfer her temporarily to Netherlight Temple. She had strong bonds with the High Priestess, and knew she would happily give her friend the medical aid she needed.
Felo'Melorn hummed as she thought about the draenei priestess. Theirs was an interesting relationship, if nothing else, and one the sword definitely approved of.
Not to mention Ellesa was a fair hand with holy fire. It was not the same as the arcane monstrosities Zinia was capable of bringing to bear at her beck and call, but any flame was enough to entice her and her sword to attention.
Blinking her eyes, Zinia realized that she was no longer needed. Her mages were already moving back into their normal routines and the room was being tended to. Her body throbbed and Felo'Melorn's influence intensified as her thoughts drifted to her dark, silenced room, where she could sit in privacy amidst the sea of candles she had filled her room with.
As the blush on her refined features reformed to the extent it had reached during the duel, she walked with increasing speed to her room, her breath beginning to come in pants as her beloved sword continued to feed her hungry body with ecstatic pleasure.
She did not leave her room until the dawn.
X_0_X
Hello again! I hope you've enjoyed the second chapter to The High Priestess. Right now, I have a lot of free time due to the holiday break, so I will probably continue a semi-regular posting schedule while my inspiration lasts.
One theme I hope to explore during this story is the bond between the various Artifacts and their wielders, as you can see here. I can't possibly imagine these weapons - ancient, storied artifacts all - would simply act like slightly-more-powerful whacking sticks like most weapons, so they're definitely going to have a lot of detail dedicated to them. They're so fascinating!
With that, I'll leave you to find more material - or, if this is the future, read on. If you liked this, or have questions, comments, or advice, leave a review below. I'd be happy to reply.
Have a Merry Time,
-Valasania the Pale