AN: I am so very sorry for the slow updating, folks. It isn't that I've lost interest with BFAS, actually far from it. I've been playing with trying to figure out what the flying frick I'm going to do to close the gap between where we are now, and where we really should be. All of where we are now happened back when Brin (who is a PC, not an NPC) was roughly level 20 (plotwise). Brin recently hit 82, and her story has evolved so much that I'm sitting on my heels and going... "Oh god, how am I going to do this?"
Quality is super important to me, so I've been careful about how to go about it. If the story was simply about Brin, I could (though I'd hate every moment of it) do a summary chapter that would catch us up easily enough. But it isn't simply about Brin, as I was telling a friend of mine tonight. We're following several characters, seeing how all of these people are growing, and I find that I can tolerate that just as much as I could if we were just following Brin. Actually, I love it more. I think I've always been a little happier with following a group rather than just a single person. I love Brin, and where she is right now... but Lydros, Tria, Kalthor, Winnie, and all the others deserve love as well. Even as their writer, even having a good idea of how this will all end (holy crap, we're only just beginning, why am I talking about an end!), I'm so very eager to see how these characters grow.
I've also become extremely addicted to trying to draw them, but I'm afraid that my artistic ability has bowed out beneath my writing skill. It's really frustrating fighting with one passion while another comes so very easily. I like to think that, one day, I'll write something so awesome that I find fanart for it. Doesn't every author dream of that?
... and then I think of the shipping. Ohgawd.
Hope didn't stay for too much longer than it took for him to step off the Tram. The dock was completely empty, if he didn't count the rats that made themselves known. Without Shade near him, he felt particularly alone. With one lingering glance of the area, Lydros sighed heavily and made his way into the gnomish quarter of Ironforge, and promptly remembered why he disliked the city.
The noise was always one thing. It was always loud, echoing in the caverns and hitting his ears threefold from where it had originated. It was in tiny places like this that he hated his race and their gifts. It was in places like this that he realized he'd never be able to manage anything smaller. A deep-seated fear that wouldn't let him go, Lydros wasn't even sure where the terror that came with small spaces originated from. One moment he had been completely fine, and the next moment he was afraid of what might happen if the walls caved in.
It was something he passed off as simply natural to his kin, but he had seen Ninya climb through crevices and hunker down in small caves with ease. She had rescued Brinella without issue, and never spoke ill of the dark. Not like him. Lydros pulled his hood up and over his head, relishing the fact that it not only hid him from the cavern, but hid the cavern from him. His intent was simply to find Winnie, to apologize and make certain everything was as it always was... but something nagged at him that it wouldn't be so simple this time around.
Winnie was a fighter at heart, but she could be struck down as easily as the next one. The youngest of a large family, the woman had watched everyone before her become something of importance, but never managed herself. She could wield a hammer easily enough, but teaching her beyond what she could do on her own only compounded the problem. Winnie had the heart for a healer, but none of the faith. While her sister was called to the Light, Winnie played with her father.
When her brother discovered his talent for the woods and wilds, Winnie tumbled with her father. While all of the others slowly found their ways, Winnie simply played and laughed. Then her father was gone, and Winnie had realized that she couldn't play anymore. Alone with her mother, a stout and lovely dwarven lass that even Lydros had taken to calling "Ma", Winnie had waited for the embrace of the Light, for the call of the wild, for the joy of a quick steal. None of it had come, and she had begun to feel as though there was no place for her.
Even now, he could remember how he found her. Drinking her under the table had taken months of work, but in that time, he had peeled back the layers and discovered the insecurities and pain. Somewhere along the line, she had done the same to him. When he had accepted Irial's disappearance at last, it was Winnie who had stood by him with her arms open. When Phaetos, his beloved owl, passed on from old age, it was Winnie who had kicked him in the ass and told him to find another who would bring him joy.
As time had passed, he began to find that his prayers to Elune were centered around Winnie. For years they had been pleas to help him. While Elune never answered him as others claimed she answered them, he noticed that there were days when his friend seemed to walk a bit lighter. Where her laugh was easy, and where she wasn't relying on the drink to live. More than his fear of close places, more than the fear of failure, he had an intense fear that Winnie just might find out how much he had grown to care for her.
Sometimes, when they were all asleep and he could hear her breathing, he wondered what it might be like to feel her beside him. Feel her near him, at their weakest moment. When those moments happened, he pushed them away with an uneasy laugh, and would swear to himself that he desperately needed to pay a visit to Goldshire at the first possible moment. The uneasy feeling would last for minutes, and then it would die again. Winnie was no Kaldorei, and he knew this well. It wasn't her body that attracted him, it was her indomitable spirit.
In the back of his mind, he was more than aware someone was laughing at him. His lip had always curled when he saw one of his brethren in the company of someone who was not of their race, and he had never been able to understand. Not until he caught that first thought in the back of his mind, that first appreciative glance at the dwarf when she wasn't looking. All of the protests of his kin lit up in his head, and he hadn't even been able to look at Winnie for a week when he realized it. Despite it all he couldn't answer the one question that he needed answered. He didn't know if he loved her.
He didn't know if he could love her! Her family accepted him out of obligation, but the idea of pairing them off would be something out of a drunken gamble. He had taken Winnie with him, determined to find something she could do. She proved useful in her own way, more with her wit than with her weapons, but she kept him grounded. He returned her to her family often, proving to them that she was alive and well. They trusted him as they would trust the heroes who wandered their halls, but not as an acceptable mate.
No one had ever wanted Winnie. The only man she had ever spoken of in tones that resembled love had been her father, and the joy that lasted when that happened would quickly dissolve into a sadness that she couldn't be pulled out of. It hurt her, deeply, that no one ever seemed to want her. He wondered what she would think if he made any sign that he might possibly want her in a way that no man did, and quickly discarded the thought. She'd laugh harder than he had.
"Goldshire, indeed." Lydros let out a breath that he hadn't even known he had been holding, and looked up from where his eyes had been firmly centered on the floor. His feet had carried him without his mind really following, and he found himself in the midst of the auction house. Even now, he couldn't remember what the dwarves called their quarters, and it wasn't as if that upset him much. The place was crowded with more than just dwarves, members of every race filtering past him as if he didn't exist. A few were so bold as to jostle him in their eagerness to get on with their lives.
There wasn't any particular reason he stayed where he was, looking out over the crowds. For a few moments he wanted to believe that he would find Winnie among the masses, but he knew she hated this section of Ironforge as much as he hated the entirety of it, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he was supposed to be where he was. When nothing more seemed to come up, he moved out of the thick of things, swallowing back the bile that came forward at the feeling of being trapped in the small room.
His boot touched the final stair, and an odd little thing happened. All of a sudden, the entire place went completely quiet. No more shouting, no more screaming, no more laughter. Looking around, he could tell that the world still moved and that people still made noise, but his ears simply refused to pick up the sound. Nothing filtered to him save for a single sound that took him a great deal of effort to identify. The writhing masses cleared for a moment, a fraction of a second that stretched to nearly a minute, and he felt something painful tug deep within his stomach.
She was nearly ethereal in her grace, striding through the crowds with such ease that she never once touched another person. Her eyes were focused ahead of her, slowly moving downwards, and he realized the reason when she knelt and took the head of a large snow leopard in her hands and nuzzled her nose with its own. That simple motion, so small and yet so filled with love, made him feel more ill than his fear did.
The woman stood, still with that cat-like grace, and turned her head towards him. If she did see him, she gave no sign of it. Perhaps he was merely another hooded man within the crowds, but he saw her well enough. Saw the way her silver eyes held a silent mirth, the way bow-shaped lips quirked in a slight smirk of distaste, and the way hair as dark as a starless night fell over one eye in a messy and undone sort of way. When she turned away, he saw the way she had let her hair grow out, and the tangle of vines and leaves that had become entwined inside of it.
Wilds, assurance, and grace. All the things that had drew him the first time were there ten-fold. There was no doubt in his mind of who the woman was; nothing could make his heart race and his stomach churn like knowing she was nearby could. After all the years of denial, and then acceptance, he was near driven to his knees under the weight of shock. "Irial..." Her name barely brushed his lips, and when the crowd converged once more and sound returned, he pushed through in a desperate bid to get to her. Winnie was far from his mind, a bare echo compared to the scream of his memories tearing at him. Things he had tried so hard to push away. But when he made it to the place where she had been standing, she was gone.
Frustration bloomed amidst uneasiness, and he looked around for even a sign of the woman who had been standing there. Not a thing could be seen on the floor, and a deep intake of breath found no scent more than that of sweat, oiled leather, and smoke. A shudder went down his spine, and despite himself, he ran his hand through his hair, pushing back the hood that had previous hidden his face from the caverns. "I know I saw her..."
Yet no matter how much he assured himself that his eyes had not betrayed him, his senses cried out that they had. Around the area he looked, and saw nothing but what was perfectly normal among those who wandered Ironforge's caverns. Slowly, his heart started to slow its rapid beating, his breathing normalizing until he was no longer worried about hyperventilating. All of which suddenly shot right back up when he felt a small touch on his thigh.
Whirling, he expected to find a thief picking at his pouch – belatedly remembering his was tucked safely in his vest – and was instead shocked to find that he was instead looking at a familiar face. The dwarven child was truly only just old enough to be toddling about, but he had proven to have a very curious nature that had landed him in trouble more than once. What shocked him more was that the child was, after a very quick look around the commons, actually alone. Amfirth never let her youngest child out of her sight.
"Eebro." The child reached higher with his good hand, catching the edge of Lydros' cloak and tugging gently. Barely higher than the Kaldorei's knee, Ganvird had taken up the place of the 'baby' of the family for more than just his place amidst the births. Lydros was reminded of it when he crouched to meet the child at the same level, catching him at the wrists and lifting him enough that the toddler squealed with joy.
No one exactly knew why Ganvird had come out the way he had. There were some in Winnie's family who joked that the 'bun needed to be put back in the oven for a bit longer', and others who worried that Amfirth had something wrong with herself that would be cast onto her child, and even more who were superstitious enough to think that all of Amfirth's sins were embodied on the babe. Lydros just believed the same that he always had – Ganvird was the way he was supposed to be, odd as it might have been.
One of his tiny hands was clubbed, the fingers stunted and curled in along his palm. His face was marred by an odd scar along the left side that twisted the corner of his lip into a constant smirk, and he had more trouble speaking than others. When he spoke, it reminded Lydros of the timeless giants who wandered the cliffs around the world. Deep, with a slight scraping on the undertone. While the rest of his family pitied him, Lydros actually found the child comforting. For all of his disfigurements, he was a bright child who was afraid of very little.
"Eebro, Eebro, Eebro..." Ganvird sang in his odd little voice, his mouth pulled in a bright smile that made his stone grey eyes light up while he swung in Lydros' grip. No matter how many people tried to correct the child on how to speak the Kaldorei's name correctly, Ganvird never quite got the hang of it. It never truly mattered to Lydros. He just loved to see the child smile, and hear him laugh.
"Where's your mother, Ganvirth?" He set the child down, masking a deep chuckle as the toddler plopped onto his backside and looked up at the hunter with wide eyes. "You didn't wander out of the house again on your own, did you? Your mother would have my hide if she thought I snuck you out."
Ganvird gurgled, another sort-of laugh that made the hairs on Lydros' neck stand up at the same time it made his heart melt. The boy would be the death of him, if he didn't get him home. Amfirth wasn't the most gentle person when a cub of hers was missing. "Fallo'd Innie. Innie not stawp. Gan lost. Loo'ed up. Eebro!" The toddler clapped gleefully, and Lydros fought back the urge to pick the boy up and snuggle him.
"Alright." If there was anything Lydros refused to do around Ganvird, it was drop his words to something simple. No matter how the child looked, Lydros refused to believe the child was dumb. He simply learned in a different manner, and stunting his own words wouldn't help him in the least. "You saw Winnie at your home?"
Ganvird nodded, reaching up when Lydros bent down to pick him up. Lydros grunted as he straightened, chuckling under his breath. "Boy, if you keep getting heavier everytime I pick you up, I'm going to think your mother feeds you stones." There was a shared pause, while Lydros remembered just how badly Amfirth cooked, and then he broke into chuckles. "Ah, never mind. She likely does."
"Ekko!" Ganvird threw his arms up, looking triumphant when Lydros flinched. The name became a constant, slowly progressing in pitch until Lydros clapped one big hand over his mouth. Even then, the boy didn't stop, his hands trying to peel the larger man's away from his mouth, his eyes glinting mischievously.
"Boy..." Lydros growled, finally uncovering Ganvird's mouth to tuck him under his arm like a sack of grain, and simply hid the smile that appeared as the child squealed happily. "Fine. We'll see if she's roaming around, but I don't want to hear anything if she doesn't come." The Kaldorei shifted his grip again, throwing the boy roughly over his shoulder, making his way out of the commons and to the front gate. He ignored the odd looks from some who looked concerned as Ganvird squirmed until he was really only being held by one hand, but when not even the guards made a move towards either of them, they looked away.
One of the guards nodded as Lydros passed, hiding a grin of his own as he spotted Ganvird hanging from the hunter's shoulder. "Shall I tell tha family ye'r finally abductin' the scamp?"
"Nonsense. Amfirth would have my head."
"Both o' 'em!" The guard called after them, and they both laughed as Lydros stepped onto the first snow laden step. "Be careful, lad. Tha' snow's been temptin' fate lately. Don' wander too far with tha li'l one."
"Of course. Ganvird, you heard that? Your uncle's telling you to behave and not push me down the mountainside." Lydros turned sharply, and both men grinned when the child squealed out loud, the sound echoing around the gates.
"Ekko! Ekko! Ekko!"
"Yes, yes." Lydros took another careful step, reaching an arm behind to loop beneath the squirming child's arms and pull him around front. "We'll see her. Do you want to call her, or should I?"
Ganvird answered with a gravelly howl, instantly taking off down the stone pathway to break into the snow and flop down onto his face. A moment passed where even Lydros sucked in his breath, and then the child flipped to his back and howled again. Lydros shot an apologetic look at the guard before setting off after his child friend, chuckling when he approached.
"I'm not certain you'll get her like that. Maybe you're on to something, though. Why don't you stand on that wall over there, and howl your little heart out?" The hunter masked his grin once more as Ganvird rolled to his front and pushed himself up with his hands, all but running to the wall and belting out the loudest howls he possibly could.
Lydros never wanted to disenchant the child. It was possibly his one weakness when it came to Ganvird. Perhaps it was something that would linger with any child, but Ganvird was the only one he ever spent any time with. Watching the child stand on the wall, he wanted nothing more than for his beloved companion to answer him, and not the carved whistle that he kept hidden away until he was certain that Ganvird wouldn't notice. The sound would never carry to human ears, and so he could blow it without Ganvird ever being the wiser. For now, at least.
Like the howling that Ganvird was managing, he knew the sound would echo around the mountains, audible as a scream to the one it was calling to. He wasn't really expecting the wolf to respond. It had been months since he had last seen her, or even called to her, but he felt that there was simply something that never really died when you had to say goodbye. Battle had injured his companion, and instead of continuing to put her in harms way, he had accepted it when she had heard the call of the pack, and made her way from his side. He could still see the way she had paused just before the spot where the path to Ironforge began to dip downwards, looking back at him as if saying a goodbye that she could never speak, and then vanished into the storm.
Echo had been so very lucky to live through the demon attack that had taken her right eye and left a ragged scar on her flank. As much as he wanted to keep her with him, it felt cruel to simply let her stay in a stable. The wolf loved the thrill of the chase, the joy of the hunt. To keep her locked up was like chaining a pheonix to the ground. Even though he knew all of that, it had still hurt like nothing else to watch her walk off. His stomach churned when he recalled just how much alcohol he had consumed to forget that farewell in her amber eyes.
The hardest part of the path he had chosen was remembering that, no matter how tame they seemed and how loyal they could become, his companions were truly wild animals. It took one of them turning on him and attacking, or running from him like a skittish deer, to truly remember such a simple thing. He'd forget it all over again when he recalled moments of reclining against a broad side, or losing consciousness with one of them standing over him, always making him feel like they were more than just animals.
Ganvird, in all of his eagerness, reminded him of why he loved what he did. The sheer joy of seeing a comrade, the thrill of that first bond of trust. Echo had been one of the first, and he could remember the nights spent with her, howling at the moon while she looked on like he was a lunatic. Ah, to be young once more.
Minutes passed with no sound, and Lydros had tucked the whistle into that pouch again when Ganvird squealed from his perch. The toddler swayed in a way that made Lydros worried he might go over the edge, but he knew he was perfectly safe.
"Ekko! Ekko!"
Lydros stepped closer, and found it impossible to not smile. No wonder she hadn't responded! While Ganvird skipped past to greet the female, Lydros marveled at how well she had clearly been doing. Her scars were almost impossible to see beneath a coat grown thick to keep her warm, still that shade of silver-flecked white. She still walked with that oddly human swagger, as if she knew just how to own the places she walked. Lydros found that he wouldn't be all that surprised if she was an alpha on her own, despite her wounds.
Four yipping pups followed in her steps, jumping from one paw print to the other, only to vanish in a puff of snow, and then reappear again. Sometimes, they would hop too quickly, and there would be a short series of yips and barks that heralded a fight, and she would stop, this magnificent mother, and simply stare. In seconds, there would be silence, and then she would walk again, and the train of pups would follow.
The pups were new. The time before, it had been her alone, and she had carried Ganvird as if he were a mighty warrior. Perhaps she was no sleek nightsaber, and no grand gryphon, but for Ganvird, she was all of that and more. They had played for hours, until Ganvird had curled up against her in weariness. Now, he seemed as eager about the new additions as Lydros did.
He sat in a pile of snow, ignoring how it sunk into the leathers he wore, and simply waited for the female wolf. Just like Lydros had taught him to do, to wait until they had approached. When Lydros moved to sit behind him, he didn't move at all. Echo approached first, and Lydros realized that she carried another pup in her jaws. How he had missed this one, he had no real clue. The pup was as jet a black as his siblings were white, his pink tongue vibrant as it lolled out of his mouth. Like his mother, however, his eyes were a dark amber, and just as intelligent.
While the other pups lingered just behind Echo, the female wolf wasted no time in gently dropping the dark pup directly into Ganvird's lap. There was a moment of silence, and Lydros knew he was holding his breath as the two children simply looked at eachother. For both, it was a moment of shock and not entirely understanding. For Lydros, it was a moment of terror. The pup could seriously wound the boy, even on accident, and Ganvird wasn't able to defend himself as he could if he were older.
"Wha' do I do, Eebro?"
The moment broke for him as the boy did what he had never done before. Asked for help. While Lydros had been considered an adult among his people when he had taken up the path of the hunter, he remembered vividly that first moment of a bond. He leaned over slowly, taking the child's deformed hand in his own, and moving it to the pup's snout. While doing so, he examined what he could of the stunned pup.
"Let her," Lydros was glad that the pup's fur wasn't so long as to make that a more tedious fact to discover, "smell you. Like you let Echo, when you first met her." He removed his own hand, keeping himself nearby just in case. Nothing would wound him more than having to hurt a pup that became startled, or having to explain to Amfirth that he had allowed harm to come to her child.
"Eebros! Look!" Ganvird's good hand formed a point, moving gently in the direction of one of the pup's paws. Lydros' brows nearly lifted completely into his hair when he realized just what held the child in such thrall. Hearing it from the boy himself almost made him tear up. "Eebros, like me! Pup like me!"
Echo simply looked on while the dwarven child squirmed with the realization. Lydros himself felt something that bordered on near respect for the wolf. He knew the laws of the wild, and knew that only the strongest would survive. That the pup had lived so long already with its own deformity, with a paw that must have made the birth horrendously hard on Echo herself as well as the pup, was a sign of incredible strength on the pups part.
But to have Echo hand over her own pup, as Lydros realized that she was doing, spoke far more of the intelligence and trust that the wolf had for her former companion and the 'cub' of his own that she had played with. He had no doubts that the pup would have been left to her own devices once she was old enough, and he knew that it would always be just a bit too slow, just a bit too lame, to secure any rank at all in the pack that she would belong to.
The pup would be shunned, and so she had been brought to a place where she would be safe and loved. In that moment, Lydros realized that Echo had never considered him as a master or another simple companion. He was pack, through and through. He was safety, and trust, and a thousand other things that she would never be able to say, but her actions screamed it. More than seeing Irial not long ago, more than his acceptance of his views of Winnie, that simple fact brought him to his knees.
As the pup warmed to Ganvird, they progressed from shy exploration to avid learning. The boy found himself quickly bathed in warm and affectionate laps of pink tongue on his cheek and lips, and black snout buried in his vibrant red hair, with no prejudice given to his own deformities. In return, he was more than happy to tumble about with her, even chasing as the scamp yipped and limped off a bit, lowering her front and wagging her tail with such vehemence that her entire body shook with it.
One by one, the pups came close to sniff at Lydros' extended hand before losing interest and going off to chase their sister and new playmate. As they found themselves alone, Echo soon made her own way to the one she had once roamed the wilds with, nosing at his jaw in that affectionate manner she had always reserved for him. Lydros laughed, wrapping his arm over her shoulders.
"It seems you and I can find the answers to any problem but our own, girl." They sat in silence, watching the cubs and boy rough and tumble as if they were not of two completely different lives, and as if there was nothing but their own world to see. Snow piles became vast mountains, or things to chase each other into. A twig became prey, something to chase when flung from Ganvird's hand, and Ganvird himself became a wall they could climb over only to tumble off onto the other side. The magic ended only when all six of them, pups and boy alike, lay in a heap of leather and fur, panting and yawning more than two hours later.
Somewhere in that time, Echo had curled around behind Lydros, her muzzle on his thigh while his cloak covered both of them. The snow had begun to drift down from the clouds, and Lydros recalled the warning of the guard earlier, but he was loathe to leave the company of one of his dearest friends. Only when she lifted her head to lick at his cheek in that chiding manner did he bother to move. "Alright, alright..."
They stood together, both making their way to the pile of warm bodies, and slowly picking their own. One by one, the pups roused to sleepily walk back to their mother, all but the black one. As sleepy as he was, Ganvird audibly whimpered when he saw the dark pup begin to move back towards Echo. Lydros lifted a hand to cover the boy's own, slowly pushing it down. For a moment, no one moved. Amber eyes met, and things were spoken without a single sound.
The snow began to fall faster, and once again Lydros was faced with that pang of loss as Echo paused just before the path would turn downwards. One by one, the pups went over the edge, and as a flurry blinded their sight, so too did she vanish. The dark pup scrambled after her, and fell not far from where Echo had disappeared. There was a whimper, a whine, and then the howl.
Not from the pup, but the strong and rich howl that had been a song to which Lydros found himself falling to sleep with. Over the hills it echoed, cutting through the storm to embrace the three in it's warmth. Echo howled, and one by one, the voices of her children rose to meet with her own. At the last, it was Ganvird and the black pup who sang together, his innocent and gravel-like howl carrying just as far as her own did.
When it ended, when Echo's namesake had died from around them, and all the pups had at last fallen silent, Lydros lowered Ganvird and watched as the pup limped back to him, accepting his arms as home.