#and turalyon makes so much sense

[thasdorah]

i'm thinking about actually structuring an outline of sorts of canon divergencies so hm. thoughts, for now

personally, i don't think the way alleria and sylvanas reunite makes sense. sure, during legion there's the excuse, maybe, they were both too occupied fighting to look for each other. but if alleria had time to reunite with vereesa and arator, she would also find sylvanas in whatever brief window of time there was for it. i won't write specifics about how this should go — i'd rather leave it open to plot with sylvanas writers. but i don't see alleria being outright antagonistic towards her for what she became. she carries a lot of guilt for leaving, regardless of her reasons, and that would be much worse because of what happens to sylvanas and her failure to be present and save a sibling for the second time. also alleria would not inherently hate her for being undead. despite her prejudices (most of which come from deeply personal, irrational and emotion-bound places), she tends to be open-minded, and she underwent changes of her own. sure, she's not patient, their reunion could easily derail, but i don't think hatred, distrust and resent are present from the start.

though i don't think they ever sat down to talk about their relationship ever, alleria being the most emotionally closed-off type of person and turalyon being cool with just pretending everything is fine, i think post legion, after they return to azeroth and things settle down, she would officially end anything between them. if a three sisters-esque sort of reunion still happens, in the sense of her gathering the other two to seek what exactly remains of their past bond (which is plausible, even if she reunited individually with each of them before, though it'd likely happen considerably different from the comic), vereesa's commentary about envying her may just be the last push she needs to realize she doesn't think there is anything to be envied — so why is she still in this relationship in the first place? i won't get into specifics again, but i don't think it'd have ended amicably. canonically, turalyon always had an i can fix her attitude towards alleria way before the void. with its influence and his dislike towards it, i just think he'd probably not easily accept this is the decision she's making without any outside influence and that she doesn't need saving or fixing.

arator is her everything no matter what. she'd do all she could to be present and make sure he knew it was never lack of love that led her away. if he wants her in his life, she'll be there. if he doesn't, it'll hurt greatly, but she'll respect it.

she would take a more prominent role in leading the ren'dorei, leaving less of it in umbric's hands, other than the day to day running of whatever it is they do. she cares for them greatly, and would personally do all she could to ensure they'd have the means to not only survive the void corruption but to thrive and use it to their benefit. they have the power to protect azeroth from the old gods and void lords. she'll make sure they're prepared for it, but also that they get to live their lives.

during bfa, i can see her role remaining similar. she'll take part in the faction war and go wherever it seems like she can be most useful. in many ways, war is a refuge — easier to deal with than whatever is going on in her life. that greatly depends on her relationship with sylvanas and sylv's own actions, though, so i'm assuming a more canon-aligned sort of situation.

that is, until n'zoth enters the picture. you cannot convince me the void elves wouldn't focus on fighting that threat. to not disregard wrathion's role, i think they would work together to make the old god's defeat possible and the damage he'd cause minimal.

alleria being anduin's teacher in how to deal with the void influence will always be my favorite i think they both deserve it but also not going to say 100% it did nor make it something that necessarily had to happen for my portrayal. just a possibility.

the bit in bfa where she suggests setting aside the faction war to focus on n'zoth is one i stand by. as much as she may have partaken in the faction war, that's not her focus. it hasn't been for a long time. she knows how much of a threat the void can be — it's why she chose to wield it in the first place, to understand it, to learn its weaknesses. if some orc wants to die for honor that's on him but azeroth has bigger problems.

i also think that, no matter how much she respects and genuinely cares for anduin (and she does! greatly!), she would ditch that fight to pursue void-related threats. alleria has never held great regard for authority; she didn't respect it from anastherian when he was her king and she was still ranger-captain of quel'thalas. i don't think she would respect it in this scenario either. she'll do what she thinks is right, first and foremost.

i'll skip over sl idc shadows rising who hunting her sister down what idk any of that she was uhhhh on vacation or something

anduin leaving stomwind and the alliance makes her greatly question if the ren'dorei should stay there. she knows it's a matter of time until it'll become an issue. she'd look into finding them some place that can serve as a base, though i don't yet know where. telogrus is useful of course, but it isn't in azeroth, and that's where they should stay in her opinion. still debating, but i might just say fuck it and say she also severs their bond to the alliance and goes factionless as of shadowlands.

the dragon isles are there. she won't care unless someone says the black dragons are being old god influenced or that any void influence remains anywhere connected to neltharion.

[alteredphoenix]

Two reasons why I think Azurathel calls Turalyon a zealot:

(1) The most likely: His first introduction to the Alliance is being met with soldiers that have him and the dracthyr surrounded point blank right outside Stormwind and sees the place is crawling with SI:7 scouts that are keeping tabs on them and mages that can see through their visages at any given moment. This is an example of being wary of a new entity that’s finding refuge/a new home from a black dragon that was at one point under Alliance custody for playing both sides in the Pandaria Campaign plus the history of fighting between the Alliance and black dragons a’la Onyxia, so it makes sense that the trust isn’t there. However to him this probably verges on the grounds of paranoia (because, again, there’s no way Azurathel has any idea of the history between the Alliance and black dragons at this point in DF), so while Azurathel understands the precautions he’s thinking along the lines “yeah, this guy’s may be a good soldier and leader but he’s also cracked, he doesn’t need a Titan artifact to watch what we’re doing” - and Turalyon understands the wariness.

Or,

(2) The least unlikely: Azurathel heard about Turalyon being a Light worshipper (despite not having any idea what the Light would be, being asleep for millennia), saw him decked in that golden armor, equated that to the Primalists’ worship of the Incarnates and usage of their shamanic magic, and had warning klaxons go off.

Or,

(3) The devs know how much people are salivating over having a (white) Human Male Paladin being made a villain for a change (due to a number of player HMPs in RP realms being alt-right/channeling their fascism/xenophobia through Scarlet Crusade RP) and threw in the “zealot” crack as a nod to the fanbase that want villain!Turalyon despite there not being any buildup between Azurathel and the dracthyr being led to Stormwind and him meeting Turalyon off-screen) a’la See Point 2.

[diguerra-moved]

“[...] You and I are fueled by other things.” 

“The Light,” Anduin said quietly. 

“The Light, yes,” Turalyon agreed. “But we should let it guide us, not command us. We also have our own minds and hearts. We should make use of those as well.”

this is not nice

[azureflight]

My entire friend group have uninstalled WoW and started FF14

It still feels surreal we are doing this. Now, it is perfectly possible that we will be back to WoW within the month, talking about how disappointing the “weeb game” was, but, this stills feels like a seminal moment.

I have been a Warcraft fan since I was a literal kid trying (and failing :P) to play Tides of Darkness on my aunt’s desktop. I spent so many hours and so much of my allowance playing Reign of Chaos in internet cafes. 

When WOTLK trailer dropped, we had hijacked the computer lab and projected it to the auditorium for all to see. 

I have been part of real life, unironic Horde vs Alliance infighting in college gaming clubs. I remember us all wearing Horde/Alliance merch, enthusiastically and rather foolishly, but completely seriously, arguing about lore, about who did what wrong and who was “more at fault”.

I own, almost every single Warcraft book, comic, guide ever published. I own hard copies, I own digital copies. I have watched and read and listened to every single piece of lore ever produced about this setting.

I have kept my sub up and played through all of the content draught, the infamous SoO, the practically less than 2 patch worth expac that was WoD.

I have allowed my sub to lapse for the first time during BFA. 

I was so hyped for Shadowlands back when it was announced, and was annoyed when they changed the release date, causing me to waste my vacation time that I had taken for it. But a mere month of the expac in and I was already bored of it. And now, 9.1 is out and I am done. I barely played this patch and I have not only cancelled my sub, but went and removed the game from my PC.

Maybe this is a stupid overreaction and in the next patch, at the worst the next expac, I will be right back at the fur shop like the old fox I am. However, I know it feels different.

Throughout the years, I had many a thing that frustrated me about this game. Made me rage even. But I hadn’t quit then. No. The feeling that has been creeping up on me, isn’t rage. It is disinterest. I just, don’t care anymore. 

Most of my friends over the years have switched to the Horde and this has been a sore spot for me. I stuck with Alliance, having some alts to play with them, and they had some Alliance alts to play with me, but... It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t enough. Several online friends, I had already lost contact with.

And now we are all gathering in FF14! I had the discord chat of my life! So many people I hadn’t talked to in years, on top of my actual real life friends whom I hang out with, are all jumping into this new journey.

My best friend’s progression guild is looking to make a full guild transfer, currently all of them except one have characters and a guild in FF, trying to convince the last guy to make the switch.

And then there is the lore. That’s why I fell in love with this setting in the first place. I loved this story, the cheese, the heroism, the over the topness, all of it. It was never “high art”, but it was unique in its own way, it had heart and it had characters and stories that I got invested in. Deeply so. I hadn’t start playing WoW because I was a connoisseur of MMORPG genre and “calculated it to be the best among its contemporaries”. I dived head first in Vanilla because it was Warcraft.

And now, I honestly cannot bring myself to care about this story, or its characters, other than a passing resentment. This was not the case, less than a year ago. I had bought the bloody Shadows Rising novel, I had read it and I liked it.

Now I am just, over it. This sense was rising, this sense of feeling less and less care for it, as expac after expac went in wildly nonsensical directions. But I had things that I had liked well enough to keep at it and have hope, hope for a good enough story that would keep me engaged. But I lost it. Something broke in 9.1.

I guess I realized, or rather I perceive, that the actual writers of this story do not care about it and none of it matters. There is no story. There is no plot, no continuity. Just an endless stream of “cool” shots in cinematics that ultimately don’t matter because, it has no basis and it has no relevance. It exists because someone wanted to make this cool scene, without caring what came before it, or what will come after it. Each scene exist, not to progress a cohesive story, but simply because someone wanted it to exist. And the next “cool” piece will flagrantly retcon the last one, ignoring or outright invalidating the stakes and hooks that had been set up in the previous one. 

This is no longer a story of people, who were dramatic and weird and fantastical, but ultimately people. No. This is now a check list of what someone wanted to do in WoW setting and all the characters are empty puppets and all the plots matter only as much as they matter in any given single cinematic or questline. There is no pay off, and there is no logic. Characters aren’t allowed to live and react. Things only happen because the author said so, and the characters just bend and transform to do their bidding. And they feel no reason to explain nor establish as to why a character acts the way they do, let alone trying to make it believable or internally justified.

The gameplay aspect is the least important to me, the exact opposite of the majority. But I am sick and tired being punished with powerlessness for what I like story wise or aesthetically. I am sick and tired needing to read through guides upon guides, copying meta builds, just to have my class be remotely playable.

And most importantly, I am sick and tired of a game that will put me through genocide, deny me justice and vengeance under the guise of need for cooperation and then deny me playing with my friends across factions.

Now I get to play with all of my friends without jumping over the hoops or giving up on what I love. Because there are no stupid factions in FF14. And I can play multiple classes without hating myself.

I had several favorite characters in this game. They are still, mostly, alive. But do I care about them anymore? Jaina, Anduin, Sylvanas, Turalyon, Tyrande, Genn... No. I don’t care and it doesn’t even hurt anymore, it just feels like I had wasted my time and money. It feels exactly like how I felt during season 8 of GoT. An empty feeling of waste, so I leave.

Will I care about the characters or the story in FF14? I don’t know. I don’t think I will stick around if I don’t. But will I go back to WoW? A piece of me wants to hope for a superb turn around, but... Honestly? I don’t see it happening. And anything less than an epic turn around that fixes all of this, the lore, the classes, the playerbase division? I won’t bother anymore.

So off to the greener pastures! Maybe I will come crawling back within the blink of an eye, eating this post, repenting for ever having left. Maybe... I just don’t think so.

[toreadorkable]

i finished the alleria and turalyon “a thousand years of war” audio drama and frankly i can’t believe i pay blizzard to hurt me like this

[sheyshen]

I posted this on twitter and gonna toss this here too, but:

I honestly still wish the chromie time thing was set up in a way so things were phased better. like world of warcraft has always had a terrible phasing problem where they phase out old content that really jumbles quests around, but like, it'd be nice if chromie time would fix at least some of it,

like say you're doing cata through chromie time, so now SW is phased so it's half destroyed and you can take Anduin around the city for the twilight highlands intro like it used to be. varian's still by the throne for pre legion chromie time and anduin for legion and bfa.

i don’t wanna be starting bfa by walking into the keep and seeing turalyon on the throne and having to go into a side room to talk to anduin there? or starting mop and having the cutscene trigger with varian but turalyon's still chilling there when he's supposed to be still missing for that time.

it just throws so much of the immersion of the game and the story off with that, and i know it's not something new, but when they added chromie time i was hoping that might've fixed at least some of it. plus i miss some of the old quests.

I understand for some of it not making sense to keep (like prepatch events), but removing stuff just because they fixed the city, or having turalyon there all the time even though chronologically it doesn’t make sense wouldn’t be too difficult to fix unless they tossed the entire code.

also cue me wishing chromie time had a classic version so i could do pre cata quests without having to reroll on classic servers...

[katieskarlette]

Shadows Rising: A Reaction Post

Short, mostly non-spoilery version:  I liked it overall.  I give it a solid B, maybe a B+.

I was disappointed in how little Nathanos and/or Sylvanas content there was, but I think proclamations of the ship’s doom are premature.  

I’m intrigued by the first rumblings of new character development for certain characters, especially Anduin, Alleria and Turalyon.

I was rooting for Talanji so much.  She’s great. Zekhan is a cinnamon roll too pure for this world.  Sira was kind of boring. Fairshaw is so darn heartwarming I can’t stand it. I like Bwonsamdi more now. The lack of Wrathion is unsurprising but unfortunate. Nothing new with Tyrande but she’s already poised for major development in Shadowlands.

Much longer, spoilery version below.

This ended up being more of a ramble than an essay, but there’s a lot of disjointed thoughts pinging around in my head, so let’s dive in.

Overall, I enjoyed Shadows Rising.  Was it the best book ever?  No.  Not even the best Warcraft book ever.  But it was an enjoyable read.  It’s always a treat to get into the heads of characters we mostly know in passing from in-game events.  There are internal, emotional beats that cannot easily be explored in the game, and the books are a way to build the world and the characters in a more introspective, slow-paced manner.  I like that.  (That’s not to say there are no action scenes, because there definitely are.)

Talanji, Jaina, Zekhan, and Anduin were all written well and sympathetically.  Maiev’s only in a couple scenes, but she felt off to me.  Nathanos was very in-character, in all his snide, sour glory.   Flynn and Mathias are great together.

The pacing was fine.  The descriptions were good, and it all felt grounded in the game world (i.e. landmarks, ambiance, the ridiculous amount of stairs in Daz’alor...)  Each of the Horde leaders got a moment or two in the spotlight.  Despite a fair amount of chapters about Anduin, Alleria, Turalyon, and Jaina, it still felt like a Horde-centric book to me.  Not that that’s a bad thing.

Prologue:  Gayness detected on page 8!  And it’s even something I kind of inadvertently predicted.  In my reaction post for Before the Storm I wrote, “ In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend.”  That’s basically what we have here.  I don’t know if they were married, and neither were blacksmiths, but the Westfall moonshiner describes one of the Forsaken slain in Arathi as “the best man I ever knew and loved.”  Tada!  See how easy it was?  Add Jago x Wilmer to the growing list of LGBT rep in Azeroth.  (Even if they’re super minor characters in the long run, it’s still great to see.)

There might be some kind of parallel to be drawn between Alleria failing Anduin (by not finding/killing Sylvanas) and Nathanos failing Sylvanas (by not killing Bwonsamdi) but my brain is too overloaded from binge-reading to articulate it right now.  Both failed their king or queen, but both were also given nearly impossible tasks. 

Alleria and Turalyon are definitely being set up as antagonists.  We are clearly supposed to side with Jaina on this, and be uncomfortable (if not outright horrified) at their torture methods.  It’s especially disturbing how they use their respective void and light powers to accomplish their goals.  I mean, on one hand it’s great that both sides of the great cosmic divide can work together, and their marriage seems stronger than it was for awhile there, but yeesh...can you not torture people?  I know, ends justify the means, slippery slope, greater evil, blah blah, but still...that’s not okay.  It’s yet another sign that the Light is not necessarily good (or the void necessarily evil).

I welcome conflict within the Alliance, though.  That’s been the Horde’s thing for long enough.  Time to see how the blue side deals with its rifts.

In chapter 2 Nathanos is annoyed when a dreadtick flies by his head.  What, was it too similar to a bird for his liking?  Heh. 

All that time in Nazmir, and we didn’t get to see a single crawg!  Harumph.

It took three chapters and 39 pages to finally get something from Nathanos' perspective, and he was much more scarce going forward than I had hoped.  The bits we did get from his perspective were great and in-character, but I wanted to get into his head more.  Most of his scenes were from the POV of Sira or the troll villain instead, and while Apari was a good character I find Sira to be pretty one-dimensional. 

I kind of got paternal vibes from Nathanos toward Sira, though.  He was like, “I’ve been undead a lot longer than you; I know how to handle the bloodlust and such.  Get it out of your system at appropriate times but learn to control yourself.  There’s more to (un)life than slaughtering people.”  She herself, though, was just “Rawr, I hate everything and want to kill anything that moves.”  I mean, I get that she’s been through some traumatic stuff, but I didn’t find myself invested in her at all.

Page 42, as a bunch of trolls are about to be slaughtered:  "Hungry birds circled, expectant of a big meal, and Nathanos so hated to disappoint."  WHAT?  Nathanos wanted to do something nice for BIRDS?  I know, the phrasing fits with his dry, sarcastic sense of humor, but considering the running joke about him hating birds, it still made me go, “Huh?”

Chapter 5 (and later on, as it turns out):  Zekhan having a soft spot for kids is too precious for this world.

Page 51:  Thalyssra's eyes were "sparkling as she gazed across the room at Lor'themar."  Awwwwwww.   There was a surprising amount of ship fodder in this book overall, with Lor’themar x Thalyssra, Turalyon x Alleria, Fairshaw, and Zehkhan x Talanji all getting a moment or two (or more.) 

Chapter 6:  Anduin says, "Turalyon, take Alleria Windrunner and investigate these deaths."  You know, Alleria...YOUR WIFE?  I don't think you need to say her last name there, genius. 

While I’m being snarky about the editing, there were at least two times where the word “grieves” was used instead of “greaves.”  I spotted a couple other little things that a better editor (or one with more time, maybe it was rushed, I don’t know) would have caught.

Chapter 7:  More matter-of-fact LGBT inclusion for minor characters, this time a lesbian troll couple who want to marry.  Yes, thank you Blizzard, keep it up.

Chapter 8:  If you’re going to make the “Zappy Boy” nickname for Zekhan canon, having Bwonsamdi be the one to wink at the camera and use it was a great decision.  I can totally imagine him saying it.

We learn the name of Varok’s wife/Dranosh’s mother:  Remda.  Although I read elsewhere that the vision Zekhan saw of the Saurfang family in the afterlife was just Bwonsamdi’s B.S., it was still cool.

Chapter 13:  Nathanos wearing cologne?  Love it.  And it’s not even to cover up the rotting smell, because apparently his new body doesn’t stink like some undead; it just doesn’t smell like a living person, either, and some find it unnerving.  So he wears cologne.  That’s such a delightful little detail, and surprisingly considerate of him.

Sira complaining about bugs:  "We'll be eaten alive."  Uh no, you'd have to BE ALIVE for that to happen. Tsk.

Nathanos being called "the pale rider" makes me think of old cowboy movies.  Like, “You greenhorns better clear out; the Pale Rider is comin’ to town and there’s gonna be trouble.  Go wake up the sheriff.”  

Sira says that while on the voyage to Zandalar the dark rangers liked to tell the tale of how Nathanos was promoted to Ranger Lord by Sylvanas.  I'm surprised he lets them gossip like that!  His quests in vanilla made it seem he wanted to keep those parts of his past on the down-low, at least from the player.

Chapter 14:  Thrall's second kid is Rehze.  *blink*  Reh-zee?  Rez?  Ruh-zay?  I guess she’s not named after anyone.  After he named his son Durak (sort of after Durotan) I assumed he’d continue the pattern with kid #2.  Maybe she’s named after one of Aggra’s relatives.  (Later I read on Wowpedia that the author actually said she dislikes the “fan service” trend of naming children after other characters so she just picked a random orcish name.  I don’t think it’s fan service, because lots of real-life people do it, but okay.  Fair enough.)

Speaking of orcish names, there’s an orc page helping out the council named Gunk.  Like, what you clean out from under your fingernails after gardening.  Gunk.  LOL

Aww, that’s no fun...Maiev's wearing a cape trimmed in white fur, not daggers.  What happened to her impeccable/deadly fashion sense?

Chapter 16:  Zekhan starting to clap at Talanji's speech and then stopping and shrinking back when he realized no one else was applauding was so freaking adorable.

Chapter 17:  Fairshaw, full steam ahead!!!  Their chemistry is everything I hoped it would be.  Learning a little about Flynn’s tragic past was both fascinating and heartbreaking.  (We learned his mom’s name: Lyra Fairwind.  R.I.P.)

Chapter 18:  Proodmoore keep has a gallery with floor to ceiling oil paintings of the Proudmoore family, extended family, and beloved friends.  It now includes Anduin.  I can’t help thinking that, in a different timeline, Arthas’ portrait would have been there.

Will wonders never case?  Ji Firepaw actually gets to do stuff!!!  GASP!

"Thrall understood that to other humans Wrynn was said to be pleasing-looking, but to the orc, Anduin simply looked like a small, pink boy swallowed by clunky armor."  So it’s canon that Anduin is good-looking in-universe.  But LMAO at Thrall’s description.

Chapter 22:  From Shaw’s POV, "These odds ranked pretty low...  Maybe just above the time he had relied completely on a shoddy network of spies embedded in a cheese business."  OMG leave Elling Trias alone!  He did his best!  LOL

Shaw wanting to hang out in a mountain meadow and whittle bird calls (perhaps even with a special someone) was so touchingly normal.  That’s the kind of characterization that the books are so much better at than the game.

I actually like Bwonsamdi more after reading this.  Not that I disliked him before, but I didn’t have a strong sense of him due to not playing Horde as much in BFA.  He’s a well-done gray character:  not good, not evil, insightful but a smartass, part of the great cycle, out for himself but also taking his duties seriously (saving troll souls from the Maw.) 

I’m not entirely sure that we needed as much from Thrall’s POV as we got.  I mean, sure, he’s a familiar character with ties to a lot of others, so it was easy to drop him into situations, and his ties to Jaina made cross-faction communication easier, but he didn’t seem as relevant to the lore of Zandalar and the Shadowlands as some other characters.

Maiev seemed OOC, especially in the Stockades scene.  I know one of the themes of the book was “people change,” and I suppose I should be happy that she has a more moderate viewpoint nowadays, dialing back the Lust For Vengeance Meter from eleven to maybe a five or a six, but it didn’t feel like Maiev.  Especially because her message of “maybe don’t go overboard with this vengeance thing” was aimed at Tyrande, of all people, someone who Maiev has had quite legitimate reasons to dislike for a very, very long time.  I could see her maybe mellowing out a little in front of fellow Wardens, but Tyrande?  Eh, it didn’t feel right to me.

No surprises from Tyrande in this.  She’s still steely cold, vengeance-obsessed, consumed by anger.  Not that I blame her, but it’s not healthy.  I know we’ll be exploring her situation more in Shadowlands, so this was more of a reminder/reinforcement of where she is right now.  It was kind of funny how Thrall, Baine and Calia tried to talk to her and she just gave them the stink eye and the silent treatment, though.

I’m fine with Anduin exploring his dark side a bit more, as long as they don’t go overboard with it.  I like him as an earnest, good-hearted character.  It’s only natural to test your limits, though, especially in times of crisis.  Power corrupts, and he’s got plenty of it, both politically and magically, so I can understand Jaina and Mathias being a bit uneasy.  Add to that the increasing themes about the Light not being as benevolent as we originally assumed, and there’s potential for interesting plot there.  In the end I want Anduin to stay firmly on the side of good, empathy, compassion, etc., but a deviation into the shadows along the way isn’t a bad thing for the story.

I imagine every single person who read about Anduin sneaking off to the Lion’s Pride Inn in Goldshire smirked about that place’s reputation on certain RP realms.  I was surprised he didn’t find scantily-clad elves and draenei dancing on the furniture.  And then it turns out Jaina was there, too.  Awkward!

Why, oh why couldn’t we have had a scene with Anduin and Wrathion hanging out (incognito, of course) in a tavern?  That was their thing in MoP, and now with Anduin desperately wanting to get away from his duties for awhile and soak up some tavern ambiance it would have been perfect.  Let Anduin show off the best taverns Stormwind has to offer.  Even though Wrathion was as much a guest at the Tavern in the Mists as Anduin was, he acted like he owned the place and Anduin was his guest, so let them turn the tables and have Anduin play host.  There could be jokes about how he better not punch Wrathion again or they’ll get kicked out for starting a bar fight.  They could have still seen the young recruits, ran into Jaina, etc.  But Anduin really needs a buddy to hang out with right now.  

And you can’t tell me after Nya’lotha fell Wrathion just disappeared again and never at least visited Stormwind to tell grandiose tales about how he stabbed an Old God, it was so heroic, and he wasn’t scared at all, and those mean adventurers were so quick to believe he’d been corrupted, but he hadn’t, and did you know Azshara was there?  And then N’Zoth almost won but KERPOW LAZERS and oh Anduin you should have seen it, etc. etc. etc.

I should be used to being disappointed about Wrathion’s absence by now, but there are SO MANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES!

Sigh.  Moving on.

Being exposed to spoilers meant I wasn’t fooled by it, but it was still a deft bit of writing to have the dark rangers drink poison when cornered by Horde soldiers, then mention Nathanos having a vial in his coat, which he drinks when defeated--making the unspoiled reader assume he’s killing himself--only for it to be a kind of liquid hearthstone attuned to Sylvanas.  Had I not known that he survived the book I would have freaked out there.

So, like, was Bolvar just sitting there on the ground awkwardly eavesdropping while Sylvanas and Nathanos talked/argued?  Or did he use that time to sneak away unnoticed?  LOL

Which brings us to the epilogue that’s caused so much hand wringing and wailing from my fellow Blightrunner shippers.  It wasn’t the openly sentimental interaction between them that I had hoped for, but I honestly didn’t read it as the doom of the ship.  A bump, at worst.

[If you’re not interested in the relationship between Nathanos and Sylvanas, or if you’re one of those people who simply hate his character, you can skip the rest of this post.]

First of all, Sylvanas had just broken the Helm of Domination.  That was a hugely significant thing to do, both for her personally and in the cosmic scheme of things.  Her state of mind at that moment had to have been in a turmoil.  So if she was a little distracted and tense, I think that’s quite understandable.

Second, I saw other fans being upset that she threatened/wanted to strike him.  That’s not how I read it at all.  “Sylvanas could strike him, scream and hollow out his soul, but it would not correct the failing.”  She’s not saying she wants to do that, just that she could.  The instinct to lash out in violence is ingrained in all the undead; death knights have to do it or they go mad.  So for her mind to go there in a moment of high emotion seems natural to me.  She doesn’t actually attack him or verbally/physically threaten him.  People say things like “I could have killed my brother for eating the last slice of cake” or “I could’ve strangled my co-worker when she spoiled the ending of the movie” and it’s not literal.

Third, she doesn’t say “go away, I never want to see you again.”  She says “Go where you will, Nathanos, but do not be idle” and “I expect you will return to me with means to prevent [Bwonsamdi’s] meddling.”  So essentially she’s saying, “Fine, go home, regroup, come up with Plan B, and if it’s not possible to destroy Bwonsamdi at least concentrate on countering him.”  Also note that she still considers the operation to be theirs, not just hers:  “This was a blow, but one she felt sure they could overcome.”  That tells me she expects to work with him in the future.

Fourth, and granted this is before she learns of his failure, but she’s clearly happy to have him there when he first arrives.  “’My champion,’ Sylvanas purred.  ‘Your timing could not be better.  Tell me of your victory as we take these first steps together.’”  She wanted to cross into the Shadowlands with him at her side.  Hell, that’s bridal imagery...crossing the threshold together, and all that.  The only reason she tells him to go is because his work isn’t done and she still needs him on Azeroth.  But she explicitly says “I expect you will return to me.” 

Fifth, in the line from her POV about how “the unjust ladder of their lives must be dismantled,” the “they” she’s referring to is all of the denizens of Azeroth, true, but I think there’s also a tinge of bitterness there as she looks back on her own life, and her life with Nathanos.  Destiny has not been kind to either of them.

Sixth, she says “My path lies ahead” as she prepares to cross into the Shadowlands.  It’s a reminder of the scale of the forces she is trying to manipulate.  When faced with the potential fates of all the souls in the universe, her own regrets are insignificant.  She can’t stay on Azeroth any longer, even if some part of her does want to just chill out on a beach somewhere with Nathanos and watch his blighthounds chase seagulls.  She thinks “It would not be easy, but then, her mission required great sacrifice.”  Like leaving him behind.

Even this part can be interpreted different ways:  “She heard the note of hope in his voice, fragile as a fledgling dropped from the next.”  Putting aside the humor of comparing bird-hating Nathanos to a fledgling, we don’t get a value judgment about the comparison.  Sylvanas doesn’t think about him sympathetically, wanting to protect him in a vulnerable moment, but she also doesn’t think, “Geez, what a pathetic weakling.”  It goes back to that bit in Warbringers about how she can’t kill hope.  And she can’t.  Here, again, no matter how bleak things are, no matter how displeased she is at his failure, he still has hope.  And she needs that, whether she believes it or not.

When she “flicked her fingers, as if ridding herself of a speck of muck” that can be interpreted as her thinking of him in a derogatory way, but she was also talking about Bwonsamdi in the same breath so I can choose to believe that’s who she was being dismissive of.

I don’t know.  I get that some of the language is discouraging.  She describes him as having “blubbering lips” and she’s definitely not happy with him.  But these two have been through a lot, and their bond has remained strong.  I’m sure this isn’t their first fight, or the first time he’s disappointed her.  This isn’t the end for them.  Just another bump on a very long highway they’ve traveled together.

...

OMG this has turned into a monster of a post, rambling all over the place.  I hope it’s coherent enough to follow.  I’m just in lore overload at the moment (and enjoying every second.)  I know I’m forgetting things I wanted to talk about, too, but I’m going to go ahead and post it as it is.

[embercrested]

@windrunnerrs I enjoyed the book while reading it, yet the more I stopped to think about it the more I found it to be flawed. I don't agree with everything makani criticized, but for the most part I think it's right. Sira is whatever, Maiev is ooc, the second scene with Tyrande is pretty bad. Jaina's personality reverted, but Idk how fair it is to blame Roux for that when she seems to be doing that for a while.

Anduin wasn’t a problem for me tho bc I feel what’s going on makes sense with what he’s been through, the suggestion of external influence but also just the pressure he’s under with everything (and that things still weigh heavily on him even when he complies, like the Turalyon Alleria stuff). For Turalyon and Alleria, I didn’t feel like it was reverting their characters to BtDP at all tho

at the same time, I took a lot of issue with Nathanos and Sylv because even in BFA material they had been portrayed differently. I liked Talanji’s part a lot, but Zekhan Idc at all. I think my main problem was the plot not progressing and a lot being kinda abandoned halfway through the book.

As for Fairshaw, I could see it coming from that one mission they’re both in, but at the same time, I think the book does a poor job of developing it from there. I didn’t like lorthaly either, and I hate lor’themar’s character as written by roux, but specially in relation to Thaly I hate it.

ANYWAYS SORRY FOR THE RANT I JUST LIKE DISCUSSING THIS STUFF AKSJDNFKASNDF

NO WORRIES LMAO your insight is always appreciated and i love your opinions on that. (mostly bc we agree :’) but also bc it’s rooted in facts and you know your stuff!)

yeah like??? i have a similar impression reading the critiques, while first reaction was glowing and positive, in comparison to the other books people are ... a lot more negative? it’s like the second kingsman film for me, when i watched it at the cinema i LOVED it, but as time passed i came to realise that i don’t really like it. it’s a bit like your weird uncle: you love him, but you don’t like him. 

it’s super hard to say but i just don’t care about the undead night elves bc they’re all so... bland. although i really had to laugh at her comparison of sira diving in a 1v4 teamfight bc it felt exactly like that in general. the few passages i’ve read with maiev made me ??????? bc that’s not the maiev we know. 

I really don’t know what her problem with Anduin was, tho. Jaina’s arc has been disappointing since after the battle of dazar’alor with no real development - not saying she has to stay the mad warrior queen, but switching from “BEWARE, BEWARE OF ME” to “you know it’s just sylvanas, the horde isn’t that bad uwu we must let them mourn uwu~” in an instant (nobody @ me, because that’s the hill i’m willing to die on and i’m tired of discussing it) - but that’s the thing, just like you said - you can’t fault roux for that, because they’ve did that before her and already in the game 

zekhan slowly feels like rhonin, at least that’s what quite a few people say. he started as a meme and now he’s this prominent character who’s just too good and perfect and- urgh. never got the obsession with him either.

all in all it’s also super hard to judge, because we don’t know how much blizzard tells her to do; if she just gets an overall plot and she had to fill in the blanks herself, if she gets an extensive briefing about who the characters are, what direction they’re supposed to go and what their personalities are supposed to be. 

[warwaged-archive]

Alleria had always been good at pushing aside unwanted feelings.

It wasn’t comfortable, no, but easy enough to do while moving forward towards she who had been her tormentor for so long. Leave her dead; leave her buried in rubble never to be found again. It is what she deserves. What leaves her lips is much more softspoken, heart poured out in spite of her hesitance to do so; there is no word against the Light Mother, no offered offense regardless of how many come to mind. No sense of retribution to see her shattered, no gloating, no satisfaction; but there is fear, and there is vulnerability, and there is the silent begging for him to see her reason, to see her side, to see her pain.

And what then? I was locked in a cell for delving into the Void against her wishes. Will she make me a prisoner again? Or worse?

He would have tried to soothe her at the very least, in the past. This time there is no offered comfort; there is nothing but nearly disinterested certainty that surely it shall be fine, surely Xe’Ra would see the reason, surely she would do Alleria no harm.

But she has already done. Alleria has the scars to prove it.

Hurt that hits her then is not of so visible sort; only in her heart, after all, and that she can hide easily enough. Not comfortable, but easy. She knew Turalyon trusted her; she knew the Army of the Light fought for the future the prime naaru had foreseen. They think it is the only way to save the universe from the Legion, of course bringing her back is important. Somewhere deep down, she can almost hear the echoes of disagreement.

(Weren’t you important for him? Didn’t he care? You gave your heart and body and soul in a way so complete and honest and whole, in a way you never had before; you gave yourself to the wrong person. He doesn’t care. You abandoned the Light, and he no longer cares. He cannot love someone who dwells in the Shadows. But he can love a being of Light even if it is a tyrant, even if it is a torturer.)

They are not loud enough she cannot silence them. The bleeding is not severe enough she cannot ignore it.

Alleria underestimates how hard it would be to see Xe’Ra again.

Indeed, apprehension gripped at her heart at the mere suggestion of restoring the Light Mother, but she had since steeled herself to the inevitability of it; or so she thought. The Windrunner had never been the submissive sort, never one to be forcibly controlled; one who valued her freedom too much to ever submit to chains, never had, not other than those that would lead her to Azeroth again. Alleria could have escaped, even if she could not have fought; could have returned to the Void, to her displeased teacher, could even have wandered the Twisting Nether again until she found path to Azeroth by herself — but the Xenedar was where she had to be, reliable path to the future she had seen that Light and Void were both blind to. The future where they won.

It wasn’t enough to make her fond of her cage, but it was enough to make it tolerable.

The bars were made of Light, as pure and bright as the Light that composed Xe’Ra herself. Alleria could not touch them, of course; a way to guarantee she could not reach beyond it, to make her as little threat as possible. More often than not, she had been left alone to reconsider her path and forsake the Shadows; not always. Sometimes the Light Mother would reach to her in sickeningly sweet tone, elated in listing all that she would lose forever were she to stay with the shadows, before offering her a path to the Light once more. Unbeknownst to Xe’Ra, perhaps, those were the days she got to Alleria the most, heart tight at the idea of losing her sisters, her homeland, her lover, her son. Yet it was for them, too, she chose the path she walked; and it was holding on to this knowledge that Alleria kept herself calm enough not to give away any reaction, nothing but constant denial.

Other times, it was Light forced on her physically, or the attempt to. She remembered thinking of Lothraxion, of Fel being cleansed by Light, of how much it must have hurt for the Nathrezim; she remembered thinking Xe’Ra underestimated the Shadows and Alleria’s own will both, if she believed to cleanse her as easily as Fel. The Void would not surrender one who had so willingly given herself to it; and whenever she was at her limit, Alleria saw Xe’Ra give up, made aware the mortal would break before bending, and knowing she needed her alive for the future she had seen to come into being.

Well, at least until she decided Alleria needed another push, a more direct interference from the Light to set her once more on the right path.

Seeing her may have brought memory of such instances to her mind, but it does not make Alleria fear. She finds it hard to fear, then, in spite of being haunted by it not long ago. Seeing Xe’Ra again makes her rage. A quiet, contained sort of rage, to be sure, but one that burns intensely, one that she had not felt so strongly in so many years. Had she the power to destroy the Prime Naaru, Xe’Ra would be in pieces again already. The thought comes with a certainty that does not let her deny its truth even to herself; Alleria doesn’t try to. She does not shun the anger, either; it is justified, and she has kept it long enough. Let it be felt. Let it bleed out if it must. There has been silence and submission for too long.

If anxiety or anger occupy her, neither finds reciprocation in the dreaded Light Mother. Xe’Ra does not care, she realizes; and there is no shock in this, not truly, not for her who knows the naaru to only have cared for her perfect vision of the future for years, but to see it extended to Turalyon as well is new and unexpected — as is his loyalty to her, so blatantly offered, so unblemished. He kneels as if faced by most sacred being, and it is the truth of it, Alleria realizes, the truth of it in his eyes at least. There is adoration in his gaze, devotion in his voice, relief to see Xe’Ra restored.

It is enough to subdue the flames of her resent, ice cold aching in her heart substituting it. It is neither comfortable nor easy, then, to push aside unwanted feelings. It is hard, and it hurts; oh, if baring her feelings to be met with disregard had been bruising as being punched in the gut, this hurts as being trespassed by blade instead. Part of her wants to cry out betrayal, that he would so devote himself to this thing who had tried to rob her of choice, who did rob her of freedom, who hurt her as it saw fit and branded her wrong for having a mind of her own. Part of her thinks the betrayer to have been herself, venturing in the Shadow out of own volition. It hurts all the same. Duty she could understand; this wasn’t it. This was care and concern Turalyon had not shown to her, even when he had last seen her behind bars made of pure Light; it was commitment he had not shown her when she spoke of her worry and hesitated to aid one who had only done her harm.

Keeping herself impassive is stilling breath with same focus she had been taught once, so many years ago, when learning to tread amidst Eversong trees quiet as a shadow. It is clenching teeth and digging her nails in the flesh of her palm so strongly it hurts, but it is a welcome hurt, grounding, simple enough to deal with. It is forcing herself not to feel, impossible as it is — making herself ignore it, as if that was someone else’s lover, someone she did not know.

Did she know him at all, as it was?

Alleria had always been good at pushing aside unwanted feelings, and she succeeds, even when it is arduous effort. All eyes remain on the naaru, on the demon hunter that steps up to speak to it; all eyes, even her own. She feels what will happen before she processes it; heartbeat racing and body taut as a bowstring ready to snap. True understanding only comes to her, clear as crystal, when Illidan refuses Xe’Ra. She knows, and how could she not? It is watching her tale reenacted with different characters. It is seeing yet another fall prey to a monster who cloaks herself in good intentions, who makes use of righteousness to blind others on her tyranny.

She isn’t sure she can stomach to see it, yet green eyes do not dare look away, barely even blink. It is only when Illidan forcefully frees himself of binding light that Alleria releases breath she hadn’t realize she had been holding, a quiet gasp made soundless by deafening noise; only then gaze is forcefully torn away, the coalescing forces much too blinding to withstand.

There is barely a moment of quiet, briefest second in which she can feel how deeply Illidan’s words resounds with her, how deeply she feels it, from life that was not Xe’Ra’s to take to destiny that is his own, just as hers was, is, will always be. The moment ends too soon. All too quickly, it is brought to an end by a different voice loudly asserting his rage over Illidan’s actions, more vicious and angry and passionate than she remembered seeing in a long time.

When had he last acted like that? The rage upon seeing Lothar fall, perhaps. Turalyon had never been prone to outbursts of anger, seldom allowing himself to act on rage or resent. Lothar… Lothar had been his mentor, closer than even just his commander. There was connection between them, it is secret to no one; a bond, truly. And if any had been deserving of it, Anduin Lothar most certainly had; yet even drawing out such comparison thinking similar feelings would be attached to Xe’Ra sickens her (breaks her heart).

Breaks her further. Both relief and cathartic sense of justice done, found in seeing one pushed into a situation so similar to what Alleria herself had lived through destroy her tormentor, fade all too soon; feelings she had not even had the time to fully feel, truly, barely acknowledged at all amidst surprise and shock and rush of each turn of events. It is too much, too sudden, and amidst the overwhelming sea of feelings she experiences, she does not even know what is it she feels.

And then and there, for the first time in so long she does not remember when it happened last, Alleria feels like falling apart.

She doesn’t. Many years of shutting feelings tight within, burying them within own chest until they cannot hurt (until they hurt all the same, just as deep, just as truly, but all of it is securely beneath the skin) do not fail her then. Alleria barely acknowledges what happens, if focus is entirely on the scene before her; the words are lost in the haze, but she can see Turalyon’s sword (Lothar’s), half metal and half Light, and although she cannot see the wound, she can see Fel blood dripping to the floor, clawed hand holding sword in place even as it carves his flesh. Something Illidan says must have gotten to him, for eventually Turalyon withdraws, and eventually the demon hunter is left to brood in a corner, and eventually the paladin returns to the bridge, perhaps unsure how to go on about his duties then.

They have not been able to touch for many years now, but it is the first time Alleria is glad of it.

Even standing close to him feels like too much; but the mask does not slip, and neither him nor Vereesa nor Arator, not a single person in the multitude of faces within the Vindicaar, seems concerned when she offers some poor excuse of something to do, steps taking her away (away, away, even if she does not know where), aimless until she finds what she was looking for without conscious thought: a distant corner, empty and lonely and dark. Like she is. Where she belongs.

No strength is enough to keep herself together then.

The tears are quiet, if only because she does not dare making noise and drawing attention to herself — it’s not what she wants. Alleria does not resent that none of them noticed her distress; she has never been comfortable with exposing such feelings to others (lie; she had been comfortable enough once, with him, and the thought only causes her to cry more). If the sounds do not escape her, body still shakes with the soundless sobs, heartfelt, hurting, broken.

Xe’Ra is dead! Xe’Ra is dead. Gone, truly and completely this time. Why is it not enough? Why does it still hurt, even when she knows she is glad the Light Mother will never harm her or anyone else in attempt to force her will on them? Why does it hurt, when loathed dreading she had felt upon realizing what Illidan was going to suffer had turned to overwhelming relief, honest joy even, to see such fate averted and Xe’Ra dealt with? Why does it hurt regardless?

(How long have you been silent? How much have you ignored, set aside, pretended not to see? And now that she’s dead, what? Now you pretend and ignore and set aside and stay silent forever, because Xe’Ra is dead and it doesn’t matter anymore.)

Whatever she had suffered, it does not matter; not anymore. Her pain does not matter; this is as much justice as she will ever receive.

Her pain does not matter. And thoughts return to Turalyon, then, Turalyon who had once gone through lengths she expected none to go in order to help her; to offer her a hand she refused time and again, to do whatever he needed do to allow her to heal. Turalyon who shrugged off her concerns in favor of believing in Xe’Ra’s goodwill. Turalyon who knelt in front of Xe’Ra, who offered her respect and adoration he had not spared his so called wife. Turalyon who so eagerly threw himself at Xe’Ra’s killer, in blind rage that was not stopped by the logical thought he could not defeat Illidan, not truly, not when his own power would not have been enough to defeat the Prime Naaru.

Alleria had never resented the lack of further action when she was imprisoned. Turalyon stood with her then, between herself and Xe’Ra even, when he pleaded for her life. It was all she could have asked for; neither of them could defeat her, much less the entire Army of the Light. Alleria never meant to make them enemies, either. It was her path home, to accept Xe’Ra’s sentence; it was how she would reach Azeroth again (how she would see Arator again) — and Turalyon had done what he could. Had done enough.

Had done so much as he was willing to do, she thought now. He could have acted then how he acted now, could have known it was an impossible victory but raised his sword all the same. His lack of action was not because he knew it would be futile; he hadn’t done more because he hadn’t cared enough to do it.

He surely seemed to have a tremendous amount of care for the thing that kept her captive, however.

Arms wrap around her knees, attempt to make herself quieter, to give herself comfort (no; to make herself smaller, perhaps, as if she continued to shrink in her shadowy corner, she might disappear completely). It wouldn’t matter, would it? Arator had an aunt who would always be better mother figure than she could hope to be. He and Vereesa and Sylvanas had all believed her gone for so long; they didn’t need her (Sylvanas is the name that gives her pause; she hadn’t had the chance to meet her, hadn’t seen her in so long… but perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it would be easier if she had not met any of them at all. At the very least, Sylvanas could be spared the disappointment.)

The Locus-Walker had taught her the Void would play her feelings to their purpose, and it never fails to prove true; her shadow companions, voices without bodies, whisper to fan the flames of her resent, to deepen her sorrow, to offer her comfort. It is barely effective at all; she is drowning in feelings all her own, sinking each time she briefly thinks she might swim again.

There is but one certainty for her, then and there; she does belong to the shadows, in the shadows, irreversibly, irrevocably. It is in the silent darkness she finds as much solace as she could find anywhere; and the cold nothingness of the Void does not feel like such terrible option after all.

[redeeming-sun]

Shipping Info!

Tagged by: @lady-proudmoore​ and @ladywindrunner​

Tagging: Anyone who sees it and wants to. Please tag me though so I can look at it c:

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER?:

Arator x Jaina. I love slow burn, friends to lovers. I love that they’re each others oldest friend and confidant but they’ve spent so much time as friends that neither wants to risk ruining that by seeking more. I also love how, after Shadows Rising, the relationship Jaina has with Alleria and Turalyon might complicate things but I love complicated, too. They make family dinners very interesting. 

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO WRITE WHEN IT COMES TO SHIPPING?:

 I love angst and fluff but am pretty receptive to all shipping subjects. I prefer healthy relationships though. So pretty much I’m willing to write anything it just depends on the characters and what they want to do.

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?

I’ve shipped him with elves before so age gaps don’t make me uncomfortable. What makes me uncomfortable is maturity and common sense gaps. I do not like ships where one person clearly has no agency or power in the relationship. 

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?:

Very. Arator and myself are picky. I’m so sorry but I’m also not.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NSFW?:

If I have to start using innuendos, it’s getting close. Usually cut scene before all of the clothes are off XD

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU

You have to talk to Arator for that one. Best method is to interact with him and see if there’s chemistry and then start throwing ideas at me. 

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?:

More or less. Shipping can be fun but I’m not motivated by it. It adds a unique perspective to the character, and offers fun RP ideas and stories. I like it more for how it changes the character. 

ARE YOU MULTISHIP?:

Yes.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?:

Favorite? It’s hard for me to pick a favorite. Many I love for different reasons. Like I love Wrathion x Anduin x Arator because they are three men trying to prove their worth but also giving so much of themselves in the process. They all have a chip on their shoulder and I just want them to see that in one another and realize “Oh, you’re hurting yourself doing this...please stop and let me love you.” because then they realize “oh shit I do that too don’t I?” and so they become each others most vocal champion. I’m not a huge fan of Fairshaw (though Shadows Rising has me questioning that) but when it was declared canon I cried tears of joy. I still remember the censoring that happened to Sailor Moon so to have a LGBT+ ship confirmed c’: It’s great.

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH You?

Send asks, let me know about your character. I am inspired by ideas but to form ideas I need to know who they are. Arator is picky so personality is a major influence. The best ships are the ones where we’re constantly sharing headcanons.

[alteredphoenix]

I wonder what it says about Sylvanas as a character when you look at the community - whether it’s on Twitter, Reddit, MMO-Champion, on Tumblr or any other forum WoW can carve a niche in - and see the absolute divide she has on people the likes of which I don’t think I’ve seen in any fandom before. I can’t say I’ve seen the fandom be this tense since...hmm, well, I guess we can say Jaina in Battle of Dazar’alor, since she’s another long mainstay in the cast.

But it’s as the devs said: Sylvanas makes Garrosh look like a child; his crimes pale in comparison to what she has done and the people she has allied herself with. Not to mention the ‘let’s break the Machine of Death and upend the Cycle that shoehorns predetermination against our will for a new system where we can have free reign on our choices without the threat of otherworldly powers and artificial intelligence puppeteering us in the direction they want us to go’, which sounds well and dandy...until you remember that all souls post-Emerald Nightmare are being funneled into the Maw and, as the SL artbook states, tortured until they’re driven mad and side with the Jailer to increase his numbers.

As a fanfic writer and a player that tends to stay away from discourse as much as humanly possible, I personally don’t mind the direction the story is going in. I’m a lot more patient now than I was when I was a girl; after all, my white whale of anticipation isn’t Sylvanas, but Turalyon and Alleria, whom I waited on for eight years to properly debut. Even now, with their roles currently solidified in the current state of canon, I’m content to wait even longer for the inevitable Light Versus Void expansion to see what will happen to them. People like them have the equivalent of the Sword of Daedalus hanging over their heads. It poses the question “Will they or will they not die?” It is the natural progression one can see when we look at integral characters that we follow for a set number of expansions, such as Garrosh, Varok Saurfang, Jaina, and Tyrande.

It’s no different with Sylvanas when you look at her, except this time she doesn’t just come with the Sword. She comes with so many impressions and conclusive feelings that anticipating the finale of Sanctum of Domination is akin to betting all your money on the horse you want to believe for a fact is going to win the Kentucky Derby; hell, let’s replace that with the Super Bowl instead, because that’s how monumental this is being hyped up to be. There’s a strong taste of tension, bloodthirst, and outright mental anxiety over what will happen to her, and that comes off as a little worrying for me - more so the anxiety than the bloodthirst, that’s to be expected with Sylvanas. I have read posts from users during my Tumblr surfing sessions where the more diehard fans are having panic attacks just thinking about the outcome.

I am a Sylvanas fan. I like her. I disagree with some of her decisions, but I still like her just as I like Arthas - her parallel - and disagree with his decisions. But be she hero or villain, the story direction is not worth damaging your mental health over. The story so far has been told and will yet to be told. It’s okay to step away. It’s okay to turn out the noise and focus on yourself. As much as I find some of the dedication toward her to be too extreme and obsessive for my tastes, I also don’t want those fans that feel that strongly to hurt themselves in the process. Then again, I’m no doctor; that’s going into territory I’m not educated in. There’s not really much I can offer you other than that, and you are free to take of it what you will.

I’m not sure where else to take this; I’ve rambled far more than I wanted to, and I’ve deviated more than intended. But let me put it like this: if the story is easy enough for me to understand and I like it, then I’m content with where it’s heading. Maybe that makes me foolish and naïve, but that’s just who I am. I don’t think in terms of ‘is this bad writing’, I think of ‘do the plot and characters make sense for me’. I do wish the lore were a little more consistent, but WoW is going on 17 years old, some of the stuff I’ve seen from older expansions haven’t aged well or have holes in them that need to be patched. I guess that’s why I get confused when some people really stretch out the ‘irredeemable, unsalvageable, maniacal, mustache-twirling Saturday Morning Cartoon Snidely Whiplash’ impression they put on Sylvanas, and I’m over here thinking she’s always been that harsh, cruel Banshee Queen of Undercity who has had her moments of relatability born from tragedy and a specter of love for her people and family that has been stomped on so much she’s willing to tear down the System of Death. If the Split Soul Theory plays into any of this, that’s something I will have to accommodate to.

I am a writer, after all. I’m patient. Whatever happens, happens, and to see the amount of discussion that Sylvanas brings to the fandom solidifies her as a memorable character. You could even argue this makes her a great character, and as a person with writerly aspirations I think, in my personal opinion, that nothing would make me happier than seeing a character of questionable morality who commits even more questionable actions to reach such heights of sympathy, fame, and notoriety.

That’s all that matters to me.

Take care of yourselves. Be nice to each other.

[diguerra-moved]

Your family is broken Alleria and will never be fixed. Rather you will have the pleasure of watching as it disintegrates and you are left alone with nothing and no one but us as your friends. Death will claim them and then we will claim you. We eagerly await your suffering.

UNPROMPTED ASKS // always accepting.

Nothing and no one. It echoed of another’s words.

Make no mistake, Alleria: if you pursue contact with the Void, your destiny will fall into ruin. You will lose Turalyon. You will lose Arator. You will lose Silvermoon, Azeroth, and everything else you hold dear. 

The memory did not soothe her. Rather, Alleria felt the knife twist further, her shadowy companions sounding so much like the Prime Naaru once had. Arms crossed in front of her, perhaps frown deepening; but no other outer reaction was given. It mattered not; she could not pretend for the Shadows like she could for those around her. She could tell Turalyon she was fine, offer Arator a smile, stand strong by the Alliance and Stormwind in front of her ren’dorei, but when it came to her heart and mind, there were no secrets. It was the bargain she made, after all; a bargain she did not regret if solely because she couldn’t, because it was a necessary choice, because it was what they needed to fight and win wars yet to come.

Silvermoon she had already lost; more of what she held dear as well, though Xe’Ra had not named that which Alleria had never shared (Sylvanas came to mind, then, lost to something so much worse than death alone). Indeed, her family was broken, in every possible sense. She had lost one of her sisters, and there was yet much to bridge with the other; the situation with her own son was no better, though there was effort on both sides. Turalyon, vastly different situation that it was, was perhaps worse of those she hadn’t yet lost; hundreds and hundreds of years together, yet they hung by a thread so thin she sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been cut long ago, and only willful denial kept them together. 

The Light and the Shadow cannot exist together. It was but a matter of time until even their unwillingness to be apart wouldn’t be enough to keep them together, fundamentally opposite as they had come to be.

Alleria did not have the strength to dispute their claims she would lose them all. In the end, hurt as it did (and oh, how it did, in way wound by blade or arrow or Void or Light would never hurt as much), it wasn’t the most important thing; if she lost them but kept them safe, it would be worth it. If she won the war that mattered, it would be worth it, even if she ended all alone.

Death was not what she feared would claim them; not as much as other losses, that scarcely required their ceasing to exist in same universe she did, that would be as difficult to bear as death itself.

Charming. But I’m not yours and I’ll never be — not even when I lose them.

If she ever fell to the Void, Alleria would still be less than submissive to the ownership of others. 

[warcraft-lore-archives]

Your post on blood elves still having their addiction brings up some interesting opportunities for Blizz to add some more depth to void elf lore. I would assume they tap into the void somehow to feed their addiction, but as far as I know they never outright say that. It would be interesting to see regretful void elves who can't walk away from the void because they can't access the Sunwell. If you have any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them!

I’m sorry it’s taken me an impossibly long amount of time to answer this. I originally intended to do more research because I don’t actually know much about magical addiction, but I never got around to it. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that void elves might still suffer from an addiction until I got this ask!

Knowing what little I do, I imagine that any connection to the Sunwell, a fount of both holy light and arcane magic, would conflict painfully with the void elves’ newfound void form (for lack of a better phrase), forcing most, if not all of them, to give up the Sunwell. This would make their addiction more severe than that of the average blood elf, who has the Sunwell for sustenance. However, there may be void elf priests (and undead priests, to draw an important comparison) that wield the Light, even though it undoubtedly causes them harm. Therefore, it’s possible that some void elves do not suffer as greatly from addiction because they’re able to maintain a connection to the Sunwell. Given that blood elves still suffer from it, though, even with the Sunwell newly restored, I’d bet all of the void elves do experience addiction in varying degrees.

(Someone has pointed out to me that “holy” spec void elf priests do not currently exist in lore. The priest class, they argue, is almost certainly available to void elves because they can be shadow priests, but it’s unclear if void elves are realistically able to wield the Light. Small interactions between Alleria and Turalyon, powerful users of the void and light respectively, caused them immense pain, so there’s no saying what a void elf channeling the Light would feel).

What I don’t know is whether or not the void feeds the void elves’ addiction or if it’s possible that the void has “cured” it completely. Given that their dependence is on arcane magic and not the void, I’m inclined to believe that it has not actually cured it. However, that doesn’t mean the void can’t manipulate them into thinking one way or another for its own ends.

I took a cursory look at the Nightborne recruitment scenario dialogue which raises more questions than it answers about this topic. Alleria, a rather unique void elf compared to her counterparts, never alludes to the Sunwell causing her any harm. It appears at first glance that she can still feel the Sunwell, since she says, “The Sunwell has changed… but its beauty remains,” after seeing it for the first time since before it was corrupted by Arthas. Of course, it’s possible that Alleria can’t actually sense this change and is just commenting on what happened to the Sunwell. (Personally, despite Alleria’s vague wording, I’m inclined to believe she does have an innate understanding that the Sunwell’s energies have been altered.)  It could also be that the Sunwell is indeed causing her physical pain, but we wouldn’t know that without Alleria saying it, and that certainly isn’t something she wants to voice aloud in front of people who are skeptical about her being near the Sunwell in the first place. Alleria is, as we’ve seen in both the audio drama and the comic, content to keep quiet about the light hurting her. With that in mind, I’m hard-pressed to draw any solid conclusions about what the scenario says about the void elves and their relationship to the Sunwell.

I expect that if any void elves are still addicted to arcane magic, they use their void abilities to “acquire” it from various sources. I’d almost even dare to argue that the void itself is like an addiction since it has often been described as an endless hunger. This is really just conjecture and speculation at this point, but it would be interesting if the void completely supplanted arcane addiction in much the same way that the Death Knight “curse” does for blood elves. For those interested, the Ask CDev answer reads, “[Blood elf death knights are not affected by their racial addiction to magic], though their new addiction, the one all Ebon Blade death knights possess, is arguably worse: the need to inflict pain.”

With all that said, void elves probably still have an addiction to arcane magic until stated otherwise. However, depending on whether or not they maintain their connection to the Sunwell at the cost of great pain to themselves (if they even can), that may determine how severe their addiction is.

[felseekers]

celestial balance--

For the countless years he and the Army of the Light had been fighting their way through the infinite coils of the Twisting Nether, Turalyon had learned to believe in the simple concept of light at the end of a tunnel.

It was more than hope, because while hope on its own was a powerful force, it was something different, he felt, to hope despite the greatest odds. To be surrounded by shadow, and still believe, with absolute certainty, that there was a pinpoint of light somewhere within.

The Xenedar crashed, and Turalyon began looking for the light anew.

Deep in the fel-corrupted fields of Krokuun, Turalyon had found the broken draenei left behind so long ago who had not joined the ranks of the lightforged--forced to adapt and survive to fight for their home--and had thought beyond doubt that he had found that glimpse of light. He took shelter with them, and began to plan to take the Xenedar back, because Xe’ra was still within, a priceless prize for the Legion to claim, and was disturbed from those thoughts and plans only when the obvious tones of an argument brewing outside urged him to action once more.

Outside, the Prophet Velen--the very same one who had departed Argus so many millennia ago--conversed in heated, controlled tones with Hatuun, accompanied by two others: one was kaldorei, but obviously fel-corrupted, with a blindfold over her eyes and demonic horns sprouting from her head, unnaturally dark hair falling down her back in a wave. Nevertheless, her body language was open, relaxed, almost casual, yet still alert enough Turalyon doubted she was ignorant to the threats that surrounded the group.

The last person in Velen’s entourage, though--she was sin’dorei, but the only indicator were her ears, sticking out from a helmet that otherwise covered her head. From head to toe, she was outfitted in plate gear in dark colors, with faint tones of almost painfully bright blue, and that was when Turalyon sensed the cold that all but radiated from her, like a slow, vicious wave, indiscriminate to whatever stood in its path.

A death knight.

It was not the light that Turalyon sought, perhaps, but, well.

It would have to be a start.

Turalyon intervened, and the argument was dispelled, and he found himself walking with the night elf and the blood elf in Velen’s entourage as he told them of the demons that stood in the way of securing their perimeter.

“Splitting up would be most efficient.” said the death knight--even her voice was unyielding, sharp, and crisp, echoing with the haunting reverberation characteristic to death knights. “I will take one Legion lieutenant, and the Illidari commander can take another.”

“Can we at least introduce ourselves first?” drawled the night elf with the fel horns, who still somehow managed to present a more open and affable image than the death knight next to her. “Vex Felseeker. Illidari commander. Well, one of them.”

With a roll of her whole head, the death knight begrudgingly drummed her fingers on the hilt of one of her two blades, sheathed at her hip. “I am Deathlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.”

“Not even a name?” Felseeker, the Illidari commander, nudged the Deathlord’s shoulder, and she barely even shifted with the motion--Turalyon noted the familiarity between them, despite the somewhat chilly response. “Come on, Tyra, it wouldn’t kill you to--”

“My name is inconsequential here,” came the brusque interruption, “and just because we worked together in the Broken Isles does not give you leave to use a nickname on me, Vexara.”

“Enough.” Turalyon finally interrupted, when it seemed the pair were about to dissolve into bickering. “I believe taking the Deathlord’s suggestion would bring us the swiftest resolution. Return to Hatuun’s camp when you’ve completed the mission.”

Turalyon watched the pair depart and go in two very different directions--Felseeker took a running leap and sprouted fel wings, gliding down the rocky slope with both warglaives drawn. The Deathlord walked briskly down the path, then slowly picked up her pace until she was sprinting, and a horse almost seemed to materialize from nowhere with an equine scream, ghostly fire trailing from its hooves. In a split second she hauled herself aboard its saddle, and disappeared into the ridges of Krokuun.

Turalyon looked up, and saw Azeroth on the horizon. He turned and strode back to Hatuun’s camp.

For now, that alone would have to be the light at the end of the tunnel, brighter than it had been for countless years.

*

When the time came to clear the last obstacle to their attack on the Xenedar’s crash site, Turalyon elected to lead the charge there.

Hope was all well and good, but it was only made worthwhile with action.

“I will go, as well.” it had been somewhat surprising to hear the Deathlord volunteer first, rather than the commander of a sect of forces dedicated to dismantling the Legion at all costs, but the Illidari herself had little comment on the matter as the Deathlord continued, “Vex is needed on the Vindicaar to give orders to the rest of her people for the assault on the Xenedar’s crash site once we are successful. Too much is at risk here to wait for them, so I will go.”

“Are you implying something, Deathlord?”

“Only that you and the rest of the Illidari are incapable of sticking to a plan unless you come up with it. Months spent in Suramar with you have illustrated that point quite clearly.”

“Then let us be off.” the incessant bickering, Turalyon had a feeling, would be the biggest hurdle of all to overcome in this mission. He thought the Deathlord might’ve been relieved with the intervention before the banter spiraled out of control, but it was difficult to tell.

Their trip up to the demon’s lair was made in near-total silence, broken only when the Deathlord spoke to alert them both of potential reinforcements to avoid. She was not the ideal ally to have at his back here, in the midst of a landscape almost entirely controlled by the Legion, but Turalyon’s situation had ceased being ideal from the moment the Xenedar crashed to Argus’ surface.

“Your hesitance in dealing with either myself or the Illidari commander is understandable,” the Deathlord spoke suddenly as they settled into a brief reconnaissance position--clearly he hadn’t been as subtle in his doubts as he’d thought, or perhaps the assumption had been made based on prior reactions to their offers for help, but either way it stung, “and while I acknowledge both myself and the Illidari commander may have somewhat questionable backgrounds, by the standards of the High Exarch of the Army of the Light, for now, we all want the same thing.”

“No one is victorious if the Legion is.” Turalyon said, half as a reminder to himself and half a confirmation of the Deathlord’s words.

“Just so.” Her helmet didn’t turn to look at him, her gaze steadfastly focused on the slope behind them while they readied themselves to strike, but a single thread of tension lifted. “On that topic, I am ready to attack whenever you are.”

Turalyon turned to take in the pit lord in the clearing ahead of them, still unaware of their presence. Bile rose in his throat and his lip twisted down into something that tried to be a scowl, but he scarcely had the energy for it. “Strike.”

A single word, and the Deathlord drew her twin swords in tandem with his greatsword, charging towards the pit lord as one. An ambient chill, stronger even than the atmosphere in Hatuun’s camp, settled over the clearing, such a steep contrast from the almost harsh burn of the Light’s energy that coursed from the lightforged draenei he had fought alongside before.

He would give the Deathlord this, though: for all the plate armor she wore, her agility was remarkable.

The pit lord’s minions emerged to harass them throughout the battle, and consequently fell to the Deathlord’s swift blades and icy strikes, holding them at bay with effortless ease, immovable and unbreakable as a glacier. Soon the demon’s minions came faster, and the Deathlord’s steps brought her closer and closer to him as she began to slowly lose ground.

When the minions vanished, Turalyon didn’t have time to even shout a warning before fel eruptions emerged from the earth and rooted him in place--out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Deathlord trapped as well, but a frosty haze began to cover the rock almost as soon as it trapped her. Turalyon dug deep within himself, deeper than he’d been forced to dig in many years, for that place where the Light was strongest.

There was a sharp crack, a squeal of something frozen shattering into a thousand pieces, and a somewhat-hoarse roar of defiance and triumph combined. The Deathlord stood from the fragments of her stony, icy prison, a minutely-contained blizzard of her own making swirling around her body--the remorselessness and ferocity of winter incarnate.

With a sharp ripple of light, Turalyon’s own prison broke under the weight of so much power being brought to bear all at once, and as he reached for his weapon again, a series of arrows, fired blindingly fast, announced Alleria’s arrival before he ever saw her.

She wasn’t the only one--the Illidari commander soared into the pit lord’s den on her own fel wings, glaives drawn as she finished off the wounded demon. Alleria appeared shortly after and wrested several of her arrows from its corpse. Her grin was dry.

“I seem to be making a habit of saving you from demons.” she told him, and to anyone else it would have sounded light and faintly joking, but there were cracks forming in that facade that Turalyon had not yet had time to examine, in the wake of constant war with the Legion.

Alleria was familiar, and here, that was enough.

“Ran into her on my way to bring the rest of my Illidari forces to the Xenedar’s crash site.” Felseeker joined the conversation, warglaives dripping vile demon ichor onto the ground, a wide and almost predatory grin on her lips. “Thought you could use some assistance.”

“Your flair for the dramatic and unbelievably convenient timing are your best and worst qualities, Vex.”

“Was that a joke? I must be dreaming.”

Alleria made her way to his side without his knowing, and she said, out of earshot of their two new arrivals, “They don’t have the context of our war across the years. I fear the stakes have yet to fully take hold.”

“I don’t believe they would have come if some idea of the stakes had not been made clear.” Turalyon countered. “The Xenedar awaits--we ought to gather our forces to take it back.”

It was impossible to ignore Alleria’s somewhat skeptical noise from behind him, but he was certain there would be little to worry about once Xe’ra was returned to them--she was the prime naaru, the Light incarnate: there could be no greater symbol to rally around as they destroyed the Legion.

Another light, however obvious the symbolism was, to guide them through the dark once more.

*

With fragments of Xe’ra’s being scattered over the Vindicaar’s floor, his blade held at bay with only Illidan’s hand, dripping with fel blood, Turalyon felt rage, pure and undiluted, for the first time in recent memory.

It was bright and fiery in his veins, ready to burst, and when he was finally forced to give ground and step back, he turned his gaze to what remained of the prime naaru herself, shattered and broken, and felt a light deep in his chest flicker dangerously low.

He stopped short of dropping his sword to the Vindicaar’s pristine floor, covered with the last remnants of their biggest hope to look to for guidance as they stood in the maw of the Legion itself, but instead turned sharply away from the display and went to stand at the Vindicaar’s viewport, overlooking the Antoran Wastes. Azeroth still hung in the backdrop, and Turalyon kept his eyes on it, barely heeding the words Prophet Velen attempted to console him with. It felt selfish, to stand and essentially sulk whilst the Legion’s armies raged below, but it was quiet here, for once, and with Azeroth in sight, it was almost easy to believe in a light at the end once more. Almost.

Another presence at his side broke him free of the reverie, something cold and vastly different than any others here, and Turalyon looked down to see the Deathlord looking out over the same view as him.

“Does my presence trouble you?” she asked finally, and there was no judgment in it, no silent accusation that he could hardly afford to be so critical of the allies he was being given to aid this final push in the seemingly-endless fight.

“No.” he finally answered, honestly, but hesitantly. He did not trust the Deathlord, but her silence was refreshing.

Quiet passed for several beats before she spoke again. “You may not care to hear a death knight’s perspective on this, but I will offer it for consideration.”

“If you intend to tell me it was naive to place such faith in Xe’ra--” Turalyon began brusquely, ill in the mood for a lecture.

“I would not be so cruel.” the Deathlord replied, surprisingly quiet. “Perhaps I cannot believe in the Light the same way you do, but as a death knight, there was another near-supreme authority that I believed in, once. Albeit we death knights were not afforded a choice to believe otherwise, at first, but even after being freed from his thrall, there was a part of me that wanted to go back. It was familiar, for all it had broken me.”

“I was not ‘broken’ by the Light--”

“An unfortunate comparison,” the Deathlord raised a placating hand, and Turalyon fell into a sullen silence, “that nonetheless presents a parallel. We stand at a crossroads. Allow this to be a blow to your faith. Allow your confidence to falter. Find new purpose, and stand firm again.”

Silence fell again, and Turalyon thought. He turned to say something else, and found the Deathlord already gone, speaking with a small group of four other death knights at the other side of the Vindicaar--two humans, one man and one woman, a draenei woman, and a troll woman. They were familliar to the Deathlord, he could see it in the slope of her armored shoulders as she spoke to them, the words inaudible from this distance.

Xe’ra’s fragments had been cleared from the Vindicaar’s floors, a few glittering shards placed in the crucible on the vessel’s second floor. A source of light, incomplete without the shadow that contrasted it.

He might have called it the last shards of hope, but he didn’t truly believe that, not really. He still stood, the Army of the Light still stood, and for the first time in a thousand years, they had new blades to take up the fight.

It was not so potent a symbol as Azeroth on the horizon, but it was a tiny pinpoint of light, a solid anchor in the void, and Turalyon latched himself to it, stubbornly certain.

Surreal that he had been guided to it by a death knight, of all people--the death knights’ commander, no less--but if nothing else, Turalyon had been forced to accept that hope could come from the most unlikely of places, of people.

It was still a gift, and he refused to squander it.

*

Turalyon had set foot on Azeroth for the first time after what felt like a thousand years what was now several months ago, and the landscape still felt more alien than even Argus’ had.

There was a pronounced distance between himself and nearly everyone he had seen and spoken to in that time, even those he considered old friends, and the distance was something Turalyon knew he could only recover with time, but it still left a pang in his chest, knowing how much time he had lost to the Legion.

Now that the Legion was gone, however, it left a curious void in his day-to-day purpose.

For what had felt like a thousand years in the Twisting Nether, Turalyon’s sole purpose had been the destruction of the Legion--demon incursions happened daily, and there was always something more to do, another perimeter to secure, another pit lord to remove from power, another of Sargeras’ servants to destroy. Now it was done, and Turalyon did not miss it, but perhaps he did miss the certainty of it.

He had returned to a world on the brink of war once more, but it was not a war he was familiar with fighting anymore.

Alleria had been in a similar situation, and for a time they had taken solace in that shared struggle as they had with so many other things, but with time came the realization that distance drifted between them, too. On Argus, they were familiar, and it was enough. Back home, after so long fighting their war, the weight of their war had forced them to consider what a future on their old homeworld meant, spending so long apart from it.

They were still bound by their son--their son, who was nearly grown himself now--but by little else, now.

From certain places in Stormwind’s keep, it was possible to see the docks, and Turalyon had stood guard over them, waiting for the vessels dispatched to Lordaeron to return. Since the burning of Teldrassil, the fires of war had begun to burn brighter, with several members of the young King Anduin’s council clambering for war, for retribution. He had offered his voice to those negotiations as best he could, but as with many things since returning from Argus, he was somehow distant from that as well.

In the distance, he saw the vanguard flagship slowly coast into port, and almost immediately he found himself summoned--a cold pit of dread sat in his stomach as he followed the aide down to the docks, where a crowd of onlookers waited to catch a glimpse of the returning warriors.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked lowly of the aide as they wove between the varying individuals making up Stormwind’s typical complement of citizens. “Has something happened?”

“I was only told that the king requested you to escort a potentially dangerous prisoner from the battle,” the aide told him nervously, armored in Alliance colors, but with a voice that was so young it made something in Turalyon’s chest ache.

Down at the docks, he was brought to the ship at the furthest dock, where the king himself waited, the rest of his immediate council dispersed. The aide vanished, and King Anduin greeted him, “High Exarch--you were told we have a...potentially compromising prisoner to escort?”

“Yes, however I am somewhat light on details.” Turalyon followed the king into the ship’s cargo hold, unsure whether he ought to be reaching for a weapon or not. “I trust that--”

As they entered the final cargo section, Turalyon found his words stolen by shock, as he took in the sight of the Deathlord herself, the very same from Argus, fully-armored and inscrutable as always--with Alliance shackles binding her wrists and ankles. “You were previously...acquainted with the Deathlord during the Argus campaigns.” Anduin began hesitantly, “And given her status, as well as the depths of her power, we felt it prudent to have an escort capable of keeping the masses at bay.”

Curious, Turalyon thought, that Anduin was more concerned about the reaction from Stormwind’s citizens than the fact they now had one of the most powerful death knights on Azeroth in their custody. “Where would you have me take her?”

“If I understand it correctly,” the Deathlord herself spoke up, loudly enough to make the point she didn’t appreciate being discussed as though she wasn’t present, “I am being brought to the Stormwind stockades along with our other prisoner. Your Majesty,” she turned to the young king, who straightened instinctively, “I would still wish to share words with you. Soon.”

“We will see what sort of discussion you wish to have.” Anduin conceded. “High Exarch?”

Wordlessly, Turalyon stepped up to where the Deathlord was shackled to the deck, and released her from it, leaving her ankles and wrists bound in sturdy chains that he had a feeling she could very well have frozen solid and shattered if she truly wanted to--the first mission on Argus, where she had frozen a fel eruption produced by a pit lord solid, came to mind.

They walked in silence for several minutes until Turalyon had a feeling any potential eavesdroppers were well out of range. “Why are you here?”

“I surrendered. I thought that fairly obvious.”

“I didn’t ask how. I believe I asked why.”

“That is something I would discuss with the king.” her voice was as guarded as ever, solid and unshakable. In some way, he found himself envious of her clearly-evident certainty. “If I must languish in a cell to reach that opportunity, so be it.”

At Stormwind’s cells, Turalyon was directed where to bring the Deathlord, and as they arrived, it felt wrong to say nothing, but there was not much Turalyon felt he could say about this situation. He had come to respect the Deathlord’s prowess during the Argus campaigns, and her surprising streak of something that smacked of compassion, but she was still a warrior of the Horde, and had been witness, at the very least, to the atrocities at Ashenvale and Teldrassil.

Turalyon stepped away, and this time the silence was filled with words he didn’t know if he could--should--say, here, now, to the Deathlord, of all people.

He felt the chill in the air as he left, and altered his initial assumption of the Deathlord’s wintry aura--it was not indiscriminate, but deliberate, and still, despite the situation she was quite obviously in, there was something certain and solid about it, the energy laced with an unshakable confidence.

Some part of him wanted to draw strength from it, but he resisted.

*

Stormwind’s court did not have to wait long for the Deathlord’s address.

Less than two days after their return to Stormwind from Lordaeron, King Anduin gathered the inner circle of his advisors to the throne room, and Turalyon attended on the periphery, unsure what exactly was about to happen, but feeling as though he ought to be prepared.

Escorted in by a half-dozen Stormwind guards came the Deathlord, still fully-armored and looking very like she had when Turalyon had last seen her, days ago. Her chin was held high, and her cape--torn and shredded at the bottom--flowed behind her with each step, looking for all intents and purposes as regal as a monarch’s mantle.

“King Anduin.” while the Deathlord’s voice carried well across the room, the impassable mask of her helmet muffled her voice just slightly. “I have a favor to ask, before I begin--would someone remove my helmet, please?”

Turalyon felt a pulse of shock surround the room, but Genn was the first to protest. “She’s a death knight--one of the most powerful death knights known to us. If we--”

“If I intended to trick you,” the Deathlord interrupted, a hard, scathing edge to her tone, “I would not be so foolish as to attempt it with something that obvious. It is a fairly innocuous request. Please.”

There was a beat of silence, then with a single nod of approval, one of the guards that escorted her in slowly began to unfasten the buckles that kept the Deathlord’s helmet connected to the rest of her armor. The helmet was lifted off her head and dropped to the floor, and another pulse of shock, stronger this time, choked the room off into silence.

She was young, almost shockingly so, but there was still a weathered quality to her face that spoke of long battles and longer years spent living a life with a great deal of strife--she was not quite ageless, in this way, but it made it difficult for Turalyon to tell if she truly looked young or not. Her skin was nearly snow-white, marked by several small scars across her face, her hair a stark black in comparison, and her eyes the unnatural blue that all death knights’ were.

When she spoke, it was not what any of them expected--though what anyone expected was beyond him. “Your Majesty, tell me--what would you have given to be on Broken Shore? With your father?”

There was a collective intake of breath from everyone in the room, Turalyon included--he of course had not been there, but heard of how both factions had lost their leaders to the battle there.

“What would you have given,” the Deathlord continued, her tone quiet but firm and resolute, “to have been there, to have seen it for yourself, or--dare I say--to have taken the strike that killed him instead?” a beat of silence passed, but it was a question she didn’t seem to need an answer to--an answer everyone present already knew. “Your Majesty, you and your court can see my face, and know this for truth, but I will emphasize the point--I was young when the Scourge killed me. Barely into adulthood, by sin’dorei years. Being resurrected by the Lich King and becoming one of his many thralls forced me to acquire new perspectives, and when we were freed from his control, it forced another adjustment, though it’s debatable which one was more jarring.

“You see, it left us with choice, for the first time, choice we were ill-equipped to handle.” the Deathlord took a step forward, her chains rattling slightly. “But choice became my watchword, because I saw it as the greatest thing I had been given since my resurrection. When I was killed, I had no choice in being brought back as whatever I am today, but I could choose what to do with the life given me, for better or worse. The first time, I chose to fight for the Horde because it felt like the natural conclusion to that issue. Now I come here to make another choice. I have only ever removed my helmet for negotiations once before, in similar circumstances to these: in respect, and in desperation.”

“What do you intend, Deathlord Nightsinger?” King Anduin finally asked, after a charged pause, and Turalyon realized it was the first time he had heard any mention of her name since meeting her--she had introduced herself with her title and nothing more on Argus.

“Right now, I intend only to make a point.” Deathlord Nightsinger’s gaze turned intense, and Turalyon felt a subtle chill hang in the air. “I asked you what you would have given, to be on Broken Shore, already knowing the answer. I knew the answer because it is what I would have chosen, as well.” One of the Deathlord’s hands moved up to the chestplate of her armor, and the Stormwind guards surrounding her fidgeted as if readying themselves to stop her, but Anduin raised a hand, and they fell still.

Reaching beneath her collar, the Deathlord pulled what looked like a pendant from it--the end of a tusk, bound on a chain. Her voice wavered slightly on the first few words before steadying again, “I, too, would have given anything to take the strike that felled someone I loved. That is a choice I would have made without question, not because I would have been compelled to through some application of dark magic, but because we choose to stand, fight, and potentially die for the causes we believe in--the people we believe in.” Tucking the pendant back under her armored chestplate, Deathlord Nightsinger raised her chin again, proud and confident. “I stand here because I looked in the face of my warchief, who asked what honor should matter to a corpse, and told her that it still matters to this corpse--because I can choose differently. I surrendered to your people to avoid further bloodshed, knowing I would be detained and imprisoned, at the very least. I come to deliver this address to make my motivations clear.” One of her dark brows quirked up. “But be certain of this: I will not sit idle long.”

It was a promise if Turalyon had ever heard one, and the rest of King Anduin’s court was not blind to the obvious implication, either, but when it became clear the Deathlord had said what she came to say, her helmet was returned to her, and Turalyon asked to escort her back down to her cell.

This time, the silence that sat between them demanded to be filled, and Turalyon found himself saying, “I admit I am somewhat at a loss.”

Deathlord Nightsinger made a sharp, amused sound. “Is that so?”

“You orchestrated your capture, came all the way to Stormwind, only to speak and make vaguely threatening promises to King Anduin’s court?” Turalyon searched for the logic that would explain why he felt compelled to ask, and failed to find it, but asked anyway.

Even though her helmet was back on her head again, it was all too easy to imagine the even, steadfast look on her hauntingly ageless face. “I made no threats, High Exarch, and be assured that none of this was orchestrated. I am not particularly known for my spontaneity, but this decision was made in a split second. I refused to--could not--do anything else. Sometimes the most important decisions are made that way.”

“Your certainty on the matter is enviable.” he found himself admitting, and was surprised when he received a laugh, short and humorless, in return.

“My ‘certainty’ comes with years of practice cultivating a suitably convincing image.” the Deathlord countered. “But I meant what I said, and perhaps that is most surprising to me. I don’t often have the chance to speak from my heart anymore.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, if there was anything to say in the position they found themselves in. Ultimately, Turalyon turned to leave again, felt the ambient weight to the air that came from Deathlord Nightsinger’s suitably-convincing certainty, and let its subtle chill settle into his bones this time as he left--a little pinch of the dark, to balance the light.

*

Two days later, Deathlord Nightsinger escaped Stormwind.

Well, they suspected it had been two days later--the sleight of hand her death knight compatriots had played left room for doubt on that matter. There had been no brutal, punishing assault, no quiet assassination of guards in the dead of night, no alarm raised, because for all intents and purposes, the Deathlord’s knights had simply walked in, and escorted her out.

It was slightly more complicated than that--it always was--but so far the reports he was getting out of the guards on duty that night were meager to say the least. Many of them reported a few consistent details, though--three death knights, a human man and woman, and a draenei--had come into the stockades and bluffed their way to the Deathlord’s cell, after a suitably-plausible excuse that the Stormwind guards were ignorant to death knight upkeep, and had been allowed to bring her back to Acherus, which supposedly had more suitable arrangements.

It was only after two days with no word from the Acherus-bound death knights the guard force had to report they had been fooled.

An immediate search had commenced for the missing death knight, but with portal travel being a strong possibility for their escape, the group could very well have been anywhere on Azeroth. As war continued to simmer, rapidly reaching a boiling point, fewer and fewer resources could be spared for the search.

Turalyon thought about the last day he had seen and spoken to the Deathlord far more than he reasonably should’ve, but reasoned it away with the justification that knowing her motives might make it easier to discern where she’d gone. Admittedly, it was proving a weak tactic thus far.

A sudden commotion drew Turalyon’s attention--the clatter of armor and shouting made him rise from his desk, only armored from the waist down, as one of the guards rapped hurriedly on the door. “High Exarch, you’re needed at the main foyer--hurry.”

A dozen lifetimes of swift preparations for Legion assaults left him oddly prepared for such circumstances, for once, and in a few short moments, Turalyon barreled down the hallways of Stormwind’s keep late at night, one hand reaching up to his shoulder, ready to draw his sword if needed.

In the keep’s foyer, just outside the throne room, Turalyon took brisk strides down the long, sloping hallway, and felt a telltale chill in the air, slowly becoming oddly familiar.

Deathlord Nightsinger was surrounded by the very same combination of death knights who had supposedly gotten her out of Stormwind’s prisons, along with the same troll death knight he recognized from the Argus campaigns, months ago now. King Anduin was already present, as were Genn and Tyrande, but it was clear many of them had been brought straight from their beds.

“Deathlord,” King Anduin’s voice, with all its strained patience, was still mild for the situation at hand, “you escaped our custody and have already found your way back to our gates--why?”

“After my friends freed me from your cells,” the Deathlord exchanged a glance with one of the knights in question, the human woman, who flashed a toothy grin, “I began thinking about the future. Originally I intended to save the Horde, but it became clear to me, reading over the notes I exchanged with the Illidari commander prior to the attack on Teldrassil, that it does not particularly want to be saved--not by me, at any rate.” she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. curiously casual for someone who presented herself so stoically. “In short--I want to defect.”

For a moment, conversation--or objections--were stolen by shock, but Tyrande was the first to break the silence. “And we are supposed to trust you, who watched Teldrassil burn and committed countless atrocities as a death knight in the Horde’s service?”

“I admit that I was present at Teldrassil at the time of the attack, but I do not condone the methods used there.” it was almost too easy to imagine the expression on her face, eyes narrowed and dark brows drawn together, even with her helmet covering it. “I also freely admit that, at the time, I served a cause I felt I could believe in, and chose to do so. Now, I am choosing differently. I do not ask for immediate trust. I ask only for a chance.”

Turalyon watched the room split with indecision, and thought back to the last conversation he’d had with the Deathlord, and her statement that some of the most important decisions were made on a blade’s edge, when it could fall either way, a choice made when there was no choice at all.

He thought, but at the same time knew he had already reached his verdict on it.

“I believe her.” he declared, and as he felt the tension rise steeply in the room, he grasped for justification, because the decision was made, he had only to defend it, and it came to him in a flash, how obvious it was-- “On Argus, we were confronted with the reality of losing a potent symbol to our cause. It was the Deathlord herself who told me that we stand at a crossroads, and we may allow doubt to tempt us, but not consume us. We can rely only on ourselves for guidance, for purpose. The Light lives not as a symbol, but in each of us. Even,” here he couldn’t help but watch the Deathlord’s reaction--she’d seemingly gone stock-still with surprise, “in whom we might consider the most unlikely people.”

‘Unlikely’, he said, though it was clear, even from the first time Turalyon had felt that chill in the air that announced her presence, in a clearing on Argus, that there was light that lived in the Deathlord, somewhere. It had not driven her to seek this fate out, to offer him what she felt was a comfort in a moment of doubt, to stand in the face of death on Argus and not even flinch from the possibility of it, with the lives of her people on the table.

She had chosen it, and in those choices, the light shone as if from a deep shadow, hesitant and half-forgotten, but unquestionably there.

“Well,” King Anduin finally said when the room seemed to have recovered from the shock of his defense on the Deathlord’s character, “Deathlord, I would like to discuss further terms in the morning, but I’m willing to work with you.”

Incredulousness all but radiated both from Genn and Tyrande, but the decision had been made, and Turalyon felt the finality of it settle into his bones, as certain and resolute as the wintry aura the Deathlord herself gave off.

“I...thank you, Your Majesty.” Deathlord Nightsinger paused, then bowed her head. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Have the Deathlord and her knights secured in a section of the keep, and have them guarded until morning.” Anduin turned to the nearest guard, somewhat apologetically, who straightened in a brief salute before dashing off. “I trust that arrangement will work, for now.”

“For now.” Deathlord Nightsinger confirmed, and while her helmet still unquestionably faced the king, Turalyon could almost feel the intensity of her gaze on him anyway, piercing and questioning.

“I can escort the Deathlord herself, if that would be of some assistance.” Turalyon offered, and the intensity of her gaze turned nearly impossible to ignore.

King Anduin nodded once, and exhaustion began to steal across his face again. “It would, High Exarch--my thanks.”

Separated as she was from the rest of her knights, the Deathlord looked somehow smaller, but still projected that same unshakable energy. They walked in silence for several long moments before she broke it. “You spoke in my defense.”

“I did.” he confirmed.

“Why?”

Turalyon could have given the Deathlord any answer, in that moment, but none of them seemed to fit right. It was the right thing to do. Having a high-ranking Horde defector would be invaluable for the war effort. You would make a valuable political prisoner at the worst case scenario.

In the end, all he said was, “It was not a planned decision, but I meant what I said. Perhaps it has been some time since I was afforded the opportunity to speak from the heart, as well.”

She said nothing in response until they reached the wing of Stormwind’s keep where the Deathlord would be sequestered until they determined just how much they were willing to trust her, and as the guards already stationed there pushed the door open for them, she wordlessly entered and cast her gaze around the room for a short moment.

With a faint sigh, she reached for the buckles on her helmet, and Turalyon prepared to turn and leave, sensing that the removal of her helmet was more momentous an occasion than one might’ve ordinarily suspected, but before he could, the buckles came loose, and she pulled her helmet from her head, setting it on the desk as she turned around.

“Tyracel.” she told him at last, her face unreadable. “My name is Tyracel.”

In that moment, Turalyon felt he’d just been given a gift with a nameless, indefinable value, and had no suitable response to it.

“I am no Deathlord anymore,” she looked at her helmet, sitting on the nearby desk, “so I will need to be called by something else.”

“Very well.” Turalyon finally managed. “I suppose we will speak again soon...Lady Nightsinger.”

Tyracel--he was going to have something of a difficult time thinking of her as Tyracel--snorted with amusement. “I have not been called a lady since the day I was resurrected, High Exarch, so I must say your standards as to what constitutes a ‘lady’ must have fallen dramatically during your time on Argus.”

A laugh bubbled up in his chest, but Turalyon covered it up with a swift cough instead. “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

As he left, and sought out his own quarters on the other side of the keep, Turalyon thought about hope, about purpose, and about the choices one was often forced to make in order to keep believing in both of those things. He thought of Argus, of the countless days where hope was a conscious choice, because there was little else to believe in, and of the days since returning from the blighted world, where purpose had stubbornly eluded him.

He thought of a single death knight, determined to make her own way in this world with only her principles and those few of her kind who shared them for company, who shone with a sliver of light, somewhere, obscured by a brisk, icy shell. Something like--

Something, he thought, like a light, at the end of a tunnel.

[azureflight]

Turalyon and Alleria

There is so much bullshit fandom misconceptions about these two, it’s not even funny. And the moment you try to call people out on it they block you because god forbid they hear their statements might be wrong.

Let’s get a few things straight, first and foremost: Turalyon did not imprison Alleria. He also did not agree with her imprisonment or allow it to happen or chose light/Xera/etc. over her. That never happened. Go back and listen to the end of A Thousand Years of War: Turalyon has no power and in no position to make any of those decisions. It’s all Xera and she sure as shit ain’t asking his opinion. The only time Turalyon is allowed anything, he stands up for Alleria and begs to Xera to spare her. 

In fact, the only reason Xera chose to give Alleria a second chance and imprison her instead of killing her after Alleria refused to renounce the void, was because of Turalyon’s feelings that Xera saw by Turalyon opening his soul to examination during that scene. It’s his love and resolve to stick together with Alleria is what gets Xera to grant whatever mercy she is capable.

Secondly, Turalyon doesn’t judge her, or reject her or mistreat her. These never happened either. The first time Alleria manifests void powers, Turalyon is shocked, tries to reach her, tries to touch her and all he could do is to yell after her to say wait, and as she leaves through a void portal he continues to reach out for her. The next time they encounter is after Turalyon is lured into a trap by fake news about Alleria. This is centuries after Alleria left, last time he saw her she had given herself to void. And he still loves her, still hopes for her. Alleria comes in saves the day, Turalyon tells her to leave and save herself because Xera would kill her. When Alleria refuses, Turalyon sticks up for her and literally stands beside her against Xera and begs Xera for mercy. All the while his resolve is that he will always love her and will always fight for her. Such rejection, much mistreatment...

Finally, it is actually Alleria distancing herself from Turalyon, with a misguided sense of what her fate is and what she needs to do in order to protect him. Alleria believes one day she will completely fall to darkness and that she is already lost, just waiting for the times to come. Alleria believes light and shadow cannot exist together and that she will need to part with Turalyon in order to spare him. Turalyon, has none of that. He loves her, he’ll stand with her no matter what. His truth begins and ends there, rest is irrelevant. 

And the most important part is, this isn’t the first time they are in this situation. Same thing but with fewer cosmic powers interfering happened in Beyond the Dark Portal. In case you don’t know, that novel takes place after Arator is born, and Alleria and Turalyon are separate, with Alleria being the one who ended things. She is shit to him the whole book, and keeps her distance, because she fears losing him, considers herself a lost cause and basically has survivor’s guilt and a suicidal streak due to her parents’ and brother’s death. Turalyon takes it all, sticks around and doesn’t allow her to just up and martyr herself and eventually they reconcile.

Now, Blizzard may throw a curve ball this time and say “Yeah they break up and now Turalyon hates her and Alleria is full void and we’ll kill her”, but I honestly don’t think so. What will probably happen is that the distance and coldness will remain and increase as time passes and eventually Alleria will “almost” fall to the whispers and then instead of fully succumbing and getting killed by us, we will save her together with Turalyon and Arator and they will reconcile. Personally I think Sylvanas will also be involved, probably by saving Arator before the father and son save Alleria. 

But this all just an assumption and a guess, not written down facts. Disagree with my theories regarding future of the plot all you want, that’s how theory discussions work in the first place. But please, when it comes to talking about stuff that already happened, stick to the facts and don’t just twist things to fit your fancy. And if you are unsure, just go back and reread/relisten the material. It’s out there, it’s free. Doesn’t hurt to double check and you will save yourself the embarrassment of sounding like deluded douchebag.

[shadestriders]

What is her view on the other races, Horde and Alliance, beyond the thalassian elves and the Forsaken? Are there some she's more open to? Others she hates? Who is she more comfortable having to work with? And how does she feel about the allied races?

Meta Conversations // Accepting

In order of most hated, to most tolerable:

Orcs. She has never forgiven the orcs for Alana's death. She purposely stayed away from Orgrimmar as much as she could because she despised them so damn much. She almost, almost respected Thrall... Until he left Garrosh in charge. The only 'orc' she tolerates on some level is Garona Halforcen... And even then, she tells herself it's because Garona's a half blood.

Trolls. This includes the Zandalari. While she understands the Amani her people have fought for generations are a different tribe than the Darkspear, she spent close to 200 years hunting them like animals. While she came to respect Vol'jin as probably the best Warchief of the Horde (while she worships Sylvanas, she can still see the Banshee Queen is not a good Warchief, because she puts the interests of the Forsaken over the Horde in general), she never really... Had a troll friend to smack the racism out of her with patient education.

Goblins. They're greedy, slimey little mongrels in her eyes. They have no sense of loyalty beyond the highest bidder, and she despises it. Loyalty is huge to Raern. And if she can buy yours with coin? She instantly views you as just a tool, not an actual being. Why bother returning loyalty when she knows it will quite literally turn on a dime?

Lightforged. I know most are Draenei, but Turalyon is in this category, as well. As hypocritical as it is, considering she cheated death by being raised into undeath, she hates the idea of one becoming immortal via the absolute devotion you have toward an otherworldly being (did I mention how hypocritical this is?). She believes everything must die, it must follow the circle of life. At least with the undead, they did die. The Lightforged have not.

Pandaren. She really has no opinion of the pandaren, though she finds it inconvenient that they are split between the two factions. She never traveled to Pandaria and therefore never learned about their culture. They're just... Another furred race. *shrug*

Gnomes. Another race she's neutral to. She really doesn't know the first thing about them, and their tech is just an unknown factor to her. Dangerous, should be wary of them, but at least she knows their loyalties lie strictly with the Alliance. That makes them marginally better than the Pandaren.

Dwarves. She can respect them as a race slightly more than gnomes due to their ability to connect with nature as hunters. She doesn't find them particularly appealing... But she can drink with them, just the same. Think Legolas's opinion at the beginning of Lord of the Rings. That's basically Raern when it comes to dwarves (she makes no distinction between the clans of dwarves, including the Dark Iron).

Worgen. Specifically non-feral worgen, such as the cursed Gilneans, Raern doesn't really have a problem with. It's really more an issue against Gilneas as a country than the race, because she does not like the fact that they backed out of the Alliance to hide behind a giant wall. But the curse itself does not disturb her. (Technically, Kul Tirans are in this slot, as well, because of backing out of the Alliance and hiding)

Tauren (including Highmountain Tauren). Of all the Horde races, not including her own (elves and forsaken), she holds the Tauren in the highest regard. She has seen nothing but peace and acceptance from them as a people, and I can imagine her in the time between the Sin'dorei joining the Horde and the Northrend campaign, she visited Thunder Bluff and learned a little bit of their culture. They're a nature bound people, and their paladins worship the Sun, as she does. She would honestly be friends with more of them if she wasn't separated from them via an ocean. I think she might have even been capable of dating one, though that would have... Been a bit of a stretch for her.

Humans. Raern believed in the old Alliance of Lordaeron. Her brother was very involved in human affairs, being a Knight of the Silver Hand, and she had a small courtship with one of his 'co-workers', though distance and the difference in aging made the relationship fail. She is bitter about the racism and distrust Kael'thas recieved during the Third War, and how the humans turned her people away. But on the whole? She's rather forgiving of them. She still has a bit of haughtiness that Quel'dorei always had towards humans, however, due to the fact they die so young in her eyes, and just how could you be any more than a child as a human?

Draenei. The draenei have always been... Strange to Raern, but not in a bad way. They helped her people purify the Sunwell, they've fought alongside the races of Azeroth against world-ending threats instead of flying away again and she finds female draenei attractive. They rank just slightly above humans because they have yet to back out on their word (even if their fealty is with the Alliance) and they are a long-lived race.

Kaldorei. So, Raern is torn on the night elves. On one hand, all of the history she was taught growing up tells her she should hate them because of the struggles of the Highbourne founding Quel'thalas. But on the other, they are elves and they are connected to the natural world. Her interactions with them have been very minor, but she knows her people are descended from them. Ultimately, Raern wants to know more about the Kaldorei so she can make a decision of their worth independent of history, and they rank only slightly above Draenei because they originally come from Azeroth.

Shal'dorei. Raern is also pretty in the dark about the Nightbourne, however she automatically trust them the most out of all other races besides Thalassians and the Forsaken. Why? Because Lor'themar and Liadrin do. Raern is inherently a follower, and therefore if people in her precieved chain of command trust others, she is immediately more likely to trust as well. She was slightly nervous when the First Arcanist attempted to rejoin the Kaldorei before joining the Horde, but she took her cue from Lor'themar and stood in support of their entry into the Horde. Once she learned of the withered and how the Shal'dorei use arcwine to deal with their mana dependency, she practically stopped viewing them as any different than Thalassians. They're just bluer, taller and live longer. But they're her people just as much as any Quel', Sin' or Ren'dorei is.