Aren Westwood was never sorry to leave the city.
Canvas snapped as the salty wind filled The Fortitude's sails, and the deck rolled beneath his feet as the ship skidded across the waves towards the lighthouse that marked the edge of the harbor.
He rested his gauntleted hands lightly on the rail, watching Stormwind's towers blush pink and orange as the sun rose in a blazing ball behind them. The bells of the Cathedral rang out across the water, greeting the dawn, while white seabirds wheeled above the quays.
It was a lovely city, high-walled and home to much that was beloved of the Light...but Stratholme had been lovely, once, too.
He turned away from the receding towers to watch a wildly-grinning goblin woman direct the last of his people to their quarters. Only Wynda, the Redbranch twins and the human woman were left on deck, all clutching the straps of various packs and looking more or less unsteady as the ship crested the larger waves near the harbor mouth.
The goblin woman giggled as the deck pitched again, jolting Ander into Nathanial. He clutched at his brother's shoulder as he fell, dragging them both down in a noisy heap of armor and luggage.
"Hee hee, poor little duckies, you'll get your sea legs soon enough," the goblin said, capering around their tangled forms in demonstration. She paused, cocking her head like an overgrown green sparrow, and prodded Ander in the ribs with a booted toe. "Unless you don't!"
The human woman stumbled and shot her an irritated look as the ship rolled again, finally giving up and sitting down on one of her packs.
Ander managed to claw his way up into a kneeling position, face an interesting shade of pasty green. "'M gonna throw up all over you," he muttered darkly, trying and failing to swivel his head to follow the goblin's cavorting.
Nathanial's eyes widened in alarm. "Ugh, Light, why," he muttered, hurrying to untangle his legs and scramble away from his brother on hands and knees.
Wynda eyed Ander doubtfully, shifting her warhammer on her shoulder. "Better get him to the side, lad, I don't think he's kidding."
She needn't have worried – the ship tilted again and Ander tumbled onto his feet, executing a stumbling run to the rail and hanging his head over it.
Aren tried not to pay too close attention to the sounds – or smells – wafting back from him on the breeze. Ander was a good soldier, but he liked his liquor almost as much as he hated sailing, and the collision of the two was never pleasant.
Nathanial picked his way over to the side with somewhat more decorum, arms spread a little to balance against the shifting of the deck. He grabbed onto the rail with one hand and pressed the other against the bridge of his nose, shaking his head at his brother with a long-suffering air.
Ander looked up and scowled at him between retches, expression made more ridiculous than threatening by the stubble that shadowed only half his jaw. "Don't you…judge me."
"I would never judge you," Nathanial said patiently, giving the words the sound of an oft-repeated refrain.
"Stay with your brother, lad, I'll take your packs," Wynda called. She hefted their bags onto her sturdy arms as she and the human woman turned to follow the goblin down the stairwell built into the bow side of the forecastle.
Ander slumped over the rail up to his armpits and groaned, seemingly oblivious to the glittering spray that soaked his hair and tabard.
"Careful you don't drop your gauntlets," Aren advised, clinging to the rail himself to keep from being unbalanced.
Ander lifted his head long enough to shoot him a glare of scornful misery. It was almost as nasty as that look the human woman – who he'd been told was his warlock – had given him on the docks earlier, but at least he knew why he deserved this one.
"The winter gear is in the hold and there should be fresh supplies waiting for us at Auberdine," Nathanial said, switching topics and covering his mouth as he yawned.
Aren nodded and stared out at the hazy line where sea met sky. Later, the summer sun would burn away the fog clinging to the waves, but for now the far distances vanished in a pearly blur. "Good, thank you. Could Luciel find more detailed maps?"
"Of Felwood? Not past that Tauren outpost. Bloodvenom, I think she called it," Nathanial said, frowning. He leaned his elbows on the rail as he peered over to check on his brother, mail clinking against the wood. "They never quite cleansed that place after the war, you know, and the Sentinels say it's getting worse. The elves' scouting parties are looking more and more like warbands, and sometimes they still don't come back."
Aren grimaced at this news, more resigned than surprised. "I suspected as much, but it never hurts to try." It had long been known that the Burning Legion kept a stronghold in the heart of the forest. They should have stamped it out years ago, but the mortal armies had been greatly weakened after Hyjal, and desperate alliances shattered quickly. Now the place had festered, and he had even heard rumors that dreadlords were consolidating power there, though he wasn't sure if he believed it. Legion sympathizers existed, even within the Alliance, and they'd been known to spread lies for their own purposes. Traitors were common enough now that the Argent Dawn had required noble references for the warlock accompanying them into Felwood – of all the applicants, only the Dunhaven woman had been vouched for.
"Why are we going into that Light-forsaken place, again?" Nathanial muttered.
Aren sighed. "You know why."
He waved a leather-gloved hand absently. "Yes, I know, that mage sent that letter." He planted his hand back on the rail and stared contemplatively into the frothy waves below. "But what I really want to know is, if they were being raided by demons, why in Uther's name would they run in to Felwood? They must've known that's where they were coming from."
Aren shrugged. They'd had this conversation several times since they'd been briefed for this assignment, and neither he nor Ander nor Wynda nor Luciel had managed to find an answer that satisfied everyone. If they had, maybe they wouldn't have been on this ship to begin with. "The letter was dated late fall. Maybe they couldn't get over the passes before the snows fell."
Nathanial made a noncommittal sound, clearly unconvinced.
A few paces away, Ander pulled his head up, curly hair plastered to his face by spray, and wiped his mouth. "I hate boats," he grumbled, swatting vengefully at the rail with his armored fist.
Blowing air out in a sigh, Nathanial rolled his eyes.
If she'd been in earshot of Ander's pronouncement, Callista would've seconded it wholeheartedly. Tripping against the side of the narrow stairwell, she cursed as the ship pitched again.
"Not long now, duckies," the goblin woman said, turning to grin back at them. Bright purple hair poked out from beneath the orange-striped bandana tied around her head, and the overall effect on top of her shark-like smile was bewildering. "Once we reach blue water we'll sail straight as an arrow, then no more stumbling and fumbling!"
"Just find us our quarters, you green menace," Wynda muttered wearily from behind Callista. The dwarf wasn't getting pitched around quite as much as she was, being both closer to the ground and weighted down with packs, but she was still beginning to look wan and a little seasick.
The goblin ignored her, cackling and prancing down the steps into the neatly-swept corridor beyond.
Callista followed clumsily, keeping a shoulder pressed against the wall for balance as she struggled with her packs. At least the boards had been sanded well enough not to pincushion her with splinters.
The corridor beyond was close and dark (the only light came from the stairwell behind her and one at its opposite end), but very clean. Red-painted doors opened off of it on both sides down its length, numbered in flaking gold paint that shimmered faintly in the shadows.
The goblin stopped in front of one and waved a ring that bristled with keys at it, yanking one off and unlocking the door before tossing it at Callista.
Since she didn't have a free hand, it hit her in the chest, and she narrowly managed to pin it there with her arm.
"Enjoy your stay, duckies!" the goblin cried, tossing open the door before whirling off down the corridor.
Callista jammed a foot against the hinge to keep it from slamming back shut, squeezing through and shrugging her packs onto the floor. She kept the door propped open for Wynda, who followed close behind laden with her own bags and the Redbranches' as well as her massive silver warhammer.
The dwarf discarded her burdens next to Callista's and plopped down on the bottom of the two tightly-blanketed bunks with a relieved sigh. Pulling off her helm, she shook her long red braids free as she inspected the intricately-graven metal. "I get the point of making an impression, but I can't help thinking we'd all sink like millstones in this lot."
Callista snorted, climbing up the ladder to the top bunk and bouncing on the mattress to test it. Wynda taking the bottom one suited her fine; she was far less likely to smack her head up here. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd underdressed." Out on the docks, she'd been the only one of their group not kitted out like she was marching onto a battlefield. Even Ander had managed it…somehow.
"Ach, don't worry your head, lass. You don't belong to the Dawn and no one expects it of you. Sir Aren just likes to keep up appearances in the city."
Appearances she was sure a warlock in full battle gear wouldn't have meshed with anyway. She didn't exactly look the part of a people's champion in robes blazoned with fel runes. Not that, she reminded herself with a twinge of irritation, she was any such thing or ever intended to be, no matter what delusion whoever had herded her into this seemed to be under.
Shaking her head, she leaned over her bed to peer out the porthole set into the adjacent bulkhead. The coastline curved away in a soft green smudge in the distance, and closer to hand all she could see was ocean. The porthole was close enough to the waterline that, during a storm, she imagined all she'd be able to see was seaweed and grey water. "Have you all served together long?" she asked, trying to get a better idea of what sort of crew she'd landed herself in.
Wynda tossed her helmet so it clattered to the floor near their packs, shortly joined by her steel gauntlets. "I've known the twins since they were wee lads, and Sir Aren's led our company since Lordaeron fell," she said, sounding glad for the excuse to talk (no doubt because it distracted her from the seasickness). "Luciel, the elf lass – though I daresay she's seen a sight more centuries than I ever will – joined nigh on a year ago now. Never seen the draenei fellow before, though Aren wouldn't take on anyone who wasn't an alright sort. Even if – "
She cut herself off, and Callista leaned further over the bed to look down at her. Since all she could see was her pauldrons and the top of her ruddy head, the view didn't tell her much, but she still thought she could guess how that sentence would end – probably with something like 'Even if he does look like a bloody demon.' If that was it, Callista could sympathize.
"I'm going back up top, if you want to come," she said, changing the subject out of tact. Sliding back onto the ladder, she jumped the last few rungs to the floor and pulled open the door, which had already swung shut with the movement of the ship.
"Thanks, lass, I think I will," Wynda said. She'd shed the last of her heavy armor, and now wore only the green and brown leathers she'd had on underneath. "Who'd have known a ship full of cargo would bounce around like a bloomin' cork."
Callista, who had begun to feel a bit queasy herself once they were below decks and out of sight of the horizon, made a sound of agreement. She braced a hand along the wall for balance as they picked their way back into the corridor, shutting the door behind them. Like all the passengers' quarters, their door was numbered in gold paint in all the languages of the Alliance: Common largest and on top, followed by Dwarven, Gnomish, Darnassian, and, last and least worn, the almost-familiar characters of Draenei. Clearly this ship had a diverse clientele.
Callista pushed the belt that held her sheathed dagger more comfortably onto her hips as she made for the bars of light slanting down through the stairwell at the end of the corridor, listening to Wynda's quiet grumbling at each new pitch of the deck. Maybe she'd linger up top until the nausea passed and then hunt down this Sir Aren. The faster she let him know what was going on aboard his ship, the better off –
The bars of light flickered out, plunging their end of the corridor into gloom, as the measured clop of hooves descended the stairs.
It had to be the draenei. Unsure where to go (the staircase was far too narrow to push her way up past him), Callista flattened herself against the planks of the wall to let him through, watching the darkened stairwell ambivalently.
Wynda followed suit at her side, though she managed a rather more friendly expression as the draenei ducked through the doorway and into the corridor. His armored form filled it nearly wall to wall, and the bony ridges that ran from his nose across the top of his head almost brushed the ceiling as he looked around in bemusement.
Callista resisted the urge to flatten herself further, distinctly uncomfortable; between the fleshy tendrils that snaked from his chin, the inhuman glow of his eyes, and the heavy goat-like hooves, he reminded her intensely of an eredar, and the memory was not pleasant.
The draenei smiled disarmingly as he noticed them, light from the stairwell streaming in behind him and making his armor shine like water. "Ah, my apologies. I did not see you there." His Common was good, but accented – and since Draenei was a distant descendent-tongue of Eredun, his thickly rolled r's did nothing to dispel Callista's impression of demon.
"Ach, it's no trouble," Wynda said, stepping away a little from the wall. Whatever doubts about the draenei she'd hinted at earlier (if that's truly what it had been), she showed no sign of them now. Smiling in return, she offered him her hand in a forthright gesture. "Wynda Threehammer, at your service. I don't believe we've been formally introduced."
The draenei had to lean down slightly to engulf her hand in his much larger blue one. "I am Vorthaal. Honored to make the acquaintance."
He turned his disconcertingly bright gaze to Callista, and she hoped her smile didn't look as forced as it felt. "Callista Dunhaven," she said, extending her hand because courtesy left her little choice.
He closed his hand around hers with surprising gentleness, shaking it once carefully before releasing her. "You are frightened," he said, tilting his head so the rings on the tendrils at his neck clinked against his breastplate.
"What? Of course not," she said, discomfited but laughing easily. "Just a little seasick." It wasn't really a lie, she told herself, because she wasn't really frightened of him. Just a little…unnerved.
"I have seen this look before," he said, studying her with what she might almost believe was compassion on his strange features. "You have known man'ari eredar."
Man'ari…the word existed in Eredun, too, though Callista suspected the connotations were different. "Yes, once," she said cautiously, because she couldn't see a reason to lie.
Wynda's head snapped around, mingled curiosity and surprise in her green eyes as Vorthaal's expression darkened.
"They were our kin once, but no longer," he rumbled, staring past her into some old memory. "Now they are so vile even the Light will not show them mercy." Some of the ferocity bled from him then, and he smiled, gentle once more. "But you are still here, and the man'ari is not, and this is good, yes?"
"Yes, this is good," Callista said, answering smile more genuine this time. The look of him still set all her nerves on edge, but if she pushed that aside he seemed to be a decent creature. Far kinder than she thought she'd have been, if she'd been chased across the worlds for millennia by her own demonic brethren.
"I am pleased to have met both of you," he said graciously.
"Aye, and so are we," Wynda replied. Her smile became somewhat wry as the deck heaved again. "I hope we're all just as pleased after a week stuck together on this floating ale cask."
Vorthaal looked just as unbalanced as the rest of them by the rolling of the ship, but unlike Callista and Wynda he could easily extend his arms to brace himself against both walls. "I admit I am finding the journey so far somewhat…disconcerting. The Exodar was a ship, but it did not sail on water and it did not…move…so."
"According to that green piece of work, we'll all get used to it," Wynda said, sounding skeptical as she wedged herself against a garishly-painted doorway.
"Ah, you mean the goblin woman," Vorthaal said, puzzlement flickering briefly over his face before it settled back into what Callista was beginning to think of as his usual good-natured look. "Yes, your world contains many fascinating creatures." His large blue brow lowered in a frown. "Though some are more strange than others. Why does she keep calling me a water fowl?"
Callista wrinkled her nose for a moment in confusion, then laughed. She supposed the goblin's insistence on calling all her passengers "duckie" could be mystifying to someone with a more formal grasp of Common. Actually, the warlock was a native speaker and still found it somewhat mystifying herself. "She calls us all that. I think she's just trying to be friendly."
"Deranged is more like it, if you ask me," Wynda muttered.
Vorthaal looked abashed, thick tail sweeping the air. "Then I fear I owe her apologies. Your people usually call each other animals as insults, yes? I am afraid I may have been…cold. She left in a hurry."
Wynda looked as though she was trying to choke back a laugh. "Aye, you may have startled her a bit."
"Then I should go make amends. I will see you both again soon, I am sure."
Callista and Wynda nodded politely, then pressed themselves back against the corridor wall as Vorthaal squeezed past them.
"She's probably wedged herself in the smallest corner of the bilge by now," Callista said under her breath, more amused than anything, as they climbed the stairs back up into the crisp morning air.
"Can't say I blame her," Wynda said in the same tone as she clomped up the steps behind her. "The lad's built like a brace of siege engines."
That was one way of putting it. The last creature Callista had known who'd looked so physically suited to combat had been most decidedly a demon.
She squinted as she emerged from the dim below decks into the sunlight. The breeze smelled of salt and ship's tar, and carried the sound of flapping canvas and the cries of the few seabirds that had followed them out this far from shore. Other passengers strolled along the deck watching the dolphins that frolicked in their foam-split wake, while sailors hollered cheerfully at each other and the people below from perches in the rigging.
"There's the lads," Wynda said, nudging her in the hip with her elbow.
Nathanial stood with his forearms on the rail, staring out into the hazy blue distance, while Ander lay on his back near his feet, splayed out with one arm thrown over his eyes. At least he looked less green than he had earlier.
Wynda called a greeting, and Callista followed at her heels. Some of her queasiness had dissipated in the stiff breeze, and her annoyance at being coerced into this venture warred with the exhilaration she always felt at the beginning of a journey. She still had no intention of following this Argent Dawn mission into Felwood, but a sea voyage as far as Auberdine might not be unpleasant.
Of course, that didn't mean, she thought, stepping over one of Ander's outstretched limbs to join Wynda and Nathanial at the rail, that Sir Aren (wherever he'd gotten to) was in any way off the hook he'd stuck himself on.
Happily oblivious to Callista's brooding, the man in question sat behind the heavy oak desk in his quarters (bolted to the deck, like all the rest of the furniture aboard), thumbing through the thick stack of parchment before him. Equipment requisitions, wages for his soldiers, correspondences from his superiors…all requiring his attention, until he regarded the daily delivery of mail with a resigned kind of foreboding. At least now that they were at sea, any further paperwork would have to await his arrival at Auberdine. (Assuming, of course, that nothing urgent enough to warrant teleportation cropped up.)
Dipping his quill into the inkwell nailed to the corner of the desk, he signed his name at the bottom of the first form and set it carefully aside so as not to smear it. The item beneath it was a report on Scourge activity in the Alterac foothills. They weren't going anywhere near Alterac; he skipped it to read later.
Licking his fingertip, he continued to page gamely through the stack. Only another twenty or so to go...
When the sharp knock sounded at his door, he welcomed the interruption. Pushing aside news of a renewed Legion assault near Honor Hold, he leaned back and stretched, stealing a glance at the foam-laced waves outside the portholes. "Come in," he said, straightening and rearranging himself into a more professional position with his hands folded on his desk.
The heavy door swung open, and a slim woman clad in a white tunic, sheathed dagger dangling from the leather belt at her waist, pushed into the room. She pressed the door closed so the movement of the ship wouldn't slam it, then turned to face him just as Aren recognized her as the woman who'd given him such a venomous look on the piers earlier. She wasn't glaring now, though the flintily appraising expression in her grey eyes was hardly friendlier.
"Can I help you?" he asked, smiling a little in hopes of thawing her gaze.
On later reflection, he wasn't sure what he'd expected her to say (some kind of greeting would probably have been traditional), but what came out of her mouth next most definitely wasn't it.
"I don't like being blackmailed," she said, in a conversational tone completely at odds with the frigid look she continued to skewer him with.
Blackmailed? Aren's brow creased as he tried to figure out if she'd really said what he thought she just did, and if so, why she was saying it to him. This was so far outside what he'd imagined as the realm of possible introductions that for a moment he just stared at her. "Excuse me?" he managed finally.
"Oh, don't look at me that way," she said irritably, stalking closer to his desk (the effect ruined only a little when she steadied herself as a larger than usual swell lifted them). "How in the Nether did you think this would turn out?"
"How what would turn out, soldier?" Aren asked, a hint of annoyance mingling with his confusion as he sat up more stiffly in his chair. Clearly there was some kind of misunderstanding here, but whatever grievance this woman thought she had, he was still her commander and would be treated as such. Especially because he hadn't even done…whatever it was.
"I think your last word nailed it," she said, narrowing her eyes as she crossed her arms deliberately at him from the other side of his desk.
The effect shouldn't have been intimidating – the woman wasn't very physically imposing, even when he had to tilt his head up to meet her gaze – but she had the mages' trick of looking at him like he might be a pile of horse dung in another few heartbeats.
"What?" he asked, more bewildered than ever and beginning to get angry now. He leaned forward a little over his scattered letters, resisting an urge to stand up to put himself on more equal footing with her. "Miss Dunhaven," he said in a carefully measured tone. "I understand that you're angry, but I can't possibly help you if don't explain what in Light's merciful name you're talking about."
That must finally have registered, because as he finished speaking the woman's expression shifted through an odd transformation: from scathing contempt to surprised realization to something just a little too scornful to be pity. "You really have no idea, do you?"
"No," Aren said, highly irked but relieved to finally be getting somewhere, "I don't." He waved a hand at the chair bolted to the floor next to her. "Now would you please sit down and explain yourself. Who's blackmailing you?"
"You are," she said infuriatingly, settling into the chair. Before he could berate her for being deliberately obscure (as well as insulting), some of her arrogance seemed to fade. She squeezed her eyes shut and held them that way a moment before opening them again and meeting his gaze frankly. "I'm not a mercenary. I didn't volunteer to be in your company, and I don't know anything about where you're going or why. An assassin threatened me until I promised to meet you at the docks."
"I – That's insane," Aren blurted, angrily shocked into speaking more harshly than he meant. "The Argent Dawn would never – "
"Maybe not, but someone did," she interrupted irritably. A few strands of blonde hair fell into her face as she cocked her head, and she brushed them away with quick fingers. "Who's backing this trip? Financially."
Aren wasn't sure. He was a soldier, and didn't delve that far into administrative matters. Even if he did, he wasn't about to be interrogated in his own quarters by a woman he'd never spoken to before. "I don't know. Just the Dawn," he said shortly.
She laughed dryly. "Somehow I doubt that." Her grey-eyed gaze was sharp as she focused it on his face, and he got the impression she was watching to see if he flinched. "You have no idea why anyone would be interested in your missing settlement? No rumors of lost fortunes, no possible heirs suddenly turned up in the House of Nobles?"
Nettled by her close inspection, Aren opened his mouth to snap a confirmation, then closed it abruptly again as the sudden veering of his own thoughts startled him.
He'd been certain that the woman was terribly mistaken, if not flat-out lying – this was a simple rescue mission, or, at very worst, a search for final confirmation that all the settlers of Jorn's Rest were dead. That was how his orders had painted this journey, and he had no reason to doubt that.
But…the village mage had kept a chronicle. He'd sent a copy back in the last shipment of mail to reach Stormwind, and he'd looked at it as part of his briefing. In one of the last entries, he'd mentioned that they'd found something of interest in the caves above the town and had begun a sort of mining project to excavate it. It was only a short note, and didn't even mention what it was that they'd found – it could've been a vein of ore, or some Night Elven ruin – but the woman's mention of lost fortunes had reminded him of it.
Not that, even if it meant anything (which he doubted), it made the idea of the Dawn being involved in anything like what she was accusing them of any less ridiculous.
"What? No!" Aren said, narrowing his eyes and hoping the Light would forgive him for the lie.
She cocked her head again, as though trying to decide if he was actually serious, then gave a sardonic snort. She looked like she was going to speak, then seemed to change her mind and said something else instead. "I don't mean to go with you past Auberdine, as I'm sure you can understand."
For a moment Aren was silent, gazing at the cracked wax seal of one of his letters as he tried to marshal his tangled thoughts into some kind of conclusion. "No, I'd imagine you wouldn't," he said finally, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. What else was there to say? He needed space to sort all of this out, and then…well, he didn't know what then. "You'll be missed, of course, but I won't have anyone forced to be here against their will."
It was a shame; she'd be difficult to replace. Her background said she was a former Academy mage, and those were scarce enough in Stormwind, let alone in a Night Elven city. They might have no choice but to go on without a warlock after all.
Her chair creaked as she shifted in it, and he glanced up in time to see some of the hostility bleed from her as she laid her sleeve on the desk near his papers. Silver-embroidered runes glimmered at its cuff – better enchantments than a mercenary who made the sort of wages this journey offered could've afforded. "Someone's after something," she said, voice less unkind than he might have expected. "And if you don't know what it is, then they're using you, too."
That had the uncomfortable ring of truth to it, but he still couldn't bring himself to believe she was right. "I can't imagine there's really some grand conspiracy going on here," Aren said with less conviction than he would've liked.
"Imagine whatever you want." She stood, resting her hands on the carved back of the chair as she watched him. "But if I were you, I'd be very sure what I was looking for before I went chasing it through Felwood."
More unpleasantly practical advice. On top of the blow she'd delivered by dropping her news so bluntly on him, Aren wasn't sure he was grateful for it. He stood as well, shaking his head. "Miss Dunhaven."
"Callista's fine," she said, with a twitch of her lip he might have taken for apologetic on someone less prickly. Her features, he noticed now, were actually attractive, though they seemed perpetually set in a half-amused look that he wasn't sure he appreciated. It improved when she wasn't staring at him like he was an idiot.
"Callista, then. I'd be grateful if you didn't share what you've told me with anyone else. I don't want rumors getting out of hand before I find out the truth of things."
She nodded. "I assumed as much. I haven't said anything, and don't intend to."
"Good. Thank you." He hesitated a moment, then offered her his hand across the desk. "I'm sorry…if we've somehow caused you trouble."
One side of her mouth lifted wryly at that. "Oh, I suspect I was probably in trouble anyway," she said, taking his hand and shaking it briefly. "You're just the newest manifestation."
He gave a wan smile, watching as she let herself out and shut the door quietly behind her. Feeling like he'd just suffered the conversational equivalent of a sucker punch, he sat back down, sweeping his unread parchment to one side and squeezing his eyes shut.
Callista leaned her back against the door after she'd closed it, letting out a long breath. Obviously she'd been around fiends (demonic and otherwise) for far too long. She'd entered that room expecting to find malicious intent, or at least indifference elevated so far as to be indistinguishable from it, and instead all she'd found was well-meaning ignorance.
How annoying.
That had been at least partly why she'd been so horrible to the poor man in the beginning – malice she could deal with, provided it was at least marginally intelligent; ignorance couldn't help her at all.
She walked down the corridor a bit, trailing her fingers along the smooth wooden planks of the wall and the raised molding that edged the doorways as much out of thoughtfulness as to help her balance. She didn't believe for a moment that Sir Aren didn't know more than what he'd told her (the man was a terrible liar, clearly he had some idea why outside parties might be interested in this voyage) but she was sure he was innocent so far as her involvement was concerned. No one could fake the look of dumbstruck affront he'd worn when she'd accused the Argent Dawn of blackmail.
She snorted slightly at the memory.
Once she'd gotten over her irritation at finding a fellow pawn instead of a gimlet-eyed schemer, she'd actually begun to feel sorry for him, and the advice she'd given was genuine. Felwood was treacherous enough without worrying about the intent of your own allies. Even the best-planned sorties had a way of falling apart there.
Steadier on her feet now, she took the stairs to the main deck two at a time with a vague intention of finding someone to ask where the galley was. She'd never known a paladin with a head for intrigue, and it looked like poor Sir Aren and his cohort were shaping up to be no different. If they had any sense, they'd realize they were in over their heads and sail this ship straight back to Stormwind, but, being paladins, they probably had some ridiculous notion of duty holding them all to the (probably suicidal) course. It was almost enough to stir a pang of guilt in her for planning to abandon them all at Auberdine…
…but they'd made their choices, and Callista refused to end up sorry for hers.