For the final time, Sylvanas walked arm in arm with her mage down to the main deck before the entire crew. They had lined up all along the way towards the gangplank now laid out and properly secured. Proudmoore looked outright terrible but she held her head high and Sylvanas kept her pace adjusted to her out of respect just as much as concern.
"Captain Bonecarver and all the crew of the 'Banshees Wail'…" Sylvanas began. Yes, they had finally given the poor vessel a name, suggested by the captains daughter Haley after finally dropping the alternative "Windrunner", "Tiderunner" or "Seas Daughter", because as she put it "things only got interesting aboard after you started to Wail a little, banshee Lady". Sylvanas hadn't know what to answer to that but her mage had laughed for the first time in two dreary days and that settled it as far as she cared.
"…I salute your hard work and unquestionable skill. Let lesser nations be in awe of a ship whose maiden voyage consisted of crossing an ocean, and let Scourge and Scarlets look upon her prow with fear!"
And may they all tremble before the Daughter of the Sea. Sylvanas thought quietly as the crew cheered.
Each day had drained Proudmoore more and more, causing her to display all the symptoms she had previously alluded to. Still she would yield to neither wind nor rain nor exhaustion and her rebukes of the rangers' suggestions that she should rest grew all testier until Velonara remarked that Proudmoore now sounded like the Dark Lady. When her mage had been ready to snap at that Sylvanas had run her clawed fingers down along her back, and that at least had seemed to make her mage relax quite a bit. It made Sylvanas feel marginally less bad for putting the woman through this.
Her rangers were largely relieved of guard duty during these day shifts of her mage, but they found all possible reasons to linger. Now that Proudmoore no longer needed to focus on directing the ship she could find cover from the increasingly cold wind behind them. While they had no warmth to share, the rangers would hold out their cloaks in a ring around and over their ward and form an improvised tent for her. Proudmoore did not snap at them any more after that.
"Captain Bones." her mage saluted like Kul Tirans did.
"Navigator Proudmoore." he returned it, grinning.
"Scrap that blasted forecastle."
"Hey mage lady, when ya not falling asleep where ya stand you've gotta come back and race with me in the longboat! With me at the tiller and you doing your streamy current tricks we're gonna own everyone!" Haley Bones exclaimed.
"Do I still get to be yer first mate, captain Haley?" Velonara asked as she threw the girl high in the air.
"Aye!"
Clea carried Proudmoores staff, oddly fitting as she was the one who had brought it aboard. Anya held a small sailcloth bag that contained the mages almost pitifully meagre luggage. Sylvanas had no idea where or how she had acquired the things but had little worry to spare on such trifles. When the rangers had asked her mage had just shrugged and remarked how mages, as everyone was aware of, were known to conjure all sorts of strange things out of thin air.
Sylvanas cast a last glance around the deck of the Banshees Wail. She was secretly starting to like the name.
Actually, that was always an option she supposed, but one glance at Proudmoore made her ashamed of even thinking about it. It was bad enough what she intended to do. But there was no putting it up any longer.
Her lack of enthusiasm for the art nothwithstanding, Sylvanas' current form brimmed with necromantic energy and she was able to perform some limited yet highly useful feats of the dark arts, one being to Raise simple skeletons for a short period of time. She rarely practised it though, as it was invariably an inefficient use of her time and energy on or off the field of battle. She could move faster on her own if she needed and her bow and blades were infinitely more lethal than a few mindless puppets. Now however could have been a time to actually make use of that talent and call forth a mount for her mage, but Sylvanas decided to leave it for another time. She had one of her escort ranger squads out ahead to scout and going too fast would defeat that purpose. Besides that, a long walk towards the Undercity would be a convenient opportunity to have a very unpleasant talk with Proudmoore.
She also tried her best not to think too much about how a long walk would conveniently drain her mage's energy even further to make her less able to escape.
As they passed out of the Lordaeron docks and into the countryside Sylvanas pondered how to broach the subject of Arthas. It was, after all, not her favourite one. In the event however Proudmoore beat her to it.
"What happened around here…?" she looked around at the ashen trees, leafless despite it being only early in the autumn.
"Blight. It has receded, but it has killed off everything that once grew or could have grown here. Every tree, every straw of grass, every seed waiting to grow. There are some areas not too far away that are still afflicted by it but as far as we can tell it takes some kind of actual Scourge presence to maintain the blight."
"I saw the blight at work in Ashenvale when the demons were advancing. And earlier when…" At that Proudmoores voice trailed off.
They kept walking, with their escort of rangers spread out in a wide circle around them. It suited Sylvanas fine. She preferred not to have their eyes upon her right now.
The road between the docks and the city had been well travelled and shops, inns and some villages had sprung up close by. They were all ruins now, broken walls and soot-blackened beams sticking out at odd angles or sometimes forming a burned out skeleton of the barn or granary that had once stood there. Here and there the devastation was underlined by the presence of the odd intact object, an overturned wheelbarrow that lay where it had been left a year ago, or a clay cup dropped in the mud.
Proudmoore would stop to gaze at the bleak reminders of the kingdom that had once been, but did not speak about what she looked at. Not until they came upon a burnt out windmill, or perhaps it had been a granary, that appeared to have collapsed in on itself on one side as the fire consumed it.
"Lady Windrunner…what is that?" Proudmoore pointed at something among the rubble.
Sylvanas followed her direction and had no difficuly discerning what it was or reading the grim scene.
"Skeletons." she said tonelessly.
Proudmoore looked in mute horror for a moment, and then rushed blindly through the dry, withering grass, hindered by her ill-fitting boots and too large clothes. Sylvanas had no trouble keeping pace with her.
Before them was a pile of burned beams and spars, and partly underneath them the charred remains of two humans.
Her mage had fallen to her knees before them, staring quietly at the blackened skulls and bones.
"A man, judging by the size" Sylvanas commented "and a child. Perhaps his son or daughter seeking shelter with him in the granary when the Scourge found them?"
Prudmoore looked up at her, and she appeared paler than usual. The dark patches that had formed under her eyes during the last days stood out atrociously against the whiteness.
"That is how I interpret it." Sylvanas continued, still with the even tone of a ranger delivering her report. "It would have been a tall structure, reasonably defensible, and their pursuers set it on fire. Perhaps it collapsed upon them and trapped them here, perhaps they were succumbing to the smoke and the building toppled over them afterwards. Although…"
There was a small detail that had caught Sylvanas' attention, a dent in one of the bones that seemed to have otherwise avoided the collapsing building.
"What is it?" Proudmoore almost whispered, her voice thick.
"This indenture here" Sylvanas pointed "may be the mark of a weapon, which would suggest that whoever started the fire was waiting for them down here."
"Did that…did it…?"
"Kill them? Possibly. Or perhaps he was only wounded and left to suffer and his child with him, maybe the child would not abandon its father and stayed to die from the smoke. It happens more often than you might think, like children hiding inside a closet as the building burns."
It did actually look a little like the smaller skeleton was leaning over the larger one. Sylvanas furiusly fought down whatever small, foolish voice inside that tried to cry out that even a banshee queen was allowed to feel something before such a miserable sight.
Her last sentence had caused her mage to stare at Sylvanas in shock.
She nodded slowly.
"We were his slaves, Lady Proudmoore. Fettered by the Lich Kings will and incapable of even trying to resist his commands."
"Were you…" her mage had to cough to find her voice. "Were you…aware?"
"I do not know for sure about everyone but as for me and for the rest of the rangers yes, we were perfectly aware of what we were doing."
She looks at me in horror now. Will she bolt, or lash out at me? I had better keep talking to keep her focusing on something else than panicking.
"It is not a subject we are keen to dwell upon, but the most formidable of the undead are always those that have enough of their mind, or perhaps their soul, left to function independently and put their innate skill and reaction to use. As a consequence the most intact and powerful among the Forsaken are invariably also the ones left with the most vivid memories of what they have done in the Lich Kings name."
"What did he make you do?"
There is fear in her voice. She wants to know but dreads what she will hear all the same.
"Come, walk with me, Lady Proudmoore. There is still a long road ahead of us to the Undercity."
Proudmoore followed her out from the dismal ruins and as they resumed their walk Sylvanas delved into her darkest moments as a banshee shackled to anothers will.
"When Arthas returned from Kalimdor with news of the Burning Legions defeat it was a surprise to the dreadlords who had until that point commanded the Scourge on the Legions behalf. They fled before him but Arthas' first order as 'King Arthas' of Lordaeron was to scour his grand realm of any remaining living inhabitants. He, I and his pet lich Kel'Thuzad each commanded separate forces to cut off the escape routes leading to the mountains and highlands around central Lordaeron. I commanded most of the dark rangers and banshees, Kel'Thuzad the available necromancers and Arthas the heaviest infantry, or what passes for that in the Scourge. I obeyed fully, writhing and screaming as much as I may in the small tortured corner of my mind that remined my own there was no way to resist the Lich Kings will. Not at that time."
She could see her mage taking in the information, her revulsion not stopping her analytical mind from sorting, cataloguing and filing it away for later.
"Our designated sector was not here but what you have seen so far is representative. We set fire to every dwelling, tainted every well and despoiled every edible thing in our path. Me and my sisters killed all that moved without hesitation. Man, woman, old, young. I suppose we were allowed to do it quickly and efficiently this time, since the good king was too busy elsewhere to amuse himself with thinking up new exciting atrocities for us to debase ourselves with." Sylvanas spat. "A dark ranger would not have done what you saw back there. She would have set fire to the structure and killed both of them with a precise strike and moved on to track down their kin without wasting time." She didn't know if it was contempt or a tint of twisted pride lacing her voice.
Why is she quiet? Why doesn't she condemn me as the monster I am? What are you waiting for, my mage?
"A banshee is not created to be allowed to rest, or be at peace. Our anger, our grief, our shame will burn inside us until it consumes every conscious thought and we lash out in muderous rage or a banshees Wail at whatever is near. Every moment of our existence is at some level an inner battle against that happening."
Sylvanas hesitated for a moment.
"My rangers are well respected among the Forsaken for their deeds but have few friends and even fewer of them close. They keep to themselves, for…several reasons. Arthas used to enjoy placing those of us who were Raised as banshees with elven captives as a punishment for our defiance when he attacked Quel'Thalas. In our rage and distress at what we had become, and before we had learned how to keep it under control to the extent we do know, it rarely took long before we would Wail and kill our former people, on our own you might call it. I can still hear him laughing at me most days whenever I close my eyes."
But that is not strictly true. Not anymore. Now I hear your heart beating at night and the breaths you draw and can think of nothing else. Now I see you reminding my rangers every day how they are not the monsters Arthas turned them into.
"Did you know it…what he was becoming?" Sylvanas asked lowly.
What a low blow. No, there are really no such rules in battle. But what an unworthy, ugly thing to say.
And Proudmoore did flinch. Confused? Affronted? Hurt?
"No, no..." She shook her head. "That's not why I left, I never thought he would…but I should have…"
She was trailing off. Sylvanas frowned. Proudmoore had left Arthas at some point? How and when and why the hell had she done that? She cursed her incomplete foreknowledge, it was clearly more fragmentary than she had hoped.
Nothing to do but push forward and hope to keep her reeling from sheer discomfort then.
"Would you care to clarify, Lady Proudmoore? You are not making much sense right now." Sylvanas said brusquely.
"At Stratholme. When Arthas…when he ordered the city to be…purged… And I left to heed the prophets warning and gather the people for the expedition to Kalimdor." Proudmoore frowned. "You didn't know about that?" she thought aloud as much as asked. "What was you referring to, Lady Windrunner?"
In response, Sylvanas reached inside a pocket to procure the old marriage contract drafted for the crowns of Lordaeron and Kul Tiras.
What a strange document that is. It prompted the entire expedition to Theramoore in a way yet we have never talked about it until now, just as we have never properly talked about the night I brought her aboard. And if it hadn't been for the dwarves being so thorough and, in all fariness, unintimidated by me we would most likely never had found it.
She let Proudmoore read through it in silence, watching for how her mage would react.
"It appears like you were quite close." Sylvanas commented, doing her best to sound indifferent.
"We…we were…but not at this point. I think I know when this would have been written. Anyway… We were lovers once."
She spoke it quietly, guiltily, as a confession of a serious crime. Which should have been perfect, and exactly what Sylvanas had aimed for, and all according to plan.
Should have.
"We met when I was travelling to Dalaran to begin my studies. We were just children them, nothing serious. But then he visited Dalaran and I visited Lordaeron and we became a couple. Lovers. A pair. Whatever you call it. We snuck away. Took walks. Had dinner. Rode through the countryside. …slept together." she almost whispered.
Sylvanas wanted to recoil, perhaps not from Proudmoore as such but the thought of…
Why the hell is she telling me this? Wait. She is…confessing her crimes. She is so damned stubbornly honest that she would do that.
"I thought we would marry at that time, I suppose I even hoped we would, and Arthas did propose to me but then he broke off the engagement and I went back to studying and he to squiring for Sir Uther. I think that marriage contract would have been drafted around that time. Someones wishful thinking, maybe… Then, when the plague hit Lordaeron, Master Antonidas sent me to investigate and me and Arthas met up again."
Proudmoore was looking down, not daring to meet her gaze.
Well, this is what the plan was, I should be celebrating really.
"I…I think some part of me hoped that we could pick up where we had left or something of the sort. I…you must think I'm very silly. Or…very horrible. At first things went well, we tracked the distributed infected grain and managed to halt the onslaught of that Cult of the Damned of Kel'Thuzad's. But we were always too late, the grain had been shipped out. So when we marched to Stratholme, where that dreadlord in command of the undead was supposed to reside, we found the plague spreading and the people…they were becoming undead before our eyes."
Her mage was trembling now, swallowing and curling into herself like if she didn't deserve to take up any space in the world. It was pitiful.
Good. Almost there.
Sylvanas was sickened by the thought and by herself for thinking it. But it was true in more than one way. Timbered ruins were giving way to broken down stonework and the torn walls of the capital city were becoming visible behind a wooded hill where the road turned.
"What happened at Stratholme?"
"He…he ordered that the people infected, or believed to be infected, were to be killed. Culled, to save the rest. Like their lives did not matter on their own. I told him not to do it. He was angry with me, shocked I think, and kept insisting that there was no other way. I don't know if he meant no other way to save the city or no other way to defeat the Scourge at work there amassing an army."
Her mage was crying.
"I told him that I could not…could not…" Proudmoore sniffed, visibly trying to regain control of herself. "Could not watch him do this."
Something immediately fell into place in Sylvanas' memory. The first night. Her mage had been plagued by nightmares, waking up to scream at one point, and thrashed in her sleep while she mumbled something that now became terribly clear.
"…can not watch you… …do th… …thas…"
I can not watch you do this, Arthas.
So you returned to Stratholme in your sleep that night and Belore knows how many others, my poor mage. And now I have dragged you back there yet another time.
"And that is when you left." Sylvanas concluded.
"Yes." Proudmoore whispered. "I told Sir Uther about it and he confronted Arthas but he wouldn't listen to anything. And Arthas sailed to Northrend to pursue that dreadlord and I returned to Dalaran to report what had happened to Master Antonidas and convince him that we should prepare for an expedition to Kalimdor as the prophet had predicted."
Ahead of them, Sylvanas could see Kitala signing to her that it was clear to advance. She must have conferred with the scouts ahead. Sylvanas nodded at her. Her mage seemed to distressed to have noticed.
Just through the city now, and then I can let you be.
There had been a grand gatehouse flanked by solid towers guarding the northern gate. An almost whole arch was all that remained now.
"We used to walk here." Proudmoore sounded hollow.
"Apparently so did he, or so I am told. As a death knight he always fought mounted on that skeletal horse of his, so the last time he walked here would have been when he returned from Northrend to murder his father and betray the entire kingdom to the Scourge." Sylvanas mused.
"Terenas. He was…he was always kind to me. I think he would have been a good king. Patient."
Somehow that incensed Sylvanas. A good king? Good enough to let his accursed son run rampant and good enough to let himself get killed and have that same son proceed to desecrate Quel'Thalas and…
No. Focus.
"What a pity his son shared so few of those admirable traits then." Sylvanas sneered venomously. She could not help herself. It was Arthas' fault that she was what she was, Arthas' fault that she had to stand here and mistreat a woman infinitely better than him. She currently had no wish to hear a single positive word about the Menethil family.
Proudmoore curled into herself worse than ever and had her eyes so firmly fixed on Sylvanas' feet one could be led to believe that those had suddenly been polymorphed into hooves.
"I wish he had never picked up that cursed sword…" she breathed, almost inaudible.
"Frostmourne."
Even speaking the name made Sylvanas perpetually cold chest feel colder.
"You know about it?"
Sylvanas wanted to scream at her and laugh madly at the same time. She was seeing black at the edges of her vision. Her physical form was bleeding black smoke now, the banshee inside her fuming and boiling. In one furious motion Sylvanas grabbed hold of her upper body armour and pulled it down by the middle to expose the jagged, icily discoloured, and unendingly hated scar between her breasts.
"Trust me" the banshee queens voice crackled with power as she sneered through her clenched teeth "I am well acquainted with it."
Proudmoore stared, transfixed by Sylvanas' chest. Under other circumstances that could have been associated with a profoundly different kind of reaction but now her eyes widened in shock as realisation dawned on her of just how personally the banshee queen had suffered at the hands of her former lover.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" She illogically clutched her mouth as she continued to apologise. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"
It would seem Proudmoore had finally been broken.
I have reduced a good-hearted and courageous woman to a rambling wreck. A woman who toiled for weeks to get me here. And all in a days work. Good job, Sylvanas.
"Please forgive me I should have stopped him I should have done…"
Tears were running freely down her cheeks from clear blue eyes that never left the jagged wound over Sylvanas' heart. Was that what she would be now in her mage's eyes? Nothing but the scar tissue left by the cruelty of a petty and spiteful death knight?
I am not what you have made me, Arthas! I am not!
But the state of her mage in front of her told a different story.
Proudmoore was crying.
For Arthas' sake.
Because of her.
Her mage.
Her Lady Proudmoore.
Her Jaina.
TO HELL WITH THIS!
"Lady Proudmoore."
Her words elicited no response.
"Proudmoore!"
Did her lovely human ears even register a word Sylvanas was saying?
"Snap out of it!"
Sylvanas' hand came down faster than the eye could see.
Jaina recoiled. Her cheek was burning. What had happened…
Sylvanas had slapped her?
Jainas jaw trembled and new tears welled up in her eyes. Was Sylvanas that angry with her?
She felt the banshee queens cold hand grasp her chin and tilt her head upward to meet her eyes that Jaina had avoided with all her ability. She flinched at the chilling touch and the feeling of those pointy claws on Sylvanas' gauntlets against her skin, but at the same time she felt drawn to it and wanted to lean closer into her hand, into anything that was not Sylvanas resenting her completely.
"Lady Proudmoore."
Her voice was so deep, like in Jainas dreams, and the ethereal echo also more prominent than otherwise. Jaina melted before it even as she looked up at the smoking form and furiously burning eyes of Sylvanas. The banshee queen was utterly frightening in this state, and yet she was not. Somehow, Jaina didn't fear that Sylvanas would actually harm her.
"Enough of this nonsense. Arthas' actions were his own."
Like before, when the visage of captain Bonecarver had made her panic, Jaina felt herself calm before Sylvanas' gaze. Her guilt and shame and anxiety slowly evaporated into smoke under the banshee queens uncompromising glare until the only things in the world were Sylvanas' eyes, Sylvanas' voice and Sylvanas' clawed hand upon her.
The banshee raised her other hand to brush slowly and carefully over Jainas cheeks and wipe her tears away.
"You are not his." Sylvanas whispered, so gently that Jaina sighed and closed her eyes when all tension came out of her. In her dishevelled state she must have misheard Sylvanas whisper something more, or just imagined hearing more of that wondrous voice.
"You are mine."
Whatever the words, Sylvanas' whisper was intense enough to make her shiver all the same.
"Come. Let us proceed to the keep, shall we?"
Sylvanas held out her arm, and Jaina hooked hers around it. Her chin already missed Sylvanas' hand on it. She leaned a little against the banshee queen, who glanced sideways but made no mention of it. Jaina was starting to feel her lingering exhaustion now, and how drained she was after being so emotional previously. They walked quietly for a while along broken cobblestone and torn walls towards the looming walls of the former seat of the Lordaeron crown.
Clea was signing to them from ahead. Even Jaina could see it. Or perhaps Clea wanted her to see her signing?
"What's she saying? With the hand signs?"
Sylvanas smirked slightly.
"All clear. Friendly unit near. Explore cave."
"Explore cave?"
"The 'cave' in this case would be the actual Undercity, but somehow elven ranger hand signs had not accounted for us dwelling in murky catacombs." Sylvanas explained.
"Is that where we're going?"
"Not strictly speaking. I intend to quarter you closer to the surface, on our upper floors you might call it."
At the entrance to the keep Jaina could finally see Anya and Velonara standing on guard at each side. It was strangely comforting to have them within her sight again. Anya looked at her intently when they passed inside and came upon the once magnificent throne room.
Or, it still had a broken and solemn sort of majesty, in Jainas opinion. Like a withered grave monument of a venerated ancestor. The roof had collapsed enough to let in the pale autumn afternoon sun and it shone upon the cracked stone throne still on its dais.
Sylvanas irreverantly threw herself back on it, sprawled across the seat in the most un-royal manner.
"Welcome to my humble abode!" she spread her arms out magnanimously.
Jaina didn't really know what she was expected to do, so she followed Sylvanas and sat down on the steps in front of the throne. Beneath the queen. She wondered how Sylvanas would look in a finely wrought crown. Probably completely ridiculous.
Jaina found to her surprise that she was smiling.
"Are you expecting any more guests, my queen?" she asked suitably humbly.
"Who knows? I am sure my dark heralds are spreading the word of my triumphant return even as we speak. Someone is bound to turn up." Sylvanas drawled.
"Where do, ahem, where do people live around here? I thought we would have seen someone." Now that Jaina had time to think about it, it was a bit odd that they hadn't seen any other Forsaken, wasn't it?
"Ah, but the actual city lies far beneath us and we are but at it's gates, Lady Proudmoore. It is after all not called the 'Undercity' for naught."
Out of an alcove, and silent as a cat, Kitala appeared. She looked with interest at Sylvanas lazily stretched across the throne and Jaina seated beneath her, after which she hurriedly saluted Sylvanas.
"Dark Lady, I couldn't find Kalira but I've sent word for her." Jaina noticed she spoke Thalassian now and strained her ears to keep up. Thalassian in books were one thing – spoken and unrefined it was clearly a field where Jaina had a lot to learn.
"Keep searching! I want her reporting promptly."
Kitala nodded and was gone in a blink. How did they do that?
Jaina leaned back against the base of the throne. It wasn't the most comfortable but she appreciated having something to rest her back against. Now that she was sitting so close to Sylvanas, a part of her hoped that she would touch her again. She wondered how Sylvanas claws would feel against her skull if she carded Jainas hair like Anya once had.
"Who is Kalira?" Jaina asked, partly to have something to say and partly out of curiosity.
"A dark ranger lieutenant. She has held the overall command of the defense of the city in my absence."
"That's a huge responsibility. You must trust her a lot."
Sylvanas smirked at that, with something ironic about her.
"Sure, I do trust Kalira a lot."
"Tell me about her. Please? Just while we wait?"
Sylvanas regarded her with a trace of amusement.
"Fine then. Kalira is about as tall as I am, almost, broad-shouldered and dark-haired. She is fast and strong and utterly deadly with a blade. She is a better archer than me on a good day and both she and I know it. It galls her to no end."
"Why?" Jaina frowned.
"Because on every other day I best her and because I have the nerve to appear content with that." Sylvanas chuckled quietly. "Kalira is my rival. She trains as hard as anyone, drills her squadron until they are on the verge of mutiny, and will accept any assignment no matter how dangerous, all in order to best me and prove everyone wrong who ever cheered 'Sylvanas' at some moment in their lives."
Jaina tried to imagine what it would be like to have to work close to someone who disliked you to that point. Sure, she had seen some of the academic rivalry of Dalaran, but this?
"Nothing would please Kalira more than to be able to save my skin a dozen times over and be there to say 'I told you so' afterwards. I respect and admire her skill and dedication and she – most grudgingly – finds herself forced to return the sentiment. Kalira is unflinchingly honest. I can trust her to speak the blunt truth as she sees it before a hall of naysayers any day. There is no better councillor that I can think of to keep you honest. Velonara is normally part of her squad, partnered with a ranger named Cyndia Hawkspear – you are familiar with the concept of ranging partners, I take it?"
Jaina nodded, and secretly and stupidly felt a little proud with herself that she had picked that up.
Before Jaina could indulge in her curiosity further Velonara herself hurried inside as if the mention of her name had summoned her.
"Dark Lady, I think you'd better come. And…it might be best if you brouht Lady Proudmoore with you."
Jaina watched her eyes narrow, and then widen in understanding. It looked as if Sylvanas' ears peeked up slightly, listening to something Jaina could not distinguish. In a blink all languidness had left her and she stood up with smooth grace and regal bearing.
A crown would still have looked misplaced. Like a toy among expertly crafted tools.
The Banshee Queen of Lordaeron had no need for a crown.
"Come, Lady Proudmoore. It is time for you to meet my people at last."
Sylvanas had been silently berating herself ever since the walk from the gatehouse, after which she had truly not known what to do. She had screwed this whole plan up, and badly so, because she had not the rotten, black heart to see her mage suffer just a little longer. She truly hadn't. And now she had been sitting and waiting stubbornly for Kalira to arrive as if that would in some inexplicable way solve her mage problem. The truth was that Sylvanas was stalling. And now something all the more vexing was sure to be happening or Velonara would not have come to fetch her.
Outside, facing Anya and seven more rangers with Velonara, were dozens upon dozens, hundreds of Forsaken. Forsaken all kinds and trades, from almost human with ghostly skin to wretched ghouls with twisted backs and missing jaws, from artisans to apothecaries to dreadguards.
They were not happy.
No deathguards were present. Those would have joined ranks with the rangers without a sliver of hesitation.
Sylvanas strode forward to the top of the stairs. She did not hesitate. Nor did she attempt to give a speech or deflect the sentiments with some witty joke. No, she would at the very least be more honest than that.
"Speak your mind."
At first there was no responce. Only silence. Then…
"You left us!"
"Coward!"
"Runner!"
Abandoned. Betrayed. It was not unexpected words. Sylvanas had told herself the same many times over. She stood her ground in silence, accepting whatever condemnation her people apparently wanted to throw at her. She had promised them free will and she would stand by her word.
"Why did you come back?"
"How dare you show yourself!"
"Where did you run to?"
"What do you have to show for it?"
As if to answer that, Proudmoore stepped in sight, flanked by Anya and Lyana on one side and Clea, Kitala and Velonara on the other. Their unimpressed demeanour made it clear that as much as they guarded the mage they would also guard her from whoever would challenge them for her.
Unfortunately it only seemed to incence the crowd even further.
"Is that a joke?"
"What business does the living have in our city?"
"She brought back a little pet for her rangers, is that it?"
"Death to the living!"
"Ranger cunts!"
Sylvanas growled, and black smoke started to trail from her.
Yes, she understood well their sentiments about her abandoning her post to chase a fleeting hope across the sea only to return with nothing but a hostage to show for it. Yes, she did admittedly keep her rangers very close to her and yes, no matter how many dangerous assignments she gave them it would inevitably outward appear like the favouritism it perhaps was.
But that.
The offender was a Forsaken soldier, not a dreadguard but one of the better equipped. Sylvanas itched to crush those cheap iron plates between her hands with the wearer still in them. Yet before she had the chance to do anything he stumbled, and a jet of icy cold water shot out from Proudmoores hand and hit him squarely in the face.
"I think you had best wash your mouth after speaking such foul words." her mage said, and had the nerve to say it innocently, as the armoured infantryman slid on the spot of ice that had mysteriously formed right under his feet, smooth like a polished mirror. He cursed, and the surrounding crowd was starting to edge away slightly.
"You filthy little piece of…"
Another jet of water knocked him off his feet this time, the iron-shod boots finding little purchase against the magical ice.
"It seems like he was in deep waters already…"
Proudmoore snapped her fingers theatrically and at once his heavily armoured feet were frozen to the ice.
"…but maybe he got cold feet and preferred to lay off?"
True enough, Proudmoores magical frost had now also fused his cuirass and one of his arms to the icy ground where he lay. Belore, it sounded like her mage was close to laughing. She was quietly giggling. Giggling.
"SILENCE!" Sylvanas shouted and her ethereal voice echoed across the city.
"Yes! I. Did. Fail. I left you all to fend for yourselves and sailed off in search for one last chance for an alliance with another realm. I was met with hostility and drawn weapons before I had a chance to plead our case. I returned with nothing to show for it except for the mage now in my custody. My custody. There you have it! And if anyone, anyone, thinks that makes me unworthy to lead you then step forward now or shut up!"
The crowd was silent as the grave. No, no, the crowd was deathly silent. No, the crowd was just silent and Sylvanas was not becoming Areiel and that was that.
"And you, little mage…" Sylvanas turned to take Proudmoore by the ear and drag the mage towards her, who yelped and stumbled. Sylvanas roughly grasped a fistful of her golden hair to pull her head back so that her mage was staring right up at her with clear, blue eyes. "…will learn to behave yourself, is that understood?"
Her mage nodded. "Yes, Dark Lady." she mouthed breathlessly. Her eyes were still fixed on Sylvanas, not teary this time but shiny. Glazed, almost.
Insufferable woman. Had she no sense of caution or self-preservation at all?
Still furious, Sylvanas marched off without sparing the mob a second glance. She dragged Proudmoore with her, the mage's head forced forward by Sylvanas' hand in her hair and stumbling and yelping as she tried to keep up. Down corridors and stairs Sylvanas dragged her, with her rangers in tow, all the way to the lower levels of the keep until they reached the largest magically warded cell.
Sylvanas threw open the door and hurled her mage inside, still fuming.
"Ow! What the hell!" Proudmoore exclaimed and clutched the ear Sylvanas had previously grabbed. "There's no need to drag my ears out to elven ones, I am perfectly fine with human sized!"
"Do you" Sylvanas stormed across the room until she was right in front of and looming over her mage "have any idea how close you were to instigating a riot?!"
"I was trying to deflect their anger! Better that people are angry at me who is their enemy anyway than you!"
"They would not have dared to harm me, but you are a different matter."
Proudmoore rubbed her ear. "Damn it." she muttered.
"If you want to act the disobedient pet like you just did I will have to act my part, and pray that people think more about me reprimanding you, than about you making a fool of that guardsman."
"He was making a fool of himself just fine…"
"Proudmoore!"
Her mage looked up at her with big eyes.
"I'm sorry I've caused you trouble, Dark Lady." she whispered.
Sylvanas sighed.
"For the time being you will have to stay down here for your own safety as much as theirs, until I know more about the sentiments in the city."
"So you're not going to reprimand me any more now?" her mage asked in a small voice but still with that odd glazed look.
Sylvanas slowly brushed her thumb across her mage's lips and further down along the captivating womans chin, making her breath hitch.
"Not until you give me reason to, little mage…"