Amandil gently patted the back of the hippogriff's neck, directing it toward one of the few areas in Moonglade where the trees didn't also double as houses. Houses meant people, and people meant them being seen. Although Amandil felt entirely confident about their trip, Vindra was a nervous wreck for the entire time. For weeks Amandil had been packing and planning even though her mother hadn't officially agreed to come until a few days prior. She knew her mother would, but as if trying to reassert herself after her minor meltdown, the older elf had remained tight lipped about the subject until virtually the last minute.
Preparations had been discreet. There was little risk to Amandil; only her parents and her cousin knew the truth about her parentage. As far as the world new, she was just a happy go lucky druidess eager to test her skills in a remote area with few of her peers hogging all the quests. Vindra's situation was different: she was on record at having served at the Oaken Glade before its name change. Few people were likely to dig up such old skeletons in the closet, but Amandil respected her mother's worrisome nature and had appropriated the flying mount in secret from a certain Serenity original named Viniel.
One of Fewen's four aunts, Viniel was a flight attendant at the Nighthaven hippogriff roost, and had finagled one of the mounts in reserve while keeping the matter strictly off the books. Nobody would know the animal had been rented, and when it flew back on its own, Viniel would ensure that it remained out of action due to a schedule blessing at one of the local moonwells to augment its efficiency, a ritual that typically requires a few days of hibernation thereafter. Essentially, the daughter mother duo's tracks were covered. In true form of the good old girl network formed by small town sentinels who'd spent long periods of time as neighbors, Viniel didn't ask about the purpose of the trip a single time.
Once Amandil had landed, Vindra came out of her hiding spot. The older elf was wearing a used cloak and cowl she'd bought at a thrift sale in order to blend in better. Because Vindra had never actually seen combat or even a proper hunt, however, she didn't quite know how to wear it properly and the hood kept sliding too far forward on her head. Throwing any semblance of mother daughter roles out of her mind, Amandil cooed as her mother nearly started flailing her arms when the hood obscured her vision for the third time.
"You're cute," she told her mother while adjusting Vindra's hood for her.
"I'm not supposed to be," Vindra replied while tying her backpack to the hippogriff's saddle improperly.
Her mother checked and rechecked all of their provisions at least three times despite not knowing how to secure saddlebags, leaving Amandil to run a third check even after she'd finished. For a good long while, Vindra couldn't decide if she needed to go to the bathroom one last time or not, and then she thought that an eyelash was in her eye. Eventually, Amandil just picked her mother up and sat her down on the hippogriff's back, seating herself behind in case her mother started to squirm too much in mid flight. After a bit of scolding about how lifting up one's parents is disrespectful, Vindra quieted down enough for them to take a few deep breaths.
"Are you ready, mom?"
A few seconds lapsed while Vindra felt tense and almost afraid. "I...am. Let's just go before I change my mind."
Not needing to be told a second time, Amandil kicked her heels and gave the hippogriff the signal to bound toward a hill and lift off. The mount complied, gaining altitude at a very high velocity until it had put them high above the ground below. Vindra trembled for the first few minutes even though her daughter's arms were around her, causing Amandil to coo out loud.
For a good few hours the hippogriff soared on a very convenient thermal, both conserving energy and covering a lot of ground as they flew the relatively empty route across Felwood toward rural north central Ashenvale province. Colors gradually changed in the canopy far below them, providing a full view of the taint still left on the land by the minions of the Burning Legion. How ironic that they were going to visit a man who'd made a demonic pact for the sake of power...truly, Amandil understood her father's motivation. Were she ever to be forced to defend him in front of society, however, she wasn't sure that she'd know how. For so long, she'd hated demon hunters, just like the rest of proper Kaldorei society.
To say that her views had changed during the few days she'd spent with him was an understatement. Her father was so...elven. He didn't seem demonic to her at all, save his appearance. Of course, Amandil wasn't naïve; she knew that he couldn't simply rejoin the community. He was an outlaw, and would likely remain one for the remaining years that he and her mother would be granted by Elune. Until that time came, however, she'd stay by their sides and try her best to live some semblance of the normal family life she'd desired for so long.
After the first stop to drink water, go to the bathroom and eat, Vindra seemed much more relaxed on the back of the hippogriff. Once she let her hood fly down and smiled into the wind, the mount soaring at a very comfortable pace, Amandil tried to learn a little bit more about the life her parents had once tried to share. Goddess knew that Vindra had mostly been unwilling to say anything about the topic for the previous six weeks.
"Mom...are you awake?"
Vindra nodded without looking back, her voice loud and clear due to the near absence of turbulence. "Yes, I'm just enjoying the view," she replied. "This is much less scary than I'd expected."
The canopy broke below slightly to reveal a corrupted orange lake. A group of furbolgs surrounded one of their shaman, who appeared to be casting a spell that burned the corruption out of the lake. The sight made Amandil smile, her mind wandering to how much the world might improve over the coming years.
"Do you think dad can ever come out of hiding?"
Much more calm and collected than before, Vindra sighed deeply, the frantic woman that Amandil had witnessed weeks ago absent. "No. I'm sorry dear, but I can't envision that happening. Not when most of the demon hunters are either still locked up in jails or still fighting on the side of the Legion. And not when the case of that corrupted druid your father purged is considered closed, and not in Faraldor's favor."
Amandil smiled warmly. "That's the first time I've ever heard you say his name," she hummed, shocking herself by how much she sounded like a younger, female version of the man.
"That's the first time I've said his name since I left," Vindra replied, her voice saddened but not weak like it had been when she'd initially received the news. "I thought about him frequently, but there was nobody I could tell. I even avoided Priestess Lamynia during my daily activities out of fear that she'd probe my mind and find out what had happened.
"Priestess Lamynia..." Amandil murmured wistfully, remembering the leader that High Priestess Whisperwind had assigned to Serenity for ten thousand years. "She was so kind...don't you think she would have understood?"
"Not in this case...not in this case." Vindra began to sound even more depressed, and Amandil struggled to change the topic.
"Well, even if dad can't come out into the open, we can still see him, right? After so much time spent in hiding, I doubt anybody considers him to be a serious threat to public safety anymore. He's also obviously chosen a good place to live out his seclusion."
Far off in the distance, the darkened canopy of Felwood began to transition into dark shades of green and purple. Eventually the colors would lighten up a bit, signaling the transition toward Ashenvale as well as their approach toward their destination. Amandil's thighs were sore and she was sure that her mother's were too, but there was no reason to stop when they'd covered so much ground. Dawn was still hours away, meaning they were ahead of schedule.
"I guess..." Vindra breathed out into the light wind.
Dark green changed into light green, and the great Ashenvale purplewoods even started to poke out above the rest of the canopy as the hippogriff carried them closer and closer. The transition was uneven; there were parts where the corruption of Felwood jutted deep into Ashenvale, and there were portions of Felwood that were entirely cleansed - or had simply never been corrupted to begin with. The canopy gradually elevated even when the trees remained the same size, and Amandil recognized the plateau that her father had chosen as his hiding place.
Minute by minute, Vindra grew more and more tense, as if fearing the reunion that had been half a millennium in the making. Amandil hugged her as they rode, earning a pat on her shoulder as if her mother wanted to confirm that she'd be alright.
When her father's specific grove came into view, Vindra's pace of breathing increased. "It hasn't changed," she whispered into the wind, staring intently at the location.
Unbeknownst to her, Faraldor had apparently been watching, likely a part of his usual nightly habits as he observed all around his humble abode. Amandil noticed the flash of blue hair highlighted with grey diving from the treetops from branch to branch until he landed on the ground and planted his war glaives in the soil. The only part of the canopy that opened up by a significant margin gave both daughter and mother a clear view of the little yard he'd cultivated in front of his treehouse, the sheer drop into the runoff river only seen through a few spaces in between the leaves out back.
"Faraldor!" Vindra tried to cry, though her voice lost much of its power as the hippogriff circled to land. Stoic as ever, the demon hunter waited, watching as the creature came to a galloping stop in the yard.
He began to approach, causing Vindra to toss her riding goggles and gloves to the side. She forgot to unlatch her harness, however, and nearly fell to the ground when she tried to leap off the saddle. Knowing that she was about to witness a possibly painful reuniting, Amandil helped unfasten her mother from the saddle harness and then remained with the hippogriff herself, watching from afar as her mother ran to her father.
Wordlessly, he caught her as she fell into him, sobbing lightly against his neck as he hugged her much more tightly than he'd hugged Amandil. Rather than wailing, Vindra's cries were deep and from the back of her throat, much more forceful and emotional as she gasped for air. For the very first time Amandil even saw her father waver a bit as he squeezed Vindra's cloak like she'd float away in the wind if he didn't. They may or may not have been whispering to each other; Amandil didn't quite know for sure seeing as how she felt it inappropriate for her to interrupt. She'd had her own emotional reunion with her father; now it was her mother's turn.
After a few minutes of whispering, her parents pulled back and stared into each other's eyes. It was both cute and awkward for Amandil, who until then had no idea what it was like to actually see her parents together, since she'd technically grown up in a single parent household. When her mother kissed her father more passionately than Amandil had ever kissed the boyfriends she hid from the woman, she actually turned away. Previously, she'd never understood what her friends were talking about when they remarked on how gross their parents could be when spending time together. Now she did, no matter how touching their hug a few minutes before had been.
When her parents were finished with their totally gross display, Faraldor looked toward her. "I didn't expect you to return so soon," he said apologetically. "It's almost dawn and I've only prepared enough food and water for one person."
Vindra looked playfully offended. "I haven't seen you in so many hundreds of years...I can wait a few minutes while we prepare more. It doesn't matter. We came - that's all that matters now."
The hippogriff chirped impatiently, its nearly sentient level of intellect shining through its eyes as if it was begging. "I brought my hearthstone, dad; I'll go ahead and send the hippogriff back if we don't need it for anything. We have people who are expecting it back in order to cover our trail."
At the mention of covering themselves, Faraldor's eye sockets glowed a little more brightly. "Good, good. Go ahead and send it back then. Everything we need can be harvested nearby, and we certainly don't need to be seen."
Amandil nodded and slapped the mount on the flank, sending it to a healthy trot before it took off, soaring above the canopy. Vindra and Faraldor appeared to be enamored with each other again, causing Amandil to simultaneously coo and squirm. As weird as it might have been, she found herself openly staring at them for a few seconds, marveling at the scene she'd dreamed of for so long. Her father was different from how she'd always imagined him, but that didn't matter. He was there, he was with them, and for at least the long weekend, they'd be able to act like a family.
"Come on inside...there will be time to talk once we're sitting down," he said as he led the two of them toward his treehouse. "I'm sure there's quite a bit to tell that I didn't even manage to hear from Amandil in the few days she was here last."
A sappy look that was cute and uncomfortable for Amandil at the same time flashed in her mother's eyes. "Let's, then...there's so much to discuss." Her eyes welled up with a few tears as they walked inside, though they were obviously joyful. "I want to savor every minute that we're here."
