Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: If you want to read Fennore's love story with Mavia and don't mind hopping around and being spoiled on the series…

Check out the first My Life for my Prince. Chapter 9: Black Temple 999/1000 Exalted; Chapter 17: Saturna has waaay too much Shurukaal; Chapter 28: Legacy of the Whiteblade, Part III. (The actual chapter numbers on the page are off, because I had a Prologue.)

And also MLFMP2: Son of Kael'thas. Chapter 4: A deal with the devil and a succubus; Chapter 11: Friends don't let friends sleep with demons; Chapter 12: Coven of Two; and Chapter 15: A warlock betrays the Nexus; Chapter 17: An immortal and a mistress of oblivion.

Then I think I made a MLFMP forum where Mavia got interviewed because she was suuuch a cool character.

There are a lot of fun love stories in this series, but Fennore the Blood Knight and Mavia the succubus are kinda my favorite. I can't lie.


Chapter 26: Fennore Put a Ring On It

Fennore the Immortal.

How cruel, that I remembered at last. After I nearly escaped the Sunthraze Estate, that hell hole. After I made the decision to go back, let them break my legs if it meant there was a chance I could save Greatfather Winter, save Teldrassil, save myself. Oh, and put that jackass Kael'thas in prison like he deserves. Him and all his nasty Blood Knight cronies. The most guilty-looking of whom was undoubtedly a healer. Because why else would you earn a name about living forever, wielding the power of some demi-god? Fennore was the one in their sect tasked with deciding who lived and who died. Now that the fog of whatever they drugged me with was clearing from my brain, I was able to put it all together. He had to be their best healer. I believe Lady Daphne Weaver said something about having a good memory, an ability to perfectly recall spells. Likely, she was a healer, too. But Fennore was the one, one of the originals, responsible for keeping his companions as well as Kael'thas alive at the Black Temple. And who-all knows how that happened when Saturna herself decided to go after their prince and take his head. I didn't know the full details of that, but Fennore must have intervened somehow, right?

And Fennore was the one who met me only once. The one with a wife named Mavia who they were keeping mysterious. Also, one of these Blood Knights was supposed to be part warlock, right? I wondered if this was the one. After they did an admirable job hefting up a Tauren with broken hocks, getting him into a carriage drawn by Hawkstriders, I had a chance to look at Fennore through the carriage window. At last, they'd let their guard down, the Nexites. They were standing around on the gravely walkway in front of the house. Drinking, having a final smoke before the dreaded holiday party with Warchief Sylvanas herself. Fennore idled nearby, looking down and finishing a cigarette. The others made no effort to include him. He had this… particular darkness in him. I hate to say it but Mey would confirm—I'd asked her enough about perps to know not to second-guess an instinct when people feel… wrong. I'd felt the same way when meeting Kael'thas' chief advisor, the man named Faltheriel. Al had asked me to look into Faltheriel, for sure. Al had said all the spooky, intimidating energy had been a front, meant to put me off. Somehow, the Nexite Fennore the Immortal had the same flavor of energy. The same darkness. And I'd sniffed it on Kael'thas, too.

Hey, I told you before that Tauren have good noses, better than most mortals. You may not believe me when I say that I can smell magic, to an extent. I'm not as good as a mage, obviously, and certainly not some warlock's felhunter pet. But I could tell that Kael'thas, then Faltheriel, and now Fennore? They all smelled the same, like they were using the same magic. And Kael'thas was part warlock, being a Bloodmage. Fennore, too. I didn't have enough intel on Faltheriel. I'd have to bug Al about that, get him to talk about that one, but I had a feeling. A real feeling that Faltheriel meddled with demons, too.

Where there's a warlock, there's a coven. Did Kael'thas have one? I assumed this was it. All of them were using fel magic, demon magic. Maybe they hadn't stopped using since Outland, who knows. That would be the biggest connection I could think of. Where Kael'thas fell into it hard and where he might start to spread it, back when he thought it was 'cool', let's say, helpful to his people's cause. So was it still so damned helpful?

Paladins who break people's legs. I decided the Legion was still involved somehow, though I couldn't prove it. All these fuckers had a damned taste for blood, a lust for power. I tried not to hate all Blood Elves all over again.

Fennore knew he was being stared at. A man can handle that a couple ways. Fennore looked down, ground out his cigarette with his foot, and stared right back at me. We didn't say anything. And as rude as I was being, (imagine being rude compared to someone's friends taking a hammer to your hocks!) Fennore would have been entitled to a dirty look or two.

I thought it'd drag on forever. It was getting bad, the kind of thing that makes a man pull another man through the window of his carriage and beat him in the street. I intended to wedge my hoof, injured or not, into the carriage door if that was the case and make Fennore bring the whole carriage down ontop of him too if it came to that. I'd like to see Fennore the so-called Immortal heal himself through getting a whole carriage smashed on him. But, in the end, it was too good a situation. I used it.

"Strange, for a married man to fly solo at an event like this."

Fennore looked even more annoyed at me. I gripped the edge of the door, bracing myself. Fennore swaggered up to me, eyes wild.

Tempest shouted something. He was bubbly for someone who had just beat the shit out of me. She had the musical tone of voice that women could get, when they were flying on something before a party and in their best dress. She forgot her purse or something. We all had assigned carriage seats. I was to be surrounded by the Blood Knights who broke my legs and the big meathead tank, Pyorin. Funny, that they explained I couldn't be left at home without a dedicated healer—I guessed it was really they didn't want to take chances with me alone in the house, even if I was hobbled, and they were all expected to show up at the palace. So, then everyone babysits the Tauren at the party. I could just kick myself (if I was even able) for not learning how to heal with the Light well enough before leaving Mulgore. I could smack things up alright using Light magic, but healing wasn't my wheelhouse at all, and the Blood Knights had researched that far as well of course. They knew it.

Fennore and Daphne were the healers. Neither of them were mean to be tempted into helping me out.

"He's just a big, fat Dwarf. You've missed him thus far in your investigation, it's nobody's problem but your own, Turaho."

Ah, but you see. I know the look. I can look at Fitz and tell if he's hiding something about a Dwarf-sized box with holes cut in it, ordered through the Venture Co. I did that back in Mulgore. Now, I was looking at the whites of this one's eyes. A man who would have lied to Illidan Stormrage himself at some point in his career, perhaps several times. And that's with Kael'thas' soul link with Illidan going strong.

Fennore was not as good a liar as he thought he was.

And then that sent all kinds of juicy scenarios through my mind, Illidan letting himself appear to be deceived by Kael'thas' confessor and best healer back in Outland, all while scheming against at them, too. Every time Illidan saw that tell that I saw, Illidan would go back to the Black Temple, brood, and make more mincemeat out of Kael'thas minions, the ones he could get his claws on at least. Muusha above, now that's drama!

A part of me didn't want to feel too victorious. If Fennore was that easy to outwit, then the lot of them would still be stuck in Outland right now. I drummed my meaty fingers on the door ledge as Fennore re-thought his strategy, decided not to give me anything else against me.

Really, I'd just put Fennore on notice that I suspected him. I was mad, but I wanted to shake him up with the information too. I wanted to see him squirm more than anything, whether I could read Fennore or not. I accept that about myself.

From here on, I figured I could expect to get stashed in some side room or at some corner of a dinner table at the palace. If Alessandre was any good, then he would have seen all this dramatic hauling of a Tauren, in a black suit no less, into a carriage and fuss about who was taking which carriage. Al should probably make himself known to Meydiri I bet, convince her to get her arse over to the palace too and ensure that the Nexites didn't go too far with me. She'd hate it, but it would be our only chance to make sure I didn't just disappear while they all had a great alibi, 'We were at the party with Sylvanas, everyone saw us. I don't know how it is he fell off the balcony and broke his neck.' You know, that sort of thing.

It might cause an incident with the Horde to knock me off, but they were already a few steps ahead of me as far as strategy, so I didn't want to make big assumptions with my life.

Right before we were supposed to leave, and tipsy Tempest still lost inside the mansion looking for her purse, supposedly—I decided that she was actually after a stash of Bloodthistle or something else well-hidden that she couldn't maneuver out of the house so adeptly while drunk—a holiday miracle happened!

No, Greatfather Winter didn't magic himself before us and burn all the Blood Elves with blinding light, though that would have been greatly appreciated and fair of him.

A mother-in-law entered the battle. Kael'thas' evil stepmother, and she really was, Queen Celestia Sunstrider marched out of the house, furious that they hadn't got going yet (which was funny because she herself was late), and as a true lady of the house, she poked her head into my carriage, saw that the Tauren guest of honor was already packed with three other Bloodknights inside, or soon would be once Tempest rejoined her husband and Pyorin in our carriage—and Celestia loudly demanded we re-do all of the seating arrangements.

"I still have my title, don't I? Why am I not riding with the royal guest, this is ridiculous. Leave it to a woman with no good breeding whatsoever to botch up these things. Sunthraze, please. Get out."

Sunthraze huffed, they did this every day it seemed like, "Celestia, this is for security reasons."

"What security reasons! He's got two broken legs or other." Celestia eyed me, "And I really am regretful that happened on our property as well, these seating arrangements must be vexing you as well, I'm sure. You should be riding with royalty, Master Runestalker."

Oh, you betchya I played it up! "Most inconvenient!"

Sunthraze, "Look, obviously you shouldn't listen to him. Celestia, it's classified but Saturna did say—"

"Saturna said!" Celestia's voice flew up an octave. She got a hold of Pyorin then and actually dragged him up to his feet. The carriage rocked. "Oh that's all I needed to hear. She is not the queen of the Sunthraze Estate, I am! I'm the closest thing when your wife has no idea what she's doing—get out! All of you, get out! And they'll see him hobbling up to the palace escorted by guards like he's a prisoner. They'll say he was abused and that we abused him and that's just all Silvermoon needs. We need a healer! Where is he? Fennore!"

Sunthraze covered his face. He shook his head at Pyorin silently.

"She's going to fuck up this entire mission—"

Sunthraze hissed at Pyorin to be quiet, then shot me a look. "Stay there!"

"Where am I going to go?" I wanted to kick him, and I would have if he hadn't been the one to break my damn hocks in the first place. Him and his screwy wife.

Sunthraze then made a fatal error. He physically removed himself from the carriage. It was to go and sort Celestia out, who was wandering from carriage to carriage, re-ordering all of the Blood Knights. But once he was out, he wasn't getting back in again. Celestia started to manhandle him, shoving him elsewhere, and then Pyorin was a fool and did a herd mentality thing, just following after his put upon leader like a lost duckling. But what were they both going to do with a woman like Celestia? She had the same armor and weapons that Daphne did at that tea party. Celestia was a lady and still held the title of queen, although Anasterian was long dead. They'd have to get really rachet with her or physically prevent her in order to stop all this, and Celestia was above hurt feelings. Nothing they gentiely put to her could slow her down. In the end, Blaize emerged, he was laughing with Tempest and Celestia wanted her husband to hurry up because the carriages were leaving.

Blaize obeyed. He cussed at Fennore to stop making trouble and 'just get in for the short ride over', so that was Fennore shoved into my carriage. Blaize then got in on that side, pinning Fennore inside. Both were facing me. Celestia stepped in last, sitting on my right.

"Ah! Now that's better." She tapped the side of the carriage, "LET'S GO!"

Tempest had been the one to delay, turning in circles bewildered at how Celestia had unraveled all the Nexus' careful plans about getting me, their prisoner, to the palace. Now the carriages had started to roll away, as she stood there holding her purse.

I heard Sunthraze almost scream at her, "Will you come on! You'll get left!"

Tempest was jogging by our carriage, eyes furious with me when she caught how I was seated right across from the one man they wanted to prevent me having a private audience with. I waved prettily to her as we rolled by.

At the last minute, Tempest let a servant help her into the carriage with her husband, and then, as they say? We were rolling.

Celestia and Blaize did the polite thing, ask me how I hurt my legs, if I was okay. And I explained the difference between hocks and ankles and my entire leg, which was slightly amusing. Even more amusing, the Sunthrazes didn't impart all of their top secret information to everyone. And I was about to use it to my full advantage.

"It's a shame your wife couldn't make it to the ball, Lord Hollowmare."

Yes, I knew his real last name. Fennore was tight-lipped.

"Well, I do like her but it's hardly appropriate."

"Oh Celestia. What year is this, love? And Sylvanas herself is a banshee. She's bound to bring her pet Nathanos, so what's another ghoul or a dreadlord in her company? After Mal'gannis served her for so long, too. Sylvie's not going to be thrown out of it by a mere succubus. I think she'd be delighted by Mavia, anyway. Mavia is fun at the end of it, I like her."

"Mavia?"

The carriage rolled on for a while.

I said that again, "Mavia, your wife, is a succubus?"

Now it made sense, Fennore's outburst that his wife was not treated fairly, like someone who did not share the same level of intelligence as the others. Had Mavia once been Fennore's warlock pet? Now I was sure of what I'd sniffed on him, that he was a warlock. And Faltheriel had to be as well. I already knew that Kael'thas was. So then, within the Nexus there was another group, a smaller clique. A more dangerous one. I assumed that Saturna knew by now if she was any good at her job. Since Outland, she'd a decade to get there and know as much about one of her own, one of her best.

Fennore looked at me again. This look was bereft, heartsick. A part of him was asking me not to go there. To just leave her alone. So many before me had not.

But, I wasn't a fellow warlock bemused by his choice of wife. I wasn't a Blood Knight offended that he was consorting, intimately, with a demon. I was not a Nexite, tolerating this weird amalgam of Blood Knight and Warlock as best I could, because it suited our darker efforts for king and country, among the Horde. And I wasn't his… coven master? Kael'thas would fit that role.

I was Turaho friggin Runestalker. "… Wish I'd seen that kind of wedding."

Fennore was hurt and furious, almost instantly. Call Mavia stupid, call her base and foul and all the worse things. Clearly the demon woman was not. She was exceptional and had won him over and all his fellow Nexites, even Saturna, even Kael'thas himself. Her very existence with them was the proof. But yet, and oh yet! That was Fennore's sore spot. Time to poke the hell out of it.

"Oh! I have to tell him, Fennore. May I?" Celestia did seem like she was going to burst if she wasn't the one to impress Kael'thas' Tauren with this gossipy tidbit. I got a good look at her by then. We had come out of the shadow of the Ghostlands, into the gold-touched countryside. Evening time again, and that odd, yet alluring olive-colored dusk embraced everything. Celestia was a naturally beautiful woman. And like a certain other person I know—and I don't actually know how Sunthraze and Blaize managed in that house—she seemed to think her badge of honor was mainly her cleavage, so if the scarlet dress with sequins or diamonds or whatever was sparkling on the bodice weren't enough, Celestia, a very round woman, was bouncing quite a bit in the carriage. None of us men complained. I immediately got why Celestia had charmed so many men in her time, and why General Blaize himself took every order of hers without complaint. Not just because of her wonderful breasts. I mean that she knew how to use her wit and her beauty. Celestia was schooled in wielding herself like a weapon, clearly, as she had done before, undoing all the carriage seats. She had built up a careful reptation, over years, that there was no stopping her if there was something she wanted.

So Celestia had got Anasterian, she got to keep her title afterward eventhough her son Kael'thas loathed her and she'd betrayed their kingdom from what I've heard. Blaize and Celestia had tried to take power in Quel'thalas some years back, and had been banished… but now they were back, placed high in society. Able to go to big palace parties and such. And those two looked perfectly comfortable playing the part of Kael'thas' closest relatives. I really got it, then. Blaize had hated serving under Kael'thas in Outland, he'd lost his ex-wife Saturna to Kael'thas after all. But Blaize had walked away with a royal wife instead, not a bad bumper prize. He could style himself as a wife to the queen, or even a pseudo king if he wanted, able to be in the room whenever it was important enough for Celestia to be as well, and advise Kael'thas on matters. All that, and none of the responsibility. And he seemed genuinely attracted to Kael'thas' stepmother, he possibly even loved her. So, Blaize had got himself very well settled in the end, hadn't he?

Celestia squeezed Blaize's hand back when he played with hers. Yes, that looked like love to me. He wanted the attention she was giving the other men in our small space together, though it couldn't have mattered.

"Mavia the Maneater? Oh, she only bit his finger off. How's that for a wedding band. But it wasn't like that, some violent fight. After telling Lord Hallowmere that she loved him of course. This was after they first met at the Black Temple. This was years later at Tempest Keep. It was an ingenious courtship on his part. Fennore saved Mavia."

"From what?"

"Oh, I dunno… her old masters, Illidan, the Legion."

Things fell silent.

"Well, those were ugly times. But you name it, Fennore probably took care of it for her. They're a darling couple, they're so in love. Go on, Fennore. Take off your glove and show him." And after Fennore wouldn't, "We'll have Kael'thas' Tauren calling the queen a liar if not, go on!" She smiled prettily but Celestia wasn't fooling around. For her, reputations were at stake. She had decided that they needed to placate and impress me at all costs, since I had become injured in their own home. "And can't you heal him, Fennore?"

Fennore had already conceded to removing his glove. I saw the dark ring-link scar around his finger. It went all the way around. Years had gone by, but I'd seen plenty of animal bites. Seemed plausible to me that a demoness had done it.

"Heal that back on yourself."

"Of course I did."

"But yet—you can't heal a Tauren's broken hocks. Moving carriage too much a challenge for you?"

Celestia nudged Blaize, "Fennore should heal him, why not? I thought maybe it was tainted with Ghostlands magic or something. I assumed, forgive me good sir, that the magi over at the palace were going to see to it, if it was something like that. It can get very complex with the leylines running all over the place and acting up the way they've been lately."

"Oh?"

Blaize looked to his wife, "Just leave it, Celestia."

"Well, yes. There's been some odd activity out in those woods, and things just keep getting stranger. We get the full security reports, the Sunthraze Estate is considered a royal house. But the rest just make do, I guess… traveling in groups, taking a shotgun or some real magic with them if they have to be out overlong. I just tell my servants to stick close to the estate and have things delivered in. But I'm sure it will be settled soon, definitely."

"The cause?" I asked, as if it might rain.

"Celestia, now. You've said enough."

"Well, it's the Night Elves. And there are ships down in the South, where there shouldn't be, along the coast. No, it's alright Blaize. They're recalling their people, I'm sure. We've had to put up with those Kaldorei spies for long enough."

Blaize grunted, "Either that, or more are arriving. Why do you always assume that you know all about these things?"

Celestia wrapped her shawl about her. "Well, Blaze is the general—retired, now. He had a good sense of it. I suppose he would."

Generous of her to give the once Sunfury general that much credit. But Celestia was adorable in her own way. She was charming the pants off of every man in that carriage, with the dress she'd selected. Considering the stakes, even if Blaize didn't know the full extent of the Nexite plans, he did know his wife, he should have had better control over Celestia's running mouth. Blaize raised her hand and kissed it.

"Blaize told me just last night that there were cultists, didn't you, Blaize? Something about… coming in, drips at a time. Real armies march and organize. Cultists sneak each other in like there's a party and a bodyguard watching the front door. No, that's not what you said. What was it? Oh! Or, like roaches. They skitter in. Once you've noticed the biggest one has arrived, it's too late, there's an infestation. Oh, what an analogy, that wasn't very pleasant. But that's the best way to describe it I believe. Right Blaize? I'm sorry, I forgot you said that. But I was half asleep with you bothering me."

Now Blaize, who was closest to Celestia's age, but still the younger one in the relationship, Blaize pulled his best secret weapon with her. He gave his wife a real kiss and then whispered for her to stop talking.

At last, Celestia did.

Feel empowered. You can be a boy-toy at any age!

I focused back on Fennore. "Where did you and Mavia meet? She didn't come out of a random summoning circle, did she?"

Fennore didn't answer me. Celestia didn't help things along this time. They were starting to sense his defensiveness now that Celestia had calmed. I was an investigator, after all. But I knew that it hadn't been the case. So, then. How does a man meet a succubus. A man who might not have been a warlock at the time… One her perhaps became one because he met a succubus? I liked that scenario better, though I was assuming a lot.

Illidan had demons working for him. That was a better guess. And Illidan had once been connected with the Burning Legion, even if he regretted that connection, Illidan had been in it up to his eyeballs.

Illidan had been the one outlier in this thing, farther flung than Fennore. Now, Illidan was starting to frame up in the picture. That Illidan had been keeping an eye on the situation at all should have been my final proof. Most certainly, this was a Legion thing.

And Saturna was intelligent, up until now, about keeping me away from Fennore. Because she would have known that it'd only take a few choice moments of me reading him, even if Fennore gave no answers, before I summed it all up.

Saturna had been right.

I knew that, that among Kael'thas and his coven? One of them had nabbed Greatfather Winter. Chief Advisor Faltheriel I hadn't interviewed yet. But he had to be involved. And the Nexites were far too protective, not just of Kael'thas, but of Fennore and Mavia for it not to be one of them, somehow.

So then, who was it? Kael'thas? Fennore? Mavia?

And how would I prove it?

I wished I knew of a way to summon a succubus against her will. Don't worry. Give me enough time, I'll figure it out. I've found my way out of worse fixes.

In fact, I just had. Broken hocks broken and all, I was sitting across from my chief suspect. Possibly even the perpetrator himself.

Knight of the Blood Nexus my hoof. Their days were numbered.

Celestia rolled down the window all of a sudden when we got close to the palace. "Oh by the Sun! Is that really what Sylvanas is wearing? I'd heard rumors but… That dress is INCREDIBLE!"

Oh, right. Now I have to tell that part as well. So, Sylvanas herself joins the battle. Ho boy…