Love Story
Since WraNet is still down and Ms altanachan wants it around to read, I'm going to post what I've written of my Warcraft HS AU. Like with the last one I posted many moons ago, it's assumed to be a modern, relatively peaceful and integrated era.
Lu Embersong sat across from Adrasteius, her head resting on the table, her plate of lightly dressed iceberg lettuce untouched except by a few stray strands of her dark red hair. She muttered with affected drowsiness, “Well, there’s a lot of glitter in the art room’s supply closet.”
“Glitter,” Adrasteius said, “is a tool of the dominant hegemony.” He took a fierce bite of his wrap, confident that he had just spoken a profound truth.
“Mmm,” Lu replied. She yawned into the crook of her elbow. No one else sat at the table; indeed, Lu had chosen it for its remote location at the far west end of the sprawling cafeteria, largely because it was near a set of doors that looked into the gym and its terrifying instructor, Mr. Razuvious. Razuvious prowled the gym even during the school’s lunch hour and students who passed those doors felt his savage gaze upon them, watching them eat, waiting for the moment when they would trudge into his arena and face judgment. The man’s screams alone sent students to the nurse’s office every week.
The undesirable real estate meant that Lu had a quiet place to nap each day. Adra’s voice was like white noise to her, tolerated because no one wanted to be around him, either, thus guaranteeing that Lu would have the precious lunch time (mostly) to herself.
Adrasteius pointed his half-eaten wrap at her accusingly. “You’re not going to participate in this offensive farce, are you? This total affront to dignity, elvish and otherwise?”
“I don’t know, it might be fun to lace Greyspell into a dress and have him do the waltz,” Lu said. She peered at Adra from behind the barrier of her folded arms and smiled against her sweater when the skinny boy curled his upper lip. He glared at the shimmering banner, which was enchanted to constantly write and re-write its message across the silk it was painted on.
“The school shouldn’t be burning its money on these fruitless diversions,” Adra said. “We could use it to feed the homeless in the Lower City, or to hold a fund raiser for a cure to deadly marsh bleeder fever.”
“Actually, Bloodspeaker, a portion of every ticket sold goes to the orphanage here.” An irritated, cultured voice spoke behind him. He whipped ‘round in his seat and found Avali Dawnblade, captain of the cheerleading team and all around snobby, ice-cold bitch. Her co-captain and older sister, Lysta, giggled and added, “Of course, that’s only ‘cos Principal Khadgar wouldn’t let us have the thing if we didn’t give away some of the proceeds.”
“How much?” Adra snapped. “A tenth of a percent?”
“Two and a half percent,” Avali sniffed. “What does it matter?”
“We have obligations to each other as citizens of the universe!” Adra slammed his fist on the table. Lu feigned a startled expression and briefly raised her head. She gazed blearily at the gaggle of cheerleaders staring down at Adrasteius Bloodspeaker, who scowled back at them with all the indignant rage he could muster. The tattoos that marked every inch of his skin below the neck shone a livid red, like fresh lacerations. The glow limned the outline of his tight shirt (which had PEACE IN ALTERAC VALLEY embossed on the front) and torn jeans. The straps of his loafers glowed too, as he was tattooed right down to his little toe, mostly in spiky, tribal patterns.
Avali rolled her eyes. “I don’t have an obligation to anyone but myself, my team, and my family.” She eyed her bubbly sister, who was preening at Adra in a most upsetting fashion. “And sometimes I even question that.”
“Pathetic,” Adra sneered. “Not that it’s any surprise, coming from you.”
Avali bristled. “Call me what you want, Bloodspeaker, but I’m the one whose only friend is a full-time sleepwalker.”
“We’re not friends,” Lu piped up.
“Well, then,” Avali said, as the uniformly pale-haired, fair-skinned girls assembled around her chuckled like some horrible banshee chorus, “there you go.” She flipped her perfectly straight coiffure and strode off.
“Shallow bitch,” Adrasteius shouted after her.
“Miserable half-wit!” she replied.
“Gawd,” Lu said. The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. “Just ask her out already.”
She was gone before Adra gathered his wits well enough to respond.
Adrasteius stewed for the rest of the day, unable to deliver the torrent of righteous fury that Lu had inspired him and that she so richly deserved. He wouldn’t see her until tomorrow, though, unless he stalked after her to where she smoked thistle under the bleachers after school, which he could do as even the smallest whiff of thistle made him violently ill. So instead he launched his tirade on a semi-innocent bystander, Vehiron Goldthorn, who sat next to him during art class for reasons obvious to everyone except Adrasteius himself.
“Me, ask out that spoiled, stuff peacock of a noble? Please! She thinks she’s queen of the hallway just because her family’s big in Silvermoon. Well, this is Shattrath.”
“It sure is,” Vehiron said, his eyes straying from Adra’s to take in the shapely behind of a draenei classmate. “It sure is, brother.”
“We’re not brothers, you dumb shit.”
Vehiron snaked an arm around Adra’s bony shoulders. “Sure. Sure. Hey, go to the prom with me.”
Adra pushed feebly at the taller boy. “What! No!” His face flushed; his tattoos flared angrily.
Vehiron laughed. “Worth a shot.”
“I’m not going to that sham. That … carousel of canoodling! That meeting of the mindless! That ruinous, distasteful-”
VEhiron clapped a hand over Adra’s mouth. “Baby, you know it gets me hot when you go off all excited like. You’d better shut up before I drag you to the supply closet.”
Adrasteius hissed. “You are a slithering, scum-coated snake, Vehiron.”
“Very likely,” Vehiron said. “But I have a date.”
“I said no!”
“Not you, magepants,” Vehiron said. “I only asked you to see the look on your pretty face.” He jerked his thumb at the night elf sitting near the front of the classroom, fingerpainting happily. “Her.”
“Eulalia?”
Vehiron sighed, leaning forward in his desk. “Mmmhmm.”
“She’s too nice to be seen with you.”
“That’s what I thought, man,” Vehiron said. “But she said yes!”
“You’re still a slut.”
“Yes, I am. A slut for her gorgeous tits.”
Adra scowled, and Vehiron added quickly, “And her beautiful soul! Jeez, Adra, you’re going to pop a vein if you don’t unclench once in a while.” Vehiron got up from his chair and went to put an arm around Eulalia. He complimented her finger painting, which was a surprisingly complex impression of a patch of kingsblood. Eulalia laughed as Vehiron set his chin on her hair.
Adra turned away from the scene, frowning. Vehiron was known for his frequent conquests of both men and women, and he did not discriminate based on race, either. Even a few of the unliving had captured his attentions. Most people were only surprised he hadn’t gotten around to Eulalia earlier-she was effervescent and accepting, besides having the sculpted body of an active athlete. But Adrasteius knew Eulalia well, and he knew that she rarely made herself truly available to anyone. She had not done so since she had met her in Shattrath’s junior school.
But Adrasteius had other problems to worry about. Problems that wore low-cut tops and sheer, thigh-high stockings. Problems named Lysta Dawnblade.
She cornered him as he walked from art to social studies (a class where he often wasted the entire hour arguing with the teacher, a doddering relic of the Kirin Tor, about this or that bit of allegedly revised history), grabbing his arm and pushing him against a wall of lockers in a manner that was probably sexy to her mind. However, Adra had a bird’s bones and weighed less than either one of Lysta’s breasts, so he shrieked in pain as his spine struck the lockers’ metal doors.
“Nice afternoon, isn’t it?” Lysta purred.
“Madam,” Adrasteius choked. The girl’s bosoms pinned him to the locker, cutting off his air supply. “I will not have a nice afternoon until ‘gnome-punting’ is no longer an unofficial school sport, or until the systematic oppression of free speech that flourishes in every conrer of this world and worlds beyond is quashed, or until-”
Lysta silenced him with an open-mouthed kiss. He inhaled sharply and screamed, though of course all the exhaled air only buzzed down the cavern of Lysta’s throat. She moaned, and Adrasteius’s muscles seized up.
“What in the Light’s name are you doing, woman!”
“Go to prom with me,” Lysta said. Her voice was silky, her smokily-shaded eyes were half-closed, but the way she dug her manicured, razor-sharp nails into his collarbone suggested that this was less a question and more of a command.
“Why?” Adrasteius sputtered. He tried to collect himself, but found the task impossible; Lysta’s Azerothian Diamond perfume was overwhelming and she was close enough that he could see the body-lotion shimmer on her tanned, fresh skin. He fought a powerful urge to vomit.
“Because it would piss off my sister, that’s why,” Lysta said. “And because I like you.”
“Why?” Adrasteius repeated. A lot could be said of Adrasteius Bloodspaker, much of it unflattering, but he had very few illusions about himself. He did not strive for likeability; rather, he fought against it at every turn. He actively disdained his peers and had little care for the disdain they showed him in return. He knew had the world’s best interests at heart-whether the world saw that or not was hardly his problem.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lysta traced the tattoo around his neck with one perfect, pink, shank-sharp fingernail. “Maybe it’s the tattoos.”
“Well, no,” Adrasteius said. “I decline.”
Lysta’s face darkened with rage. “What?”
“You are a strumpet,” Adrasteius said. It was a reckless statement to make to anyone at any time, but saying it with the curve of Lysta’s nail pressed against any number of major arteries was tantamount to suicide. Oh, well. He had long imagined himself as a martyr for justice.
Lysta begin to shake. Adrasteius readied himself for his imminent end. But instead of reducing him to so many tattered strips of meat, Lysta did something far worse.
She burst into tears and let him go.
Startled, Adrasteius stood rooted against the lockers. He felt the ridged metal vents bite into his spine, but he could not move.
“Please,” Lysta cried, sobbing. Her tears were not silent rivulets but rather great, trembling sighs accompanied by guttural sniffles and hiccups. In moments both her cheeks were shining with tears; her makeup ran together like a painting left in the rain.
“Lysta, don’t …”
“PLEASE!” Lysta roared, and the sound ached and rattled with such raw desperation that Adrasteius was struck dumb in the face of it.
Mutely, he nodded.
“Really? You will?” She peered at him through the curtain of her curly blonde hair.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, just don’t cry. For the love of the Light, don’t cry.”
Lysta swiftly brightened. She wiped away the tears and smeared makeup with the back of her hand, and the effect was like a cloth rubbed over a mirror. Adrasteius recalled that Lysta shared some of his arcane-centered courses with him and begin to feel a little stupid.
“I knew you’d say yes,” she said. “I’ll see you on Friday, ‘kay? Pick me up at the estate!”
And with that, she turned on her heel and flounced merrily into the girls’ bathroom, which happened to be right next to door to that row of lockers.
yes it's named after a taylor swift song.
Lu Embersong sat across from Adrasteius, her head resting on the table, her plate of lightly dressed iceberg lettuce untouched except by a few stray strands of her dark red hair. She muttered with affected drowsiness, “Well, there’s a lot of glitter in the art room’s supply closet.”
“Glitter,” Adrasteius said, “is a tool of the dominant hegemony.” He took a fierce bite of his wrap, confident that he had just spoken a profound truth.
“Mmm,” Lu replied. She yawned into the crook of her elbow. No one else sat at the table; indeed, Lu had chosen it for its remote location at the far west end of the sprawling cafeteria, largely because it was near a set of doors that looked into the gym and its terrifying instructor, Mr. Razuvious. Razuvious prowled the gym even during the school’s lunch hour and students who passed those doors felt his savage gaze upon them, watching them eat, waiting for the moment when they would trudge into his arena and face judgment. The man’s screams alone sent students to the nurse’s office every week.
The undesirable real estate meant that Lu had a quiet place to nap each day. Adra’s voice was like white noise to her, tolerated because no one wanted to be around him, either, thus guaranteeing that Lu would have the precious lunch time (mostly) to herself.
Adrasteius pointed his half-eaten wrap at her accusingly. “You’re not going to participate in this offensive farce, are you? This total affront to dignity, elvish and otherwise?”
“I don’t know, it might be fun to lace Greyspell into a dress and have him do the waltz,” Lu said. She peered at Adra from behind the barrier of her folded arms and smiled against her sweater when the skinny boy curled his upper lip. He glared at the shimmering banner, which was enchanted to constantly write and re-write its message across the silk it was painted on.
“The school shouldn’t be burning its money on these fruitless diversions,” Adra said. “We could use it to feed the homeless in the Lower City, or to hold a fund raiser for a cure to deadly marsh bleeder fever.”
“Actually, Bloodspeaker, a portion of every ticket sold goes to the orphanage here.” An irritated, cultured voice spoke behind him. He whipped ‘round in his seat and found Avali Dawnblade, captain of the cheerleading team and all around snobby, ice-cold bitch. Her co-captain and older sister, Lysta, giggled and added, “Of course, that’s only ‘cos Principal Khadgar wouldn’t let us have the thing if we didn’t give away some of the proceeds.”
“How much?” Adra snapped. “A tenth of a percent?”
“Two and a half percent,” Avali sniffed. “What does it matter?”
“We have obligations to each other as citizens of the universe!” Adra slammed his fist on the table. Lu feigned a startled expression and briefly raised her head. She gazed blearily at the gaggle of cheerleaders staring down at Adrasteius Bloodspeaker, who scowled back at them with all the indignant rage he could muster. The tattoos that marked every inch of his skin below the neck shone a livid red, like fresh lacerations. The glow limned the outline of his tight shirt (which had PEACE IN ALTERAC VALLEY embossed on the front) and torn jeans. The straps of his loafers glowed too, as he was tattooed right down to his little toe, mostly in spiky, tribal patterns.
Avali rolled her eyes. “I don’t have an obligation to anyone but myself, my team, and my family.” She eyed her bubbly sister, who was preening at Adra in a most upsetting fashion. “And sometimes I even question that.”
“Pathetic,” Adra sneered. “Not that it’s any surprise, coming from you.”
Avali bristled. “Call me what you want, Bloodspeaker, but I’m the one whose only friend is a full-time sleepwalker.”
“We’re not friends,” Lu piped up.
“Well, then,” Avali said, as the uniformly pale-haired, fair-skinned girls assembled around her chuckled like some horrible banshee chorus, “there you go.” She flipped her perfectly straight coiffure and strode off.
“Shallow bitch,” Adrasteius shouted after her.
“Miserable half-wit!” she replied.
“Gawd,” Lu said. The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. “Just ask her out already.”
She was gone before Adra gathered his wits well enough to respond.
Adrasteius stewed for the rest of the day, unable to deliver the torrent of righteous fury that Lu had inspired him and that she so richly deserved. He wouldn’t see her until tomorrow, though, unless he stalked after her to where she smoked thistle under the bleachers after school, which he could do as even the smallest whiff of thistle made him violently ill. So instead he launched his tirade on a semi-innocent bystander, Vehiron Goldthorn, who sat next to him during art class for reasons obvious to everyone except Adrasteius himself.
“Me, ask out that spoiled, stuff peacock of a noble? Please! She thinks she’s queen of the hallway just because her family’s big in Silvermoon. Well, this is Shattrath.”
“It sure is,” Vehiron said, his eyes straying from Adra’s to take in the shapely behind of a draenei classmate. “It sure is, brother.”
“We’re not brothers, you dumb shit.”
Vehiron snaked an arm around Adra’s bony shoulders. “Sure. Sure. Hey, go to the prom with me.”
Adra pushed feebly at the taller boy. “What! No!” His face flushed; his tattoos flared angrily.
Vehiron laughed. “Worth a shot.”
“I’m not going to that sham. That … carousel of canoodling! That meeting of the mindless! That ruinous, distasteful-”
VEhiron clapped a hand over Adra’s mouth. “Baby, you know it gets me hot when you go off all excited like. You’d better shut up before I drag you to the supply closet.”
Adrasteius hissed. “You are a slithering, scum-coated snake, Vehiron.”
“Very likely,” Vehiron said. “But I have a date.”
“I said no!”
“Not you, magepants,” Vehiron said. “I only asked you to see the look on your pretty face.” He jerked his thumb at the night elf sitting near the front of the classroom, fingerpainting happily. “Her.”
“Eulalia?”
Vehiron sighed, leaning forward in his desk. “Mmmhmm.”
“She’s too nice to be seen with you.”
“That’s what I thought, man,” Vehiron said. “But she said yes!”
“You’re still a slut.”
“Yes, I am. A slut for her gorgeous tits.”
Adra scowled, and Vehiron added quickly, “And her beautiful soul! Jeez, Adra, you’re going to pop a vein if you don’t unclench once in a while.” Vehiron got up from his chair and went to put an arm around Eulalia. He complimented her finger painting, which was a surprisingly complex impression of a patch of kingsblood. Eulalia laughed as Vehiron set his chin on her hair.
Adra turned away from the scene, frowning. Vehiron was known for his frequent conquests of both men and women, and he did not discriminate based on race, either. Even a few of the unliving had captured his attentions. Most people were only surprised he hadn’t gotten around to Eulalia earlier-she was effervescent and accepting, besides having the sculpted body of an active athlete. But Adrasteius knew Eulalia well, and he knew that she rarely made herself truly available to anyone. She had not done so since she had met her in Shattrath’s junior school.
But Adrasteius had other problems to worry about. Problems that wore low-cut tops and sheer, thigh-high stockings. Problems named Lysta Dawnblade.
She cornered him as he walked from art to social studies (a class where he often wasted the entire hour arguing with the teacher, a doddering relic of the Kirin Tor, about this or that bit of allegedly revised history), grabbing his arm and pushing him against a wall of lockers in a manner that was probably sexy to her mind. However, Adra had a bird’s bones and weighed less than either one of Lysta’s breasts, so he shrieked in pain as his spine struck the lockers’ metal doors.
“Nice afternoon, isn’t it?” Lysta purred.
“Madam,” Adrasteius choked. The girl’s bosoms pinned him to the locker, cutting off his air supply. “I will not have a nice afternoon until ‘gnome-punting’ is no longer an unofficial school sport, or until the systematic oppression of free speech that flourishes in every conrer of this world and worlds beyond is quashed, or until-”
Lysta silenced him with an open-mouthed kiss. He inhaled sharply and screamed, though of course all the exhaled air only buzzed down the cavern of Lysta’s throat. She moaned, and Adrasteius’s muscles seized up.
“What in the Light’s name are you doing, woman!”
“Go to prom with me,” Lysta said. Her voice was silky, her smokily-shaded eyes were half-closed, but the way she dug her manicured, razor-sharp nails into his collarbone suggested that this was less a question and more of a command.
“Why?” Adrasteius sputtered. He tried to collect himself, but found the task impossible; Lysta’s Azerothian Diamond perfume was overwhelming and she was close enough that he could see the body-lotion shimmer on her tanned, fresh skin. He fought a powerful urge to vomit.
“Because it would piss off my sister, that’s why,” Lysta said. “And because I like you.”
“Why?” Adrasteius repeated. A lot could be said of Adrasteius Bloodspaker, much of it unflattering, but he had very few illusions about himself. He did not strive for likeability; rather, he fought against it at every turn. He actively disdained his peers and had little care for the disdain they showed him in return. He knew had the world’s best interests at heart-whether the world saw that or not was hardly his problem.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lysta traced the tattoo around his neck with one perfect, pink, shank-sharp fingernail. “Maybe it’s the tattoos.”
“Well, no,” Adrasteius said. “I decline.”
Lysta’s face darkened with rage. “What?”
“You are a strumpet,” Adrasteius said. It was a reckless statement to make to anyone at any time, but saying it with the curve of Lysta’s nail pressed against any number of major arteries was tantamount to suicide. Oh, well. He had long imagined himself as a martyr for justice.
Lysta begin to shake. Adrasteius readied himself for his imminent end. But instead of reducing him to so many tattered strips of meat, Lysta did something far worse.
She burst into tears and let him go.
Startled, Adrasteius stood rooted against the lockers. He felt the ridged metal vents bite into his spine, but he could not move.
“Please,” Lysta cried, sobbing. Her tears were not silent rivulets but rather great, trembling sighs accompanied by guttural sniffles and hiccups. In moments both her cheeks were shining with tears; her makeup ran together like a painting left in the rain.
“Lysta, don’t …”
“PLEASE!” Lysta roared, and the sound ached and rattled with such raw desperation that Adrasteius was struck dumb in the face of it.
Mutely, he nodded.
“Really? You will?” She peered at him through the curtain of her curly blonde hair.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, just don’t cry. For the love of the Light, don’t cry.”
Lysta swiftly brightened. She wiped away the tears and smeared makeup with the back of her hand, and the effect was like a cloth rubbed over a mirror. Adrasteius recalled that Lysta shared some of his arcane-centered courses with him and begin to feel a little stupid.
“I knew you’d say yes,” she said. “I’ll see you on Friday, ‘kay? Pick me up at the estate!”
And with that, she turned on her heel and flounced merrily into the girls’ bathroom, which happened to be right next to door to that row of lockers.
yes it's named after a taylor swift song.