Navarion sat next to Maya II as Thresha explained to the group who would be leaving, who wouldn't and what exactly they could expect. Calil waited as Thresha's side, right across from Dmitri, Tammie and the reformed satyr whose name everybody had long ago given up on remembering. They'd chosen a convenient spot at one of the city's many public gardens - night elves valued green space punctuating urban settings a great deal - to engage in their possibly illegal discussion. It wasn't like Thresha to let insider information slip at all, though it was most assuredly Tammie's influence that had led her to do so.

"So it's going to be me, Calil and Navarion in Captain Soraya's unit alongside that unit with Pontus and Zhenya. Navarion, you might want to tell her about that when you get the chance," Thresha explained to the intently listening group of friends.

"Got it."

"We'll be traveling north along the coast as the silithids have a sizable mound out there. They can't travel through the ocean but somehow, they got there." Thresha turned toward the two draenei and single satyr next, addressing them as a group to avoid admitting that she still hadn't learned the red-furred, horned man's name even after having recognized it on the marching roster. "I saw all of your names on the lists, too; your unit will travel north along the coast," she indicated by pointing to the satyr, "while you guys will be heading into the middle of the peninsula, in the mountains."

"Whatever," the satyr's grumbled.

"What about me?" Maya asked pensively, eager to know what she would be doing on an assignment in a city very far from her new home in New Auberdine.

"There's a treat for you and Navarion," Thresha replied with a grin that caused both of their pairs of ears to prick up. "You'll be accompanying the main strategic war camp in the mountains, close to the command tent of the Marshall of the entire Sentinel Army."

Impressive news, but her previous comment was a bit confusing. "How is that a treat for me if I'll be going with you guys alongside Commander Lamia's expedition at the coastline?" the half elf asked.

"Ah, here's the interesting part," Thresha said, pointing her index finger in the air enthusiastically in a way that made Calil smile. "There was recently a shuffle and the head of the Army was transferred to some kind of ministerial position back at Darnassus. The new Marshall is Silviel."

Navarion's eyes grew wide almost immediately at the news. "Silviel...of Serenity? Oh my Goddess...she's from my ancestral grove! I never visited there before it was shut down and transformed into regular forest again by the balance of nature, but my other talked about it all the time. I remember her stories about Silviel!"

"We all know stories about Silviel," Thresha chuckled, both at his reaction and the fact that the Marshall was so famous. "High ranking government officials are usually from either pre-Third War Hyjal if they're from the older generations, or from major ports and cities if they're from newer generations. It isn't often that somebody from a grove of...what is it, twenty five?"

"Yes, twenty five," Maya confirmed.

"It isn't often that a small town, villager girl grows up to be one of the major women in charge. Silviel got to where she is for a reason."

"Actually, I think even I remember hearing stories about someone with that name," Dmitri chimed in, looking pleasantly surprised as if he remembered a story he'd forgotten a long time ago. "They say she was there at the Battle of Orgrimmar alongside the notables at the time, as well as pretty much every other major world conflict since the Battle of Mount Hyjal."

Feeling wistful and nostalgic for the home town he no longer had a chance to visit, Navarion looked up at the ceiling of the naturally grown gazebo they all sat in and began to sing a common tune about Silviel of Serenity know by young men throughout various taverns, market plazas and travelers' waystations as they all dreamed of the woman who was supposedly the strongest and most beautiful on Azeroth.

"From the halls of the Black Temple to the shores of Dragonblight..."

"Alright, we've all heard the song," Thresha laughed. "Anyway, Marshall Silviel will give a surprise speech in just a few days, so you all keep this to yourselves. Once she makes her surprise appearance, goes on a short tour of the ramparts and the ancients of war, she'll sleep outside the city walls and we'll all march the next day."

"Sleeping outside of the walls signifies that it's time for war, yes?" Tammie asked.

"That's right. It's an ancient Kaldorei tradition when preparing for larger campaigns. This one isn't major, but I think it's all for show - they don't want rebuilding efforts to be spoiled by having outlanders scared away."

"Ironic that so many night elves cheered at the expulsion of the outlanders, yet now they want them back for commerce," piped up the raspy voiced satyr. It was the most he'd ever said in front of anybody, ever, and the entire group waited in anticipation to see if he would say any more. When he didn't, they all fell silent until Maya spoke.

"I wish we could talk to the Marshall for a while, just to get to know somebody who actually lived in Serenity," she announced aloud though mostly directed toward Navarion. "I was born right when immortality ended. I had a good few decades where I could have visited it before it was reabsorbed into nature. It's always nice to meet other children and grandchildren of the originals, but it doesn't compare to meeting those who lived it."

"Trust me, I know. That's a big part of why I joined these campaigns - I remember when I first got news that Serenity had been abandoned. We hid the news from my mom for a long time for fear of upsetting her," he sighed, relaxing back onto his cushion in one of the corners.

"Was she upset?" Tammie asked bluntly, earning a disapproving remark from Dmitri in their language.

"It's alright, I'd don't mind," Navarion told Dmitri. "Of course she was upset. She took the news well initially but then she stayed in bed for days. And so my dad stayed with her in bed for days. And then our godmother freaked out because she was worried our mom would get depressed and some of our contacts at the Sentinel consulate in Ratchet kept filling out house with visitors and well wishers...it was a big deal at the time."

"My grandma and her husband...well, I guess my step grandpa, had already passed on when the news came," Maya chimed in, looking rather depressed herself. Her navy blue ponytail made her the spitting image of Serenity's former military commander, also named Maya. "In a way, I'm glad they did. I never got to see her that much until the last few years of her life when she and step grandpa lived with us. I don't think I could bear to have seen her receive news like that."

Not allowing an uncomfortable silence to settle in over the group, Tammie jumped in again with the questions. "And you heard all this from Captain Soraya yesterday?" she asked Thresha. "You're sure this is official?"

"About as official as it gets; she was pretty insistent that I not mention anything. And she made me wash her feet and back as well. We were at the public bathhouse when she was telling me this. She's generally pretty fair as a captain, so she wouldn't make me do something normally reserved for service workers unless she felt like I was actually obligated."

"She...wait, what?" Dmitri asked in confusion.

"It's a night elf female thing," Navarion murmured to the confused draenei. "A holdover from the Long Vigil. The sort of servile behavior reinforces obligations and two-way relationships, and let's both individuals reestablish subjective positions on the totem pole in vis a vis each other."

"Ah."

"So all we have to do for now is wait for the Marshall's speech and then roll out?" Tammie asked, never tiring of asking questions.

"That seems to be the case. We can just watch and wait, and keep this news secret as well." Thresha reclined backwards on her own cushion so much that the back of her right shoulder rested against the from of Calil's left shoulder. She barely noticed herself but Navarion saw poor Calil sweating bullets and tightening up, and it was difficult not to snicker a bit at the smitten young man's plight. "I'm looking forward to the Marshall's speech. I beg it's going to be awesome."

"Did you guys hear the Marshall's speech? It was awesome!" Thresha said to another unit of youngish night elves, all of them regular enlisted sentinels, in line next to them at the supply caravan outside the main city gates.

A few of the eager young women nodded, concurring about the rousing pep talk to a crowd of several hundred soldiers that had them all bouncing on their toes in delight. Marshall Silviel had been a big hit among the locals and visitors alike, and as the Sentinels had predicted there was an influx in forward requests by carrier pigeon and regular mail for foreign merchants seeking to rent space at the city's inns and even outdoor camping areas to resume their business. Even there at the preparations to leave, a large number of civilians had come outside the city gates that late afternoon to bid the top military brass farewell. As a safety measure, those soldiers who would stay behind at New Nendis to protect the city in the absence of the majority of troops had to set up makeshift, moveable barriers to hold all the waving city dwellers back from the military supply train as they prepared.

Among those staying behind, a thistle colored ponytail caught Navarion's eye. It had been a while since he had last spoken to Astariel, which was normal considering the conflicting schedules all patrol people had. This time felt different, however; even after mending his bond with Zhenya and having his relationship return to its normal tumultuous state, he missed the cheery archer a bit more this time. He noticed her looking back at him a few times as well, though she was so busy holding civilians back that she had little time to exchange glances.

Not that Navarion had things any easier. Soraya had enough pull with Commander Lamia to negotiate a spot for their unit toward the front; after hearing that Navarion's mother had not only lived in Marshal Silviel's home village but had also mentored the relatively young official, Soraya saw a chance for herself. And possibly for him, too, though there was no doubt that ambition was the first thing on Soraya's mind. To even spend a few minutes next to such a high ranking official was a dream for many lower ranking officers such as Soraya; name and facial tattoo recognition mattered a great deal for their kind and a simple chance meeting meant a lot to the usually taciturn captain. In spite of her occasional rough treatment of him, Navarion felt warmed by the hopeful look in Soraya's eyes as if she were one of his sisters. It was strange considering the fact that Soraya was much older than him, but warming nonetheless.

Off in the distance, Navarion could make out the Marshall's entourage by the two glaive throwers on either side. Rather than sabres, her wagon was pulled by two kodos imported from the Stonetalon Mountains, turning her wheeled tent into a sort of mobile command center. The march would be long and hard, but such a sight was sure to boost morale immensely. A bright, neon green Mohawk signified Ragnar, Commander Lamia's dark troll bodyguard who shouldered the bone club much like Navarion's father Khujand did in the past. The Commander herself stood in front of the big man, chatting with a few other officers in a surprisingly casual way. In the middle of them all was another sentinel, not particularly ostentatious but noticeable and elegant yet strong. Her cyan skin complexion wasn't so out of the ordinary, but her hair grabbed the attention of every single man and a large number of the women in the area as well. Ultramarine was the name for her hair color, as Navarion had learned from his godmother Irien once while selling cans of paint in bulk at the Ratchet auction house. It was otherworldly, and even without looking at her face or body, her colors alone grabbed everyone's attention strongly.

Maya Ironwood the second stood next to all of them, laughing eagerly at all the jokes told. She looked like a fan girl meeting her favorite celebrity, sort of like how Navarion's sister Sharimara looked the one time she met Maiev Shadowsong in a bizarre episode he'd always remember. The captain of Maya's unit wouldn't be positioned near the head of the column during the march itself but had somehow managed to earn an audience with the Marshall during preparations. As the time to finally leave and split into three separate columns drew near, Captain Soraya fidgeted in an uncharacteristically nervous way.

"Maya just made eye contact with me, ma'am," Navarion told Soraya in an attempt to help her loosen up as they waited with a few more units by their unit's five sabres - four for riding and one for extra bags of supplies.

There weren't any full units between their group and the back of the mobile command center tent; just a few stray logistics workers and sabre attendants. Protocol and elven social mores, however, prevented the captain from just wandering up to the group of higher ranking officers and initiating contact without being invited. And so Soraya waited, ever the dutiful elven captain, constantly restraining, refraining and denying herself in order to uphold her people's values.

"Mhmm," was the only reaction from her.

Most of the soldiers in the military column behind them had already saddled up and prepared their sabres, hippogriffs and kodos and were merely waiting for the handful of upper-middle ranking officers to finish the last round of inspections that had to take place before everyone left. Even with the efficiency of the mostly older, vastly experienced Kaldorei officers, inspecting every armored soldier, saddled bag and groomed mount took a bit of time. Milling about with little to do, the soldiers were unusually loud for their kind and even responded to the attempts of civilians waiting beyond the wooden barrier fences to chat.

Right when the inspectors reached the end of the column, a vibrant ultramarine swirl caught the attention of every single person in the vicinity. Maya was pointing toward Navarion and laughing, and both Lamia and Silviel had turned around to examine the son of one of the Serenity originals. A sort of fast exchange took place between the Marshall and the granddaughter of one of the Serenity originals, and even Ragnar took notice of the unit that contained at least three people considered his friends. Not only did Soraya immediately stiffen up at attention, but she also pinched Navarion - hard - so he would do so as well.

"Ouch!" he helped quietly at the feeling of her sharp, claw like fingernails digging in to his formerly slouching back.

None of them were likely to shout, but Maya did wave to them after asking Lamia a quiet question which was likely permission to invite them over. Several other officials and their underlings excused themselves, jumping into last minute preparations for the march. All was well for their introduction.

"Permission to go, captain?" Navarion asked a frozen Soraya while waving back.

For a second she didn't answer, merely standing there dumbstruck. It was as if Soraya had built up just a little too much in this single meeting and didn't know how to react when it was upon them. Leaning close enough to her that his hand wouldn't be visible to the group of high ranking officers, he broke almost every rule in both Sentinel military code and night elf rules of social hierarchy and quite literally shoved his commanding officer on the lower back. Growling instinctively, Soraya remained stiff due to the presence of her own superiors but shot Navarion a sideways glance that told him she'd let him have it for touching her later on. Fair enough, he thought; eventually when she got over her indignance at being touched by an inferior, she'd thank him for the opportunity to walk next to him as his captain.

Thresha and Calil hung back with the other two units, leaving Navarion and Soraya to amble up to the group of big bosses in the Sentinel Army. So nervous was Soraya that the spirits in the area actually whispered of it to Navarion in a comical manner, and he almost felt bad for her given how seriously she took a simple introduction. Her attention was quickly switched from her own apprehension to the group in front of her, however, as that vibrant ultramarine ponytail swiveled and the Marshall faced both newcomers.

"This is the one I told you about, Marshall," Maya beamed as the two of them reached the group of five huddled near one of the kodos. "He's currently under Captain Soraya's command."

Navarion's mother Cecilia had told him and his siblings numerous stories about the twenty four other women she had spent the Long Vigil with. In a community of only twenty five people, you get to know each other very well across a period of ten millennia. Saluting Silviel and looking her over, he found her appearance, demeanor and general aura everything his mother had described. At only a thousand years old, Silviel was considered young for someone of her rank but it was her ambition that allowed her to rise through the ranks. Her noble yet entirely in-arrogant way of carrying herself felt uplifting to everyone around her, and the entire group of people all seemed to wait for her to speak, every one of them hanging on every word that spilled from her lips. And her hair...he wasn't crushing on her, but front a strictly objective standpoint, it was ethereal; even Maya, who was already engaged to an apprentice balance Druid back at New Auberdine, was enamored by the ultramarine ponytail.

"Son of Isurith?" Silviel asked, using his mother's birth name to address him.

"That is correct, Marshall," he answered quickly and as respectfully as possible. If he made a poor impression, his mother would most assuredly hear about it, and he'd have even more to answer for whenever he did visit home again. "She's still in close contact with the Sentinel consulate there."

"Is it accurate that your mother facilitated the opening of that office clandestinely back when we were still a part of the Alliance?" Silviel asked again. Those who had gathered around gasped in admiration at the tidbit of information his whole family felt proud of, but never bragged about.

"Correct, Marshall," he answered again.

A nod approval served as her reply, which was then mimicked by some of the more sycophantic officers standing around. Showing interest in all who were technically under her authority, Silviel then looked to Soraya. "You are the unit's commanding officer?"

Stiff and stoic to an exaggerated degree, Soraya just barely danced on the edge of overacting. "Yes, Marshall. Captain Soraya of New Nendis at your service!" Almost immediately after Soraya's sentence she winced as if judging the way she had delivered it, completely stressing out over the simple meeting.

Silviel smiled softly, causing Soraya to involuntarily do the same. Before anyone else could speak, a logistics worker jogged up a little too quickly, finding himself held back by Ragnar until given the word to let the young enlisted man through.

Seeming to recognize him, Commander Lamia nodded to Ragnar to signal that the young man was free to pass. Nervous before so many powerful people, the Kaldorei youth that must have barely been thirty years old wrought his hands until the dark troll tapped him on the shoulder in an indication to speak. What was a tap to Ragnar ended up being a shove to the much smaller night elf and the guy had to stumble to regain his footing and composure.

"Every unit passed inspection; the examiners have informed me that they give their seal of approval for pre-marching preparations."

Gracious as always, Silviel looked at Lamia for silent communication before giving the final orders. "You are hereby relieved of duty, soldier; good job."

"Thank you, Marshall," the youth said congenially while hurrying back to the city gate leading through the wall.

"Captain Soraya, is it?" Silviel asked so casually that it clashed strongly with the captain's deer in headlights expression.

Wanting to help his commanding officer save face, Navarion pinched the exposed skin of Soraya's tricep, once again crossing a line but saving her ass at the same time. "Ahem. Yes Marshall!" Soraya stammered after stomping on Navarion's foot.

"Would you do the honors of finding Archdruid Pontus? Traditionally we have one of them blow the Kaldorei war horn to signal a march."

Eyes like saucers, Soraya almost reverted to an earlier age. Childlike and truly touched, she gave up on suppressing her almost goofy looking grin. "Yes, of course Marshall!" Soraya grew so excited at the news that she promptly turned and walked away without even relieving Navarion of duty as she should have, leaving him with Maya's commanding officer instead and knocking over the winded young logistics worker when she inadvertently trampled him to get to Pontus, who was standing behind a few more sabres.

"She's dedicated, that one," Lamia commented politely while watching Soraya exit and the logistics worker scramble to pull himself up by a low hanging tree branch.

"Indeed. She'll go far once she learns to relax a little," Silviel added. Navarion would make sure to remind his captain of the irony later.

Once he and Maya were given permission to disperse, they made haste back to their respective units knowing that the war horn would sound off soon, the first proper Kaldorei war call in many years given their withdrawal from most world conflicts. The two of them chatted for a few minutes about the ancestral village of his mother and her grandmother before they parted ways, readying themselves near their sabres as everyone awaited Pontus' war call in anticipation. Thresha and Calil, both rather young for Kaldorei themselves and less experienced with the world, were giddy and nervous, both chatting together about the quickest ways to dispatch silithids as the suspense started to eat at them. Knowing that Astariel was the only one of his friends whose unit would be staying behind at the city, Navarion craned his neck around to look for her. The space where she had been holding civilians back was now occupied by another soldier, and he had straightened up his posture so much that he didn't even see her given how close she'd come to his position.

"Hi!"

"Gah!" he yelped, almost channeling his father as he nearly jumped, much to her amusement.

Her purple cloak had been pulled around frontside, concealing her hands and arms. Looking up at him, there was a smile on her face but he read people well enough to know there was a bit of sadness behind it.

"So were you planning on leaving without saying goodbye?" she joked lightly. It was probably an attempt to cheer herself up more than anything, and the tone of her voice insinuated that there was a measure of sincere worry in her asking.

"No, no, of course not. I might have poor etiquette, but it isn't that poor." She smiled again at his reassurance and her hands shifted beneath her cloak, but she said nothing more, as if waiting for him to speak first. "So apparently there is no major hive out here; just a series of medium sized mounds. It will be more of a sweep and corpse cleanup than a real war," he said in a low voice.

Her mood didn't change and he wondered if she didn't believe him, or if she was simply growing attached again. For a few seconds neither of them spoke again, and the ambient noise of the waiting sentinels around them almost seemed to erase everything else from existence. It made him greatly uncomfortable, especially given the fact that Zhenya's unit was around there somewhere and she might ostensibly see the look another woman was giving him. As much as he did like Astariel, he felt like a hypocrite considering how strongly he had reacted to the incident involving Zhenya and another man some time before.

Thankfully, Astariel began fiddling with some sort of object she had hidden beneath her cloak and continued the conversation herself.

"I hope so; I really do. It would be a shame to hear of anybody you care about fall on the battlefield." The word 'care' echoed in his mind far more than it should have and he began to wonder if he was just being a drama queen. "And all the same, there's something I'd like you to hold on to." Pulling the two sides of her cloak apart, she unfurled her fingers and held out some sort of a bracelet to him. It was simple and made of wood, but the carvings looked unprofessional and he had the feeling she'd made it herself. "I don't believe in talismans and such, so I won't call it my good luck charm...lets just say it's something that holds sentimental value to me. Perhaps you'll find the same on lonely nights out there on the warpath."

In a split second, the sense of pressure returned to him. Why now of all times? He had tried to hint to her that, even if he did like her too, they could only be friends. Maybe he hadn't tried hard enough, but he'd tried on some level. After many hellish weeks spent sulking at his bunk, his relationship with Zhenya had begun to return to its normal battleground-like state. What Astariel was asking him for felt far too intimate for him to be sharing with another woman, especially one that, if circumstances were different, he might have considered pursuing, whether he felt like he deserved someone as pure as her or not.

But he couldn't reject it. How could he even consider such a thing? Astariel was kind and sincere, but also inexperienced and naive. Her religiosity and almost adolescent sense of humor gave him the feeling that she could probably count her number of ex boyfriends on her fingers; she was in her mid-forties, but that wouldn't be so weird for a conservative night elf. For a long time he could sense her crush on him, and...well, there was no avoiding it, he hadn't done enough to change that. For him to reject her gift would not only hurt her, but would also confuse her and seem intolerably cruel. The fact that her gift held sentimental value to her not only made it more critical from her view that he accepted it, but also more of a mistake from his view were he to accept it. There were only seconds left before the war horn was blown, and his mind drew a completely blank as to any sort of solution.

Screaming at himself internally, blaming himself for leading a good woman on and loathing himself for his failure to do the right thing, Navarion accepted Astariel's bracelet literally just a quarter of a second before Pontus blew his war horn, upholding a night elven tradition that served little purpose but had an incredible psychological affect on both the morale of the troops and the relaxed, reassured aura of the civilian citizenry.

Her sadness and tension disappeared, Astariel smiled while walking backwards a few steps, joining the other sentinels holding back the crowds of waving and weeping civilians bidding their beloved sentinels farewell. The entire military column shifted and the footsteps of several hundred elves, sabres, kodo, and furbolgs as well as a few dozen draenei, highborne, dark troll and mountain giant irregulars thundered through the ground. Hippogriffs screeched overhead as the Sentinel Air Force provided bird's eye view scouting and aerial cover. Nature itself responded to the war horn's call, shrinking the vegetation in the path of the three military columns to more easily facilitate their march. Navarion could no longer look the hopeful young woman in the eye, cursing himself silently for putting ideas in her head simply by doing nothing and cursing fate for not simply leaving him alone to his own free choices and devices.

Captain Soraya soon rejoined their unit on her sabre, leading them on the left flank of Commander Lamia's coastline column. Far off to the other side, he could just barely spy Zhenya riding a sabre rather than the elekk he had grown used to seeing her ride on before. Focused ahead and nowhere else, he envied her position even as he resented her insistence on keeping their relationship secret and wished he could shrug the drama of his life off so easily.

Instead of a sense of dread over the upcoming skirmishes and sweeps, Navarion actually looked forward to them. If he lived, perhaps the experience would show him the correct path in life or better yet, help him to finally expunge the wanderlust from his system so he could just run back to the Barrens and live anonymously in an oasis for the next few hundred years. If he died...then that was the life of a mercenary. The life nobody had forced him to choose. Perhaps it was a befitting end, as selfish as he felt considering it. Because at that moment, all he wished was that he could just run away from his problems and start over again.