It was not many things that Anya wished for herself very strongly, and it never really had been. She used to be content with boots that did not leak and clothes that stayed warm and whole, and a tent that kept the rains out. She currently had, or were, many things that most elven rangers would have longed for. She was much stronger than she had been in life and she could run without tiring, or even breathing. She could stay or swim underwater indefinitely, and wrap herself in shadows and darkness with even greater ease than her dark ranger sisters.
But right now Anya wished she was alive.
Then she would be warm, and then she could have warmed Lady Proudmoore.
Not a cold, clammy corpse that was of no use to anyone.
Anya would have liked to hurry ahead of the rest and light a fire in the brazier. But of course they could not leave Lady Proudmoore without a proper escort either, and if something dangerous appeared in front of them Anya had to be there next to Lyana.
The cold and damp dungeon was still no place to come home to for someone who coughed and shivered like Lady Proudmoore did now. Anya hurried with flint and tinder and thought that they had to find something better. Perhaps the apothecaries or some of the human Forsaken had experience with incendiary substances that could be used to light fires quickly when you had to. The rangers had never made much use of that and Anya didn't know of anything except magic that could speed up the lighting of a fire. Except a dragon, of course. That would have been nice. A sufficiently small dragon whelp that wouldn't want to eat Lady Proudmoore for dinner but could light a nice fire when she needed and wrap itself around her at a time like this.
The bedrolls were at least dry and had been neatly folded before they left. Helping Lady Proudmoore out of her soggy blankets was more like peeling an onion than undressing someone and Anya made a mental note about hanging some laundry lines later to dry everything.
"Dungeon, sweet dungeon?" Anya tried, but immediately felt foolish for it. Lady Proudmoore did not need any excessive reminders of the fact that she was still essentially their captive.
"At least this one is mine…" Lady Proudmoore mumbled as she sank down on her bedroll, now in only her shirt and pants, which were both far to wet in Anya's opinion. "And at least here there aren't any creepy fucks who'd call me 'my child' and send me off to be tortured in their next breath." she remarked bitterly. "Or damn me because I didn't show the proper 'revulsion' at someone just because he was undead, or call me a demon or my magic witchcraft – like that's supposed to change anything! Mage, witch, wizard, spellcaster, whatever-mancer – it's all the same! Mana is mana! The thing that should matter is what you do with it! It's like calling every strong-armed person a thug just because they're strong!"
She sounded more and more distraught and her voice had turned a little shrill.
"I would rather be bewitched by you than blessed by anyone else, Lady Proudmoore." Anya whispered, but Sylvanas looked like she had frozen in her place.
"They called you a demon, Lady Proudmoore?"
Lady Proudmoore nodded weakly.
"They said…they said the Light was not fooled by any tricks…that there was Fel magic about me…"
"Show me your arms." Sylvanas remained still and her voice was even, but Anya detected a tension that had not been there before.
Lady Proudmoore shifted to a kneeling position and dutifully raised her arms towards Sylvanas. It looked heart-wrenchingly pleading with her soft hands stretched out and burdened by the thick metal loops and chain. Those Anya would be more than glad to have Lady Proudmoore out of.
It was Anya that had the key to the brass-like shackles. She had grown to like them less and less every time she laid eyes on them. They were heavy and weighed Lady Proudmoore down, and they got in the way when she needed to sleep.
Sylvanas had carefully folded away the cut sleeves of Lady Proudmoore's shirt that they had been forced to wrap around her arms since they were unable to remove the shackles to dress her. Sylvanas was kneeling in front of the mage and looking intensely at Lady Proudmoore's forearms with the beginning of a frown forming on her brow. Anya knelt down beside her.
Something was wrong.
Lady Proudmoore looked so pale, and her blue eyes were dimmed and dull instead of bright and clear as usual. Sylvanas held Lady Proudmoore's hand in her own and slowly, extremely slowly, pulled one of the shackles down.
Tiny black and green veins spread out across the skin underneath.
Sylvanas hissed and immediately grabbed Lady Proudmoore's other arm, only to discover the same thing beneath the other shackle.
"I don't…I don't feel very well…" Lady Proudmoore croaked and there was a small tone of fear in her voice when she looked down at the state of her skin.
"Little fucking wonder." Sylvanas snarled. Black vapours were forming along her contours and before anyone could say or think anything she was wreathed in black smoke that boiled and blew around her, and she held each shackle between her respective hand and a shadowy mass of misty tendrils that had curled around it. The banshee form warred with her physical and Sylvanas' eyes blazed with the unending fire that Anya knew always burned deep inside her. The metal groaned and cracked and broke when she furiously ripped the shackles apart.
When they clattered against the bare stone floor Lady Proudmoore pulled away and kept staring at the twisted lumps of metal with an appalled and sickened look. Anya took out the key and dropped it in the pile of metal. She felt disgusted with herself from even carrying it.
"Anya." Sylvanas did not speak so much as echo in her ethereal banshee voice. "Ensure that Lady Proudmoore is treated and cared for. I am going to have a little talk with my dear chancellor."
"Dark Lady." Anya straightened her back and saluted on her knees.
Sylvanas snatched up the ruined shackles and their key and stormed out, a ghostly visage of arms and legs and hood and swirling black mist. Lady Proudmoore stared at her, transfixed, and kept staring at the empty doorway after Sylvanas had disappeared out of sight.
A cold hand gripped Anya's unbeating heart when she saw the sickly marks on Lady Proudmoore's skin closer up.
"Lyana! Go to the apothecaries and empty the damned place! Clea, go with her and throw everyone who tries to stop you in the sewers!"
Lyana was already on her way out and Clea shot forward after her.
Anya looked around. Warmth. Lady Proudmoore needed warmth.
She lighted the lamps on the brazier and put more wood on the fire. At least that they were well-stocked with. Anya arranged the three little lamps closer to the sleeping tent in the hopes of trapping more heat inside it. She made a mental note to also set up the smaller one they had brought with them for the journey as soon as possible.
"Lady Proudmoore, I'm going to the next room to warm some water for you. Kitala will be with you. Do you think you can eat, should I boil something for you?"
The former cell next to them had been commandeered to be used as their improvised kitchen and small larder for the food they had brought from Hearthglen. Lady Proudmoore shook her head but Anya decided to boil some vegetables at least. Notorious fish eater as she was she probably skipped too much on those anyway.
A choked sob cut her exit short. Lady Proudmoore was sitting with her arms stretched out before her with the palms facing upward and her eyes fixed on the corrupted skin on the inside of her forearms. She looked like she could barely believe her eyes, and absolutely miserable.
"I'm disgusting."
Kitala was edging closer and stroked over Lady Proudmoore's shoulder with her knuckles.
"No, you're not." she said.
"Tainted."
Kitala put her arm around Lady Proudmoore's shoulders in return.
"Look at me!"
Anya knelt before her. At least she did not retract her hands. Lady Proudmoore allowed Anya to gently lift one and brush her thumb over the corrupted skin beneath the hand. It did not feel rotten, more like a swelling.
"Does this hurt?" Anya asked as softly as she could.
Lady Proudmoore shook her head.
Anya kept meeting her gaze when she slowly lifted the mage's hand towards her and kissed Lady Proudmoore's knuckles. Lady Proudmoore stared at Anya with wide eyes, and Anya stared back.
"Does this?" Anya whispered, breathless though she did not need to breathe.
The smallest shake of her head barely made the golden trusses waver. Anya could see Kitala watching her with great interest as well, looking both amused and approving of the way Anya had put a stop to further self-depreciation from their mage.
Anya gently put down Lady Proudmoore's hand again and smiled at her. Maybe, just maybe, Lady Proudmoore's eyes were a little clearer now.
Anya and Lyana had rigged a small fireplace in the adjoining room, mostly a campfire on a bed of sand and rocks on the floor, and Anya's cauldron hung over it. It was the same she had used to heat water when she tried to bathe Sylvanas one time before they had sailed to Theramoore. Anya filled it and a small cooking pot with water from the barrel in Lady Proudmoore's room and hung both over the fire while she started to cut a few carrots, beets and a small onion into pieces. Would it somehow be possible to get some spices one day? There was so little to be found in the forest close to the Undercity. How were things out west? Anya didn't know too much about Lordaeron but since the Scourge seemed to have rarely sent them in that direction to hunt the living Anya got the impression that it hadn't been as settled as the east or south. And there was a mountain range – Alterac? – that was rather inaccessible where the blight had perhaps not been as spread. Thoughts of what she would like to explore and forage kept Anya occupied until even the water in her cauldron had begun to bubble and the vegetables were sufficiently boiled that she could mash them with a spoon into something resembling a stew.
Anya left the cauldron hanging. At least the wet cold and the stone structure would prevent a fire from spreading.
When Anya returned she was met by the sight of a tired Lady Proudmoore who sat with her knees tucked in underneath her and Kitala resting comfortably against them, whose ears Lady Proudmoore was slowly stroking. She still looked unhappy, but at least calmer than earlier, like it was a comforting thing to do for her.
"Dinner is served." Anya announced, and began to serve part of the stew in a cup normally used for drinking so that Lady Proudmoore wouldn't burn her hands on the cooking pot. "And the Dark Lady gave me strict orders to see to it that you are cared for, Lady Proudmoore, so I will take no refusal. We wouldn't want to have to inform the Dark Lady that her mage won't eat her vegetables, would we?"
The Dark Lady's mage made a grimace.
"No, I suppose we wouldn't…" she sighed. "And it's very kind of you, but I honestly don't think I could chew a…" Her hoarse voice quieted when Anya held forward the overboiled and mashed stew, and she smiled sadly. "Thank you, Anya."
"It's our finest bland mash of overboiled vegetables. Not a drop of salt or spice, on my honour. You might call it a quite forsaken stew." Anya pointed out as Lady Proudmoore tried a first spoon. "Be careful so you don't spill anything into Kitala's ear. I wouldn't want her to smell of old carrots when we stand in formation together."
Kitala opened her eyes at Anya's warning and looked disapprovingly at her, as if Anya's words would conjure a special fit of unsteadiness in Lady Proudmoore's hand. She groaned and sat up next to the mage instead, who tiredly shook her head at them both while she struggled to get the stew down sitting between the dark rangers. It was slow, and she shuddered and grimaced when forcing her swollen throat to swallow, but evidently Lady Proudmoore was hungrier than she had alluded to for she finished all of her mediocre dish.
"If I try it some day when I have a sense of taste I'll be sure to tell you how the stew was." the mage commented, which earned Anya a smirk from Kitala's side.
"I think it will be time for dessert soon." Anya said. She had heard distant steps that were growing closer.
True enough, Lyana and Clea barged in with a bundle containing a few extremely welcome glass vials of dark red liquid and a cloth bundle. Lyana wasted no time uncorking one vial and taking two quick strides to Lady Proudmoore.
"Healing potion. Down it all, Lady Proudmoore." Their mage obeyed and coughed a little, but it looked like the potion had a pleasant immediate effect.
"Good." Lyana continued. "From what I saw the marks on your forearms do not bleed and have no open wounds to them so applying the potions there would be pointless, but your back may be another matter. And your dressings need to be changed anyway I would think."
Clea had in the meantime approached Anya with the cloth bundle.
"Here, open it. It's a surprise for you." she said in her usual whisper.
"For me?" Anya asked, slightly confused. She wasn't the one in need of medicines right now.
"Technically I think apothecary Lyndon's exact words were 'just take them and go, and tell Anya she can have as much soap as she likes if it keeps her goons out of my laboratory!' but…details." Clea shrugged with a smirk.
Anya carefully unwrapped the bundle. Inside were four relatively uniform, evenly coloured, and altogether precious pieces of soap.
"I think he liked your interest in their work." Clea noted. "But don't tell him I said that. They have quite a supply now, apparently it's of importance to avoid contamination when they perform their experiments and brew more potions."
Well, obviously it was. Every herbalist knew that, which meant that by extension Anya knew that very well too, and Lyana would probably give Clea an earful if she heard her being flippant about the matter.
And... Oh.
Anya could…
Maybe.
If she dared to ask.
"Lyana? I absolutely think we should change her bandages. Do we have any new ones ready?"
Lyana shook her head, as Anya had expected.
"Why don't you take Clea and Kitala with you and prepare some, and make a nice salve with the ingredients I know you have snatched from the poor apothecaries."
"Those poor apothecaries whose place you explicitly told me to empty and told Clea to throw into the sewers if they resisted?" Lyana had raised an eyebrow.
"But you didn't do anything of that because apothecary Lyndon was so nice and helpful, surely? There is hot water in the cauldron next door, take what you need and then bring it here please."
Lyana looked approving when hearing that and scurried away followed by the others. Clea soon returned with the cauldron in her wrapped hands and placed it on the floor. She closed the door on her way out.
"So lieutenant Eversong, what are you brewing up now?" Lady Proudmoore rasped and peered suspiciously at Anya.
Belore, why did people have to be so difficult when you tried to do something nice for them?
Well, this time Anya would not be denied, and would not stand for any stupid self-loathing ideas getting in the way.
Anya looked at her tired form. Lady Proudmoore should definitely not have to exert herself anymore tonight than absolutely necessary. She tried to steady herself.
"Lady Proudmoore, none of us think you are the tiniest bit disgusting or that you ever could be. But there is a chance that your bandages may be since you have worn them for a day and a night and had a small river rained on you, so we're going to change them to fresh ones. But before we do that, may I…" Anya faltered, and begun again. "May I help wash you?"
Lady Proudmoore suddenly blushed redder than a dark ranger's eyes.
"I wouldn't want to make you…uncomfortable…but your back may hurt if you have to stretch and I…" Why was this so hard all of a sudden? "I wouldn't want you to hurt."
Lady Proudmoore was looking down at the floor. Whether she was considering Anya's proposal or was at a loss for words altogether Anya couldn't tell. But then she raised her head with a small new shine in her eyes.
"Alright… I…I think I would like that."
Anya danced inside when she scooped up enough cold water from their barrel to cool the one that had been boiling in the cauldron. She reached for one of the towels – a simple piece of cloth as improvised as everything else they had – of the room and some soap. Then she halted herself. Lady Proudmoore would be prone to getting cold as well as uncomfortable if she didn't handle this delicately.
"Lady Proudmoore, if you could raise yourself a bit?" Anya asked and indicated that she intended to remove her half-soaked pants. Lady Proudmoore shied away a little but did as she asked and Anya rolled them down her hips and legs while desperately trying not to dwell on the fact that she was in fact, for real, undressing Lady Proudmoore. Anya put the garment with the blankets and took in the sight of their mage sitting in a torn and too large shirt with her bare legs out.
"Is this alright? Can you stay warm enough?" she asked.
"I think so."
"I'll try to keep the water away from your bed as much as possible. Please put your feet here, Lady Proudmoore." Anya indicated the floor before her. She should start with something that wouldn't be so sensitive, at least she hoped humans did not consider their feet to be that.
She dipped her towel in the water and ran it over Lady Proudmoore's toes and feet and then rubbed them with her own soapy hands. The mage's skin was so soft, nothing like a ranger's that hardened in many places from years and centuries of walk and work. This was something to keep safe and shelter and protect, Anya thought as she poked her fingers between the toes. A strange quiet huffing sounded and she looked up to see Lady Proudmoore trying to suppress a small, bubbling laugh.
"Sorry, it just…it tickles." she managed and coughed a little from using her overtaxed throat.
Anya ran her hands over the rest of the mage's feet but she couldn't resist returning to curling her fingers one last time around and between those lovely toes. If they could make Lady Proudmoore laugh, they were definitely the best of toes.
She dipped her towel in the water again and wiped the soap away. She continued up the mage's calves, so smooth and delightful. Even if she didn't have the muscles of Sylvanas, Lady Proudmoore was not without hardiness underneath the smooth surface. Did she get stiff and tense like Sylvanas did, and did anyone tend to her in that case? At least Anya would now, as much as she could. Lady Proudmoore was not ticklish when she rubbed the soap along her calves, on the contrary she was quiet and still as a statue, watching Anya.
"Is it still good?" Anya whispered. She was almost afraid to break the silence between them. Perhaps Lady Proudmoore felt the same for she nodded silently without taking her eyes off her.
Anya dripped water over the mage's lower thighs and…damn, had she thought the calves were smooth? She wondered what it would feel like to hug them and rest with her cheek against Lady Proudmoore's leg. If she could have pretty ears like Kitala. She raised one leg after the other to reach underneath and tried to rub some warmth into them but she was cold in herself and of course it wouldn't do. Although…
Anya turned around and resolutely dipped her hands into the cauldron. Lady Proudmoore cried out.
"Anya!"
"My hands are too cold. I will take your warmth from you, Lady Proudmoore."
"That's boiling water, you idiot!" She started to cough from the outcry.
"Only just. It will not harm me. I think."
Lady Proudmoore looked at her in something like exasperated despair.
"Anya… Come here at once and continue washing me, or that will make me cold."
Anya obediently removed her hands from the hot water. It wouldn't do to upset Lady Proudmoore. When she turned back towards her, the mage snatched one of her hands and pulled it closer to examine. Anya let her run her fingers across Anya's own and feel her skin. In truth, Anya found herself quite unable to do anything but that.
"Did it hurt?"
"Only a little."
"Don't ever do that again, do you hear me?"
"I just wish I could make you warm." Anya whispered.
Lady Proudmoore looked at her insistently. Anya found it impossible to look away, indeed to even see anything other than the captivating little seas that drew her gaze to drown in them.
"You warm me enough just by looking at me, Anya." Then she pulled Anya's hand closer, and kissed it tenderly. "Now, I would very much like your hands on me exactly as they are."
Anya's mind stood still. Lady Proudmoore had kissed her hand. And Lady Proudmoore wanted what?
"Because someone seems to have gotten soap all over my legs and I would prefer it if someone could wash that off."
Oh. Right.
Anya desperately tried to stay focused on the task of running her washcloth along Lady Proudmoore's legs and don't spill too much water on her bedroll. She would have to use a drier corner of one of the blankets to dry the floor later, maybe. Anya brought a blanket from one of the other bedrolls to dry Lady Proudmoore's legs and another to cover them from the cold.
"Now, if you would lend me a hand – lend me an arm, I mean! So I won't drop too much water over the rest of you."
Lady Proudmoore smiled a little and shifted her seat so she could stretch out one arm over the wet floor for Anya to wash. It was easier to reach than her leg but Anya could not help becoming a bit distracted by Lady Proudmoore's hands. They were always soft. Always gentle. And of course the dreadful marks from the shackles. She hoped Sylvanas would have the remains of them melted down.
"May I take your shirt off now, Lady Proudmoore?"
The mage reached down to take it off but Anya stopped her with a light touch to her arm.
"Don't strain your skin." Anya rolled it up and off, and was careful not to brush too much against the bandages. Those did not look too good anymore, blooded and damp from the rain that had leaked through.
Anya draped the towel around Lady Proudmoore's waist and started on the mage's belly and lower back, and discovered that her sides were just as ticklish as her toes. Now that she thought about it, she remembered how Lady Proudmoore had startled when she was channelling the magical current on the Banshee's Wail and Anya had poked her side and blamed it on the banshee in her rhyme.
"Would it be acceptable if I cut your bandages away?" Anya didn't want to talk so stilted, it just came out that way.
"You and your playing with your knives, lieutenant Eversong."
"No, I just meant that it may be easier than if I have to untie and…"
"Anya! I'm kidding!" Lady Proudmoore coughed a little. "Please do. I know perfectly well how sure your hands are, after all. And in the worst case, you did promise to make it quick."
Anya flinched. That was quite true. Better that Anya than Sylvanas did such a despicable thing if it would somehow come to it. But the thought of having to be Lady Proudmoore's enemy and in any way harm her, now…
"Anya? What's wrong?" Lady Proudmoore's voice was thick with concern. "You're crying!"
"It's…"
"I'm sorry! It was stupid of me to say that, I really shouldn't have. I just get silly when I'm too tired and have an awful sense of humour, I'm afraid." She took a deep breath. "Please Anya, be my surgeon and cut these smelly things off. Now that I know what cleanliness feels like again they're creeping me out."
Lady Proudmoore – disobediently – reached back with one hand and pulled her hair out of the way. She looked so terribly vulnerable before Anya leaning forward with her neck exposed to her. Her very pretty neck, that Anya would most definitely murder to keep whole.
Anya was good with her knives, and she didn't waver or cause any more than the bare minimum of friction against Lady Proudmoore's skin when she cut and peeled away the improvised dressings. The long wounds looked reasonably good, but Lyana would know better.
"I am only wiping your back with water at the moment, Lyana will have to look at you after that." Anya said thoughtfully as she ran the wet cloth over the angry red stripes and blood-smeared skin. "Could you lift you arms a little, Lady Proudmoore?"
The mage did that but when Anya tried to apply soap underneath them she immediately collapsed in a fit of giggling.
"Sorry!" she laughed. "It tickles!"
It was such a beautiful sound.
"What tickles, Lady Proudmoore? Did you mean this?" Anya asked innocently.
Lady Proudmoore cried out and kept giggling worse than ever.
"Or this?"
Belore, she was ticklish. And Anya found that she didn't mind that in the least.
But Lady Proudmoore was ill and needed to conserve her strength, Anya scolded herself. She couldn't have the mage exhaust herself further and the way she was panting already and her chest was heaving…was as a matter of fact unbelievably distracting.
And Anya would not make the same mistake as last time with Sylvanas. She remembered well how Lady Proudmoore had shied away and tried to keep her chest out of view when swimming in that lake in Kalimdor. It had almost made Anya feel guilty for throwing that discreet, and lengthy, glance at her gorgeously full breasts last night when Lyana was bandaging her. So Anya would regrettably have to let the mage tend to her frontal side on her own. But Anya could help with one more thing at least.
"Would you like me to wash your hair? I only have soap b…"
"Yes please!"
After some deliberation they decided that Lady Proudmoore should lie down on the floor on her stomach with the towel blanket under her and the blanket blanket covering her legs. Anya kneaded and combed as much bubbly soap as she could into the golden locks and took the opportunity to run a hand or two over Lady Proudmoore's temples and cheeks. She had to rinse it out on the floor in case Lyana would need more warm water from the cauldron, but so long as they kept the fire fed during the night it would probably dry off decently.
After Anya had dried her hair as best she could Lady Proudmoore crawled into a seated position without burdening her arms too much. The blanket over her legs slid down and revealed a good deal of her underwear and hip. Anya tried to come up with something else to put her mind to than Theramoorian intimate fashion. Fashion was unimportant at this point.
Because Lady Proudmoore would no doubt look good in whatever she choose to wear.
Other things, other things… Wait, speaking of clothes…
"Your spare clothes, are they…?"
"Inside the tent, in the small sack in the corner."
Anya set it down next to Lady Proudmoore.
"I'll, ah, go and check if Lyana has some fresh bandages ready."
Which she would have had since long by now, but they would all have been considerate enough to lurk quietly outside the door.
"I will put the cauldron here if you would like to…wash the rest of you, Lady Proudmoore. I hope it will be alright." Anya said unsteadily and rose. "Just knock whenever you are ready."
"Oh, I…thank you, Anya. I think I'll manage…it's at hands' level at least..." Lady Proudmoore smiled nervously and turned a shade redder.
As Anya closed the door behind her a dangerously loud voice inside her shouted that she should stay. What if Lady Proudmoore was in pain and just wouldn't say, or what if she returned to brooding over the terrible Fel marks? Or…what if Lady Proudmoore did not, and was just about to run her soapy hands over those delightful breasts of hers…
"Anya?"
Anya almost jumped on the spot. Lyana looked a little strangely at her.
"How are her wounds?"
"Healing decently but, I don't know…they're so deep for whip lashes. That evil woman really must have hit her hard."
Lyana nodded slowly and looked dismayed.
"I'll clean them up and pour a potion on any open gash, then we'll have to redress them and hope for the best."
After a while Lady Proudmoore knocked and let them in. She had wrapped her blanket around her like a makeshift dress and for all the tiredness about her she looked relieved to be cleaner. Kitala complimented her fresher appearance with a wholly inappropriate whistle which was rewarded with a blushing smile and Lady Proudmoore waving her away.
Anya had Clea and Kitala put the room in order again, chiefly wiping the floor and dealing with the pile of wet textiles. They decided to rig a tent line in the other room instead to keep the air from becoming too damp for Lady Proudmoore. Anya and Lyana sat down with the mage on her bedroll and Lyana looked over her back critically.
"It would be best if I wipe them clean one more time to be sure, and then we'll cover them in salves and wrap you up again so you can sleep, Lady Proudmoore."
"There's going to be a scar, isn't it?" the mage asked in a low voice. She sounded resigned, and Anya wanted to more than anything to wrap her arms around her.
"It is very likely. I can't say how much yet. It usually takes immediate healing with potions or spells to prevent scarring completely. If I'd had…"
"It doesn't matter." Lady Proudmoore interrupted her, but Anya did not believe her words any more than Lyana. "Maybe that will remind me not to act like a total idiot."
"You did a brave thing, for all of us, Lady Proudmoore." Lyana insisted but the mage only shrugged. She was slumping now, and Anya was sure that she would desperately need to sleep. She held Lady Proudmoore's hand when Lyana wiped her clean and she winced and gasped from the stinging alcohol, and tried to comb out her hair while Lyana wrapped her in fresh bandages. Finally Anya helped her put on one of the tunics from her small supply of clothes and Lady Proudmoore crawled down under her bedcovers and rolled over on her side.
"There are no scars in the world that would make any of us think less of you, Lady Proudmoore." Anya bent down and whispered in her ear. "Every ranger has them, but none of us ever dared to walk into an enemy stronghold unarmed and with our hands tied."
Lady Proudmoore just huffed sadly. Anya's insides twisted at the sight of their mage so far from her normal spirit.
She slowly laid down behind Lady Proudmoore's back and begun to gently run her hand across the mage's soft hair.
There had been that song, that the mage had sung when she had been allowed to wield her staff at sea for the first time, with Anya and Sylvanas beside her. How did it go, now again?
Anya begun to sing, as softly as she ever had.
"Ahoy, ahoy, sweet Daughter of the Sea
Ahoy this child of mine
The Admirals girl, his whole entire world,
For as long as stars do shine"
Upon hearing what she sang Lady Proudmoore froze, and shuddered beside Anya. She reached up and grabbed Anya's hand, and put it against her cheek.
It was wet.
"Ahoy, ahoy, sweet Daughter of the Sea
Ahoy this mage of mine
The dark ranger's girl, her whole entire world,
For you, her eyes will shine"