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oddsnendsfanfics · 3 years

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Unraveling the Mystery

Genre: Fan Fiction

Pairing: Henry Cavill/OFC

Warnings: N/A

Rating: PG

Length: Short Story

Disclaimer: a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line. In no way am I affiliated to any of it.

A/N: I have been sitting on this idea, for a while. It's taken forever to get it just right, what can I say? I can't get away from these folks.

Henry Cavill Master List

Sitting in the backseat of the car, Ivan huffed. Arms across his chest, Kal laying quietly beside him, his head on the boy's lap. He was not amused by his parent's Saturday excursion. In the front seat, Nell checked her phone, looking at emails and appointments for the upcoming week. Henry had his eyes on the road, navigating through the small city with expert care and attention.

Saturdays spent as a family were supposed to be fun. Ivan wasn't exactly having fun. Grumpy all morning, he hadn't turned his scowl upside down once. Whatever. His parents didn't seem to notice or care that he was in a pissy mood. Why should they?

When they'd left home, Henry had mentioned going to the next town over, but didn't really say why. Nell had been too worried looking for paperwork. Ivan wasn't stupid, he'd heard them in the office last night. They thought he had gone to bed, which he had, but they didn't know their son had gone back down stairs for a drink. Walking by the door, he'd stopped, originally to say “good night”, again but decided to hold out.

Ivan laid his head back on the seat, Kal nestling in for the remainder of the ride. How could his parents do this to him? The bits of conversation had replayed in his mind all night.

"But if we adopt, then we know it's a girl." Sighing, Nell rubbed her eyes. "I am outnumbered."

"Yes, but what if we can't find the right girl?"

Ivan furrowed his brow, listening through the cracked door. His parents were clearly discussing something that would be a huge part of their family, yet chose to leave him out?

Standing quietly for a few seconds, trying to peep around the office door, he saw Kal sprawled out on the floor. Sleeping soundly. At least his position wasn't going to be given away.

"And we will need to take him. I don't want to bring him home a sister, to find out he's pissed off." Henry continued.

Gee, thanks dad. Ivan rolled his eyes, tears stinging.

Inside of the office his mother's chair scraped the floor. Time to move along. Quietly rushing to get upstairs, before he was caught.

They were adopting and didn't even bother to ask how he felt? What if he didn't want a sibling? What if he was content being an only child? Nobody had bothered to ask him and it hurt.

“Almost there,” Henry announced. Ivan huffed, Nell hummed, and Kal sighed. “Not the response that I was expecting, but okay.”

“I'm excited, I'm busy is all.” Nell glanced at her husband with a warm smile. “Someone has to keep you in costume and Ivan on track.”

“Whatever.” Ivan muttered, rolling his eyes. So now they pretend to care.

“When we're finished, do you want to go for a walk and grab something to eat?”

Leaning around in her seat to see Ivan; Nell smiled. “What do you think wild boy? Should we grab something to eat after? I hear they have a great sushi place just around the corner.”

“Whatever.”

“Is that all you can say today?” Nell raised her brow.

Ivan shrugged.

“Well, then. I guess you don't have an opinion, then we will go wherever we see fit.”

“Why ask me where I want to eat, you didn't care to ask me if I even wanted to come.”

“We thought that you'd enjoy an afternoon out.” Henry answered, checking that he was clear to make the right hand turn. Pulling into an empty space, he killed the engine. “We're here.”

“I'm excited.”

“I'm not.” Grumbled Ivan in reply to his mother's enthusiasm.

Leaning over, Henry was the one turned to face his sullen son. “Okay, before we go in. Care to tell me what's going on?”

In the back seat, Ivan tried his best not to allow his tears to fall. If they began then they may never stop. Dramatic? A little. He couldn't hold it in any longer, his parents had truly hurt his feelings and trust. Why had they not trusted him to tell him the truth? If he hadn't heard them talking, would they have simply brought another child home and told him to deal with it?

Sniffling, he wiped his hand across his cheeks. How silly did he look?

“Ivan?” Henry prompted, gently reaching out to his son.

Shrinking away, Ivan continued to sniffle. Shaking his head, Ivan opened his mouth to answer, but only a sob came.

“Are you okay? Ivan, you can talk to us.” Encouraging her son, despite her heart clenching, Nell tried to smile.

He had been out of sorts all morning. Taking it as he was annoyed to be woken so early, Nell had ignored his bad mood. She'd figured it would change, when they arrived to meet the puppy. On the seat beside him, Kal laid with his head still on Ivan. Nudging him gently with his nose.

“You didn't even ask me, how-how I felt.” Ivan whispered.

“Felt? About what? Are you not feeling well?” Concern etched Henry's face.

Ivan shook his head. “About adopting. Why? Why would you do that and not talk to me? A sister is a pretty big thing and you didn't even ask, if I wanted one.”

In a second, Henry could nearly feel his heart breaking for his son. Clearing his throat, he rubbed the back of his neck. Nell sprang into mom mode. Taking over, giving Ivan a soft smile and passing back a tissue from her bag,

“Oh, wild boy.” Cooing, Nell shook her head. “No, I think you have it wrong.”

“Do I? Oh really?”

“Yeah, we're um...we wanted to keep it a secret, in case Kal didn't get along with her. But then we were so excited, we had to bring you. Ivan, we're here to see about adopting another dog.”

“A dog?” Ivan sat up his interest fully engaged. Henry laughed and nodded. His mood changing faster than a speeding bullet. “A dog? We're getting another dog?”

“Maybe.” It was only fair that Henry laid down the rules now. “If she and Kal get along, then we will take her home. For a week. If they manage well, then she is ours. If they don't, then we have to bring her back. We didn't want to tell you, because we wanted to surprise you.”

“You better like her.” Ivan gently booped Kal's nose. Kal snuffled and yawned.

“I wish you had told us, how you felt. Oh god, I'm sorry.”

Last night, while in the office, Nell had heard a creak outside the door. Assuming it was another feature of the older home, she had ignored it, continuing her conversation with Henry. Shit. Now she felt terrible. How Ivan must have felt, beyond her comprehension. No wonder the poor boy had been in a rotten mood. Assuming his parent were making life decisions and not bothering to inform him.

“It's okay mum.” Ivan shrugged, “I shouldn't have assumed.”

“Wild boy, we would never adopt another child, without talking to you. Honestly.” Nell informed her son, her caring smile growing.

“Unless something changes, drastically, we will never have that conversation. So I think you are safe.”

“But I thought you wanted more kids?” Eyeing his father cautiously, Ivan wiped his nose on the tissue and snuffled once more. His tears dried on his cheeks.

Henry shrugged, glancing at Nell and smiling. “Once upon a time, I would have loved to have a dozen kids. But, I think that time has gone. You're older now and I know that you enjoy being an only child. Besides, your mum and I don't have that energy anymore. Chasing small children, it's too much work.”

“Well, now that we have this cleared up. Shall we go meet the potential, puppy?”

“Yes, please.” Ivan sprung up, grabbing Kal's leash to get the big dog out of the car. Opening the car door, he shuffled out to join his parents, promptly handing Kal to Henry.

A shift in his mood, Ivan could barely contain his excitement, asking his parents all kinds of questions. The short distance from the car to the shelter didn't give them much time to answer, but Nell did her best to fill in any information that Ivan was requesting. They had found the puppy on the website, not really looking for another dog.

Her name was Tilly, she was almost a year old, an energetic doxie pinscher mix. Her mother rescued a few weeks before Tilly and her two brothers were born. Ivan didn't even have to see her, to know she would be the best dog – best small dog – ever. Clearly Kal was the best dog ever. Henry allowed Kal a few minutes outside, while Nell and Ivan went inside to inform the staff that they had arrived.

“Mum,” Ivan whispered standing beside her, in the lobby, waiting for the assistant to join them, “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, wild boy. You have nothing to be sorry for, but the next time come talk to me. I don't like it when you are upset.” Nell wrapped her arm around him, kissing the top of his head.

“Mrs. Cavill?” A tall woman asked walking into the room. Nell nodded and smiled. “Hi, I'm Aly. I'll be hanging out with you today.” She glanced at Ivan and smiled. Carefully looking passed Nell, she shifted. “You mentioned bringing your dog?”

“Yes, he's outside with my husband. It was a bit of a drive up. Can you go let your dad know that he needs to come in?” Nell ruffled Ivan's hair.

Nodding, Ivan did his best to control his excitement, reminding himself to walk towards the door. Calmly, he took a breath. Spotting Henry and Kal on the small patch of grass, he waved opening the door to call his dad. Excitement, contain. Breathe. Ivan straightened his posture before walking back across the office to his mother.

“He's coming.”

“Do you want to follow me in, when he comes in then I can have them sent back?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Following Aly behind a set of doors, Nell and Ivan walked hand in hand. It was not at all what Ivan imagined. There were no rows of barking dogs, instead it was a calm and quiet group of rooms. Each one with large windows and a door. Inside the floors had patches of fake grass, tile flooring, and a few toys.

“The last time that you were here, I know that you and your husband had met Tilly and Anduin.” Holding open a door to one of the rooms, Aly addressed Nell. Ivan raised his brow. So his parents had been here before? “Did you want to bring them both out?”

Slightly blushing, Nell gave the assistant a sheepish smile. “I'm not going to lie, I really adored Tilly. I agreed to bring Anduin out, to humour my husband.”

Ivan giggled. Of course his dad would have wanted to meet Anduin.

“Ah, I understand. Okay, well I am going to get Tilly. You can make yourselves comfortable.”

Ivan sat in one of the plastic office chairs, swinging his legs lightly, his feet not that far from the floor. Nell stood in the corner by the floor to ceiling window, watching for Henry and Kal. Humming contently, Ivan tried to picture what this new dog would look like. She would certainly be smaller than Kal, not even the size of Kal's leg. He giggled at the idea of the little dog bossing the old bear around.

Would Tilly like them?

“What's Anduin like?”

“Huh?” Nell turned her head to look at Ivan, she had been lost in her thoughts of upcoming projects and school sport schedules.

“Anduin, you said that you only saw him because Dad wanted to.”

“Oh, he's a nice dog. But he's big and bouncy, he's still young and they said he had a bit of an aggression problem to work through. I'm sure he'll make someone a great dog, but he's not what we need. Not right now.”

Ivan nodded in understanding. As much as they loved Kal, one big dog was enough. He sat looking around the room, when he and his mom spotted Aly at the same time. Taking a step back from her post, Nell held out an arm to Ivan, indicating she wanted him to join her.

Entering the room, Aly had a small dog in her arms. Licking her face furiously, the dog wagged her tail, excitedly enjoying the interaction.

“Here is Tilly,” bending to sit the puppy on the floor, Aly smiled at Ivan. “Why don't you take a seat and get to know her?”

“Mum, momma, mum.” Ivan tugged on Nell's sleeve. “This is the best surprise.”

“I'm glad you're excited.” Nell kissed the top of his head. “Do you want to play with her? Get to know her a little, before Kal comes in?”

On the other side of the windows, Nell caught sight of Henry and Kal approaching. Kal looked around cautiously, following Henry into the small corridor. Nodding to his wife and giving a slight wave, Henry smiled. He would wait right where he was, until asked to bring Kal in. Kal sat at Henry's side, watching through the window, a slight whine when he saw little Henry playing with the ultra small dog.

Sitting down on the floor, allowing the small brown dog to climb on him, Ivan giggled. Her whole body shook with her tail wag, as she bounced on and off of the boy's lap. Aly smiled, watching the two interact.

“They certainly get on well.”

“Ivan loves dogs.”

When Henry and Nell had come to see the dogs, it had been Henry on the floor giggling like a child, while the puppy had climbed all over him. Nell had joined in, sitting and tossing the ball for both Tilly and Anduin. But Ivan was by far the one in his true element.

“Let's see how Kal does, shall we?”

“Of course.” Nell waved for Henry to bring Kal in.

Opening the door, Henry gave a gentle tug on Kal's leash. The big, black and white dog was hesitant to enter the room with the smaller creature. She was full of the zoomies and her bark was fierce.

“Kal.” Henry called to his companion. “Come on. It's fine.”

Reluctant, Kal shuffled into the room, snuffling and snorting. Making sure to keep Henry, Nell, Ivan, and the strange woman between him and the small fur missile. The small brown dog darted around Nell, between Henry's legs and right up to Kal. Pulling back on his leash, Kal was wide eyed. No! No way! She was growing closer.

Without warning Tilly stopped a few inches from Kal, reaching out she sniffed his foot and took off. Too concerned with her return, Kal was having a hard time relaxing. His fear was soon soothed, when Nell reached down to offer him a biscuit. Oh so now they were buying him off with food? Eh, fair enough.

“Why don't you pick her up, then she's not as bouncy.” Aly smiled at Ivan.

Scooping the puppy into his arms, Ivan smiled when she began to instantly lick his face. “Tilly.” He giggled, holding her out to his dad.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Henry accepted the puppy. She was tiny compared to Kal, even as a baby. Henry smiled holding the wiggly body, trying to control her enough to let Kal get a proper look. “Look Kal, see the baby.”

Kal huffed, sinking down to the floor. His head resting on his paws. How dare they.

“Have a look, bear.” Henry encouraged the older dog. Bending down with the puppy, he laughed when she licked his chin, giving playful bites. “She's okay. Easy fella.” He steadied Kal, who had lifted his head a little. Sniffing towards the puppy, he sat up. His head tilted slightly. Henry eased Tilly closer.

Reaching out, she yipped in Kal's face, but didn't shy when his big nose poked her in the belly. Licking at Kal, she wagged her tail fiercely.

“I know that you love being the only dog, but would a friend be terrible? She's a friend. Not a chew toy.” Nell eyed Kal.

Huffing, Kal sniffed the puppy once more, before scooting back as Henry let her go on the floor. Instantly zooming around the room, Tilly bumped into Kal. Reacting less dramatically, Kal groaned and flopped down onto the floor. His eyes following the puppy, his desire to chase the small creature almost void. He was too old for this shit.

“I think we should take her home, what do you think?” Henry glanced at Ivan.

“Yes, please.” Ivan nodded eagerly. “What about you, Kal? Do you want a sister?”

Kal huffed. He didn't care one way or another.

“I think we will definitely be taking her.” Nell smiled. Stooping to scoop up the puppy, she scratched Tilly's ears and smiled wide.

“Your mum has a new mate,” Henry nudged Ivan in he side, gesturing to Nell snuggling the puppy.

“Maybe this means she won't bother me so much to do things.” Ivan snickered.

“Don't bet on it,” Nell smirked, she'd heard their chat. When would they learn, she heard everything.

Settling the final paperwork, gathering instructions, and all the legal work that went with adopting dog had taken mere minutes. The shelter were efficient, set up, and knew their business. Henry admired that. Nell had been the one to find them, assuring him that they were reputable, reliable, and a decent place to work with. She wanted nothing but the best, when it came to their newest addition.

Thanking Aly, posing for a few photos – as was custom for the shelter, when an animal found a new place, and making sure they had all of their paperwork, instructions in case Tilly needed to come back. Ha! They were on the their way, the five of them.

Kal led the way to the car, he had snacks waiting and needed to finish that nap he'd been taking. Henry opened the door, allowing Kal to get situated, before Ivan and Tilly joined him. Giving the big dog word of encouragement, telling him how fantastic he'd been with the entire thing.

“Mum, momma, mum.” Ivan bounded towards the car, at his mother's side “I'm sorry for being upset this morning.”

“You have nothing to apologise for, wild boy.” Carrying Tilly; Nell wrapped her other arm around Ivan. “But do me a favour, the next time you want to eves drop, come to us before assuming things.”

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ink-and-flame · 4 years

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Kinktober Day 2: Before the Fall [WARCRAFT M/M]

Kinktober Day 2 Prompts: Tickling ~ Spanking ~ Chastity belts Fandom: Warcraft Tags: Exophilia, m/m, tickling, spanking, chastity device, dom/sub themes Pairing: Go’el (Thrall)/Anduin, Thrall/Jaina (mentioned)

[Author’s note: I kind of struggled with this. I couldn’t really think of a good idea, all day I stressed over what to write. Then my addled brain was like “but what if something that would get you legit straight up murdered” and unfortunately my friends encouraged this. So now here we are. I am not sorry, I am never sorry. Also the switching of names from Go’el to Thrall was on purpose. Also I haven’t slept yet so it is still technically day 2]

Everything changed when Varok had shown up and dragged him back into a war he wanted no part of. The elements had abandoned him, his relationship with his family was strained on the best of days. Perhaps he was taking too much to heart, but Go’el had not wanted any of this. How had it all come to this, how had everything gone so wrong. The only commonality was himself, and that required some inner reflection he wasn’t quite ready for.

Now he was working alongside the Alliance again, alongside Jaina. There was a name he never thought would cross his lips again. They had parted badly some time ago and the flame he had felt for her had all but died out. Yet here, in this handful of moments, there was a small rekindling of that flame that he had a hard time ignoring, and it did not go completely unnoticed.

As time passed it became easier for the shaman to push thoughts of his family aside, he was needed again. No the elements were not there to aid him, but he was still strong, he could still fight. Yet that temptation remained. No matter how hard he tried to shake it his gaze lingered on the human. She was so different, so much more powerful, so incredibly beautiful. She took his breath away like no one ever had. Still, there was a bitterness and almost sour taste when he thought of her that way. Perhaps their past was just that, the past.

Go’el had set up his tent further away from the others, once they had found a place to settle after rescuing Baine. He needed some privacy and space to think. He had never wanted to come back, especially under circumstances such as these, but here he was, playing the hero again. Would they ask him to take on the mantle of Warchief again? Could they even defeat Sylvanas? Too many questions, so much that would never be answered.

“So I guess the rumors are true.”

Go’el turned around towards the voice that had spoken. It was Anduin, and he had the most bemused smile on his face. Though still in his youth, the boy had grown and was becoming the kind of person that Varian would be proud of. The statement confused Go’el though.

“Rumors? Oh, about the elements.” A deep sigh escaped him as he looked away. “Yes, they are true.”

“Not those rumors, the ones about you and Jaina.”

Go’el whipped around and looked at Anduin with clear shock on his face. His bright sky blue eyes wide as his mouth hung open slightly. Seriously? Those rumors were still going around. Even now. It was almost too much and the orc had to shake off the shock before he looked away with a grumble. “No. They are not.”

“From where I stand, they seem pretty true to me Thrall. Have you spent any time with her yet?” Anduin moved to sit next to the large orc a small smile on his lips, somewhat enjoying the former shaman’s discomfort. “Oh, sorry I forgot, Go’el I mean.”

“It’s quite alright. I, strangely, don’t mind hearing that name again. It was my name for so long, even I slip up now and then.” Thrall glanced at the human that had joined him now. Curious why the young king was even here. “You are not standing, and they are not true.”

“You know what I mean.” Anduin ran a hand through his hair. “Are you sure it is alright? The name thing. I understand that you have a difficult past.”

“Yes, I am sure. I made that name my own long ago.” He huffed a strange airy laugh. “The way I see it, we all have difficult pasts.” Glancing down a bit he took in the king. “So, what brings you here besides rumors. I find it hard to believe that gossip is what drives you boy.”

Anduin frowned, he hated being called boy. Saurfang did it too and it kind of drove him a little bit up the wall. “I was already here. The planning has been started. I was surprised you weren’t there, but we are still waiting for allies to arrive.” he leaned back taking on a more relaxed pose. “That isn’t why I am here, I really am curious. How long before you think she notices?”

A brow raised up as Thrall regarded the young human. “What are you talking about?”

“I see the way you look at her, I just added that with the rumors I heard floating around, and realized they were true.” Smiling he looked up at Thrall. “How does that even work? She is so much smaller than you?”

This was too much. He wondered if the boy was sick or drunk. This was not the kind of questioning that was proper, ever, and he certainly had never been spoken to like this before. Especially from the current leader of the Alliance. Thrall sputtered a bit. “Are you well Anduin?”

Grey, stormy blue eyes met Thrall’s “Why do you ask?”

“Because this is the most unusual conversation I think I have ever had.” The orc looked the human over curiously. “So, are you well? Do I need to get one of your aides?”

Anduin sighed and rubbed his face. “Thrall. You know what it is like. Better than anyone here. The pressures of leadership. Always having to be a certain way, the constant judging? I thought you would understand. Do you have any idea when the last time I had an actual conversation was? Because I certainly don’t!”

Thrall’s face softened, a smile curving his lips around his thick tusks. “Ah, I see. Yes I understand. I don’t mind being casual with you, if you are certain you are ok with it. I understand that, I have made some choices and done some things that have made me less than popular.”

“I don’t mind. I still respect you. I grew up hearing stories about you. Some of them I have a hard time believing. Then there were the whispers. I was always curious. I could never quite do the math, or see how it was possible. Especially with the contempt Jaina had for the Horde for a long time there. But in these last few days, or weeks, light I don’t even know what day it is anymore.” Rubbing his face and resting his chin on his hand Anduin continued. “I have seen how you watch her, stare at her, the way your posture changes, and now I think I believe. I don’t understand, but I believe.”

“There isn’t anything to understand. I think you have this whole situation mistaken.”

“You can be honest with me Thrall. Who am I going to tell, really? Who would even listen to me? Or believe me? I just. How does it work? How do you even fit?” Anduin looked up at the large muscular orc, his cheeks slightly flushed, realizing what he had just asked.

“I didn’t.” The answer was short and to the point.

“Is that why she is mad? Because you hurt her?”

Rubbing his face and pinching the bridge of his nose, Thrall let out a world weary sigh. “No. I mean, it never happened. Nothing ever happened between us.” Looking over at Anduin, it was clear the boy didn’t believe him. “I swear on my father’s spirit. It never went there.”

Anduin blinked. “Oh…”

“There was a time that I wanted it to.”

“Oh?”

A deep chuckle rumbled out of Thrall, echoing out from his chest. “She is beautiful, even you can see that. It was just, never meant to be. I don’t know if I waited too long, or if the feelings were not returned, but, it never happened. I thought about it, dreamed about it, I was ready to throw the rules in the faces of my advisors over it, but I didn’t and now I never will.”

“You still could. I mean, she seems to have eased up on her hatred. She is much calmer, more balanced now. Her grief isn’t so raw. I am sure that she feels the same for you. I can’t imagine why she wouldn't”

“It is an interesting sentiment, but I can list all the reasons why she wouldnt, but I won’t because we will be here all night.” Thrall frowned looking down at his hands, then he turned to Anduin curious. “What do you mean you can’t imagine why she wouldn’t?”

“Oh, uh, well, you see. Nevermind. I guess I am just one of those hopeless romantics right?” He was clearly nervous, running a hand through his blond hair and looking away.

“That is a lie, and lies are not becoming for a king.”

“I just.” Anduin sighed. “I can just see why someone would want to be with you. That is all.”

Thrall studied Anduin for a few long moments. Watching as the human began to squirm under his long silent gaze. The shaman had perfected his patience and could wait out just about anyone. He shouldn’t have enjoyed Anduin’s increasing discomfort, but he did. Thrall wasn’t a cruel person, but there was something a little endearing about the human king and he was having a little bit of fun at the boys expense.

When the silence had dragged on long enough that he could see Anduin about to speak, Thrall had to ask. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I am not sure I understand the question.”Stalling, he was clearly stalling.

“How can you see why someone would want me? I am a failed leader, the elements have abandoned me, I seem to make questionably awful decisions. What about any of that is desirable?” Perhaps he just wanted the ego stroke, but the orc was genuinely curious.

“We all make bad choices sometimes, and maybe right now you aren’t meant to be a shaman. You are still strong, honorable, powerful, intelligent, han...” Anduin realized he had lost himself for a minute there. “Handy to have around…” That was the worst save and he really hoped Thrall didn’t notice.

“You flatter me, I do not see how I am handy though.” It was clear the boy was going to say something else,and there was really only one word that would fit. Did the human actually look at him, and orc, and see something attractive? That was strange. Orcs were monstrous, ugly, to humans. Yet Thrall was almost positive Anduin was going to call him handsome.

That only made more questions pop into his head. Was the young king attracted to him, or did he just find orcs aesthetically pleasing in general. It was strange, but not entirely unheard of. People were attracted to many things, it was possible that Anduin just found orcs to be interesting to look at.

“Oh, well, I mean, you are pretty handy to have around.” He felt sheepish, looking at Thrall, knowing that the orc was suspicious. “Maybe I should go.” Anduin began to stand up, but was stopped by a large hand grasping his arm.

“Did you ask because you were curious? Or because you were hopeful?”

Anduin sputtered at Thrall’s question and looked down at the hand that almost covered his entire forearm, and sputtered even more. “I. what do you even mean by that.”

“What were you really going to say Anduin?”

Sitting back down with a heavy sigh. “Handsome. I was going to say handsome.” He rubbed his face. “I’m sorry. I know it is weird. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

“It isn’t weird. Well it is, but it isn’t. Some humans do find orcs attractive. Most find us ugly and monstrous, but everyone likes what they like and there is nothing wrong with it.”

“No. I meant. Coming from me. It was weird.”

Thrall looked confused. “Why would it be weird coming from you? Oh, because you are the leader of the Alliance, and I am a disgraced former leader of the Horde?”

“You aren’t disgraced, stop that.” The human huffed. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“We are both male?” Anduin’s voice was a little higher and he sounded a bit uncertain.

“Why should that matter?” Thrall tilted his head releasing Anduin’s arm as he realized he was still holding onto the boy.

“Because, we, wait seriously? It isn’t a problem?”

“Why should it be. Male orcs often have partners in their youth that are also male. It mostly depends on how balanced the training groups are. Sometimes after battle an orc can often become intensely aroused. You aren’t as picky when that kind of arousal hits you. Do human males not share pleasure?” This was a curiosity. As a slave Thrall had seen many things, and he was certain he had seen males pleasuring males before.

“They do, but it is frowned upon I guess. Especially for someone like me. I mean I’m the king. It is expected that I will take a wife and produce an heir.” Anduin shrugged. “Not that I haven’t thought about that. I do find women attractive. I just, also sometimes find men attractive too.” There was a scared uncertainty in his voice.

“Do you find me attractive Anduin?” Thrall had turned to face Anduin fulling, his voice deepening as he spoke. Nostrils flaring a bit to scent the air.

“I..” It was hard to breathe all of a sudden and Anduin found himself feeling intense and conflicting emotions.

“No one here but us, I am just curious.” Thrall’s voice softened and he leaned back. He was intimidating the boy.

“Yes?”

“That doesn’t sound certain. Are you sure.”

“Yes. Thrall, I do find you attractive. I am sorry.”

“Why? Do you not want to find me attractive?” Humans were strange, even after most of his life being spent around them, Thrall found them to be complex and a little annoying.

“It isn’t that. It is just. It seems wrong. You have a wife, a family, and I am pretty sure that you see me as a child the way everyone else does.”

“I see you as young, and my having a mate doesn’t mean that you cannot find me attractive. Or that I can’t look upon others with interest. If the temptation becomes too difficult to ignore, I have ways around it.” Thrall admitted, though realized what the next question would be and he somewhat feared it.

“Um, what do you mean?” Anduin was curious. Did shamans have a way of banishing their lust, their desire, their attraction?

“That is, well a bit personal. I feel it would fall in the realm of ‘too much information’ and you would most likely regret asking once you had the answer.” Thrall laughed and shifted his position slightly.

“Well I am just more curious. So now you have to tell me.” Anduin found that he enjoyed this. It was almost like teasing, but not quite.

“We are a bit too out in the open for me to be removing my lower coverings boy.” There was an edge to Thrall’s voice, but it wasn’t anger.

Sighing loudly. “Enough with the boy. I am a grown man, I run a kingdom, several, can we stop with that. I let Saurfang do it because he is ancient and everyone is a boy to him.”

The laugh that interrupted Anduin was loud and deep. There was clear and genuine mirth in Thrall’s eyes as he laughed and shook his head. “Don’t let him hear you put it that way.”

The interruption startled Anduin, and distracted him, but not for long. Eventually what Thrall said registered and he looked at the orc curiously. “What do you mean lower coverings? Your pants?”

“Yes, my pants, I won’t be taking them off. So you will just have to use your imagination for what I meant.” It was obvious that his words would only make the boy more curious.

Which of course it did and Anduin only scooted closer. “Ok, now you absolutely have to tell me because I am not sure how that makes sense.”

“Not here. It would be inappropriate if anyone were to see. I am sure we would never be able to explain the situation. While orcs have no issues with nudity, humans do.”

“No one is around Thrall. Just look around?” He knew that it would be hard to get away. He lead the Alliance. Rarely was he ever allowed to go anywhere alone. He couldn’t exactly waltz into a Horde city, nor could he easily sneak Thrall into his home. Right now they had their tents and that was about as much privacy as anyone was going to get.

Thrall did indeed glance around and saw that they were pretty far off from everyone else and no one seemed to be paying them any attention. Still it was a strange request and he felt suddenly shy about it. Not about nudity, but what Anduin would see. His green skin darkened a bit and he cleared his throat.

“It still isn’t appropriate.”

“Are you shy Thrall? Would it help if I showed you mine?” Anduin was teasing, but it was because he had never seen and orc blush before and he was pretty certain that was what Thrall was doing.

Huffing a bit of a growl, the orc glared a bit at Anduin. “I am not amused, but I suppose you aren’t going to let this go and I would rather not drag it out.”

Shifting his belt Thrall loosened his pants as if he were going to relieve himself. It took some tugging to get his loincloth out of the way as he pulled the fabric and fur aside to show Anduin just how he helped to control himself. A large cage looking device was settled against his crotch, his thick green cock held soft and safe within. It looked like a small lock was near the top, but the device was a little hard to see with all of the leather and fur in the way. Covering himself Thrall grunted and glanced at Anduin.

To his credit, the human managed to stay silent. Though a rather undignified sound almost escaped him at the sight of Thrall’s very large, and strangely caged cock. That was new, something Anduin had never seen before. He wasn’t sure what the purpose was. If it was Locked, there was bound to be a key. Unless Thrall didn’t have it, but that just raised more questions. He looked up at the orc, questions dying in his throat. There was something in Thrall’s eyes that gave Anduin pause and he swallowed back what he wanted to say.

“Your turn human.” It was a joke really, just teasing, anything to lighten the mood.

Thrall was surprised when Anduin began to unlatch his armor, removing the coverings at his lower half. Opening his breeches. He had even more cover to deal with and took a few moments to release himself from the confines of his small clothes. There were two things that stood out to Thrall about Anduin’s cock. One, was that it seemed decently sized in proportion to the rest of the boy, and two, he was erect.

“It, well it isn’t as impressive as yours, but it works well enough when I have cause to use it.” Anduin was embarrassed, and aroused, intensely aroused. He had never seen anything so large, and so incredibly male, and yet also so very strange.

“Do you have cause often? I imagine as king you are quite popular with the ladies of your kingdom.” Thrall was trying to lighten the mood a bit and not address the very obvious arousal the king had.

“That um, no, no I have never. I mean not never.. Well.. ok never.” Anduin sighed and put his face in his hands, forgetting his dick was out and standing proud. He had just admitted, to Thrall, that he was still a virgin.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about Anduin. You are young, and you are king. I can imagine that you have very little time for relationships and that your aides may be a little over protective. I can’t imagine trying to attract a female’s attention when you are constantly surrounded. You have no reason to feel any shame, I worried that I made you uncomfortable.”

Anduin turned and tilted his head at Thrall. “I am not uncomfortable, and um, thanks. So.. how does that work?” He gestured to Thrall’s crotch, and realized too late how that could be taken.

“I suppose it works similar to yours. I become aroused, it becomes erect, and stimulation brings me to release.” Thrall knew what Anduin meant, but he couldn’t stop himself from poking just a little fun.

It was interesting, how different from his own laugh Anduin’s was. It was lighter, more musical, charming really. Thrall found that the sound of the boy laughing warmed him. It was a good sight to see. All things aside, the war, the factions, Thrall had never wished ill on the boy, not even when his father, Varian, had been a thorn in his side. The orc was smiling now, a gentle kind smile.

“Ok, I suppose I deserved that a little bit. I meant the um, cage? Is it a cage?” Curiosity got the better of him but Anduin finally tucked himself away once he realized he was still exposed.

“That is a good name for it. It slips on, only when I am soft of course, and then locks into place. As for the key. I hide it from myself, but if there is an emergency I can break out of it. Honestly it isn’t hard to, but it helps ground me. Lets me deal with temptation. It is almost impossible to become erect with it on. Saved my dignity a few times.” Thralls cheeks darkened a bit. “I also just enjoy wearing it, though I couldn’t begin to tell you why.”

“Does it feel good? To wear it I mean?”

“Actually, it is uncomfortable, so no. Yet it also kind of does. It might be a mental thing. I am honestly not sure.” Thrall shrugged and found the blush on the boy’s face endearing.

“You can have one made for yourself, though I have no idea how you would manage to hide that you are wearing it. Humans have some interesting clothing choices.”

Anduin shook his head as he snorted a bit of a laugh. “Don’t tempt me.”

“If I was trying to temp you, you’d know.” Thrall leaned in, his voice deeper as he winked at the human king.

It worked. Anduin was flushed and flustered. He could feel his erection spring back to life and Thrall had barely done anything. In a panic he looked around for anything to change the subject, but his eyes were drawn to Thrall’s chest. There was a surprising amount of hair there, and Anduin was tempted to touch. What did orcish skin even feel like? “Are orcs ticklish?”

“Are we what? Ticklish?” It was a strange change of subject and Thrall had to actually think about that. “I mean, our children are. I can’t say I have ever seen anyone try and tickle a grown orc though.” Thrall tilted his head, wracking his brain for any evidence that he had ever seen someone tickle an orc. He missed Anduin leaning in and barked a laugh when fingertips softly grazed his side.

“I guess so.”

“You caught me off guard. I don’t think that counts as tickling.” Thrall could still feel the ghost of the touch on his skin. He had expected Anduin to drop it, not double down and dig his fingers a little harder into Thrall’s side. This time the laugh was completely involuntary and it turned out that yes, adult orcs could be ticklish. At least he was.

Anduin was grinning and leaning in when he realized that he was able to make Thrall laugh and squirm. He moved closer, making sure not to push too hard, he didn’t want to cause pain. The orc’s laughter was loud and warm. Anduin loved the sound of it.

Scooting away Thrall tried to ease the pressure on his side, it put the tent between himself and the view of anyone behind them. “You keep that up boy and I am going to take you across my lap and spank you!” It was an empty threat. Thrall would never lay a hand on the king of Stormwind. He was pretty sure he would be executed if he did.

Not giving up Anduin moved closer to Thrall, continuing to try and tickle the orc that had moved out of his range temporarily. “Who says you won’t be the one getting spanked after this. After all, you are the one who is ticklish.”

Now there was a thought. Being spanked. Something Thrall had never really experienced himself. Yes, he had experienced beatings, but that wasn’t the same as spanking. At least not in the context that was being used here. He almost wanted to see Anduin try. “If you can actually manage to get me into any kind of position where you would have access. I will let you, just because I think it is funny. That and I know you wont.”

There was nothing Anduin loved more, than being told he could not do something for whatever reason the person contrived, and then doing that exact thing just to prove he could. “Are you sure you want to challenge me old man?”

“Who are you calling old boy! I would like to see you even try to flip me. Which you wont because someone will see us. So even in the unlikely event that you could, you still can’t, because you wont risk it.” Thrall’s confidence sometimes got the better of him, and he missed the look that flashed in Anduin’s steel blue eyes.

“You are old, at least compared to me.” Anduin pointed out as he looked over the situation. No one had paid attention to them for a while. Apparently the king of Stormwind chatting with the former Warchief of the Horde was not seen as strange. Thrall’s tent flap was open, and the entrance was wide. Hoping that Thrall was caught enough by surprise to not put up too much fight. Anduin surged forward pushing the orc through the entrance of the tent and wrestling him to the ground.

The orc was heavy, far heavier than Anduin had expected and it was only due to the sudden action on his part that he managed to get Thrall mostly on his chest. It wasn’t technically a fully prone position, but it should be close enough to count, at least he hoped. The idea of actually having a chance to spank Thrall, of all people, was one Anduin could not pass up.

Thrall sputtered, thrown off balance, and clearly shocked by what just happened. It had happened so quickly, and the strength of the young human was more of a surprise than what he had expected. Clearly, the lithe human was stronger than he physically appeared. While he wasn’t completely prone, Thrall had enough of his chest on the ground that if he was generous, he could concede.

“Do you yield orc.” Anduin had not meant for it to sound harsh. He regretted it the moment it was out of his mouth.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you boy?” Thrall chuckled when he felt Anduin loosen his grip.

“I didn’t mean…”

“It’s alright. You have seen enough war, it happens. I know you did not mean it the way it sounded.” Thrall moved further into his tent, waving Anduin inside. “I suppose you expect I should concede to your victory now?”

“Well, I didn’t get you fully prone.”

“Not this time, maybe next time. Still, you did well enough I suppose I could allow it.” Thrall hated to admit, but he was a little bit excited by the prospect.

Anduin was surprised. Thrall was going to allow it. Was he joking, humoring him, it was strange to think someone as strong as Thrall would let something like this happen, to be even a little submissive, and yet he was offering.

Moving to the back of the tent Thrall stripped off his belt, boots, and pants. Leaving just his loincloth on he sat down on his furs and waved the boy over. “This is how I prefer to sleep if I can. I can strip the rest of the way, but if someone investigates it would be easier to diffuse the situation if I am not naked.”

Anduin was hoping to see more of Thrall’s body, but he would accept this. “Will you feel it through the leather of your clothing?”

Well that was a thought. What if he couldn’t. His loincloth was thick and heavy. Designed that way on purpose to protect his more delicate area. “You make an excellent point, yet again.” Shrugging it off, Thrall was left naked before the king of Stormwind. Or mostly so, the cage on his cock probably should not count.

It was almost impossible not to stare. Thrall cut a rugged figure and Anduin felt his arousal spike. He wanted to touch the orc everywhere. The cage was a curious contraption and it was tempting to reach out and touch it, but this was not what he was given permission to do. Anduin was nervous. He had never spanked anyone before, and now there was a big, powerful, and quite attractive orc, expecting a spanking.

Swallowing and scooting a bit closer Anduin removed some of his armor, wanting to be a bit more relaxed and have more freedom of movement. He kept his leathers on, not certain that stripping naked was something that Thrall would be ok with. “So, my lap then?”

Thrall looked almost scandalized at the thought, which caused them both to laugh. He had just assumed he would bend over and get smacked once, and call it good. This was beginning to sound far more intimate than intended.

Clearing his throat Thrall moved closer to Anduin and awkwardly assumed the position, half laying across the boy’s lap. “I am probably too heavy for this.”

“You are heavy, but not more than I can handle. At least for a bit. I doubt you are going to tolerate more than a few strikes.”

“I can handle it.”

“That isn’t really what I meant.” Anduin raised his hand and brought it down sharply onto Thralls surprisingly shapely, and deceptively firm ass cheek. He was pretty sure his hand hurt more than anything he did to Thrall, but the noise the orc made shot straight to his cock and Anduin could not resist striking again.

Thrall had not expected to enjoy it. While it was more of a gentle love tap, it was still pleasurable, and that was a strange thing to think. The cage was feeling tight and he had to fight the urge to squirm as Anduin brought his hand down a few more times. Each time, the strike was a little harder and felt a little better to Thrall. After a particularly sharp slap, Thrall realized he had moaned out loud and he could feel Anduin’s erection pressing against him. It was time to end this before things went too far.

Anduin was panting, his arousal making him sweat a little as he continued to strike Thrall’s shapely ass. He wanted more, wanted to touch the former Warchief intimately. He wanted to rip off that cage and see just how big Thrall’s orcish cock really was. It was intoxicating, the feeling of power and he didn;t want to stop, but he could feel the shifting in his lap and realized that maybe things went too far.

“I am going to move now. Ok?” Thrall sat up and kept his gaze off of Anduin’s lap. He pulled on his loincloth, needing to cover the evidence of his own arousal.

While the cage prevented him from being able to become erect. It did not stop his cock from drooling. It seemed he produced even more when he was caged and he was about to leak all over Anduin. Something he was sure he would never be able to explain.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, Anduin, you did not. I just felt that, perhaps, things had gone far enough. We could still be interrupted at any moment, and I didn’t want to harm you unintentionally. I am strong and sometimes I don’t always control that strength as well as I should.”

The king nodded and smiled softly at Thrall. “Thank you… for.. Allowing me this. I felt like a real person for a moment.”

Thrall looked shocked and pulled Anduin close before he could stop himself. “You are a real person, and you deserve everything.” The kiss surprised them both, and was cut short when Thrall pulled back realizing what he had done. “I.. apologize.”

“Don’t.” Anduin reached up, touching a thick tusk. “If you hadn’t. I would have.”

#exophilia #Orc x Human #M/M #warcraft fanfic #orc boyfriend #orctober #Kinktober 2020

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sharpen-jadescythe · 3 years

Text

Operation Kitten, 2

Part Two: Sharpen attempts to match wits with Mathias Shaw, himbo vs. spymaster. And we find out about Agent Kitten!

I trusted my gut again and went with it. I had every right to still be furious about the way things were run in the SI:7 Seals so I really put it to him. “But I haven’t seen these values in the SI:7 Seals. Not anywhere. Even if I did join to help you clean things up or whatever you’re implying. Not within these four walls, not in these barracks, not in any of the instructors, and Elune knows, there wasn’t a decent fool among the other recruits. Those ethics just aren’t there.”

“Mack. Go get us some water.” Mathias Shaw glanced up at the giant Kul Tiran man standing there, glowering at me.

Big Mack shifted his feet, gave a final grunt my way, then he nodded to Mathias and left us alone in the interrogation room.

Mathias arched an eyebrow at me. For a spy guy, he can come across as very phony. Or, dramatic. Perhaps he thinks it’s cute. You know, cleverer than the average bear, making fun of the profession he’s fully versed in? A way for him to keep things light. And so maybe it is cute, okay fine.

Mathias pointed at me again, as if still haggling over that beat down nag he was trying to sell me. “I hope you’re not thirsty, Sharp. You’re not really getting any water—”

“Look. I can follow things at least that far. So what’s up? What’s this big secret you want to tell me, alone?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis. Big Mack deals with recruits and he’s high up the chain. He does know, but it’s best if he’s not seen as knowing. Locked up in a room for a really long time with a so-called failed recruit? Too obvious. That is, if any of the others are as decent as you proved to be, and they get suspicious.”

“…Okay. What?”

“That, in itself, was the test. We’re looking for fit men and women, for tough people. Yes, that’s true. But we’re also recruiting people who genuinely espouse the values of the Alliance. People who would serve because they care, not necessarily for a paycheck. A lot of stellar men and women apply, yes. And some of them do come from connections that are already inside the Seals, milking us for what we’ll let them get away with while they do important work. However, we can’t ignore that kind of talent, either. If a cousin of King Anduin Wrynn or Jaina Proudmoore walks through these doors, can we really turn away that magical or mental ability running through their veins? But once they get through those doors, we take a closer look. We take people who show us they are far more than pedigree. Only very good men and women. Sharpen, you are such a one.”

I have to admit, Jiroki? I was still completely lost.

Mathias cleared his throat, “So that Dwarf? You know the one, you actually almost blew his cover once, telling Hael he was trying too hard. Hael was our a plant. Hael tried to keep you up with drinking the night before the exam because we asked him to. You wouldn’t fall for it, though. And that death-defying swim across icy waters? Hael can swim like a fish! He was never in any danger, even that shark of his was Hael’s backup.”

“Wait—that was his shark? His hunter pet?!”

Mathias gave a proud smirk, “Ho, yes. And Hael knows a good recruit when he sees one, a fellow hunter. Sharpen, he liked you. He was hoping you’d give in and try to save his life out there in the water—or rather, at least what appeared to be an emergency situation to you. We were really hoping you’d pass that part of the test, that you weren’t like the others. Life first, serving the Light. That is what the Alliance stands for, the greater good. I was willing to make an allowance, that perhaps you were just afraid for your own life. You’d passed all the other tests with flying colors.

“So wait. Milnon Anaar that Draenei? And Felicia Graves, the half mermaid—”

“She’d be a quarter-mermaid then, Sharpen.”

“They both failed the test? But they were superstars. They really, honestly failed?”

“All of them did. Sharpen, everyone in your class got cut.”

I didn’t think, I threw my arms up and let out a celebratory ‘Woop!’ before realizing I’d done it.

Mathias smiled at me. It was the first real smile that I remember seeing on that man.

“Yes, well done. Well done, Agent Sharpen. We recruited from excellent stock. You had the right values all along—we would have preferred that you saved Agent Hael out in the arctic ocean instead of punching him in the face. But then again, you punched me in the face as well and, once I came to, and after I put certain accounts together from those who witnessed things on the beach, it made more sense that you were experiencing a kind of moral outrage. A breach of the ethic code that you yourself live by and that we also live by here at SI:7.”

“…Woah.”

“It may take a few years, and maybe even not that long for the ones using us for fame and fortune to eventually retire. But I’d say our recruitment process that sifts the wheat from the chaff is well in place and functioning. Sharpen, you’re in.”

I thought things over fully this time, “I guess if you’re allowed to punch Mathias Shaw and still be an SI:7 Seal, that is a good sign.”

“If you tell your buddies that’s the way to pass the test, I will punch you where the sun don’t shine, Sharpen Jadescythe, and leave you there.”

I shook my head at him, “Nice to have the honor, but I still don’t like this.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t place all that burden on me, the man to fix your organization. Or other people like me. New recruits, naked to the process. I hit you in the face and screamed that I was a decent person who didn’t want to put up with it, that’s what it took? And all those amoral guys at the top—those are the agents calling the shots. Those are the ones I’ll be dropped off in who-knows-where with, following their orders. This is still a corrupt organization. And I’m supposed to go and risk my life for you? No thank you.”

Mathias scowled rubbed his temples. Jiroki, you and him have that in common, it’s kind of cute. Well, coming from you, it’s cute.

He was gruff, “I can see your sister’s influence coming through. Sharpen, please don’t throw this once-in-a-lifetime chance away? Please, don’t do that. A lot of good can be done.” He growled, “I don’t want to call you a himbo for a second time.”

I stood up right then and there. “I want to leave.”

“And do I have to bring up your questionable connections with the Horde, especially through a certain burlesque troupe that claims to be faction-neutral, but we both know such a thing doesn’t exist.”

“You’re trying to blackmail me?”

“Doing one mission for the Seals is a great way to confirm your loyalty for the Alliance.”

“Walking out of here and not punching you in the face again is another way I can think of! In any case, I’m not on trial here, I didn’t commit any crimes. You can’t hold me here.”

“Unless—”

“If you want to bring up in a Boralus court that I punched you, Mathias Shaw, in the face, and tht you let me? And then you were laid flat out on the beach for several hours before they got the courage to move you? Heck, that’s your call.”

Mathias cursed under his breath. “Sit, please. At least for this last part before you go.”

I did, who knows why. Maybe because Mathias had pulled a file out of the box on the table, and I thought it might be about me. I saw writing in Darnassian on the front.

“You tried to keep a man here by corrupt means. You tried to blackmail me—now isn’t that the very thing we were just talking about? Call me a himbo again if you dare, Mathias. But I listen to my instincts first and foremost. They’ve kept me alive so far, they’ve kept me sane. And I sure sniffed you out, didn’t I? This isn’t a solid organization. It isn’t ethical what you all do here. And don’t give me that crap about how spies need to cross the line sometimes, I’ve heard it all before. Whatever you want to get over on me, it’s not going to work. Now what is that thing?”

“Oh, you’ve heard it before, have you? From your sister?” Mathias passed the dark blue folder over to me. “We do trust you, Sharpen. We want to extend some trust as a starting point. Some months ago, a man came in here just like you did. Another Night Elf man who had the same concerns. I told him, as I’m telling you now, that he could choose his own assignments, work with who he wanted. Especially if he wanted to avoid the corrupt higher-ups. That means you’ll have sort of… grunt work, and none of the real thrilling stuff when working as an SI:7 Seal isn’t a vacation and you’re bound to tangle with personalities, but still—I offered him a clean, good foundation to start with.”

“This his file?”

“Go on, open it. You’ve already signed a nondisclosure contract with us, so I know you won’t blab anything. I’m betting though, that you won’t want to.” Mathias watched me flip through the pages inside, he waited for me to get the gist of it. And that would have been easy to read all over my face. “… Night Elf druid Silas Freedale, one of our more recent and our very best, the excellent swimmer, he went off to Ashenvale to find something extremely important for the Alliance, and indeed for your people.” Shaw crossed his arms again, “But since he never came back, we need someone, someone incorruptible with a real vested interest, to go and find out what happened to him.”

“Is he dead?”

Mathias stared at me.

“Oh! I’m finding that out, then.” I turned a few more pages. “That is, if I even take this assignment. If I even agree to become a Seal.”

“What would you like your codename to be, Raorin?”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You could keep Sharpen. It already sounds like a mysterious spy name. Or even the name of a whole operation. Or, you could go by Agent Jadescythe.”

I frowned, “Flattery? That, I can appreciate. That’s a little less slimy… A world tree! This is about a new world tree? And it’s called Operation Kitten?”

“That’s right. Because our deep cover catform agent most likely got stuck up the very world tree he was supposed to find. The tree hasn’t even been named yet. We just know that he located it, that he chose to go up. But no details on where or exactly when that was. There were… stories about this new world tree for a long time before Agent Kitten found it, from your own druids.”

“My personal druids?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to lump all the Night Elves together. But the druids that work in Ashenvale, tireslessly to save it from the Horde ravaging the land, ruining the forest, they have a pretty reliable oral tradition that says there is another world tree growing right on the border between Ashenvale and the Barrens. Do you know how important such a stronghold could become? The raw power of a world tree itself—if we could find it, and fortify it, your people might be safe from the Horde, forever.”

“How can anyone be safe from the Horde forever? Not unless the Horde is neutralized. Is that how you see it? There are plans in this file outlining a full scale assault on the Barrens, extending as far as the Crossroads. And once you control that, it’s not long till Orgrimmar is in a pincer, with Alliance forces on both sides.”

“There go those dangerous Horde leanings again—”

“Did it ever occur to you that peace might be an option? Respecting the Horde’s side of things, while they respect ours? Perhaps a trade agreement so that they cull the right trees and not the wrong ones? Their people need to eat and survive too, you know. And that’s harsh land they took on, in that part of Kalimdor.”

Mathias let out a low whistle, that I could not be more wrong.

I insisted, “And don’t look at me like that, kingdoms have shared borders before. Just look at Ironforge, you know the Dwarf lands? Stormwind and the Dwarves get along fine.”

“I’ve been told the Night Elves, you younger ones, are bound to have these upside down world views.”

“With respect. I am three hundred years old, sir.”

“And you act like you’re twenty. Like the conflicts these past few decades didn’t happen to you, personally, at all. Like you aren’t affected. The Horde is not a sovereign kingdom, Sharpen. It is a mess. It is an invading army that came to Azeroth to destroy life and civilization on this planet for the Burning Legion, reduce it to rubble no different from Outland, or Argus. The Horde did not manage it because the Alliance stood up to them. End of story. And don’t tell me things have changed since Thrall or Vol’jin or damn her—Sylvanas! As if Garrosh wasn’t the big tip off, and you talk about ethics not being present.” Mathias raised his voice at me, he was so frustrated, “We are life and they are death! Do you understand me, Agent Sharpen?”

“And do you understand that if I do take this assignment, I’m not killing any Horde unless I have to. I’m not killing anyone unless I need to.”

“If you go to the last page, you’ll see we’ve actually asked you for the same. We don’t want you to engage any Horde at all if you can help it. We don’t want them finding a world tree of all things. A death that doesn’t look natural gets investigated and then that will, in time, blow our cover. It could take years to gain control of that tree, and we don’t need a bunch of evidence piling up that it exists and the Alliance wants it that badly, in the meantime.”

I read that part, pinned to the end with a paperclip like it was an after thought. ‘No Horde deaths, no Horde engagement’ it said.

Mathias was very impatient now that he knew I’d read it all. “…Well?”

I told him, “I would come home successful, because I would. I’d find this lost feral druid and then the Alliance would take over that World Tree. And then you would use it to cut off the rest of the Barrens, cut off the Tauren from the Orcs finally. Right?”

“What comes next really is up to King Anduin.”

“But you’ll be in his ear like a buzzing hornet, and he’d have to do what you insist is the best way to ‘neutralize the threat’.”

“Look, Sharpen. I don’t see what the problem is? You’re a soldier for the Alliance. You’ve killed Horde before. You know that it’s essential.”

“In a war, in a battle. I say, we could also use this new world tree to prevent more death and suffering. To end conflicts.”

“So you say.”

“World trees are not about destroying. You want it so badly, but you don’t know the first thing about it.”

“You’re wrong. Do I need to state the obvious?” Mathias meant our tree. Our beloved Teldrassil that was lost. He leaned in, his leather gear creaked, “And what do you think the Horde would do, under Warchief Sylvanas, if they found a second world tree so close to their doorstep?”

“More emotional blackmail? That’s incredibly low, considering we Kaldorei never had enough support from the Alliance in Ashenvale in the first place!”

“It isn’t that, Agent Sharpen. But I do want you to see, somewhere between your values and mine, your world where people can play nice with monsters—you’re a hunter, maybe that’s where it comes from? Or perhaps it was because practically your entire family was down near Suramar of all places when Teldrassil was attacked. Which I always found interesting considering your sister’s intelligence work. And your family’s assassin “friend” Alessandre…”

“Don’t go there. Don’t you dare. I faced extinction along with the rest of my people on that day.”

“All I want you to see is that you don’t have a choice, Agent Sharpen. You must get to that world tree first before the Horde does, however King Anduin decides to handle things.”

I crossed my arms, “I also wonder why Tyrande, who has led our people since the beginning and is a walking agent of good, has been for thousands of years, now has to listen to the counsel of a boy Anduin’s age. Or any Human’s age.” I did have a point. Mathias let me have that. “I want the findings shared with Malfurion and Tyrande first, before anything goes to Anduin.”

“No, Sharpen. I can’t promise you that.”

“And you can’t trust that I won’t do it myself, in that case, considering my family connections. It’s amazing you’re not going through Darnassus to start with.” I tossed the file back to him, let some of the papers fly out. One whipped up into his face. I had pretty good aim, I was proud. “Those are my terms, Mathias Shaw.” Then, I thought better of it, “When I am done, I will deliver my mission report in a meeting with King Anduin and Tyrande and Malfurion, all of them in the same room. In Stormwind Keep.”

Mathias shrugged, looked elsewhere. “If I can pull them all together and their schedules are free.”

“For a new world tree? Now who’s playing dumb.”

Mathias scrunched his face up, as he fit all the papers back into the blue file with gold Darnassian lettering. “Fine. You and I don’t need to agree, Sharpen. You just need to be able to take orders. And, it’d raise the profile of this effort anyway, to do an official handover. You have a deal.” Mathias offered his hand to shake.

“I’ll see you in Stormwind when this is all done, then. I’ll hand over Agent… Kitten, then.”

I admit I grinned like a clever cat, myself.

#operation-kitten #stories #si7-seals

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katieskarlette · 4 years

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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.

#shadows rising #shadows rising spoilers #bff princes #sylvanas x nathanos #rambling about wow

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wrathion · 5 years

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Hia! Hope you're doing well c: as another Anduin lover, I'm curious: what do you like about the current Holy King of Stormwind?

ahh i’m doing alright right now, thank you!

as a general answer? everything, he’s the king who has had a coming-of-age story and carries a strong love of life itself. he’s the boy who grew up in a war-torn world who craves a peaceful end to the fighting. he runs on his gut feeling on what is right above all else, putting himself at risk if he thinks it’ll benefit someone else. he’s the one who agonizes so much about others that he neglects his own needs. he’s anduin wrynn, not just a trope or two in a suit with tied back blond hair.

as a current bfa-centric answer? i really love that they’re not ignoring his anxiety and depression and are actually letting him struggle (albeit subtly) and will hopefully slowly work through it!

this is big meta and theory territory but hear me out:

varian’s death absolutely ruined anduin. sure, it was something that he was preparing for his entire life, but can you really ever be prepared for something like that? especially in anduin’s situation where he also happened to inherit an entire kingdom. after varian died anduin was in shock, doing his job but not putting the heart he typically would into it. then the champion brings the compass to him and he breaks. velen even says that he “refuses to eat and sleep” which is token self harm.

of course he has that little moment with varian in the vision of stormwind, and he’s told to do “what a king must do.” varian probably intended this as a message of caring for his people, but just as importantly, himself. but anduin interpreted it as caring primarily for his people, that his role as king was more important than the person behind it.

it’s evident that he thinks this way because of how he acts, not acknowledging his needs as he commands his own people to fight and die in a war he does not want to fight. a war that he thinks is for the greater good. as i said above, anduin has a need to keep as many people as he can safe, but he’s lost that drive and keeps sending people out hoping for the best. in the beginning of lost honor, genn says that they’re out of soldiers in stormwind and will need to begin drafting farmers.

he’s also thoroughly inexperienced with war-related strategy, which just adds to the bonfire of his deteriorating mental health and confidence. he sends out a small special team to kill rastakhan and to try and break the alliance between the zandalari and horde. it’s kind of obvious that it would only push them closer, but when you’re fed up with yourself, burnt out from life and desperately need to tick things off the to-do list, thinking rationally doesn’t come naturally.

and that’s not to say he doesn’t care about the lives he’s losing, he very obviously does. to the point where it’s destroying him.

i think the most obvious example, though, is in before the storm. at the very end, after the gathering (where shit in the anduin planning department starts going wrong). anduin’s looking out on the graves of all who were lost. i’m just going to put the full excerpt here because they’re honestly my favorite in any wow book.

Anduin shook his head in sorrow and disbelief. “I can’t blot out the images of the Desolate Council running as fast as they could to what they thought was a future with their loved ones. I feel responsible. For them. And for them,” he said, gesturing to the living still moving on the field.

“Sylvanas killed her own people, Anduin,” Genn reminded him. “Not you.”

“Rationally, of course I know that. But it doesn’t matter. Not in my bones. And not here.” Anduin placed a hand on his chest for a moment, then let it fall. “Those who fell on this field did so because King Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind had promised them they would be safe as they reunited with their loved ones. And they died because of that promise. Because of me.”

The bitterness in his voice was like acid. Genn, who had never heard it from him before, fell silent. After a time, Anduin spoke.

“You’ve come to lecture me, obviously. Go ahead. I deserve every word.” Genn sniffed and rubbed his beard for a moment, his eyes on the horizon. “Actually, I’ve come to apologize.”

Anduin’s head whipped around, and he didn’t bother to hide his shock. “Apologize? What for? All you did was warn me against this.”

…

Genn took a deep breath. “But he was right. You were right. I still think what was done to the Forsaken against their will was horrifying. But it’s clear to me now that some of them haven’t been broken by it. Some of them are still the people they once were. So I was wrong, and I apologize.”

Anduin nodded. A smile crossed his face fleetingly, then was gone. It was clear he was still burdened with guilt and stubbornly wouldn’t relinquish the pain of it. Not yet.

“You were right about Sylvanas,” Anduin said, that cold bitterness lingering in his voice. “Light knows, I wish I’d listened.”

“I wasn’t right about her, either,” Genn said, startling Anduin for the second time in as many minutes. “Not entirely. I knew she couldn’t let this go by without doing something. I thought she’d attack us. Not her own people.”

Anduin winced and turned away. “She may have killed them, but I promised the Desolate Council safe passage. Those deaths are on my conscience. They will haunt me.”

…

Anduin took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded at Genn.

“Nonetheless, it is a tragedy, and it’s done any chance of peace great harm. It’s destroyed the prospect of working together with the Horde to heal the world. Azerite will continue to threaten the balance of power. It’s hurt the Alliance, too. Sylvanas used a moment that could have been a true turning point as a chance to eliminate people whom she viewed as her enemies. And she did it so smoothly, so well, that I can’t even call her on it. She didn’t break her word. Calia was a would-be usurper. I can’t ask Stormwind to go to war because the warchief of the Horde chose to execute individuals she will now paint as traitors. So she gets away with it. She’s won. She eliminated the opposition, killed the rightful heir to Lordaeron, and did it all while looking like a noble leader for not attacking the Alliance and starting a war.”

Genn said nothing. He didn’t need to. He simply stood next to Anduin andlet the young king sort it out on his own.

The minutes passed, and then, finally, Anduin spoke. “I will never, ever stop hoping for peace,” he said. His voice trembled with leashed emotion. “I have seen too much good in too many people to paint them all as evil and worthy of slaughter. And I will also never stop believing that people can change. But I realize now that I’ve been like a farmer expecting to harvest crops from a poisoned field. It’s simply not possible.”

Greymane tensed. The boy was leading to something.

“People can change,” Anduin repeated. “But some people will never —never—desire to do so. Sylvanas Windrunner is one of those.”

He took a deep breath. Sorrow and grim resolve made him look older. Genn had seen similar expressions on the faces of those who had been tasked with a heartbreaking duty.

When the boy spoke, Genn was glad of the words but saddened by his need to say them.

“I believe,” said Anduin Llane Wrynn, “that Sylvanas Windrunner is well and truly lost.”

anduin admitting sylvanas is incapable of changing is huge, and i honestly missed the whole point of it the first time reading through the book.

this is the same anduin who took the time to talk to garrosh, and even saved his life because he thought he was capable of changing. the same anduin that believed in garrosh even after the horrible things garrosh did to him and all that he cares for. and now he’s saying he was wrong, with a bitterness in his voice when speaking about his own failure, and what he has to do next.

even genn’s a bit rattled by how self-deprecating and almost hateful anduin’s being, which is kind of telling.

i guess overall i feel like they have something really good building with anduin, and i’m especially hoping they either have his mental illness peak in a moment of desperation where he falls to some certain old-gody forces.

this might be a bit fanfictiony but having an arc where he works himself out of a depressive episode in the form of old god corruption by using the lessons he’s learned about self-discipline and love in pandaria would be amazing.

alternatively to fit in with the subtle route they’ve been taking so far, they could push the alliance infighting arc they’ve been building up and have anduin prove his ability as king by handling what he does best, a diplomatic situation. there he could realize that he’s not as inept as he thinks (and acts like) he is, and can start working to care for himself.

tl;dr yeah man i just like anduin a little bit. i think he’s neat is all.

#i have no idea what this is. the word count is above 1.5k. my family is starving. please send help.#shoutout to wolf for listening to me go on a tangent about this a couple days ago because i based a lot of whatever this is off those dms #world of warcraft #asks #cat screams about anduin #lothirielswan #ask to tag

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

Note

WoW really is losing steam now, with blizzard focusing on Overwatch now as their big IP. Overwatch is a MOBA fitting in with what I said.

I don’t know for sure what “you” said because all of this is on anon and I can’t distinguish them. In any case, Overwatch has been around for four years or so and hasn’t killed WoW yet. There’s also a new Diablo coming out I think, and WoW Classic which is technically its own thing as well as a remake of Warcarft III which is releasing very soon. Companies can focus on multiple IPs

How would you add actual moral grey?

See what I mean? Is this you? I don’t care, really; I don’t even know if it’s about WoW or FE since I’ve gotten asks about both today. I think there’s a great two-sided story to be had in the tension over the rightful control of Silvermoon and Quel’Thalas. The ren’dorei can argue that their experiments into the Void are of a piece with their people’s earlier work with the Fel and the holy energies of a Naaru, while the sin’dorei can retort that the very presence of Void energy threatens the stability of the Sunwell they still rely on for their magic. The blood elves could be themselves divided over genuine dedication to the Light as embodied by the Sunwell and an opportunistic pragmatism that sees M’uru’s sacrifice as just another means of ensuring their survival and that they (the blood elves) should be no more beholden to the Light or to the draenei who “redeemed” them than they were before. Meanwhile the void elves are now left to cope with no means to sustain their magical addiction but Void energy, which has got to have some kind of negative effect on them aside from some silly tentacle jokes. How will the Alliance cope with that? Hell, how will the Lightforged specifically cope with that, as they exist in direct opposition to the Void? Something needs to be done with that, even if it’s just two comedic relief NPC quest givers with gay subtext...Blizzard seems to enjoy them.

But I guess you referring to all the big names. Um...Anduin and Wrathion finally have sex and it’s amazing, but Wrathion is obviously manipulating him to some end so now the leader of the Alliance is torn between his ideals of justice and the needs of his dick. Also Tyrande is growing more murderous and Genn is kind of on her side but doesn’t want to be too open about it. Over in the Horde the council idea doesn’t work too well especially once Gallywix buys all the votes, but the elves don’t care because they’re off in Suramar swapping magic secrets and having wild drunken orgies and it’s all very lovely.

You should know BlizzardBearLove is a radical Alliance Stan who calls Horde players, "Nazis" for not liking the story, & is infamous on tumblr for coming in announced whenever a tumblr user expresses dissatisfaction with WoW's story. Heck just now they posted a rant saying people who like Sylvanas as feminists.

Oh look, I didn’t think I’d ever get one of those kinds of messages telling me about all the allegedly horrible things someone who’s interacted with one of my posts has done. I don’t make a habit of reading through other people’s blogs, because unless you’re one of the ten or so mutuals with whom I regularly interact I don’t care enough to do so.

#World of Warcraft #WoW

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fatedroses · 5 years

Text

Faustus’ Story

Alright, because @lunarpaps asked for me to go into more detail behind the changes I’ve made for this characters story.

I’m going to make one, albeit long, post going through the timeline and actually have this written out for anyone curious on this characters story and how at least for my canon he fits into the world as a whole.

Alright, starting off are the major changes I’ve made in terms of the story I’ve already written and posted on here, or may have referenced. I may end up linking on an oc page or something similar to this post, and after I get this posted I will most likely end up drawing snippets of the events, cause this also inspired me to do so anyways.

Changes, and anything that I forgot will be added in a reblog later on:

With Liam returning for this version, Hugrim, and most of the decisions involving him, is going to be with and between him and Sarath. This is better just because him and Sarath have better chemistry with each other, and I’ll eventually get around to their stories after I get them more solidified. I’ll admit that writing the initial relationship between him and Faustus just didn’t seem to flow the way I wanted it to, and that I’m more satisfied with this direction, and it lets all of them get a happier ending.

Faustus is more of an emissary and ally to the Vanguards rather than an outright leader, I want his position as a Greyguard to be more relevant to his character and therefore Felicity is going to take his older role in the council of the Vanguards, a better fit considering her role in the Kirin Tor and her relationship with Praeragos. I guess Faustus technically takes the role as one of the adventurers due to his interactions with Genn and his tasks often delivering messages and running errands, but whatever.

Because Faustus would in turn be spending more time both between Darnassus and Stormwind, and later Kul Tiras, when he isn’t on any assignments because of his position, I plan on him having more interactions and development with Anduin, Mathias, Varian, etc. I’ve been able to affirm to myself that it’s alright writing dynamics between these characters, cause I’m a dweeb and steered away from that for whatever reason.

In turn I get to explore his reaction and interactions to the events that happened, both that he was and wasn’t there for. For example him traveling to Northrend with Felicity and a few others to learn of what happened as a person alongside his team, from a bystander’s point of view in his off time with the Vanguards. To then participating in the search for Anduin during MoP, as an active member of the alliance and as someone who would’ve went searching for the missing prince regardless of his allegiances or not. By originally putting him in a situation where he had to be in a consistently neutral environment it made him going out into these new situations difficult to write for, as it made trying to get the information for these places hard to actually write in a way that made sense.

Now seen with the “Dynamic Duo” piece that was posted before this post, Faustus’ affinity for magic and the situation with being a spellblade/mage-rogue combo is going to be something that took effect far earlier in his story. With him and his brother, and in turn his mother and his father respectively, the boys took after their parents, with Faustus showing traits of magical prowess while Pheles showed traits of druidic prowess at an early age. After the fire Faustus then later gets training on magic from Felicity, her parents, and Ashton, and he specializes in Ashton’s practice of magic which is close ranged, portals, and enchantment. However in most cases he’s on active duty he tends to focus on using it for teleportation and avoiding the long ass boat rides when he has the ability and energy to. Speaking of Pheles, I’m leaning towards making the two twins, just because the year difference really doesn’t make too much of an impact and this fits a bit better.

Krennan takes Faustus in as an adopted son rather than having him just kinda stick around the castle like it was previous planned/implied. It gives me an excuse to give Krennan more attention due to the fact I was already interested in the character beforehand. It also gives Faustus the opportunity to build his relationships with the royals and Felicity more organically than it was before.

The story behind Faustus losing his arm has been tweaked, but that’ll be explained more in depth during the story section of this post. I also plan on redrawing the pieces that went with it as well. Hex is still the main antagonist of that arc, and it’s still a decisive sacrifice Faustus makes, it’s just the events beforehand and afterwards are a bit different.

————

For the sake of having this all in one place, I’m also going to have the entire story written out. When I tagged this as a long post, I meant it. I might tweak a few things in the future, but this is what is what I’m running with for the time being. This also includes the story of his parents due to their relevance in setting up the events that happen later on.

Story:

Parents and Childhood (Ages 0-10):

Born to Ilaise and Cedius Erthwal, Faustus and Pheles’ life started out rather average, and they were planned to be raised in Gilneas. Ilaise, born and raised in Gilneas herself met her husband Cedius during a trip to Boralus. The druid was taking his monthly trip to the market for supplies to aid in his research over the cycle of regrowth and decay, driven by his fascination with the Cenarion druid circles spurred on by an encounter with Sarath as well as other traveling druids. Ilaise herself was working alongside Ashton Wythers, another mage of the Kirin Tor, in finding the limits of their magical ability, and was known in her own town of Emberstone as a rather renowned hunter that earned her a friendship with Mia before the would be queen was courted by and got married with Genn. In learning of each other’s studies they hit it off, eventually leading to Ilaise offering to bring Cedius to Gilneas, which he heartily agrees, wanting to get away from Drustvar due to some history, and family, the druid wanted to get away from.

However Cedius, in his move across the seas, was still going to need a decent size of land to continue his studies. Thanks to Mia granting them a closer audience with both Genn and his father, they were granted a section of land, a farm estate that was to be built by the two north of the city, given their own resources of the forest and whatever land they needed, so long as any food and lumber grown was produced in benefit to Gilneas and her people. Cedius took this offer gladly, as the efforts of mass regrowth of crops and ensuring that it didn’t negatively impact the areas surrounding it was a part of his research. Genn, in his curiosity in seeing that if this plan would work, brought him to investigate it frequently, eventually leading to his cordial friendship with Cedius.

As the years went on in this arrangement, in both his relationship with Ilaise and the regrowth project on the farmland, went well. Him and Ilaise got married after Ilaise returned from aiding the other human settlements against the first horde, lending her duties over to her colleague Ashton who took her place fighting so that she could settle down and eventually have Faustus and Pheles with Cedius, an act she was greatly thankful for. Genn and Mia, busy with raising their own children, and with the situation regarding the surrounding kingdoms, found themselves being able to visit their friends less and less, though they were able to visit each other during the birthdays of their children.

The brothers themselves found friendship in each other and the other children of Emberstone, which was nearby. They had met the Greymane siblings beforehand, but due to the distance and the ever nearing conflicts they didn’t really have the opportunity to get to know each other well. Faustus found at a young age that he had an affinity for the arcane trying to save a vase that tipped off the table. This was much to his father’s amusement having to leap after his son and the vase to actually save the situation, only for Ilaise to run in with a very confused dirt covered Pheles from their trip to their own private garden, discovering that the boys had the affinity of the opposite “preferred parent”, a joke among the two. This led to the boys getting some rather rudimentary training alongside their education, turning the rather mischievous pair even worse in their tricks as it helped Faustus honed his ability to blink short distances, which made him almost impossible to catch, and Pheles had a rather special focus on growing roots that often led to Cedius tripping and landing face first in the dirt, as well as jumpscaring both parents as he found his natural talent in the bear druid form.

Unfortunately Cedius’s history ended up catching up to him as his brother, known only to others as Hex, had hunted him down to Gilneas alongside several members of the cult. With Hex’s intention to either force his brother to use his druidic prowess in strengthening the reach of the blighted lands back in Drustvar and bringing about the return of Gorak Tul, or die. He started a fire at the base of the house, which was first discovered by Pheles, who ran to get his father to alert him about it. With the aid of his accomplices the fire spread quicker than usual, making it difficult for Ilaise to try and put it out as everything she tried to do only seemed to come back tenfold. This only got worse as the roof started to collapse, which ended pinning Faustus under a beam. Cedius had went off to try and find the source up until he encountered his brother, refusing his offer almost immediately and trying to call upon some wicker constructs to defend himself, and while Ilaise had managed to keep the fire from burning Faustus, he was too panicked in his young age to try and blink out from the debris until Ilaise was able to lift the beam a bit and Pheles pulled him out. As they tried to escape the house Ilaise pushed the boys away from more falling debris, sacrificing herself and getting herself pinned so that the two could escape by Faustus blinking both of them away, and they started to run to get help. Hex elected to leave his weakened brother to his colleagues to chase after the boys, believing that if they were in immediate danger Cedius would agree. Instead Cedius watched on as Pheles tripped Hex with roots along the dirt path, knocking his mask off so that they could both run away and so that Faustus could nail Hex in the nose with a rock, catching him off guard so that Pheles could attempt to carry his brother off on his back. One important piece that both Ilaise and Hex didn’t realize was that Pheles had taken his father’s very important research journal with him as well.

This only enraged Hex more, knowing that even if his colleagues succeeded in their attempt to now assassinate Ilaise and Cedius that the brothers would become issues later on. So he gave chase. Pheles found that drawing the pyromancer into the city was a bad idea, and threw Faustus off his back, electing to attempt to maul Hex’s legs before running off in another direction, while Faustus ran off in another direction. Hex went after Faustus however, as he was still injured by getting pinned. Pheles ran off towards the harbor, catching the attention of one of the Kul Tiran vessels that had their own druid working up in the crows nest. The crew took Pheles in, and sent their druid to go help his brother. This druid, Silvio, managed to catch up to Hex, clawing at his face in his bird form and giving Faustus enough time to run into the city of Gilneas and hide before Silvio himself flew off, leaving Hex to deal with his wounds and return to the burning home before he could manage to get caught by any city guards sent his way.

Hex and his colleagues made sure that Ilaise and Cedius were dead before returning to Drustvar, not knowing however that before their deaths they had bound themselves to the hearth, making their spirits remain on Azeroth and defeating their purpose of making them useless in death. Pheles joined the crew on their voyage back to Kul Tiras, much to the captain’s chargin but that aside he would eventually be taken to Ulfar by Silvio to learn the ways of the Thornspeaker, and gave Pheles an opportunity to learn more about his father from his old teacher before eventually returning to that vessel to join the captain in learning to become one. Finally Faustus went into hiding, becoming paranoid that Hex would be able to find him again, or that those around him could give him up to him, and isolated himself, finding his life as stealing food from stalls and blinking away before anyone noticed and hiding away in the empty unused water pipes that surrounded the city. Genn was alerted to the fire by his guard, leaving Liam and Tess in the care of Krennan before they went to investigate, only to find the home and farmland in ash, all of Cedius work was gone, and the now-king himself found Ilaise and Cedius inside the home, hand in hand with each other, and realized as because he couldn’t find the boys that they were still out there somewhere.

Adolescence and the Greyguard (Ages 10-25):

Faustus spent a couple months in hiding, avoiding anyone he deemed as untrustworthy, which due to his paranoia from the entire situation beforehand and being separated from his parents and brother, was just about everyone. Genn, Mia, Krennan, and Krennan’s charge and family friend Felicity would try to go looking for him after getting a letter from Kul Tiras stating that Pheles was found and safe. Felicity herself found that she could get glimpses of Faustus and the directions he went off to, but due to him using his arcane abilities to get away, and for him himself discovering he could hide himself using magic, making him difficult to hunt down.

After awhile, as Genn, Mia, Tess, and Liam were taking a trip through the city, Liam finds that the bracelet given by his mother was gone from his wrist. Knowing that it hadn’t had fallen he looked around, spotting Faustus backing up and running away from the group. Offended at the theft of his heirloom, Liam went after him, Tess immediately following her brother and making Genn and Mia panic for a moment before running after them. The siblings managed to chase him into an alleyway, and nearly succeeded in cornering him had he not tried to blink away. He was quickly caught by Genn when he and Mia caught up, and with Mia’s help they managed to calm him down enough to be able to bring him to Krennan. There the siblings and Felicity stayed with Faustus as the adults talked, and for the first time in a while, thanks to three cracking small jokes trying to get Faustus to at least laugh, they actually succeeded, and while they couldn’t get him to talk he at least accepted staying close to them. Faustus gave Liam his bracelet back as a silent apology, and after a bit of discussion Krennan came to him offering to take him in and adopt him. Faustus gave it some thought, grabbed Felicity’s arm and nodding with a quiet yes.

Faustus had a relatively normal rest of his childhood, though he continued to have paranoia and nightmares about Hex. This also started his and Felicity’s close friendship after they started living in the same house, Felicity thought that she was basically chosen after Faustus agreed to stay, and they bonded over their studies in magic, which Felicity was able to share her resources about it with him. They both also bonded with Krennan, often helping him around with his alchemy by going to the market to get herbs and having him teach them both their general education and alchemy. These two also spent time with the royal siblings thanks to Krennan often visiting Genn for both personal and professional reasons, Tess herself found it fascinating that Faustus was able to pickpocket Liam without anyone noticing, and Liam himself wanted to learn about Faustus more, as he often remembered seeing Cedius come to the manor once in a while but never really got the chance to talk. Felicity herself already knew the siblings well due to the amount of time she had already spent with Krennan beforehand.

As time went on, with Faustus reaching his teens, the four became a very tight knit group. Liam trained under his mother in becoming a hunter, finding after a good amount of training that he was quite a remarkable marksmen. Felicity decided not to focus her studies towards the offensive uses of magic, and instead aimed to one day improve the kingdom itself through her own inventions and such. Faustus found that he had a mark for design and engineering, often helping Felicity with her plans, but he also aimed to become a Greyguard after having an opportunity to watch them train, as well as him watching Genn and Darius train with each other several times before. Genn agreed to help Faustus train, as well as introduce him to some of his spymasters so that he could learn the ways of a rogue, considering how he was built he was suited for it. This also led to Faustus passing off the knowledge he had to the younger Tess, helping her start down her path of roguishness without, for the most part, Genn knowing, until she started training down that path as she got older.

Faust devoted himself to earning his place among the Greyguard, as with the more time he spent with them he found his own purpose with them. As the Greymanes had given him their time and effort to look for and out for him, he found that the only way to repay that in a way he would be satisfied with was to devote his life to giving them the protection that he was never able to give his parents and brother because of his inexperience and young age, In that way he could set aside the feelings and failures he felt as a child and instead had the opportunity to spend time with those he really cares about and be at peace with himself. His devotion eventually earned him the position of being Liam and Tess’s retainer, passed off by his main mentor Sibran, and it gave him the ability to just hang out with them while helping his superiors out on their duties when he could as a decision made by Genn so that the boy could still have a generally normal youth without having to worry about issues that brought him into constant danger or away from those close to him. Liam and Faustus also started getting even closer around this time, often found training with each other, working together to create new weapons and rifles, or were out hunting and patrolling around Gilneas.

There were issues however, as after Genn made the decision to secede from the Alliance and wall off Gilneas from the rest of the other kingdoms issues began to arise that actually called Faustus’ attention, starting with an event that happened not long after the construction of the wall started and in an attempt to get everyone's mind off of it they held a winter banquet, where an angered objector tried to get retribution for losing his land to being on the other side of the wall by attacking Liam, as he was the first Greymane he saw. Faustus managed to take the hit instead, earning him the scar across his eye and a scar on his left shoulder. This started the trend of Faustus having to watch around him more often than before, especially after the rebellion started taking more of a hold and the scourge started attacking the finished north gate wall. In addition due to his talents Faustus was also tasked with trying to root out the rebellion members and finding out who was leading them, in which his attempts tended to get him in a lot of trouble when he got too close.

Though despite all the struggles that came with this era Faustus and Liam found solace in each other, a couple close calls including the attack on at the banquet pushed Liam to actually admit his feelings to Faustus, feelings Faustus shared and that they had both developed from the time they had spent at each other’s side. At first they kept it hidden, in one part knowing that if any of the opposition knew it would be easy for them to use Faustus against Liam, and by extension the other Greyguard and Genn, in another part due to general royal upbringing Liam wasn’t entirely sure how his parents would really feel about the relationship due to the standard of marrying for political benefit and the state of Gilneas’ political climate was difficult to read at the time. However, Genn and Mia are neither foolish or oblivious, and were quick to understand their situation, leading to Genn having to pull Liam aside and quell his worries that he had married Mia out of love, not out gain or political pressure, and that if he truly found that he loved Faustus that he should go with it, especially since with Gilneas isolated there wasn't really much to get political gain for. Even if their relationship didn’t become public, some still found the pair as quite an intimidating duo, as Liam was a natural born leader and a major inspiration to those who came in contact with them, and Faustus became known as a creative inventor with a knack for detective work, who got the title of being an anti-assassin.

The scourge continued to become more and more of a problem, more so than the rooted rebellion as attacks would get collectively worse, leading Genn to call in Arugal for a solution, which came to be reawakening the worgen. Faustus, Sibran, and the other greyguard found themselves as the last line of military defense against the undead. An experience Faustus almost immediately regretted when he first came in contact with an abomination, but when the worgen came to aid them, and ended up turning against the front line, Faustus ended up getting bitten in the process. Not knowing that the curse was spread by the bite, he was cleared by Sibran to return back into the city, only to fall ill and turn once he got home. Felicity was able to restrain him, and Krennan was able to make him drink a potion to knock him out, but they only had a little time to bring him to Stormglen and restrain him, away from the city in a way to keep him from hurting other people or getting himself killed by the guard or hunters. Felicity had to keep a close eye on him, and after admitting to Genn why Faustus had gone missing the three worked towards trying to find a cure or aid to the curse, their working going double time once Genn was also bitten, but with the help of Krennan and Belyrsa found ways to keep him from turning.

Faustus was thought dead due to his absence and the fact that if they couldn’t restore his will and mind he would basically be such anyways. Liam, though distraught, wasn’t entirely convinced, and had a hope in his mind that he was still somewhere out there. Instead he put on a brave face and told others that Faustus had instead fallen very ill, which many of the Greyguard were skeptical about, but kept quiet for the sake of their prince. One day however, Tess and Liam trailed Genn and Krennan to Stormglen, waiting until they left the abandoned building they were frequenting to try and find what they were hiding, only for them to get tracked down by feral worgen. Faustus, upon hearing Felicity call out for the siblings, as well as hearing them yell out, broke from the chains keeping him from escaping. He managed to intercept the worgen before he could attack the three, holding them off until Genn was able to handle it himself. They found that after the attack was deterred, that Liam and Tess could actually calm Faustus down enough to get him to focus on them, though even if he could focus and understand what they were saying he had no way of communicating back with them. Liam and Tess, however, were relieved to find Faustus alive, even if this experience changed him in the long run.

Eventually Sarath, Hugrim, and Drulos came to investigate Cedius and Ilaise’s disappearance, as Sarath and Drulos hadn’t heard from them in a while. They found the farm, and Ilaise’s spirit ended up guiding them to Faustus where Cedius was already waiting in Stormglen. After gathering enough energy due to the direness of the situation, Cedius and Drulos were able to call upon and bargain with Goldrin. If Faustus managed to prove himself to Goldrinn, and Cedius and Ilaise agreed to act as agents of Goldrinn as they continued to traverse the mortal plane, the wild god would agree to aid Faustus in returning to being himself. As Goldrinn tested Faustus, though the man had a strong will, he found himself unable to keep his own fear and rage in check when faced with visions of Hex and the Scourge. Sarath pleaded to Goldrinn that they didn’t just leave Faustus to himself like this, and though the wild god wasn’t going to do so in the first place, he instead allowed Ilaise to separate Faustus’ rage and fury into another section of his mind and make it temporarily dormant, giving Faustus control over himself again and allowing him to return to his human form, as well as letting him have a more intimate control over his worgen form. However, as a side effect Faustus had to constantly manage his rage, as due to this separation this feral anger could manifest in both forms instead of only his worgen form, which when he was armed made him highly dangerous. The solution wasn't perfect but it gave Faustus the opportunity to one day, possibly, be at peace with himself and learn to control that fury where it mattered, rather than letting it control him.

Before going on their way to hold their end of the deal, Drulos and Sarath were able to say their final goodbyes to their old friends, the three remained to help care for Faustus as reverting from worgen form, as well as the general exertion he went through over this period of time, left him rather weak and disoriented. After they made sure their technical ‘charge’ was cared for, Sarath flew the two out the way they came, but not before Faustus came to, learned of the situation, and made Sarath promise to one day teach him orcish due to meeting Drulos and learning what the druid and two shamans did for him that day, out of respect and thankfulness.

Felicity found him not long afterwards, surprised to see him suddenly back to himself, and was in fact rather skeptical about it at first. But after finally getting himself situated, and Felicity retrieved him some clothes for him, he was finally able to return to Gilneas, luckily being able to pass off his disappearance as an illness he had to be taken to Dalaran/be under Felicity’s family’s care for. As time went on he understood how this other side of himself started to manifest, namely that it tended to appear if he couldn’t control his emotions in general, or if he went too long without giving it control. He struggled to keep it under control at first, and knowing that he was struggling with it he found himself both talking less and keeping himself away from anyone that wasn’t the royals, Sibran, or Felicity and Krennan.

Liam was a major factor in helping Faustus get back to normal, and it helped that the other side of Faustus was still Faustus at the end of the day, and even as ferocious and hard headed the beast was he still cared deeply about the same people, and will take control if he feels the way Faustus acts normally is ill-equipped to handle protecting them. Liam was commonly the person Faustus was able to vent to besides Felicity, and when Liam knew it had been a while since a manifestation he and Faustus would often go hunting, whether it would be deterring worgen or just hunting normally to bring resources to the market. It also helped that the other side also respected Liam and his ability to remain calm in the face of adversity. Eventually Faustus started meeting with Sarath and Hugrim out in the old abandoned far, and from there he started to build connections with the Vanguard, and he learned to start meditating as a way of communing with himself and starting to pull himself back together.

Years went on, and the north gate rebellion came and went, Faustus did what he could to prevent as much bloodshed as he could, but the uprising and battle took a heavy toll on both sides. Faustus himself was heavily injured when he came into contact with two of his old childhood friends from Emberstone, Elicia and Jean, who had sided with Crowley, and though he was heavily injured, he was able to get them to put down their weapons and let him help them leave the battle under the promise that he wouldn’t get them arrested, and learning that though Faustus didn’t agree with all of Genn’s actions, that he understood the king was stuck between a rock and a hard place due to his pride, his stubbornness, and the pressure of the surrounding events. This injury, an axe wound to his side, did end up restricting him for a while. It required a lot of bed rest and he was designated to playing messenger while Sibran took his role as retainer back for the meantime. Afterwards, besides the small scale worgen attacks, things went back to normal and Faustus was able to return to his duties. That was until the large scale attack on Gilneas, and as the city fell and anyone not turned was pushed back into the outskirts, it took a heavy toll on everyone involved.

Faustus was tasked with helping the Greyguard get back on track, and as Krennan actually put together the potion that was meant to aid the feral worgen, he was also tasked to aid in capturing what many came to realize as their own friends, family, and peers. Liam however took the fall hard, feeling as though he had failed his people, and with Faustus’ near constant absence, he turned to drinking away his problems (as seen in the game, holy shit Liam why), something that Faustus and Tess tried to steer him away from but the prince was too caught up in his own head to listen. Felicity herself was occupied and gone from Gilneas from helping Dalaran alongside Ashton where she could during the events in Northrend and the ensuing aftermath, and the start of the cataclysm. After the Horde’s attack on Gilneas, and Liam’s subsequent bounce back onto his feet after being in a position to help his people again, Faustus stayed by his side and supported him where he could, the future of their city looking up. Until Liam took the arrow for Genn.

Losing Liam twisted something within Faustus, and though he and the separated side of him came together enough to cooperate, he gained this silent rage and ferocity that took a while to ever go away. The anger at the attackers, and the anger at himself turned him into a ruthless machine, pushing him to retaliate hard against the forsaken not long after the initial battle. He found refuge in Tess’ sympathy and hope, and with Felicity gone and busy elsewhere she was all he had left to bring him back down to earth. It was under her guidance that he came to focus his anger towards what mattered, pushing him towards the path of becoming one with himself again. He also had help during this journey thanks to his encounters with Anduin Wrynn, who he had initially met before the summit of the alliance in Darnassus. They got along, and were able to bond over learning about the events that had happened that they were unaware of. Anduin found that Faustus was a person he could vent his worries to without judgement of ability, and Faustus found Anduin as someone he could both look up to and protect. Though Faustus struggled with the loss of someone so close to him, and the loss of his homeland, he was able to find others that would help guide him back onto his feet, and push him to keep fighting for was he thought was right.

The Alliance and Azeroth (Ages 25-Present):

Faustus mostly found himself at Genn’s side after joining the alliance, and when he wasn’t, he was running messages and errands thanks to his affinity for teleportation and portal creation. He busied himself, and almost never gave himself a break initially in order to keep his mind off the events that had happened prior. Upon some of these errands he came across people who he would aid and build connections with. He reconnected with Elicia and Jean during and after the battle for Gilneans, helping them come to terms with the worgen curse. He met Baltor, a priest known for aiding the lost and wayward spirits, when they encountered each other in the rest area of an arena ring, after Faustus was captured by pirates during a trip back to Stormwind with some of the other soldiers. Finally he met Tyraanas, a Draenei paladin, on the front against garrosh’s horde in Ashenvale. This was also the time Faustus was introduced to the Vanguards, their leader Enahlien, and the figures that led the multiple sectors of the settlement. The era of the Cataclysm was primarily providing rushed aid to the front fighting Garrosh’s horde, protecting Stormwind when needed, and providing a connection of the alliance to the Vanguards as a defacto emissary.

It was around this time that Faustus started to form his own squad, with himself, Tyraan, Baltor, Elicia, and Jean. This team was some of the first sent to look for Anduin during the start of Mists, mostly due to personal request on Faustus’ behalf (because he was both incredibly worried and anxious know that Anduin could have been in danger). It was in Pandaria that Faustus was forced to pull himself together, as at that point he risked being consumed by several of the sha, and due to his determination to work alongside his anger and be at peace with it, rather than wrangle and control it, it gave him better control over himself in general and let him aid his team in combating the influences of the sha as well. The only time this nearly fell apart during the expeditions was when he discovered Anduin’s injuries after being crushed by the bell, his doubt and anger nearly getting to him until his team was able to, in payment for him helping them in the first place, help him calm himself to prevent the sha from manifesting.

From there Faustus and his team continued their work while Anduin was recovering, but knowing that Varian was already fretting over his son Faustus instead decided to support his decision to continue to encourage his people and his allies, being overbearing was likely only going to be a detriment anyways. As the events in Pandaria progressed, Faustus bounced between aiding the front with his team where he could, and introducing his team to the Vanguards and beginning to integrate himself with them more afterwards, building connections with Adonis, Hugrim, Hugrim’s family, as well as his crew aboard the allegiance who offered to aid the efforts in Pandaria so long as they weren’t caught up in the war itself in the process.

The issues in Draenor and all the events that take place during that time was actually the period where Faustus takes a break from the front and works on his connection outside of the horde and alliance. He was able to meet the horde emissaries, a forsaken monk who merely introduced himself as Ederi, and a goblin shaman named Glekkle. A lot of what this community was working on combating was the rising influence of Hex’s cult, as well as the threat of the Legion invasion that was starting to be known as an inevitable event. Hex wanted to pull apart the Vanguards, knowing that the cult would be destroyed upon them learning of their efforts to extend the reach of Thros. This issue for Hex became even more apparent when he discovered Pheles had started working with Felicity, Sarath, and Hugrim to combat the reach of the cult, and Tul’s own covens, in Kul Tiras itself.

So, taking this opportunity now that several of the major Vanguard leaders were absent from the citadel itself Hex waged an all out attack against the citadel, catching everyone within off guard and forcing a large scale evacuation that drove the citizen’s living within to Dalaran, and brought Faustus, Ederi, Enahlien, Verelyn, an undead priestess that constantly worked with Sarath and Hugrim known as Ainade, to stay behind and attempt to prevent the cult from taking over the citadel. The position within Arathi and the research that could be used to breach the blighted lands into Azeroth was far too important to the vanguards to just give it up. After the five were swarmed with aberrations and found themselves in a losing fight, Ederi and Ainade locked themselves within Hugrim’s garden/research building, and did what they could from keeping the thankfully fireproof building safe, the other three were urged to leave and gather their strength until they could reclaim the citadel once more. In their attempted escape the three were captured, Hex himself was the one to do so personally as his members were tasked with raided the other buildings and preparing themselves to settle there. Hex’s use of fire and wicker abominations gave Faustus little time to get the other two out before they were seriously injured, and knowing that the Vanguard needed their leaders he elected to use most of his strength to break out of the construct’s grasp, and sacrifice his arm in Hex’s attempt to behead Enahlien so that Enahlien and Verelyn could gather enough of his strength to break free and run away.

Faustus used whatever time he had thought he had left, as he was bleeding out and knew that he likely wouldn’t have enough time to escape, was able to take his pistol while Hex was distracted by the two running and shot him in the knee so that he couldn’t chase after the two, before killing him for killing his parents, ruining a large part of his life, and attempting to break apart a people whose entire foundation came from pulling together through the turmoils of separation, loss, and exile. He knew, from the fact that his father persisted after his death, that this wasn’t going to be the last of Hex, but he was dying knowing that he was either going to combat him himself if he was unable to move on, or that he had broken the Cult’s leadership down enough to give both his team and the rest of the Vanguards enough time to regroup and mount a full attack against them to get the city back.

But it wasn’t like the Vanguards to leave their allies behind, and as Praeragos and Sarath managed to temporarily drive the cult from the citadel, giving them enough time to let Sarath rescue and take Ederi and Ain to Dalaran, Praer brought the remaining three to Stormwind where there was just a slim enough chance that Faustus could be saved. After magically locking the gardens, the mage tower, and the keep so that important information that was already guarded by other means couldn’t get tampered with further, Praer had carried and flown them back by opening a portal after he broke free of the cult’s vain attempts to restrain him with briar thorns. Baltor had felt the surge of energy from the portal from his room at the old town inn and from Praer’s spirit, and urged the rest of the team to follow the dragon as he landed in the fields not far from the keep, the team keeping the guards from targeting the blue dragon as they found they had to prioritize stabilizing Faustus and figuring out what the hell had happened to have caused this in the first place.

Thanks to Baltor’s, and later some assistance of Anduin’s, healing, Faustus had survived. However his injuries had forced him to retire from his position in the greyguard, as he had to focus on his recovery, and any extensive use of magic was out of the question due to his weakened state. He instead found himself staying in Stormwind, using the empty barracks next to the embassy to organize his own team on their missions, giving them aid in the only way he was able to at the time. This barracks was also used as a temporary gathering place for the Vanguard leaders, who either worked to be granted pardon or disguised themselves so that they could walk around the city easily. From here on Faustus, his team, and the vanguard’s worked to reclaim the citadel and also prepare for the impending legion invasion once they got word of Gul’dan’s freedom. Under Faustus’ and Enahlien’s planning, the efforts towards reclaiming the citadel was a success and they were able to start pushing their efforts towards rebuilding and reinforcing their position to prevent anything like this from happening again.

About a month before the invasion several of Faustus’ peers, a gnome named Lania, Felicity, a dark iron mage named Yvena, and Ainade proposed their latest work, which was a prosthetic arm meant to be attuned to his own abilities with magic, most of which he was able to use due to actually taking the time to recover and then train himself, making sure that he was still on par in that way while also learning to defend himself with only his left hand. While it was difficult, Faustus was lucky that he was left hand dominant anyways, and after giving it some thought he accepted getting the prosthesis. He also accepted the risks of getting it, as there was a chance that his body would reject it, and the impending realization that it would hurt, and he would have to give himself time to recover again. He trusted his team however, and he had gone a long way to trust Ainade, giving that she was known within the Vanguards for her research and talent with prosthetics and replacement given her situation as an undead.

Faustus played a similar role to before after he did what he could to aid Anduin’s ascension to the throne, ignoring his own feelings to losing Varian until he was away and able to express such without impacting others. His primary contributions came from sending aid to wherever him and his men were needed, and he spent a lot of his time fighting the legion in Stormheim, while working alongside Genn during that campaign for multiple reasons, Val’sharah, aiding the druids, his brother, and Sarath against the emerald nightmare, and on Argus, fighting demons head on once he firmly established his ability and the improvements granted to him by his new arm. Faustus proved to be an accomplished leader among his friends, and his ability alongside Enahlien’s own tactical prowess made their group a force to be reckoned with against the Legion. Upon the legion’s fall and things started to settle down, Genn welcomed Faustus back into the greyguard now that Faustus was back on his feet, and he proved to be more open, happy, and out there than he was before.

Yvena, Tyraanas, Baltor, and Elicia urged Genn to name Faustus as the commander as their slowly growing team started to expand into a small army, and as the war with the horde started to pick back up, he considered it. It wasn’t until the war of thorns, and Faustus and the Vanguard’s efforts to aid in the evacuations, that Genn considered it and accepted it once the Vanguard’s pledged their aid against, and see specifically, Sylvanas’ path of destruction.

Getting off the topic of Faustus briefly, it was also around this time that Liam was resurrected by Alonsus after Calia herself was resurrected. As Alonsus was standing on neural ground, but saw what Sylvanas had done during the gathering, he saw it fit to send some of his priests, Baltor, Ainade, Jean, and several others, as well as several aiding paladins, to recover Liam’s body to prevent him from being used against his own old friend and the alliance as a whole due to Jean’s accounts of the prince’s marksmanship itself. A pleasant surprise however came in the form that for one reason or another Liam’s body had not decayed since his death, and whether it was true or not, Jean had proposed that it may have been from the extent of the prince’s faith in both his people and the light, while Ainade proposed that like Calia, it may have been for the purpose of the light still needing them, and that his faith itself powered that. Liam went into a form of hiding after Faol had him ensure that he would return should anything go wrong, he rejoined the alliance, making himself known to aiding the soldiers as just merely being ‘the traveler’, a masked bowmen who seemed to appear in a time of need.

Back on topic, Faustus led said group during the battle for lordaeron, offering routed support as well as acting as the extraction soldiers for the horde prisoners. They also led the retreat once the main group had went to go confront Sylvanas. Upon returning to Stormwind, Faustus set out to help set up the Vanguard’s outpost with his friends, and they were organizing their supplies and working up until Nathanos had set fire to the city and the group had to turn their efforts towards putting the fire out. An attempted assassination on Enahlien turned into a near death experience for Faustus, as he had taken an arrow meant for him by one of the diversions, but due to the amount of aid the worgen were giving to the alliance, the most arrows in the assassin’s quiver was tipped in wolf’s bane. The assassin got away, and Faustus made his team focus on putting out the fires before he almost succumbed to the poison, narrowly getting saved by Liam as he had worked with Baltor beforehand over the possible issue of wolf’s bane being used against his friends and family. Liam left Stormwind for a while after that, getting too close to being caught before his evaluation of his situation was complete. The last thing he wanted to do was give those he cared about a false hope of his return if something suddenly went wrong.

Faustus instead went with Genn to Kul Tiras as he recovered, reprising his role briefly to work as an advisor to his team, to Genn, and to his brother as the alliance worked to bring the admiralty back into the faction. After a while after the incident and Liam was cleared to be alright for the time being, he returned to Faustus and his family to reveal his resurrection, Faustus being more than ecstatic to have an old friend and long time love back, and Genn quite frankly just being glad that he can, in fact, hold his son at least one last time before anything else happened. From there Faustus and Liam became a rather terrifying due who worked together to help clear the turmoil where they could, and Liam joined the Vanguard’s and became a major inspiration and leading force against the darker reaches of the time, working instead to fight against Azeroth’s deterioration and against the horrors of the deep.

———

So, there is everything I have so far, anything else as the story progresses will be updated onto this document, and I’ll have works, stories, and art pieces to go along with all this. If the read more didn’t work, I’m sorry, but I just wanted to have this all in one comprehensive place for my own reference as well. Thank you for reading :D

#writing #wow #Oc: Faustus #backstory #long post #a bit of a happy ending because im weak to shit like that #but hey #au #i guess #because liam isnt my character and what #goes on with him if anything isnt in my control in the actual canon #i do play him as a hunter tho #and i do admit that its fun running around as him #god this took forever #about... four days roughtly #maybe five #but I'm happy its done #woot

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spookykittenwrites · 4 years

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Not Nearly Deserving Enough, Just Deserving Too Much

[Anduin Wrynn/Mathias Shaw - Explicit - Fluff, Rough Sex, Name-Calling]

Anduin hides from his 18th name day celebration, still mourning his father and reeling from the war with the Legion. Shaw finds him and comforts him in ways neither of them expected to come to be, but both thoroughly enjoy nonetheless.

- Read on AO3 - (see here for warnings and tags)

The evening-darkened halls of Stormwind Castle’s upper floors were, in Mathias Shaw’s professional and personal opinion, far too shadowed and easy to sneak through unnoticed. Currently, however, his need to go unnoticed outweighed his concern. The Legion was defeated, their homes and families safe once again, and the city was holding a festival to honor those lost, celebrate their victory, and congratulate the King on his 18th name day. And yet, for all King Anduin Wrynn loved his people, and had every reason to take a night to celebrate as a young man should, he was nowhere to be seen.

This had happened before, of course, when one of the Alliance’s heroes had brought Anduin his father’s broken compass that they had recovered from the Broken Shore, and then the young King retreated to the cathedral for a concerning length of time to try and find peace. This time, however, Shaw suspected Anduin had not retreated to a place so public where he might be recognized and asked to join the festivities, and was much more likely hiding in or around the castle observatory that had fallen out of use since Tiffin’s death. While he’d kept it a secret from his father, Anduin had been as fond of the stars as his mother and used to sneak into the observatory as a child. Since becoming King he had it restored, though rarely staffed, and often went there to escape his duties as King and the lingering ghost of his father when he couldn't bear either. Today, likely the cause was both.

Shaw approached quietly and paused at the door, listening for sounds. A loud crash from within and what sounded like a sob drew him in before he could think, breaking his stealth as he opened and closed the door and rushed to the weeping form of his King on his knees on the marble floor.

“What’s wrong, my Liege?” he was at his side in an instant and Anduin jumped at his sudden appearance.

“When did you get here, Shaw?” he asked, looking up from the floor with tears streaking his cheeks.

“Just now, I was worried about you so I thought I’d look for you here.”

Anduin huffed, “Of course you know where I’d go to hide from all that nonsense about my name day. I suppose I’d be disappointed in your skills as a spymaster if you didn’t, but I am irritated you didn’t seem to get that I’m here to be alone.”

“I’m more than aware that you seek solitude, my King. I’m here to remind you that your duty is to be with your people today,” Shaw informed him, but seeing his despair at the thought amended, “You need to make an appearance, anyway.”

“Why, Shaw? What the fuck is the point? Of any of this?” Anduin just shook his head, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “They’re all out there celebrating my 18th name day as if we didn’t lose our King, as if we didn’t lose so many of our forces… as if I didn’t lose my father . How am I supposed to celebrate finally being an ‘adult’ when I’ve had to be one through so much tragedy already?”

He sounded heartbroken, and it was killing Shaw inside to have to insist that he leave this small bubble of peace he had built for himself. Carefully preparing something to say that would comfort him and convince him to leave, Anduin interrupted him before he could even speak, “I was supposed to do this with him, Mathias, how the fuck am I supposed to do it alone?”

“Genn’s here and Jaina’s even come for the festival. You’re not alone, my King.”

“But they’re not here. And don’t call me that, I am hardly fit to be King right now.”

“You are fit to be a King, and you're a good one at that. You know how to take advice and listen to council and that is in my experience the most important skill a King can possess,” Shaw replied, trying despite the intimacy of the gesture to wipe the tears from his King’s face.

Anduin recoiled from his touch, “We won this war with the Legion but at what cost, Shaw? And if it wasn’t for Illidan’s sacrifice we wouldn’t have won anyhow. So what use am I to my people?”

“No less use than Sylvanas is to hers, seeing as she could not achieve any more for the Horde than you could for the Alliance,” Shaw hoped the sentiment would comfort him, but it just seemed to set him more on edge.

“I understand what you’re trying to say, Shaw, but I don't want to be compared to her.”

“I’m sorry, my King.”

“Don’t call me that!” Shaw was almost as shocked by the tone of command in his voice as he was by the immediate sobbing he fell into afterwards.

“I’m sorry.” Shaw quickly calculated, and took a risk, “I’m here, Anduin.”

He reached out slowly, the way one does to a scared stray animal and felt the tension in his chest release when Anduin leaned into his touch this time. Wiping the tears from his cheeks he was briefly struck by how much this “boy” was turning into a man, what was probably a day of stubble scratching against his bare palms, and his jaw and nose were more pronounced in close proximity than they seemed from afar.

“You’re beautiful,” the words escaped his mouth before he could stop them but with the way the man’s pupils dilated and his cheeks flushed, Shaw doubted Anduin cared.

“Mathias,” Anduin murmured, and then he was grasping the front of Shaw’s armor and tugging him into a kiss.

He should stop him, must stop him really, but the thought was secondary to the warmth of Anduin’s lips pressing against his own, the slick heat of a tongue sliding along his bottom lip and the soft sigh the man made when he did it, and Shaw found himself powerless to resist. Moving his hands, which still rested on the sides of Anduin’s face, around to the sides of his neck he angled Anduin’s head to kiss him deeper, slipping his tongue between the young man’s lips when he opened them at his prompting. Fuck he was barely a man, just coming of age that day, but he was also his king, his ruler, and who was he to deny him this, or anything really.

Almost as if reading his mind, Anduin pulled back just a hair, swallowing audibly, “Mathias, I want this, I want you. But I need to know you don’t think I’m ordering you? You… you can leave, if that’s what you want.”

“I should… we can’t do this, Anduin, it’s not right,” but he didn’t want to stop, he didn’t want to give up the warmth and weight of the man in front of him.

“I didn’t ask if it was right, Mathias, I asked if you wanted it. Do you want me? Do you want to be here with me?”

“Yes,” came his immediate and entirely truthful response, because he did want this, wanted it more than he could fathom for all its absurdity, and he knew he could never lie to Anduin. Then, a thought occurred to him, “And what do you want, Anduin?”

“I…” he bit his lip and looked away, embarrassed, “I’ve never…”

That, Shaw knew, but he could tell the man was uncomfortable talking about it and he didn’t push the issue, “Doesn’t mean you don’t want things.”

“Heh, yeah I guess not,” Anduin paused, as if trying to find words. “I want you to fuck me.”

Shaw suddenly felt dizzy from how quickly the blood from his head rushed to his groin. Oh, but he wanted that, and he wanted it desperately, “Yeah, yes, Anduin, I can do that.” He peppered kissing along the column of his throat, “Anything else?”

“Yeah but I’m… I’m not sure how to ask without sounding crazy?” Anduin’s eyelids were fluttering beautifully at the small kisses but he still seemed nervous and tense.

“Try, and I won’t judge you if you sound insane. I promise.” He suckled a little on the skin over his rapid pulse and Anduin whined high in his throat. Beautiful, Shaw thought, and pressed the word into the soft flesh in front of him with this teeth.

“Hurt me? Please?” Anduin asked, small and shy sounding around the little moans he kept making.

Shaw pulled away to look at him, unsure, “What do you mean by that? I want to understand so I don’t do something you don’t want.”

“I’m not really sure I just… I don’t want you to be gentle with me. I don’t know how to explain it,” Anduin seemed to consider for a moment, “Sorry I know that isn’t clear.”

Resisting the need to sigh, Shaw pulled away and positioned them sitting with just a little distance between their crossed legs, “Do you mean you want me to be cruel to you? To mock you and laugh at you?”

A flash of hurt, genuine and unrestrained, crossed Anduin’s face and Shaw knew he’d missed the mark even before the man was shaking his head, “No, no. Please don’t do that, I don't think I could take you being well… I suppose I did ask you to hurt me but, no, I don’t mean emotionally.”

“So nothing verbal then? No name calling or humiliation?” Shaw waited for him to shake his head again, but he didn’t, seeming to pause at something. “What is it Anduin?”

“Name calling?”

“Yeah. Some people like being called derogatory terms in bed.”

“Like? Could you give me an example?”

“Well, the first thing that comes to mind would be whore , but it could be anything that would be considered offensive really.”

The blush that had been fading from his pale cheeks returned full force and Anduin’s eyes went just a little glassy, “Um.. right. That might, um, might be good for me. Please. But I… I think I want to be, I don’t even know if this makes sense, but good .”

Shaw cocked an eyebrow, lowering his voice just a hair to a deeper timber, “Do you want to be a good little whore for me, boy?”

And maybe the ‘boy’ part was a bit much, but it felt right when he said it, and if the way Anduin’s lids fluttered and he whined high in his throat was any indication, he liked it too. Anduin nodded vigorously, “Please.”

He was leaning forward, one hand reaching out for him but Shaw stopped him, “Wait.” Authority laced his words and Anduin’s whole body froze in response, “We aren’t done discussing this yet. Okay?”

“Okay,” Anduin replied, sitting back and knitting his hands together in his lap. He seemed impatient but like he was paying attention. Good enough.

“You said you wanted to be hurt but not verbally. Did you mean physically then?” He asked.

“Yes please,” and wasn’t that something, to have this beautiful young man asking him so politely to hit him.

“How? Do you want me to bite you? Scratch you? Pull your hair?”

He nodded enthusiastically, “Yes please.”

“Hmm,” Shaw considered for a moment whether it was more than he wanted to offer, “And your thoughts on spanking?”

“ Please ,” Anduin wheezed, leaning forward a hint before correcting himself and sitting back up straight, looking almost pained at the distance between them.

“Good. Good boy, come here,” Shaw praised, guiding him into his lap and pulling him into a kiss.

He let his hand thread through soft blond hair and, just as Anduin tried to deepen the kiss, tugged just hard enough to give him a jolt. Anduin moaned, full voiced and trembling, into the space between them, and Shaw slipped his mouth down to nip at his jaw. Every nip, every gentle bite hard enough to feel but not enough to bruise, every tug on his golden locks had Anduin shaking in his lap, and as he trailed his lips further down his neck to where the collar of his shirt would hide a mark and bit down hard, the younger man’s hips jerked.

Shaw suckled the skin near his collarbone, rejoicing in the way Anduin shook, the way his hips ground forward against his own groin needily, the way his voice pitched and broke with every moan that escaped his lips. He was beautiful, stunning, sublime in his lap, a holy thing more than worthy of worship and oh, did he intend to bathe him in his love. Pulling away elicited a desperate whine from Anduin, but it ended when Shaw shifted them to lay him down on his back. “I’m going to undress you now. If you want me to stop at any point you tell me, alright?”

“Yes, I will,” Anduin nodded at him, mussing his hair against the plush rug he was laid out on.

“Good boy,” Shaw smirked at the little groan the praise made rise from his lips, and began undressing him.

Trying his best to go slow was torturous, but he wanted to give Anduin time to back out of each garment being removed just in case. Starting with his boots, unlacing them patiently and slipping them off his surprisingly delicate feet, he placed them off to the side along with his socks. He placed a kiss to the arch of each foot, earning him a giggle from the younger man.

“Your mustache tickles,” he half-whispered, voice mostly relaxed but for a small hint of tension underneath that sounded like nerves.

“Sorry,” he wasn’t sorry, really, and did it again, smiling when Anduin full on laughed and tried to pull his leg away. Shaw let him and moved forward to start untucking and unbuttoning his shirt. Focusing on the buttons one by one and keeping the tremble of excitement out of his fingers with the practice only one so skilled in lockpicking might possess, he slowly divested Anduin of his shirt and pulled him up to a sitting position briefly to pull it away. Anduin leaned forward and kissed him while he was sitting up and Mathias allowed it, returning it with fervor.

He put his palm to the warm bared skin of Anduin’s chest and pressed him back, “Lie back now, boy. Let me take care of you.”

Anduin whimpered and did as he was asked, and Shaw kissed a line down from his sternum to the softness of his lower belly, nipping and biting the skin as he went. He nuzzled into the soft flesh as his fingers pried the button and laces of his pants open, biting down and sucking hard right above the hem of his trousers hoping to leave a bruise. Laces undone, he drew away to tug them down and felt like he’d been shocked at the sight of the man naked beneath them.

“Well, aren’t you the little whore, not even wearing underwear? Did you hope someone would stumble upon you and punish you for evading the festivities with a cock in you? Is that it, hmm?” He reached out and pushed one of his thighs toward his chest, running his thumb over the wet dampness of curls between his legs. “And so wet and eager for me already, what a good whore.”

Shaw flung the pants away somewhere to the side, then went right back to where he’d settled himself between the man’s lean legs, enjoying the musky, salty smell of his sex. He spread him with one thumb and leaned in to dip his tongue in to taste him. Anduin jolted, voice pitching into a whine and thighs tensing, “Oh fuck please.”

“Patience, whore,” he commanded, then carded the fingers of his free hand through the thick blond hair around his cunt, tugging lightly just to watch Anduin squirm, and using his thumb to draw back the hood to his cock. This time he licked all the way up from his entrance to the hard, engorged flesh and drew it into his mouth, smirking around it as Anduin shook, hands fisted in the rug and voice cracking as he moaned.

So fucking sublime, he though to himself, watching Anduin fall apart as he repeated the action, then again, before settling himself down a little further and thrusting his whole tongue into Anduin, feeling his own cock twitch in his pants when he clenched down on the intrusion. He kept the thrusts slow but deep, curling his tongue to find the one spot that would make him scream and thumbing over his cock at the same slow pace, and Anduin’s sounds rose in pitch and volume rapidly, leg physically trembling against Shaw’s shoulder as he got closer to orgasm.

Not wanting to pull away, Shaw released his grip on Anduin’s leg and searched around on the ground for the other man’s hand, placing it on the back of his thigh, hoping he would understand what he meant for him to do. He did, thankfully, and when Anduin’s grip on his own leg tightened Shaw moved his hand away and plunged two fingers inside him along with his tongue. Anduin screamed, a cracked, shrill sound that made Shaw’s cock absolutely ache, and gushed into his mouth.

Mathias continued though gentled his ministrations through the aftershocks and pulsing of his cunt, enjoying the heady, musky taste of Anduin’s pleasure, not letting up until the man whimpered and tried to nudge him away with his free leg. He pulled back, satisfied with himself at the wrecked state the younger man was is, hair tousled from where he’d been gripping it and scratches on the back of his thigh from where he’d dug his nails into the flesh.

“Good?”

“Yeah. Yeah, fuck Mathias.”

He chuckled and used the hand that wasn’t covered in Anduin’s come to lift his free leg to his lips and kissed the inside of his knee, watching him carefully, “Ready to keep going?”

“I… Soon, just give me a few seconds,” Anduin’s eyes strayed to the way Shaw’s cock strained against the front of his leathers, looking almost apologetic.

Shaw placed a finger under his chin and raised his face to look him in the eyes, “Don’t worry about me, I’ll get mine, I’m sure.”

“Right… Okay. I think I’m good just be gentle?”

“Okay, but I have a question for you first.” Anduin looked at him curiously and he leaned down to cover the smaller man’s torso with his own, damp mouth brushing his ear and voice returning to a huskier timber of command, “Does it make you hot that I have you spread out on the floor naked like a common street whore during Midsummer when I’m fully clothed?”

Anduin choked, “I… I, oh fuck yes, yes, it does. I like being your whore.”

“You like knowing you’re just a pretty little toy for me to pleasure myself with?” he asked, digging his nails into Anduin’s hips as hard as he dared and dragging them along the skin, raising welts as they went. “You like feeling powerless in my hands? Knowing that I can do whatever I want to you if it makes me feel good?”

“Yes, I… please, please just fuck me. Please.” Anduin was panting, eyes screwed shut and back arched from just that simple touch. Clearly he liked pain more than Shaw had anticipated. Interesting.

“Needy little whore, aren’t you? If you need my cock so bad you’re gonna have to work for it bitch. Turn over.” He slapped the outside of his thigh and backed away enough that Anduin could reposition himself on his stomach, which he did with eagerness, “Good whore, keep it up and I might just let you come again.”

He let his hand fall a little more harshly than he normally would have dared on one of his asscheeks and smirked when Anduin arched his back and moaned in response, “Up on your knees, boy, I want that cunt on display for me.”

Anduin did as he was told, propping his weight up on his knees and arching his back in a sultry display of want. Mathias reached out and massaged his ass roughly with one hand, spreading him so that his other hand could slip two fingers in with ease. The younger man was soaked and he squelched around his fingers as they pumped in and out of his body, which probably should have been gross but instead it only served to remind Shaw of just how much he wanted him and how ready he was for his cock. He added a third finger, spreading them wider to stretch him as they left his body with each thrust of his hand, and watched how the boy quivered under his hands with rapture.

He took the hand off Anduin’s ass to squeeze himself in his leathers, hips jolting forward without his full consent, then worked to release his cock from the confines of his clothes. After a moment of uncharacteristic fumbling he succeeded, and pumped his cock a few times to spread the precum gathered at the head over his shaft and brought it to line up with Anduin’s entrance. Pulling his fingers out of Anduin and spreading the slick on them over his cock as well, he paused with the head pressed against his body, “You sure you want this, Anduin? You can’t take it back once it’s done.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I want it, Mathias, please. Please fuck me?” he was trembling but even still reached his hands back to spread his hole open, managing to slip Shaw into his body just an inch with the position he was in but he moaned loud against the rug nonetheless.

Mathias shot his hand forward to catch Anduin’s hip, holding him in place, “If you’re sure.” And then he started to enter him properly, slow and steady despite every instinct telling him to just fuck into him with abandon. He was hot inside and so, so slick. “Perfect, you’re perfect, Anduin. Fuck. So good for me, such a good little whore. My good boy.”

Anduin whined as he entered his body, spine arching so much it looked painful, but the way he clawed at the rug beneath him and the way his toes curled told Shaw that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Once fully seated, he gave himself a second or two to calm the racing in his blood and get a better hold of his inhibitions, but then he started to move and it slipped from his grip like dry sand. His hips moved of their own volition, nails digging into the fat at Anduin’s hips and raking harsh lines that felt like ownership on the pale skin, and leaning over him somewhat precariously to dig his teeth into the flesh of his neck.

He moved one hand to the floor next to Anduin’s head to steady himself and fucked into him harder, each thrust loud and harsh in the quiet observatory, and when it still didn’t feel like quite enough he laced his other hand through the boy’s hair and pulled him up from the floor at an arch that tightened his body around his cock deliciously. Anduin put a hand down to help support himself, using the extra support to gain enough leverage to push back into each of Shaw’s thrust, and suddenly he found himself dangerously close to the edge.

“Touch yourself,” he grunted, tugging on Anduin’s hair sharply and smirking at the way he gasped in response.

He did, and something about feeling the way his shoulder flexed with the movement against his own bicep where they pressed together was absurdly hot and Shaw felt himself stumbling toward orgasm faster and faster. “Come on whore, come for me.” A solid tug on his hair, “ Come.”

And with a cry that broke into silence as his whole upper body, voice and all, gave, he did. Anduin shook, whole body trembling and pulled taut as a leather band ready to snap, and the rhythmic clenching of his cunt around Mathias’s cock sent him right over the edge with him. He had half a mind to pull out, but he couldn’t control himself well enough in time as his body threw itself into pleasure, and he collapsed forward onto Anduin with a shout that faded into a wheezy groan as his cock twitched and unloaded into the smaller man. His King , his brain reminded him suddenly, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care as Anduin’s body quivered and shook around his cock and in his arms.

He let himself down as slowly as he could with muscles that felt half-liquid and came to rest on his side next to Anduin on the rug, pulling his still-mostly-hard cock out as he went and they both groaned at the feeling. Anduin collapsed onto his front, then looked over at him and dragged his body over to drape across Shaw’s chest.

“Thanks,” he muttered, almost seeming embarrassed.

“I should be the one thanking you,” Shaw replied, bringing a hand up to run through Anduin’s hair. “You were incredible Anduin, fucking incredible.”

Anduin hummed, running his hands along the lines of the front of Shaw’s armor, “Is it weird that I wish you were naked now that we’re not fucking even if I liked you being dressed when you were railing me?”

“Not at all. Do you want me to undress?” He meant it fully, of course. He would do anything Anduin asked of him right now, and if he was being honest he was missing the skin on skin contact too.

“No, I think I’d rather get dressed to even us out. It’s kind of cold in here actually, now that I’m not distracted,” he laughed a little, more of a huff than anything, but Shaw felt endeared nonetheless.

“Fair enough, let me help you,” he sat up and reached out for the younger man’s shirt, handing it to him before tucking his own dick away and going in search of his pants. He found them draped half over a table in the corner, and carefully extracted them without knocking anything on said table over. When he returned with them Anduin was finishing buttoning his shirt closed and he took the pants with a smile but no words, getting dressed silently from there.

As they both finished fixing their appearances their eyes met in the dim room and something bubbled in the room that tasted like the last remnants of pleasure and good humor, and they both started giggling like children. “This is the most absurd thing I’ve done since I let Edwin talk me into giving him a blowjob under the stairs at the Pig and Whistle,” Shaw admitted, and Anduin smiled at him softly.

He approached and pulled him into a kiss that was far too gentle and attached for what this should have been left as, “I know we shouldn't have, and definitely shouldn’t again, but…” he looked away for a moment, “But I don’t want this to be it. I’m sure I’m just being sentimental because it’s my first time and all…”

“No, you’re not. There isn’t much I want more in this world right now than an easy retirement and to keep you as my own. I’m… I’m sorry that can’t be real, Anduin,” Shaw tipped his face up and kissed him all soft and meaningful again, just enough heat to show him how much he still wanted him despite the fact that it couldn’t be.

“I suppose you have to drag me to this damn carnival now, don’t you?”

“Genn will get suspicious if I don’t,” he explained only half apologetic.

Anduin sighed, “Well, at least I’m more relaxed now.” Then he smiled at Shaw, through his lashes and looking coy as hell, “Thank you for your service, spymaster.”

He choked, “Always a pleasure to service the crown, my Liege.”

Anduin laughed, leaning up to kiss him one more time before heading to the door, “Let’s get going then. If we’re lucky we’ll make it there before Genn starts interrogating people about my whereabouts.”

Shaw chuckled, and followed behind, unable to help the way his eyes were drawn to the King’s ass as he walked.

#world of warcraft #world of warcraft fanfiction #anduin wrynn #mathias shaw #trans anduin wrynn #trans smut by a trans author

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lothirielswan · 5 years

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“The World’s Smallest Violin” [13]

~The Darkmoon Faire~

I saw him first. The case to my violin fit perfectly in my hand as I walked. Braizers spat violet flames. The Darkmoon Faire was a carnival full of magic and mystery. It only seemed to remind me of Lisa.

It was late in the evening, where shadows played tricks on the mind and people flocked like moths to the one source of light. Rides with blinking bulbs were blocked by crowds as I strolled to the patch of picnic tables and set down my case.

“So who won?” I asked Kalec.

Kalec’s eyes were wide upon first seeing me, but there were more pressing sights, specifically him. His leather armor was tattered and the cream-colored shirt underneath was in shreds.

Kalec didn't answer. He simply took a long drink from his mug and muttered in a hoarse voice, “Wrath’s a bastard.”

The wooden seat creaked as I sat down across from him. I edged my violin case to the side and positioned my bright-colored boots on one of the ledges below. “At least he can't say you’re invisible anymore.”

Kalec just out his jaw and my outfit. “Neither can he say that about you. What in Azeroth’s name are you wearing?”

“This?” I glanced down at the glistening teal fabric that would mean death in my rogue profession. That was not my job today. Gallywix–erm, Jastor had paid me, not in gold, but with a gig. He must’ve noticed the sheet music lying around my house. I wasn't serious about my music, but this opportunity lifted my suspicious mood. It seemed like a secret message from Jastor, specifically saying, ‘I like you, but I can still stick you wherever I want, Red–be a lamb and skin an exotic animal for my Pleasure Palace.’ Maybe it wasn't entirely that, but somewhere along those lines.

“Performers wear exotic things, and I thought you knew it's my job to embarrass you.” I teased.

“I thought your job was making me uncomfortable.”

“That’s part time. Different hours.”

“Ah. My mistake.”

Kalec sighed. His massive shoulder slumped forward, and I caught a glimpse of the bruises left behind in Wrathion’s wake. I squinted at a deep gash above his brow, “Wrath really did a number on you.”

“I don't know who taught him to punch that hard, or throw dirt in my face–” Kalec took one glance at my face. “–nevermind.”

I was about to say something else when Kalec’s gaze left me. He was staring at something behind me. It left him with a puzzled expression.

“You know...I think I need to go find something,” Kalec stood abruptly from the table. His mug still remained where it was, little drops of dew chasing each other down to the wooden counter.

“What's that?” I asked.

He smirked. “The world’s smallest violin.”

He ran off without another word. When he was out of sight, I glanced down at his unpaid drink and sighed. He didn't even leave me any. That's not funny.

“Eona?”

I looked up at a dark hooded figure. He was disguised well, but his posture was too perfect to be anyone else. I recognized the shadows of his face and smiled. “Hi, Tall, Dark and Mysterious.”

Anduin eased into Kalec’s empty spot, fixing his brown hood as he cast a look around. His stare trickled down to my outfit, “Greetings, you look...stunning.”

I tucked my bangs behind my ear, “Thanks, I guess we’re both wearing disguises. What’s the story behind yours?”

“You first,” He chided, resting his arms on the table.

We glanced up as fireworks fizzled across the cloudy twilight sky. When I shrugged my shoulders, the rubbery fabric seemed to give off its own light. It hugged my figure well and left my arms bare to the gentle touch of the breeze. “I play music. Jastor set it up for me.”

“You play?”Andy glanced at the black case with interest.

“Mhm.”

He grinned. “I’ll have to hear you sometime.”

I bobbed my head at his faded leathers. “And you?”

“Genn thinks that he's the new authority figure in my life and grounded me. I snuck out,” He explained with just a hint of irritation.

My eyebrow rose, and I wore a playful smile as I said, “How devious.”

“You should see me when I’m playing Hearthstone,” He replied.

I laughed, my fingers locking into knots on the table.

“So why did you come here?” I asked.

“To see you, actually...I have something for you.” Andy’s gloved hands searched his coat pockets until he came across a crinkly item. He gave me a letter.

“What's this?” I stared at the parchment. There wasn't wax sealing the opening, and the paper looked too fragile to be new. I glanced up at him for an answer.

“Not too long ago, you sent me a letter when…” Anduin paused. The words that came next were barely above a croak. “When my father died.”

My eyes widened. He went on, “I can't thank you enough for sending that...it gave me hope. I wrote a letter to you, in response to it, but I wanted to give it to you myself...and I have no idea how you got yours to Stormwind Keep.”

I smirked, but I didn't reveal my secret yet. I held up the letter, “Do you mind…?”

“No, not at all. It's for you, please,” Andy made an encouraging gesture toward it with his hand. The paper whispered it's protest as I undid the flap and my eyes flit over the slightly aged words,

My Dearest Eona,

I miss you more than ever. I miss your warmth, your liveliness, your laugh. I loathe the formality and distance that others treat me with, especially now. My father is gone, and I do not even have the luxury to grieve. There’s just the invasion...and the throne.

“You sound like you were in love with me,” I couldn’t stop my lips from curving up. He did write me one or two letters when we dated. I loved them–I think they’re probably still at my house. The curse of the dragon, finding value in everything. I can never throw anything away.

“I cared about you very much, and it was an emotional time.” Anduin licked his lips. His face had aged twenty years. I continued on,

Yes, I did get your last letter, and I don't know how you did it. How did you get the Alliance to accept your letter? It’s another one of the beautiful mysteries I remember about you, and hopefully one day, you will tell me. It is still my objective to achieve peace, I just wish my father would have seen it...the pain that I still receive from when Garrosh dropped the bell seems like a reminder. A reminder that in the end, I’m broken. A reminder that I failed once before, and it can happen again. I just hope everyone else doesn’t suffer with me.

Thank you for reaching out to me. I lost my father, but at least I still have you, Pink Rose. I wish you all the luck in the world to fight the Legion.

~Always Yours,

Anduin

For a long moment, my attention lingered on the last pair of perfect cursive words. Always Yours. We had gone our separate ways after Pandaria–I even started to see someone else when I was chasing Garrosh across a lively Draenor. Was it as serious as what I had with Anduin? Perhaps not. But this letter wasn't that old–a year, at least. It was recent.

Wait...pain from the bell?

I remembered my deal with Alexstrasza the Life Binder. I would spend time on the icy continent of Northrend, and she would heal Anduin’s wounds from the incident. I did what I was told. I endured my pain so she could take away his. But now...it was all for nothing.

I glanced up at Andy’s face, shocked by how much older he seemed than a mere handful of years ago. I finally recognized the slight indent of his brow, not out of concentration, but of restrained agony.

Anduin knew nothing of the deal, and I didn't want to discuss it now. Everything else I had read came back to me.

“You’re not broken, Andy,” I said, reaching across the table to give his hand a comforting squeeze. “Your father would be proud of you. You are a magnificent ruler.”

How could Varian not be proud? He’s so endearing–DAMMIT.

Anduin smiled, but it appeared more like a grimace. The air had gone from merry to melancholy. He dipped his head, “I believe you...thank you, Eona.”

He lies. I hide. We really are quite a pair.

As silence settled upon us, I plopped a few of my earnings in Kalec’s empty mug and slid it away. The blissful mirth of others mocked our ears. Two kids sped past, chasing one another. Despite the foul mood, a smile crossed my face.

“You like kids?”

“Hmm?” I glanced back up with surprise, my chin propped up by my elbows. Anduin’s gaze was curious. I said, “Yes. I babysit for Aggra and Go’el sometimes…”

“You never struck me as someone who wanted children,” Andy’s tone was softer than the hollow form it had taken on earlier. There was more life in his eyes.

“Liking little ones doesn't mean the same as wanting them,” I cautioned with a finger, “but in this case...I do. There weren’t a lot of children around on...where I was raised. I always thought it would be nice.”

It was a sad, hopeful dream born of a crumbling rock and the girl that lived on it. A cozy hearth. A jubilant family. My mother would dismiss it, finding it unfulfilling. In a way, I had already come very close to it. But I wasn't there.

“Let’s play a game,” Anduin said, straightening himself and returning to his poised, elegant state of sitting.

I smirked, “Andy, we both know you’ll beat my ass at Hearthstone. You don't have to prove that point again.”

“Not that,” I earned a chuckle from him. Andy continued, “We’ve been catching up already, but I want to try a different way.”

“Alright…” I found myself stiffening, as if expecting a blow. “What do you propose?”

Anduin stood from the table and presented his hand to me. “Truth or Tale?”

“You first.” I replied, rising from the picnic table with my instrument case in hand.

We walked side by side, a shady stranger and a wild-looking gypsy touring the Darkmoon Faire. Sizzles and pops and flashes tricked my senses as we strolled together. Anduin had offered to hold my case like the courteous gentleman he was, but I politely refused.

“Alright, I think I’ve got one,” Andy replied as we continued down the dirt row and passed tents full of applause. “I thought I saw my mother attend my father’s funeral.”

My feet came to a halt on the earthen path. He never mentioned his mother before.

“Truth?” I replied, willing my legs to keep moving as we heard the soft beckoning of the harbor.

Andy nodded. I asked, “You really think you saw her?”

“I never even met her; I barely know what she looks like. Used to have dreams about her when I was younger…” Anduin was full of wistfulness as he seemed to see something else besides the pointed roofs of tents. After a while he returned to the present. “Your turn.”

“Um…” My grip tightened on my case as I thought of what I could say. Hmm, should I use…? No, that’s too personal. How about…

“Vol’jin is the actual owner of my house,” I said.

Andy’s eyebrows furrowed. “Tale?”

There was a slight shake of my head. “Truth.”

“How come?” Andy asked. We came to the end of the Darkmoon Faire, looking out at the sea that surrounded the whole island. Waves reached out across the sand for a lost loved one that was no longer there.

“After chasing Garrosh…” Across Draenor. “we decided it was in everyone’s best interest that I retire.”

“How come?”

I leaned my case against the dark wood of the dock and faced the yearning waves.

“It's your turn.” I rasped.

#thrilling adventures of eona #World of Warcraft #world of warcraft fanfic #kalecgos #gallywix #Anduin Wrynn #eona strider

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silverfronds · 5 years

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D&D ask meme

1. A favorite character you have played.

Naivera, obviously

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

Elgra!!!!!!!!!!! Also my daughter kelgra

3. Your favorite side quest.

I think it has to be secretly bringing Yuriel to aliance-occupied Dalaran to conduct a massive concert in the square all in order to perform one song that I actually wrote to convince the common folk that Sylvanas wanted to fuck Jaina

4. Your current campaign.

I mean, you already know... Basically we're following the unfortunate plot of battle for azeroth with 90% more focusing on romantic side plots that don't matter to the fate of the world except THEY DO

5. Favorite NPC.

Uhhhh....... Maybe khadgar because I agree it's fun to constantly dunk on him. Actually you know what, it's more fun to make fun of anduin. I also love any plot with oily boobs orc

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Yeah......yuriel falling down the stairs and dying is just iconic

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Does this mean what the characters do when they aren't battling or whatever? Because obviously the answer is be with Elgra ❤

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

The bear god

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

It's interactive story-telling and acting and improv in a relaxed setting, with your friends, and with a story that is entirely your own so you can get incredibly invested

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I straight up can't think of a favorite enemy lol.... But most hated enemy? Malfurion can certainly suck my dick at any time. Also alonsus faol, who WILL be getting murdered at some point. You know what, the best enemy might be my old possessed knife

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

On average 3 times a month. I would be fine with once a week but honestly I'd easily play twice a week

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Do we even have catchphrases?

13. Introduce your current party.

Mean but big-hearted gothic pillow princess, blonde lovable musician slash scamp, 8 foot purple furry, tired teenage goat alien, an angel who came to live among us, and altariko

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

We shan't mention nalyn's group

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Rarely

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Online but yeah I'd love to play in-person at some point

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

More casual with the rules, and I wouldn't play any other way because I'm normal

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope 🤐🤐🤐

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Nope

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

I got into dnd, in the sense of actually trying to get something organized, in 2016 after stranger things came out. Also started getting into the adventure zone around that time. So yeah like 2 1/2 years

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Yepppp! She's a chaotic bitch what can I say. Some of us are impulsive!!!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Honestly in-game I have a dragon mount called a twilight drake so I guess like really dark blue

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original-ish but I'd still love to adapt the adventure zone balance someday...........................

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

Yeah none

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

Wizard, elf

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

Caster

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

I love developing characters, I just let them speak to me. They will tell you their story. You will think of things and they'll feel unnatural so you adapt it, etc. Obviously I think there's some aspect of borrowing from stories or tropes you like as well

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

About half and half. I try to pick spells that I believe fit the story of my character...what would this person have wanted to learn? But then there are essential spells like message/sending that would break the game if you didn't have them

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

All of it

#personal #text

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under-the-lake · 5 years

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Crimes of Grindelwald - First Impressions

WARNING: THIS PAPER IS FULL TO THE BRIM WITH SPOILERS

I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Crimes of Grindelwald on 14th November, when it was released in Switzerland. I had read quite a lot about it before, had asked a lot of questions (see this paper for them; it was written before the final trailer was out: http://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/176871006891/it-has-to-be-you-fantastic-beasts-the-second ), and got some answers and quite a number of new questions. Here’s a first and short delivery of my mind ramblings, but I need to see the film a couple more times to have all the details ready for a deeper delve into it.

The title of that first paper on Crimes of Grindelwald was It Has to Be You. I was sort of gutted because it seemed that this series was going to be The Chosen One all over again, but IT IS NOT, which makes me very happy. I liked the film, and I’m curious to see how the plot develops from here. I thought there would be more plot development, but actually this second film is preparing the Chessboard for the real action, I guess, narrowing the focus and clarifying loyalties and challenges.

The Crimes of Grindelwald (CoG) is, on the whole, the start of the Real Thing. Only the start, mind. Seeing the trailers and all the online theorising made me think that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was only some sort of prologue to the other four films. After having seen CoG, I reckon it’s right. If we compare with Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring, Fantastic Beasts was the first 500 pages, until the Company reaches Rivendell, and CoG is the bit from Rivendell to Lothlórien and the journey on the Anduin to the Falls of Rauros. So a bit slow, but setting everything that needs to be set for the rest of the plot to actually get going smoothly.

The film starts at MACUSA (and NOT the American Ministry of Magic, as stated in the film and unfortunately in the script as well- it was not canon), with Grindelwald being moved to Europe for trial. A couple of things happen here that were sort of easy to figure out would: Grindelwald escapes (that was obvious), with the help of Abernathy (which wasn’t obvious for everyone, I guess), and he has the Elder Wand and a pendant that holds some kind of blood-coloured moving liquid. You might ask why I thought Abernathy was going to betray MACUSA. Well, Abernathy (pic below) was always too oily towards Percival Graves not to be the local Pettigrew, wasn’t he.

Grindelwald’s pendant is a bit weird, at the beginning, because it apparently serves Abernathy to save his own life when he puts it into his mouth? Of course, later in the film we learn what it is, namely a blood pact of nonaggression between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that they made when meeting in Godric’s Hollow, 30 or so years before. So THAT is the reason why Dumbledore cannot attack Grindelwald. Unless he destroys it, which we can guess he’ll end up doing because otherwise the Chocolate Frog Cards and A History of Magic are lying. Newt’s Niffler sees to the pendant’s being stolen from Grindelwald during that Germania-type meeting in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise at the end of the film, that is so reminiscent of gatherings of Nazi or Fascists during the rise of extremist governments after WW1.

I LOVE Newt’s basement. Just LOVE it. Even that Kelpie I was so very skeptical about. Those animals are great. I’d have loved to see more of them, and also more of the baby Nifflers, but they are all cute. The funniest, though, must be the Augurey, particularly because of the interaction it has with Jacob. Bunty, on the other hand, is just a flat version of Lavender Brown, and doesn’t seem to fill any role in the film. Is she going to be there later? Meh, for the moment I couldn’t care less.

About the new creatures we see in the film, they are really cool. Apart from the Matagots. I mean not the creatures per se, but the way it is so obvious they are CGI compared to the rest, which are brilliant work.

The Kelpie is great, but I still don’t get how Newt can have domesticated it as an underwater creature. It goes against all the lore and even against his own book. Or is it that it’s one more creature he’s nurturing back to health? Still, they tend to eat humans, Keplies do.

The star of the creature show, apart from the Niffler, who’s discreet but capital, is the Zouwu (see picture above), a sort of Chinese dragon, that Newt frees from his chains and that becomes a valuable ally. It is really amazing.

Now Queenie and Jacob. Well, that was sort of foreseeable, wasn’t it? I mean that they end up together. I (and other people online as well) had thought that since the Swooping Evil Venom used at the end of the first film didn’t really Obliviate people but only erased bad memories, Jacob couldn’t have lost his, since they weren’t bad. The last scene in his bakery at the end of the first film is clear enough about that. What is a bit far-fetched to me is the fact that Queenie thinks it obligatory to charm Jacob to make him follow her. Why? Because he wouldn’t leave his flourishing business? He does love her, so much so that he doesn’t want her to risk her liberty for him. She says it’s because of the laws: in the USA, relationships of any kind between the magical community and Muggles are strictly forbidden, and thus a marriage would end up with Queenie in prison and Jacob properly Obliviated (this time).

The use of a spell to enchant her lover reminds me a bit of Merope Gaunt, I must say, with the minor difference that Tom Riddle Sr. didn’t love Merope, and therefore her using a potion (yeh I know, Queenie used a spell) is more ‘understandable’. Plus, if the couple actually travels to Europe, why not marry there where the laws aren’t that primitive? Queenie suggests it, at some point, but Jacob still refuses. This is a complete mystery to me, I must admit. I mean the logic doesn’t fit.

BUT. If there was one of the four heroes who should rally Grindelwald, I thought it would have been Queenie, because she’s got a different sense of right and wrong, because she’s got that weakness when it comes to feelings, and because, on a more ‘evidence’ point of view, her head is straight under Grindelwald’s logo in the San Diego 2018 ComicCon poster. IT WAS QUEENIE. I’m glad she does. We’ll see how it gets going though, I’m rather curious about her future. Will she realise that whatever Grindelwald’s promises, Jacob is not part of them? And how come she doesn’t read his mind? Is Grindelwald using Occlumency against her? But she’s not a canon legilimens, whatever Rowling tries to explain about that. She can’t access people’s hidden stuff. Hmm…

However, I don’t think, as many reports do, that Queenie has turned evil. I reckon she’s only desperate to get above those MACUSA laws that prevent her marrying Jacob. She doesn’t think much, though, does she. Yet she’s been showing wit and presence of mind in the first film, where she plays an instrumental part in saving her friends: when she blackmailed that MACUSA official to get Jacob back, and helping the lot out of the building inside her suitcase. She knows how to use her charms with some cleverness and à-propos. So why the ruddy hell does she let herself draw in by Grindelwald? Why doesn’t she question his statements, while she knows who he is perfectly well? This is really weird. I mean she’d be the perfect character to show that it’s not because someone looks like the local Betty Boop she is a peabrain, and can do nothing of her life but be idle. She’d be superbe at that. Maybe she will, in the end, because she needs to travel through darkness to find her own light. Maybe we’ll have a spy again. Maybe… dunno. Maybe she’ll just stay with Grindelwald. Hope not, though.

About Obliviation…. I didn’t know that it also meant ‘removing only the bad memories off the head’. That sounds weird. So what the Swooping Evil Venom does is wipe off bad memories. That’s what Newt says in his suitcase to Jacob, in the first film (scene 46). Later, when the whole of New York needs to be Obliviated, he suggests the use of that same venom. If everyone in New York had their bad memories wiped off, that means they are starting a completely new life based only on their good memories from the whole of their lives. That’s a bit harsh, like a memory genocide. I mean imagine the whole city waking up and not knowing what bad things had happened, who is your foe or why you can’t get to do something you wanted? Plus, I’m sure that some people had good memories related to seeing creatures in Central Park or things like that. So they would still remember them. This isn’t canon Obliviation, and furthermore, doesn’t stick to the USA law that says wipe off ALL memories of magic from Muggles, not only the good ones. Mind you, how would it have looked like if they had been really Obliviated? A whole city of strangers? Big Loophole, I reckon. Which brings us back to Jacob’s situation. He apparently hasn’t forgotten about everything. But how could you say that being chased off by an Erumpent across Central Park could be a good memory? Yet Jacob hasn’t forgotten about them magical rhinos, since we can see Erumpent pastries in his bakery window display. This is all very strange. Kikimora suggested that actually after the canning factory (that sucks all the life out of him), having such an adventure can’t be a bad memory. I reckon she’s got a point here :P

Leta. Hm…. Well, she sacrifices herself in the end. Is that going to provide some kind of protection to the Scamander brothers? Or was it only because she couldn’t make up her mind between them or between light and darkness? Or because she was feeling too guilty? However, I’m glad that she’s not related to Credence, and that the Lestrange thing is something different. Leta is a complex character, and I’d have liked her to develop a bit more in the future films. It seems like a waste, for the moment.

Now there’s one question, from one snake to another. The Maledictus is Credence’s friend (or whatever you want to call that relationship of two scarred souls). She doesn’t really have a part to play in this film, but I guess that she’s not there for nothing, because of her name, for one. Nagini. That’s Voldemort’s pet snake, that Wormtail milked to feed him when he was trying to survive in Goblet of Fire, which makes me wonder, by the way: how can a snake be milked, unless the final transformation the Maledictus goes through is not complete, and that at the moment of transforming she is with a baby and breastfeeding. Plus, she’d be over 90 years old when Voldy uses her. That’s a lot of interrogations. And second, she’s been separated from Credence at the end of the film, because he was once again lured by Grindelwald, who claims he knows his true identity. She can’t just see him go and that’s it, can she. Third, HOW THE BLOODY HELL COME that seeing this, she would end up joining Voldemort? HOW?

Credence… well. He’s alive, no big deal there, and starting to control both his Obscurus and his magic. He’s joined that weirdo circus because it was travelling to Paris, and he knew there were answers to his quest about his true identity on the Old Continent. He knew about that half-elf, Irma, who had taken care of him on his journey to New York when he was a baby (so it must have been around 1904, right?), so he goes looking for her with the Maledictus after they escape from the circus. Now I don’t get it why he’s drawn to her. Why are they escaping together? Maybe only because they’re both outcasts, and both being in an abusive environment they can’t stand.

Then there’s this Ministry of Magic (MoM) bloke who took the job to track him down and kill him (the job that was offered to Newt but which he flatly refused - You’ve never met a monster you couldn’t love), but he kills Irma instead. Like WHAT? Why? So that she wouldn’t tell him the truth? As if she knew it. We learn later in the film that Credence is the baby she delivered to MaryLou Barebone in New York, but that is should have been little Corvus Lestrange, who was apparently killed by Leta herself on the journey, because she swapped the babies (her brother Corvus was whining too much, and she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she swapped it with another baby, but then the boat sank).

That Ministry bloke is apparently secretly working for Grindelwald because the MoM policies are too soft (see scene under the bridge). So he probably was afraid that Irma’s hugging Credence would lessen his powers since love and family are -again- the remedy to the curse of the Obscurial…

In the end we learn, via the fact that Credence is having a baby Phoenix first (twice in the film, actually), but then because Grindelwald tells him, that he’s actually Dumbledore’s brother Aurelius. Right. I think I’ll keep that discussion for the second batch of reflections, because it needs a bit of digging. Still, I couldn’t resist adding a picture of the cover of the Crimes of Grindelwald screenplay, where it is obvious that a phoenix (or two) are hiding.

Flamel. Something weird about him. ‘We don’t keep food in the house.’ WHAT? Of course he and Pernelle are rich enough with the Stone not to have to cook themselves, but seeing how Flamel moves, I can’t imagine him rambling around Paris to go to restaurants thrice a day. Even climbing into a motor might be something of a challenge. Some could argue the Flamels don’t need to eat. Yeh. Well, since when does Immortality and Wealth dispense you from eating? That’s not consistent with the story around the Stone, be it only the glimpse we see in Philosopher’s Stone or the reality of the alchemical achievement. I’m a bit disappointed in the part the character has to play. Just a safe home for Yusuf to recover and have his water dragon parasite removed from his eye, and that’s about it? We do get a glimpse of the Philosopher’s Stone, and yes, Flamel has some kind of Palantir he uses to see what happens outside, and yes he’s at the Père Lachaise for the final scene, but still I’m like so that’s it right? meh.

We go back to Hogwarts. The young Newt is played amazingly well, given that he had to match Eddie Redmayne. Well done Joshua Shea (and David Yates for casting him and not using visual effects to make Redmayne look younger)! Apart from the pinch when you see Hogwarts appear from above with the Dark Lake and all, it’s nothing special. Leta takes a tour, which leads her to speak with Dumbledore and this dialogue is probably the one worthy of attention during all the Hogwarts sequences (apart from ‘would you like a cup of tea’ in the end) - and adds to the ‘why did you kill her?’ question.

Young McGonagall is completely out of character. Sounds like she’s been taken straight from Cursed Sh***... that was a disappointment. She’d never behave as she does in this scene.

And I still haven’t got over the fact that Dumbledore is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. No explanation is given in the film. I’m annoyed.

The French Ministry of Magic is accessed via a fountain. As said in my previous paper, I was wondering how people would be entering it in a non conspicuous way, because apart from shrinking themselves in the middle of the street and jumping into the plumbing… well. Apparently they vanish and the fountain sprouts some kind of railings? Come on people, this is a heavy breach of the Statute of Secrecy. Muggles wouldn’t see people disappearing?? No way. It is already bizarre enough at King’s Cross. Second thing is that again, the location tag on the screen reads ‘French Ministry of Magic’. Well, that’s not in accordance with what it is called everywhere else, namely Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France’. Why??

Same question in the USA: Why, in the name of Merlin’s most baggy pants, is MACUSA referred to as ‘American Ministry of Magic’? First of all, America is a continent, not a country. Referring to it as ‘American’ (YES, I know it’s common to do that but it still irks me) means that there are no other countries that can claim to be American in all three subcontinents. Try and tell Canadians that they don’t live in America, or Brazilians, or Mexicans. That’s not right. Well. If we set this ‘detail’ aside, the name of the United-Statesian Ministry of Magic is The Magical Congress of the United States of America, and NOT The American Ministry of Magic. Rowling made it quite plain in all her writings on Pottermore, for instance. So why WHY change that now? It only makes canon void of sense and nomenclature confusing.

Apparently, there’s a whole Wizarding layer to Paris, unlike London or New York, that you can enter via a statue of a woman sitting on a column (pic above). The Paris you enter has exactly the same map as the Muggle one, but it’s a parallel Paris. A bit weird, but probably the only way to manage a magical travelling circus without having to make yourself unplottable. Mind you, the Hogwarts Express can’t be seen by Muggles. So why couldn’t the same technique be used on a circus?

I’ll save Grindelwald, the raven and the Lestrange vault for my second piece, as well as Newt, Tina and Dumbledore, I think. I thought I’d leave the Deathly Hallows for the second bit too, but no. WHERE ARE THEY? They are everywhere from the title of the film to all the artwork by MinaLima, but not once are they mentioned in the film. Apart from the Elder Wand, in the hands of Grindelwald. Like the Potter films. Me. Is. Lost.

Many people around me or online have been complaining that this film had killed the wizarding world. Well I reckon it hasn’t, quite the contrary. It’s embedding Hogwarts in the Wizarding World, and not the other way round, folks. Rowling always stated that the Fantastic Beasts series would not be a children’s film series. She also often spoke about this as an allegory of the Interwar period, meaning the rise of extremism in Europe, culminating in WW2. It’s not a fairy tale, and not meant to be so.

Some more questions remain unanswered from before, or some details from this film, regarding the things discussed - or rather said - in this bit of writing:

Why didn’t Grindelwald kill the MoM official at the beginning, and ‘only’ made him fall into the Hudson river?

How come people can Apparate on the Hogwarts Bridge while all sources tell us you cannot Apparate on the grounds?

Why is a bloke called Travers the head of the MoM delegation sent to Hogwarts?

Why is the man replacing Newt to track down Credence so ambiguous? What’s his real role?

What’s Credence’s real family tree? Is he Dumbledore’s brother or half-brother? What’s the story behind this?

Phoenixes come to the Dumbledore family members when in dire need of help. Are there two phoenixes or is the one that comes to Credence actually already Fawkes?

So many questions, and so many more to come... when I get time enough to write the second part of this. Happy thinking, and please comment below with your own thoughts, agreements, disagreements, etc...!

Sources

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J. K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

#louhi #J. K. Rowling #Crimes of Grindelwald #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #Queenie #Jacob #Flamel #Credence #Leta #The Maledictus #Abernathy #First Impressions

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