Second Chances
By Rillan macDhai
Inspired by "The Art of Seduction, by Kael'thas Sunstrider" by PennyForTheGuy
Copywrite 2010 by Rillan macDhai. New stuff, Alternate Universe, real world references, and, yes, finally some Smut. It's really mild though, so don't get too happy.
I also found out Kael isn't the only Blood Mage with verdant spheres…. At least there's one other in the card game….
I'm still not up on all the lore, though I'm researching in WoWwiki. I'll probably make some terrible gaffes, Please Do Poke me about them by leaving reviews, don't just assume it's AU silliness, even though this was just going to be an excuse to play with all that long hair…
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Part Four: Beyond the Spirit GateKael lifted eyebrows at me when I'd come out carrying my backpack and staff.
"Your 'friends' are going to be thoroughly agitated if you actually come home with me. I'd rather they didn't root around in my stuff more than they've done already."
"I think any one foolish enough to try 'rooting around' with any of your items would be lucky to escape with their hands intact. You seem to have a fondness for fire magicks."
"Probably why I like you, Phoenix."
I touched my mare and she did a beautiful side pass or whatever the right dressage' term is for moving sideways while also moving forward. Her gaits were silken smooth.
Kael caught up with me quickly. "Phoenix?"
"It suits you. Besides, if we're going to be traipsing across the countryside with you in disguise, I can't go around calling you by name."
I found I wasn't really in any hurry to get to the Gate. Part of it was the joy of riding again; part was just wanting to be with Kael. If what I was working on failed, this might be the last day I'd ever spend with him.
That thought hurt more than I'd expected it would …
Eventually, we did arrive at the Kirin Tor's guard and research post. The researchers scattered like startled birds when I swept in among them, having already been calling ghosts, asking for their aid under my breath as we'd gotten near the gate.
I swung down, talking to my mare, thanking her for the ride. I wasn't sure how much intelligence was in her dark eyes, but it never hurts to be polite.
Shouldering my backpack, I turned my attention to the portal, doing the fast and dirty opening with the help of the ghosts and the power I had stored in my staff. Researchers and guards retreated further as the portal irised open and stabilized. Kael had stopped and was just staring at me, his eyes wide. I thanked the ghosts, felt their departure like the rush of wings overhead, and stood looking at Kael until he joined me at the event horizon.
"Coming with me, lover?" I asked.
"Oh yes," he said, eyes bright with excitement and curiosity. There was a crack of displaced air as several mages 'ported in, but Kael had already taken my hand. I caught a glimpse of the wicked grin he gave someone just as we stepped elsewhere . . .
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"Possible company incoming," I yelled.
"Hello to you too, Lady Blaze," said one of my circle, bringing up a trank gun and sighting on the portal. "What's coming?"
"Maybe some angry mages, maybe troops," I said. Kael still held my hand and I pulled us out of Storm's line of fire. We'd moved our operations outside to give us more fighting room if necessary. I hoped we wouldn't need to use it today.
I made quick introductions. "Storm, Zephyn, 'Dria, Rowan, Gilliam and Gandanor. Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider."
No one followed us through the Gate, but that could change at any moment. I led Kael a bit further away from the portal to where he could see our valley. While the quel'dorei might not be in touch with the land in the manner of night elves, I knew he was far more sensitive to energy flows than either night elves or myself or most of my team. Not that I knew any night elves.
"Well? What do you think?"
"The land is raw. You've done nothing with the natural flows of power here; Quel'Thalas must have been like this when my ancestors first landed. And the one you call Storm was not particularly happy to see me with you."
"None of us are as secure as we would like to pretend we are. I wish I could show you more, but time flows faster in Azeroth than here. I have to get you back."
"You're not coming with me, are you?" he asked as we returned to the Gate.
"Only far enough to know you're back to Dalaran safely. I stayed as long as I could this time, but I promise I will return, lover."
"Trell." He sighed, then pulled me to him, ignoring the rest of my Circle, letting his dark hair make a curtain over us as he kissed me. "Apparently it's not my destiny to have any luck with women," he said wryly. "I will miss you, but I know you have your world to protect, Guardian."
He stepped though the portal, but I followed on his heels.
Mages and troops had gathered in considerable numbers while we'd been gone and the day had grown late. Catching Kael's arm with one hand, I threw a force wall between the Dalaran forces and us. "Stay!" I ordered them, the warning in my voice enough to stop both Kael and the mages of Dalaran for the moment.
I pulled him around to me and saw his eyes flash in anger, but not before I saw the pain in his eyes he used the anger to hide. "I promised you, Kael'thas, my phoenix, I will return to you. I do not give my word lightly.
"Yes, I'm a Guardian. Only on my world, we didn't stuff all that power into one person. There's a lot more than just me, at least I think there are. We don't communicate with each other very well.
"And I suspect we work at cross-purposes to each other on occasion, just as you can have two sects actually serving the Light, but have their practices be so alien to one another each suspects the other of serving the enemy instead.
"What I do know is that if there are still elves in my world, they've hidden themselves damn well. And while I think some of them are still around, hidden in my world's version of Quel'Thalas, maybe; I can't find them. But I found you and I love you, Kael. So, I'm making this offer to you and your people that I can't find either, if you ever need a place to escape or help or just a friendly ear." I handed him the sheathed and intricately wired-in and sealed dagger.
He turned the sheath over, looking at the inscription wound around it. "What does it say?"
"That's for you to find out, lover."
"Not helpful," he pouted.
"It will be. One last thing, never trust the naga, Kael. Never, ever trust them."
"What? What naga?"
"You'll know when it's time."
It was too much like those scenes when the train pulls out with the lovers still shouting to one another. I stepped backward and through, just letting the portal snap shut. Leaving him there, knowing I couldn't be at his side to face what was coming, hurt too much to do anything else.
"Is it done?" they asked in chorus.
I raided the cooler they had set up and slumped into the grass, draining a bottle of Gatoraid before I answered. "He has the dagger. I just pray he actually uses it."
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(interlude: All the Way to Heaven, Melissa Etheridge) 'All the way to Heaven, is heaven, caught between the spirit and the dust, all the way to Heaven is heaven deep inside of us ….'
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After the Destruction of the SunwellSilverpine-Arathi Border/Ruins of Dalaran—the DungeonsKael'thasShe'd told him not to trust the naga. She hadn't said the only other option for himself and his troops would be death or worse, undeath. Given a choice between risking the naga's aid and serving Arthas, there was no choice.
And Vashj had dealt fairly with him. The crazy, criminally bigoted human general he was serving under? Oh, no. First giving the sin'dorei a support deployment when they would have fought, then, when they'd managed to succeed at that and finally had clear foes approaching, stripping them of their own support troops. Hatred for non-humans or not, Grand Marshal Garithos had deliberately endangered a flank of his own army. The man should have been stripped of his rank and thrown into what remained of Dalaran's dungeons.
Instead, it was Kael'thas, his officers and his troops who were scattered throughout the ruined city's prison system. They would leave it only to be executed, unless some miracle occurred.
Kael didn't believe in miracles.
There was very little he believed in any more.
Kael was alone, in what used to be the Violet Hold, the blue arcane walls of his cell a painful reminder of everything lost. Trying to distract himself, he began cataloging what assets remained to him. He had his verdant spheres, three, currently inert. He had his clothes, his boots and gloves, and a very tattered battle cloak. The Sunstrider ring said to have been passed down from Dath'Remar himself. A table, a chair, and a cot, all built into the cell. A rudimentary toilet, which blessedly still worked. His personal store of mana, enough to keep his head clear, not really enough for anything else.
Absently, not really expecting to find anything his jailors had missed, he began undressing, carefully stroking and folding the fabric, finding some comfort in making a neat pile. He was down to his normal, unenchanted clothing when his fingers found unexpected solidity in an inner pocket.
It was the dagger Trell had left him, still bound and wired into its inscribed sheathe.
Sitting down on the tabletop, he crossed his legs and began undoing the bindings. He'd puzzled over the inscription many times; he found it painfully appropriate that he'd misplaced the weapon once he'd finally learned a dialect which might have translated it.
Perhaps it had hidden itself as weapons of power were said to do in the ballads; he had certainly thought it lost in the ruins of Quel'Thalas.
He released the silver wire and broke the wax sealing the blade. "'Draw me only when all else has ended for the Children of the Sun, and the Gateway shall be found,'" he read. "I would say, this is probably as close to the end of everything as I care to get."
He drew the blade, cutting his hand in the process for the dagger had been reluctant to leave its shelter. Blood arced out, both his and more which had either been stored with the blade or produced by the weapon. There was a crack as the arcane magick of his prison tried to suppress the magicks within the blade, but Trell's blue-green binding symbol blazed in the air as the blood turned to fire, burning a hole through the blue walls and flashing out of sight. Kael would have followed but the arcane prison was not so easily overcome and the blue filled in again rapidly. The hole the symbol had made had been too small to escape through, as it was perhaps only a teleport cast at just that instant would have freed him.
"Too bad I didn't know you'd be powerful enough to do that much," Kael told the weapon. He could feel the magicks fading from the dagger and simply drew upon what was left, bolstering his own mana. It felt for a moment as if he were in Trell's embrace, startling a shaky sob from him before he fiercely clamped down on his emotions.
Perhaps those of his people who were still free would find their way to his lover's promised sanctuary. Perhaps even his troops would be released, maybe even his officers . . . if he were willing to make the sacrifice.
The humans in their frequent warring with one another, had developed a tradition of the king or commander of the losing side taking responsibility for the actions of the whole, accepting execution or their own blade as blood price for their failure. As the last prince of the high elves, it was the final gift he could give his people. Perhaps it would save his troops from Garithos' misguided vengeance. Trell's blade was sharp enough to shave with and sacrifice and suicide had always been the province of officers and nobility. It appealed to Kael's own self-destructive nature too strongly. And he simply didn't want to give the Grand Marshal the satisfaction.
But first he was determined to leave a message, for Jaina and Trell and any other who might want to know what had truly happened. It was a use of his mana that would leave him drained, but the consequence of that wouldn't matter with what he planned. Drawing the wire straight, he cut it at an angle and wrapped it in cloth, then pierced his hand for an improvised inkwell.
Using the desk as his tablet, he began to write –
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TrellI could faintly see Kael beyond the shifting blue walls of arcane magick. He knew we were there, even if he didn't know who we were. "Where are the controls, Jailor Kassan?"
The man looked at me and looked away. There are times when the fact that I can't read minds is probably a benefit to us all. This was not one of them. "Warden, I know you and Kael'thas were friends or at least on decent terms with one another. You know this isn't right. Help me get this done and there will be fewer unnecessary deaths tonight."
Like yours, I thought, watching the man's eyes. He still said nothing, but he was looking over my shoulder. "Somewhere here," I pointed the area out to my people while still watching him and saw the very faint nod he gave me, done more with his eyes than any true motion.
I gave him the injection myself. "It will make you sleep. Gods grant you'll wake up again in the morning and live to be an old man with many grandchildren." At least one innocent would have a chance to survive this night.
"Take care of him, Lady, he's not . . ."
I wondered what Kael was not. Not well? Not himself? Not sane? At the very least, exceedingly not happy? I knew the Alliance turning on him was a breaking point, and hoped I was prepared enough. "Take down that damn wall," I ordered. "We're likely to have company at any moment."
Where were Vashj and her naga?
Then the wall came down and I had more immediate concerns.
Kael had the spell dagger I'd given him and his verdant spheres. I didn't know if they'd been inactive until the moment the wall caging him came down or if they'd simply been something no one could get away from him. Whatever the case, he came out of the cell with no intention of ever going back in, drawing mana recklessly, shields flaring as they snapped audibly into place. "Felomir ashal!"
The flamestrike roared and whooshed as Zephyn's hastily flung shield deflected it from us.
Kael's hair was black as coal dust, hair, eyebrows, and lashes, all of it, his robes black with only a faint edging of gold. All of it billowed in the hot wind of his own making, swirling like a firestorm about to hit flashpoint. And he was bleeding from his arm and hand.
"Kael, don't blow us up. We're getting you and your people out of here."
"Sela - You – Trell?" He sounded totally amazed and desperate. "You did come. Do you know where my people are?"
"Here somewhere. We have to hurry, the naga are looking for you too."
"They helped me when the Alliance abandoned us," he said, but he wasn't wasting time. He'd know this place, before the Scourge and the Legion had come. There were more cells in another area or had been. We found Kael's men there, but we found naga as well, though not Lady Vashj and her elites. Trank guns and regular, along with shock batons, arrows, and blades cleared our way. The night was lit with muzzle flashes and fire, loud with shots and screams. A group of naga blocked our path, but Kael managed something that either stunned them or put them to sleep . . . And we were running across the ruined fields outside of Dalaran, to the portal home.
Kael was lagging, looking back. "We're so few, Trell. I can't just leave them," he said.
"I know, but those not with us will make it out with Vashj. One of your blood mage officers is going to give himself a promotion and by the time she learns the difference, she'll have to go along with it. Differences and memory lapses will be put down to your level of stress."* Thank the gods you made your hair black again, no one's seriously giving chase to us."
"Stress? Ah, that's an interesting way of putting it." He laughed harshly. "I've seen troops tonight I thought were lost forever. Did you bring them back, Lady Blaze?"
I knew what he meant. "No, Kael, I don't raise the dead. I got them out of Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon during the invasion, saved the ones I could."
"Why didn't you come then?" he asked, like a child might.
"I couldn't get close to you," I told him as much of the truth as I could. He'd figure out the rest of it eventually. "Come, love, it's time to go home."
He shook his now dark head. "Nothing of my homeland remains, but ash and sorrow."**
"I told you, if you ever needed a place to escape or help or just a friendly ear, I'd be there for you. Come home with me, Kael. You need a place to be safe again."
He gave a long shaky sigh and laced his fingers with mine.
"Wherever we're together, that's my home." ***
Together we stepped through the portal, a rush of the land's unfettered ghosts coming with us.
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* found a use for Kael's doppleganger from the card game. He makes the perfect excuse for timeline continuity, some of Kael's odd behavior and I didn't even have to invent him! Amazing.
** quote is from Warcraft III, according to WoWwiki
*** quote from "You're My Home," from the albums Piano Man & The Essential Billy Joel by Billy Joel
