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Lidya watched as Ravandwyr and Vargoth latched onto each other like it was the very last thing they ever got to do, both shaking and crying and Ravandwyr repeating some words in Thalassian over and over again that Lidya could totally understand despite the fact that his mouth was pressed against the Archmage’s shoulder – and she tried to pretend for a second that she wasn’t two seconds away from crying too just by watching them.
She dropped the pretense when Millhouse, the most heartless out of all of the Tirisgarde, loudly sniffed and wiped tears away from under his eyes before turning around to hide his face. If even the gnome was getting emotional over the reunion, then so could Lidya.
She smiled when Khadgar squeezed her shoulders comfortingly from behind and murmured against her ear in a warm tone “you did good, Archmage.”.
I did, she thought as Ravandwyr, for the hundredth time at least, murmured against Vargoth’s shoulder how much he loved him.
***
The next day the front page of the Dalaran Gazette proudly announced “The Return of the Sixth!”. Lidya only skimped through the article, keeping an eye on Ilana’s fork that always tended to finish in her plate, and mentally patter herself on the back.
Vargoth was back and not evil at all, quite the contrary, everyone was happy and, what made her prouder than she had ever been, Lidya was finally an Archmage of the Kirin Tor.
It felt almost too good to be true, but everyone was now addressing her as such, which helped make sure that she hadn’t been hallucinating that part of the night, yet she couldn’t quite totally believe it.
Some part of herself was still a sixteen year old being kicked out of Dalaran for defending her mentor.
“Hey,” she said to Ilana, grabbing her cup of tea and taking a quick sip, “how do the Illidari call you?”
“The Slayer, although it’s a little… you know,” she shrugged and stole a piece of bread from Lidya, “Loramus and Jace make fun of me because of that. Congrats on becoming an Archmage, by the way. Jace said it’s supposed to be a big deal but considering what you told me you’ve already done I don’t see why they waited all this time.”
“Oh waoh, can you repeat that to Khadgar and Kalec? They’re gonna scream. And they waited because I wasn’t technically a member a the Kirin Tor before.”
“Whatever,” muttered Ilana, “are you gonna eat that whole omelet?”
Lidya rolled her eyes but cut the omelet in two and pushed one half into Ilana’s plate without a word.
She could pretend to be annoyed at her another day.
***
Lidya arrived at Stomrwind two days later with Ilana in tow to discover the entire city covered in pink decoration and hearts.
“Oh fuck, it’s that time of the year again.”
“You didn’t know?” replied Ilana, sounding surprised. “People have been offering me stupid charms non-stop for two days now.”
“Really?” Not that Lidya doubted that anyone would find Ilana attractive, she was a tall dark skinned elf who could bench press two taurens and a half without sweating, but she had assumed that people would be too afraid of her to act on it.
“Yeah, half of it at least is from Khadgar convincing people to give them to me, but I think it’s sweet.”
“Really?!”
Ilana smiled – an almost normal thing, if it wasn’t for the fangs and the whole demon thing – and nodded.
“Usually, when a demon hunter wants to court another demon hunter, they bring them a fresh demon heart, then if the other demon hunter reciprocate the feeling they do the same, and the courtship ends when they both go on a hunt for the biggest demon they can find.”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“I swear on Illidan that it’s true. Loramus and I took down a pit lord on out first date on Outland, it was very romantic.”
Lidya couldn’t help but laugh at that sentence. There was no way Khadgar was going to charm her with just cute trinkets. The poor Archmage was in for a ride.
“Wait a second,” said Lidya just as they were approaching the canals, “does this mean that Tehd and Marius...”
“Oh yeah,” replied Ilana with a dismissive hand gesture, “they’re constantly going on dates, summoning big demons and all. It’s kinda romantic and no one lets Marius live it down. Who would have thought that an undead warlock would be the love of his life.” She snorted.
Something twisted in Lidya’s chest and she decided to drop the subject.
“When is that thing we’re going to starting anyway?” asked Ilana just as Lidya was helping her navigate the busy Trade District – thankfully people got out of their way as soon as they laid eyes on the two of them.
“It’s starting as soon as we get there. There’s a portal at the Keep for us.”
“The King will be there?” she asked with a smirk. “Oh, which reminds me, I still don’t know why I’m coming with you.”
“Because they said I could bring a plus one and you’re basically my best friend. Why, you don’t want to come?”
“Quite the contrary, it’s just that if the King will be there...”
“Light,” muttered Lidya with a roll of her eyes, cutting her off. “King Anduin will be there, I don’t know about Varian, and I really don’t get why everyone is so obsessed with me being in his presence. He’s the High King of the Alliance, not my best friend.”
“And you guys would like to be a lot more than that,” added Ilana with a sly smile and an elbow in the ribs that would have made a lesser human grimace in pain.
“Shut up,” was the only thing Lidya could think of as a reply, feeling herself blush.
Yes, it the occasion arose, you could bet that Lidya wouldn’t sleep on it, but she had to be honest with herself. He was Varian Wrynn, and while being the Archmage leading the Tirisgarde was kind of a big deal, the guy leading the entire Alliance was so far out of her league, it made her dizzy, and everyone joking about it was starting to piss her off. Had it only been Ilana, she would have let it slide, but Khadgar, Kalec, Ravandwyr and even Modera, on one occasion, were giving her sly looks and smiled every time someone mentioned Varian in front of her, and she was starting to fear what would happen the day someone did it in front of him and he finally realized that maybe she’d like to do more than dancing with him.
She’d even like a lot more than what they had done on the Skybreaker, so long ago.
“Just, please, don’t say anything weird in front of him if he’s here.”
Ilana rolled her eyes – she wasn’t wearing anything to hide them that day, so Lidya was sure.
“Of course, you think I’m an amateur?”
“I prefer to be sure,” she replied as she grabbed Ilana and steered her away from the path of a fruit merchant. “Now come on, I really don’t want to be late.”
***
Lakeshire was still pretty warm this time of the year, compared to Stormwind. Anduin was already there when Ilana and Lidya crossed the portal and found themselves in the Town Hall. Next to him stood, to his left, Magistrate Salomon and, to his right, Varian, all three dressed in full regalia. Lidya, who was wearing her official and very stuffy Archmage Robes and had been feeling very overdressed walking down the streets of Stormwind, was glad she had made the effort. She was even wearing the medals the Alliance had awarded her after her craziest feats of strength – like the death of Deathwing or the Lich King.
She tried not to stare too much at the two Wrynns, but it was made a little hard by how good they looked. Seeing them at their best like that, it was hard to think that they were both still single.
Ilana very discreetly poked her in the back and she came back to herself right on time to politely bow to the two kings before shaking Magistrate Salomon’s hand.
“Did Keeshan come?” she asked him while Ilana started talking to the two other men.
“He’s outside with Marshall Troteman.”
Lidya nodded, looked to see if it would be too impolite to leave now without saying anything to the kings, and started walking out of the Town Hall when she found them both engrossed in conversation with Ilana.
Right outside, as promised, were Marshall Troteman and John J Keeshan, who both hugged her in greeting.
Keeshan looked as rough as usual while Marshall Troteman seemed to have gained even more confidence than the last time she had seen him in Pandaria.
“I still can’t believe you’re really doing this,” Keeshan told her.
“And I still can’t even believe we got this far,” said Troteman, to which Lidya agreed.
There was a huge crowd waiting for them on the other side of the lake. It looked like the entire town and some had come, and for that she was unbelievably grateful. She had feared for about an entire minute after making this whole thing happen that no one would care, but then she had remembered the Bravo Company’s members’ funerals and how literally everyone living in Redridge had come, and she had known that it wouldn’t only be her, Keeshan and Troteman to show up on this day.
“We’re going to start,” said Magistrate Salomon behind her, walking out of the Town Hall with Ilana, Varian and Anduin following him.
Lidya nodded and let him go before her so she could walk with Ilana, feeling like a weight was pressing down on her shoulders and growing heavier with every step that took her closer to the crowd and the huge covered mass they were all standing in front of.
There was a small stage in front of the covered mass that they all stepped on, except for Ilana who stayed with the crowd, and Magistrate Salomon did a quick speech, thanking everyone for coming, before giving the floor to Varian.
“We’re here today to celebrate the memories of proud heroes who have sacrificed their lives for the Alliance and to show our thanks to those who continue to put themselves at risk in order to protect us all,” he started, and no matter how much Lidya focused on his words, she couldn’t, for the life of her, make sense of the rest. She watched his face as he went, looked at the way his lips were moving, the way he got animated and started talking with his hands too. The entire crowd was hanging to his every words, and even Ilana chuckled when he seemed to make a joke, but still, his words washed over Lidya, impossible to understand, and she was left here to look and wait for a cue.
It came in the form of a grand gesture of the arm and the huge piece of fabric they were all standing in front of being pushed away to reveal the monument Lidya had commissioned.
She had chosen Stormwind’s best, and was glad when she saw the result. The statues were huge, and so realistic it took her breath away for a second.
Messner, Jorgensen, Krakauer, Danforth and Keeshan, they were all here, but she was surprised to find a sixth statue, that she hadn’t asked for, representing herself. For a moment she admired how well they had captured the details on Felo’melorn, that she was holding up to the sky with a determined and quite wild look on her face.
They all looked proud and powerful, like the heroes that they were, and when Lidya turned misty eyes to the man standing next to her, she was happy to find all the emotions she was going through reflected on Keeshan’s face.
“They would love it,” he said after a moment, voice strangled.
“They deserve this,” she replied, squeezing his arm comfortingly. “We deserve this.”
He nodded and brusquely turned in her direction to hug her.
***
Keeshan had left as soon as the banquet held at the Town Hall had served the second dish, and Lidya couldn’t really blame him. All the noise and attention turned to their side of the table, no matter if it was because of the two of them, the very foreign demon hunter or the two beloved kings, was making it quite difficult to stay calm and keep a smile on.
Lidya felt uneasy being in an enclosed space with so many people, even if it had been several weeks since getting through the Nightmare, and she had to check herself several time to stop herself from bursting into flames. Varian was sitting to her right and she would really feel bad if she burnt his armor off.
Ilana, who was sitting in front of her, to Anduin’s right, brushed her foot against hers under the table and Lidya consciously relaxed her shoulders, keeping her eyes firmly turned to her plate.
She only realized that she wasn’t paying any attention to the several conversations going on around her when she heard her name.
“Hm?” she asked, looking up and realizing that everyone on this side of the table was looking at her.
“We were talking about the Cataclysm,” said Anduin with a soft smile. “We were just saying that everyone remembers very precisely what they were doing when Deathwing attacked Stormwind, but I don’t think you were in the city at the time.”
Lidya shook her head very slowly, feeling like her face was suddenly numb.
She remembered quite vividly what she had been doing. She had spent the night in Silvermoon, at a party thrown by Halduron Brightwing himself, crying in Archmage Draerin’s arms and getting drunk off of elf booze. She had woken up the next day with her worst hangover to date and the news that Deathwing had just destroyed half of Stomrwind.
She had teleported there as soon as she had been able to stand up straight without any help and hadn’t seen Archmage Draerin or the inside of the elf’s city ever since.
“I was in the Plaguelands at the time,” she said, the lie rolling off her tongue without problem although she couldn’t really meet anyone’s eyes as she said it.
“Doing what?” asked Ilana.
“Helping the Cenarion Circle.” Some memories were a little hazy, but she was pretty sure she had worked for some druids at some point. She mostly remembered working with Thassarian and the disappearance of Koltira. Coming back from Northrend traumatized to help the region heal from the Scourge had been a stupid idea. “Who even told you about Deathwing?” she asked Ilana before someone could ask another question.
The elf shrugged a shoulder and took a way too long sip of wine.
“Dariness, the archaeologist from Dalaran, you know her right?” Lidya nodded. “Well, I asked and she filled me in.”
“You like archaeology?” immediately asked Anduin, his entire face morphing into delight.
Ilana nodded and the two of them went off, passionately talking over each other about their love for broken artifacts and sandy pieces of ancient art.
“I’ll never understand the passion for that,” muttered Lidya to her plate, surprised to hear Varian chuckle and turn to her.
“I think Anduin loves it so much because he didn’t play in a sandbox enough as a child.”
“That must be it,” she replied, unable to stop herself from smiling, “which actually would explain a lot about Ilana.”
She received a kick in the shin under the table for that, but Varian’s second little chuckle made it worth it.
***
By the time the banquet was finally over and everyone got out of the Town Hall, Lidya was feeling drained and a little tipsy. She crossed path with her family and chitchatted with them for a while, putting up a front in front of her excited sisters so they didn’t know how tired she really was.
Once she was finally left alone in an almost calm Lakeshire, she found herself going back to the monument to look at the statues of the Bravo Company a little more.
She missed them a lot. They were the first group she had felt like she really belonged with apart from being with Balan and Anaar, and the fact that she had met them after losing Balan had only made their death that more painful.
At least I still have Keeshan and Troteman, she thought, turning to look at her statue.
“The Kingdom gave you money because you saved its ruler, and you decided to use it to build a monument to the glory of other heroes,” said a voice behind her.
She waited until the person speaking stepped next to her to turn and face them.
It was, unsurprisingly, Varian.
“Only you would do that,” he added with a smile on the corner of the mouth.
“What about that statue of me?”
“It was Anduin’s idea, I know because I was there when he visited the sculptor, and you probably guessed it because no one else would do anything like that.”
“True,” she smiled. “I’m impressed, they really got the details of my sword right.”
Varian cleared his throat and looked away for a second.
“That’s because I drew it for them,” he said, left hand disappearing under his long ponytail to scratch at his nape.
“You can draw?”
“I was raised a royal prince,” he replied, turning back to her and with his smile back, “there isn’t a lot of artsy stuff that I can’t do.”
“Please tell me that some paintings hanging in the Keep were secretly made by you and no one knows about it.”
“If I did,” he said, his smiled growing more amused as he leaned in her direction and spoke softly, “I’d have to have the SI:7 kill you.”
Lidya laughed out loud, unable to help herself.
“I do have drawings that I can show you, although they’re not hanging anywhere. You should come back to the Keep with Anduin and I to see them.”
“Sure,” she replied before even registering what he was asking, “it’d be my pleasure.”
He smiled, differently than he usually did – more like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders – and gave her a nod.
***
“This is getting weird,” murmured Ilana after they retook the portal to get to the Keep and were lead to a private living room.
“You’re weird,” replied Lidya, very maturely.
Ilana rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything else.
They both sat down on a couch and Ilana started to talk to Anduin immediately. Lidya was only half listening to her retelling of the day she had gone to Ouland – she had heard this story eight times already and all the events were always so different, she wasn’t sure any of what Ilana was saying was true. She kept an eye on Varian, who seemed to be looking for something in one of the shelves covering the walls.
“Lidya,” softly called Varian after a moment.
She got up and followed him to a table on the other side of the room where he put down a thick folder. He started flipping through it while Lidya watched with rapt attention all the drawings passing under her eyes. She was no expert but he was good. His landscapes looked almost real and his portraits… her heart squeezed uncomfortably when he stopped on a self-portrait.
He was a lot younger on it, and the absence of scars on his face was almost shocking.
“It was Tiffin’s favorite,” he said. She could feel him look closely at her face and she tried very hard to keep a neutral expression.
“I can see why,” she replied after a moment.
He was smiling softly and, truthfully, looked adorable. He had more in common with Anduin on that drawing than in real life, and not for the first time she cursed Onyxia and everything else that had taken his innocence away.
He flipped that drawing over, and the next one was another portrait, of Bolvar this time.
Lidya frowned slightly and picked it up before Varian could flip through that one too.
She hadn’t realized before, how much the battle in Northrend had affected Bolvar. He looked nothing like the man she had come to know.
“He was very different towards the end of his life,” said Varian, tone muted like he didn’t want the others to hear.
“Yes,” she replied through the sudden knot in her throat. He was even more different now, she wanted to add, but she didn’t think he would take it nicely. “You must miss him terribly.”
“It comes in waves,” he replied, and she sharply looked up at him to nod.
She knew exactly what he meant.
“What about you? He made it sound like the two of you were good friends.”
“He talked about me?” she asked, unable to hide her surprise.
“A lot. He thought very highly of you.”
Lidya looked back down at the drawing, before putting it back into the folder.
“You should draw Genn, one day,” she said to change subject. “You know, when he does that face when he talks about Darius after several drinks.”
“I know exactly which face you’re talking about,” he laughed, before brusquely becoming serious again. “I tried to draw you, you know. From memory, of when you saved me.”
“And?”
“I can’t get it right,” he replied, his eyes feeling like a caress on her face. “I can never tell if it’s the eyes or the mouth, but it never looks like I want it to.”
“Maybe you should study the subject a little more,” she heard herself say.
Varian gave a weak nod, a tender expression crossing over his face, and Lidya was suddenly extremely aware of the fact that they were both leaning with a hand on the table, and not that much space was separating them. If she moved her fingers just a tiny bit forward, she would be able to brush against his.
She couldn’t find it in herself to care if Anduin and Ilana were watching as she did just that, the tip of Varian’s fingers feeling cold against hers but still sending a wave of warmth through her stomach.
She kept her gaze firmly turned to his, even as he looked down at their hands in surprise before meeting her eyes again.
“I…” he started. “I should, you’re right.”
She nodded, feeling her pulse in her throat and ears as nervous energy bubbled in her, waiting for him to do something now that the ball was in his court but the seconds passed and he just looked at her, his surprise not diminishing.
A terrible thought crossed Lidya’s mind – I misread everything, he doesn’t want me, he’s too polite to say anything, he’s feeling trapped now that I’m practically holding his hand IN PUBLIC.
She could feel the panic taking over, bitter and choking, filling up her chest and throat until it felt like she couldn’t breath anymore, and she took a sudden and giant step back, breaking both their physical and eye contact.
“I… I’m so sorry,” she stammered, “I’m not feeling well.”
And she blinked to the door and left the room.
***
Shame was a cruel thing.
To put it kindly, Lidya wanted to die.
She couldn’t believe she had been stupid enough to read so much into Varian’s words and action. Worse, she had been childish enough to run away.
She had looked the Lich King in the eyes and challenged him repeatedly, and Varian Wrynn looking her in the eyes without any visible reaction had been the thing to have her run in fear, back to her bed in Dalaran.
Or Ravandwyr’s bed, actually.
“I’m never showing my face in Stormwind ever again.”
“He spends as much time there as he does in Dalaran nowadays,” replied Ravandwyr, sounding bored as he flipped a page from the book he was reading.
“Dalaran’s smaller and I know it better than him. I’ll be able to avoid him here.”
“I’m not sure this is the best idea you’ve ever had,” he replied, still not looking up from his book, “and I’ve heard you, Ilana and Khadgar brainstorm ideas on how best to attack the Legion.”
“Khadgar always has the shittiest ideas and you know it,” she replied.
“Still, you won’t be able to avoid him forever.”
“I can try. Besides, I have a very nice farm in Pandaria that not a lot of people know about. I can disappear if I want.”
“But you don’t, because you still want to see him, and you have a world to save.”
“The problem isn’t me seeing him, it’s him seeing me! I royally fucked up,” – Ravandwyr snorted and she glared at him hard enough to set him on fire if she could – “are you seriously having fun right now?”
He finally looked up to send her a faux surprised look.
“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, my life right now is pretty great,” he said, pointing with his chin at Vargoth, who was sleeping and using his lap as a pillow. Ravandwyr had been running a hand through his hair since Lidya had arrived and found them like that on the love seat, and no matter how much she tried to ignore it, seeing them like this sent a jolt of pain straight to her heart. “You’re fretting over nothing, especially if the rumors are true.”
“The rumors?”
“He dances only with you, of course there are rumors, and Ilana told me about the way he looks at you.”
“Ilana is blind,” she replied, before rolling over and burying her face in one of his numerous pillows, “now please let me feel sorry for myself in peace.”
“As long as you do it quietly,” he replied.
***
“That wasn’t your proudest moment, I have to admit,” loudly said Ilana two days later when Lidya finally found the courage to tell her about what had happened, “but it could have been worse, and although I can’t be a hundred percent sure, he did look like something had just died in front of his very eyes afterwards.”
“I’m not sure it makes me feel any better,” replied the mage just as she bent down and a glaive flew over her head from behind and stuck a naga right in the throat. “But it’s gonna be fine, I can always fake my own death.”
“Or move to your farm, unless Ravandwyr was lying.”
“He wasn’t, and if it makes you feel better, I’d invite you over if I ever did. You’ve never been to Pandaria, so I could show you around.”
“I’ve heard terrible things about this place,” said Ilana, taking her glaive back from the naga’s neck and backflipping out of the way of another one charging her from behind.
“Most of them were probably true, but I’m sure you would love it there.”
“As long as there are things to kill,” smirked the demon hunter.
Lidya wanted to reply, but she was forced to blink away before a new wave of naga could trample her, and she spent the following half hour fighting them off with Ilana.
“Is it weird that I like it here?” she asked as the two of them started walking back to the Illidari’s camp.
“Azsuna does that to people,” smiled Ilana before immediately losing it when her eyes fell on Kayn, who was waiting for her at the camp’s entrance. She stopped walking and turned to Lidya. “Would you mind waiting here?”
Lidya shook her head and watched closely as Ilana joined Kayn and they started talking with agitation, before Ilana put a hand in Kayn’s shoulder and the blood elf grabbed her in a sudden and painfully tight looking hug.
For a second, the archmage wondered if she should be witnessing it – and she had her answer when Ilana wrapped her arms around Kayn and he started sobbing.
Turning around, Lidya started casting a teleportation spell. She could always find something useful to do in the Hall of the Guardian until Ilana came to get her once this thing with Kayn was over. It was fine.
***
It would have been extremely fine, if Khadgar hadn’t invited Varian into the Hall of the Guardian to give him a tour. Ravandwyr couldn’t stop smirking, this little shit, and only Vargoth seemed to be sympathetic.
“Don’t worry,” he told her after she took refuge with the two of them behind an arcane golem, waiting for the fateful moment to come, “he won’t say anything here, not in front of us, you just have to pretend that nothing happened.”
“Thanks,” replied Lidya, smiling nervously, “but I thought you were sleeping when I told Ravandwyr about what happened.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” he replied with a wink right before Khadgar and Varian appeared on the other side of the golem.
“Whose golem is that?” asked Khadgar, frowning slightly as he tried to push it away but it wouldn’t bulge.
“It’s mine, technically,” replied Lidya, making it move with just a touch of her fingers.
With it out of the way, the first person she made eye contact with was Varian, of course, and she firmly told herself that she was a badass archmage of the Kirin Tor, leader of the Tirisgarde and Savior of Azeroth who didn’t have to be afraid of anyone.
Still, she couldn’t help a shy smile as he saluted her and the other two.
“Lidya,” smiled Khadgar, looking like it was the first time in the last decade that he was in a good mood, “I thought you could show him around your office. I’m sure he’ll be very interested in all the artifacts we managed to recover.”
Lidya forced a smile on her face and nodded, wondering if Ilana had put him up to it, but she was probably still in Azsuna, and there was no way she would have gotten Kayn to cry like that just to get Lidya and Varian in the same room.
She stepped away from Vargoth and gestured for Varian to follow her as she started to walk to her office.
“You need to give me your hand,” she said when they arrived in front of the teleportation orb.
He nodded, frowning slightly as usual, and slid his hand in hers, the skin of his palm calloused but warmer than she had been expecting.
She didn’t want to think too much about it and touched the orb without wasting time, finding herself in her office on her next heartbeat.
She had left the window open and this high up in the sky the air blowing in was icy so she let go of his hand and hurried to the window, closing it and starting a fire in the hearth in a single movement.
“Sorry about the cold,” she said, turning away from him to straighten some papers on her desk, “I tend to forget that not everyone is a fire or frost mage.”
“It’s fine,” replied Varian, the sound of his voice enough to have her heart skip a beat, “I’ve lived through worse.”
“Haven’t we all at this point?” she replied without thinking, looking up at him with surprise when he laughed.
He was looking at her with amusement, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
“Anyway,” she said after a little while of just staring and smiling, “that’s my office, with a ton of very old and powerful artifacts that no one remembers how to use, and that could very well explode by themselves and destroy the entire city.”
“That sounds exciting,” he said.
“A city of mages that’s not on the brink of explosion at all times would be weird.”
“I expect you guys to be the next big problem after we’ve dealt with the Legion, to be honest.”
Lidya laughed out loud and sat down at her desk, pushing a pile of potentially sensible parchment aside and gesturing for Varian to sit directly on the desk.
He gave her the ghost of a smile and leaned against the just freed side of it, looking down at her with that same surprise he had shown while he was showing her his drawings.
“So,” he said.
“So,” she replied, crossing her arms on the desk and looking up at him through her lashes.
She was probably fluttering them a little without even realizing. With Love in the Air and the ever handsome and charming King, it was a little hard not to act flirty.
She was a fire mage, after all, being cautious and responsible wasn’t in her nature.
She could live with the shame of being rejected by him.
Maybe.
Still, for now he didn’t look inclined to reject anyone, on the contrary. This close, the surprise on his face looked more and more like wonder.
“I asked Khadgar to show me your office hoping that he would get you to do it yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to give you something,” he said, right hand disappearing into his pants’ pocket.
He put a little silver bracelet down on the desk, just in front of her, and nervously flipped his hair behind his shoulder with his other hand, eyes not leaving her.
“What is it?” asked Lidya, uncrossing her arms to gently grab the bracelet and inspect it.
“A lovely charm bracelet, I believe.”
Lidya slowly looked up at him.
“Why?”
“You’ve given me one every year for a while now, but I’m not the King of Stormwind anymore, so I thought maybe this year I could return the favor.”
“Ah,” she whispered, looking back down at the bracelet in her hands. She had no idea what to think of the gesture – of Varian making sure they were alone when he did this – but she was certain of one thing: she liked it a lot.
“Here,” she said, handing it back to him, “help me.”
He smiled, grabbed the bracelet with a little too much delicacy, and attached it around her left wrist, his fingers brushing the skin inside her wrist, making the hairs at the back if her neck stand on ends.
“I like it,” she said after inspecting it in the light, “thank you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” he replied, his eyes fixed on the bracelet. “I also, uh… I wanted to know if you were going to come to the ball.”
Lidya frowned. “The ball?”
“The Love is in the Air ball.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
Varian snorted. “There wasn’t until Anduin created it.”
“He really loves to throw parties, doesn’t he?”
“That he does.” He kept his eyes down, focused on her wrist, and for a second he started frowning again, before his face relaxed. “I’d like it, if you came.”
“I’ll go then,” she replied, feeling like she was combusting when he met her eyes and smiled happily.
“Good,” he said, gently grabbing her hand, and she got up from her chair, “wear good shoes.”
“I will.”
He gave her one of the most genuine smile she had ever seen on his face, bent down to press a kiss against her knuckles – a gesture that felt maybe a little too intimate for what it was – and took a step back from her desk.
“I have to go now, but thank you for letting me see your office.”
“Thank you for the bracelet,” she replied.
He nodded and she didn’t have to hold his hand again to activate the orb to leave, but she still pretended she had to.
***
One of the biggest perk of being an adventurer was the number of people Lidya met. Some she liked, others she hated, but no one yet had been like Prince Farondis.
Prince Farondis was like this older sibling who seemed cooler than all the other kids in the city, except that he was a badass mage and a ghost, which made him even cooler.
Unfortunately, his decision making skill was even worse than Lidya’s and at least as bad as Ilana’s.
Fortunately for him and all inhabitants of Azsuna, Ilana and Lidya were here to save them all.
Or at least that was their plan, because nagas were the worst and water really didn’t mix in well with Lidya’s set of skills.
“Fuck this I’m going frost!” yelled Lidya over the screams of agony coming from the rogue accompanying them.
“What?!” yelled the new Highlord of the Silver Hand, who had come with them more by pity than anything else.
Lidya threw Felo’melorn into the sand next to her and knelt on the ground instead of replying, opening up her backpack and furiously looking through it for her staff.
She wasn’t its proud wielder since long, but closing her fingers over Ebonchill still felt a lot like coming home after a long time, and when she closed her eyes and focused on killing the fire burning bright at her core, it didn’t take nearly as long as it should have.
Back at the beginning of her adventuring career, when she had passed for a frost mage only because it was what people were willing to offer her a job for, Archmage Draerin had tried to convince her to make the change for good. She had a gift for frost magic, he had said. She had ignored him at the time, thinking that he only said so because he was feeling bad for being the reason she had been thrown out of the Kirin Tor, but experience had proven this theory wrong.
She was a damn good frost mage, but fire always came more naturally, and that was what she was most famous for after her time in Northrend.
Now though, as she opened her eyes again, Ebonchill in hands and ice in her veins, she wondered if maybe she just hadn’t been using the right staff this entire time.
Ilana rushed past her, saving both the rogue and paladin at the last minute by engulfing the three of them in darkness, and Lidya didn’t even have to think about the spells she was using. A frozen orb here, a blizzard there, she iced and froze and chilled, and once the battle was finally over, she found herself smiling at Ilana, who was wiping blood from her chin.
“Feeling good?” asked the demon hunter.
“Better than ever,” replied the mage, turning around to make sure that their healer was still alright, before grabbing Felo’melorn and pushing it into her backpack. She waited for Ilana to join her and together they started to walk again.
The Highlord, a draenei named Ariah, didn’t wait for any of them, but Lidya couldn’t care for now. Ebonchill was a comforting weight on her back, and this night was the night of the ball – and everyone was making sure she did not forget.
“Ready for tonight?” inquired Ilana, keeping one glaive in hand and the other strapped to her back.
“I guess,” shrugged Lidya. “It’s not like it’s going to be my first ball, or even my first time dancing with Varian.”
“But everyone is telling me that it’s somehow more romantic because he asked you during this stupid holiday.”
“It is, in a way, but…” she trailed off, lost in thought for a second, memories from the Krasarang Wilds flashing back in her mind. She had a feeling romantic, in Varian’s vocabulary, wasn’t the same as romantic in most people’s. She particularly remembered with striking accuracy one afternoon spent fishing and killing zandalari scouts that felt a lot more like a date than any ball ever would.
Ariah screamed before she could finish her thought or sentence, and Ilana and her ran in the Highlord’s direction without delay.
***
When Lidya woke up what felt like two hours later but was in reality three days, she couldn’t remember in what order everything had happened.
She remembered watching their healer die as she was trying to pull him away from most of the fighting, she remembered killing something rather violently when she had seen Ilana fall down on the ground and not get up, but mostly, she remembered drowning.
It wasn’t a great sensation. The first time in Vashj’ir had been enough to traumatize her, but somehow it had been worse this time, because she had still been standing on the firm ground when water had filled up her lungs.
Everything else was hazy. There had been a violet flash, followed by screams, and then she had woken up.
“Next time you’re dying and try to teleport everyone but you to safety, I’m killing you with my own hands.” said someone as soon as she moved
“Doesn’t it defeat the purpose?” asked Lidya, voice hoarse, as she opened her eyes and discovered Ilana sitting on the edge of her bed.
She was in her chambers, which meant that things had been bad enough that the people transporting her here had been granted access. The Council was going to be furious – they tended to dislike when someone powerful died stupidly.
“You almost died,” said Ilana after a short silence, her tone muted and her eyes firmly turned to the opposite wall. “You cast a teleportation spell and I barely had time to grab you before we were gone.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You took us to the Guardian’s Hall. Khadgar was there, thankfully, and he managed to stop the spell that was drowning you, but even then, we weren’t sure you would survive until the healers arrived.”
Lidya didn’t reply.
“You’ve been sleeping for three days. You missed that stupid ball.”
Ilana finally turned to face her when she chuckled at that, because it really didn’t feel like the most important information right now.
“Tell me that we got the pillar, at least.”
“We did, I gave it to Khadgar as soon as we were sure you weren’t going to die.”
“And what about you?” asked Lidya, sitting up with difficulty – it felt like horses had trampled her on the chest – “if I remember correctly you were hurt too.”
“I’m a demon hunter, it takes a lot more than that to put me on bed rest.”
“Am I supposed to be on bed rest? Because I already lost three days, and there’s no way I’m spending any more time in my bed. I have things to do.”
“You think I don’t know that? That’s why I’m here, to make sure you don’t immediately jump out of bed. I’m supposed to be at the Fel Hammer,” she said, face closing off on the last sentence.
Lidya’s heart squeezed uncomfortably.
“You found them?” she asked.
Ilana nodded. “We’re going to Mardum as soon as I give the order.”
“I—”
“I know,” Ilana cut her, meeting her gaze straight on, “you killed Varedis, and Illidan, and a lot of my brothers and sisters, and now you feel terrible, but I don’t blame you. Varedis turned on us because he wanted to, not because anyone forced him to. It’s my turn to kill him now, using his very own glaives,” she added, gesturing in the vague direction of the pair of warglaive laid on the desk. “I just want you to take it easy while I’m gone.”
“I will, but I’ll come get you myself if I think you’re taking too long.”
Ilana snorted and patted her shoulder.
“Oh by the way,” she said after she had gotten up from the bed and taken her glaives, “someone, somehow, told a certain King about what happened to you, and he’s been trying to visit you for two days now.” She smirked and opened the door. “Maybe you should go see him, and I’ll be back before you even notice.”
Lidya glared at her. “Next time, I’m not saving you.”
“Alright,” smirked the demon hunter before leaving and making sure to forget to close the door behind her.
***
Lidya wasn’t used to people being worried for her anymore. The last time someone had really cared whether she survived her adventures or not, she had been doing all the adventuring with Balan and Anaar, and as a team that had seemed normal to protect each other. After all this time she still could picture with perfect clarity the day she had met Ravandwyr and her and her two companions had gone to find Archmage’s Vargoth’s staff. She had been distracted by some demons and hadn’t seen the big one attacking Anaar from behind. Balan was the only reason he was still alive and still had both of his eyes – although, with the huge scar running down the side the Anaar’s face, it was still hard to believe.
Even now that she did most things with Ilana, it was hard to accept that people would care about her well-being outside of a battlefield, especially when the danger she had faced was drowning.
The Tirisgarde wasn’t of this opinion, if the welcome they gave her was anything to go by.
Every single person she met in the Hall stopped to ask about how she was feeling and if she needed help with anything. Even Millhouse.
“Khadgar is really mad,” supplied Kalec after Ravandwyr had forced her to sit down and finished fretting over her like she was still dying.
“We got the pillar, he shouldn’t be.”
“You guys lost your healer, a druid might I add, and almost got the new Archmage, new Highlord and the one leading the Illidari killed,” said Ravandwyr, lips pursed in what Lidya decided to read as annoyance – she didn’t want to deal with worry, not yet. “The three of you dying would have been a catastrophe.”
“What about the rogue who was with us?”
“You got him to safety at the same time as the others but he disappeared as soon as the healers gave him the all clear.”
Nodding, Lidya wondered how she could convince him to let her hide in the sewer, where she knew for a fact most rogues hid during the day or when not conducting shady business.
She was pretty sure no one would bother her there.
“Anything else that I missed?” she asked.
“The ball,” said Vargoth.
Lidya turned to him but he was sitting in a chair of his own, holding a crystal ball on his lap and looking with vague eyes down at it.
She didn’t think she’d ever see him go back to the way he had been before, and not for the first time she wondered if people who had known her for a long time could see the same kind of change in her.
“The only person more pissed than Khadgar was King Varian,” supplied Ravandwyr, “and he didn’t even see you while you were drowning.”
“It was quite something,” nodded Kalec.
Lidya frowned, not understanding, and Ravandwyr seemed to read it on her face because he immediately explained.
“Frost magic doesn’t go well with water. The water in your lung was mostly ice when you arrived and…” he swallowed and looked away, paling.
“It wasn’t pretty,” finished Vargoth, still looking at his crystal ball.
That was one way to put it. She mostly remembered the excruciating pain.
She sighed.
“I have a feeling no one will let this go until I go to Stormwind and make sure everyone knows that I’m still alive and well, so I’ll do it.”
“Now?” asked Kalec.
She nodded and couldn’t help an eye roll when Ravandwyr immediately started casting a portal.
“You guys are the absolute worse,” she made sure to tell them before going through.
***
The throne room was empty but the pink decorations covering everything helped not make the place look too grim. It looked like absolutely no one was in the Keep except for her and the two guards standing on each side of the door. She had no idea what to do, so she kept on walking, through the doors she had gone through that time she had been invited to diner, and no one stopped her, so she guessed it was the right thing to do.
She walked aimlessly for a while, admiring the art on the walls, and took a short break on a chair she found around a corner because it was starting to hurt too much to breath, and once she felt like she could walk normally again, she went on.
She hadn’t really been expecting anything – she was pretty sure both Varian and Anduin had better things to do and were somewhere else – but somehow, by the sort of synchronicity that had saved her life once or twice over, the next time she turned a corner, she didn’t only walk straight into Varian, but also Anduin.
She fell down on her butt while Varian didn’t lose his balance and caught Anduin before he could suffer the same fate as her, and for a while they all just stared at each other – Lidya, on the floor, and Varian and Anduin practically hugging in the middle of the hallway.
“What the fel,” finally said Varian after a moment before letting go of Anduin, bending to grab her hands and helping her up.
He put his hands on her shoulders once he was done and looked her up and down.
“How do you feel? And what are you doing here? Are you okay?”
She nodded, reading fear and some dose of relief in his eyes.
“I woke up and heard that you were worried, so I came to show you that I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” suggested Anduin.
Lidya nodded, but only because she actually didn’t feel that well.
Varian ushered her through a door and into an office that looked a little too cozy for its size, and had her sit on the plush chair behind the desk.
“You almost died only three days ago, and the healers barely managed to bring you back, you should be resting in bed, not here,” said Varian as soon as he was sure she was comfortable, sitting on the edge of the large desk and crossing his arms, brows furrowed.
“I promised to behave for a few days, but you can’t expect me to stay in bed and wait.”
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I woke up and I’m not tired.”
He frowned harder and opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Anduin.
“I’m glad to see that you’re okay,” he said, smiling brightly like he always did, “but duty calls. Will you pass by the throne room before leaving?”
“I will,” she smiled back, receiving a nod in reply before Anduin was exiting the room.
Varian, for his part, frowned just a little harder and Lidya wondered how good his genes must be, for him to frown all the time but not have wrinkles yet.
“I’m fine, really,” she said after a moment. “It hurts like a bitch, I can’t lie about that, but I’ll survive.”
“You almost didn’t,” he replied, sounding like it angered him more than anything else.
“I know, but I will, and despite everything this was a success. We got what we were after.”
Judging by his face, those weren’t the right words.
“I’m sorry I missed the ball,” she said after a short moment, hoping this lighter subject would make him finally stop frowning so much.
It didn’t.
“You would have loved it,” he replied, looking away from her and at the fire burning in the hearth. “The food was great, everyone was having a good time and at least two women and one man asked for Anduin’s hand right there and then.”
Chuckling, Lidya tried to hide her grimace of pain, although it didn’t work that well considering Varian’s deepening frown, and offered him an embarrassed half smile instead.
“It sounds like it was fun.”
“Not nearly as fun as the last ball I went to,” he replied, meeting her eyes dead-on. “Ilana came to me just as I was running out of excuse not to dance. She took me to you, in the Hall of the Guardian.”
Lidya didn’t say anything, watching the subtle change in his body language, the way he avoided her eyes and tilted his head just so, making his hair half fall in front of his face, the way his shoulders and jaw tensed, how he kept his arms crossed but started to grip his elbows too.
His next words distracted her from his arms and were like ice down her back.
“You weren’t breathing when I arrived.” There was something in his voice, something she couldn’t quite name but that shook her to her core. “The healers were panicking, some apprentices were loudly sobbing, there was this rogue in a corner of the room, shaking like a leaf, and you, laying face down on the floor, not breathing.”
He stopped talking for a moment, working his jaw instead, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the wall on the other side of the room.
“Ilana started threatening the healers before I could so I stayed on the side with Khadgar, waiting.”
“Varian…” she whispered but he just clenched his jaw and shook his head.
“It took too long,” he said, muscles in his arms bulging as he clenched his elbows harder, “it was too late, they were ready to call it when the rogue finally moved.”
It was Lidya’s turn to frown as Varian finally turned back to meet her eyes again.
“He flipped you over and started pressing down on your chest at a rhythm. Something he learned as a pirate, he said. It didn’t work at first and I thought Khadgar was going to kill him, but after a while, you did start to breathe again. You had four broken ribs, but you were alive.”
Lidya put her hand on his knee before even realizing she was moving, and when Varian looked down at it she squeezed comfortingly.
“I feel like my chest was on the way of a horse race, but other than that I’m fine. I swear. I barely remember what happened.”
“You’re lucky,” he replied, his hand closing over hers and squeezing it in turn, “because I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he looked into her eyes, and for a moment everything else faded away, leaving nothing but Varian’s gray eyes and his warm hand on hers.
“I’ll survive this war. We’ll defeat the Legion, and I’ll be here to see it,” she promised.
“I know,” he said, “because as your High King I’m ordering you to. I don’t care how long this war lasts, you’ll live through it, that’s a direct order.”
Lips curling in a smile, Lidya squeezed his knee again and nodded.
“Aye,” she said, finally watching his face and entire body relax as he smiled back. “Is that all?”
“Have you eaten yet?” he asked, his fingers curling over the hand she still had on his knee, “you look hungry and I know I’m famished.”
“I could eat,” she said, making sure she kept her eyes firmly fixed on his face when he intertwined his fingers with hers.
***
“I have a huge problem,” announced Lidya as she entered Vargoth’s office in the Violet Citadel without knocking and found Ravandwyr sitting at the desk, reading over old books like she had hoped he would.
“Let me guess,” he said, closing one book in a small cloud of dust and looking up at her with an arched eyebrow, “you’ve just realized that you’re in love with High King Varian?”
“Of course no,” she said, flopping down on one of the large and plush chairs on the other side of the desk, “I’ve known that I’m in love with him since Pandaria. No, I’ve just realized that I want to do something about it.”
Ravandwyr immediately perked up.
“Why now?” he asked.
“I think I’ve finally seen death one too many times. Life is too short and the pandarian farm is still a viable option if all of this turns out to be a terrible mistake.”
“I can assure you without a doubt that it won’t.”
“Yeah?” she asked, one last tendril of doubt and fear showing its ugly head.
“Last time I was as sure as I am now of something was when I realized that Vargoth was it.”
“I guess you’re right then,” she smiled.
Ravandwyr nodded, before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. “Now,” he said, “do you have a plan?”
“I was hoping you could help with that.”
He smiled, pushed the books on one side and grabbed a large parchment and a quill, immediately starting to plot.