Navarion stared at the ceiling of the barracks, counting the number of rings on the solid part of the hollowed out tree. The growth of the ancient of war they all slept in had been surprisingly well done; everything on the inside was perfectly symmetrical, level and designed for habitation. This despite the fact that the outside was just a normal tree in the sense that the branches and leaves ran everywhere. Of course, the tree had several massive roots that looked like legs and it also had a face, but aside from that it was pretty normal.
Focusing on the intricacies of their barracks at least gave him something to focus his mind on, something other than the incident in the woods.
"Let's take a break," they had agreed with one another. Those were the words they had said at the end: let's take a break. He didn't even know what that meant. Zhenya probably didn't, either. The two of them had been so worked up at the end of it that they searched for any solution, anything at all, to try and salvage whatever weird connection they had.
It shouldn't feel that different; Zhenya had always rejected public shows of affection and in the past had even embarrassed him publicly by denying that they were together. Insincerely apologetic in when they were alone together, she'd always try to make up for it after whatever tiffs they'd had but the fact remained that their relationship was mostly physical and entirely in private. The only thing that had changed now was that they weren't sleeping with each other for the time being and wouldn't even be spending time in private. The pain of separation caused him to question what they actually were.
During the first few days, he'd just been numb; all his free time after work had been spent sleeping in early and he'd avoided people as much as possible. Once again, he was quite lucky that his roommates in the top floor of their specific ancient of war consisted of Dmitri, who was the epitome of discretion; a furbolg shaman who could understand Darnassian but not speak it; and yet another apprentice Druid who lacked the experience to formally enlist, and found himself instead relegated to serving alongside the mercenaries and sleeping on the bunk that formerly belonged to the highborne Mage. Two of his comrades wouldn't speak to him unless spoken to and the third proved unable to speak to him at all, and so he had the privacy he needed. A few days turned into a week and before he knew it a second was upon them; all the while Navarion had been a ghost, mentally numb and drifting in and out as he tried to find time to be by himself.
Thus it came as a pleasant surprise when he bumped into Ragnar, the huge dark troll bearing a name that sounded dwarven and who had been granted the actually rather prestigious job of serving as Commander Lamia's personal bodyguard (a.k.a. meat shield). Originally, Navarion had been waiting in line at the food distribution area; the ancients had gone into the season for pomegranates and as quickly as they could regrow them, soldiers both enlisted and hired from mercenary camps would line up to buy as much as they would be individually allotted. Much to the chagrin of the pandaren silk merchants behind them, the half elf and the dark troll were already near the front of the line as they talked.
"Ragnar, has anybody told you that your name sounds dwarven?" Navarion asked the big lug at some point during their idle, mostly Zandali conversation.
Weak in his own first language, Ragnar had to think about the question before he could answer. "My name...dwarf...yeah. Not sound, is."
It took Navarion a moment to think about the answer himself. Common was his first language, Darnassian his second from an early age. Even though he learned voodoo from his father and by virtue of that a bit of Zandali, he didn't really learn it until he began noticing women and, given the proximity of Ratchet to Durotar and the Crossroads, interacting with Darkspear women a little more. Which earned him disapproval from the whole family, as even his jungle troll father often reminded Navarion of his lifespan and how he would outlive most of the women he showed interest in, but it proved a strong motivating factor to learn his father's language. Trying to communicate with a more primitive dark troll, however, proved exceedingly difficult for him; neither of them were technically fluent, they used different dialects, they had different accents and Ragnar's own mistakes often left the half Darkspear confused.
"So...you name actually is dwarven, and not some rare Zandali loan word?"
Tilting his head at the term 'loan word,' the Shadowtooth just jumped into what was probably the longest story he'd ever tell. "Before born I...mama papa look for treasure. Go to beach north of Moonglade. Kalimdor coast. On beach they look and find can. It's from Dwarfistan. Has write name Brewfest and brew man, Ragnar. Mama papa like dwarves, dwarves have many metals. Think finding metal on beach sign from Loa. So Ragnar, I."
"That's...actually a logical and fascinating explanation," Navarion chuckled. The line was going nowhere fast as a trainee priestess at the front decided that she wanted to completely change her order and then began taking extra orders from a group of her friends that hadn't waited in line, causing a bit of finger wagging from the older elves. Grumbling, the half elf continued. "Come to think of it, I don't think I ever asked how you wound up here, serving in the army of the Kaldorei."
"Normal," Ragnar replied quickly but while shaking his head for no readily available reason. "Dark troll, don't like foreigner. But Shadowtooth make pact, Starchildren." It took Navarion a minute to realize that 'Starchildren' meant children of the stars, the literal translation of the name Kaldorei; given that the night elves descended from dark trolls, it made sense that Ragnar would refer to them by a tribal name rather than as a separate race. "Starchildren fight in War Third, before big ago. Shadowtooth follow Starchildren. Starchildren bosses, generals, importants, always want Shadowtooth bodyguard, need or not need, still want. Starchildren call it..." He trailed off and then briefly broke into very broken, mispronounced but understandable Darnassian. "...prestige; show off important."
"So you just decided to become a body guard one day, just like that?"
"No, not like that. Join mercenary camp I, along with satyr good," Ragnar explained while pointing to the reformed satyr whose name nobody could remember. The horned man was apparently already glaring at them, making no secret of the fact that he hated being pointed at. "Want work at foreign, save yen, use yen to build house for woman I."
Although it shouldn't have come as a surprise, Navarion did crook his neck back as if it were strange news. "You have a lady friend waiting for you back home? Congratulations!"
"Not have woman now. But want after finish meating shield. Will go home I, build house, find woman."
Navarion snorted cynically through his nose. "If only it were that easy here in the foreign lands, my friend." He didn't elaborate and Ragnar didn't seem to notice his downcast tone, and the two men waited in line and ignored the irritating satyr until they could get their pomegranates, as well as a few for the nervous, hungry pandaren behind them.
They only had a few minutes to eat with the furry visiting merchants before the familiar hoof clips of Tammie strode up behind the grassy spot they'd chosen to sit down in.
"Whoa, you still work here?" the vindicator joked while eyeing the pomegranates.
"I've been a little tired lately is all, though I suppose a particularly annoying, disgustingly cheery vindicator could help cheer me up," Navarion shot right back, silencing the uncomfortable pandaren merchants by openly bickering.
"Oh ha ha, very funny, gimme them pomegranates!" Tammie grunted like one of the guys while kneeling and snatching one of his pieces of fruit away.
For a second, he considered pointing out that she shared Ragnar's habit of talking while chewing, but he didn't want to offend both of his friends and settled for chatting about Kalimdor versus Pandaria silk with the merchants for a few minutes. Eventually Ragnar's break was up and Commander Lamia sent a runner to inform him that she intended on walking to the temple in public and required him to walk in front of her entourage; as gracious and humble as the commander was, she did seem to fall into the trope that Navarion had previously heard of where night elf notables often paid to have dark troll guards standing around just to look and feel important. Though, in her defense as she thought, as the local military commander she probably would be target number two after the head priestess of the local branch of the Sisterhood of Elune.
Shortly thereafter, the merchants excused themselves in anticipation of the midnight market and went to visit the city's only coffeehouse - unlike tea, coffee wasn't particularly popular among the Kaldorei and only a single cafe in the region served it. Without being told, Tammie stood up after wiping her hands on the grass and nodded to Navarion as if signaling for him to stand up.
"Walk with me, talk with me," she said in an overly nonchalant way, as if overacting.
He stood up and followed her regardless, even while openly laughing at her attempt to sound cool. Moving away from the food distribution area, she led him around the winding paths of the military quarter and in between the various hollowed out ancients that formed both living quarters and sentient storage units.
"You're doing surprisingly little talking-"
"But a whole lot of walking," Tammie interrupted, still thinking that she sounded cool. They slowed their pace and hung to one side, taking care not to block the way of any on duty sentinels. "Look, I'll cut to the chase: Sergeant Fyndir noticed that you don't have that sprint in your step anymore. He's at the shooting range and wants to practice firing your pistol a bit."
"So he sent you after me just for that?" Navarion asked incredulously and slightly annoyed that his day off was under demand by the officer presiding over the male barracks.
"It's probably a good way to blow off steam. You should feel happy that he thought of you - many officers don't ever want to know about the personal lives of their subordinates at all."
Honing his vision straight ahead, Navarion felt himself unintentionally bristle at the implication of his personal life being the business of anybody else. "I guess so," he mumbled, once more without intending to do so.
Silently, they walked a little while longer until the drill yard came into view. There were a few dummies and a dugout used for melee combat training, but the largest area by far was for training in ranged combat. Like most other sections of the city that officials didn't want just anybody wandering in and out of, the drill yard was surrounded by high, naturally grown walls composed of narrow tree trunks growing closely together. It provided the perfect safe environment for the less experienced among the night elves - those less than a hundred years old - to shoot at the dummy targets without the risk of hitting any bystanders.
There were a few benches under an awning, granting a row of officers a good vantage point from which they could berate hapless young recruits whenever their arrows struck a quarter of an inch off the mark. Fyndir was there, clipboard in hand as he sat on his own like the rest of the officers did while shouting at the recruits.
Tammie brushed past Navarion on her way back out of the drill yard. "Put in a good word for me because I did what he asked me to do," she whispered as if it were some state secret. "Thanks for the pomegranates."
"No and you're welcome," he whispered back while ambling over toward the benches where Fyndir sat. The decidedly grizzled night elf noticed the more upbeat half night elf approaching and strained his face in what he seemed to think passed as a smile.
"Greetings, Hearthglen. How are you feeling?"
The question struck Navarion as odd immediately, as the sergeant never seemed to ask or care about how anybody was doing. Trying not to show his suspicion, he forced a less strained smile back. "I'm fine, sergeant. Vindicator Tammie told me that you wanted to see me shoot?" he stated, though his voice went up at the end like a question.
"Huh? Or, right, that's correct. But how are you doing?" Fyndir asked for a second time.
"I'm fine, sergeant," Navarion answered as plainly as he could. It wasn't difficult to figure out that Fyndir had heard about his moping. As much as Captain Soraya had eased up on him, she probably wasn't quite capable of actually showing concern for someone's feelings and had asked Fyndir to do it.
"Good to hear. Sit down for a minute."
Already sensing the coming lecture, Navarion avoided the urge to sigh and did as he was told. He'd already done a lot more talking that night than he had for the entire previous week and didn't quite care for the prospect of being juggled from conversation partner to conversation parter, but had little recourse.
Fyndir probably didn't enjoy the conversation any more than Navarion did, but the sergeant tried his best to ensure everything was fine with his subordinate regardless. "How's the Hearthglen family doing? Private life is in order?" Fyndir asked a little stiffly, as if he didn't really know how to display concern for others.
"The family is alright," Navarion replied respectfully, already itching to stand back up and end the conversation. "Things here are adequate."
"Home life is the most important thing, soldier. Life while serving has its ups and downs; the best we can do is just focus on what we have waiting for us when we go home." For the first time, Fyndir's voice had a measure of sincerity in it, as if he were truly speaking from the heart.
"That's...actually quite inspiring, Sergeant. And a good reminder. I suppose it's too easy to forget sometimes."
"A reminder is what we all need from time to time. Don't let the drama of life off the battlefield here distract you. It happens to the best of us, but make sure to rise above," Fyndir replied just a bit too knowingly.
Navarion shrank in his seat a bit, realizing that Fyndir must have heard about a little more than just moping around. Which then made Navarion wonder how much Tammie knew, or how much Captain Soraya knew...he was not given to social anxiety, but he didn't prefer his personal problems to be on public display. It wasn't like Zhenya to spread rumors or discuss such things, but neither of them were perfect; details may have slipped.
"I try to rise above drama as much as I can," he replied while concealing his nervousness.
Fyndir must have sensed it regardless, but instead of poking at it, the stern sergeant pulled a shocker and actually softened a bit. "Relationships at work can cause issues. We can't stop how we feel, but problems can happen. My wife was once my commanding officer, you know. It caused problems for both of us."
Eyes wide and breathing still, Navarion paused while trying to figure out whether the admission was an invitation for questions or a mere brusque attempt to show that he wasn't alone and then be done with it. Feeling a bit adventurous, he assumed the former and decided to push just a little. "I would not have guessed, Sergeant; you're very up front all the time."
"I was young once as well," Fyndir sighed. "The captain of my unit trained me and taught me everything I know. Things were great professionally, and personally, too. She asked me to marry her the day I was promoted and no longer her subordinate, and thus no longer a potential card to be played against her if anyone wanted to stab her in the back and accuse her of treating me preferentially."
"That sounds relatively drama-free. Congratulations, by the way."
"You have my thanks. But drama occurred, and we let it affect us. I was promoted along with some female colleagues, and they immediately had much higher salaries than I did. Various explanations were given, but it all boiled down to gender; the matriarchy tends to hold sway here."
Unable to stifle a small laugh, Navarion tried to excuse himself. "Outside of night elven lands, it's the polar opposite," he explained quickly, not wanting to offend the sergeant. "Like, totally, completely opposite. Back in Ratchet, businesswomen often have more difficulty applying for loans than businessmen and so forth. It's opposite but I guess I sort of understand what you mean by bias."
Unoffended, Fyndir brushed off the light laughter and continued. "I was alive when our people were members of that Alliance thing for a few years," he said while nodding. "It was a huge shock for us, how all these human and dwarven men would come and talk to the Druids when requesting troops and assistance as if they had any power, only for the Druids to turn around and just repeat the requests to the Priestesses for approval. It was like two polar opposites clashing. That was around the time we got married, when our membership in the faction was ending and all, and the old ways came back. Anyway, things sadly didn't become better except when my wife became handicapped."
"Goddess be with her, I'm sorry to hear that."
"She was injured while fighting a demonic outbreak, the way she had wished it to happen if she did ever have to retire. No joke, my wife was the best our contingent had at the time." Fyndir beamed for a moment, showing emotion that was absolutely astounding from someone like him. "My salary was actually still lower than her pension and injured veteran's stipend, which was only supposed to be a percent of her salary from active duty. But we found that when we didn't have to deal with any drama at work, it was easier to deal with the drama at home. There was talk and rumor mongering at the barracks, people making light of our financial situation, but it didn't bother us; our home life and relationship was strong, and once work was removed from the picture it was easier to deal with."
Thoughtful and attentive, Navarion mulled it over and sought for the message being delivered to him. "So you're saying that I need to minimize the drama at work, I suppose?"
"I don't like to give direct advice; I'm just passing on my own experience. Take from it whatever you will; that's not for me to dictate to you. I'll save the dictatorship for the drill yard here."
"Alright, thanks all the same," Navarion chuckled, resigned to figuring out what it all meant once he could be alone. He leaned forward and looked at Fyndir, silently asking permission to stand.
"As you were soldier. I just needed to make sure you felt fine enough to fulfill your duties."
"Fine and ready to shoot," Navarion answered, a little more confidence evident in his voice at the end.
Satisfied for the time being, Fyndir looked him over a bit before nodding slowly. "Alright. Why don't you take aim at one of those targets out there and show us what you can do."
"Yes sir!" Navarion walked forward toward the markers in the ground signifying the various distances to the targets.
By the time he reached the appropriate distance, Fyndir had already begun chatting quietly with another officer, obviously having mainly been interested in seeing himself if one of the soldiers in the barracks he supervised was moping to the point of being ineffective on the battlefield. Within the first few seconds of the end of their exchange his fears seemed alleviated and he lost interest.
Which was fine with Navarion, actually. He knew he was a decent enough shot and didn't need somebody looking over his shoulder, but he didn't mind the opportunity to practice, either. Even when off duty, keeping his holster on him was a simple habit; whenever he was back home his family complained that it was like carrying a live grenade, but years living on cartel ships and bunking at port cities had made him cautious. Not paranoid, as his father was; just cautious.
A few elves were practicing their bows nearby - mostly mercenaries like him. The regular enlisted troops tended to have chips on their shoulders and only the young among them would be seen practicing in front of others; the more experienced often pretended that they never needed to practice, a sort of modern vice they developed due to the influx of youngbloods into the Sentinel military. Were his mother still active she'd probably slap some sense into those types, but he didn't mind so much. If anything, it just meant there were fewer people around to criticize his every move.
His ammo bag mostly had cheap bullets he carried around in case he encountered any muggers or wild animals during his strolls through the city woodlands. All for the better; using it up wouldn't be a financial loss. Removing his gun and taking aim, Navarion loosened his shoulder and squeezed - not pulled - the trigger. The first shot rang out and although his pistol was quiet by the standards of firearms, elves were not used to guns and one of the archers to his right jumped, causing her arrow to hit the ground only a few yards in front of her. Giving the elven and signal for apologizing, the half elf continued to focus on the training target; he'd clipped its chin and hit it in the neck, which would have been debilitating in a real battle. Good enough, he though; as a supporting class, a shadow hunter only needed to protect allies and disable enemies, and in the event that he had to fight alone then crippling an enemy would be enough.
Despite the dirty look from the elf next to him, Navarion tried to train his vision and focus only on the target. He hadn't meant to disrupt anybody's practice and besides, if the Sentinels were relying on foreign mercenaries to supplement their military, they'd have to get used to foreign ways of fighting. He lined up the sight on the top of his pistol with the training dummy's leg, hoping to blow its kneecap out...
...only to have an arrow pierce the knee of the dummy first.
The cheeky elf to his right, who had been disrupted by his shooting, apparently felt like registering an official complaint. Via his peripheral vision, he could see her turning to stare at him but he ignored her again. This was supposed to be a pleasant evening of shooting and he didn't need to instigate any arguments with a comrade. He smirked to himself, silently marveling at how much he'd changed since he'd begun traveling the world and fighting alongside various different peoples; a decade ago, the flagrant challenge would have prompted him to make a smartass remark.
Apparently offended by his smirk, the archer fired a second arrow and hit the training dummy in the crotch, sending a not so subtle message that time. Not irritated but slightly pushed by the challenge, Navarion thought about it for a moment. He thought twice.
Keeping his gun trained on his own dummy, he pretended that he didn't notice the archer looking at him until the last minute. Using his fast reflexes, he shifted his aim at the last second after only the slightest of movements, hitting the archer's target dummy between the eyes. She gasped, taking offense yet again at the more aggressive display. The two of them stood for a moment as if daring one another to be the next to make a move.
Then, in a defiant display from both sides, they began their races. Aiming diagonally and probably endangering one another, the archer began knocking and releasing three arrows for every bullet Navarion fired, competing to tear apart each other's practice dummies. His bullets were louder and messier than her faster and more accurate arrows, and after a while it became a race to see who could ruin one of the dummies the fastest. As if from some sign from the Goddess, his ammo bag emptied just as the same time her quiver did, and they found themselves jittery with excitement and nervously looking around to be sure that their commanding officers were still preoccupied in their chats and hadn't noticed the unsafe and inappropriate competition.
Seeing that the coast was clear, Navarion stepped back from the shooting range first, almost in a daze at how quickly the slightly immature competition had started and finished after little to no escalation or buildup. He already knew who his opponent had been before he even turned enough to see her.
"You lose," Astariel chirped at him quietly as they both hurried out of the shooting range before anybody ratted them out for having probably violated a few of the range rules.
"That's what you think," he replied, though she was already walking in the other direction once they exited from the fence surrounding the range, both of them acting nonchalant as if nothing had happened.
A narrow road bordered the entire range, wedged in between the fence and the surrounding woods that served as a sound barrier to shield the rest of the city from the clamor of the practicing sentinels. He stood outside the exit gate for a moment to watch her thistle colored ponytail lying over her light purple cloak, this time not looking back at him. It was amazing how nonchalant she could be; Astariel had her sense of humor but she hadn't seemed like the type to be so spontaneous or risky. Perhaps there's a different side to everybody, he thought while watching her round a bend at a corner formed by the woods and out of sight.
Spirits whispered to him of the person approaching, and he had a feeling it was Zorena before he even heard the clopping of her hooves.
"She's a good girl," the Tauren healer said in an uncharacteristically blunt manner.
Navarion turned to see her walking up next to him, pulling a light blue wool coat over her arms even though it wasn't really that chilly. "Are you cold?" he asked curiously.
"It isn't that chilly, but I prefer to be warm most of the time," Zorena replied, standing right next to him. It was a long, empty road aside from a few chatting sentinels far off in the distance. "I was just going for a walk, in case you're wondering why I'm out here."
"Oh, I had assumed that already." The conversation skipped a beat and he began to wonder if she expected him to respond to her earlier comment. "Astra is a good friend, and a great person."
"She likes you," Zorena said in a way that was direct yet also pleasant in a way only she could pull off.
"No, I don't think so...she just has a good sense of humor."
Furrowing her brow in suspicion, Zorena examined him for a moment. "You don't believe that. You're saying it, but you don't believe it."
For a second he tried to think of a way to reject her statement, but found nothing. In fact, he'd been aware of the fact a few months ago but had tried to put distance in between them. "Ah...well...she is a good woman. I wouldn't call somebody over forty years old a girl out of respect, but she's a good woman."
"So...?" Zorena asked expectantly, as if trying to push him into yet another rebound relationship. Which simply wouldn't work when he still found himself pining for Zhenya.
"So it can't go beyond that; my heart belongs to someone else," he explained, noticing that Zorena actually looked disappointed that he wasn't interested in pursuing Astariel. "Someone who is like me: guilty, flawed and weary from sins and regret." He tried laughing at his self deprecating joke to lighten the mood, but for the first time found himself a bit depressed at how cynical he sounded.
"That's a rather pessimistic view. Anybody can change," Zorena argued, though her tone was less pushy than it had been a few moments before.
"Then let people like me find other tarnished but changed individuals to chase after," he replied. He did feel sincerely confident in his claim, but almost felt as if he were disrespecting both his friend Astariel and his more-than-a-friend Zhenya at the same time. "Astra is a good girl, as you said. She'd be better off finding some wholesome village guy; they'd be more deserving of each other."
Disappointment evident, Zorena thought it over for a moment. She didn't seem like she would push the issue much more. "I'm sorry to hear that, to be honest," she started cautiously, and even her body language became a bit more guarded. "And if that's the case, you need to make that clear to her. Because Astra looks like she's interested in you, and if you continue to act as if everything is normal, she's only going to become more attached."
Immediately, Navarion felt pressured. He knew neither Zorena nor even Astariel herself meant to do it, but he felt pressured. Attention from women was nothing new to him, including attention from women he wasn't interested in. But Astariel was different. He found her attractive physically and personality-wise, and that's part of what made it so difficult. She came off as innocent, naive even, and he knew a man like him wasn't suitable for her, nor did he quite feel...well, to even merely think the words felt disrespectful to two women in his life once more. But he didn't feel like he deserved the typical good girl like Astariel. There was no other word he could think of even though he detested it; to speak of deserving felt disrespectful. Disrespectful to Zhenya because it was as if he was viewing her like she was lower than Astariel. Disrespectful to Astariel because he didn't want to view his friend as an object to be worked for and then possessed. His thoughts became muddled until he wished he actually could be caught up in conversation with a group of people again, away from his thoughts.
"I will, Zorena...trust me, I will," he sighed while motioning for her to follow him. "I'll figure out a way to tell her politely. But not tonight, alright? I need to clear my mind of some things first."
Nodding, she followed him back into town for the night they both happened to have off duty. There were always local civilians at the tea houses interested in the colorful visitors. For sure they could find some people outside their social circle to meet; anything to remove the sudden burden Navarion knew nobody placed on his shoulders except himself, and to find a way to stop feeling pressure and just relax as he told his friend he wanted to just be friends and tried to patch things up with his ex girlfriend who denied having ever been his girlfriend.