Title: A Meeting of the Minds
Description: "Sylvanas confronts someone she never expected to meet in the Nexus: her younger self."
Notes: Requested by Chappie. This one was a bit difficult to work on, but I managed.
Nova knew this atmosphere all too well, she concluded, as she glanced between the two elves. She had encountered it many a time back in her own dimension, raking in the big bucks for whoever hired her and her gun. You could taste the venom in the air, how thick and suffocating it felt to be trapped in between two people whose next action could not be so easily predicted. Both women were ready to spring at one another, or snipe each other with words. Maybe the fact that them being here in the form of a paradox would cause the room to implode, and Nova didn't like the idea of disintegrating into countless pieces of possibility. Or erased from existence because someone had to be the scapegoat in all of this; when it came to Sylvanas Windrunner, she always was.
So she wondered which one would snap first:
The Sylvanas Windrunner who was some unique variant of undead, an eternal cynic, and took a perverse, morbid joy in making everyone suffer or just as fed up as she was with each other….
Or the Sylvanas Windrunner who was alive and breathing and didn't reek of spoiled meat. (Not that the Banshee Queen took much notice; that air freshener Hammer gave her that she was wearing around her neck was really doing wonders for everybody.)
"What the hell is this?" Banshee Queen Sylvanas asked.
"What the hell is that?" Ranger General Sylvanas asked, pointing at her. "It smells like scorched earth!"
The Banshee Queen's ears snapped up indignantly. "I am not an 'it'! And for your information, I asked for lemons and instead I got gnomish napalm!" She shook the tree-shaped necklace at her younger counterpart. "It's a much better alternative than what I'm told I actually smell like!" The Ranger General grimaced. Nova noted the drooped ears and sharp incisors gave her the appearance of an irate cat. All that was missing was the fluffed up tail. It was a cute image she tried hard not to laugh at.
"So…what are you supposed to be then?" The Ranger General studied the Banshee Queen closely. "Are…are you trying to pass off as a night elf?"
Banshee Queen Sylvanas rolled her eyes. "Of course I am! I love to hug trees, bury jars of kimchi in dirt, and praise the moon as that idiot Kael'thas claims the sun lights his path! I pray to my lord and savior, Malfurion Stormrage!"
"You don't strike me as the religious type—"
"Here, feel how my heart beats for him!" She snatched the Ranger General's hand and placed it over her breast.
It lingered for all of two seconds before Ranger General Sylvanas yanked it back. "By the Light! You're cold as a Winter Veil snowstorm! Wait, are those…flies?!"
"No, they're itty-bitty wisps that keep my hopes up, my mind clear and the wind at my back. YES THEY'RE FLIES! I'm an undead high elf, and you have PRINCE ARTHAS to thank for that!"
"Prince Arthas? He…did this to you?"
Banshee Queen Sylvanas tossed her arms up in the air. "Who else but Arthas?! Surely not his missing sister!" Who she knew for certain (call it a gut instinct) was dead, just like Alleria. Gone for twenty-something years and not a letter to write home to, saying what was taking so long!
"I didn't even know he had a sister…."
"You and every other noble in the Nexus!"
Ranger General Sylvanas shifted from one foot to the other, looking her undead self up and down with keen interest. "I don't understand. You make it sound like he went mad out of the blue."
"We'd be here all day if we told you," said Nova. She clammed up when both Sylvanases looked her way—the undead annoyed, the living reserved.
"And who is this?" asked the Ranger General.
The Banshee Queen sniffed disdainfully. "That's Nova. She thinks she's a ghost."
"I am!" said Nova, a little petulantly. Why couldn't she get that through her head? She didn't have to be a reanimated corpse to blend into her surroundings!
"Oh really?" The Ranger General took Nova by the arm, under the elbow. Nova stared curiously at her grip before her vision went sideways and the pain in her arm as it was twisted damn near out of its socket. Nova gasped, mouth wide open and eyes screwed shut in white agony. "Strange. I've never known a ghost to be corporeal and able to feel anything. What a curious enigma."
I'm feeling something, alright! Nova thought, cradling the arm close to her chest. Little wet pinpricks formed at the corners of her vision.
"Well get used to it, if you know what's good for you," the Banshee Queen huffed. "There may be demons, murlocs, and aliens who're here to prove their mettle, but don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're my past self."
The Ranger General scoffed. "Yes, I'm sure I'll be running for my life from a shuffling zombie. I'm surprised you can even speak. What did you have to do to get that intelligent, eh? Eat some brains?"
The Banshee Queen glared at her. "Were you even paying attention? I was murdered, raised into an actual ghost," she glanced scathingly toward Nova, "and it was by dint and good fortune I managed to reclaim my body! So no, I didn't eat anything. I am still Sylvanas Windrunner, in death as I was in life!"
"There's no way you can be me."
"And there's no way you're actually going to participate in the Nexus Hero League."
"Look right here." Ranger General Sylvanas took the sheaf of papers off the desk—the Banshee Queen's desk (Nova wondered if the undead would still liable to show facial tics, but the way the latter's face hardened most likely meant it didn't matter)—and handed them to her.
The Banshee Queen scrutinized them, as did Nova who was peering over her shoulder. Below the heading of the first page, a condensed list of her other half read as such:
Name: Sylvanas Windrunner (living variant of SYLVANAS WINDRUNNER, BANSHEE QUEEN).
Title: Ranger-General of Quel'Thalas.
Universal Sector: Azeroth #A12690x
Temporal Sector: Post-Second War (probability of Third War inconclusive)
She shuffled through the papers, skimming over the legalese and mechanically written questions. Does the variant display combat abilities that differ from the default variant? Yes, that was to be determined. Was the variant registered into the Nexus database to engage in the Hero League and blood feuds declared either by two or more rival Heroes and the noblesse? Yes, she was. Did the variant go through the motions to obtain and carry a license to ride any of the mounts (except for those assigned to specific Heroes, like Tyrael's Light-abiding charger and the armored horse Illidan affectionately called Nightmare)? Yes, she did. Has the variant been selected by a sponsored family or corporation? Too soon to tell; she had just arrived in the Nexus a couple days back and only managed to find the Nexus Manor on her own earlier today with little difficulty).
Does the variant have any rivals and/or enemies s/he may be able to claim as a prerequisite for supervised blood feuds?
The answer typewritten here was a single word in bold, capitalized word: NONE.
The Banshee Queen looked at the Ranger General over the top of the papers. The younger elf stared back, arms crossed over fair skin (that reminded her of the Light), an eyebrow quirked questioningly. "Well?"
Sylvanas harrumphed and shoved them back to her. "Fine. I can accept this, but don't get ahead of yourself. In this place, there can only be one Sylvanas Windrunner."
"And that would be me." The Ranger General turned her nose up at her. "You may share my name and you may look like me, but you are not a true Windrunner. For all I know, you're probably some wannabe who has heard of my exploits and tries to recreate them. I should know. My sisters do it all the time."
The Banshee Queen nodded solemnly. "Indeed. It would explain why Alleria has a statue in Stormwind and you don't."
Nova turned away and covered her gaping mouth with a fist, effectively blocking the juvenile "OHHHHHH!" that wanted to come out. She stole a quick glance the variant; whatever tics the undead Sylvanas didn't have, this one had in spades: a tic throbbing just below her eye, what looked like a vein pulsing beneath the papery surface of her forehead.
Ranger General Sylvanas's cheeks exploded in color, her ears snapping up in outrage. "I-I'm just as renowned as she is! I-I don't need a statue or awards or anything of the sort! My title alone is enough to warrant recognition!"
"And that's all you'll ever have, unless you can prove you're the better Windrunner on the battlefield."
"I will!"
"I highly doubt it," said the Banshee Queen, who beckoned Nova to follow with a crisp snap of her fingers. Then, when they were far enough from the room and out of earshot, "Who does she think she is? She talks as though she's Azeroth's gift to elfkind! Can she possess the minds of enemy minions and mercenaries? No! Can she teleport and cover distances at the sound of a scream? No! She stands no chance against one such as I!"
"I find it pretty telling that, deep down, you don't even like yourself."
"Of course I don't! She's alive, I'm not. I hate everyone with equal fervor."
Nova considered this. "So by that logic, does that mean you love everyone? As in, given that your condition's pretty much dampened any positive emotion you could possibly experience for all eternity, you express this love in the only way you know how? Because, well," she rubbed the back of her neck, laughing sheepishly, "I always found people who played tough to be pretty endearing—OOF!"
Sylvanas smacked her on the back hard enough to send her sprawling face-first to the floor. "No, I just hate you all. Don't put words in my mouth." She turned up her nose and stepped over Nova, taking extra care to grind her heel into the crook of the woman's still smarting arm.
Nova grunted. She raised her head and pointed at Sylvanas's retreating back, grinning. "Th-That's what all the tsundere say…."