Tuan sat comfortably leaned-back – most others would probably call it ‘precariously’ – on the simple wooden stool, tearing into her spider kabob with idle gusto. Spending a sufficient amount of time acquainted with Kaldorei did have its side effects; while it had been a long and sometimes arduous process, she had eventually learned to appreciate the more … exotic sides of the Night Elven cuisine. No-one could ever claim that the imposing World Tree wasn’t literally crawling with raw material. Using a few of her personal seasoning mixtures did help to take the less wanted edges off the peculiar tang that cooked spider meat inevitably possessed.
She glanced across the table at her luncheon companion – a young human male seemingly in his early twenties, dressed in casual cindercloth trappings, black, lustreless hair tied back in a simple ponytail. He kept picking glumly at his own food, a small bowl of Dragonbreath Chili. The fact that the bowl had almost stopped steaming spoke volumes of his reluctance, and even though he kept his face down, there was no mistaking the intermittent amber flicker in his cinnamon eyes.
Tuan dipped another length of kebab meat into the spiced sauce (her own concoction, naturally) and chowed down on it, shooting the young man another look.
“Come now, Terro,” she chided with her mouth full. “That’s your favourite dish. I can’t have screwed up the seasoning that bad.”
Terrothanes merely mumbled something intelligibly and kept picking at his meal, but his eyes flared briefly with that same, fiery glow. It did not escape the she-rogue’s attention span, and she continued to regard him out of the corner of her eye.
After another few tense minutes, Terrothanes finally let out a heavy sigh, plonking his spoon back into the chili bowl and putting his face in his hands. “I …” he began falteringly. “… I don’t have much appetite right now.”
Under most every other circumstance, the ornery woman never would have let such a statement go without a biting repartee in return, but recent events had rendered that practice a pointless display of small-mindedness. Instead, she simply remained quiet; keeping a discreet but attentive eye on what had effectively become her unofficial protégée over the past number of weeks.
“It’s Deathwing, isn’t it,” she finally ventured in a low voice.
Terrothanes’ head snapped up and his eyes flared again, now with far more vehemence at the mention of the accursed name. His sharply chiselled features were contorted with fury and bitterness. While the entire world had reason to hate and fear the return of the corrupted Aspect of Earth, the young Fire Mage had a much more personal bone to pick with the Worldbreaker – his broodfather and sire.
It was only with a visible effort that Terrothanes kept his voice level. “How many?” he asked between gritted teeth, the thirst for vengeance smouldering in his voice. “How many more lives will be taken, or ruined, or worse? How much more is he going to destroy until there’s nothing left? Nothing but smoking ashes and dust, and he has no-one left to kill but the Titans themselves?”
“Terro.” Tuan’s face betrayed little, but her voice brooked no indecision. “Badlands.”
Terrothanes flinched, and slumped back in his chair, his head drooping once more.
Tuan set aside her plate with a sigh. “Terro, I don’t like this any more than you do. Light knows you’ve gone through a lot lately, but heaven help me, I didn’t blow up half the Stockades to have you run headlong into Deathwing’s maw the moment I turn the other way.”
Terrothanes countered her sigh with one of his own. “… I’m just so tired of feeling so helpless. Useless.”
“You’re not useless, Terro.” Tuan sat forward and leaned across the table, lowering her voice. “The fact that you exist is in itself the greatest hope this world could have right now. The Red Flight is on to a good plan, but if it goes through the floor, they’ll have to fall back on you, and you’re definitely going to be useless if you run off and get yourself killed.” She paused momentarily. “If it helps at all … focus on what you’ve been entrusted with.” She cracked a faint smile. “Dragons are guardians, after all.”
Terrothanes’ body language relaxed minutely, but a persistent tension still lingered in his shoulders and neck. “… not much to do right now. Got to let it incubate, Topazi said.” He fidgeted minutely. “I … I feel a little scared, to be honest.” He drew a deep breath. “What if I fail, Tuan? What if I can’t be a good father? What if …” He trailed off, rubbing his face with one hand as tears began to come to his eyes.
She simply reached across the table and put a hand on his arm. “Can you honestly think of a better way to one-up the old Ironmaw?”
He looked up at her with a slight start, his eyes momentarily wide and dazed, and for a split second one could almost spot the inquisitive, boisterous young Dragonling he had been merely months earlier. He finally managed a weak smile in return.
“… yes. Yes, that sounds … that sounds like a good thing.” Tuan nodded and sat back in her own chair, and Terrothanes rose from his seat. “I … I think I’ll go for a walk. Get my mind off this.” He looked at the she-rogue apologetically. “Sorry about the food. You cooked it to perfection, I just … I can’t focus on eating right now.”
Tuan smiled reassuringly. “S’alright. I’ll put it in the cooler, we can reheat it later.”
Terrothanes’ expression turned mildly perplexed. “With all due respect, Miss Tuan, I’ll never understand how that contraption works.”
Tuan shot back one of her signature grins. “Just leave it to me, Firebreath.”
Terro excused himself with a light bow and exited the building, the she-rogue keeping her eyes on him. Almost as soon as he stepped onto the paved pathway outside, a Darnassian Sentinel broke from her apparent point of vigil a few dozen yards further up the path and began tailing the young Black Dragon discreetly. To an untrained eye, it seemed as if the Sentinel was merely following a pre-planned trajectory of patrol, thoroughly worn in by practice and routine, but Tuan was crafty enough to know what was really going on. Shortly after the extended clan had arrived at the Kaldorei capital, Theluin had had a brief but intense private conference with High Priestess Tyrande, and the net result was that Terrothanes was allowed a modicum of freedom while within the city limits – under the condition that he always remained under surveillance by the Sentinels. Compared to the treatment Terrothanes had endured so far since his brutal outing, the arrangement was as close to actual freedom as he could get.
Tuan began clearing the table, wolfing down the remainder of her meal and putting her plate and utensils in the sink. Next, she picked up Terrothanes’ still nearly full bowl of chili and went over to an out-of-place-looking cube of smooth metal sitting quietly humming in a corner of the kitchen. Word of mouth had claimed it to be a gift to the esteemed Archdruid from about a year earlier, when he had become involved in the (partially successful) retaking of Gnomeregan. While the appliance was indubitably of Gnomish origin – who else could possibly invent a device intended to keep food cold no matter the indoor temperature? – it was remarkably simplistic in design: a simple, unadorned cube of polished steel panels, utterly devoid of the traditional extraneous gadgets and gizmos and dials and what-have-you that usually covered every inch of Gnomish apparel. It had actually taken Tuan (herself a seasoned Engineer) a modicum of effort to identify a manufacturer’s insignia; in the end, she had simply badgered the old wolf into recounting just how he came into possession of something so un-Kaldoreic. As it turned out, a certain Lhenne Squaresoft was ultimately responsible for the creation of the device as well as its simplistic denomination. The Gnomish Frost Mage, also an Engineer of some renown, had something of a reputation for being a die-hard laconic and pragmatic, and had become a distant acquaintance of the enterprising she-rogue before the Cataclysm literally upended everything. Tuan knew that Lhenne was currently more than sufficiently occupied by the still on-going reclaiming of the Gnomish capital, and Light knew she was herself tied up at every end.
She pulled the front panel open, wary of the puff of icily cold air being jettisoned from the appliance’s interior, and plopped the bowl on one of the grated shelves before pushing the device shut again. It only wasted the internal power core to keep it open more than necessary, and she was the only one who would bother repairing it whenever it managed to blow a fuse or crack a valve – which, thankfully, hardly ever happened. The Squaresoft insignia was a mark of quality, as un-Gnomish as the related contraptions consistently appeared.
Letting out an exhausted and somewhat bored sigh, Tuan took a swing into the parlour and snagged a book from a nearby lampstand. Pulling it open at the point of the exquisitely embossed leather bookmark tucked into its pages, she dropped unceremoniously into a stuffed chair and was lost to the world within moments. Books had always been a significant weakness of hers, and she had no intent to make it otherwise. In a way, it was her way of releasing internal pressure, and it was definitely pressurizing being cooped up like this. But she had agreed on staying in Darnassus after Aaron had volunteered to accompany Saphrit to Darkshore. Theluin was being kept busy by the diplomatic developments with the Gilnean refugees that had been taken in by the Cenarion Circle; Eleutherios insisted on staying out of harm’s way; and that left few others that could keep an eye on the still estranged Terrothanes and – perhaps most importantly – Rii-nee.
Speaking of which.
Tuan didn’t have to look up to notice the gangly, teenaged Night Elf girl that came slowly wandering into the room, nor did she fail to detect the distantly forlorn expression on the young huntress’ face. That being said, the she-rogue did make a point not to look up – she had learned the girl’s little quirks and oddities by heart at this point, and wasn’t going to rob her of some potential fun just yet. As it was, any little thing that could cheer any of them up was a good thing right now.
The young Kaldorei froze momentarily as she caught Tuan’s presence, and then silently ghosted over to the chair, quietly sitting down on her knees by the armrest and peering up at the older woman.
Tuan didn’t even turn her head. “You still need to work on that stealth, Rii-nee.”
When Rii-nee didn’t reply, Tuan finally turned toward her. The girl was looking up at her mutely, still with that odd, vaguely misplaced countenance. Tuan sighed inwardly, carefully put the book aside and ruffled Rii-nee’s dark blue hair lightly. “How goes, R’ee?” Her voice had changed noticeably in timbre.
Rii-nee sighed enough for them both as she put her head to one side on her crossed hands. “I keep worrying about Saphi.”
The softness of her voice reminded Tuan with a stab to the chest just how young the girl still was. She was technically a Gorloc – an orphan of the Oracle tribe that the Archdruid had adopted during his excursions throughout Northrend. In her humanoid form, Rii-nee looked all of a Night Elven teenager, when in truth she was only barely three years old. To first have her guardian and father figure brutally torn from her, and then become assailed by ominous nightmares about her beloved older brother … Tuan felt her heart constrict with empathy, an emotion she had only just recently begun attesting to openly. She had, for all intents and purposes, virtually watched Rii-nee grow up – mostly due to helping the rather hapless Lockpokkit brothers babysit the little bundle of mischief whenever the Old Bird couldn’t bring his cherished daughter along with him on his far-ranging and increasingly dangerous travels. It had been Rii-nee’s particularly successful pranks that had heralded the young girl’s fascination with the path of the Hunter, and she had proven quite adept at tracking and trapping. Tuan knew the girl still had to work on her aim with the bow, though.
It perplexed the she-rogue that she and the old wolf had obviously managed to completely circumvent each other as Tuan had also been heavily involved in the Northrend campaign, only to form this peculiar bond later; and almost exclusively by extension of the Archdruid’s eclectic family. A Blue Drake son, a Gorloc daughter, a hastily taken-in Black Drake, and let’s not forget a personal temporal counsellor in the guise of a female Bronze Dragon. … she was surrounded by dragons.
And Deathwing, of course. There was another reason why she would always remind Terrothanes about the events in the Badlands whenever the young Drakeling would go off on too wild a tangent – she didn’t want herself to forget either. The furnace heat of the Aspect of Death’s corporeal form had been enough to sear the bushes underneath which she, Saphrit and Terrothanes had hid while Deathwing eradicated the Red Dragon who had strived so hard to find and secure a purified Black Dragon Egg, but that wasn’t what kept burning Tuan’s memory. It was the draketerror.
She had stood face to face with rotting undead, merciless cartel kingpins, blood-crazed demons and the Void itself, but nothing – nothing – had ever terrified her like the day Deathwing came.
And she had never told anyone.
Tuan realised that her thoughts had wandered off on their own, and silently shook herself back to the present. “He’ll be alright, R’ee. He’s got Aaron with him. He’s not alone.”
Rii-nee let out a quiet whine. “I know, but still …”
Tuan kept stroking the younger girl’s hair gently. “Had any new nightmares?”
Rii-nee paused for a moment, then righted her head and propped her chin on her hands, staring off into space. “Not since we left those fiery lands.”
Tuan nodded. “Let’s take that as a good sign.”
Rii-nee’s face contorted. “It’s just so hard! Tuan, I keep thinking about that dream. I can’t help it! It was so horrible …” Her voice petered out, her eyes becoming despondent and teary.
“Hey.” Tuan immediately turned around, putting both her hands around Rii-nee’s head. “It was just a dream. It hasn’t happened. And even if it might, it’s possible we’ve already avoided it.”
Rii-nee clumsily wiped an eye with her wrist. “That still means it’s possible we haven’t,” she replied sullenly.
Tuan couldn’t hold back a little smile. The girl was sharp, no doubt about that. “Then we’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen at all.”
Rii-nee fell silent, but she seemed a touch mollified.
“For now, we’ll just have to trust Saphrit and Aaron to return alive and well. We’ll just have to trust them. Alright?”
Rii-nee nodded quietly.
Tuan smiled sadly. “If it’s any consolation, I hate being cooped up like this too.”
That managed to elicit a half-hearted little chuckle from the Gorloc. “You always hate being cooped up anywhere.”
Tuan returned the chuckle. “Touché.”
They remained like that; Rii-nee huddled beside the chair, Tuan turned sideways and cradling the girl’s head in her hands.
About thirty seconds later, they were interrupted by a barrelling mass of white, tiger-striped fur, huge paws and a rather invasive saber muzzle. Rii-nee squealed with laughter and quickly caught Sabelli by his neck fur, catching her enthusiastic companion’s momentum and nearly being bowled over in the process.
“Aww, Sabi!” She rubbed the saber’s neck vigorously, and the beast purred like a flying machine’s engine block. “I’ve been forgetting all about you, haven’t I? I’m so sorry.”
Wise to Rii-nee’s and her companion’s antics, Tuan had already scooted back to avoid being caught in the tangle of limbs. She smiled warmly at the commotion: seeing Rii-nee cheered up was worth all the rampaging giant kittens in the world.
Rii-nee continued talking to Sabelli in the musical, flowing tongue of Darnassian, and Tuan allowed herself a moment of observation. There was far more to the “dialogue” than what was being spoken; little nudges and posture shifts that went back and forth between the Gorloc and the sabercat, speaking more clearly than a thousand words of the particular bond that existed between a Huntress and her animal friend.
After a long while, Rii-nee finally looked up and at Tuan with a faintly apologetic and somewhat pleading face. “I’ve been neglecting him, poor boy. I’m just so tired after that huge trip and …” She caught her breath briefly, but went on. “Could you—“
Tuan preceded her, smiling lightly. “I’ll take him for a spin. I need to stretch my legs too. Run’n’Jump?” Sabelli turned his head at the familiar string of syllables and perked his ears curiously.
Rii-nee lit up with relief, and Tuan stood from the chair. Then Rii-nee lit up again, now with realisation. “Oh! That’s right.” The girl untangled herself from her companion’s affectionate saberhug and scampered over to a small of pile of assorted items. Rummaging through it, she retrieved a thick, gnarled piece of a branch that had all the markings of having been vigorously chewed an innumerable number of times. At this, Sabelli perked up noticeably, and began bounding around Rii-nee.
Rii-nee hushed Sabelli gently, and handed the well-worn toy to Tuan with a little wink. “You’ll need this.”
Tuan raised an eyebrow as she accepted the artefact. “The Favourite Stick. How could I possibly forget.” Rii-nee stifled a quiet giggle.
Tuan turned to Sabelli, who had sat down with his head quizzically to one side. “Alright, Sabi. Wanna go play?”
Sabelli glanced at Rii-nee, who nodded almost imperceptibly in return. Immediately, the sinewy white tiger began bounding around again, this time making little circles around Tuan and snapping playfully at the branch. Tuan laughed heartily and spun smoothly this way and that, before quickly scooting out the door. Sabelli was right on top.
Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, Rii-nee allowed herself an unguarded moment. She picked up the book that Tuan had set aside, carefully opening it and lifting up the bookmark. It was fashioned in leather made from the finest deer skin, richly embossed with imagery depicting stags and wolves. Given Tuan’s close friendship with Moon Priest Theluin and the Crossdeep patriarch himself, it wasn’t a far cry how she must’ve come into possession of the item. Rii-nee put the bookmark back, shut the book closed and returned it to its original position, as neatly as she could manage. She had learned – the hard way – that no matter how mellow the she-rogue might appear, there were ways to make her absolutely furious. Tampering with her precious books was one of those ways.
Rii-nee plodded over to the window and plonked herself on the window ledge, peering outside. Using the prized toy as an incentive, Tuan essentially played a version of catch with the young sabercat, racing against each other along the pathways before sliding to an abrupt stop and leaping high into the air, tossing the stick for Sabelli to seize in his jaws. The woman could never hope to match the sheer agility and swiftness of the fully trained Kaldorei Hunters residing within the Cenarion Enclave, but she still maintained her own brand of combat techniques. Rii-nee knew that the she-rogue possessed a remarkable degree of stamina and was capable of rebounding from tremendous blows.
Above all, she was notoriously wily. Rii-nee had never really witnessed the extent to which Tuan was prepared to go to procure a solution until she had watched the woman barter with the ashen-skinned dwarves of the Thorium Brotherhood to ensure a swift, safe flight directly to Stormwind. The young girl had certainly heard scattered mentions of the she-rogue’s field exploits and her resourcefulness in hard-pressed situations (it paid off lingering around the grown-ups when they thought no-one was listening), but it was always a little far-fetched to take those tales at anything more than face value. Although she could still remember the fateful event during which her an’da had been lost – she quickly wiped away a stray tear – and at which Tuan had been present as a trusted family friend, she had no recollection of actually seeing the she-rogue in combat. It was all little more than a blur of shouting voices, the clang of steel on steel and the sickening sounds of blades cutting into flesh and men dying.
She distracted herself from the dark thoughts by resuming her observation of the game outside. Tuan had grabbed hold of the stick while it was still lodged in Sabelli’s mouth, and human and beast were now having a playful tug-of-war over the artefact. Tuan kept her center-of-mass low, swinging from side to side and twisting the stick this way and that, and the cat planted all four paws securely into the ground, matching his opponent’s moves with neck and shoulders, all the while growling quietly. It all looked like simple fun, but the fact was that this was helping Sabelli hone his instincts when faced with sapient, strategic foes. The saber was a formidable hunter by nature, but he would eventually have to go up against enemies who could and would outsmart him at first opportunity. Rii-nee felt a little sick to her stomach at the thought that this could happen much sooner than she’d like.
She jumped at the sound of someone coming through the door, but relaxed immediately when she recognised Terrothanes’ wiry gestalt. The young Drake had a thoughtful look about him, but he didn’t seem quite as moody as he had been earlier.
“Hi, Terro,” Rii-nee greeted with a smile. “Had a nice walk?”
Terrothanes looked up, momentarily surprised, but returned the smile wanly. “Just to clear my thoughts, Miss Rii-nee. I feel better now.”
“Good.” Rii-nee jumped off the window ledge. “Tuan’s out playing with Sabi. They’ll be back soon.”
Terrothanes craned his neck and glanced through the window. “… I think I managed to get my appetite back too. You wouldn’t happen to know where she put the lunch leftovers?”
“Um …” Rii-nee furrowed her brow. “Where did she say she’d put them?”
Terrothanes’ expression turned decidedly awkward. “In the … ah … ‘cooler’.”
Rii-nee immediately put up her hands. “Not going near it. Sabi hates that thing!”
“I believe it’s because he thinks it’s growling at him, Miss Rii-nee.”
“Well, it is. Go get your leftovers on your own.” Rii-nee stuck out her tongue.
Thankfully, the argument was defused by the she-rogue coming in as well, wiping sweat from her brow and being tailed by a noticeably calmed Sabelli. “Now, now, kids. Don’t make me pull over the cart.” She strode over to the appliance, yanked it open (at the minute but immediate retreat of a Gorloc, a Black Drake and a saber) and plucked the now thoroughly chilled bowl of Dragonbreath chili from its mysterious compartments. She plonked it onto the worktable and nodded to Terrothanes. “I’m pretty sure you can handle the reheating part yourself.”
Terrothanes didn’t quite manage to hide his relief when Tuan kicked the cooler closed again. “Thank you, Miss Tuan.” It wasn’t quite apparent what exactly he was thankful for.
Rii-nee elbowed him in the ribs. “At least I hate it because it makes weird noises, but you just hate it because it’s cold!”
“Miss Rii-nee, I am a Fire Mage.”
“Who was raised by a Frost Mage!”
Terrothanes was about to quip something back, when his breath suddenly seemed to catch in his throat. He fell silent, his eyes far away and unseeing.
Rii-nee put her hands over her mouth. “Oh, Terro, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to …”
But Terrothanes had already composed himself – more or less. “It’s alright, Miss Rii-nee. Father knows how to take care of himself. I just … wish he didn’t have to go off like he did.” There was a brief but noticeable falter to the young Black Drake’s voice.
Tuan watched them both impassively with her arms crossed. “Mood buffer time. Who wants a snack?”
The simple question broke the ice in an instant. Rii-nee immediately demanded Darnassian Bleu dumplings, Terrothanes insisted on his leftover chili but went and added a few additional fresh chilis from the pantry shelves anyway, and Tuan whipped up enough eggnog for everyone and then some. The banter picked up as they each contributed in various ways to effect a medium-sized kitchen mess, and for a while, it felt almost like a complete family again.
Almost.
((This post was originally written by Tuan Taureo))
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