Chapter Text
It was all her fault.
The sight of Nathanos keeling over, three Amani javelins punched through his chest and guts weighing him down as he bled out.
The sound of a stone headed axe cleaving through high-elf flesh was deafening, but the sound of Brightwing screaming in pain was even louder
In her arcane senses, the ones all high-elves had but preferred to not discuss, the echo of her comrade’s mana signatures vanished from her mind.
One by one, Ranger-General Sylvanas watched, heard, and felt her personal cadre of rangers being hacked to pieces.
It was all her fault and she could do nothing to save them.
This trap was meant for her, only her, but the others had… they had followed her into this.
It was only by some wretched miracle that she still drew breath at all.
It was clear she was the target of the attack because her death came on the point of a javelin that had swerved unerringly to pierce Sylvanas’s flesh.
Breath rattling in a chest that felt like it was filling with water, Sylvanas looked to the javelin embedded in her left shoulder. It was etched with magical sigils, words of pain, of weakness, of poison and withering and death.
And those sigils were all etched in the Quel'dorei tongue, and the magic that ran through it was a familiar one to her.
A bloody chuckle escaped her lips, and distantly, Sylvanas was grateful that no one could hear her laugh in such a horrible situation.
“Kael’thas, you whoreson,” she coughed, blood trickling down her chin. She wanted to say more, but she was rapidly running out of strength, and her words trailed off in a tired sigh.
It was not just the javelin that was killing her, the dozens of slashes and punctures that littered her body were bleeding just as readily as that accursed wound. She had cut a bloody swathe through the trolls before the sneak attack with the enchanted javelin ended her efforts to save her command cadre.
The trolls chattered amongst themselves, but Sylvanas didn’t even try to mentally translate their words. Frankly, she prayed that she died of blood loss before the trolls noticed and tortured her for the last few moments of her life.
Her eyes fluttered closed, and Sylvanas’s head lolled forward. She wanted to chuckle again, the fact that this prayer was the one the Light saw fit to grant her, this was the one.
‘If I see Kael’thas in my next life, I hope I get to slit his throat,’ she thought, the last of her strength trickling away.
“Hold on!”
Sylvanas’s head snapped up, her body rallying as her savior approached. Mana, such an absurd concentration of mana rushed toward the killing grounds. It crashed over her, cold but full of life. There was so much mana spilling off the mage that Sylvanas could feel her body, well, not heal, but suddenly her death seemed at least a little further off.
As her eyes focused, the fog of death momentarily lifted, what the Ranger-General saw birthed a fragment of hope in her breast.
A young human, blonde, rode on a wave of summoned water at a breakneck speed. She was surrounded by a halo of frost bolts, shards of ice so pure they almost glowed. She waved one hand, and those bolts tore through the air, lances of ice that ripped a trio of trolls into frost-rimmed chunks of meat. Her other hand she held in front of her, and the javelins and hand axes whipped her way skittered and bounced off of a shield of raw mana.
Jumping free of the wave, the mage landed in a messy spray of mud and blood, falling to her knees at Sylvanas’s side. Her robes, pearlescent white and royal purple, were instantly stained by the mire of the battlefield, and Sylvanas could see a cold sweat break out on the mage’s brow. Many civilians and rookie rangers reacted the same way when first exposed to the gore soaked earth of a battle-site, and they typically weren’t literally kneeling in the stuff.
To the woman’s credit, she didn’t vomit, or even retch. Hands fumbled for her hip pouch, and even though she was clearly shaken by the scene she’d rushed to, she was impressively focused on tending to Sylvanas’s wounds.
Very much not focusing on the half score of Amani warriors charging at them, axes raised high, eyes alight with bloodlust.
“B-b-behind!!” Sylvanas croaked, and even that little exertion made her want to vomit up what would undoubtedly be blood and maybe some organ meat at this point. It was technically impossible for her to do that, but hey, doing the impossible was one of Sylvanas’s favorite pastimes.
But the words had barely left her mouth when the wave of mana infused water that the mage had ridden stood up. Sylvanas felt her jaw drop as the wave rose into a column of churning water, two bulky limbs erupting from the wave’s side, and the peak of the wave swung around to look at the onrushing Amani despite its lack of eyes.
And then the killing began.
Just as her rangers had screamed just moments ago, so did the trolls howl with pain and horror. Arcane waters were forced down screaming throats, filling and rupturing lungs. The elemental waved another arm, and jets of water erupted from that appendage, cutting through trolls like they were made of half-rotten velum. And when one troll looked like he was about to slip around the carnage and attack Sylvanas and her mysterious savior, the elemental crashed into him with all the fury of the seas, crushing the troll into a bloody paste.
That was the last straw, and the surviving trolls broke and ran, chased by those beams of pressurized water that hacked down the slowest amongst them without mercy.
“Here, drink this,” the mage said, her kind and lilting voice completely at odds with the force she was using to push a healing potion into Sylvanas’s mouth. Healing magic rushed down her throat, soothing pains, knitting together the worst of her wounds.
Well, not the worst of her wounds. The hole gouged into her shoulder didn’t close in the slightest, and to her horror, Sylvanas could quite literally feel the javelin drink the healing energies in. Worse, that power was turned into something corrupt and foul, and Sylvanas screamed as that toxic mana was forced back into her system, undoing much of the healing the potion had done. She was no closer to death, but such agony would end her soon enough, healing or no.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” whimpered the mage, flapping her hands in distress. Her eyes flickered across Sylvanas’s body, hunting for what was wrong before she looked at the javelin, and her face lost that fear and kindly concern, hardening into a mask of focus and grim determination.
Her eyes flashed with chained arcane power, and her lips twisted into a snarl. The mage laid one hand on the javelin, Sylvanas almost blacked out with pain as the mage pulled against the insidious magic that had its hooks so deep in Sylvanas’s whole body, as deep as her soul.
“No, no, no!” the blonde growled, her eyes flicking between Sylvanas and the toxic weapon dug deep into her body. “I’m sorry friend, but you have a choice to make.”
The pain was becoming too great, death was starting to look more and more appealing by the second, but Sylvanas wouldn’t have become a Ranger-General if a little pain was enough to kill her. Hanging onto consciousness by her fingernails, she raised her head and caught the mage’s eye, nodding fractionally.
“First option, I do what I can to ease your suffering and comfort you as you die. And I only offer you this because, well, you're a high elf, and the other option I’m about to suggest is… not going to be pleasant.”
Arching one eyebrow, Sylvanas did her best to smooth over her features and stare at the mage to convey how stupid that statement sounded. She was quite literally bleeding out as her mana became tainted and pulled her apart from the inside, it wasn’t like this state of being was exactly pleasant either.
The mage must have gotten her message, cheeks flushing as she hunched her shoulder, looking more than a bit defensive as she continued, “If I remove this, and I think I can do that without killing you, your mana is going to be irreparably damaged. I can feel that you’re a hunter, a marksman, err, markswoman who can tap into the arcane to empower your shots and adopt aspects of nature to, wait, no this doesn’t matter.”
The mage took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the javelin, and the sense of something pulling the arcane toxins back into the weapon redoubled. But beyond that, Sylvanas could feel it, her own mana was becoming more and more entangled with the weapons foul curses.
“You’ll have… tatters of magic left. It… should be enough for you to live on, but you’ll never be able to wield the arcane again, and I mean ever again.”
The mage’s voice warbled, and Sylvanas could see the horror in the young woman’s gaze as she tried to explain the exact manner in which Sylvanas’s mana signature, her soul, would be torn apart and then forced back into something … well, good enough to keep her alive.
But good enough was good enough. Even without her magic, her eyes were still sharp, her bow arm strong, and her cunning… well, she had walked into an ambush so maybe her cunning wasn’t all that much to brag about, but she’d still have it.
“Do it,” Sylvanas whispered, and she hated how weak her voice sounded.
But the mage heard her, and put another potion into Sylvanas’s right hand, pulling the cork out and helping Sylvanas close her fingers around the neck of the bottle. “Okay. I’m going to pull this horrid thing out, and I need you to stay awake. As soon as it’s out, and I mean as soon as it’s out, you have to drink that potion, okay?”
Nodding, Sylvanas clenched the potion tight, and did her very best to brace herself.
She did not brace herself nearly enough. Eyes blazing with a bright arctic blue light, the mage barked something in a tongue as old as Azeroth itself, and Sylvanas wailed like a banshee as her mana, her soul, started to come undone.
More words, more power flooded the javelin, and the pain redoubled, then redoubled again at the next roar of arcane exertion. Inch by bloody inch, the accursed javelin was pulled from Sylvanas’s shoulder, and with every inch, some part of Sylvanas’s mana was torn out of her. Her mana signature, something she had never really noticed before, was warping into something new, something alien. It felt wrong in her own body, a grotesque mockery of who she once was.
“Now!” the mage screamed, her voice cutting through the pain, a command of such natural authority and confidence that the even the famously independent Ranger-General would have followed on the battlefield, even if it meant charging into the teeth of a braced wall of pikes.
It took everything in Sylvanas, every scrap of willpower, strength, and spite was all spent to raise the potion to her lips and drink. The potion, which Sylvanas noticed was a brilliant shade of purple, worked not just on her wounds, but helped stabilize the torn and tattered scraps of her own mana. Wounds, both within and without, started to seal up. Her mana settled, thin and weak in her senses, but somehow hardier than before, an ouroboros of life sustaining strength.
Her other wounds also closed, but rather than heal over into unblemished skin, they formed scars and scabs, red and livid, some puckering into stars where arrows once were, others knitting together into ridges and valleys of angry flesh. Sylvanas could feel wounds on her face that she’d never even noticed receiving scab over, and she knew that her roguish beauty was now a thing of the past. Everything felt weak, but she had at least a little mobility back.
More than that, she was alive.
She was still alive.
With a splash of foul earth, the Mage threw the javelin away, and Sylvanas felt a prickle of satisfaction in her chest watching the weapon crumble into dust and rot, its enchantments spent and sundered.
A sob of relief wracked the mage’s body, and Sylvanas groaned with pain as the young woman threw herself against Sylvanas, crying like a newborn babe. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wailed, tears running down her cheeks like twin rivers.
After a minute Sylvanas found the strength to speak.
“Wh-,” Sylvanas croaked, coughing up blood for what she hoped was the last time, “Why are you sorry, little sea? You saved me, why are you sorry?”
Eyes like sapphires, no, eyes like the most beautiful patch of the sea looked up at her, and Sylvanas felt something like shame worm through her breast. Such eyes should never look so sad, such a beautiful face should never look so full of sorrow and pain.
The blonde mage hiccuped, sniffling as her tears slowed to just a trickle, “I didn’t get here fast enough, I- I- couldn’t save them! I could only save you!”
The sobbing returned in force, but before the mage could say more, Sylvanas managed (albeit barely) to move one hand up to her savior's cheek, brushing away her tears with a thumb. “Take- take it from one who has seen an entire war’s worth of bloodshed, that no matter how much we might fight against it, the truth is you can’t save everyone, little sea.”
Distantly, Sylvanas wondered if she was being a bit overly friendly with someone she’d met all of three minutes ago, but she rested her forehead against the mage’s own all the same. Closing her eyes as she felt the cold but kind mana of the woman brush against her arcane senses, cold but so pure, so wonderful. By the Light, this woman’s mana signature was flawless, a gentle sea that enveloped Sylvanas’s whole being, more healing than any potion.
Strong, brave, intelligent, kind. She was all the things that a person should be and somehow even more radiant and wonderful than that, greater than the sum of her parts.
‘She’s perfect,’ Sylvanas thought, feeling it down to her bones, her soul.
Unaware of Sylvanas’s feelings and thoughts, the mage hiccuped again, “But I- if I had noticed sooner, or get here faster, maybe-”
“But you did notice, and you did rush to our aid. And no matter what anyone might say, that is more than most would do. You couldn’t save everyone, but even if I had died in your arms, you did what was right, and you did it with all your strength. You’re strong, little sea. You are perfect.”
Maybe it was her imagination, but Sylvanas felt the mage lean into her hand, just a little bit. Her tears had stopped, and after that moment where she leaned into the touch, the mage gently moved Sylvanas’s head and hand off of her.
“I-,” she started, wiping away the last of her tears with a section of her robes that were still clean, “I’m not sure if I believe you, but… thank you. I think I needed to hear that.”
Sitting back on her heels, the mage gently picked up Sylvanas’s hand, an action that made Sylvanas flush. “I didn’t do… No, I did do my best, but…”
Looking down, it was hard for Sylvanas to conceal her shock. Her skin had taken on a grayish pallor, and though the potion had brought her back from the brink of death, she was suddenly aware that her whole body still felt cold.
Lifting one hand to her hair, she pulled it around until she could see it. Where she’d expected to find hair as golden and bright as a ripe field of wheat, what she found, while still blonde, was much darker, and the only way Sylvanas could think to describe it was ‘rotten.’
“Ah.” was all she could say. Forget the facial scars, the fact that she looked closer to a corpse than anything living ought to look was going to make looking at her unpleasant for anyone, herself included.
“I’m sor-”
Sylvanas coughed out a chuckle, “Don’t you dare apologize, little sea. I’m alive, and that’s what matters most.” Waving the- no, her corpse colored hand, Sylvanas tried to force a smile onto her face, “See? I can move. And if you were anyone else, I doubt I would be able to laugh about it either.”
The mage’s eyes followed Sylvanas’s hand, and after a moment she nodded. “I’m sure my master could have done better, but… you’re right, I- I won’t apologize for doing my best.”
Looking around, the young mage winced, and for a moment Sylvanas feared she would burst into tears all over again. But after a moment, she squared her shoulders and slowly got to her feet. Turning back to the wounded ranger, the mage held out one hand, one that Sylvanas gladly grasped. Her touch was intoxicating, and Sylvanas shivered in delight as she felt her saviour’s mana flow across the tattered remains of her own soul.
Pulling Sylvanas to her feet, the mage helped prop her up against the same tree she’d been pinned to just a few minutes ago. Letting out a sigh of relief seeing Sylvanas standing (or at least leaning) under her own power, the mage brushed a few golden locks of hair behind one ear. “I have the reagents for a portal spell, though it, uh, won’t last very long once I open it. But anyway, let’s get you back to Silvermoon.”
“No!” Sylvanas barked, almost falling over as coughs wracked her body.
The mage blinked, “Oh, do you need to go back to a different city? I’m sorry, but while I’m sure there are other high elf cities that can be portaled to, I don’t know the incantation for anywhere besides Dalaran, Silvermoon, Lordaeron… actually I know the incantations for all the major capitals, but that’s it.”
“No,” Sylvanas murmured, “I can’t go back, someone in Silvermoon wants me dead. This fight wasn't just an ambush, it was a trap.” Sylvanas jerked her head to the crumbled fragments of the enchanted javelin, “You must have noticed, that weapon wasn’t made by the Amani’s shamans. That poisonous thing was made by high-elf hands and high-elf magic.”
The mage gasped, but she did nothing to refute what Sylvanas was saying. The Ranger-General pushed on, even as the simple exertion of speaking wore away at her strength, “If I go back, wounded like this, without anyone to watch my back, I might as well slit my own throat right now.”
Sylvanas took a steadying breathe, and continued mumbling her plea, “Please little sea, please take me anywhere else, take me to Dalaran, or even fucking Ironforge, but please don’t leave me here to die.”
The mage looked horrified at the idea of an injured soldier being killed as they tried to recuperate in what should be friendly territory. A thousand thoughts danced behind those crystal clear blue eyes, but it took only a second for a decision to be made.
“As an Archmage’s apprentice, I’m allowed to have one- err, attendant. So if you agree to be my serv- ah, attendant, I can take you to Dalaran with me. You’ll have my protection, and I have Archmage Antonidas's protection as his apprentice. And there are very few people willing to anger an Archmage. ”
Safety from Kael’thas and his cronies' spiteful machinations, and a reason to stay near this woman and her mana signature? The Light was answering a prayer that Sylvanas hadn’t even dared to think.
“I would kneel if I could, little sea. But for as long as you will tolerate my presence, I will serve you with all that I am, and all that I will be, loyal until all is ashes and dust.”
Sylvanas looked the young woman right in the eye, and some part of her was inordinately pleased to see her mistress’s pupils dilate with surprise rather than rejection, and that the quirk of her lips was a smile rather than a scowl or sneer.
Sylvanas lowered her gaze and bowed her head as deep as she could without tipping over. Putting as much strength and certainty into her voice as she could, she calmly stated, “I’m yours to use or discard, little sea. I’m yours in body, mind, and soul.”
The flick to the forehead wasn’t entirely surprising, but it hurt like a warhammer’s strike. Her tone was only chiding, but to Sylvanas’s ear she heard a snarl of disgust and anger, hidden behind polite words and kindness.
“None of that. I will accept you as my attendant, but only if you accept that you are your own person, with her own wants and needs. If you will not stand with me as your own self, then I will just keep binding elementals to fetch me books and keep conjuring most of my meals.”
Sylvanas wanted to start crying, such a simple rebuke from this woman was enough to shatter her like she was nothing more than cracked and chipped glass. But she couldn’t show such weakness, such gross dependency to her mistress, so she swallowed her self-loathing and sorrow, and just bobbed her head again before lifting her gaze. Doing her best to give her mistress a smile, Sylvanas murmured, “I suppose that’s agreeable enough. Thank you, little sea, for saving me, and for taking me in.”
Some part of Sylvanas recoiled in horror at what she seemed to so easily accept. She had climbed to the rank of Ranger-General by the strength of her bow arm and the keenness of her eye. She had been one of the fastest, strongest, most powerful hunters to ever walk Azeroth. She was a living legend! And now, after one near death experience, simply the latest in a long line of such events, she was throwing all that away for a pretty girl with a nice mana signature?
But that bit of Sylvanas fell in line as soon as her mistress smiled, well and truly smiled. Light protect her heart, but Sylvanas had never seen such a vision of beauty before. She had been with dozens of other high-elves, seen women of all shapes and sizes, all of them lovely in their own way. But none of them compared to her mistress and her smile.
The way her robes hugged her hips and the swell of her chest didn’t hurt that impression either, but the smile alone was enough to make her mistress’s beauty greater than all others.
She might sign some documents cementing her position as a simple attendant, but such a thing would be skin deep compared to the loyalty and devotion that accompanied every beat of her heart.
Her mistress laughed, gentle bells of joy, and Sylvanas knew she’d never look at another woman again.
“Well, then that’s agreeable enough for me too. Oh, but where are my manners, I never asked for your name… so, um, what is it?”
Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner looked at all her dead cadre, her dead friends. She looked down at her armor, shattered and ruined by dozens of attacks that had landed all across her body.
“Oh, where are my manners again, I never introduced myself, I think I do that first, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
Sylvanas laughed, a rasping, broken thing, but she laughed all the same. “I don’t mind, little sea, but I think it would be best if my name died here with all my friends. Please call me Syl, mistress.”
The mage, the blonde woman, Syl’s savior smiled again, and Syl wondered if she was falling in love. “My name is Jaina Proudmoore. And please don’t call me mistress, Jaina is fine.”
“Could I call you Miss Proudmoore? Referring to you by your given name alone feels too informal.”
Jaina rolled her eyes, but she wore that little smirk of a smile anyway, “Best I’ll do is Miss Jaina, take it or leave it.”
Syl nodded, still too injured to make a formal bow, “Very good Miss Jaina… though, if I may be so bold?”
Jaina rolled her eyes again, but her little smile deepened, “Light,this is going to take some getting used to. Please Syl, be bold.”
Syl swallowed hard, a droplet of sweat running down the side of her head, “In private, and only when we are sure there are no other ears to hear us… may I still call you ‘little sea’? I’m afraid that I’ve grown somewhat attached to that nickname for you, as new as it is.”
“Hmm, I’m sorry Syl, but that might be a bit much, so no, you may not call me that.”
An icy hand of fear and sorrow gripped Syl’s heart, and risking a fall, she bowed even lower. Keeping as much of her disappointment out of her voice as she could, she coughed up the words, “Very good Miss Jaina, I will refrain from using that name.”
Jaina tsk'd a few times, a school teacher reprimanding a student, “Bad form Syl, I wasn’t done speaking. As I was going to say, you may not call me that yet .”
The shame of overstepping her bounds was forgotten in an instant, replaced with a surge of nearly euphoric glee. She tried to keep it out of her voice, but even to her ears it sounded a little too happy, “Thank you for this chance, Miss Jaina.”
“It’s such a simple thing, and in time I’m sure we’ll be close enough for nicknames” Jaina chuckled, holding out a hand for Syl to take, an offer that Syl latched onto with what she hoped wasn’t indecent haste.
“Now, let’s go home Syl.”
“Very good, Miss Jaina.”