(Much like Last Resort, this spawned out of my wanting to see if I could make a certain concept work, as well as seeding a few potential plot threads in LR to follow if I chose to. So here we are, and I'm going to tell you all a spoiler right now, because it's one of the central themes of Handfuls of Dust:
Jaina dies within the first ten chapters. Oh, she gets better in a manner of speaking, but how she comes to terms with becoming Forsaken and the circumstances surrounding it and all that delicious fallout, those are the interesting and exciting questions I wanted to find the answers for. I do, after all, like my happy endings, but the fun part is how to get there, isn't it?)
I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
Year 49
***15 years after the signing of the Compact***
Moonlight gleamed through a crack in the curtains.
If Valeera hadn't already been awake, the gentle light on her face would have woken her regardless. She turned her head from the window as the body next to her shifted. Valeera fought the urge to caress green skin, warm and rough from a warrior's life, though she did rest her hand on the woman's hip momentarily.
When the human on the other side of the orc shifted in her sleep, Valeera used the movement to mask her own as she slid out of bed. It had been a pleasant diversion, but a diversion was all it was.
Silently, Valeera dressed, slowly fastening each buckle on her armor and checking her daggers before she moved toward the window. The moon was hidden behind clouds now, but there was still just enough light to see the bed; with her absence, the two women had snuggled closer in their sleep. She probably should have gotten their names, but it was better this way.
Valeera smiled and shook her head before carefully unlatching the window and easing it open. And then she slipped out into the night.
One floor down and two rooms to the left was another window, one she'd already scouted a few days before. After Valeera closed the one she'd climbed out of, she cautiously leapt over to the nearest window, dropped down one floor, and then jumped to her destination.
As she'd prepared, the latch inside was partly undone, requiring only a thin wire to push up. The window swung open and Valeera caught it before it could smack against the wall or make any unnecessary noise. And then she waited for one minute. Two.
After the third passed with no indication of activity within Valeera peered over the window frame, pushing the curtain aside. Her target lay in bed, chest rising and falling steadily. Pulling herself up and over, Valeera then lowered herself to the floor and crouched there, adjusting her mask. No movement from the bed, no sounds outside the door. Sliding a small blade out of her glove, she crossed the room and perched on the footboard of the bed.
The man had a great big, bushy black beard, and his blankets were tangled at the waist as he slept off his night's inebriation. With how much ale he'd been drinking, he'd actually made Valeera's job a whole lot easier. He wouldn't wake up and clotting wouldn't be a problem.
He was huge, as many Kul Tirans were. Valeera moved off of the footboard, kneeling on the bed on his right as she studied his face, and then the tattoos on his arms and chest. They were distinctive, but her sources had indicated a particular design hidden among them; an anchor through the skull of an orc.
Satisfied she had the right target, Valeera drew her blade across his throat and gave him a happy new smile. He drowned in his own blood in his sleep, which was a death far more gentle than Valeera would have otherwise wished on him. She watched the blood bubble, heard the rasping gasp of his dying breath, and smiled.
Once sure that he would never again wake up, Valeera padded to the window, checked around and then slipped out, using her wire to secure the latch back into place. Landing as silently as a cat, the assassin disappeared into the night.
Only after she'd gone did the moon emerge once more from the clouds.
***Six Months Ago***
Jaina lay motionless, her eyes closed, silver hair haloed around her head. Sylvanas stood over her, leaning her hands on a stone slab. It was silent, the air still, and Sylvanas dug her fingers into the stone until it started to crack. A wind rose up, suddenly, whipping her hair and cloak around her.
On the slab, Jaina's eyes opened. She stared up at Sylvanas, then slowly lifted her hand. Her fingers brushed Sylvanas's jaw, and then her cheek. There was rage in her wife's eyes, pain etched into her features, but when she spoke, Jaina could not make out the words and yet knew instinctively they were a promise.
Lightning flashed overhead, and Jaina stood on a mountain, rain pouring from the sky. Thunder rolled from peak to peak. She looked around, trying to place herself, but the clouds hung low on the mountains and all she could see was light and shadow.
And there was a voice, no longer Sylvanas's and yet no less unintelligible. A man's voice, deep, but distant. As Jaina tried to make out what it was saying, hands suddenly burst out of the ground, grasping for her, slowing her down as she forced herself forward. It was like pushing against the tide, the hands tearing at her clothing, the air so thick she felt like she was drowning.
Jaina screamed Sylvanas's name, but the sound could not escape her throat and opening her mouth only made it harder to breathe. She clawed at her chest, and then her throat, falling to her knees with a heavy, painful thud.
Water crashed in towards her and then split into two rivers when it reached her. Jaina pulled herself up, made herself walk, her eyes on a distant, far away figure.
She walked for a day. A year. A century. Choking on air, her head spinning and her vision blurring and those hands always trying to pull her apart. But the figure got closer, and she realized it was a man on a throne. A burned man. A tormented man. A man who'd once been a friend.
The world fell away and Jaina was spinning, spinning and falling and she hit the floor of her bedroom and jarred her shoulder. Her breathing came in great, rapid gasps and the blankets were twisted around her body like a cocoon.
And Sylvanas was there, lifting her up, untangling her and making sure she hadn't hit her head on the table. Jaina let her fuss, resting her face in the hollow of Sylvanas's throat as she tried to grasp for the last shreds of the nightmare. It felt important.
But the memory was gone and rather than try to put to words what she was feeling, Jaina lifted her head and kissed Sylvanas.
While they'd been married nearly fifteen years, in Jaina's heart this anniversary was their tenth. Though that fifth year had been overshadowed by war, Jaina still considered it the true beginning of their … equilibrium.
Sylvanas pulled away slightly. "And a happy anniversary to you too…. Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Jaina responded, pulling Sylvanas back. And she didn't, even if she could manage to remember enough to make the conversation useful. No, she needed this. Jaina rolled them, pushing Sylvanas onto her back, pinning her to the bed.
Sylvanas's hand brushed her jaw, her chin, her cheek, her fingers finding the wrinkles around her eyes and at the corners of her lips, and stopped kissing back.
Jaina lifted her head, peering down at Sylvanas, already knowing what gave her pause. Jaina was human, mortal. And though due to her magic she aged much slower than most of her kind, still, she aged. It was only natural for Sylvanas' thoughts, which tended toward melancholy on a good day, to linger on the subject tonight. And if the prospect of mortality frightened Jaina, it could make Sylvanas afraid, too. Turning her head, she tenderly kissed Sylvanas's fingertips, one at a time. Her eyes found Sylvanas's, and she stopped what she was doing and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Sylvanas replied, before Jaina became the one on her back and talking became the last thing on her mind.