These were written in 2015-2016 as parts of a hypothetical future for Rhovin and Aranya after the events of the Fury of Hellfire patch in Warlords of Draenor, leading up into Legion. Only the first two story segments are canon, all the rest of them ended up becoming an AU where their son got to be born and lived and was loved.
In the main canon storyline, Rhovin pushed Aranya away again due to his own fears. They had a colossal fight, splitting them apart, and she subsequently threw herself into defending Azeroth from the Burning Legion. Felfire and babies don't mix, and she miscarried without Rhovin ever having known that he was supposed to be a father.
Rhovin lay beside Aranya, watching the light of the early morning stretching its fingers over her features, painting them with gold and fire.
She would leave in two days for the Vermillion Redoubt. The dragons were requesting sorcerers to aid them. Something about tangles in the flow of magic around old haunts of the Twilight cult. He was taking as much time as he could get with her until then.
... She looked so much at peace, with her slow, deep breaths, her eyes moving underneath their lids.
What did she dream of? Was it a memory that his gift had brought back to life for her? Or was it a vision of a possible future?
His mind had been doing its own spinning of possible futures while he looked at her. He smoothed a hand over her sleek hair - black as his own - carefully, not wanting to wake her just yet. His children with her would likely have such hair.
What would the shape of their eyes be like? What color would they have been if their people had not been fel-touched? Would they have his glaring, angled eyebrows, or something closer to the elegant, mischievous arc of their mother's? Would his son smirk like him? Would his daughter give him that sly smile that Aranya often did?
There were questions, possibilities, but no answers forthcoming.
The sides of Rhovin's fingers trailed down the line of Aranya's back, and then his hand curved its path across the front of her hip, coming to rest very low on her bare stomach.
Someday... maybe.
"It's a very beautiful gift that he's given you."
"Hm, what?" Aranya had been lost in thought, staring across the Highlands while she waited for Arkhastrasz to come and take her to one of the destroyed Twilight camps for investigation. She hadn't noticed the dragonqueen's presence beside her.
Alexstrasza smiled at the elf mage. "Your mate," she said. "Or... whoever he was that gave it to you." The customs of mortals were not quite as familiar to the former Aspect as they had been to her consort, Korialstrasz.
"Oh!" Aranya smiled brightly, suddenly realizing what her companion must have meant, and looked down at the necklace that Rhovin had given her. "Thank you," she replied. "Yes, it was a gift. How did you know?"
The red queen's smile took on an amused twist. "I was not speaking of the trinket," she said, approaching the arcanist. "But I do not doubt that he gave you that as well." The dragoness took Aranya gently by the shoulder. "It was another gift that I was referring to, far more precious." So saying, she looked down... more to the region of Aranya's belt, in fact...
The sin'dorei woman paled, a very solemn and serious look on her face. "You can't mean..."
Alextrasza looked up, met the elf's verdant eyes with her reptilian gold ones.
Aranya could hardly believe what was being implied. "Don't speak riddles to me, Lifebinder," she said, a low-sounding edge in her voice.
A very understanding sort of look came over the dragonqueen's face. "The only riddle I've found, little one, is why mortals are so terrified of what is meant to be treasured."
Aranya's mind reeled, her heart hammered in her chest, she wasn't aware of her own breath, or even her feet on the ground.
Her return to Quel'thalas was in three days. What would happen when she she got back? How would she tell Rhovin? What would he say?
Blunted practice swords arced and swung. Strike after thrust after parry was made as the two elves faced off against each other. Aranya almost got Rhovin in the jaw with the pommel of her sword, but the former warrior countered, and the mage spun away from him, intent on coming back with a counter of her own if he decided to advance.
Though Aranya had asked for Rhovin's help to keep her in practice - and he was in no way lacking in this task - he wasn't ashamed to admit that his mind was never really all that interested in the fighting. It was far more interested in the new maternal clothes that his father had ordered made for his beloved opponent, how they fit so snugly to her recently more-rounded figure and the gradually engorging curve of her breasts.
The ranger baited the arcanist with an opening. She took it. He firmly grabbed the blade of her sword as she thrust for his abdomen and pulled it out of her grasp, tossing it aside. Aranya stood disarmed, glancing from her sword to her lover and back again. Rhovin stood ready, waiting for what she would do.
Blink!
Aranya picked up her sword and brandished it with a turn of her wrist. Rhovin turned and regarded her with a mock-stern look on his face. "Using magic? Now that's hardly fair, princess," he said.
Aranya smiled back at him. "Life and death is never about what's fair," she responded, and so saying, she struck.
More dodges and parries. More advances and counters. More strikes and thrusts. Rhovin eventually had her disarmed again and caught in his grasp with the edge of his blunt-bladed sword at her throat. "You're slower since last time," he observed with a teasing smile.
Aranya threw a scowl at him, which wasn't easy, since she could barely turn her head to look at him, standing scarcely a few inches behind her - a distance that he suddenly closed. Rhovin's arm loosened from his hold around the front of the elf-woman's ribs and his hand smoothed down over the curve of her belly. His lips brushed the edge of her pointed ear as he said, "But I take it as a good sign." He could only just barely feel the faintest flutters of what could have been movement inside her, and he hoped with all his heart that he wasn't just imagining it, so soon.
Their son was growing.
Rhovin lowered his sword away from Aranya's neck and cast it aside. The hand that was on her stomach slid further down, under the waist-strap of her soft new pants, while the other hand came back up over one of her swelling breasts. His darling sorceress moaned softly, and he started kissing and nibbling along the side of her slender neck.
"Is it wise to this here?" Aranya asked with a smile, already short of breath and only half serious. "Anyone could be watching."
"Let them," was Rhovin's blunt reply, not caring in the slightest, and Aranya smiled all the more broadly.
Aranya sat outside, gazing up at the stars, as she very often did. But it wasn't some rooftop or other closer-to-heaven height that she perched on this time. Kethron Thorne had been very clear that her "devil-may-care behavior" and anything else that put herself - and thus, his unborn grandchild - at unnecessary risk was to be shelved until further notice.
She allowed it. It was his privilege as a grandfather. He was fooling himself if he thought she could simply be commanded for anything, however.
It wasn't easy, being grounded when she was so used to flying, so to speak, but she found in some ways that it was perhaps for the better. She declined clients and contracts that took her vastly abroad, which gave her significantly more time with Rhovin (he was being spoiled by it), and she sometimes found a certain odd contentment in slowing down. Skydiving and blinking across fire pits was out, but there were other ways to stay active and enjoy herself. Running and blinking around the fields of the Thorne estate, for example, as long as she didn't tire herself out, or spending more time in the ocean or the rivers of her beautiful homeland.
Several hearty thumps from within her brought her eyes away from the skies to look down at her center. Somewhere, underneath layers of snug garnet cloth and her shivering flesh was the heir to two families' legacies. If only Valtheras Ver'Sarn could have as much a part in the child's life as Kethron would want for himself.
"Can't sleep, princess?"
Aranya smiled broadly, turning her head to look back over her slender shoulder at the man she adored with all her heart. "Your son was giving me no rest at all," she answered, watching as Rhovin came to sit beside her. "He's already too much like us," she told him, directing her luminescent eyes back up to the stars. "I think he knows it in his blood that there's a wide, glorious world out here, and he's eager to see it and snatch the stars right out of the sky."
Rhovin's signature smirk bloomed into a grin. "He'll decorate his belt with them like trophies and wear it like a champion," he said. "And all the girls in Quel'thalas will swoon as they see him walk by."
Aranya quirked a brow and slanted him a lopsided smile. "Like father, like son, huh?" she quipped.
The hunter's grin pulled wider at that.
Aranya reached over and grasped one of his hands, guiding it to her and smoothing it against her belly.
Rhovin felt a small but strong counter-pressure moving against his palm from inside his beloved. He looked up at her face, his burning gaze locking with hers.
She wanted to sear it into her memory forever, how incandescently beautiful the lights in his eyes looked at that moment.
A tiny little hand curled around Rhovin's outstretched finger, and he smiled, listening to sleepy little breaths inside a tiny little chest.
He was happy.
Not often were the moments that he got to feel that emotion without some other dark cloud hanging over it, waiting to swallow him as soon as the moment was over.
Aranya lay opposite him, their little one in between them. Mother and child were both sleeping deep and serenely. She was still drained and exhausted from the effort of bringing their small joy into the world. It had been very taxing on her... almost too much so.
"Come back," Rhovin pleaded. Aranya's eyes were unfocused, unseeing. Did she even hear him at all? "You always come back! Fight it, Aranya! Come back to me now!"
She came through. She would be alright. She was still with him.
The ranger reached across the bed, lightly moving his fingertips across the curve of her soft cheek and through the strands of her night-dark hair. Her sleepy, fel-saturated eyes fluttered open and she looked at him with a brief, slight smile, before she immediately settled back into slumber with a sigh.
This was his. No matter what happened, no matter what anyone thought they could do to him or take from him, this was his and there was no power in any world that could ever erase that.
"Heaven have mercy on anything that touches you," he whispered to them. "Because I won't."
Step, sway... step, sway...
Her fluid motions were almost like a waltz, but more graceful, less formal than the human-contrived dance.
The tiny, nodding head that rested on Aranya's shoulder somehow refused to accept defeat and succumb to sleep, despite the clear look of drowsiness on its face. Yet the child was quiet, pacified by the steady, rhythmic movements and the soothing sound of its mother's voice. She sang old Thalassian tunes that she had grown up with and orcish songs that she had learned in more recent years, her clear voice giving the rough language a more mellifluous sound.
At least two out of the three of them were watching, she knew this much.
She had caught the reflection of Rhovin's eyes smoldering from the shadows in one of the windows of the room. Kethron's gaze, while more remote, was felt as his power had settled on her and the child. She had briefly reached out to it with her own, not knowing who dared scry on her in such fashion, but withdrawing from it when she recognized him. She didn't know if he sensed her probing back. She suspected she might find out in due time.
Aranya thought she had caught sight of the shadows on the wall moving in unnatural shapes, indicating Lutero's presence, but could not be sure.
Fine, she thought, let them watch, all of them. She would ignore them all for now. Whatever they were thinking and why they were surreptitiously watching would not concern her. The only thing that she would focus on was the little one in her arms.
Small, wide, glowing eyes blinked tiredly at her. Delicate, pointed ears that would grow long and proud with time listened to her starting up another melody.
Step, sway... step, sway...
Settling in his castle, no longer guests of inconvenience, but family, were the young mage his eldest loved deeply, and the newest addition to his bloodline, the young would-be Prince of Thorne, Aravin.
The Overlord constantly watched them both from a good distance, always in silence. While he still had doubts of Aranya's capabilities, he had fully accepted her into his family, becoming an extremely important figure to protect. She was the mother of his grandchild, the future of his name. He would have wealth, power, guidance, intellect, and above all - ruthlessness beyond what any could fathom.
"Father."
The warlock looked over his shoulder. Rhovin stood and watched his father by that window, knowing exactly what he was doing. Kethron turned at the heel and walked towards his son. "Rhovin," he greeted. A hand placed on the hunter's shoulder. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I know you must attend to your mate and son, so I will not take much of your time."
Rhovin was quiet for the moment, Kethron walking about his office; both hands held at his lower back.
"While I'll admit that she was not my first choice for you as your mate, deep down I'm glad it happened regardless. Hearing your boy's first cry once born echoing the halls, healthy and strong, reminded me of your day of birth. She has a strong bloodline, as do we. Your son will be a force to be reckoned with."
Rhovin blinked. He looked around collecting his thoughts, yet still failing to find the words. "I uhm... thank you, father. I don't know what to say."
"Words are not necessary," he replied. Once again, he stood at the window, watching the beautiful Aranya cradling her child. "I look forward to taking over once he's of proper age."
The hunter's brow raised. "Excuse me?"
"She will do what she must for now, but once he is on his own two feet, I will raise the child how I see fit."
Rhovin looked away in silence. A long pause before licking his lower lip. Suddenly the room was filled with laughter. Kethron looked at him, confused and curious. "You've seen what she can do, the power she holds at her hands. Even I can sense just how dangerous she can be when properly motivated." He slowly inched closer, a warning with each full step, fists clenched. "I promised I would show no mercy to anyone who would dare harm my family, and that includes blood." He continued, "But be warned of this father, Aranya will not hesitate to do what she must to protect her son. My son. OUR son. Whether she respects you, fears you, hates you, loves you, it matters not. You attempt to take away my boy from the grasp of his mother's hands, she will remind you of just how lethal the flames at her fingertips can be. There will be no bargain, pleas, or remorse, only death. And I will not worry of her, because I know who will come out with the upper hand."
Both father and son stood face-to-face. And uncanny resemblance yet the Overlord stood much taller. In that moment, a rare moment of a twitch from Kethron. Rhovin's words got to him.
"Is that perfectly clear for you... father?"
Taking a deep breath, the warlock turned. This time eyes were directly on him. The glare of one angry mother holding her slumbering child. Aranya heard every word.
Rhovin smirked, knowing she would catch that conversation. The benefits of elven ears. The hunter mocked his father with a single bow. "Until next time, old man."
Kethron, for the first time in his life, lost the last word and was left alone in silence.
Even with Aravin born and breathing his own breaths in his little chest now, Kethron still keeps watchful eyes on me. His shadows follow me as closely as my own shadow.
You'd think I would have gotten used to it by now, but it still unsettles me. Kethron Thorne takes care of what he sees as his - his sons, his lands, his assets, his vassals and acolytes - and he took me under his roof, his banner, even before I came home to Rhovin with the news that I would have his child. But Kethron takes care of himself first. His interests and aims come before anything else, always. Therefore, it is in his interests to keep me alive and well, that his home is my home, and that he would order me watched, carefully. Knowing that fact, especially considering as long as I have known it, still doesn't make it any less confusing when he looks at me now. Such a mix of emotions in his eyes that I never would have thought to see in that man, in spite of his usually stern face, ever since first telling him that I carried his grandchild in me. I was told that some of the maternal clothes that he ordered given to me had belonged to his wife, and later found that this wasn't quite true, they were only ordered to be made in a similar style, but with alterations to suit me. I've wondered why he did that. Was it simple familiarity, drawing from the experience of being at his wife's side when she carried his sons? Or was it... something else? Recapturing something that he lost and no longer had, perhaps? Maybe both, and maybe neither. I have wondered, but I've never wanted to ask. He smiled when Aravin was born. I can't say that I'll ever agree with what designs Kethron might dream of for me and my son. We make our own destiny, no matter what his lordship thinks. But there are still those times when I see him watching me, holding the beautiful baby boy that Rhovin gave me, blood of his blood, and it's easy to find it in my heart to ask him if he would like to hold the child awhile. Those times when he's more a grandfather than a patriarch.
Rhovin had gotten accustomed to how the feeling of the air would change just before Aranya arrived from some far-off place, haloed in static shimmers of color and energy and the faint ozone smell that comes after lightning strikes. He didn't even turn around before asking her, "What did the backstabbers want from you now?"
There were few sin'dorei who would ever forgive the wizards of Dalaran after betraying their people twice. Once in the Third War, when they needed allies most, and again with the Purge. And Thorne's opinion of the Kirin Tor was certainly not elevated by their increasingly frequent requests and impositions on his beloved's time.
Especially not now. Not since the glorious news she had been sent back home to him with.
Rhovin turned around. Aranya looked back. No smiles. No rushing into his arms. She stood with a kind of suspenseful tension in her posture and a grave look on her face. It was somehow contagious. The captain waited, on edge, for what she would say.
"Khadgar..." The arcanist began, mustering more words for what she had to say. "He goes to rally any who will hear him," she said. "The Legion is making their move. They come for this world." Aranya held the rogue's gaze with her own. "Soon."
For a while, neither elf spoke. Neither of them moved. They just kept their burning, fel-kissed eyes on each other. The mix of emotions between them was... familiar and strange at the same time.
Anticipation was the most prevalent. There would be battles ahead, and the fire and blades in their hands would fly as they faced it all together. Battle thrill was a sensation that neither of them ran from.
But it was slightly tempered with a sense of grimness, because they would be fighting for their home, against a sleepless, immortal, and single-minded enemy. Only the very young of Thalassian blood did not know what that felt like, had not felt that once before.
There was a third emotion between them that struck most deeply, though. The same visceral thing that a wild lynx feels when backed into a corner... Or when they see an enemy approaching the den of their mate and cubs.
Aranya's hands slowly went of their own accord from where they rested at her sides to her abdomen, lightly clutching, an unconscious but deeply instinctual need to protect the unborn life growing within, manifest in that gesture. Her eyes did not break from Rhovin's as she whispered in almost too even a voice for all the things that she felt, "What are we going to do?"
Instinct, it seemed, was very high in the moment with them both. Rhovin found - as his feet carried himself to her, as if with a will of their own, and he pulled her into his embrace - that his was to be close to her. She was his mate, her child was his child. They were his to love, his to protect. "Same thing we always do," he told her after a moment, his lips and nose brushing at her hair, inhaling the scent of dreaming glories and the lingering of arcane static. "Whatever we have to."
The stir of feelings that they felt finally settled themselves with one last, new emotion to surpass all of them: Resolution.