Warcraft: Unity: Stormcaller - 1/8+Epilogue
It's here! I'm so excited to present you with Stormcaller, another Jaina-centric side story that took place earlier in Unity's timeline. Beta work done, as always, by my favourite zombie hamster sodzilla! Please enjoy!
Title: Unity: Stormcaller
Part: 1/8+Epilogue
Word Count: 4211
Includes: Spoilers for the Bonus Orc Campaign, character death, violence, strong language.
Pairings: Implied Thrall/Jaina, Jaina/OMC.
Summary: During the Late Winter of the 27th year after the opening of the Dark Portal, something dark and sinister calls terrible storms to lash the coast of Kalimdor, its source seemingly Jaina's old home: Kul Tiras. Vowing to do what is right, rather than take an easier path, Jaina returns home to speak to her estranged family and protect her family, her allies, and her own people from the Stormcaller.
Previous: Unity Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
It was snowing over Theramore, the flakes coming thick and fast, obscuring the view out to the Maelstrom to the east, and the Marsh to the west. Above, purple runes of the wards flared into visibility and then stopped in a repeating pattern, repelling the driving wind and most of the snow. The island itself was only lightly dusted, from the near side of the Dustwallow Bridge to the docks of the harbour.
“I'm sorry,” Tervosh said. “I'm not powerful enough to maintain the wards from that distance. I'm needed here.”
“Damn,” Jaina whispered, looking down at the map between them. It was a large-scale representation of Theramore, and it had been scrawled over so thoroughly that any decent cartographer would have wept to see it. She glanced over the runes and calculations. “I can't afford to wait... I suppose I'll go alone.”
“Why not take Ariana, at least?” Tervosh asked, his expression tight with concern. “Or--”
“Ariana has a young child, it wouldn't be... right, or fair,” Jaina replied. “No, it's my family, I will deal with them as appropriate.” She winced. “You know what I mean. I hope.”
“I do, but Jaina...” Jaina met Tervosh's gaze. “Jonathan is dead. You remember that, don't you?”
“I remember it well,” Jaina said, her expression tight. “I can hardly forget since I was the one who signed his execution order. If you'll excuse me, I need to dress for the weather.”
“That's not what I--” Jaina teleported up to her room, and heard Tervosh's voice as a ghost.
“--meant.”
~ * ~
Rain and wind lashed Boralus Keep. The gale shook the ships as they huddled in the deepest parts of the harbour, while the smaller boats were snug and tight against the piers. Even for the winter, the weather was harsh, and as Jaina looked upon her first home, her chest tightened.
They need help.
She could have teleported anywhere within the Keep if she'd wanted. She'd practised for a long time in the narrow stone and wood halls, perfecting her teleportation so she'd have just enough time to sleep in and get to breakfast before Finnall and Tandred got there first, before her mother's silent raised eyebrow and her grandmother's rude chuckling.
...before her father, only sometimes at the head of the table, would bang on the table to get their attention. The memory of sea-green eyes and a brown, greying beard still hurt. Another set of eyes, another whispered voice, hurt more.
That's enough of that, Jaina thought firmly, and began to walk. She wore a long rain poncho with a deep hood, and water rolled off of her in waves, adding to the already deep, muddy puddles. She walked through them in knee-high boots pulled over trousers. Her fingers were enclosed in oiled gloves that kept her hands warm and dry. She could have used magic on all of her clothing, she could have worn a swimsuit if she'd really wanted, but no. If she was going home, she was doing it on her terms, as an equal.
As a Proudmoore.
She could see the market, and something tugged at her, old memories, and she diverted to take a walk through it. The stores were closed up tight and rain shook the overhangs. The carts and temporary stalls were long gone, and there was something empty, haunted about a market with no people.
Jaina was careful not to close her eyes as memory overtook her: the smell of fish was everywhere in the market, despite the best efforts of the various vendors to keep down wind. No one wanted the newest silks from Lordaeron to smell like breaded haddock or Tiran cod, after all.
Jaina could remember the sun shining down on the market as people bustled past each other with grins and friendly, companionable cursing as they bumped into one another. She could remember the stalls of books and books and books that arrived from Azeroth's stiff and dusty printers or Dalaran's elegant, illuminated script or even the occasional slim book of rare Gilnean poetry.
She remembered the bright colours, the friendly faces, and the feeling of greasy paper in her hands from that same fish, the way it tasted, the way it smelled, the way her brother had told her she'd better wash her hands otherwise she'd get in trouble for touching anything at the merchant stalls.
She remembered the way her face had screwed up at him, as though he were some kind of newly dredged up idiot. Her stomach clenched at the memory. Her brother had her father's eyes, and his darker skin, while she, the little changeling of the family, was pale-pale-pale...
Memory led her steps out of the market, and along the coastline. There was a little strip of beach out of the way, but on the way to the Keep in a sort of roundabout, hidden way. Jaina remembered it well, because getting from the docks to the family cove quickly was very important when you needed to flee in fear from the person you just injured.
“Miss Jaina Proudmoore? My name is Antonidas, and I am a friend of your father's. Will you not speak to me, just for a moment?”
Jaina wiped at her rain and cold-numbed cheek. Would that I could, Master. Would that I could.
The little cove was set back from the coastline, and the water was deep enough to swim in and shallow enough to be safe. It had grey, dreary sand instead of the rich red of Durotar or Tanaris' sandy brown. Had the weather not been miserable and terrible, it still wouldn't have been much to look at, not compared to all of the other sights she’d beheld since.
As a child, you haven't seen the world, Jaina thought, bending down in the wet sand to cup her hand over it. You've only seen what's in your own backyard. You've only seen what your parents are ready for you to see.
She'd spent her earliest years on this beach. Tandred had been ten years old when she was born, and Finnall older than that. She remembered them watching her as she'd paddled around in the water - cold, but not too cold for her, she'd gotten used to it early - and her father picking her up and hurling her out to sea, while she laughed and swam back.
“That's it, little Sunfish, you can do it.”
She remembered his eyes and his smile, and the way he'd been absolutely certain she would swim to him, into his arms and his safety, and not turn around and swim out into the ocean, to seek the waves and the storm.
You taught me to trust you, but also to trust my own heart, Da, Jaina thought, and stood, heading up towards the Keep, through the rough, narrow path up to the side door. A rope hung just under the awning, protected from direct rain, though not the fierce winds. She gripped it and rang it once, then twice more, then once again.
She waited in the rain until the door opened. Tandred had changed very little since she’d last seen him. He had the same weathered, tanned features, though there were new wrinkles around his blue-green eyes and his mouth. He had kept the same dark brown hair, cropped at the sides and a bit longer at the top, perpetually flattened by his hat, though there was grey creeping into his temples despite being not quite forty. Tandred wore a half-unbuttoned shirt that was off-white, tending towards blue, and dark blue trousers with a stripe of black and yellow along the outsides, hinting towards his status even in such a casual state. Instead of boots, he was wearing dark brown leather loafers with socks, a ward against the chill of the storm.
“Jaina...” Tandred whispered, and emotion played over his features. Jaina reached up and pushed her hood back, sending a spray of rainwater back, and she met his gaze evenly.
“Tandred,” she replied as a greeting. “I'm home. May I come in?”
~ * ~
The interior of Boralus Keep had not changed much since Jaina’s childhood. It still had narrow, close-in hallways with wood panelling. It still had only the closest and most secure of wall sconces. It lacked the tapestries and banners of Castle Whitestone in Lordaeron or Stormwind Keep in Azeroth, but possessed portraits instead of the Grand Admirals and their families.
The earliest pictures were of Grand Admiral Rhiannon of the Proud Moor and her children. Briefly, Jaina touched her hand beside the portrait of her namesake, the first leader of the Blackwater Raiders. The portraits were old, and magic preserved them against moisture and cold. Jaina felt it hum under her fingertips, and sent a gentle, renewing nudge into the magical pattern.
There were hundreds of pictures, some large, as the ones of the Grand Admirals were, and some were small, only the size of a hand or a head. A plaque usually indicated when a particular, obscure branch of the family had died out, while others indicated adoptions and marriages. Close to the sitting room was the wall with her own family.
Her grandmother's portrait, Amelia Proudmoore, sitting next to her husband, Thomas Whittaker, who had taken on the Proudmoore name as was custom. She dropped a kiss over the portrait. “Hello, Grandfather.” It was the only way she had known him. That and her grandmother's stories. Her aunts, all four of them, and her father, and around them, their spouses: two had married men, and had a passel of children between them, the third was partnered with a woman and was busily adopting up war orphans, and the fourth, Aunt Miriam, had a lover in every port, or so she'd claimed at their last big dinner.
Jaina smiled a little, because she'd wanted to be just like Aunt Miriam, just like her namesake, just like Rhiannon. I wanted to be the Dread Pirate Jaina, and sail the seas rescuing people and liberating booty from other pirates.
Just ahead of her, Tandred stopped, and turned to watch her study the pictures of her family: her father, trying to look stern with a smile tugging at his lips. Her mother, her expression serene to family and cold to outsiders. Finnall, Derek, Tandred, and herself. It was something of a relief to see her own face, younger and happier than what she saw in a mirror, staring back.
“We wouldn't take you off the wall,” Tandred said quietly. “No one gets taken off the wall.”
“There's a first time for everything,” Jaina murmured in return, and then straightened. She set her jaw, and looked over at her brother defiantly. Tandred inclined his head slightly, and continued to walk.
The Proudmoore living quarters were located in the heart of Boralus Keep, not unlike the way crew living quarters were nestled safe in the hull of a great ship. Tandred opened the door, and allowed Jaina to pass through. For a moment, Jaina hesitated.
It was not out of politeness you let an unknown walk before you. It was as a demonstration of mistrust. Jaina's back straightened and she marched into the sitting room, and fought the urge to summon her gun into the palm of her hand. Hers was a small thing that fit her well, having been customized over the years until her growth was over, and she had been drilled tirelessly in its use.
Tandred was similarly, but differently armed. Instead of a small, concealed piece, his gun was obvious, well past the length of his already large hands, carried in a holster inside his jacket. He could, if necessary, draw his nearly as quickly as she could draw hers, and at his waist he wore a sabre, well-worn and reliable. Jaina, for her part, preferred a wand or a staff to a sword, though she could use the latter, if nothing else, to parry a melee weapon while making a point-blank magical attack or firing her gun.
The sitting room was also how she remembered it. This felt more like a family home, cosy and lived in. On the walls were window-sized paintings from different parts of the Tiran islands, each depicting a different township. As a child, Jaina had thought it was like looking out windows into other worlds, that it was something magical.
Having spend many, many years in the most enchanted city on Azeroth, the paintings remained rather enchanting.
The hearthfire crackled merrily, protected by an iron grate, a chair located very close to it. This chair, somewhat worn, was covered in a brightly-patterned quilt, the blanket equally patchy in places. The chair was, to Jaina's regret, empty.
“The damp inflames her arthritis something fierce,” Tandred murmured. “She went to bed early.”
Jaina had never known her grandmother to concede, but in the absence of contradictory evidence, she was forced to accept this as fact, and nodded slightly. “The weather is terrible.”
“It's never particularly nice in the winter,” Tandred allowed. “This Winter has been particularly bad.”
“That's because it's not just the Winter rains that are hitting you,” Jaina replied, and continued to drink in the details. She remembered the couches, the second and third chairs belonging to her parents, the footstool that was just as often as not used for perching rather than feet... the wall-hangings with the family crest on it, one that Jaina used for Theramore, though in different colours.
“We were at something of loose ends trying to figure out what it could be,” Tandred admitted. “Take a seat, I'll fetch Mother, and we can discuss it.”
Jaina nodded, and relaxed slightly as she heard her brother leave. Slowly, she paced around the room over the old carpet, and noticed the walls had been painted again. Everything was how it had been, and yet there were changes, different and subtle, a concession to progress even as it preserved the old order.
A metaphor, if ever I observed one, Jaina thought as she took her old seat, and tucked her feet up in the old way. Safe and secure deep within Boralus Keep, it was hard to hear the howling of the winds, and with her rain cape and boots dripping in the mud room, one might be forgiven for forgetting about the weather outside.
Quite without meaning to, Jaina let her gun slip into her hand. She ran her thumb over the short, compact barrel, and the engravings on the grip. Turning it over, she looked at the butt of her gun, and touched over the etched anchor. It had been a gift and a burden, a reminder and a birthright. As a child, she’d had the importance of the Proudmoore connection to the Steamwheedle Cartel drilled into her as surely and as frequently as respect for the sea.
I was eight when I went to Kezan to be marked and trained, Jaina mused. Because my mother thought I was too young at seven, even though my brothers went then. Eight when I put my lessons in Kezani to the test, eight when I met Uncle Revilgaz, eight when I learned how to shoot and care for my little gun… eight when they injected some of their precious Kezanite, fuel granted by Lady Luck herself, just under my skin to make the anchor. Jaina’s gaze tightened. Unmistakeable for what it is and what it represents.
Jaina heard one of the doors open and slipped the gun back into her sleeve: it was a clever trick, one even the best duellists could never manage, because it involved magic, and a specific spot teleportation trigger. Kael was so certain I was going to teleport my elbow instead, but… Jaina’s expression tightened as she stood and turned to face the new arrival, he’s been wrong in the past.
Lady Adriana Proudmoore, nee Greymane, swept in like a cold wind, and Jaina shivered despite her resolution to stand fast. She and her mother shared many physical features: her mother was small and slender, and the hair that had been blonde in Jaina’s youth was turning to white, making her seem all the more fine and delicate.
A diamond might be pretty too, but it’s impossible to break without a great deal of help, and mother’s always been a diamond. Her mother’s features had aged gracefully, owing to careful artifice and an expression that seemed permanently fixed in a slight frown, giving the impression that she neither laughed nor cried, though Jaina had seen her, on rare occasion, do both.
If her father was warmth and fire and tempest, her mother was ice, slow, graceful, and unyielding. She turned that icy blue stare, so like Jaina’s own, on her daughter now. “Jaina.”
“Mother,” Jaina choked out, feeling old emotion swell in her: frustration and anger, fear and shame. It was all Jaina could do not to yell, to start up an argument that had ended over a year ago. Jaina felt helpless as her mother inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, and lifted her skirts as she moved through the room like a cold wind, scrabbling for purchase against unprotected skin.
Jaina’s mother had been a Gilnean princess, with protocol, including controlling her emotions at all times, whether it be joy, sadness, or anger, drilled into her from a very young age, while her brother Genn had been allowed to be noisy, to be angry, to express himself in every blustering way he cared to. From what she understood, most Gilnean nobility raised their children similarly, until they may as well have been from two different nations entirely. It took time to see the warmth behind her mother’s eyes, the slight expressions that represented smiles of joy from someone who had been taught only to frown, but searching Adriana’s features, Jaina found nothing of that nature there. Nothing but ice and cold.
Adriana sat in her chair, arranging her navy blue skirts ceremonially with long-fingered, delicate, pale hands before looking up, allowing Jaina to take the seat across from her. Jaina’s posture was upright and stiff as she watched her mother. Tandred walked around the room, choosing to stand off to one side to watch them both.
Signal received, brother mine, Jaina thought sourly, and it was: Tandred was to play peacemaker between them if necessary, to not immediately take his mother’s side and to break up arguments if they became too icy. For all Tandred looked like their father closely, he had their mother’s cooler head and their father’s sense of the romantic, where Jaina had inherited ice and tempest in uneven handfuls.
“I’m here about the storms,” Jaina began. At any other time, during any other visit home, she’d have asked questions about those absent. Only when she was in the deepest of bilgewater did she get straight to the point with her mother, and the admission of guilt and the lack of protocol caused her mother’s thin, carefully shaped eyebrow to rise. “They’re far worse than the ones we -- you -- get after Harbour Day when the ships come in for the Winter, and more than that, they’re unnatural. We’ve been getting hit with storms in Kalimdor, hurricanes, snow. I have intelligence that the storms are coming from here, and that certainly explains why everything is so… empty.”
“Intelligence?” Adriana asked, and Jaina felt the tips of her fingers go cold, but she held her head high.
“Yes, I’ve had it from a shaman, who’s had it from the spirits of air and water that have come here fleeing in fear. I have no reason to distrust that intelligence.” After a moment, because she could not resist the dig, “my source is completely trustworthy and unbiased in such matters.”
“Well, I know little of spirits,” Adriana said, her emphasis placed to indicate she didn’t trust any of the sources involved, causing Jaina to stiffen. “However, the constant storms are not the only reason that Boralus seems abandoned.”
Jaina felt numb, and her lips barely moved as she spoke. “Could you elaborate?”
“Certainly,” Adriana began, and smoothed an errant wrinkle from her skirts away. “Two thirds of the Fleet are gone. Battleships, destroyers, merchant ships and troop carriers, lost as surely as if they’d sailed into the Maelstrom and been destroyed.” Jaina flinched. “By that time, Lordaeron, Quel’thalas, and Dalaran had all fallen, severing a number of trade routes. Without that trade, there are few reasons for many of our foreign merchants to stay, so they packed their things and left with none to replace them.”
“What about Uncle Genn?” Jaina pressed, and her mother raised her eyebrow again. Jaina pushed forward. “He can’t still believe isolation is worthwhile.”
“Relations with Gilneas remain as poor as ever,” Adriana noted. “Like Kul Tiras, Gilneas was never touched by the Plague, and he is intent on keeping things that way. None pass through the border or the harbour without permission from the Crown, and he chooses not to grant it to us.”
“We still trade with the Azerothians, of course,” Tandred noted, his voice steady. “And the goblins, but that’s not what we’re used to. Trade’s clean dropped off, and we’re all feeling it.”
Jaina’s heart sank, and took a closer look at the dress her mother was wearing. It was like so many Jaina had seen her wear over the years, half-uniform, half-relic from her time as a Gilnean princess to be clad in as many layers as they could invent, and it had seemed no different at first. It was not the cut of the cloth but the cloth itself: this was no silk or woven linen. It struck Jaina with a pang of pain and guilt that the material would have been more commonly seen adorning windows to keep out sunlight. Of course Mother wouldn’t want her seamstress to be out of work, even if it means putting aside silks for drapery.
“But there are other trading partners,” Jaina said abruptly, drawing looks from her mother and brother both. “There are any number of people in Kalimdor ready and willing to trade. Theramore, in fact, is--”
“I don’t believe so,” Adriana said, and Jaina sat back, as surely as if her mother had slapped her. “Ships that sail for Kalimdor don’t return. We will not take that risk, not even for… trade.”
So you’ll sit here forever until the tide rises, you might as well build a damned wall--
“We’re not here to talk about trade,” Tandred reminded them both, shaking Jaina from her frustration. “We’re talking about the storms.”
“Indeed we are, my son, thank you,” Adriana said, and Jaina flinched again, but forced herself to focus. “The foreign merchants weren’t the only ones to leave. We had fishermen take their boats and move further down the coast, or pass through to other ports. With fewer people to engage in their trades, it took time for us to notice that something was truly wrong. At first, it was only as though we were having a somewhat bad year, and with all of the death… that came as little surprise. However, at this stage… the rains have been relentless, and there is no end in sight.”
“We can’t hold outdoor markets at all, and people only travel if they have to,” Tandred added. “Anyone trying to fish can’t do it near the islands at all, they have to head south or north, and going too far north takes you to Gilneas…”
“And going too far south means you might as well keep going,” Jaina finished. And you won’t go west for love or money. “Do you know where the trouble started? The origin point?”
Adriana and Tandred exchanged glances, and saw uncertainty flicker over her mother’s features, though her brother was the one to speak up. “We aren’t exactly sure. We’ve had plenty of stories, the herders and fishers love to talk, but there’s nothing we can anchor ourselves to.”
“Many of those we spoke to are inclined to believe it’s a sign of the very worst, of judgement from the Sea,” Adriana added. “But such is superstitious nonsense.”
Unease prickled along Jaina’s arms. There were other memories dredged up now of the things people had spoken of when they thought she couldn’t hear: of how the daughter who looked like the foreign princess caused strange things to happen, to freeze or disappear when her temper frayed and snapped, that it was a sign Daelin Proudmoore shouldn’t have sought outside Kul Tiras for his Quartermaster and bride, that the Sea was unhappy with them all for his betrayal of his Ocean bride.
“I don’t think anyone really believes we’re cursed, Jaina,” Tandred added as he looked at her, and saw the way her icy fingers clenched into fists. “It’s just talk.”
“Do you have written documentation of their talk?” Jaina asked, forcing her voice not to shake. “A good map?”
“Yes, we should… why?”
“If I can track down exactly who’s seen what, and when, and where, it will lead me to the source of the storms. Once I know where to look, I’ll be able to stop them for good.”
Adriana and Tandred exchanged another look, and Adriana nodded slightly, then rose, smoothing her skirts a final time. “I will retrieve them from our files. Tandred will be able to find you a map.”
“Thank you,” Jaina said, standing up as well. “Could you bring them to the dining room? I’ll need a big table.” And neither of you want me in the office, I’d wager.
“Very well,” Adriana said. “We’ll return promptly.” As she had entered, Adriana swept out like an icy wind, and Tandred followed her out.
Jaina cupped her face in her hands and screamed into her palms.
[ Chapter 2]
Title: Unity: Stormcaller
Part: 1/8+Epilogue
Word Count: 4211
Includes: Spoilers for the Bonus Orc Campaign, character death, violence, strong language.
Pairings: Implied Thrall/Jaina, Jaina/OMC.
Summary: During the Late Winter of the 27th year after the opening of the Dark Portal, something dark and sinister calls terrible storms to lash the coast of Kalimdor, its source seemingly Jaina's old home: Kul Tiras. Vowing to do what is right, rather than take an easier path, Jaina returns home to speak to her estranged family and protect her family, her allies, and her own people from the Stormcaller.
Previous: Unity Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
It was snowing over Theramore, the flakes coming thick and fast, obscuring the view out to the Maelstrom to the east, and the Marsh to the west. Above, purple runes of the wards flared into visibility and then stopped in a repeating pattern, repelling the driving wind and most of the snow. The island itself was only lightly dusted, from the near side of the Dustwallow Bridge to the docks of the harbour.
“I'm sorry,” Tervosh said. “I'm not powerful enough to maintain the wards from that distance. I'm needed here.”
“Damn,” Jaina whispered, looking down at the map between them. It was a large-scale representation of Theramore, and it had been scrawled over so thoroughly that any decent cartographer would have wept to see it. She glanced over the runes and calculations. “I can't afford to wait... I suppose I'll go alone.”
“Why not take Ariana, at least?” Tervosh asked, his expression tight with concern. “Or--”
“Ariana has a young child, it wouldn't be... right, or fair,” Jaina replied. “No, it's my family, I will deal with them as appropriate.” She winced. “You know what I mean. I hope.”
“I do, but Jaina...” Jaina met Tervosh's gaze. “Jonathan is dead. You remember that, don't you?”
“I remember it well,” Jaina said, her expression tight. “I can hardly forget since I was the one who signed his execution order. If you'll excuse me, I need to dress for the weather.”
“That's not what I--” Jaina teleported up to her room, and heard Tervosh's voice as a ghost.
“--meant.”
~ * ~
Rain and wind lashed Boralus Keep. The gale shook the ships as they huddled in the deepest parts of the harbour, while the smaller boats were snug and tight against the piers. Even for the winter, the weather was harsh, and as Jaina looked upon her first home, her chest tightened.
They need help.
She could have teleported anywhere within the Keep if she'd wanted. She'd practised for a long time in the narrow stone and wood halls, perfecting her teleportation so she'd have just enough time to sleep in and get to breakfast before Finnall and Tandred got there first, before her mother's silent raised eyebrow and her grandmother's rude chuckling.
...before her father, only sometimes at the head of the table, would bang on the table to get their attention. The memory of sea-green eyes and a brown, greying beard still hurt. Another set of eyes, another whispered voice, hurt more.
That's enough of that, Jaina thought firmly, and began to walk. She wore a long rain poncho with a deep hood, and water rolled off of her in waves, adding to the already deep, muddy puddles. She walked through them in knee-high boots pulled over trousers. Her fingers were enclosed in oiled gloves that kept her hands warm and dry. She could have used magic on all of her clothing, she could have worn a swimsuit if she'd really wanted, but no. If she was going home, she was doing it on her terms, as an equal.
As a Proudmoore.
She could see the market, and something tugged at her, old memories, and she diverted to take a walk through it. The stores were closed up tight and rain shook the overhangs. The carts and temporary stalls were long gone, and there was something empty, haunted about a market with no people.
Jaina was careful not to close her eyes as memory overtook her: the smell of fish was everywhere in the market, despite the best efforts of the various vendors to keep down wind. No one wanted the newest silks from Lordaeron to smell like breaded haddock or Tiran cod, after all.
Jaina could remember the sun shining down on the market as people bustled past each other with grins and friendly, companionable cursing as they bumped into one another. She could remember the stalls of books and books and books that arrived from Azeroth's stiff and dusty printers or Dalaran's elegant, illuminated script or even the occasional slim book of rare Gilnean poetry.
She remembered the bright colours, the friendly faces, and the feeling of greasy paper in her hands from that same fish, the way it tasted, the way it smelled, the way her brother had told her she'd better wash her hands otherwise she'd get in trouble for touching anything at the merchant stalls.
She remembered the way her face had screwed up at him, as though he were some kind of newly dredged up idiot. Her stomach clenched at the memory. Her brother had her father's eyes, and his darker skin, while she, the little changeling of the family, was pale-pale-pale...
Memory led her steps out of the market, and along the coastline. There was a little strip of beach out of the way, but on the way to the Keep in a sort of roundabout, hidden way. Jaina remembered it well, because getting from the docks to the family cove quickly was very important when you needed to flee in fear from the person you just injured.
“Miss Jaina Proudmoore? My name is Antonidas, and I am a friend of your father's. Will you not speak to me, just for a moment?”
Jaina wiped at her rain and cold-numbed cheek. Would that I could, Master. Would that I could.
The little cove was set back from the coastline, and the water was deep enough to swim in and shallow enough to be safe. It had grey, dreary sand instead of the rich red of Durotar or Tanaris' sandy brown. Had the weather not been miserable and terrible, it still wouldn't have been much to look at, not compared to all of the other sights she’d beheld since.
As a child, you haven't seen the world, Jaina thought, bending down in the wet sand to cup her hand over it. You've only seen what's in your own backyard. You've only seen what your parents are ready for you to see.
She'd spent her earliest years on this beach. Tandred had been ten years old when she was born, and Finnall older than that. She remembered them watching her as she'd paddled around in the water - cold, but not too cold for her, she'd gotten used to it early - and her father picking her up and hurling her out to sea, while she laughed and swam back.
“That's it, little Sunfish, you can do it.”
She remembered his eyes and his smile, and the way he'd been absolutely certain she would swim to him, into his arms and his safety, and not turn around and swim out into the ocean, to seek the waves and the storm.
You taught me to trust you, but also to trust my own heart, Da, Jaina thought, and stood, heading up towards the Keep, through the rough, narrow path up to the side door. A rope hung just under the awning, protected from direct rain, though not the fierce winds. She gripped it and rang it once, then twice more, then once again.
She waited in the rain until the door opened. Tandred had changed very little since she’d last seen him. He had the same weathered, tanned features, though there were new wrinkles around his blue-green eyes and his mouth. He had kept the same dark brown hair, cropped at the sides and a bit longer at the top, perpetually flattened by his hat, though there was grey creeping into his temples despite being not quite forty. Tandred wore a half-unbuttoned shirt that was off-white, tending towards blue, and dark blue trousers with a stripe of black and yellow along the outsides, hinting towards his status even in such a casual state. Instead of boots, he was wearing dark brown leather loafers with socks, a ward against the chill of the storm.
“Jaina...” Tandred whispered, and emotion played over his features. Jaina reached up and pushed her hood back, sending a spray of rainwater back, and she met his gaze evenly.
“Tandred,” she replied as a greeting. “I'm home. May I come in?”
~ * ~
The interior of Boralus Keep had not changed much since Jaina’s childhood. It still had narrow, close-in hallways with wood panelling. It still had only the closest and most secure of wall sconces. It lacked the tapestries and banners of Castle Whitestone in Lordaeron or Stormwind Keep in Azeroth, but possessed portraits instead of the Grand Admirals and their families.
The earliest pictures were of Grand Admiral Rhiannon of the Proud Moor and her children. Briefly, Jaina touched her hand beside the portrait of her namesake, the first leader of the Blackwater Raiders. The portraits were old, and magic preserved them against moisture and cold. Jaina felt it hum under her fingertips, and sent a gentle, renewing nudge into the magical pattern.
There were hundreds of pictures, some large, as the ones of the Grand Admirals were, and some were small, only the size of a hand or a head. A plaque usually indicated when a particular, obscure branch of the family had died out, while others indicated adoptions and marriages. Close to the sitting room was the wall with her own family.
Her grandmother's portrait, Amelia Proudmoore, sitting next to her husband, Thomas Whittaker, who had taken on the Proudmoore name as was custom. She dropped a kiss over the portrait. “Hello, Grandfather.” It was the only way she had known him. That and her grandmother's stories. Her aunts, all four of them, and her father, and around them, their spouses: two had married men, and had a passel of children between them, the third was partnered with a woman and was busily adopting up war orphans, and the fourth, Aunt Miriam, had a lover in every port, or so she'd claimed at their last big dinner.
Jaina smiled a little, because she'd wanted to be just like Aunt Miriam, just like her namesake, just like Rhiannon. I wanted to be the Dread Pirate Jaina, and sail the seas rescuing people and liberating booty from other pirates.
Just ahead of her, Tandred stopped, and turned to watch her study the pictures of her family: her father, trying to look stern with a smile tugging at his lips. Her mother, her expression serene to family and cold to outsiders. Finnall, Derek, Tandred, and herself. It was something of a relief to see her own face, younger and happier than what she saw in a mirror, staring back.
“We wouldn't take you off the wall,” Tandred said quietly. “No one gets taken off the wall.”
“There's a first time for everything,” Jaina murmured in return, and then straightened. She set her jaw, and looked over at her brother defiantly. Tandred inclined his head slightly, and continued to walk.
The Proudmoore living quarters were located in the heart of Boralus Keep, not unlike the way crew living quarters were nestled safe in the hull of a great ship. Tandred opened the door, and allowed Jaina to pass through. For a moment, Jaina hesitated.
It was not out of politeness you let an unknown walk before you. It was as a demonstration of mistrust. Jaina's back straightened and she marched into the sitting room, and fought the urge to summon her gun into the palm of her hand. Hers was a small thing that fit her well, having been customized over the years until her growth was over, and she had been drilled tirelessly in its use.
Tandred was similarly, but differently armed. Instead of a small, concealed piece, his gun was obvious, well past the length of his already large hands, carried in a holster inside his jacket. He could, if necessary, draw his nearly as quickly as she could draw hers, and at his waist he wore a sabre, well-worn and reliable. Jaina, for her part, preferred a wand or a staff to a sword, though she could use the latter, if nothing else, to parry a melee weapon while making a point-blank magical attack or firing her gun.
The sitting room was also how she remembered it. This felt more like a family home, cosy and lived in. On the walls were window-sized paintings from different parts of the Tiran islands, each depicting a different township. As a child, Jaina had thought it was like looking out windows into other worlds, that it was something magical.
Having spend many, many years in the most enchanted city on Azeroth, the paintings remained rather enchanting.
The hearthfire crackled merrily, protected by an iron grate, a chair located very close to it. This chair, somewhat worn, was covered in a brightly-patterned quilt, the blanket equally patchy in places. The chair was, to Jaina's regret, empty.
“The damp inflames her arthritis something fierce,” Tandred murmured. “She went to bed early.”
Jaina had never known her grandmother to concede, but in the absence of contradictory evidence, she was forced to accept this as fact, and nodded slightly. “The weather is terrible.”
“It's never particularly nice in the winter,” Tandred allowed. “This Winter has been particularly bad.”
“That's because it's not just the Winter rains that are hitting you,” Jaina replied, and continued to drink in the details. She remembered the couches, the second and third chairs belonging to her parents, the footstool that was just as often as not used for perching rather than feet... the wall-hangings with the family crest on it, one that Jaina used for Theramore, though in different colours.
“We were at something of loose ends trying to figure out what it could be,” Tandred admitted. “Take a seat, I'll fetch Mother, and we can discuss it.”
Jaina nodded, and relaxed slightly as she heard her brother leave. Slowly, she paced around the room over the old carpet, and noticed the walls had been painted again. Everything was how it had been, and yet there were changes, different and subtle, a concession to progress even as it preserved the old order.
A metaphor, if ever I observed one, Jaina thought as she took her old seat, and tucked her feet up in the old way. Safe and secure deep within Boralus Keep, it was hard to hear the howling of the winds, and with her rain cape and boots dripping in the mud room, one might be forgiven for forgetting about the weather outside.
Quite without meaning to, Jaina let her gun slip into her hand. She ran her thumb over the short, compact barrel, and the engravings on the grip. Turning it over, she looked at the butt of her gun, and touched over the etched anchor. It had been a gift and a burden, a reminder and a birthright. As a child, she’d had the importance of the Proudmoore connection to the Steamwheedle Cartel drilled into her as surely and as frequently as respect for the sea.
I was eight when I went to Kezan to be marked and trained, Jaina mused. Because my mother thought I was too young at seven, even though my brothers went then. Eight when I put my lessons in Kezani to the test, eight when I met Uncle Revilgaz, eight when I learned how to shoot and care for my little gun… eight when they injected some of their precious Kezanite, fuel granted by Lady Luck herself, just under my skin to make the anchor. Jaina’s gaze tightened. Unmistakeable for what it is and what it represents.
Jaina heard one of the doors open and slipped the gun back into her sleeve: it was a clever trick, one even the best duellists could never manage, because it involved magic, and a specific spot teleportation trigger. Kael was so certain I was going to teleport my elbow instead, but… Jaina’s expression tightened as she stood and turned to face the new arrival, he’s been wrong in the past.
Lady Adriana Proudmoore, nee Greymane, swept in like a cold wind, and Jaina shivered despite her resolution to stand fast. She and her mother shared many physical features: her mother was small and slender, and the hair that had been blonde in Jaina’s youth was turning to white, making her seem all the more fine and delicate.
A diamond might be pretty too, but it’s impossible to break without a great deal of help, and mother’s always been a diamond. Her mother’s features had aged gracefully, owing to careful artifice and an expression that seemed permanently fixed in a slight frown, giving the impression that she neither laughed nor cried, though Jaina had seen her, on rare occasion, do both.
If her father was warmth and fire and tempest, her mother was ice, slow, graceful, and unyielding. She turned that icy blue stare, so like Jaina’s own, on her daughter now. “Jaina.”
“Mother,” Jaina choked out, feeling old emotion swell in her: frustration and anger, fear and shame. It was all Jaina could do not to yell, to start up an argument that had ended over a year ago. Jaina felt helpless as her mother inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, and lifted her skirts as she moved through the room like a cold wind, scrabbling for purchase against unprotected skin.
Jaina’s mother had been a Gilnean princess, with protocol, including controlling her emotions at all times, whether it be joy, sadness, or anger, drilled into her from a very young age, while her brother Genn had been allowed to be noisy, to be angry, to express himself in every blustering way he cared to. From what she understood, most Gilnean nobility raised their children similarly, until they may as well have been from two different nations entirely. It took time to see the warmth behind her mother’s eyes, the slight expressions that represented smiles of joy from someone who had been taught only to frown, but searching Adriana’s features, Jaina found nothing of that nature there. Nothing but ice and cold.
Adriana sat in her chair, arranging her navy blue skirts ceremonially with long-fingered, delicate, pale hands before looking up, allowing Jaina to take the seat across from her. Jaina’s posture was upright and stiff as she watched her mother. Tandred walked around the room, choosing to stand off to one side to watch them both.
Signal received, brother mine, Jaina thought sourly, and it was: Tandred was to play peacemaker between them if necessary, to not immediately take his mother’s side and to break up arguments if they became too icy. For all Tandred looked like their father closely, he had their mother’s cooler head and their father’s sense of the romantic, where Jaina had inherited ice and tempest in uneven handfuls.
“I’m here about the storms,” Jaina began. At any other time, during any other visit home, she’d have asked questions about those absent. Only when she was in the deepest of bilgewater did she get straight to the point with her mother, and the admission of guilt and the lack of protocol caused her mother’s thin, carefully shaped eyebrow to rise. “They’re far worse than the ones we -- you -- get after Harbour Day when the ships come in for the Winter, and more than that, they’re unnatural. We’ve been getting hit with storms in Kalimdor, hurricanes, snow. I have intelligence that the storms are coming from here, and that certainly explains why everything is so… empty.”
“Intelligence?” Adriana asked, and Jaina felt the tips of her fingers go cold, but she held her head high.
“Yes, I’ve had it from a shaman, who’s had it from the spirits of air and water that have come here fleeing in fear. I have no reason to distrust that intelligence.” After a moment, because she could not resist the dig, “my source is completely trustworthy and unbiased in such matters.”
“Well, I know little of spirits,” Adriana said, her emphasis placed to indicate she didn’t trust any of the sources involved, causing Jaina to stiffen. “However, the constant storms are not the only reason that Boralus seems abandoned.”
Jaina felt numb, and her lips barely moved as she spoke. “Could you elaborate?”
“Certainly,” Adriana began, and smoothed an errant wrinkle from her skirts away. “Two thirds of the Fleet are gone. Battleships, destroyers, merchant ships and troop carriers, lost as surely as if they’d sailed into the Maelstrom and been destroyed.” Jaina flinched. “By that time, Lordaeron, Quel’thalas, and Dalaran had all fallen, severing a number of trade routes. Without that trade, there are few reasons for many of our foreign merchants to stay, so they packed their things and left with none to replace them.”
“What about Uncle Genn?” Jaina pressed, and her mother raised her eyebrow again. Jaina pushed forward. “He can’t still believe isolation is worthwhile.”
“Relations with Gilneas remain as poor as ever,” Adriana noted. “Like Kul Tiras, Gilneas was never touched by the Plague, and he is intent on keeping things that way. None pass through the border or the harbour without permission from the Crown, and he chooses not to grant it to us.”
“We still trade with the Azerothians, of course,” Tandred noted, his voice steady. “And the goblins, but that’s not what we’re used to. Trade’s clean dropped off, and we’re all feeling it.”
Jaina’s heart sank, and took a closer look at the dress her mother was wearing. It was like so many Jaina had seen her wear over the years, half-uniform, half-relic from her time as a Gilnean princess to be clad in as many layers as they could invent, and it had seemed no different at first. It was not the cut of the cloth but the cloth itself: this was no silk or woven linen. It struck Jaina with a pang of pain and guilt that the material would have been more commonly seen adorning windows to keep out sunlight. Of course Mother wouldn’t want her seamstress to be out of work, even if it means putting aside silks for drapery.
“But there are other trading partners,” Jaina said abruptly, drawing looks from her mother and brother both. “There are any number of people in Kalimdor ready and willing to trade. Theramore, in fact, is--”
“I don’t believe so,” Adriana said, and Jaina sat back, as surely as if her mother had slapped her. “Ships that sail for Kalimdor don’t return. We will not take that risk, not even for… trade.”
So you’ll sit here forever until the tide rises, you might as well build a damned wall--
“We’re not here to talk about trade,” Tandred reminded them both, shaking Jaina from her frustration. “We’re talking about the storms.”
“Indeed we are, my son, thank you,” Adriana said, and Jaina flinched again, but forced herself to focus. “The foreign merchants weren’t the only ones to leave. We had fishermen take their boats and move further down the coast, or pass through to other ports. With fewer people to engage in their trades, it took time for us to notice that something was truly wrong. At first, it was only as though we were having a somewhat bad year, and with all of the death… that came as little surprise. However, at this stage… the rains have been relentless, and there is no end in sight.”
“We can’t hold outdoor markets at all, and people only travel if they have to,” Tandred added. “Anyone trying to fish can’t do it near the islands at all, they have to head south or north, and going too far north takes you to Gilneas…”
“And going too far south means you might as well keep going,” Jaina finished. And you won’t go west for love or money. “Do you know where the trouble started? The origin point?”
Adriana and Tandred exchanged glances, and saw uncertainty flicker over her mother’s features, though her brother was the one to speak up. “We aren’t exactly sure. We’ve had plenty of stories, the herders and fishers love to talk, but there’s nothing we can anchor ourselves to.”
“Many of those we spoke to are inclined to believe it’s a sign of the very worst, of judgement from the Sea,” Adriana added. “But such is superstitious nonsense.”
Unease prickled along Jaina’s arms. There were other memories dredged up now of the things people had spoken of when they thought she couldn’t hear: of how the daughter who looked like the foreign princess caused strange things to happen, to freeze or disappear when her temper frayed and snapped, that it was a sign Daelin Proudmoore shouldn’t have sought outside Kul Tiras for his Quartermaster and bride, that the Sea was unhappy with them all for his betrayal of his Ocean bride.
“I don’t think anyone really believes we’re cursed, Jaina,” Tandred added as he looked at her, and saw the way her icy fingers clenched into fists. “It’s just talk.”
“Do you have written documentation of their talk?” Jaina asked, forcing her voice not to shake. “A good map?”
“Yes, we should… why?”
“If I can track down exactly who’s seen what, and when, and where, it will lead me to the source of the storms. Once I know where to look, I’ll be able to stop them for good.”
Adriana and Tandred exchanged another look, and Adriana nodded slightly, then rose, smoothing her skirts a final time. “I will retrieve them from our files. Tandred will be able to find you a map.”
“Thank you,” Jaina said, standing up as well. “Could you bring them to the dining room? I’ll need a big table.” And neither of you want me in the office, I’d wager.
“Very well,” Adriana said. “We’ll return promptly.” As she had entered, Adriana swept out like an icy wind, and Tandred followed her out.
Jaina cupped her face in her hands and screamed into her palms.
[ Chapter 2]