~* Author's Notes *~
I forgot to mention in the last chapter that in order to fiddle with her hair Sylvanas had to take her gloves off. It seems a trivial thing at the time but has some significance in this chapter.
~*~ Chapterr 69 ~*~
Kayas wept in despair. How many promises would she break before she saw the twilight shores of Ashenvale once more? Would Elune forgive her this time? She had not forgiven the Highbourne. Would her mother forgive her? If only corpses could be solicited for opinions.
Well, some of them could.
It may have been manipulation that led her to the path of the Druid, though even if it took years she knew she would have found it herself. Maybe not as soon, and maybe it would have cost her home and family, but the woman who saw her into this world in blood and tears would not see her leave it the same. Especially not as an outcast of Kaldorei society. Both of them belonged to the wild more than they did to the stone walls and iron bindings of civilization.
The Dark Lady tilts the little Druid's head up, wiping away another tear and attempts to reassure her. "Above the clouds the sky is always blue." She points up and the Druid looks past the birdless trees into the wisps of day-brightening rain clouds. They scatter over the horizon like bits of hope floating on the winds bound for somewhere else. For someone else.
The was not enough to brighten Kayas' outcome. The Druid sat wilted on the earth, like someone who's life essence was slowly bleeding out. What was left for her in this world if she were Forsaken and... and... had used magic. Just the once.
"Above the is the moon. Elune watches you, even here." Was the Dark Lady trying to be helpful? How uncharacteristic. She was like those pod plants that grow along the lakes in the Kaldorei territories. If you peel back one layer the second is a completely different color. Peeling back more reveals that same color. When you think it's all just that second color, bam!, you find more of the first color. The seed inside is an altogether third color, often streaked with the outside color and rarely with the second. Herbalists had been trying to figure out why the pods color this way for centuries and non had. Maybe it was chance...
… maybe it was because they kept changing their mind about what color they want to be.
Like the Dark Lady of the Forsaken.
"What do you know of Elune?" the Druid asked, though she didn't expect an answer. What would sun-loving elves know about the silent meditations of the sentinels or the laboring zeal of the priestesses? They had forsaken Elune thousands of years ago in favor of worshiping the sun.
Just look where it got them.
"I'm hundreds of years old and a ranger. You don't think at some point I traveled and asked questions?" After tugging a stubborn strand into place she added, "Someday I may tell you about how I came to have Mel'ody at my side. It's quite a tale. Intrigue, disguises, terrible fake accents; the works.(1)"
'The works' was a human expression used by those who are not at the top of their game, but getting there. The Druid did indeed wonder where she had gone and what she had done in her life. Layers of those pod plants once again peeled back.
The Druid felt hollow now that her few tears were cried out. "I did not know that," she admitted, wondering if the tabard she wore now made her Horde or not. Though the Dark Lady claimed she would never make the Druid do anything to jeopardize her own alliances, that did not mean she would not know some way to stop her from helping. Cool air flowed around her body and down her tinted arms. Goosebumps rose.
"Can I ask you a favor?"
The Banshee Queen grinned like someone handed her an undead sabermaw kitten, "Address me properly."
"Can I ask you a favor, Your Majesty?"
Good Druid. Beg. "Go on."
"Stop killing the Scarlets. Just the ones in that compound."
The Dark Lady was perplexed but not the last surprised. "Did you make new friends?"
Instant loathing turned the Druid's stomach. "Most certainly not, and what kind of druid would I be if I did not ask, regardless?"
"What good are they to me if I can't harvest a few every once in a while? The Forsaken cannot procreate, you see."
Kayas' nostril's flared and if she had pupils they would have dilated. That's because you're dead, she though. "You're farming them?" It burned through her mind and branded her soul. The living should not be harvested by the dead.
No matter how much she wanted to like this woman, this layer in the pod was just ugly.
"One of it's many uses."
"Who is going to take over Loarderon when Arthas is defeated, the Plague is cured and the Hunger is sated? You want to go back to Quel'thalas so who's to remain here if you kill them off?"
The Dark Lady's logic made no sense. Had she not said she was saving them for some greater purpose or that there was a person out there somewhere who needed to inherit the throne? Had she not also stated she did not want to stay here? The Druid became confused, like someone swaddling her brain in fawn down.
Sylvanas smiled, still picking at her hair. Keep your enemies on their toes.
"How about a trade then."
Now the Dark Lady scoffed, "What could you have that I want more than the ability to replace my lost soldiers?"
The Druid thinks of the moonwell vial still hanging from her collar and wonders if the undead woman had any idea what she were capable of doing with that water. No, the Banshee Queen would want something much, much more significant than that.
She sat back on her heels, digging into one of the pouches sewn into her belt. It was the smallest and only held one single thing. Removing it gently she felt the small heartbeat inside, the promise of new life. She felt the energy reach out and touch her, taste her to see if she were food. It pulled back, determining she was not edible. It went back to sleep.
How relieved the Druid was for that.
"How about the ability to repair your lost homelands?" She leaned forward, offering up the thing which could never be replaced once it was used up.
The Dark Lady's hands came out, curious. Gently the Druid placed it in her palm and drew back. The taller elf bent over her palm and studied it. Curiosity gave way to annoyance which gave way to a loud snort.
"Is this some kind of metaphor? Seeds of hope, or something like that?" Her hand closed over it and reached back to throw. "Perhaps you've been hanging around with that Priest far too much; he is something of a doe-eyed magpie if ever I saw one."
She stopped suddenly, eyes going wide, arm going still. Snatching her hand in front of her face she opens the long fingers. A tiny green root has wiggled its way out of the stem and rests on her palm. As she watches the stem begins to grow out the other side as the root searches for bones to latch into.
The Druid doesn't repress her wicked smile, "Hold onto it for a few minutes and it'll be a full grown dorie tree. A plague-eating dorie tree."
The Dark Lady's eyes dim to white ghost light which Kayas or anyone else had not seen before. "Jetadiah said they were all gone."
"He lost it when you... found me in the Undercity."
Something Thalassian tumbles from the black slicked lips of the Banshee Queen's mouth, bends over the seedling like it were her own child. She doesn't look like a commander then, a Queen or even a threat; just then she looks like a person on the verge of finding The Answer.
"Repairs in exchange for replacements. Do we have a deal?"
Without hesitation, "Done."
As the seed grows in Dark Lady's palm, first to shake off it's shell casing and spread two fat green leaves over her upturned fingers and then to send a vine down her wrist to grasp her arm, she stares in wonder. Was it possible? Was it this easy to find a way to fix the destruction...?
Kayas stares as well. This one was growing much slower than the last several. She wonders if it was damaged somehow, or just a runt seed. That happened sometimes.
This time the Dark Lady weeps. A single tear comes to the corner of one white glowing eye... trembles... jumps and slides down the Dark Lady's cheek. The pointed elfin jaw is set hard to stop her chin from trembling. Everything, all of it, was right here in the palm of her hand. She gasps to realize the seed is feeding off the Scourge corruption of her body, but rather than be upset it seems to deepen her reverence.
"Take it," she says, "before it gets too big." Gently she passes the small green thing back to the Druid. The plant tries to hold on but the small vine is not strong enough to resist being untwined. The leaves wilt immediately. The Dark Lady looks like she would take it back if it meant keeping the plant alive but the Druid reassures her that she can put it back to sleep and save it from dying.
Kayas wonders what would happen if she let the Dark Lady think she could not make the plan dormant again, if she would keep the seedling in her hands until it broke through her skin and into her bones and consumed her. Would she let it grow out of her body and feed it her essence in exchange for every promise it offered up like sweet fruit from it's future branches?
Would the Banshee Queen die to rid Lordaeron of the undead?
Time would tell, but not today. The Dark Lady wipes the single tear from her chin, where it hung like the last drop of rain above thirsting maw. How long had it been since that Queen had cried? How long had it been since someone else found a solution to her problems? How long had it been since she just got to sit in the forest, fuss with her hair and talk about the bright future she envisioned? These things had been denied her since she fell under the shadow of Arthas Menethil. Druids were those animals that were often quite that, because of that silence, made those around them open up, peel back, and offer up the seeds of their own hopes and dreams. Druids knew a lot about dreams, and right now this one was banking on the one she saw in the Dark Lady.
We all just want to go home. I too just want to go home.
The tear hangs from the end of one purple tinted nail. It lands in the undead woman's palm, firm as ice. Some magic of a kind the Druid had not seen before takes place between the palms. "I may be Forsaken now but I was Quel'dorei, before. We are magic incarnate." This by way of explaining the dark powers.
Holding out her hand the Druid sees the tear shaped into an ornament, one end sharp and the other and oblong and drooping. Hesitantly she goes to pick it up but the Dark Lady remembers something. Rooting around in one of her own belt packs she takes out a second little glittering sphere and shapes it between her palms.
"One to commemorate your service to me and the second to the living. Take it."
"What is it?"
"Tears of hope in exchange for a seed of hope Take it." There is force in her voice this time, the kind that did not abide rejection.
Gently the Druid takes the tiny crystalline tears from the Dark Lady and holds them in her palm. They both throb with twin yet different powers. The same difference that exists in the priestesses of Elune and those of the Light. Same, yet opposite.
"What do I do with them?" she asks.
Sylvanas smiles again. This time the Druid gulps, noticing the sharp canine on the left. She eyes it warily before realizing the Dark Lady was slowly leaning forward, a cat ready to pounce her prey. Too late did the smaller elf realize what was about to happen.
"Oh, don't-!"
Too late.
Uncoiling like a spring the tall Dark Lady shoots forward, grabbing each wrist and instantly transferring both to one hand. These she shoves between the stunned elf's breasts and thrusts her backward into the dust of the ground.
Had it for 20 minutes and already dirty. Her scout-in-training friend, Kotinas, always mused this during their daily bout of mending her garments.Then she remembers that's why she usually wears just leather and no tabard. They hold up somewhat to rough treatment.
The force of hitting the ground knocks the air out of her, though she steeled her diaphragm to absorb some of it. The weight of the Banshee Queen settles over her the same time the image of that grinning face coming down on her makes her shriek, squeeze eyes shut and put her chin down to protect her throat.
A second latter her eyes pop back open as pain radiates down her neck from the cartilage in her left ear. There is warmth, dampness, hot air and weight as one of the canines is forced through the thickness of the elongated point.
"Ow. Ohw! OowwH!"
A second latter the Dark Lady sucks off the drop of blood, pulls back and uses a hand to force her head in the other direction. The same administration is done to the second ear.
"Owwie! That hurts!"
Hot breath hits her neck as the Dark Lady chuckles through her nose. Hot breath? Two seconds latter she pulls back, studies her work. Satisfied, she smacks her lips and jumps back to her former position. Before the Druid can move all ten long fingers are once again tangled in the job of untangling white hiar.
As if she never moved at all the Dark Lady just stares at her, waiting for her to get the sense to pick herself up off the ground. Slowly the Druid does, rolling to one side and glaring all the while. If she were anything bigger and more experienced she'd turn into a bear and have a claw riling roll with that lady.
"Put them in. Before the wounds close. Or I'll have to do it again."
"You bit me! Twice!"
"Because you have two ears. A lot of Forsaken are not so lucky."
Uncurling her shaking hands from their treasures, the dorie seedling sits in one, it's root and vine slowly retreating back into the seed casing, and the tears sit in the other. Oh, I'm suppose to... wear them... like...
Gingerly one hand reaches up, touches her ears. They throb. The natural magic her kind can call on to heal is always present in a Druid, always rolling to life without much though (or any, with the stronger Druids), but the Plague stops hers from doing that without activating it. She won't heal unless she tries. The spot is wet, bloody and tender. Swelling. Finding the sharp end of one of the drops she slowly slides it through the puncture.
She nearly drops the other items in her hands as the drop forms itself to the cut, from one side to the other. It liquifies, runs down her lobe and right before it drops, becomes solid again. The magic melds with her soul, forming a line between her source of power and the glassy ornaments. The second does the same, twin wounds crying solid teardrops.
She heals the wounds and turns a head dourly so the Dark Lady can inspect them.
"Lovely." The Banshee Queen admires her work. "These trinkets are called Tears of Hope. I know the Kaldorei do not favor piercing the body and wearing earrings(2) – it too long enough for them to start wearing tatoos – but you'll make an exception, I know." Not like you have a choice now.
"My Tear," the Dark Lady continued, "is a summoning spell. If ever you need emergency assistance you may call me. Since you are not true undead," she waves off the other elf's inquiries along those lines, "I cannot program your heathstone to my hearth. Instead I will be sommoned to your location. Do not think, however, so summon me to Stormwind for an assassination attempt over a bowl of unpass chili."
The way she said "unpass" made it sound to the Druid like a specific type of chili.
"Um... why chili?" She wondered what kind of fel wrought danger she would have to be in to warrant calling the Banshee Queen. On second though, there were quite a few particularly evil beings she would love to sich the former Ranger General on. Least of all a certain priest who found her in Darkshore.
No, she honestly didn't see how the presence of the undead High Elf would ever make a situation better.
The seedling was back into it's seed, grumpy but willing to go back to sleep, and only because she asked nicely. The seed was returned to it's solo compartment on her red leather belt.
"Undercity is famous for it's chili."
"Oh, my-"
"It's perfectly safe. We sell it to goblins who sell it to ogre who sell it to dragons who sell it to an innkeeper supply chain based out of Baradin Bay."
Kayas heard the words but halfway through them her brain short circuited and stopped working.
"Dragons... trade... in chili?"
"Probably not if they knew where it came from." She smiled again, enjoying the amount of rises she was getting out of her newest subject. Good start to the day, if she said so. "It's very good chili. Try some when you get to Brill."
At this the Druid went dry faced, "Brill?"
"Yes. You're going back there to wait for the Priest. He's to take you to Thunderbluff. It is more imperative now that you find a way to reproduce the seeds." The Dark Lady hauled herself off the ground, hair now a mostly tangle free mess.
The Druid was slower to get to her feet. Once upon a time she had sat by a fire and called herself a future hero of the Alliance. The Warlock had laughed at her, telling her that if she wanted to bring that kind of catastrophe on herself then she wouldn't be short of employment. The Priest had added that she wouldn't be a hero anyway if she wasn't who she was meant to be when those who needed her called out.
Yes, it did seem very foolish now to have preach her hopes to him. At the time she had known nothing about the Sin'dorei or what happened with the Lich King and the Sunwell; about the Hunger or the Wretched; about Andorhal or the Silver Hand; about the searchlights and the feral children; about the Scarlet Crusade and their gut wrenching determination to hold out against the undead; about Caspin and a woman who was not made to sit and rock babes; about the High Elf Sylvanas and a jeweled necklace that had brought down the first layers of the pod that surrounded the heart of a broken general, someone who glued herself – and her nation - back together and became a Queen.
So many, many things had happened since that talk on the hillside not even a full moon ago. My Elune, how things have changed. Have I changed? She was Forsaken now, different from her people, harbinger of a disease which would wipe out everything she love. Should she go back and risk it or do as the Queen desires, and try to find a cure for the Plague?
We all just want to go home.
After a few seconds of deep though the Druid made her decision.
"Do I have your leave, Your Majesty?"
A sharp nod from the Dark Lady, once again put back together with all the layers of her pod drawn up tight around her, earns a swift bow from the Druid.
Kayas shifts into her Dishu form and turned herself towards Brill.
I too just want to go home, the Banshee Queen had said.
As do I.
~ End Notes ~
1) Someday I may even write it.
2) At least not in-game. Yet. I assumed that since the item slots in-game are ears then Trinkets are meant to be worn in the ears. People don't really do bracelets in Azeroth, I suppose, since bracers can't really be worn over bangles and charms.
I know how both these Trinkets get used in the future, even if it is 60 more chapters down the road :)
3) We call this "foreshadowing".