Chapter Three
Larraine had been nine years old when she first found her faithful wolf. He was just a cub, and one of his back legs had been caught in a trap set up by Ma Stonefield in one of her many attempts to be rid of Princess the pig. Larraine freed him from the trap, bandaged his broken leg, and begged her father to let her keep him as a pet. Being a devoted parent who gave her everything he could to make her happy, her father had easily given in to her request with the stipulation that she would have to take care of her new pet herself. She was more than happy to comply, and made sure to feed and care for the pup every day. She also started training it to do tricks and taught it to play fetch, and soon the two were inseparable.
One day, not long after her tenth birthday, her father took her to Stormwind with him to deliver an order of new weapons to the barracks of the military. Since he usually spent some time afterward catching up with his former comrades-in-arms after dropping off his goods, Larraine found herself alone in the park district of the city with her pet. The two of them played fetch with a ball she had fashioned out of some old rags, and each time she threw it the pup would bring it back to her. Except one time, after a throw which had gone particularly far, he didn't come back. Larraine called for him, but he still remained out of her sight and so she decided to go investigate.
She came up behind a boy with blonde hair who was kneeling down and talking to her wolf, scratching him behind his ears. To her surprise, the wolf rolled over on his back to expose his stomach – which the boy promptly began to rub and scratch as he laughed and told him what a good boy he was. Larraine drew closer in curiosity, calling out to the boy to alert him to her presence, then gasped in shock when he turned his head to look at her.
"Y-Your Majesty!" she greeted the young prince, who had recently been named King of Stormwind after his father unexpectedly disappeared while on a diplomatic mission. She gave him a deep curtsy, her eyes cast downward in shame of not having realized sooner who he was.
"Is this your wolf?" he merely asked her as he continued to rub her pet's belly, and Larraine nodded, running her hands nervously along one of the braids her father had fashioned her hair into that morning before they left their small home near Goldshire.
"What's his name?"
"Fang, Your Majesty," she answered, continuing to keep her eyes averted from his gaze. She saw him stand up out of her periphery, and he took several steps closer to her until he was directly before her.
"And what's your name?" he asked her, bending down to look up at her.
"Larraine, Your Majesty," she quietly told him, meeting his eyes briefly before averting her gaze once more as she began to blush.
"Anduin," he corrected her.
"I know your name, Your Majesty," she told him, the color in her cheeks increasing.
"My name isn't 'Your Majesty,'" he reiterated. "It's Anduin. You can call me that."
"O-Okay... Anduin," she complied with a small nod, and Anduin smiled brightly at her.
"Much better. So, I'm guessing you named him Fang because of his missing tooth?"
Larraine finally raised her head to look at him properly, blinking in surprise at how easily he'd figured out the origin of her pet's name. Fang had been missing one of his top canines when she found him, and it had yet to be replaced by one of the larger, sharper ones adult wolves had.
"That's right, Yo- Anduin," she quickly corrected herself. Anduin continued to smile at her, and with a nod he handed her the ball she had made for her pet.
"This came rolling along and I picked it up shortly before he came looking for it," he told her. "I'm sorry if I interrupted anything by picking it up."
"Not at all," she assured him, shaking her head. "Would... Would you like to play with him?"
Anduin's blue eyes lit up at her invitation, and he nodded a bit.
"Only if you join us," he requested, and Larraine returned his smile as she handed the ball back to him.
The two of them spent the better part of the next half hour playing with Fang, first taking turns throwing the ball for him to fetch, and then playing keep-away with it. Fang ended up jumping up and knocking down Anduin to get the ball from him at one point when the boy-king held it tauntingly up in the air out of his reach, but to Larraine's immense relief Anduin merely began to laugh and gave up the ball to the eager young wolf. The three of them then began to play tag, often with Fang in the role of "it" as he chased down each of them in turn.
Their fun was short-lived, however, as Anduin suddenly stopped running from Fang and the joyous laughter died in his throat. Larraine turned toward him to ask what was wrong and saw a stern-looking man with dark brown hair and a full beard in gleaming plate armor looking down at the royal heir with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Anduin, how many times have I told you not to leave the palace on your own?" the man nearly growled in his deep voice. "Do you have any idea how worried Lady Prestor and I have been about you?"
"I'm sorry, Bolvar," Anduin apologized, putting his hands behind his back as the entire upper half of his body slumped in shame. "I just wanted to go for a walk."
"Well, next time let me know and I will accompany you," Bolvar told him, his countenance softening a bit. He then realized that Anduin hadn't been alone as his gaze fell upon Larraine, and he stared at her almost critically for a moment before speaking once more.
"You're Declan McAlister's little girl, aren't you?" he asked her, and she nodded.
"This is Larraine," Anduin introduced her, even though it was apparent Bolvar already knew who she was. "We were just playing with her pet wolf, Fang. Since you're here now, can I stay a bit longer?"
Bolvar looked down to him, a small smile tugging his lips, but instead of agreeing to the boy's request he shook his head a bit.
"You're already late for your lessons, my boy," he gently chided him before looking to Larraine once more. "However, I do know your father makes deliveries to the city every few weeks. Perhaps I could talk to him about bringing you around to the Keep while he's here so that you and young Anduin can spend some time together. That is, if you would be amenable to such an arrangement, my lady."
He gave Larraine a knightly bow, and she blushed and quietly agreed that she would enjoy what he was suggesting very much.
"And how about you, Your Majesty?" he then asked Anduin. "If I were to make such arrangements, would that make you happy?"
"Yes!" Anduin excitedly agreed, hugging the much taller man's side. "Thank you, Bolvar!"
Bolvar chuckled and reached up to ruffle Anduin's hair with one hand. "If you truly wish to spend time playing with this young lady, though, you must also work hard on your studies. Which means we need to be going, for now."
Anduin frowned a bit, but nodded in agreement, then released Bolvar and went back over to Larraine.
"I have to go now," he told her with a bow. "I really had a lot of fun today. Bring Fang with you when you come to the Keep."
"I will," she assured him, petting the top of Fang's head while giving the young king a polite curtsy and smiling at him. "Good luck with your studies, Anduin."
She saw Bolvar raise an eyebrow in curiosity and she let out a small gasp before giving Anduin an even deeper curtsy.
"I mean... Good luck with your studies, Your Majesty."
Anduin gave her a curious look, then glanced to Bolvar before turning back to her.
"It's Anduin," he corrected her with a scowl, loud enough so that Bolvar would hear him. "Say it."
"Anduin," she repeated shyly, her gaze flickering to Bolvar then meeting the blue eyes of the boy standing before her.
"Much better," Anduin said, smiling brilliantly at her once more.
"Larraine... Wake up! We're nearly there!"
Larraine groaned as she felt two small hands on her shoulder, shaking her almost violently in an attempt to rouse her from her sleep. She cracked open her eyes and found Bixby kneeling next to her on the bedroll she'd claimed, her face set in determination and she continued in roughly shaking her awake.
"Stop it," Larraine growled. "Unless you want me to throw up on you."
"No, thank you!" Bixby said, throwing her hands up and jumping to her feet to carefully back away. "Nodd already got some on my shoes up on deck. I don't need that again."
Larraine sat up and stretched a bit, then slowly got to her feet. She had never been on an airship before, and was still getting used to the loud noise of the large propellers and the unusual sensation of traveling through the sky as they had been for the past two days.
"Where's Fang?" she asked, looking around for her wolf. The last she'd seen him, he had been curled up next to her on the bedroll.
"He's up on deck," Bixby informed her. "I think he likes the feeling of the wind blowing through his fur. Come on! We should head up there, too. Rell said we're almost to where they lost contact with Admiral Taylor's fleet."
Larraine nodded and followed Bixby up to the main deck of the ship just in time to see Sky Admiral Rogers rushing down from the poop deck with Rell and several others in tow.
"Clear the decks!" the admiral yelled over the sound of the engines. "Stations, people! Let's go to war!"
Bixby grabbed Larraine's hand and pulled her aside to allow her sister and another gnome with green hair to pass them. Larraine turned to watch the two female gnomes hop into a couple of flying machines which were set up on the main deck of the airship, and a short time later they were airborn and headed off toward something below the Skyfire's current position. Larraine went over to the side and looked down, then gasped at the sight of at least a dozen Horde naval vessels sailing toward the same location they had been heading to.
"What are you doing?" Rell growled in her ear as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back away from the edge. "You should be down below."
"I should be helping, Rell!" she argued, turning around to face him.
"Do you know how to fly one of those?" he asked, pointing to one of the other flying machines which were still sitting on the deck. Larraine shook her head and Rell grabbed her hand and began pulling her back in the direction of the lower decks.
"Then you need to get down below where it'll be safer."
"No!" Larraine protested, wrenching her hand from his grasp. At that very moment shots rang out from below and two cannonballs made contact with the hull of the ship, sending all of the passengers reeling. Larraine fell against Rell's chest, and he caught her by her shoulders and took a step back to steady himself.
"Shaw will have my head if anything happens to you, Larraine. Get below deck, now," he ordered through clenched teeth, making sure she was steady on her feet before he ran off to take one of the remaining gyrocopters in order to join the assault on the Horde fleet on the waters below.
"The Horde won't be able to hide from us, men!" Sky Admiral Rogers called out as everyone continued scrambling to their battle stations. "Not on land, not at sea, not in the air!"
"She really does hate the Horde, doesn't she?" Larraine said to herself, posing the question to no one in particular.
"She grew up in Southshore," came the voice of a male gnome from next to her, and she looked down to see the one she assumed to be Nodd – judging by the fact he was hunched over slightly and his face looked almost as green as his hair. "Her parents are buried there... what's left of them."
He ran over to the side of the craft and began to throw up once more, and Larraine looked to the hard face of the airship's stern captain. She'd heard from some refugees who had managed to escape and make it to Stormwind that Southshore had been destroyed by the Forsaken when they decided to test their newly-developed blight on the residents there. Not many of them had escaped, and those who didn't had suffered the same fate her father had at the Wrathgate in Northrend. It was odd, that she should feel a sense of kinship with a complete stranger, but a part of her understood the pain which was driving the older woman's hatred.
"Admiral Rogers!" she called as she approached her, causing the airship's leader to look in her direction. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"McAlister, yes?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly. Larraine nodded and the admiral continued to scrutinize her. "You're a hunter, as I recall. Why not get behind one of the canons we have on board here and help neutralize any threats to our airborne units?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Larraine agreed, giving her a quick salute. She then rushed to the nearest canons and looked it over. She'd never used one before, and she wasn't sure exactly how to go about operating it.
"Just aim and shoot!" Bixby instructed, and Larraine turned her head to find the pink-haired gnome standing on the canon next to hers. "They're self-loading. Technology at its best!"
"Got it," Larraine said with a nod and took up the canon before her. She hesitated at first, not sure what is was she should be aiming for, but then she settled on taking out the cannonballs which the Horde vessels were attempting to hit their aircraft with. She watched as one was launched from a ship below and followed its trajectory, then fired at just the right moment to hit the flying missile with one of her own, causing them both to explode mid-air upon impact.
"Nice shot!" Bixby called over to her, taking aim and shooting another cannonball out of the air herself before re-aligning her canon and shooting directly at the vessel it had come from. "Take that, smelly orcs!"
Larraine chuckled a bit, content to leave Bixby to taking out the ships below as she could while focusing her own shots on intercepting the projectiles which were being sent at the Alliance flying machines. Rell and Gardenia were on two of those gyrocopters – as was Sully McLeary, judging by the bits of chatter she could make out between Rogers and the pilots – and she was determined to do her part to keep them all safe.
"That's enough," she heard Rogers call after several minutes, "all wings, report back. Prepare for ground assault."
Larraine and Bixby covered the members of the air team as they made their way back to the Skyfire, then left their canons to join the others before Admiral Rogers. Rell noticed her almost immediately among those in the crowd, but chose not to say anything and instead turned to Rogers to give his report.
"There is no sign of Captain Taylor or his flagship," he said matter-of-factly, and Larraine closed her eyes as she felt her heart sink. A small hand grasped hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze, and she looked down to find Gardenia at her side, giving her the best smile she could muster.
"We need to head down to get a better look," Rogers surmised. "I want a team to hit the Horde on the shore as hard as they can. Right now, their little town is burning and their men are scattered and broken. This ends now – finish them off. The rest of you, see if you can make contact with the locals. Nodd said he saw a native-looking village when he was bent over the stern losing his lunch. Perhaps, if Taylor and his passengers survived they might have gone there to look for help. We need to know, either way. Dismissed!"
Those on the ship began dispersing, some gathering together to discuss strategy for dealing with the rest of the Horde on the ground while others went below deck to gather things to take on their goodwill mission to the local village. Rell stared silently at Larraine for a long time before he made his way over to her and Gardenia – who was still holding her hand and patting it in an almost motherly fashion.
"You'll be going with those who are heading into the village," he told her in a tone which made it quite apparent that the decision was not up for debate.
"I'm fine with that," Larraine agreed. "If it gets us even one step closer to finding Anduin, that's where I should be."
Rell nodded and then turned to Gardenia. "I would like you and Bixby to accompany her, Ambassador. I'll be trusting the two of you to keep her safe in my stead."
Gardenia bristled a bit at the use of her title, but assented to the request, and Rell wished them luck before joining Sully and the others as they made the final preparations for their ground assault against the Horde forces. Larraine sighed and looked around, spotting Bixby as she came back up from the lower decks dragging not only her own bag, but her sister's and Larraine's with her. The only person missing was her wolf.
"Fang?" she called, her head whipping around as she looked about. "Fang! Where are you?"
A whine came from nearby and she walked toward a pile of artillery covered by a large tarp. Lifting up the corner, she peered underneath to find her wolf crouched down between two perfectly-stacked piles of torpedo shells.
"Hey... are you all right, boy?" she asked, tossing the tarp up out of the way and reaching into his hiding spot to scratch the top of his head. "You didn't get hit by anything when those cannonballs hit the airship, did you?"
Fang let out a small bark and crawled out of his makeshift den, then whined and looked toward the cannons she and Bixby had been firing.
"The noise scared you?" she wondered, and he let out another bark, then turned to her and whined.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, hugging him. "It's okay, though. You don't have to be scared. Noises can't hurt you. Besides, I'm not going to let anyone hurt my sweet boy."
She ruffled the fur on either side of his neck and he licked her cheek, causing her to laugh a little as the two gnomes tasked with her safety made their way over. Bixby handed over her pack, quiver, and bow, and Larraine stood and got herself ready to depart for the shore below.
"Are you okay with going for another ride on Gardenia's flying machine?" she asked Fang, and he immediately pounced on the gnome in question and began happily licking her face.
"Ack! Help! He's trying to eat me!" Gardenia squealed.
"No, he's just excited," Larraine corrected, biting her lip to hold back her laughter. "I'm guessing he enjoyed his previous flight and this is his way of thanking you for taking him on another."
"It's no problem, but I can't take him anywhere if he doesn't get off of me!"
"Enough, Fang," Larraine said, and the wolf gave Gardenia's face one last lick before he stepped back and sat obediently, waiting for further instructions. The gnome pulled herself to her feet and wiped repeatedly at her face with the sleeve of her robes, then lifted her pack up onto her shoulders and headed to where her personal flying machine was parked – Fang following close behind.
"Wait!" Larraine called after her. "How are we supposed to get down there?"
"By using these," Bixby answered before her sister could reply, holding up a parachute. Larraine took the pack and looked from it to Bixby and back again, twice.
"I... You mean... Jump?"
"Yep!" Bixby cheerfully replied.
"Jump... from up here?"
"Uh-huh!" she said with a grin as she climbed up onto the railing at the side of the deck.
"But-"
"Last one down is a stinky orc!" Bixby cried out before jumping off the airship, and Larraine rushed to look over the side. Bixby yelled exuberantly as she fell for several seconds before deploying her parachute, and Larraine cautiously pulled herself up onto the railing to sit, then fastened her own pack to the front of her body.
"It's for Anduin," she reminded herself, taking a slow, deep breath. Closing her eyes, she said a quick prayer to the Light and then, after another moment's hesitation, she jumped.