Title: Recreating
Notes: In the past week I listened to Sylvanas's quotes from Warcraft 3. I'm more used to her voice from the MMO as that was what introduced me to the franchise, so hearing her as she was back then gave the impression that she sitting in front of a fan that was going on at full blast and speaking in it. Thus, this idea was born.

Sylvanas stopped, her hand turning the doorknob. She did not open the door. Instead she stood up, leaned back, into the hallway.

She looked to the left. No one was there.

She looked to the right. No one was there.

She knocked on the door. When there wasn't a response, she knocked again. Louder this time. Still nothing.

She opened the door a crack and peeked inside. No one was inside. It was a room you could kick back and relax in, complete with a very puffy sofa chair, dusty bookshelves, a quilen throw rug (Valla would have a heart attack if she ever discovered this place), and an unused fireplace complete with ashes, soot, and an old cauldron. There were also stacks upon stacks of boxes marked in permanent marker, labeled in big, blocky letters: KITCHEN SHIT, LIVING ROOM SHIT, and CLEANING SHIT—yep, definitely Tychus's handwriting. On the table was an antique rotary fan. It was plugged in.

She leaned out and looked to the left again. No one was there.

She looked to the right again. No one was here.

She quickly slipped her arm through the crack and felt for a light switch. There was, so she flipped it up. The overhead lamps clicked on with a fluorescent buzz. Good. Sylvanas flipped it off.

One last time, she leaned out and looked to the left. Then she looked to the right.

No one was there.

Perfect.

She fled into the room and shut the door behind her. She went up to the fan, studied it. It had four buttons on the top panel—low, medium, and high; the last was to turn it on or off. On the side was a dial, to keep the fan still or make it oscillate. She knocked it to oscillate, jabbed the high button and then the one for power.

The fan sputtered to life and rotated its paint-flecked head left and right, right and left. Sylvanas pulled her hood back (she would have to take names if anyone saw her without it on) and left the artificial air toss her pale hair around. It should have felt cold, but for her it was what the living would call normal room temperature. If anything felt cold to her skin, it was sunlight. And Light—Darkness-damned, cursed Light. What was so great about it, anyway?

Ah, but she was letting her mind wander. She looked behind her, but no one was there. Content with that, she turned back to the fan, put her face close to it, and spoke:

"Whaaaat aaaaaare weeeeee ifffff nooooooot slaaaaaveeeees toooooo thiiiiiiiis tooooooormeeeeeent~?" The churning air made her words vibrate and bounce against her like invisible hummingbird wings. Hummingbirds were annoying, flitting about their damn flowers and not staying in one place.

But…she did like how that sounded.

"Weeeeee aaaaaareeeee theeeeee Fooooooorsaaaaakeeeeeen~"

It reminded her…of her old voice. Not the living one. That one was so…nasally. It reminded her of the few times Alleria found it cute to pinch her little sister's nose (and boy, just the thought of it made the scar twinge) and make her say elvish phrases because she thought it so sounded cute on top of flipping hilarious. She'd laugh even harder when Sylvanas would flail against the weight of her hand in an attempt to pry it off, but Alleria had a grip like steel…and that incessant giggling would make her blood pressure spike and boil and overflow like Mount Kajaro to Kezan. At least until she finally managed to knock that foolish woman to the ground, straddle her, grip her by the ears, and demand she play the role of her faithful hawkstrider—

Wait a minute, why the hell was she thinking that? Alleria was deader than Deathwing, no matter how many times Falstad assured Sylvanas that she and that guy—what was his name again? Oh right, Turalyon—that they'd make a great comeback. Sure they were missing, but hey, people thought he died during the Cataclysm! And look at him now!

Yes, just like Illidan: unforgettable and unprepared. A parasite that doesn't know when to stay dead.

The foulness of her mood brooded in her veins, darkened the shroud of darkness she always exuded. It was a very bad kind of darkness, and she would not have it! She needed to concentrate!

"Theeeeereeeee iiiiiiis nooooooo reeeeeeeest leeeeeeeeft fooooooor meeeeeee~" Ah, that was much better. So edgy! So gothic! And so very true; she never needed to sleep, and when she wanted to everyone decided to go full ham and make as much noise as possible. Like throwing parties, getting drunk, having snowball fights and splashing in rain puddles, and…ugh…getting all affectionate with the riding mounts and the puppies. Always the damn puppies!

More…more! She needed more edge!

"Staaaaaand wiiiiiith meeeee, or faaaaaaaaaaaa~ll befooooooooore meeeeeee~" Oh, how delicious! She could just giggle…if she were anything but a heartless, undead monster!

"Bash'aaaaa noooo faloooooooor talaaaaaaaaaaa~h~" Oh yes! That was more like it! Why couldn't she have kept that old voice? Why did that subterranean echo have to fade away over time? She could give Kerrigan a run for her money with this! Perhaps she could shake Nova hard enough to make her a voice modulator. There was no way in Darkness's darkness she was going to Gazlowe; that bastard would sooner blow himself up than get a working contraption going without it self-combusting a few seconds later.

"Liiiiiisteeeeeeeen aaaaaaaand obeeeeeeeeee~yyyyyy!" Oooh, that could definitely send shivers down one's spine! She grinned darkly, and then she cleared her throat. "BEHOOOOOOOLD! THE QUEEEEEEEN OOOOOF THEEE DAAAAAAAAAMNEEEEEED!"

Lost in her own little world, Sylvanas never heard the door open.

"…and when she was about to ask what changed him, the parrot said 'May I ask what the chicken did—' Sylvanas?"

She jumped, ears snapping straight up and going rigid.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she looked over her shoulder.

Oh Darkness….

There were five of them in all: Li Li, with her hand on the doorknob, staring slackjawed and wide-eyed at what she was seeing; Valla, who looked past her toward the quilen throw rug with mounting horror; Jaina, who was at a loss between breaking out in a fit of obnoxious giggles and the mental gymnastics of 'am I seeing what I'm seeing' and 'I need to stop reading the funny pages'; frigging Kerrigan of all people, standing behind the rest with a hand over her mouth to hide that stupid smirk on her lips (but bold she was to have that twinkle in her eyes!); and the fifth—

"NO WAY! You like speaking into fans, too?!" Nova slid between Kerrigan and a near catatonic Valla and bustled into the room. She plopped herself right next to Sylvanas. "Wow, look at this thing! It's a dinosaur!"

Inch by inch, her eyes dipped and folded against the sides of her head. "…What are you doing here?"

"The rotary in the girls' dormitory broke down," Jaina said numbly. She picked at a fold on her pants. "We, um, went to go see if there was one we could, um, use from the storeroom."

"But thanks to you, we can see it's still in working condition!" Kerrigan piped up.

Sylvanas's ears pressed harder and fell lower.

"So you do like having fun!" said Nova, and socked her in the shoulder. "You sly dog! You should've said something!"

Sylvanas stared at her, expression blank.

"So what were you saying? Something random? Something silly? Oh I know! I bet you were trying to be cool like Zeratul! Sucks to be him, he has no mouth. Here, let me show my impersonations of Mecha Tassadar!" Nova coughed into a fist, cleared her throat, and centered her face toward the blades. "FROM ooooooordeeeeeer COMES juuuuuuuuuuustice! DOMO aaaaaariiiiiigaaaaatoooooouuuuuuuu…MEEEEEEEE! BAAAAAAAH WEEEEEEEEEP GRANAAAAAAAH WEEP NINNY BOOOOOOOONG!" Nova fell back on her haunches, laughing heartily. "Oh, I kill myself sometimes! See, even an emo edgelord like you can indulge yourself every once in a while! Be one of the girls! So don't be ashamed of yourself! Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done…like that! Yeah! But, uh, hey, don't take it personally—you're going a little too high for my liking."

"Uhhh, Nova…." Li Li ventured warily, reaching for the mistwalker staff strapped to her back. Jaina took a step back and put a hand on Valla's shoulder, trying to draw her toward her. Kerrigan scoffed and rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

"We had this discussion before: for all your edge and obsession with vengeance, I like you…but not in that way! I've had my fair share of loves and they were all men! Nothing against you, of course, if you're like that. How' does that saying go again? You can look but you can't touch—"

SNAP!

Nova collapsed on her side, her neck twisted. Her face was a frozen rictus of surprise.

Calmly, quietly, Sylvanas stood. She dropped her hands to her sides.

Through the bleached strands of hair, a single crimson eye glared at them.

The temperature in the surrounding area plummeted, and not because that fan was still going.

Sylvanas turned on her heel, and that was when time resumed at its normal pace and chaos broke out.

"CHEESE IT!" Li Li blared. She tore past Jaina and Kerrigan and into the hall.

Kerrigan sniffed. "You never learn, do you?" she directed at Nova's corpse, which was disintegrating into fine particles. She flapped her large, bony wings and, nonchalantly, glided in the opposite direction.

Jaina yanked Valla by the collar of her hood. This seemed to snap her out of her catatonia. "Wh-Wha—?"

"RUN!" Jaina shouted.

Valla caught the briefest of glances at Sylvanas, the storeroom, and the object of her terror and managed to squeak out, "But the quilen—!"

The shadowy dagger slamming into the wall just a hairsbreadth from her head was all the answer she needed before Jaina's ironfisted tug on her scarf choked her and bodily dragged her away from wrath incarnate roaring and charging swiftly, frighteningly closer.

A minute later, Nova respawned at the Hall of Storms.

Outside, on her back spread-eagled, in the rain, and far from the Manor; its silhouette loomed in the mist and fog.

Somewhere hidden, or perhaps unseen, a bird called. Cicadas trilled all around her, high and persistent.

She raised a hand, touched a spot on her neck, and winced at the phantom pain weaving a pulsing electric circuit. "How rude!" she grumbled, glaring at the overcast sky.