Hello everybody! First of all, I'm sorry for the long wait, I had a mayor case of writer's block and college isn't really helping me move on with the story.
Anyways, I know this is short and it mostly is just a filler chapter, but I hope you like it! Don't forget to read the end notes for clarification about lore changes and time-lines!
Chapter's warnings: Gederswap (duh), some minor lore changes (see end notes for more info), kids being mean to each other (just for fun, they're kids), child nudity (I'm putting this here just in case, there's not really anything, but better safe than sorry) and a pointless chapter is pointless.
Disclaimer: If Warcraft were mine, Arthas would be my number one favorite character, as I wouldn't had let him revive Sylvanas. But as you know, she is very much (un)alive, so that means I do not own it.
Chapter IV:
The snow fell slowly to the ground and a smile curled Bolvar's lips. It was cold, sure, but it was a beautiful sight.
He had come to like a lot the frozen purity of snow, getting to see it was one of the perks of living in Lordaeron –as it didn't snow in Stormwind.
The loud sound of a sneeze had him turning around to glance towards someone who didn't enjoy the snow that much.
Varian cleaned her nose with the sleeve of her trench coat, which earned her a smack on the head for acting so un-lady-like courtesy of Calia, and walked as fast a she could to reach him.
The snow almost reached her knees, which made it hard for her to move –she has fallen face first twice already-, the still falling snow had made it impossible for her to train outside –doing it inside wasn't the same, it had more limitations- and she had probably catch a cold, so it was understandable that she was in a little bad mood.
"How're you feeling, your majesty?" he asked nicely, but he was sure that some of the amusement he felt could still be heard on his voice.
"Fine" the nasal tone she had made it much easier to notice the bad mood she was in, and before she could clean her nose with her coat again, Calia cleared her throat, and reluctantly she used her handkerchief –which made the older girl smirk in satisfaction.
"I told you to call me Varian" Bolvar smiled at his Queen's annoyed comment, and nodded, but he was sure that he will call her by her title again before long. It was still a bit hard for him to get used to being so informal around his superiors.
"Why did why agreed to come?" the dark-brunette started numbering every reason why this has been an stupid idea, while he listened attentively…well, half listened, half mentally sighed about having to hear the same every time they went out.
"What's so great about snow anyway? It's cold, it's colorless, it's…" and of course, there was that.
Varian's complains had been interrupted by a snowball right on the face, and the laugh of a certain blond boy was heard. The snow slowly fell from the girl's face, and her expression quickly changed from shocked to angry, and Arthas was still laughing when she jumped on him, throwing him on the ground as they started rolling around on the snow, fighting.
Bolvar chuckled, amused, and Calia sighed, disappointed. They didn't even bother to try and stop those two; they would stop when they got tired and wouldn't really hurt each other.
"How do you like Lordaeron so far, Lord Fordragon?" the princess asked, a big smile curling her lips when she looked at the brunet.
"It's quite alright, princess" he smiled back, hiding his hands on the sleeves of his coat "I didn't know snow would be such a sight to withhold"
"Is it the first time you see snow?" Calia blinked, confused, snow has been there for most of her life, and even though she knows that Stormwind is a long distance away from Lordaeron, she had thought it snowed there too.
"Yes, it is" he looked up, it wasn't snowing as hard as it had some hours ago -barely two or three snowflakes now and then- but he liked to see them fall anyway "Unfortunately; it does not snow in my kingdom"
Well, unfortunately for him, a certain warrior apprentice he knew may not agree with that.
"What?!" an astonished yell interrupted them, and Arthas looked up at them from his position on top of Varian, his baby-blue eyes opened as wide as they could go "You have never seen snow before?" he asked the girl underneath him, this surely has to be a misunderstanding, how come his friend hadn't seen snow?
"Of course I have!" Varian frowned, seriously, what was so great about snow? It was just frozen water "I've been to Dun Morogh"
"Really?" curiosity quickly replaced indignation in the blond prince's voice, and the young Queen took advantage of his moment of distraction to roll them over, and she grabbed his arm and pushed it further up his back till he started yelling 'I yield, I yield'.
Varian let go of Arthas and sat on the snow while he sat across from her, frowning and rubbing his abused arm, and when she showed him her tongue in a mocking gesture, he threw some snow at her.
They were about to start their fighting again when the loud sneeze of the dark-brunette interrupted them.
"We should head back inside" Bolvar said, a worried frown marring his face, and the other three nodded in agreement.
/-/-/-/-/-/
"The weather's expected to improve in a few hours" Bolvar said and Varian grunted in anger.
They had got back to the castle right on time, as a snowstorm has started not that long after.
The young Queen looked from her place in the tub towards the window, glaring at the sight of the blizzard outside and cursed her damn luck. A day has gone since the storm started and it didn't look like it was going to stop any more than it had an hour ago.
With his back to her, Bolvar was wishing for its end too. Because it was too cold for his liking, and he couldn't get outside; but mainly because he couldn't stand hearing Varian complain about it any longer.
Cold weather and the young Wrynn didn't get along, and she had gotten sick the other day, so she was in an even worst mood than she would have normally.
The brunet didn't want to say anything negative about his Queen, but she was getting on his last nerve…
Maybe not being able to go outside was getting him on a bad mood too.
Varian sank deeper into the warm waters of her bath, its edge almost reaching her nose, and cursed winter for the tenth time that hour.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, the vapor from the bath alleviating her congestion a little, and she got under water soon after.
"Have you heard any news?" the dark-brunette asked after some time, grabbing the soap and starting to wash herself.
Her guard risked a quick look at her, guessing by her expression what kind of 'news' she was hoping for.
"Last I heard, Sir Lothar was heading for a meeting with King Perenolde of Alterac" that has been no less than five days ago and both kids were dreading that something has happen to the knight.
Bolvar looked down and tried to repress those negative feelings. Sir Lothar was more than capable of defending himself, and for now, the mayor threats between Gilneas –where Anduin has gone to first after leaving Lordaeron- and Alterac was the wildness and the occasional thief or troll scout, nothing the older man shouldn't be able to handle. He surely just didn't have enough time to send a letter.
"I worry too" his Queen's voice interrupted his trail of thoughts, and he turned around to look at her, seeing the sad and empathetic look in her eyes. But he soon turned back around, a blush prominent on his face.
He had not expected her to be half way out of the tub.
Varian scuffed annoyed at her guard's reaction to seeing her naked. She understood why he found it improper to see her in such state, but found it stupid nonetheless. As everyone, she has been thought that boys and girls shouldn't see each other without clothing unless married, but whenever she asked why, all she got was 'it's just not right' as an answer, which was not nearly good enough to be so scandalized about it.
She chose not to point that out to Bolvar thou, he got too twitchy when he was uncomfortable, and even if it was fun sometimes to watch, she didn't feel like doing it.
She got out of the tub, confident that she was clean enough –although she was sure Calia would disagree, but nothing short of 'sparkling clean' was good enough for the princess, so she didn't really care-, and covered herself with the rob that had been left hanging nearby by the maid that had prepared the bath.
"Any other news?" she has been sick and bedridden for the last two days, so rumors didn't really reach her. And although Arthas has spent a lot of time by her side, all he really wanted to talk about were past fights in the history books and about this horse he just couldn't wait to go visit once the storm was over –the first subject was interesting, the other was just plain creepy-, plus he wasn't the gossipy type, so she wasn't up to date with what has happened outside of her room.
"The Ironforge's Ambassador should be arriving between the next weeks. That is, if the storm doesn't delays them" which, if what was happening outside the window was any indication, would happen.
Varian frowned and tried to remember the dwarf ambassador's name. She knew it was one of King Magni's brothers that have been appointed as the representative of the Khaz Modan dwarves, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember his name.
Was it Mandarin? Moldarin? Muradin?...she was pretty sure it was Muradin, she should ask someone for confirmation thou.
Anyways, those were good news. She has been eight years old last time she had seen Magni, and she held fond memories of that month in Dun Morogh –she didn't hate snow as much back then-, and even thou this was his brother, not Magni himself, it was still good to see something that wasn't totally foreign to her. And if rumors had it right, her trainer, Hjalmar Anvilmar, would be accompanying the Ambassador.
"Anything else?" the joy in her voice was easy to notice after so many days of just brooding around, and her guard was finally not so reluctant to look at her directly.
"There's a rumor going around that the daughter of Lord Admiral Proudmoore is interested in studying the arcane arts" Bolvar mentioned while helping his Queen dry off her hair. It was really all he could think off as relevant information, besides the usual castle drama, any other important news were regarding the Stormwind survivors, and he knew that the other knew about that –and that she was just as impotent as him for not being able to do much about their situation.
"I thought he had a son" the young Wrynn has never met Daelin Proudmoore before, but she had –sort of- met his son; but she has been five years old at that time, so all she had was a vague image of a young boy, not that much older than Bolvar was now, talking to his father, and that was all she had to relate to the Proudmoore name.
"He has two sons and a daughter" the brunet clarified, turning around to let the girl change in peace.
Varian tried to imagine what the girl would look like. If rumors had it right and she was indeed interested in studying the arcane arts, then she would have to visit Lordaeron on her way to the kingdom of Dalaran, and even if she wasn't, or chose to be thought back in Kul Tiras, as the princess of one of the seven human kingdoms, they will meet eventually. But then again, all she had to go by was a vague memory of her brother, so it was useless.
All that she came up with was that she was probably blonde, as all kids up north seem to be blond somehow.
The girl frowned, taking a lock of her hair to exanimate it. Its dark brown color sure didn't make her feel any less alienated to the people here; no matter how many times Queen Lianne said she had beautiful hair, it just felt too different.
"Your majesty?" a knock on the door and the timid voice of a maid caught her attention.
"Come in" she called, fastening her belt.
The maid opened the door and did a quick check around the room, her eyes falling on its male occupant.
Bolvar started fidgeting under her disapproving glance, feeling extremely guilty even if he had done, and seen, nothing. The fact that the other was still not fully dressed wasn't really helping his case. Why had he agreed to accompany the girl during such a private moment?
"Do you need something?" the annoyed voice of the dark-brunette startled the maid, who has been too busy berating the boy with her glare that she had forgotten there was someone else there, and she stuttered an apology and bowed respectfully.
"Diner would be served soon, your majesty" she said, head down as she was still embarrassed that her superior had to call her attention, and as soon as Varian said that she'll be right there, she bowed once more and left quickly, closing the door behind her.
Bolvar sighed relieve that the maid was gone. He knew he shouldn't have been with Varian while she bathed. Now he would have to do some damage control to stop the rumors that were surely going to spread like wild fire thanks to this little accident.
In moments like this, he was really grateful that the head of King Terenas' private guards had agreed to teach him how to keep these situations under control.
After three months living here, he should be an expert at this; or at least, he should know better than to let his Queen put him in this kind of situations.
Speaking of which, said Queen was now doing a poor attempt at holding her laughter.
Varian knows that her guard didn't liked it when people got the wrong idea about him, and she honestly hadn't meant for a maid to misinterpret what was going on when she has asked for his company; but she just couldn't avoid to laugh at the miserable and resigned expression the boy had on his face while thinking about all the things he will now have to do.
"It's not funny" Bolvar frowned, more than a little angry at the girl, but it only served to make her laugh harder "Stop laughing!" that may had been a little too commanding from him, but he had the right to be, an anyways the other didn't listen and kept on laughing.
He contemplated the idea of pushing her into the now cold waters of the tub, and he did after a while, but for now, it sure was nice to hear Varian laugh.
To be continued…
Yeah, I know, this is like...nothing, but once again, it just a filler, it doesn't has to have a point. Hopefully next one will have a little more stuff going on, as I'm going to make a little time skip and little Jaina is going to appear!
So, lore changes, yeah.
Lore Changes: It is cannon that Jaina has an older brother, named Derek, who fought (and died) on the second war, but it is also mentioned in the RPG guide that she has another brother (a younger one I believe), and although the RPG is not taken as cannon, I decided to use that little fact 'cuz...well, I like it.
In the novel, "Rise of the Lich King", you know that Muradin was in Lordaeron when the refugees from Stormwind got there, but in the human campaign in Warcraft III, when you met with Muradin in Northern, it seems like Arthas and him had just met. So we're doing a "mix" here and saying that Muradin came after the refugees.
As I said before, I'm using the old time-lines, those which you played with at the games, so there's going to be a six year difference between First and Second War. 'Cuz, honestly, the new time-line makes it so that like, a month passed between them, and that just make no sense. I mean, try going from Buenos Aires to Washington on foot and that should be more or less the same distance the orchis horde should had made to reach Lordaeron. Plus you're talking about an army here, not just one person. An army that needs food, provisions and rest and could't relay solely on things that came through the Dark Portal. Not to mention that they had to fight against the dwarves of Khaz Modan on their way there. So, in my opinion, six year makes more sense, and I'm going with that.
There will be some other lore changes related to that, but those will be explained further on.
For now, thank you for reading and have a nice day! Don't forget to drop a review and tell me what you think, it really helps me to know other people's input!
C'ya!