I see magic in your eyes
I hear the magic in your sighs
Just when I think I'm gonna get away
I hear those words that you always say
~Abracadabra-Steve Miller Band~
Cordana stared with suspicion at the staff with the carved raven as it leaned innocently enough against the wall. Please retrieve my staff for me, Cordana, Khadgar had asked. She had of course obliged, but the moment she reached for it the thing seemed to come alive and shoot an electrical charge at her.
"You are insane, just like he is," she said to it, wondering if that insanity was now passing onto her from all the time she and the Archmage had spent together. I mean really, here she was talking to a dead piece of wood and expecting it to listen to her.
She tentatively reached for it again, slowly. As she neared, the staff moved away from her hand.
Cordana's eyes widened and she stepped closer to it, her hand suspended to pounce. A sharp fork of lightning manifested itself and attacked her, making her shriek and jump back. The metal of her armor enhanced the electricity as it coursed around her and it did not feel very pleasant.
Eyes now narrowed in anger, the Warden paced in front of it, watching to see if it would move away once more, and deciding how she would grab the thing. Will it attack me if I manage to hang onto it? she wondered. Why on earth had Khadgar asked her to retrieve it if he knew it was...difficult...in this way? Mages and their silly weapons!
Creeping a few feet from it, in stealth, Cordana swung her bladed cloak at the staff suddenly, hoping to knock it onto the ground. The poor Warden didn't know what had hit her as she found herself flying backwards through the air and flipping over the back of the couch to land with a metallic thud on the floor.
"Cordana!" called Khadgar from somewhere behind her. "Are you sparring with Atiesh? Please do that outside, I would not want you to break anything in here!"
She leapt to her feet and spun towards the sound of his voice. The Archmage was laughing as quietly as he could, but the entire image of what he had walked into was far too comical to contain and he roared with laughter.
"Your stupid staff attacked me!" she cried. "And why are you worried about your furniture?! What about me! That thing nearly electrocuted me!"
Khadgar gave her a lopsided grin through half closed eyes. "I imagine how magnificent you must be at present time, in all your anger...but alas with that helmet on I cannot enjoy the vision!"
Cordana growled at him as he continued to laugh, turned back to the staff and ran at it...then found herself frozen in place. Still chuckling, Khadgar walked up to her, removed her helmet, and kissed her. He stood and looked at her a moment, and she stared back at him, able to only move her eyes. They are not very happy eyes, he mused.
He looked at the staff. "Atiesh! Behave!"
He replaced Cordana's helmet, released the spell and she continued her mad dash to the wall. Snatching up the staff she turned it on him and repeated the word she had heard the little girl in Stormwind say moments before Cordana herself turned into a sheep.
Nothing happened.
Khadgar sat down on the arm of the couch and watched her with bemused curiosity.
She tried again, louder and with much more theatrical flourish.
Still nothing.
She shook the staff in consternation.
Khadgar, out of her line of sight, made a gesture with his hands and when she tried to sheep him once more, Atiesh burst forth a shower of red rose petals that floated gently downwards. As she stood there in amazement, Khadgar relocated the staff and her encounter suit across the room.
"Khadgar!" she cried. "You said you would never do that!"
"On the contrary, I said I would not do it that day."
She sighed with exasperation and rolled her eyes. She was standing in a simple linen shirt and breeches, but her armor, the bladed cloak, and her helmet were in a neat little pile far enough away from her, with Khadgar's miserable staff lying on top of it.
The Archmage held out his arms to her, his wonderful eyes soft and shining. "Come here, Cordana Felsong," he said gently. "I am cruel to play such tricks on you. Atiesh cannot be wielded by anyone but by its master's permission...or death. I was simply curious as to how you would deal with it. I am sorry that Atiesh reacted so violently. I did not mean for you to be hurt in any way. It was feeding on your aggression, I should have known better, really. Can you forgive me?"
"That thing has a name?" Cordana stared at him, then over at the staff lying quietly on her encounter suit. "That alone has convinced me that mages are indeed insane. Is everything you own permeated by magic? Even your battle gear must be handled with care."
Khadgar tried to look innocent as he shrugged.
The hardness was gone from Cordana's eyes and she melted into his embrace. No matter what he did, how outrageous or ridiculous the situation, when he looked at her with such affection, and spoke her name with such tenderness, any anger she felt vanished without a trace.
They remained that way for awhile, then Cordana straightened herself, stroked his hair, and held his face in her hands. She kissed his forehead, his nose, than his lips. Her heart was beating so fast, she thought that he would be able to hear it for sure. Khadgar tangled his hands in her soft hair, his kisses changing from curious and teasing to deep and intense. He held her tightly against him, so much so that Cordana had to pull away from him to breathe. Whoever thought that mages were weak, fragile creatures, had never been held by Archmage Khadgar.
He closed his eyes and sighed. "Cordana, will you stay with me tonight?"
"I stay with you every night, Archmage," she said cleverly.
"Yes, 20 feet away behind a wooden door. I am tired of falling asleep alone, knowing the one I love is so near. What are you so afraid of, Cordana?"
She walked around him and sat down on the couch, curling her legs underneath her. "Let's see...rogues, highwaymen, the Iron Horde, the Shadow Council, Gul'Dan...shall I go on?"
He flopped backwards, legs hanging over the armrest, his head in her lap.
"You very well know that nothing can infiltrate my sleeping quarters nor this Tower. I did explain pocket dimensions and attunement to you when I first constructed this."
Cordana played with his hair, and traced his lips with a finger. "Truthfully, I'm not afraid of anything, Khadgar, but I have a duty to perform, you know this. It does not matter where we are, I am assigned to keep you safe."
He curled strands of her hair around his fingers. "Must you always do that from so far away? I am sure you could keep me perfectly safe while lying in my arms as well, could you not?"
She gave him a dark look. "I am sure you do not wish to hold me wearing my encounter suit and grasping the umbral crescent."
He frowned at her, then swung his legs down and sat up, arms resting on his thighs and hands folded.
"I suppose if I said I were tired right now, in the middle of the day, with so many people about outside, and wished you to come and rest with me...you would say the same?"
She said nothing. Her mind was frozen. Her discomfort with the subject made it hard for her to discuss it.
"And if I were to release you from my service, and you were in no way obligated to see to my safety, would you than agree to spend the night with me?"
Her silence was louder than any battle cry could ever be.
He stood up. "Cordana," he said without turning to face her. "I wish to show you, physically, how much I love you, to be a part of you in every way, but it is obvious to me that you do not wish the same. It forces me to question where this is heading, if anywhere at all."
The Warden sat stock still, her mind now racing, a thousand words running through it. But she was paralyzed, unable to speak, unable to tell him that she truly was afraid of taking things further. She didn't want him to realize that she had no experience, and no idea what to do or say, just stories and instructions that could never amount to the real thing. She was terrified that he would take his love away from her once he knew how inept she truly was on a personal level. He might have seen her as a dynamic, powerful Warden...but in any other role she felt she had nothing to offer.
He waited, hoping she would say something, anything. "I may be a figure of legend to some people," he said softly. "But I am still just a man, with a man's desires and feelings, Cordana. Your rejection has confused and hurt me."
He walked towards the door and opened it, then stopped. "I am going to see the Commander. Do what you must." Materializing his staff into his hand, Khadgar left the Tower.
Duty was something Cordana understood, and quickly donned her encounter suit, glad to hide herself within its depths, where her shame and hurt could not be seen by enquiring eyes and she could shut off her mind.