Warcraft Fic: Unity - Epilogue
Here it is, the absolutely last chapter of Unity. Wow, guys, it's been a journey. Thank you all so much for continuing to show so much enthusiasm for this fic. Your words have always been incredibly encouraging. Thrall and Jaina's story isn't over yet, though, there's still a lot more story to tell, and that will continue in Legacy, coming At Some Point[tm].
Special mention goes to my beta reader, sodzilla for all of her hard work over the years. She has listened to me whine and worry endlessly, edited my work with skill and dedication, making sure that they are my words and not hers, but clear so that you can all get what I mean, and generally been my absolute number one fan. Through her, my work has been refined and improved, and I couldn't do this without her. Thank you, sweetie, you're the best.
Title: Unity
Part: Epilogue
Word Count: 2163 (chapter), Fic Total: 120187
Includes: A touch of angst, some sap.
Pairings: Thrall/Jaina
Summary: Not long after the Expedition has passed through the Dark Portal, Jaina has two equally startling revelations.
Previous Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Sidestory: Linguistics
13 14 15 16 17 18
Sidestory: Defiance - 1 2 3 4 5 Epilogue
19 20 21 22
“You’re certain?” Jaina asked for the third time in as many minutes. She sat on an examination table in Doctor Van Howzen’s clinic, hands folded over the thin cloth apron that covered her nude form.
Since the incident that had resulted in the doctor being assaulted and his office destroyed, Jaina had encouraged him to rebuild, bigger and better than what had been hastily thrown together in the earliest years after Hyjal, when it had been more important to have something than to have something grand. He had heeded her suggestion, and the clinic was as fine as anything one would find in one of the Silver Hand’s hospital suites, or Dalaran’s laboratories. Jaina had visited the clinic before, but never had it made her feel quite so uneasy.
Van Howzen gave her an affectionate, exasperated look and drew up a chair so that he might sit, and she could look down on him. It was a tactic he had taken many times before in her youth, and it inevitably meant bad news. A shiver prickled down Jaina’s spine, causing the mermaid tattoo on her back to seek shelter in the ink and flesh water where it resided.
“Considering what happened last time, I have checked the results over and over again,” the doctor said. “It’s consistent with your symptoms. Lady Proudmoore -- Jaina. You’re pregnant.”
“This shouldn’t be possible,” Jaina whispered, and her hands drifted to her stomach, resting there. “The mage fever… and the charm. If one wasn’t working, surely the other…”
“Without more invasive procedures, I couldn’t speculate as to the state of your internal organs,” Van Howzen replied, “but the charm should be working unless it was magically disjunctioned somehow.”
“No, I’m quite careful with it.” Jaina held out her left arm, showing off the long string of runed beads. Most were similar, but there were a handful of different ones. Jaina picked at a grey bead forlornly, and it sparked to life. She winced. “I’ll disable it. No point in it potentially interfering with anything.” She tapped it again, and it grew dull and dark. “I don’t understand…”
“Nor do I, and I don’t like it, not one bit,” Van Howzen said. “I would want to apply your miraculous regeneration to others if I could, for any purpose. I… assume we both know who the father is.”
“Of course,” Jaina replied, her voice sharp. “There hasn’t been anyone else, not this time.”
“Then I must ask… what do you plan to do next?”
Jaina was silent for a long time, toying with the beads, tapping some of them, clicking others together. Van Howzen watched her expression, the way emotion flickered across it and her forehead furrowed with thought. He did not hurry her, and let the words come as they would.
“I’ve always wanted children. Not right away, not when I was still in school, or travelling, but when I had a home for them to live in, food for them, a place for them to learn and grow… and I have that now, don’t I?” Jaina tapped the beads in turn, and each lit up, indicating the defenses were working perfectly. “I’ve said it to others, Theramore is a perfect place for children to learn and grow.”
“Ariana and Logrosh certainly believe it,” Van Howzen said, frowning at the beads. “Garrak is growing nicely, and the new baby is very likely to be the same. There’s no… weakness or illness inherent in halforcen.”
Jaina glanced at him sharply, and then sucked in a breath. “Halforcen, of course. That only makes sense. For some reason, I still had the idea of little blond babies in my head.”
“It was what you expected for many years, one way or the other,” Van Howzen said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. “If you are intent on keeping the child--”
“I am,” Jaina said, her voice firmer and more sure. The doctor couldn’t help but smile at that, the determination in her tone more familiar than hesitation.
“When do you intend to tell Thrall?”
Jaina’s fingers moved from the beads around her wrist to the runestone hanging from the cord around her neck. It brightened briefly at her touch and then dulled as she resisted activating it. “Not right away. He’s only just gone to Draenor, and the first stages of the expedition are likely to be quite difficult. I don’t want to distract him.”
“Jaina…”
“I love him,” Jaina said, and the words came in a rush. “I love him and I need him in my life. This is a mess, a diplomatic crisis in the making. The confirmation of every rumour’s truth, throwing all the work we’ve ever done into question, and I can’t--”
“Lady Proudmoore.” The use of her title stopped her cold, and with familiarity born from the relationship between doctor and patient, Van Howzen put his hand over one of hers. “He loves you too. Everyone can see it. It’s in his eyes when he looks at you and his voice when he says your name. It’s in the smile he has whenever he sees you. I’m sure, if I were an orc, he’d probably smell like he loves you too. He will want to know. This won’t be a crisis to him.”
“I’m afraid,” Jaina admitted softly. “Kael loved me too, and Arthas… and Jonathan claimed it too.”
Van Howzen scowled. “He isn’t like any of them.”
“Kael adored me,” Jaina pushed on, relentless. “We were a wonderful team, perfect together in every way. Our teachers believed we would go far together. Uther believed that Arthas and I would compliment each other perfectly, bared sword and velvet-gloved fist. Jonathan… made me believe there was a way to convince my father’s men that we could mend what was broken.”
“He isn’t any of them,” Van Howzen insisted. “You trust him, don’t you?”
“With my life,” Jaina whispered. “I don’t trust myself, Gustav. After so many poor decisions, how can I know that I made the right one, finally? And it’s not just me, not just this child… it’s for Theramore too, and Durotar. For my friends and allies.”
“You always carry too much on your shoulders,” Van Howzen said, shaking his head. “Take the time you need, but he will need to know, unless you plan to never see him again.”
“No, never that, I just… need time,” Jaina said. “When Varian arrives, if I can smooth things over, he may accept the idea, in time. The first step is convincing him that the Hyjal Treaty is not simply a thing of desperation, but a true and lasting peace. It’s been an awful four years at times, but they’ve also been wonderful ones.”
“Alright then,” the doctor said, and rose. “I expect you to visit regularly, and we’ll discuss the changes necessary for your diet. You’ll have to eat very regularly, no skipping meals.”
“I don’t skip meals,” Jaina protested, rising from the examination bed. “I just get distracted and--”
“No arguments!” he declared, and his gaze softened as he looked her over. “You’ve grown so much since the first time I met you.”
“I was seven then, I certainly hope so,” Jaina said, and smiled back. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“You’re welcome, Lady Proudmoore.” Van Howzen retreated to his office, beginning the task of writing down the details of this latest addition to Jaina’s medical file, and she slipped the apron off and retrieved her robes, dressing with care.
I hope that time will bring a solution to all of the questions I have… how will we live? I can’t give up living in Theramore, the whole city depends on me to keep them safe… but the Horde depends on Thrall. Will constantly moving about be worthwhile? If I teleport from one place to the other, it still means that I have custody, and it’s on my sufferance that Thrall might see his child… and do I have the right to do that? Could I leave this baby with Thrall and--
The soft sound of fabric tearing broke Jaina from her thoughts, and she looked down at her robes. Frowning, she tapped the rent and it repaired itself perfectly. Obviously not, so what can we do? Whose traditions do we raise the child with? Both? Neither? I’m a Proudmoore, damnit, and we go to Kezan. Will they recognize my child as being a heir to our traditions? Will they be able to follow them?
Once dressed, Jaina made her way from the clinic on foot. Overhead, the grim clouds that had been building up released their burden as soft rain fell. Jaina waved absently, and the water ran in rivulets from her shield as she walked to her tower.
What about magic? I’m a mage, Thrall’s a shaman. Will our child follow one of our paths? Which one? Is there any way to tell? What if it’s neither? What do either of us really know about, oh, the priesthood or the druidic paths? Well, aside from all of my sources of study, of course, though I have teachers that might be able to help. They might have no magic at all, and want to be a scout, a farmer, a librarian. Jaina swallowed back a hysterical giggle. What if they want to be a pirate?
As Jaina ascended the staircase, each footfall feeling heavier than the last, her thoughts chased each other around like unruly frost wolves -- will Drek’thar and the other Frostwolves accept our child into the clan? Will they be chosen to have a spirit companion or will they shun a half-human no matter their line? -- until she found herself quite naturally in her office. She let the door click shut.
Do halforcen children have specific dietary needs? Health risks? I can ask Ariana, surely she’ll know. Gustav said there were no inherent issues, but it might be better to ask someone with practical experience--
“Jaina.”
The voice was familiar, though hoarse and weary. It was laced with desperation and sadness, and the sound of it cut straight through her heart, and deep into her past. The thoughts ceased, and a single, new notion crystallized in her mind. She whirled towards the sound, raising her arms and bringing them down. A dozen icicles, the length of her forearm and far sharper formed around her and flew towards the source. There was a grunt of surprise as eleven of them pinned the figure to the wall where they’d been lurking, and the twelfth hovered at her shoulder.
With her other hand, she conjured light, bringing the figure into harsh relief. She remembered these robes, though they had seen better days, not so much dusty as worn, the gold, embroidered birds duller than the last time she’d seen them. The wide sleeves, once so perfect at hiding a notebook, were torn by Jaina’s icicles. Even the mantle they’d joked made him look like an extra half of an elf, were knocked askew and damaged instead of imposing.
In the light, a pair of tired green eyes glittered behind half-closed eyelids as one hand moved ineffectually to shield its owner’s face from the brightness that brought the smudges under his eyes into sharp relief. Jaina knew that face, despite the worn lines that pulled lips that had once smiled easily into a frown, just as she knew that hair, having run her fingers through it often enough, though rarely had it ever been just on this side of greasy. All and all, it was a sight that Jaina knew well, a sight that had been intimate and interconnected with hers for a very long time.
From the wall burst in a great, flaming bird, flapping its wings and crying out in alarm at the sight.
“Ah! You must let my familiar go at once!” it cried. “How else will he feed me?”
“Al’ar…”
“How did you get in here?” Jaina demanded. “What are you doing here? What have you done?!”
“I followed you around, actually, and slipped past you when you opened the door.” The figure sighed as the bird, Al’ar, nudged at him. “You’d think you’d help me or something, you ridiculous obese bonfire.”
“I am not fat,” Al’ar insisted. “You’re starving me.”
“You are physically incapable of--”
“There were two more questions!” Jaina cried, her fingers tightening into fists, even as the realization struck her. “Answer them.”
Sighing, he closed his eyes briefly. “They’re tied together. I have completely screwed up in every way there is possible to screw up. I have been abandoned by every friend, every ally I have. I came to you because I don’t have anywhere else to go.” His eyes opened and fixed on her. “Jaina, I need your help.”
“Well,” Jaina began, and made a gesture in the air. The icicles melted one by one, and he sighed in relief as he stood on his own two feet. “You’re certainly right about that, Kael.”
Kael’thas Sunstrider, Crown Prince of the fallen kingdom of Quel’thalas, smiled thinly. Jaina let the light dim as he approached her, though careful not to be closer than an arm’s length. “Congratulations, by the way.”
Jaina gave him a hard look. “Tell me what you did, from the beginning.”
Kael inhaled sharply, nodded once, and began.
[End]
Special mention goes to my beta reader, sodzilla for all of her hard work over the years. She has listened to me whine and worry endlessly, edited my work with skill and dedication, making sure that they are my words and not hers, but clear so that you can all get what I mean, and generally been my absolute number one fan. Through her, my work has been refined and improved, and I couldn't do this without her. Thank you, sweetie, you're the best.
Title: Unity
Part: Epilogue
Word Count: 2163 (chapter), Fic Total: 120187
Includes: A touch of angst, some sap.
Pairings: Thrall/Jaina
Summary: Not long after the Expedition has passed through the Dark Portal, Jaina has two equally startling revelations.
Previous Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Sidestory: Linguistics
13 14 15 16 17 18
Sidestory: Defiance - 1 2 3 4 5 Epilogue
19 20 21 22
“You’re certain?” Jaina asked for the third time in as many minutes. She sat on an examination table in Doctor Van Howzen’s clinic, hands folded over the thin cloth apron that covered her nude form.
Since the incident that had resulted in the doctor being assaulted and his office destroyed, Jaina had encouraged him to rebuild, bigger and better than what had been hastily thrown together in the earliest years after Hyjal, when it had been more important to have something than to have something grand. He had heeded her suggestion, and the clinic was as fine as anything one would find in one of the Silver Hand’s hospital suites, or Dalaran’s laboratories. Jaina had visited the clinic before, but never had it made her feel quite so uneasy.
Van Howzen gave her an affectionate, exasperated look and drew up a chair so that he might sit, and she could look down on him. It was a tactic he had taken many times before in her youth, and it inevitably meant bad news. A shiver prickled down Jaina’s spine, causing the mermaid tattoo on her back to seek shelter in the ink and flesh water where it resided.
“Considering what happened last time, I have checked the results over and over again,” the doctor said. “It’s consistent with your symptoms. Lady Proudmoore -- Jaina. You’re pregnant.”
“This shouldn’t be possible,” Jaina whispered, and her hands drifted to her stomach, resting there. “The mage fever… and the charm. If one wasn’t working, surely the other…”
“Without more invasive procedures, I couldn’t speculate as to the state of your internal organs,” Van Howzen replied, “but the charm should be working unless it was magically disjunctioned somehow.”
“No, I’m quite careful with it.” Jaina held out her left arm, showing off the long string of runed beads. Most were similar, but there were a handful of different ones. Jaina picked at a grey bead forlornly, and it sparked to life. She winced. “I’ll disable it. No point in it potentially interfering with anything.” She tapped it again, and it grew dull and dark. “I don’t understand…”
“Nor do I, and I don’t like it, not one bit,” Van Howzen said. “I would want to apply your miraculous regeneration to others if I could, for any purpose. I… assume we both know who the father is.”
“Of course,” Jaina replied, her voice sharp. “There hasn’t been anyone else, not this time.”
“Then I must ask… what do you plan to do next?”
Jaina was silent for a long time, toying with the beads, tapping some of them, clicking others together. Van Howzen watched her expression, the way emotion flickered across it and her forehead furrowed with thought. He did not hurry her, and let the words come as they would.
“I’ve always wanted children. Not right away, not when I was still in school, or travelling, but when I had a home for them to live in, food for them, a place for them to learn and grow… and I have that now, don’t I?” Jaina tapped the beads in turn, and each lit up, indicating the defenses were working perfectly. “I’ve said it to others, Theramore is a perfect place for children to learn and grow.”
“Ariana and Logrosh certainly believe it,” Van Howzen said, frowning at the beads. “Garrak is growing nicely, and the new baby is very likely to be the same. There’s no… weakness or illness inherent in halforcen.”
Jaina glanced at him sharply, and then sucked in a breath. “Halforcen, of course. That only makes sense. For some reason, I still had the idea of little blond babies in my head.”
“It was what you expected for many years, one way or the other,” Van Howzen said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. “If you are intent on keeping the child--”
“I am,” Jaina said, her voice firmer and more sure. The doctor couldn’t help but smile at that, the determination in her tone more familiar than hesitation.
“When do you intend to tell Thrall?”
Jaina’s fingers moved from the beads around her wrist to the runestone hanging from the cord around her neck. It brightened briefly at her touch and then dulled as she resisted activating it. “Not right away. He’s only just gone to Draenor, and the first stages of the expedition are likely to be quite difficult. I don’t want to distract him.”
“Jaina…”
“I love him,” Jaina said, and the words came in a rush. “I love him and I need him in my life. This is a mess, a diplomatic crisis in the making. The confirmation of every rumour’s truth, throwing all the work we’ve ever done into question, and I can’t--”
“Lady Proudmoore.” The use of her title stopped her cold, and with familiarity born from the relationship between doctor and patient, Van Howzen put his hand over one of hers. “He loves you too. Everyone can see it. It’s in his eyes when he looks at you and his voice when he says your name. It’s in the smile he has whenever he sees you. I’m sure, if I were an orc, he’d probably smell like he loves you too. He will want to know. This won’t be a crisis to him.”
“I’m afraid,” Jaina admitted softly. “Kael loved me too, and Arthas… and Jonathan claimed it too.”
Van Howzen scowled. “He isn’t like any of them.”
“Kael adored me,” Jaina pushed on, relentless. “We were a wonderful team, perfect together in every way. Our teachers believed we would go far together. Uther believed that Arthas and I would compliment each other perfectly, bared sword and velvet-gloved fist. Jonathan… made me believe there was a way to convince my father’s men that we could mend what was broken.”
“He isn’t any of them,” Van Howzen insisted. “You trust him, don’t you?”
“With my life,” Jaina whispered. “I don’t trust myself, Gustav. After so many poor decisions, how can I know that I made the right one, finally? And it’s not just me, not just this child… it’s for Theramore too, and Durotar. For my friends and allies.”
“You always carry too much on your shoulders,” Van Howzen said, shaking his head. “Take the time you need, but he will need to know, unless you plan to never see him again.”
“No, never that, I just… need time,” Jaina said. “When Varian arrives, if I can smooth things over, he may accept the idea, in time. The first step is convincing him that the Hyjal Treaty is not simply a thing of desperation, but a true and lasting peace. It’s been an awful four years at times, but they’ve also been wonderful ones.”
“Alright then,” the doctor said, and rose. “I expect you to visit regularly, and we’ll discuss the changes necessary for your diet. You’ll have to eat very regularly, no skipping meals.”
“I don’t skip meals,” Jaina protested, rising from the examination bed. “I just get distracted and--”
“No arguments!” he declared, and his gaze softened as he looked her over. “You’ve grown so much since the first time I met you.”
“I was seven then, I certainly hope so,” Jaina said, and smiled back. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“You’re welcome, Lady Proudmoore.” Van Howzen retreated to his office, beginning the task of writing down the details of this latest addition to Jaina’s medical file, and she slipped the apron off and retrieved her robes, dressing with care.
I hope that time will bring a solution to all of the questions I have… how will we live? I can’t give up living in Theramore, the whole city depends on me to keep them safe… but the Horde depends on Thrall. Will constantly moving about be worthwhile? If I teleport from one place to the other, it still means that I have custody, and it’s on my sufferance that Thrall might see his child… and do I have the right to do that? Could I leave this baby with Thrall and--
The soft sound of fabric tearing broke Jaina from her thoughts, and she looked down at her robes. Frowning, she tapped the rent and it repaired itself perfectly. Obviously not, so what can we do? Whose traditions do we raise the child with? Both? Neither? I’m a Proudmoore, damnit, and we go to Kezan. Will they recognize my child as being a heir to our traditions? Will they be able to follow them?
Once dressed, Jaina made her way from the clinic on foot. Overhead, the grim clouds that had been building up released their burden as soft rain fell. Jaina waved absently, and the water ran in rivulets from her shield as she walked to her tower.
What about magic? I’m a mage, Thrall’s a shaman. Will our child follow one of our paths? Which one? Is there any way to tell? What if it’s neither? What do either of us really know about, oh, the priesthood or the druidic paths? Well, aside from all of my sources of study, of course, though I have teachers that might be able to help. They might have no magic at all, and want to be a scout, a farmer, a librarian. Jaina swallowed back a hysterical giggle. What if they want to be a pirate?
As Jaina ascended the staircase, each footfall feeling heavier than the last, her thoughts chased each other around like unruly frost wolves -- will Drek’thar and the other Frostwolves accept our child into the clan? Will they be chosen to have a spirit companion or will they shun a half-human no matter their line? -- until she found herself quite naturally in her office. She let the door click shut.
Do halforcen children have specific dietary needs? Health risks? I can ask Ariana, surely she’ll know. Gustav said there were no inherent issues, but it might be better to ask someone with practical experience--
“Jaina.”
The voice was familiar, though hoarse and weary. It was laced with desperation and sadness, and the sound of it cut straight through her heart, and deep into her past. The thoughts ceased, and a single, new notion crystallized in her mind. She whirled towards the sound, raising her arms and bringing them down. A dozen icicles, the length of her forearm and far sharper formed around her and flew towards the source. There was a grunt of surprise as eleven of them pinned the figure to the wall where they’d been lurking, and the twelfth hovered at her shoulder.
With her other hand, she conjured light, bringing the figure into harsh relief. She remembered these robes, though they had seen better days, not so much dusty as worn, the gold, embroidered birds duller than the last time she’d seen them. The wide sleeves, once so perfect at hiding a notebook, were torn by Jaina’s icicles. Even the mantle they’d joked made him look like an extra half of an elf, were knocked askew and damaged instead of imposing.
In the light, a pair of tired green eyes glittered behind half-closed eyelids as one hand moved ineffectually to shield its owner’s face from the brightness that brought the smudges under his eyes into sharp relief. Jaina knew that face, despite the worn lines that pulled lips that had once smiled easily into a frown, just as she knew that hair, having run her fingers through it often enough, though rarely had it ever been just on this side of greasy. All and all, it was a sight that Jaina knew well, a sight that had been intimate and interconnected with hers for a very long time.
From the wall burst in a great, flaming bird, flapping its wings and crying out in alarm at the sight.
“Ah! You must let my familiar go at once!” it cried. “How else will he feed me?”
“Al’ar…”
“How did you get in here?” Jaina demanded. “What are you doing here? What have you done?!”
“I followed you around, actually, and slipped past you when you opened the door.” The figure sighed as the bird, Al’ar, nudged at him. “You’d think you’d help me or something, you ridiculous obese bonfire.”
“I am not fat,” Al’ar insisted. “You’re starving me.”
“You are physically incapable of--”
“There were two more questions!” Jaina cried, her fingers tightening into fists, even as the realization struck her. “Answer them.”
Sighing, he closed his eyes briefly. “They’re tied together. I have completely screwed up in every way there is possible to screw up. I have been abandoned by every friend, every ally I have. I came to you because I don’t have anywhere else to go.” His eyes opened and fixed on her. “Jaina, I need your help.”
“Well,” Jaina began, and made a gesture in the air. The icicles melted one by one, and he sighed in relief as he stood on his own two feet. “You’re certainly right about that, Kael.”
Kael’thas Sunstrider, Crown Prince of the fallen kingdom of Quel’thalas, smiled thinly. Jaina let the light dim as he approached her, though careful not to be closer than an arm’s length. “Congratulations, by the way.”
Jaina gave him a hard look. “Tell me what you did, from the beginning.”
Kael inhaled sharply, nodded once, and began.
[End]