Chapter Text
The chocolatine had come out perfect, crisp, buttery, and airy; the milk stirred into her coffee foamed in such a perfect pattern that she knew the barrista had used the help of magic to make it so. Not unusual in Dalaran in the slightest—it seemed everyone here possessed some sort of training in the arcane arts, even if just a little. The flow of magic had permeated the buildings back when Jaina had been a student here under Antonidas, but now it seemed that the place was practically flooded with it. She supposed that the immense amount of magic required to make a city to float could do that.
“Something on your mind, Jaina?” Vereesa asked over her own magically perfected latte art. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”
“It’s been a long time since the treaty was signed, hasn’t it?” Jaina ventured hesitantly, eyeing the latte swirls with renewed interest. Nonchalant. She needed to be nonchalant. The Legerdemain Lounge was quiet at this time of day, and at this moment there was no one around within its cozy interior, but still Jaina could not help but feel clandestine. She did not want everyone to know, though she was sure they would all notice eventually.
“Sure has.” Vereesa took a hefty bite out of her own pastry before amending, “At least in human time it has. A whole decade! Things have been so peaceful.”
“There was so much death before, wasn’t there? So many loved we lost,” Jaina agreed, steering the subject away from where it actually needed to go for a moment, as if the thoughts would lose veracity when ignored.
“There was.” Vereesa took on a somber look before shaking her head. “You’ve seemed troubled. Is this what it was about? I knew I would lose Rhonin someday, Jaina. Don’t tell me you still blame yourself for that, do you?”
“A little,” Jaina admitted. “But no, that isn’t what particularly troubles me now. The problem is I think he would be more grateful to be in this predicament rather than I.”
Vereesa cocked an inquisitive brow before it quickly soured. “Predicament? You mean being alive? Jaina don’t tell me that you’re suddenly going to pull a Sylvanas on me. Alleria and I worked so hard to get her released to us after we heard her soul was whole, but even now she just won’t forget the past. There was so much more to her life, and so long a life before she was dead, or undead, or whatever, but all that seems to matter to her is what happened during the comparatively brief, albeit extremely destructive time that her soul was sundered!” Vereesa threw her hands in the air for emphasis before giving Jaina another pointed look. “So you will forget about it, right? Sylvanas has all the time in the world to brood, so we let her, but human life is short and you should enjoy it, like Rhonin did and would want you to.”
“That’s very touching Vereesa,” Jaina said quietly as she gave a soft, nearly sincere, smile. “I just…I…I’m not sure that I don’t have all the time in the world to brood. That’s the problem.”
“Don’t be silly Jaina. There is no time at all to brood when there is a life to be living.” Vereesa took another sip of her latte, but not before giving her what must have been intended to be a reassuring look. “I know that the loss of Theramore was hard for you as it was for me but life goes on and it’s what they would want us to—”
“Vereesa,” Jaina cut her off, suddenly wanting this to be over with and in the open if it was going to be said. “Do I look any different to you lately?”
Vereesa seemed to get the message, or at least half of it, and studied her very carefully. Jaina almost believed she had caught on until she opened her mouth and said, “What’s wrong? There must be. But you don’t look any different to me. You look the same as the day we met all those years ago, except for your hair of course.”
Jaina gave her a look, waiting, but Vereesa did not get it. Finally, with a sigh she asked, “Vereesa, we’ve been friends for decades now.” Vereesa quizzically raised an eyebrow and Jaina, exasperated, at last asked, “How old am I?”
“Why by now you must be around—” She stopped. Her jaw dropped. “Belore. You aren’t—you haven’t—Jaina you’re not aging.” After several more seconds of intensely staring she added, “Are you—are you an illegitimate half-elf? Did Daelin know? Is that why he really died that day?”
Jaina had been taking a sip of her latte to calm her nerves and she nearly spit it out. “No! Vereesa—how did you even—no! I am clearly related to my family and very, very human. Or I was when I was born. I had thought that I was just aging extremely well but I can’t ignore it any longer. Tandred’s children are aging him with their antics just the same as my mother is growing older. Agelessness is clearly not something that runs in my family, but I am the child of Katherine and Daelin Proudmoore.”
“Then…?” Vereesa asked as the pieces clicked. “The mana bomb did more than just turn your hair white?”
“And my eyes,” Jaina lamented. “I thought for sure it had shortened my life. It certainly did for everyone else present in Theramore.” She gave a half-hearted, shaky laugh then, before continuing, “I was relieved when my eyes went back to blue. The headaches stopped. I started to be able to sleep through the night. I thought I had weathered the worst of the effects. That things would be normal or close to it. But now I know that Rhonin should have saved himself and not me. He could have lived as long as you.”
“Don’t say that,” Vereesa admonished. “You don’t know that it is because of the bomb. It could be in spite of it. Isn’t there anything else that could cause this? You’re a talented archmage that has been all over the world before and since.”
“Aegwynn lived hundreds and hundreds of years longer than was normal,” Jaina admitted. “It was because of the magic the Guardians of Tiristfal were endowed with through ceremony. She shouldn’t have had any more of that in her when she gave me her life force to keep me alive when we fought Zmodlor, but maybe she did and Medivh didn’t drain it all. Or maybe it was both that and the bomb together, or something else entirely. I don’t know.” Jaina rubbed her temple as she felt a headache coming on. “But I do know that I am going to outlive everyone I love and then some.”
“Jaina, get a hold of yourself,” Vereesa said as she moved a hand to Jaina’s shoulder. “I have lived a long time and I’m alright. I outlived Rhonin and I am alright.”
“You said it before—that you always knew you would,” Jaina responded dejectedly. I’m going to outlive my brother, his children, their children, my mother, everyone I know in Kul’Tiras! We sealed the Shadowlands. It’s not like I’m going to just go back and visit them again. How is this not horrifying? How did you ever come to grips with this?”
“Well,” Vereesa began slowly, “You don’t know many elves, do you?”
“There are still plenty of high elves who remain loyal to the Alliance,” Jaina reminded her.
“On a personal level I mean. It’s mostly just me, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s true,” Jaina agreed. “After Kael’thas’s awkward attempts at courtship that was by design.”
“And their choice as well. Because most elves prefer to be close to each other. With the exception of times of war—and those wars were devastating—it is reassuring that your friends will live as long as you do.”
“But you married Rhonin?”
“And most elves think my actions and that of Alleria’s foolish.” Vereesa shrugged. “And they might have been. Being in the moment has its benefits, and many downsides. But, as for you I think you could do to meet more elves. It give you comfort as the years go on, to have familiar faces among your friends that don’t change with the decade or century.”
“I don’t want to go advertising that I may be aging at a snail’s pace. I don’t even want to acknowledge it myself. And being the only human at an elven meet and greet sounds like something Kael’thas did to me back one Winter Veil when I was an apprentice,” Jaina declined with a wince.
“Oh no, nothing like what Kael would do!” Vereesa insisted as her face suddenly lit up. “How about you come to Windrunner Spire to get away from it all? You can get to know the villagers that have moved back in. It’ll be slow as they get to know you. Natural. No one will think much of it—you’ll just be our esteemed guest.”
“How is the rebuilding effort going?” Jaina sidestepped. “I heard that the rift to the Shadowlands did the Ghostlands some good even if the rest of Azeroth did not find it so agreeable.”
“It’s been healing marvelously!” Vereesa beamed. “Even the Dead Scar has shown significant progress. Now, would you like a room on the first floor or the second?”
“…the second.” Jaina answered tepidly. Vereesa had already charged on ahead, going on about how they had remodeled the spire and everything was new and looked like it had in the old days and even the garden should be in bloom. For all her reservations, it did not sound so bad to get some sun and air.
***
“Let me get that for you,” Alleria offered as Jaina hefted her bags into the main hall. Windrunner Spire had indeed been returned to its former glory both indoors and out. Verdant gardens surrounded the estate and the walls had been pristinely wiped clean. The scent of honeyed breads wafted through the halls as Jaina entered. Vereesa had briefly mentioned that Arator had taken up many hobbies since the world was no longer desperately in need of his sword-swinging skills, and one of them must have been baking.
Alleria was friendly enough, if a bit stoic, and smiled warmly though she said little. She regarded her thoughtfully as she helped carry Jaina’s things to her room and past the lush red curtains and gold detailing that breathed new life into the spire.
“You’re early. Vereesa is just out with her boys. She’ll be back soon to greet you,” Alleria explained courteously as she closed the door and departed back downstairs.
Flopping down onto the plush elven-made mattress and pillows, Jaina breathed a sigh of relief. A vacation would do her some good, and tides she needed one. Though the Lord Admiral duties were no longer heavy, they were constant, and her mother and brother were taking care of things while she was gone. It was good for Tandred to get that experience, she thought. He would be Lord Admiral someday because she sure was not doing that for another hundred or thousand years if life was really to be as long as it looked.
As long as it looked… She propped herself up to look into the large mirror situated by the extravagantly carved wooden dresser. White hair, gold streak, and skin mostly unmarred by time—at least the time since Theramore. She had never been vain enough to quite appreciate this agelessness, and to try to find some comfort in it like she knew another might felt wrong. She certainly never would have sought it out. Yes, she had been dismayed how her hair had gone white long before her time—Tandred had even made an ill-advised joke that she was turning into their mother—but she had never anticipated or hoped for the opposite.
She closed her eyes. Best not to think too hard about it. The time would pass whether she worried over it or not.
“I’m back!” Vereesa hollered up the stairs so loud that Jaina could hear it clearly even through her bedroom door and the thin veil of sleep.
“Just a moment!” Someone else called.
“I’m coming, I’m coming…” Jaina mumbled as she rolled out of bed. Goodness, elven-made sheets and mattresses were something else. She had not even meant to fall sleep—it just happened! She shook herself awake and made her way to the door only to artlessly smack into her room’s neighbor who was also headed for the stairs. “Oh, sorry. My apologies, I—” She began to say before she stilled, jaw dropping as the hazy fuzz of her nap left her unable to process much thought besides shock and confusion at seeing the very pale and ashen elf in front of her whose wide blue eyes revealed her to be as bewildered as she was.
“Sylvanas?!”
***
“Vereesa never mentioned it?” Sylvanas asked, a word away from accusing her younger sister of treachery as they sat on the sofa sipping frosty glasses of iced tea. “Just like she never mentioned you were coming here?”
“I did too!” Vereesa corrected indignantly as she munched on her biscuit. “A few days ago I mentioned having a guest, didn’t I? And a few years ago I told Jaina that I had moved back to Windrunner Spire to rebuild and be with my sisters. Sisters! Plural.”
“I’m not so sure that I would call that mentioning so much as vaguely hinting,” Sylvanas drawled as she swirled her glass. Jaina still could not get used to how her eyes were blue now instead of ruby red. The ashen tears were mostly gone, and Sylvanas looked all around cleaned up, though it was not as though she wasn’t immaculate before as the deadly warchief. Jaina might even say she looked healthier, except she wasn’t sure that health was any sort of factor in undeath. “And here I thought that you and I were supposed to go down to the village today after you got back.”
“We are!” Vereesa replied cheerfully.
“And Lady Proudmoore?” Sylvanas asked in a tone that suggested she knew the answer but felt many reservations about it.
“Coming with.” Vereesa beamed with a wide smile that was usually reserved for when she told Jaina a terrible joke. “Obviously.”
Sylvanas’s face clearly told her that she did not think the joke—if there was one at all—was not funny. Jaina was left bewildered looking between one elf sister to the next. Sylvanas continued to glare at Vereesa, her gaze advancing to a level of frosty just below Icecrown Glacier.
“I’m not so sure that is a good idea,” Sylvanas objected as she began to rise.
“Wait, I can stay home,” Jaina offered abruptly as she stood quickly. “I don’t mean to intrude. I am good friends with Vereesa, but she is your sister. I can go for a walk by myself or something, or chat with Arator, or read, or anything really. I know we haven’t been on good terms in the past what with the wars and all, and I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable in your own home—”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” Sylvanas interjected. “I thought you would be.”
There was a moment of stillness in the den as Jaina considered the thought. Sylvanas Windrunner’s whole purpose as the warchief had been to make the war room uncomfortable. She had made Jaina herself uncomfortable in more ways than one often times. People had told her that Sylvanas was different now, that the part of her soul returned to her had done a lot of good, but Jaina had not cared to see herself. Now she wondered what else they meant.
“I will be fine,” Jaina replied.
“I’ll go, Little Moon,” Sylvanas sighed, strangely defeated.
“Good,” Vereesa said as she smiled victoriously beside Jaina. “The weather’s lovely today.”
***
“And a box of the honey rolls, please.” Jaina beamed as the baker boxed and bagged her rolls before she practically skipped out of the shop. Brushing up on her rusty Thalassian was easier than Jaina had thought it would be after so many years of speaking to Vereesa in common. Sylvanas and Vereesa had both split ways after a bit of browsing around the village, and thus Jaina had been on her own to make the entire order and she could not be prouder of the outcome. The baker had understood her long and complicated order perfectly which was more than she had hoped.
“I see you practically raided the shop,” Vereesa chuckled as she rejoined her outside the shop and took a peek inside the bag. “You know, you don’t look like you eat this much.”
“I don’t,” Jaina laughed as they walked under the shade of a row of trees lining the street, “But your boys do. It’s to share.”
“Aw, you shouldn’t have, Jaina,” Vereesa laughed again. “Giramar and Galadin are going to be spoiled rotten by the end of your trip. But perhaps it’s for the best, they’re quickly getting to that age where they’ll be going in to train soon.”
“They grow up so fast,” Jaina agreed with a nod, “Even if their elf blood slowed them down a bit.”
“I’m more worried about their human side speeding things up,” Vereesa admitted. “They’re big for their age. I didn’t go in myself for another several years while I’m looking to enroll them in the lodge next spring.”
“They’ll be safe there though, won’t they? Aside from skirmishes with the forest trolls there’s nothing serious going on, is there?”
“Nothing at all. And Sylvanas goes alone if she thinks it could be anything serious.” Vereesa shook her head. “I swear, another several hundred years of this and all the recruits are going to have paper-thin skin and only be able to hit targets that look like squirrels. She’s so worried though—she feels responsible for how many elves we’ve lost in the past and can’t bear to see us lose any more.”
“She’s kind of right you know. You guys may have a few things in common with rabbits, but you certainly don’t reproduce like them.”
“Rabbits?” a cool, two-toned voice from behind her remarked. “And in what way are elves like rabbits? Do you mean our ears or how many suitors our dear Alleria is fielding nowadays?”
“Sylvanas!” Vereesa squeaked, her face and ears gaining a dusting of pink. “You know she hasn’t gone public about that!”
“Tsk, tsk, just like I hadn’t gone public about a certain something.” Sylvanas gave her a pointed, yet ever so slightly playful glare. Playful? Had Jaina really just thought that? She stared harder in an attempt to verify, but Sylvanas suddenly took note of her and gave her a wide smirk. “Shocked that Alleria is only just now realizing none of us have daughters? I think she expected Vereesa to get a few before she came back from Draenor.”
Vereesa interjected before Jaina had a chance to ever process the comments about Alleria’s love life. “She’s allowed to look for love! Belore knows she needs it after all that’s happened between her and…anyway, if she’d been only concerned about the lineage I’m sure she’d have started a bit sooner seeing as how even when you were alive you weren’t going to contribute!”
“Why’s that?” Jaina asked curiously. “I saw Sylvanas when she…er, before all this.” She made a waving hand motion. “At one of Kael’s parties or something or other. You can’t tell me no one was interested in…that.” Jaina made another futile waving motion in Sylvanas’s general direction. Truth be told, if she thought to hard about it she was going to have a hard time seeing how someone could be not interested in ‘that’ despite ‘that’ now being undead. “Is high elf masculinity really so fragile? I thought they didn’t care about being the roughest or toughest or that sort of thing.”
“No, it’s just that she’s—” Vereesa stopped, a look of consternation crossing her face as Sylvanas waggled her eyebrows at her in the most childish manner possible.
“Workaholic?” Jaina provided helpfully.
“I’m what, dearest sister?” Sylvanas asked mockingly in that dual-toned voice that sent a shiver down Jaina’s spine despite her best efforts to ignore it. When Vereesa did not respond immediately, Sylvanas took the time to add another taunt. “You know, Sathein has a new apprentice, and his hair is so very red. Would you like me to set you up? He seems so very good with his hands and—”
“Difficult,” Vereesa all but growled. “Sylvanas is just difficult, Jaina. Pay no mind.”
Sylvanas rolled her eyes but spoke warm enough to suggest that this joke actually was funny. “Just born this way. And died this way. And came back this way.”
“Well you’re here, so I assume you picked up your new gloves. Are they up to par?” Vereesa asked.
“They’re perfect, as Sathein’s work usually is,” Sylvanas replied nonchalantly before turning to incline her head towards Jaina. “Everything was up to expectations in the village?”
Sylvanas’s blue eyes glinted from under her hood. Her clothing looked new—the blue fabric was threaded with gold embroidery with just a bit of silver and the leathers were freshly oiled. The blueness of her eyes still took Jaina off-guard still, so used as she was to the ruby eyes of the Horde Warchief scathingly examining the battlefield before her. So much so that she could hardly recognize the pale, well dressed woman before her. ‘That’ looked very attractive today. But ‘that’ was also something she had habitually tucked away into a folder in her mind whenever it came up and never went back to look at it. The ship had sailed long before Sylvanas had even died; with the exception of the few oddballs whom she knew personally, half-elves were rare for a reason.
“It’s lovely. I wasn’t expecting the forests to be so alive. The Ghostlands have just about become one with Eversong again,” Jaina replied.
“Happy to hear it.” Sylvanas gave her a pleasant yet guarded smile that did not reach her luminous blue eyes. It wasn’t like the way she spoke to Vereesa, and that bothered Jaina though she knew it shouldn’t. For all their history and the things each had been through, she was lucky they were even this pleasant with each other. She gently inclined her head before turning to walk a ways up ahead of them on the path.
“Are you sure I should have come with?” Jaina asked quietly as Sylvanas continued to walk further up the path from them, the sunlight from the trees dappling her cloak. Sylvanas felt like the seas around Kul’Tiras: calm, yet something beneath the surface. For a sea the obvious danger was a storm, but Jaina wasn’t sure what was beneath Sylvanas’s polite exterior. “She seems rather…tense? I don’t know what to call it.”
“It is her first time in a while being around someone from the old days,” Vereesa considered with a slight frown. “Maybe she’s…embarrassed?”
Jaina had to muffle a slight laugh to prevent it from reaching Sylvanas. “That certainly isn’t a word I would use for the banshee queen nor the ranger-general.”
“Well, you know, it may just have brought back some memories,” Vereesa shrugged apologetically. “It’s not your fault at all though. She has a lot of regrets for many things, most of all the way people see and remember her. She was going to have to go through this eventually. She’ll be fine though. Really, I promise.”
“I’m not so sure it’s just that. These woods surely mean a lot to her, like Theramore did to me. I can only imagine how protective and nervous she must feel having a former enemy here within it.”
Vereesa quirked an eyebrow before letting out a soft chuckle. “Sylvanas is just being Sylvanas, but I’m happy for that. It makes me feel like we’re finally a family again after all these years. And I can’t imagine she’s worried that you’re going to step on her saplings with your clumsy human boots or anything like that.”
Her saplings. Possessive form. Vereesa was good at common—beyond fluent—and there was no way that was a mistake. She opened her mouth to ask before thinking better of it. Though curious, perhaps it was better to refrain from butting into Sylvanas’s business too much. Her shock at Jaina’s presence in the spire earlier was enough to reinforce that belief.
But what if Sylvanas is up to no good? The thought nipped at the edge of her mind and irked her. Her forgiveness had not always been so cautious, and she yearned for those days once more. She had sworn to never forgive Sylvanas back in the Shadowlands, but she had been too busy with Kul'Tiras in the last decade or so to actively hold a grudge. Now that she had time—all the time in the world in fact—was it something she even wanted to do? Something she might be compelled to do because of the memories of the fallen, even if it hurt her?
It was a shame that so many years of optimism and hope had been wasted on Arthas of all people, even if he had not been the one to finally steal it from her. But he had been gone for decades now, and mercifully was never coming back. Pushing Arthas from her thoughts, she continued walking alongside Vereesa, and guided the conversation back to safe waters.
“So what did you get in the village today?” Jaina asked as they came up the walk to the spire. “You skipped off for a little bit while I was looking at the shelves in the bakery.”
“Oh, yes,” Vereesa nodded as she fished into her satchel for a brown paper bag and revealed the semi-luminous bottle within. “The vineyards of Eversong have been producing some new wines using some of the tamer mutations that sprang up in the Ghostlands. I thought we should all have a taste.”
“Oh, how fun!” Jaina smiled. “Tomorrow night then, after I’ve settled in?”
“You can wait that long?”
“I’d rather not, but it’s been such a long day.” Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sylvanas sneaking off and around to the back of the spire. She briefly thought that she was trying to get away from them out of annoyance, but as they opened the spire’s front door she quickly realized the real reason why as Giramar and Galadin, now quite tall and strapping but still childish in their own way, came tumbling down the far staircase asking what their mother had brought them.
Here, let me put that bottle away for you,” Jaina offered Vereesa after quickly surrendering the bag of baked goods.
“Wine cellar’s to the left,” Vereesa called as she settled down onto a couch. She could be heard telling her boys to wait in stern Thalassian, ‘Belore, Jaina was the one who bought the baked goods in the first place and should eat with them.’
Jaina could not resist smiling to herself as she went to open the wine cellar door. She nearly walked into shelving before lighting a flame in her palm and realizing she had accidentally picked the pantry and that the wine cellar must have been further left. She made to leave before glass glinting against the firelight caught her eye.
Dark liquid encased in a myriad of vials lined the entire side of the pantry. The contents were protected not just by glass, but by a strong preservation spell. At first glance they were healing potions—the Windrunners were warriors after all—but healing potions needed no external preservation. Not for freshness and original taste anyway; the copious amounts of sugar and berry extract were barely enough at times to mask the bitter herbs as it was.
Taking a vial into her hands, Jaina could feel the preserved warmth radiating from the dark liquid and her stomach turned as it dawned on her what was within.
Blood.
And not an animal’s.