Journeys - 4 (Patreon)

I nodded stiffly to the marine that had been escorting me and took a deep breath as I eyed up the ornate door before me. I didn't want to have this meeting, if I hadn't run into Katherine last night – seen her alongside Finnall and Klinar – I wouldn't have agreed to it at all. Not without Darius here as well as Vivi.

Without any of the hesitation I felt, my escort knocked heavily on the door. "Lord Admiral, I have brought Witch Arevin as ordered." 

"Enter."

As my escort opened the door, revealing Daelin's piercing stare aimed directly for me once again, I was relieved I had Vivi's reassuring presence by my side. She couldn't take the fore like Darius might, but at least she was here – even if she was still annoyed at me for being so late coming back last night, and not terribly understanding of why I had to help put Taelia to bed at all.

"Lord Admiral." I greeted him with a curtsy as I stepped into his solar. "Lady Katherine. A good morning and fair tidings to you both on this day. May I ask what it is you wished to speak of?" We all knew what it was, likely even Daelin's guards knew, but there was a necessary pageantry to this.

"A good morning to you as well, Gwyneth." Lady Katherine said with a small smile from her seat. 

Something her pacing husband didn't copy. "I will hear from you what you told my daughter. What reasoning you gave which had her tell me that I could not follow her," his eyes, already sharp as they were, narrowed further, "that I could not protect her as a father ought protect their children."

I met his eyes as best I could, seeing the determination there. That was the crux of it: Daelin would not be satisfied, not even with the truth, unless he also believed that our decision was what was best for Jaina.

It wouldn't be hard to lie. To deceive or trick him, to speak in obfuscations or manipulate the truth such that he came to some conclusion I wanted. But how would that be different from how I treated Genn? If anything it would be worse, far worse than just leaving him ignorant – no. I'd come to the conclusion I should have at least tried with Genn... so, I had to try here too.

But even speaking truthfully, giving him a chance to understand, this would have to be handled delicately. If anything more so than if I was deceitful Walking into the room I stayed silent and in thought, waiting for the Lord Admiral to sit beside her wife so that I could sit opposite. 

Vivi stood behind me, much as his guards did him and his wife. A servant moved to pour tea at Lady Katherine's request, but neither of us touched our cups.

Just as his patience seemed about to wear thin I spoke. "No matter what I tell you, no matter what I say or what anger you feel, it will not reflect upon Gilneas. You will deal with my nation fairly, for the sake of the Alliance and humanity as a whole."

"Agreed." Lady Katherine said immediately. "No matter the outcome of this dealing, our business with Lord Crowley will be conducted fairly." Daelin grunted, seemingly in agreement, which would have to be enough.

I took a deep breath, it was time to start. "First, you need to understand this is what could have been. Things have changed. What I have told people has changed things, events cannot follow the same path as they did." I looked down at the tea, the steam slowly wafting off of it. "There was no Kalimdor Expedition, not from Gilneas, in the future I saw. No great planned exodus across the sea, no unified force prepared for what they faced, just... a scared young woman and all they could save going to face the end of the world unknowingly."

"Am I meant to be glad for your manipulations?" Daelin grumbled darkly. "For preventing me from aiding her, from serving as commander of her armies and fleets as I would have done gladly? For failing to prevent this calamity as it began?" 

Lady Katherine sipped at her tea. "You cannot deny that a mighty force was assembled and given to her command, Daelin. That much Gwyneth is owed in thanks."

He harrumphed loudly, but merely leaned back in his seat to wait for me to speak. 

Though Daelin lacked the stoicism that Darius prided himself on, the stony facade that was all but unbreakable, he held his posture and expression firmly. His disapproval was plain but his hands remained firmly in his lap, not thrown about in anger.

My own was less subtle, the sting of his accusation landing in guilt– misplaced, I knew – I didn't think I would ever stop feeling. "I tried." I snapped, my words clipped and short. "Light and Keepers both, I tried. I sought out those who I could convince when I was twelve, I was expelled from Dalaran for trying! And, with your daughter-in-law and granddaughter in this very keep, you must know that too!" 

Taking a harsh breath I closed my eyes to re-centre myself. "Do not accuse me of failing when others failed to listen to me until it was too late."

"I thank you once again for the warning you gave. For its part in saving the family we knew not that we had." Lady Katherine said, giving Daelin a sharp glance.

He met it, standing strong for a few moments before relenting. "My apologies. That was unbecoming of me." He grit out slowly, failing to meet my eyes as he apologised. "Yet, my other questions remain."

I snorted, snaking my head. It was something at least; not enough to make me happy, but at least he did something. "The consequences first." I held up my hand, preemptively forestalling any objections. "Of what you would have done, what would have happened as I knew it. First, Jaina would become estranged from her family, all of you, for a decade or more. Reviled and disparaged by all of Kul Tiras; 'Beware, beware, the daughter of the sea. Beware, I heard him cry.'"

Neither of them took that declaration well, Daelin barely, but noticeably, bristling while Katherine covered her mouth in shock.

"When Kul Tiras called for aid after your expedition failed, to continue to follow what you had set as the course, and to seek revenge... they refused. Unable, unwilling, it hardly matters – Kul Tiras departed the Alliance. I never saw if you ever, if at all, rejoined."

"How?" Katherine whispered, a shaking hand lowering her cup to its saucer. " How could it come to that?"

"Preposterous." Daelin snapped, his temper beginning to show again. I felt Vivi move behind me, ready to act – and though I tried to remain outwardly calm, I pulsed Life through my veins and skin, hardening myself. "There is nothing that would turn Kul Tiras against Jaina!" He slammed a fist on the table, setting the porcelain to clatter. "Nor that would see my abandon Terenas' legacy!"

"Not even your death, in which your daughter became complicit?" I asked quietly. With the events that had come after, how the world had progressed, sometimes it seemed as if she had been wrong to do what she did.

But I did not believe allowing Daelin free reign to commit genocide would have been right either.

"Upon reaching Kalimdor your actions began a war with Jaina's allies against the end of the world." I picked up my tea, using it as a shield as I drank from the cup. Touching on the orcs would have to be delicate, left to the very end if I could. "Not knowingly, you hadn't found her yet, but a war all the same. Refusing to back down it became a war to the bitter end – either they died, to the very last, or... you did. And she stood aside, letting your death happen, even as she cried."

"Jaina has always had a soft heart." Lady Katherine said shakily, horror dawning as she tried to imagine – and failed to find it unbelievable. "A contrast to her father's. Such a foolish girl..."

Daelin's fist clenched white. "What could I find in that accursed land that–" He cut himself off, his eyes widening. "No."

I suppressed a wince, there were enough pieces to put things together it seemed. And for one so aware of what happened at sea, with the navies, the theft of Lordaeron's fleet in Hillsbrad by Thrall would hardly have been missed.

He stood slowly, towering over me. "You cannot possibly mean that Jaina, my daughter, fought alongside orcs. That she would choose them over her own family, her own people."

Taking a long draught I drained my cup and set it down. "Would she? Now, with what has changed, I don't know. She fought alongside them against the undead, against demons, against the end of the world itself. Her people fought, bled, and died beside them in a desperate struggle – one which they won." I looked up at him. "Can you, you who so firmly believes in the Alliance, honestly say that ties forged in blood and honour are less than ones of family?"

It seemed I struck the nail on the head as Daelin pulled back, his countenance flickering too quickly to follow easily. 

"I'm hardly going to tell you that orcs are good." I let out a laugh, something of a miserable giggle. "I think Queen Menethil might gut me if I tried." She'd certainly be furious over the Frostwolves when she found out. "Most of them are awful, carrying a legacy of misery and bloodshed they can't make up for. But not all of them. Not one born after the war, raised in the camps as a slave, and that is who Jaina befriended."

"Not all orcs are monsters." Vivi said from behind me. "Like not all humans are good. Alterac was no better than them, and some of them are their..."

"Opposite, the inverse of Alterac." Lady Katherine looked down with a frown. A few moments passed in silence, Daelin still fuming as she thought, before she shook her head. "I can belie–"

"Get out." Daelin spoke over her. "I will honour our agreement. I will consider what you have said. But you are no longer welcome in my keep." He bared his teeth in a grimace. "Not because of what you have told me this day, but what you told my daughter. Undoubtedly encouraging this action, this folly, to seek the future you desire."

Vivi jumped over my chair, standing protectively. "You can't–"

He snapped out an arm, cutting her off. "I can and have. Lorena, escort the prophet out of the keep. Her belongings will be returned to the Gilnean ship separately."

I frowned and stood, looking up at the man who I wished would be better. "Very well, Lord Admiral." I looked to the balcony, the doors leading out. "I shall depart your keep–" not Kul Tiras, he didn't order me out of Kul Tiras, "–but under my own power."

Reaching inside myself I touched on the fraction of myself that was Rokkri's, her feather, the empty void which swallowed all light into itself to glisten like the night sky, and twisted. A moment later a gust of wind tore open the balcony doors and I was awing, flyout out over the cityscape of Boralus.

Damnable kings, admirals, and their arrogant pride.

-oOoOo-

"Hah! Noth'n' more'n a kiddo's fancy." Pike grumbled, shaking his head before taking a swig of his – honestly foul smelling – drink. "Grown girl like ya ain't got no reason to care 'bout that shit. Go find a man like's right and proper. Not chasing old wives tales."

"I paid for your drink so you'd tell me what you knew." I growled, but he just looked amused. "Liar."

He chuckled. "Didn't lie. Told you what you needed to hear. Now go back to your ma' and get help finding a guy," he looked me up and down, starting to leer "unless your offering? Don't think I'd mind, ain't too foreign."

I dropped a few coins on the counter in front of the barman. "For the stool." I said blandly, standing and twisting the wood out from under his ignorant arse, sending him crashing to the floor as it no longer supported his weight – his drink following him down and spilling all over his fancy surcoat. I snorted at the sight; he was too well dressed to be an ignorant labourer, yet he was a pig of a human being all the same. "In Gilneas one is taught from a young age how to treat others with respect, be then men or women. I see Kul Tiras has no such expectations." 

Light, this was getting nowhere. Drifting between the inns and pubs of Boralus trying to find someone who had any real knowledge of the 'Wicker Men' was proving to be an utter failure. Between those who dismissed me as Gilnean, those that just didn't care, and this bastard, I'd struck out a dozen times over.

"You little bitch!" Pike snapped, struggling to his feet.

Ignoring him – or at least appearing to do so – I turned away, making my way to the exit. Not a single person, not even the other women present, seemed to care about his behaviour; instead they all looked at me with judgemental eyes.

I wasn't going to get a damn thing from here.

Pike lashed out at me as soon as he was upright, a telegraphed right-hook I sidestepped easily – one I'd struggle not to see coming. He might have more than a foot on me, like so many of the gigantic Kul Tirans, but I wasn't at all threatened by him. A flick of my wrist saw the broken stool grow new shoots, branches stretching out to entangle his legs as I stepped around him.

"Bitch? Really?" I mocked him. "The correct word is 'witch' if you are referring to my profession, or 'vixen' if you want to speak of my heritage." 

"Fucking heathen! What kind of sorcery is this?!" He spat at me as his tangled limbs took him down once more.  There was a temptation to lash out physically and punch him, to get physical even if it wasn't my forte. Let out my frustrations with Daelin, Genn, and the Kul Tirans themselves all at once.

But with half the patrons of the bar standing up, staring at me the way they were, it'd be stupid. Angry or not I couldn't without causing enough trouble bloody Daelin'd have an actual reason to throw me out of Kul Tiras. 

"Witchcraft." I answered flatly, then looked at the barman. "I'm leaving unless someone else does something stupid."

He nodded sharply. "Get out."

"It appears to me that you are telling that to the wrong person, innkeeper." The near sparkling tones of Sorceress Goldensword said from behind me. "One should punish a fraud and troublemaker, not one defrauded." She floated into the room, levitating herself as she did back in Dalaran – but alighted on the floor after a moment with faint disgust.

"He's a paying customer." The barman snapped. "She ain't."

"From what I saw, Jonas, she paid for Pike's drink. Then he stiffed her what she asked." Cyrus rumbled as he followed Klinar in. "Hard woman to track down, Lady Arevin. Been halfway across the city and back in the last few hours. Could have done with a break for my poor legs sometime."

I stared at them, then at Taelia and Finnall who were peering in through the doorway. "He didn't send you after me, did he?" Not with the kids here.

Cyrus waved a hand dismissively. "No, Lady Katherine did. For me at least, Lady Goldensword sent herself." He moved to an open table and sat, the chair creaking slightly under his seven foot bulk as he propped his feet up on another. "Your fancy exit went around the keep faster than you left, you understand. Everyone heard about it, got a few folks from Drustvar crying 'witchcraft', as if you weren't open about being one to begin with." He snorted mirthfully.

"I was displeased with my father-in-law's actions." Sorceress Goldensword said bluntly, her eyebrows twitching. "Once I was informed I made clear my intentions to find you and brought my daughter with me. I had intended your companion, Lady Mistmantle to join us..."

"But she went and insulted the Lord Admiral, so she's on her way back to your ship." Cyrus sighed, propping his head up with one hand and giving me a wry look. "Under armed escort too. Maybe flying out the window and leaving your girl behind weren't the best of plans?"

"Girl?" Pike snorted from the floor. "She's a muff diver too?!"

"Shut up, idiot!" Someone hissed "That's Cyrus Crestfall!"

"Why are you even in these bars?" Finnall asked as she slipped in, she scrunched up her nose then pinched it shut. "It stinks in here! They all do!"

I agreed with her, but compared to some of what I'd smelled while fighting the Scourge... it wasn't enough to bother me. "When I spoke with her, Jaina mentioned the 'Wicker Men'. Before I flew off into the distance looking for them I was hoping to find some clue as to where they might be beyond 'somewhere in Drustvar'." I sighed. "So far, no luck."

"Huh." Cyrus scratched his chin. "Yeah, can't say I know much myself, but I know one who does. Might help convincing him if I knew why you were looking for them."

Glancing about the tavern, the way all of the patrons were carefully avoiding looking at us – even the barman was now fixated on polishing a clean glass further – I decided I might as well. It's not like I actually cared about the man. "One of them did as sailors do, going to port and finding a girl to woo." I waved at myself. "I'm the result he left behind. I might have a bone to pick with the git, but mostly I want to find them because their magic is the same as mine."

Klinar frowned deeply, her shining blue eyes piercing as they looked around the bar at the suddenly guilty sailors. "I never had a chance to ask if you found your mother last night."

"I found her." I smiled, that at least had been... an ending. 

"Well. That's a worthy cause as any." Cyrus lifted himself from his seat. "Arthur won't say no to that, and if anybody can find truth about those rumours in his lands it'd be one who wields the same powers. You'll take her to the Snug Harbour, Lady Goldensword? They'll be less," he looked around, "rough than this lot to a foreign girl and I can mee tyou there later."

She nodded with a smile, floating into the air once more. "A stay at an inn and away from the keep will be good for Finnall. I believe she's growing too accustomed to the luxury of being a Proudmoore of late."

"Mom! They don't even have an ice-chest, or ice-cream, what luxuries?!" Finnall protested futilely, setting her mother's eyebrows twitching with amusement and Taelia giggling.