Caelwen awoke as the morning was just coming upon her. Seen past the trees of the orchard, the orange-tinted sun lying on the far horizon was very warm, much like the island, but pleasantly so. Sluggishly sitting up with a tired groan, she rubbed the back of her head with her hand. Looking around, the elf soon saw the much larger form of Se'jash lying on his side nearby, still very much asleep.
His chest expanded inward and outward with long and heavy breaths as he remained dreaming. Caelwen, with extreme care in her movements, got to her thin legs and stood up before looking to the waterfall just a short distance away. With a plan in mind, after taking a final glimpse at the naga, she quietly started down the path toward it, leaving him.
It was not long after she departed that Se'jash began to stir. Licking his lips and with a small snort of his draconid nostrils, he opened his eyes and lazily let them drift to where he faintly remembered the night elf slept. Then, after blinking twice, he noticed a big problem.
Caelwen was gone. Fully snapping awake, he quickly stood up and looked around, but spied nothing but trees and green foliage. Slithering over to where she once rested he could see that the grass was still pressed down, meaning that she had only recently gotten up from it. He was about to dash off and search for her, when a peculiar noise struck his earfins. Had it not sounded so sentient he might have mistaken it for a wonderful birdsong. It was clearly a female voice, and it was light and in tune with something. He soon perceived that it was originating from where the waterfall and pond lied and set off there immediately.
Snaking his way down the path, Se'jash passed by the large pool of water and cast his eyes to the waterfall where he now knew was the source of the sound, and also from where he could see a faint and feminine silhouette standing behind the curtain of water. Growing closer, he knew right off that it was Caelwen, though she was fully undressed and was currently showering under the water of the waterfall, using the fresh liquid raining down to clean her purple-skinned body.
And she was singing. What was coming from her mouth was a song spoken in the full Darnassian language, and Se'jash couldn't completely make out what was being said, but that mattered not to him. It sounded ethereally beautiful, yet at the same time hauntingly somber. Without even being able to understand the words, he knew it was a song of loss and grief, which eventually evolved into a tune of harmony and peace. Before he even realized it, Caelwen had finished her melody, leaving the naga in stunned silence as the waterfall's roar overcame his hearing. Blinking once, he could just vaguely see the night elf wrapping up the last parts of her cleaning ritual.
"You have the voice that puts a siren's to utter shame," suddenly came Se'jash's light voice from over her shoulder. Ceasing her movements, Caelwen spun her head around and saw the naga standing a few meters away from her, just before where the waterfall's falling torrent hit the rocks and pond. Her cheeks instantly reddening, she covered herself with her arms until Se'jash turned his head away less than half a second later, wishing not to be rude. Reaching for her discarded clothing hanging from a jagged rock nearby, Caelwen hastily began to place them back over her naked body.
"Where did you learn to sing like that?" he asked her, still refusing to take a peek toward the elf, but fearing greatly that she wouldn't respond to his query.
"Well, my surname is 'Jaysong'. My family and I received it for a reason," she quietly said to him, filling him with relief as she gave him a response. "One could say the urge to sing when I'm by my lone self runs in my blood. Too bad it's an ultimately worthless and pointless facet when it comes to my profession..."
"It's not pointless. It's beautiful," Se'jash complimented, causing Caelwen to try desperately to keep her face from once again flushing with delight she wished she didn't express in his presence. "That's not something to ashamed of. I implore you to believe me for I've learned the hard way that my profession, battle and bloodshed, is not everything as I once thought."
Caelwen couldn't help but smirk disbelievingly as she walked toward him over the damp rock, hooking on the final piece of her clothing about her chest. "However did you come to that conclusion, Se'jash?" she asked him. "I thought you said that all you ever wanted is to fight and kill worthy foes."
A low noise that the elf couldn't identify reverberated from within Se'jash's throat, and he turned his head to the falling shower of water. "Well, I met someone. One who has shown me otherwise, in spite of what I came to fully believe over the past few centuries," he mumbled, a large smile overcoming his mouth, exposing his white fangs as his facial tendrils continued to sway in the draft the waterfall provided.
Caelwen's arms folded together, a glimmer of interest flashing over her eyes. "Who's the naga that taught you this?"
"She's not a naga," he replied, looking back to her. The second he did, both of their eyes seemed to connect. Caelwen felt a shiver run down her spine, and it filled her with a warm emotion she had never before felt. Se'jash started to grow closer to Caelwen in a slow movement, and he was soon upon her. "She's... a night elf named Caelwen Jaysong."
Their faces grew closer. In spite of his monstrous visage that would have perhaps frightened or repulsed another person, Caelwen did not see that. All she could see at that moment, from behind her glowing gray eyes, was a creature the elf realized she felt an intense, incomparable affection for. Caelwen couldn't help but allow the irresistible force compelling her to let her eyes to close, as did Se'jash's own. Their mouths drifted closer until they were almost touching.
Then, with heavy reluctance, Caelwen hesitated. Her eyes opened, and with the warmth inside of her chest dissipating at that moment, she stopped. Se'jash's eyes soon opened as well when he sensed something awry, and he looked to Caelwen with an awkward glance as though he had made a grave mistake of some sort. "My apologies," he said, slowly turning about and facing the opposite direction.
"No, you did nothing wrong," she quickly said back, reaching a comforting hand and out and placing it on his large shoulder. He looked back to her and gave the night elf a small smile.
"I believe it is time we headed back," he finally sighed, looking ahead again. "Our own duel will happen very soon, now that you are in good health. I suggest we both prepare for it."
Se'jash started to leave Caelwen, and she stood there by herself. Thinking about whether or not it was the right decision to halt the moment they were both sharing, she slowly walked over to rejoin him.
And so, shortly upon returning to the caverns below, the duel commenced.
Caelwen entered the arena with her full armor on and bow in her hand. Her moonglaive was sheathed by her side, and a satchel of arrows sat over her back. She continued to walk to the center of the arena where Se'jash's intimidating, fully-armored form stood, waiting for her. His trident was held in one of his hands, and he looked to Caelwen expectantly. The audience of naga, including Lady Vesh'ari, watched with bated breath and great tension followed as the two fighters stared at one another, waiting to see who would be the first to strike.
Caelwen was the one to do so.
With little warning, the night elf darted to the prepared Se'jash and jumped at him, planting both of her feet into the top of his breastplate, pushing him slightly off-balance. Using the momentum to send herself back, she landed on the ground with an arrow already notched in her bow. By the time she had unleashed it, Se'jash had regained his footing and raised his trident, slapping the projectile clean out of the air before it could embed itself within his exposed throat. The next arrow sent at him met the same fate, and the third after that one was completely dodged as the naga sprinted toward Caelwen. He swung his weapon a meager instant before another could be shot forth and surely hit him.
Caelwen was able to avoid the attack, but the bow did not. With a dry cracking of wood that could have easily instead been bone, had her reflexes not been fast enough, Caelwen's bow was broken in half by the trident's three-pronged head. The middle was completely crushed to tiny splinters, and the bowstring still hung to the top end but was otherwise not attached to anything. Having left the weapon and jumped back, Caelwen took out her moonglaive and prepared to use it.
Se'jash leisurely passed by the remains of the bow and looked directly at the elf as a predatory eel would a hapless passing fish. His back arched and dorsal fins extended like flags as he prepared another assault. He sprung forth with a sharp hiss, and Caelwen did so as well. Their weapons clashed with a loud clatter that echoed all around them, shedding bright sparks from their sharpened tips. Caelwen struggled to push back Se'jash's superior weight and strength, but with a brief movement of her feet, she managed to slip out of the hold his trident had on her own weapon and sent its barbed tip to the floor. Instinctively using this free moment to her advantage, she next sent her three-bladed weapon out at the naga's exposed face unhindered, getting a pained shout from him as it hit something. Stepping far back, she had a look at what damage she had done.
Two of the beard-like tendrils lining the back edge of the left side of his jaw had been cleanly severed, the larger one of the two partially, and the smaller one fully. The fleshy, tentacle-esque extremities fell together to the dirty ground like beached fish, twitching around as the last of the nerves within them began to lose feeling. For a brief instant, Se'jash clamped a hand over the wound, showing an expression of both surprise and shock. Then seething rage curled over his face and he lunged at Caelwen with a roar; his trident held over his head.
The night elf leapt to his side, barely avoiding the mighty trident as it slammed into the ground, sending up a thick cloud of dirt, rock and sand. Slashing once through the haze of upturned earth, Caelwen's moonglaive raked across his chest armor, slashing it deeply, though not enough to touch his scaly flesh. While she prepared another move, something possessing a cold and damp sensation to it wrapped around her ankle. She looked down just in time to see that Se'jash had sent the tip of long tail at her leg, and grabbed a firm hold of her. With a grunt, just before Caelwen could think of using her weapon to rid herself of it, Se'jash had used his tail to throw her back.
She flew through the air and landed with a loud thud on her back, creating a small crater within the earth, but still firmly holding onto her moonglaive. She managed to jump back to her feet, but a green blur soon caught her field of view and she looked forward, only to see that Se'jash was nearly upon her. His glassy eyes were wide and fixed in a death glare. Murder had consumed his mind and his weapon was pointed ahead of him, ready for the kill. Caelwen had no other choice but to fight back with the unavoidable attack headed her way. Unleashing a roar that made her throat ache with the sheer volume of air that was expelled from her lungs, the night elf ran forward with her moonglaive clutched tightly in both hands. With the trident stabbing ahead and the moonglaive cutting forward, the two simultaneously struck at one another.
Stillness went out through the air, and the only noise to go through it was Caelwen's panting. Red blood, thick and dark to the point of near-blackness, dripped from her moonglaive's sharp, curved blades as beads of sweat fell from her forehead in a similar way. Se'jash was smiling wickedly, and his face remained frozen this way even as he looked to his lower right side. His armor there had been pierced completely through where it was lightest, and his thick flesh had been sundered and split through deeply and hideously. Ichor spilled and sprayed forth from the wound, forming an already impressively-sized puddle in the dirt, and his breathing became a strained gasp. His trident falling from his weak grasp and hitting the ground with a metallic clatter, the naga limply collapsed with it. As the noise reached her ears, Caelwen fell to one knee.
She was unscathed. Her mind was still in a vivid and hectic rush, but she knew she had nimbly escaped major injury, if not just barely. The next noise to come to her before she could stand was one she did not expect to hear. Cheering. All of the naga watching, at first speechless, could not help but bellow their opinions of approval. What they saw was a fantastic spectacle rarely beheld. Vesh'ari herself took in a deeper-than-usual breath at the result that had befallen her sight, but that was all the emotion she showed; her mind having been made up over how she would react should her brother indeed be felled. After regaining her stamina, Caelwen got up and walked over to Se'jash, her moonglaive raised and ready to strike if he was about to lash out at her.
The burly creature's body was mostly still, save for the tip of his tail twitching and occasionally thrashing uselessly around. As he felt a shadow pass over his head, Se'jash pushed himself back enough to look into Caelwen's leering face. His eyes blinked once groggily, the unbearable pain he was feeling causing his discomfort.
"Now, that... that was one... one hell of a fight," he complimented to her. Another smile, wide and mirthful, came over his face and he let out a quiet, but long and droning laugh. Crimson blood seeped through his fangs and past his lips, falling to the ground with his last cough. "Fate has given me what I wished for, and I regret... none of it. Well? Be... done with it then, Caelwen..."
The glare held on Caelwen's face began to lessen until it had faded entirely. "No."
The smile on Se'jash's face vanished. Replacing his previous expression came a mien of misapprehension. Se'jash weakly looked up to her, placing an arm to the ground so he could lift himself, but only slightly. His brow was slanted in utter confusion. "Why?" he asked her. "Why?"
"I... cannot do that." Caelwen's voice was almost as hushed as a whisper as she responded. "Not to you, Se'jash. Never to you."
She lowered her moonglaive, as it now felt much heavier in her grasp. Dropping it, the bloodstained weapon landed in the dirt by her feet, and she turned upward to where the indifferent lady of the Depthweaver tribe sat, watching all that had occurred, but now with a brow raised. "I am sparing my opponent," she yelled up to Vesh'ari. "I am letting him live, as he has let me live."
"Caelwen, if you do this-" Se'jash tried to interrupt. Caelwen interrupted him right back with a glance that held a serious visage, telling him her final choice had already been made, silencing him.
"This is an action you cannot perform, elf!" Vesh'ari shouted back, her voice now furious while her body slithered to the end of her booth and peered down from it. "Either you must slay your opponent, or else be slain instead for your impudence!"
"From what I remember hearing, my Lady, I was told several times I had to defeat my opponent. I was never told that I had to outright kill him, much less in cold blood. He has done so and allowed me to keep my life, and so shall he," rebutted Caelwen. All the naga spectating began to fidget around and talk amongst themselves. Vesh'ari looked to them all, and they looked back to her. Many had looks of confusion and outrage. Most had looks of approval that were clearly aimed at the night elf's choice to spare their lord, possibly driven by the satisfying display they witnessed.
Vesh'ari tried as hard as she could to keep her cool mind from becoming consumed by anger. "Very... well," were the words she exhaled, each soaked to the brim with cold bitterness and spiteful venom. Grabbing her staff, she quietly exited her booth and abandoned everyone's judging eyes, and Caelwen in turn walked up to Se'jash with an easy expression, bending over to grab a strong hold of his arm.
"Caelwen..." he mumbled through a gasp for air. The night elf fully hoisted him over her shoulder as best as she could manage, and she started to help him move. "Why did you do this?"
"Why do you think?" Caelwen chuckled to him as they both began to leave the arena through one of the tunnels that lined it. "I don't want to lose you, Se'jash."
"And why is that?" he asked again.
"Because... you're the one thing I have not yet lost," was her response. "And it would be ludicrous for me to kill the last thing to bear so much value to my heart."
