Confronted
"Are you serious?" Clea asked, looking at Sylvanas with excitement.
"I am." Sylvanas said, watching the three rangers with her look at her with so much joy. "I found out a couple days ago when I felt sick and asked one of the priests to look at me and see what was wrong. I then brought it up with him earlier today, wanting to know if he would like to start a family with me and thankfully he said yes, otherwise it was going to be hard to explain to him that I am carrying his child."
"I'm so happy for you." Melonara said, hugging the General and then being joined by Anya and Clea. "We'll be the best aunts in the world to that kid and they're going to have so many people love and look after them, it will be the envy of its class when they join the Ranger Academy."
"We are all so happy for you, Sylvanas. I can't wait to become an aunt." Anya said, spotting Athrodar making their way over to him. "There he is!"
"Shh." Sylvanas said, smiling at Athrodar and noticing he looked off. "Are you okay?"
"Can we talk?" Athrodar asked her, looking at the three rangers surrounding the General. "Alone."
"Sure." Sylvanas said, watching Anya, Clea and Melonara leave her alone with him. "What happened?"
"Not here." Athrodar said, walking towards a nearby building and opening the door, quickly looking inside to make sure it was empty and nodding towards it. "In here."
"O-okay." Sylvanas said, growing worried and walking into the building.
Once they were alone, Athrodar slammed the door behind them and made Sylvanas jump when the sudden bang scared her. "When were you going to tell me?"
"Wh-what do you mean?" Sylvanas asked him, watching Athrodar shake his head and hearing him scoff.
"Don't play dumb with me, Sylvanas. You know exactly what I am on about." He folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. "How can you stand there and tell me you love me, yet keep the death of my father a secret for three weeks?" Athrodar let out a laugh when something crossed his mind, shaking his head again and pacing back and forth a little. "Who am I kidding, you kept the arrangement from me for three decades, I shouldn't be surprised that you can keep this a secret for three weeks."
"Let me explain." Sylvanas told him, watching Athrodar pace back and forth. "Stop moving."
"Fine, explain. Explain it to me how you could find out the Amani have left Quel'Thalas, joined up with their sister tribe in the Hinterlands as well as the death of my father from not only me, but from everyone here." Athrodar tapped his foot whilst he stared at the General. "In your own time." He said when she didn't say anything."
"What do you want me to say?" She asked him, suddenly having her mind go blank.
"I want you to tell me why I should trust you after this." He said. "Because right now, I have lost all trust in you and your leadership, Sylvanas."
That made Sylvanas glare at him now. "I don't need your trust to lead you, Lieutenant. I'm still your General, even if you don't trust me."
"Right, I forgot. You're the emotionless General who is so cold hearted she didn't even tell the one person she supposedly loves that his father is dead. As long as they're focus on the task at hand, it doesn't really matter if their parents have died." Athrodar said, watching the glare grow in intensity. "After all of this time in Kalimdor, doing my job as well as I can, you didn't trust me enough to tell me my father had died and then tell me you still need me here until the Burning Legion have been defeated." He let out a small laugh and shook his head. "How you've been made General is beyond me."
"Know your place, Lieutenant." Sylvanas told him, trying to pull rank on Athrodar who couldn't care less at this point.
"I know my place, Sylvanas. My place is back home, with my grieving mother who hasn't had the only son in her life by her side because the Ranger-General everyone trusted and looked up to, decided to keep a secret from someone she loves." Athrodar turned his back on the General and looked out the window of the building. "Moving into your company has gone out the window too. There is no place for me there, not after this." He looked down at his uniform and took off the Lieutenant pin on his chest, turning back around and throwing it to the General. "Keep it. I'm returning home and retiring from the ranger life. I can't work for you anymore, not after this."
Sylvanas looked down at the Lieutenant pin in her hand and frowned. "Think about what you're doing, Athrodar. If you're really doing this, you won't be able to become a ranger again unless you decide to go through the Ranger Academy again."
"That's fine, because like I said, I could never work for someone who I have lost all trust in." Athrodar placed his swords, bow and quiver down on a nearby table, pulling out the two knives he kept and placing them down with the other weapons too. "Here. Hand them out, smelt them down, I don't care." He looked back to the General who looked over to his weapons. "You speak about loving me and wanting us to be together and even starting a family, but I can't help but feel that was all talk to make this moment feel easier on you, hoping that because we said we loved each other means that I would forgive you."
"I wasn't lying when I told you all of that. Neither was it all a ploy to get you to forgive me when I told you, and I was going to tell you once this was all over, but I can see you're blinding by your own grief and anger towards me that you're not thinking straight."
Athrodar let out a loud laugh. "You're joking right? You think it's my grief and anger that's not making me think straight? No, for the first time in a while I have never thought so clearly in my life. It took my grandfather to come here and tell me my father died, my grandfather, Sylvanas. The one person in my family I rarely speak to." He shook his head and placed a hand on the door handle. "I missed the funeral. It happened two weeks ago and I wasn't there because you kept it from me." He looked over his shoulder and towards the General who now began to feel even more guilty than she already did. "I hope you're wide awake, because I have no idea how you can sleep at night knowing you have just destroyed the best thing that has happened to you." He opened the door and took a step out. "Your words about me, remember that? Three decades of waiting, only to fuck it up within a month." He shut the door behind him and began to make his way back to his grandfather and the Prince.
Sylvanas looked down at the Lieutenant pin in her hand and then looked over to Athrodar's weapons, placing the pin down beside them and suddenly feeling weak, collapsing down onto her knees and not stopping herself from crying her eyes out. It took only a few more seconds of crying before Sylvanas began to scream at the top of her lungs and hug herself tightly at how badly this whole thing went down. She didn't stand a chance at recovering this and she knew it the moment they entered this room and Athrodar began to speak.
On his way back to his grandfather, Athrodar came across Anya, Clea and Melonara, being stopped by the three of them the moment they heard Sylvanas' faint screams of anguish. "What happened?" Clea asked, looking up at Athrodar.
"My father's dead and she kept it from me." Athrodar told them, noticing the shock on Anya and Melonara's face but not Clea's, letting out a small laugh and shaking his head at her. "Of course you knew." He said, looking back to Melonara. "I've resigned as Lieutenant and a ranger, I'm returning home and spending the rest of my time with my mother." He took two steps forward and stopped beside a broken looking Melonara. "We missed his funeral too. He died three weeks ago and they had the funeral two weeks ago." He looked back to the building her left Sylvanas in, noticing Anya and Clea making their way towards it. "It's up to you now if you want to stay here and join her company, leave with me or just stay here and fight."
Melonara had tears in her eyes when she looked over to Athrodar, opening her mouth to speak but then shutting it and taking hold of his hand. "I'm... I'm coming home with you." She placed her spare hand over her heart and felt the ranger medals she had there, stroking a thumb over the top of one of them before pulling it off her uniform. "If you're leaving the Farstriders, so am I." She said, looking up at Athrodar who smiled a little at her. "You're my brother and she hurt our family by keeping Tahnir's death a secret." She dropped the medal on the floor and walked with Athrodar towards Kael'thas and Aerinan.
Whilst they both made their way into the building where Aerinan and Kael'thas were waiting for them, Anya and Clea walked into a broken looking Sylvanas. Her arms were around her stomach, tears flowing freely from her eyes and down her face all whilst she remained knelt down beside the table Athrodar left everything behind. "Sylv.." Clea muttered, making her way towards the General and hugging her when she dropped onto her knees, being hugged tightly in return by Sylvanas who was quickly hugged from behind by Anya.
"He.. He.. He hates me." Sylvanas told them, struggling to get out her words she was crying so hard. "He quit the Farstriders, said I couldn't be trusted... I... I couldn't even tell him about this." She said, rubbing her stomach slowly.
"I'll talk to him." Clea said, feeling Sylvanas shake her head.
"He's returning home... He wants nothing to do with us." Sylvanas began to cry into Clea's shoulder. "It hurts so much." She said, feeling Anya hug her tighter. "My heart has never ached so much. I... I don't want to be here."
"I know." Clea whispered, trying her best to comfort her. "But we have to stay here until the Burning Legion are defeated, okay? Then I will go find Athrodar and talk to him."
"Please don't." Sylvanas told her, pulling back from the hug and wiping her eyes. "I don't want to make things worse..."
"But you're carrying his child." Clea said, watching Sylvanas begin to tear up again. "You have to tell him that at least."
"What's the point?" Sylvanas asked. "He hates me already, even if I told him I knew two days ago, he'd turn it around and make it so I was in the wrong again."
"Well... When do we tell him?" Anya asked, sitting beside the General and resting her head on Sylvanas' arm.
"When things have calmed down between us." Sylvanas told them, placing her hand on the table and picking up the Lieutenant pin and looking down at it. "I had never seen him so angry... I was too scared to say anything to him because I thought it would make things worse, but... I did let a few things slip."
Clea sat on the other side of the General and rest her head on her other arm. "I've never known you to be scared of anything." She said, taking hold of her hand. "We should have told him when we found out."
"Wait, you knew as well?" Anya asked, watching Clea nod. "Way to make me feel left out..." She muttered, pouting.
"Forgive me?" Clea asked.
Anya smiled and nodded her head. "I forgive you." She said, watching Sylvanas smile a little. "See? You should have just had a relationship with us, we would have forgiven you."
Sylvanas smiled a little wider, moving her arms around the two rangers either side of her. "Thank you." She told them, getting a hug from either side of her.
"Where are your swords?" Aerinan asked his grandson, quickly realising what has happened when he noticed the Lieutenant pin missing from his uniform as well as Melonara missing her scout badge. "You didn't?"
"What happened?" Kael'thas asked when he saw the shock on Aerinan's face.
"I've resigned from the Farstriders." Athrodar told the Prince. "As of now, I am just a civilian, far from his home and he just wants to get back to his grieving mother."
"Same for me, except it's his grieving mother I'm going to see." Melonara said, looking up to Athrodar who smiled at her. "Can't have him go on his own, not with how much I saw Tahnir as a father most of the time." She smiled a little at Aerinan but didn't notice the sadness in her eyes speak for how she truly felt. "We're going home." She said, looking over to Kael'thas who nodded his head slowly and began to conjure a portal to Silvermoon.
"When we're finished here, I'll come visit." Kael'thas said, getting a nod from Athrodar.
"Thank you." He said, watching Aerinan and Melonara walk through the portal and shaking hands with the Prince. "Keep her away from us. I don't want to see the General anywhere near our home."
"I'll try my best." Kael'thas told him, watching Athrodar walk through the portal shortly after and closing it behind him.
"The demons are on their way." Elaria said, reporting back to her General as well as Sylvanas, Kael'thas, Tyrande and the rest of the leaders present at Hyjal. "They'll be here in two days, are the strongholds ready?"
"Almost." Jaina said, looking over to Thrall who nodded his head in agreement.
"Ours too." He told them.
"You can go, Captain." Shandris said, turning her attention to the rest of the leaders. "Where is that scout of yours, by the way?" She asked Sylvanas watching her look away and slowly nodding her head at the Ranger-General. "I see, well that's a shame. We could really use him right now."
"We still have plenty who can scout for us." Kael'thas said when Sylvanas didn't speak up. "We'll be ready when they arrive, we can hold them back even if we're missing two of our rangers."
"That's fine." Tyrande said, looking over to Jaina and Thrall. "You know what to do when they arrive, right? You're only there to slow them down and kill as many of the demons as you can before retreating and letting them through to the next stronghold until they reach us here. By then we should have killed enough of them to deal with whatever is left."
"Are you sure we can hold them off long enough to make a dent in their numbers?" Jaina asked, looking over to Kael'thas who nodded his head at her.
"I'm not a ranger, so I can't help them, but I will be there with you, Jaina." Kael'thas told her. "We can hold them off, don't worry." He looked back to Tyrande and the rest of the leaders with him. "When they start to break through, I'll port everyone back here with Jaina's help so we can help hold them off when they reach the world tree."
"Sounds like a good plan to me." Thrall said, looking over to Tyrande and Malfurion who were nodded their heads approvingly.
"The more people back here will make it easier to defend against the demons." Tyrande said, standing up and having Malfurion and Shandris copy her movements. "Start setting up your defenses, the demons could attack earlier than we expect and we need to be prepared when they do." Tyrande looked over to Sylvanas who was the last to stand up, placing a hand on her arm when she did. "You can all go." She told them, tightening her grip on Sylvanas' arm. "Not you."
Once they were left alone, Sylvanas sat back down and looked over to Tyrande who began to walk around the table slowly. "Why am I still here?" She asked the High Priestess, getting a smile from the Kaldorei.
"Your head isn't here with us, it's somewhere else right now and we can't have that going into one of the most important battles of our lives." Tyrande told her, stopping opposite the Ranger-General and watching her closely. "Either clear your head now or I will tell your Prince to send you home."
"I've never missed a battle in my life." Sylvanas told her, sitting up straight and closing her eyes so she could pretend she was in the room with herself. "Lieutenant Sunblade and his second left because I kept his father's death a secret. I was going to tell him once this battle was over, but he found out beforehand and has left both my company and the Farstriders because he doesn't want to serve under me anymore." She opened her eyes and began to pinch herself to distract the sadness growing within her again. "He's back home with his family now and has told me to never talk to him or his mother again."
"Good." Tyrande said folding her arms. "Then listen to him and focus on your mission here, General. Defeat the Burning Legion, return home to your people and go about the rest of your life with the experiences you have learnt here. Never keep the death of someone's family secret, especially if you claim to love them." Tyrande gestured to the door. "Now if you can promise me you will concentrate on the upcoming battle and only the battle from now on, I will gladly let you rejoin your people."
Sylvanas sighed and nodded her head. "The Burning Legion are a threat that needs to be dealt with. That was my decision and reason for not telling him, it would make me look like a fool if I am not in this fight now."
"Then let's return to our people and plan our defenses." Tyrande said, following Sylvanas out the meeting room shortly after.
"Mom!" Athrodar yelled, running towards his family home and opening the door, looking around Sunblade Manor in hopes of finding his mother. "Mom!" He yelled, hearing movement on the floor above and climbing the stairs to the first floor, hugging his mother tightly when she began to break down into tears. "I didn't know." He whispered, kissing her on the cheek and hugging her a little tighter. "I found out a couple hours ago... I would have arrived sooner if I knew."
"I'm just happy you're here now." Illana whispered to her son, holding onto him as if her life depended on it and looking over to Melonara who had tears rolling down her face. "Come here." She said, letting go of Athrodar momentarily and hugging the other ranger. "You're the daughter he always wanted." She whispered to her, hearing Melonara begin to cry into her shoulder and shushing her. "He was so happy you got along with Athrodar and became his second. He always knew whatever task he gave you, you would both do it."
"You two were always my second parents." Melonara told her, pulling back and wiping her eyes. "Where did you bury him?" She asked, looking over to Athrodar who put his hand in his pocket and stroked his father's ring slowly. "So we can say a few words."
"He's beside his grandmother." Illana said, looking back to Athrodar who closed his eyes the moment she was mentioned.
"I suppose it makes it easier to speak to them both." Athrodar said, looking over to Melonara who smiled a little at him. "Let's go see him."
"I'll wait here." Illana said, smiling weakly at her son. "I spoke to him earlier, I can't bring myself to go twice a day. Not yet."
Making their way towards the two graves, Melonara stopped several steps away from Tahnir's grave and watched Athrodar make his way towards it. "I never thought I would see this, not now." She said, making her way towards the gravestone. "Not for a long time." She then said, resting her head on Athrodar's arm and sniffing a little. "He would always talk about you when you were out on a mission. How proud he was of you, how far he thought you would make it in the ranks." She laughed a little. "He believed you would be the next Ranger-General, at the very least the next Ranger Lord."
Athrodar smiled a little and placed a hand in his pocket, taking out his father's ring and placing the ring on the top of the gravestone. "The only way that can come true now is if I go through the Ranger Academy again and I don't see myself doing that." He kept his hand on the top of the gravestone, feeling his heart begin to ache as he read and then re-read his father's name on the gravestone. "I don't know what I'm going to do now however. I'm thinking of leaving this place and taking my mother with me, I just don't know where to go."
Melonara took hold of his other hand and squeezed it a little. "Wherever you plan to go, I'm coming with you." She told him. "I quit too, remember? I'm sticking with my family no matter where you decide to go."
Athrodar smiled wider and moved an arm around her. "I'm thinking of going south. Stormwind might welcome three elves since they're taking in refugees. As long as we have a plan when we get there, it shouldn't be a problem."
Melonara smiled and began to nod her head slowly. "We could open up a tavern in the city. I've always wanted to run a tavern when I finished being a ranger and since it happened sooner rather than later, I suppose I might as well try to go through with that plan."
"I don't know the first thing about running a tavern." Athrodar muttered, hearing Melonara laugh beside him.
"Neither do I, which makes it all the more fun." She told him, placing a hand on Tahnir's grave. "I'm going to miss him." She said, changing the subject back to him. "I think if we could have talked him into it, he would join us and would love the challenge of running a tavern with absolutely zero experience."
"As long as he was around family, I believe he would have enjoyed it." Athrodar told her, standing up and placing a hand on the gravestone. "I'm going to miss you, father." He said, closing his eyes and moving his other arm around Melonara when she hugged him. "Come on, I'm sure my mother wants to spend time with her family."
"What about Dael'Thaelas?" Melonara asked as they walked back into Sunblade Manor. "Aren't you worried about how he would react?"
"I couldn't give two shits about Dael'Thaelas." Athrodar said, looking over to his mother who smiled a little at him. "He went through with the funeral even though I wasn't present, just to get it over with so he could finally be rid of my father and his protests against this family."
"I tried to get him to wait." Illana said, making her way over to her son. "He wouldn't listen, he said it needed to happen within a week." She pulled Athrodar head down a little and kissed him on the forehead. "He's taking Zul'Aman as we speak, he'll be back within a couple days."
"We can wait." Athrodar said, looking over to Melonara who nodded her head in agreement.
"I'm not a ranger anymore, so he can't pull rank on me." Melonara told them. "I've wanted to say a few things to him for so long now."
Athrodar smiled and nodded his head approvingly. "I'm looking forward to that conversation then."
Illana smiled and made her way towards the living room. "You two must be tired, it's the middle of the night after all."
"I am actually." Melonara said, looking up the flight of stairs beside her. "Spare bedroom still okay for me to sleep in?" She asked, watching Illana nod. "Thank you." She said to her, placing a hand on Athrodar's arm. "Goodnight." She said to him, walking up the stairs shortly after.
"Are you going to be okay, sleeping by yourself?" Athrodar asked his mother, watching her smile and nod her head at him.
"I have been for three weeks now. It's still strange and hard to get used to, but I'll manage." She told him, closing her eyes when Athrodar kissed the top of her head. "Go on, go to bed."
"I will." He said, kissing the top of her head again. "Love you, mom."
"I love you too." She said to him, watching him leave.