Timeskip: Analee

[moonshadows]

“Oh, now you come back?”

After having spent three long years and seven agonizing months securing the borders of Quel’Thalas against troll incursions – or at least, from that section of their empire, or until they found a way around the wards – I’d been looking forward to some time in the tender embrace of the woman I loved enough to ask her to stay with me in the palace. This wasn’t the kind of reunion I’d been dreaming of, needless to say. I opened my mouth to reply, and discovered there were no words waiting.

“Nothing to say? No excuses?”

“I…” What did she want me to say? Was the safety of our people not good enough?

“That’s what I thought.” Her eyes narrowed in satisfaction. “Nothing could excuse claiming that you loved me and then vanishing for four years.”

“Three and a half,” I heard myself say through a haze of exhaustion and confused pain. “I didn’t vanish. I told you I had to protect our borders from the troll threat.”

“Oh course you did.” Hands on her hips, she glared at me. “And in all of Quel’Thalas, there was no one else who could possibly have done the same.”

I half-sat, half-fell onto a divan and rubbed my temples. “There wasn’t. The magic trolls use has ties to nature; I’m the only one who’s studied both nature magic and the arcane.”

Her lips thinned into a grim line, and suddenly all I could think of was Malfurion. “I think you’re just using that as an excuse. Do you secretly hate me, Illidan? Am I not enough woman for you? How many other lovers did you take in the last three and a half years?”

The pain was starting to crystalize into something cold and sharp. “Not one, Emirala. Not even my hand.”

“Do you not care about me?” she went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Do you even care about anyone but yourself?”

Oh, she did not…

“Of course I do!” I thundered, shooting to my feet. “If I did not care about you, you would not be here. But you are not the only star in my sky, and I cannot, will not, revolve around you!”

“Well, you should!”

Like a slap to the face, her words shook me out of reaction and into a cold, dark, familiar place. “Get out.”

“W-What?”

I pointed to the door. “Get. Out. Take your things and leave. I have responsibilities to the entirety of our people, and if you cannot accept that, then I was wrong to ever bring you here. Get out. Leave.”

The indignant rage melted into something slimy and insincere. “Don’t you love me?”

Crystal pain shattered in my chest. “I thought I did. Apparently, I only loved who I thought you were. Leave, Emirala. We’re done.”

Without waiting for her reaction I left, left the room, left the palace, left the city. Farthi was still in his unwaking state, and I had no one else to confide in save Father, who hadn’t wholly approved of Emirala in the first place. So I found a small town outside of Silvermoon, and found a half-wild park outside of that town, and found a suitable-looking thicket to hide in and have myself a good cry.

Once the tears were gone, I felt…empty. There I sat, child of destiny and adopted princess, in armor that was battered and stained from three years of fighting and clothes that stank from the same. The woman I’d loved – and oh, I was glad now I hadn’t told her that – had somehow been replaced with a jealous, self-centered shrew and I was seriously questioning whether or not I’d done any good since escaping my cage. I’d saved Malfurion’s life twice and gotten only rebukes for my trouble. I’d helped my people found a new homeland, and discovered a troll empire ready to devour us whole – and not always figuratively. My brother had been asleep for the last year after taking that blow to the head, and I’d returned home only to be welcomed with accusations and anger.

If this is what it meant to be born with golden eyes, I was sincerely considering taking them out.

I wandered in the mire of dark and depressing thoughts for what seemed like hours before I suddenly realized that there was a small child with bright eyes sitting, knees pulled up, in front of me. I blinked. The child blinked back, then smiled.

“Hello,” I said cautiously.

“Hello! My name’s Analee. I live in the house back there with my mom. Were you crying?”

“…yes.”

She tilted her head. “How come?”

This child couldn’t be older than five, but a five-year-old confidant was better than none. “Because I came back after three years of fighting trolls to find out that the woman I lo- cared about doesn’t care about me.”

With all the seriousness a five-year-old could muster, she said, “That’s terrible. Hold on a minute,” and slithered out of the thicket. Two minutes later she slithered back in, a small bundle clutched carefully in one hand. Solemnly, she untied the handkerchief to reveal a short stack of simple cookies. “I told my mom there was a man in the forest crying because a woman didn’t care about him, and she said that whoever the woman was, she probably didn’t deserve a man who would fight trolls for three years and cry over her.” She offered me a cookie and, humbled by a stranger’s generosity, I took it. “My dad’s fighting trolls,” she said around a cookie of her own. “Mom says he’s not gone because he doesn’t love us, he’s gone because he does love us and he wants to keep us safe.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“A whole year.”

I searched my memory for all the newcomers who’d joined the fight a year ago. “What’s his name?”

“Jonar Windsinger,” she said proudly.

I remembered him. He’d been hit with a venomed arrow that had a curse mixed with the poison, and with the knowledge of troll magic I’d gained, I’d been able to dispel the curse and save his life. I saved the life of a man who had a little girl whose heart was big enough that she saw a stranger crying and her first instinct was to fetch something that would make him feel better.

Because of me, this child would not grow up without her father. It may not have been something earth-shattering, but it was enough.

“Your father is a good man,” I said quietly.

“Uh-huh! He’s the best.” Her smile was like the sun, drawing a reflection from the still waters of my heart, showing me the way out of my dark dungeon.

“Analee, will you give something to your mother for me?” I fished in the worn and stained pouches on my belt for the small, velvet-wrapped packet and handed it to her. “To say thank you for the cookies.”

She looked confused and torn. “Only if you take the rest of the cookies,” she said stubbornly. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair. You’ve only had one.”

With deep solemnity, I accepted three cookies and popped the fourth into my mouth. “Be good for your mother,” I mumbled through crumbs, “and hug your father when he comes home, okay?”

“Okay, mister.”

“You go give that to her now, okay? I’ll be fine.”

Carefully, she put the velvet packet aside and crawled close enough to give me a hug. “My mom says that hugs make everything better when someone’s crying,” she said before she let go.

I blinked back tears. “Your mother is a wise woman. Thank you, Analee.”

Shyly, she smiled at me again and then scurried out of the thicket with the velvet packet, which contained a necklace and matching earrings I’d commissioned for Emirala nearly four years ago and had picked up on my way back through the city. Would Analee’s mother like it? Maybe. Would she wear it? Hard to say. It’s possible she’d sell it for the coin it would bring. She’d restored my faith in what I was doing without even seeing me, though, so it was worth everything I’d spent commissioning it and more.

By the time I got back to my rooms, Emirala and all of her belongings were gone. I stripped out of my battered armor, my stained and worn clothing, and my first skin. I’d been Illidan for nearly four straight years; it was time to roll up in pretty dresses and good food and be Solaria for a while.

For two decades, I didn’t think about it. The trolls stayed out, frustrated. Emirala wormed her way into another man’s bed and found herself pregnant and the only one not amused was her. The sun continued to rise and set, the White Lady and Blue Child still smiled upon us.

It was a garden party, a fashionable evening thing with lanterns and chilled morsels to be snacked upon, fans and masks and musicians tastefully tucked behind screens and bushes. I was wearing a gown of white cotton, the neck and shoulders bagged in such a way that it looked decorative but would accommodate my first skin should the...need…arise. I’d reached the part of the night where all the right people had been talked to and all the food had been tasted, and was now looking for something to keep me from being bored, so I wandered the garden with a drink in one hand and a skewer of fruit in the other, listening to each hidden musician. One of them, a woman with a rich, warm voice, was singing a ballad about a man who came home after years of warring with trolls to discover that the woman he loved was a dirty, lying bitch who’d not only moved on, but had another man’s child and was trying to pretend she was still loyal. Heartbroken, he went into the forest and wept until a young girl found him and offered him some of the small cakes her mother had baked her.

…wait a second…

All my attention on the song now, I listened as the man went back with the child and met her mother, as it was revealed that the father had died fighting trolls, and the heartbroken man married the woman and raised the child as his own, and they were happy and joyful and the unfaithful woman was full of envy and fury that she’d enabled someone else’s happy ending.

It could be a coincidence, of course. There were similarities, but that didn’t mean anything. “Lovely piece,” I said as I peered around the screen.

The woman on the other side was midway through her third decade. “Lady Sunstrider! You honor me.” She lowered her eyes and inclined her head, but did not scurry to abase herself.

I approved.

“Did you write it yourself?” There was a cluster of chairs around a table nearby; I grabbed one and pulled it closer, sitting near her on her tall stool as though we were close friends.

She nodded, the motion making the little birds of her earrings fly.

…earrings…

“My father was away for a year when I was a little girl, fighting the trolls. He came back safe,” she hurried to assure me. “The song is only partially based on real events.”

Her necklace matched the earrings, an elegant and stylized songbird mid-flight, every feather a tiny colored crystal. “The heartbroken man?”

“He’s real,” she laughed. “Never got his name, never knew anything more than that he’d been away just like my dad, and whoever he’d loved hadn’t loved him back.” One finger caressed the flying bird on her chest, then one earring. “He gave this, and these, to me to give to my mother because she gave me cookies to give to him. I don’t think she believed me when I said I found a man crying in the woods, just thought I was being imaginative, but she humored me and when I brought them back…” Smiling, she shook her head. “Mom said she’d take them, but only to hold for me until I was old enough to appreciate what I’d done.”

It was her. It really was her. “And do you, Analee Windsinger?”

If she was surprised to hear her name, it didn’t show. “I gave him hope,” she answered simply. “He was sad, and I offered him kindness, and it made him feel better. I decided to sing so that I could reach other people, and make them feel better. So really, I think I owe him more than he could ever owe me.”

My second skin fell away. “You’d be wrong,” I said, my voice rough with unshed tears.

“Lord Illidan!” Her eyes got huge as the implications sank in, as the memories rushed back.

“Her name was Emirala. She was the first woman I’d loved in three thousand years, and I was in a very bad place that day. I doubted myself, doubted that I’d done more good than harm over the centuries. You brought me back from that.”

“It was you,” she whispered in awe. “You’re the one who saved my dad’s life.”

“Because of me, you never had to grow up without a father. She…” I swallowed. “She’d asked me if I’d had to go, if no one else could go in my place. But without my knowledge, your father would have died. I spared you that grief. My pain was worth it. You restored my faith in myself, Analee. And because you cared about a stranger crying in the woods, I found the strength to keep going. Decades, centuries from now, the memory of your selfless hug will give me the strength to do what has to be done for our people regardless of what I personally might suffer.” I was crying, but I didn’t care.

Analee slid off her stool and leaned forward to hug me. Unashamed, I hugged her back. She didn’t let go until I was ready.

“Come with me,” I said as I slipped back into my second skin. “Walk through the garden as a guest at this party. Let me introduce you to the other guests. Eat the food, drink the wine, and enjoy yourself.” As she opened her mouth, I grinned. “And call me Solaria. You’ve earned the right to be informal with me.”

“Can I tell my mom who she gave me cookies for?”

Shakily, I laughed. “You can tell anyone you like.”

She grinned. “Would you like to meet her?”

“Analee, I would be honored.”

Arm in arm, we strolled out into the party.