For the Sake of a Smile

The hunter comes awake with a violent startle, sitting bolt upright and meeting the timber wall with his shoulder. He rebounds to his feet and stands bristling and panting. His eyes make slow sense of the shapes in the dark. At the far end of the room a small hearth glows softly with burned down coals. His breath fogs the air in front of his face and he shudders, clammy and sweated from sleeping under furs.

Tamlin relaxes gradually, recognizing the rows of bunks that stretch across the wide long room. The barracks of the Nightsabre Fort in Dragonblight are empty but for him. Tamlin sits on his bunk and runs a hand over his face, knuckling his cheek and shaking his damp hair from his eyes.

He believes a full turn of the moon or more has passed, since he has come to this room to stay, though he finds it more difficult to count than should be. The passing of lunar rises and falls by which the Kal'dorei record the slow passage of time eludes him now. Each day is a ritual of waiting, pacing sleeplessness. The nights worsen as his guild mates appear and marshal, gather, eat and talk in the greater fort beyond.

There is little to do but clean and repair armor and be certain that he remains properly presentable should the Warden see fit to answer his petition for audience. The only relief of the monotony comes from blessed battle. Whether against the Horde or in Ice Crown, Tamlin loves the fight, lives for it and glories in every moment.

Tamlin stands again and flicks his ears back to the sound of his treant guard rousing itself in the corner nearest the insignificant warmth of the hearth. He can only remain wakeful for so long before his body collapses from fatigue. Coming back to himself, he recognizes the muddled disorientation in his mind and the heaviness of his body as the result of one of these episodes. He remembers last a battle in the citadel of the dead human king. He was using flasks of Titan's rage to stay alert and the Warden allowed him a word after the fight.

More than that though was the precious trace of a smile he caught for a moment on her features when he dared risk a sidelong glance at her stern visage. That smile...he holds it in his inner sight like he would cling to a scant handhold on a cliff face; as if to lose it would send him reeling off into a deep abyss.

It is a trophy, a triumphant vindication that he is doing what is right.

A deep pressure in his groin causes him to grab his winter cloak and move. Tamlin suspects that he may have again slept for a night and day and then some, so great is his need to pass water. The treant hustles after him, as Tamlin makes a direct path out of the barracks by way of the hallway that connects the soldiers' quarters to the main fort.

The hunter pauses at the head of the hall, the fort's great room spread out before him. Its much larger hearth crackles brightly and the air here is significantly warmer.

They have not been kind to him for the most part, his fellow soldiers that like him swore an oath to wear the colors of the Warden's house. He faults them not at all, not Darkflower for sending him a meal in her wolf pup's mouth, nor Rueka for hurling her rations at him and cursing him that he should wither and die to be tamed so.

Tamlin accepts that he is less than them all for the wrong he has done and takes their comments whether insulting, curious, or mocking without complaint. Still, he breathes a sigh to see no one directly about until Aradhel slowly saunters out of the larder, carrying a wide dark bottle.

The Warden's Blade Mistress is much taller than he and though more slight, she harbors tremendous strength. She wears little as Kal'dorei tend to do, only a leather clout and a fighting harness. She takes a drink from her bottle as she eyes Tamlin strangely and pads to a chair near the hearth.

“Seems you're up and in a different area of the fort this evening, Tamlin?” She greets him and the hunter takes a step back to the dark of the hallway and immediately adopts a formal, rigid stance.

“I have need to go to the latrrrine, Commanderrr.” He rumbles and stands waiting as she slowly breaks a smile and watches him.

“And if I ordered you to wait at attention... would you remain there even until after you wet yourself down your leg or would you disobey me due to the stupidity of the command?” She asks, mildly amused.

Cursing internally, Tamlin makes no sign of his distress on his features or in his posture. “I am a soldierrr of this house. I must obey those above me in rrank and station, say trrrue.” He responds crisply.

Aradhel tilts her head back a bit, takes another drink and smiles all the more widely. “Even the most disciplined amongst us have to relieve ourselves..” She muses. “ Very well then...remain at attention until you dribble down your legs and we will see.”

Tamlin's treant guard makes a rustling sigh and roots itself into the floor. The hunter takes a slow breath and gives Aradhel the barest nod of acknowledgment. Another test...he tells himself. There are many challenges to his resolve; many temptations to disobey.

It is the spirit not the letter of command he must believe, trust, obey and hold to. And so he takes one small meal in the evening if it is brought, by whomever will bring it to him, for he has no privilege to be anywhere in the fort but the barracks. If it is forgotten, he waits until the next evening. When escorted back from battle, he meticulously cleans himself and his armor, using his own oil soap and the pitcher and basin that are left for him. Once his armor and weapons are cleaned, polished, repaired and stowed neatly, he waits until he is called to fight again.

Many have tried to bring him extra food, for it becomes obvious that he has had to refit his armor and tighten belts and catches. More have tried to coax him past the boundary of the barracks and its connecting hall that he prowls and paces. Tamlin has heard them plead and reason, deride and scorn him. He has taken food from the hands of those that he despises. He has refused to move without the Warden's writ, though his heart longs to run and the tedious horrid idleness nearly drives him mad. He denies the song and call of the trees, though he is dimly aware in the dark that Horde spill elven blood around them, burning and hewing far to the south in Ashenvale.

 And I see the Dream not at all...not at all...

 

“Are you really gonna just wait there until you piss yourself, Tamlin?” The Blade Mistress addresses him, turning in her chair to face him directly; her smile so blatantly amused as to be disturbingly strange on a Kal'dorei face. “That is rather stupid.”

“I believe it is verry plain what is rrequirred of me.” Tamlin tells her.

“Why not just piss yourself now and be done with it? Suffering in the meantime is rather pointless, you think?” Aradhel shrugs at him as if sharing some quiet confidence or private joke.

“I wait to be dismissed, Commanderrr.” The hunter's voice is even and controlled. He does not look at her directly, but just past her.

Aradhel chuckles, rather loudly. “Guess you're just gonna have to wait then... sometimes, Tamlin. You really make me think if the humans don't one up us...” She trails off. He says nothing while she drinks from her bottle and continues. “You are so insistent on following my orders... Mine! of all the commanders... that you will make yourself lower than an animal by defecating on yourself because it is asked of you?”

“You arre the Warrden's Blade Mistrress. Of all the Captains and Commanderrrs, yourr place is higherrr than them all save the Warrden herrrself.” Tamlin recites patiently. “I am sworrrn to obey.”

“It is?” She sighs. “It would do her well to let me know these things... As I told her I would lend her my council by accepting the rank...no matter, our issues will be dealt with in time.” Aradhel abruptly dismisses the notion and focuses her bright silver gaze on him. “Why did you swear to obey?”

“I took my oath as did we all when I took the colorrrs of the Warrden's band.” Tamlin reminds her.

“I... understand that you did. But I'm asking why.” Her smile insists.

“To honorrr the noble mission of this band, Commanderrr.” The hunter adjusts his stance only slightly.

“Noble mission? And what is that?” Aradhel snorts.

Tamlin draws himself up and reiterates the three oaths that all are asked to promise before the Warden and Elune when they are made Sentinels and Watchers. “We will honorr the Goddess, prrotect the land and let no evil pass ourr borrderrs and obey the Warrden. We hold to the Temple, the Lady and good Cenarrius, say trrue.”

“Well there's the problem...” Aradhel pauses to drink. “You have borders.” She watches him tighten his jaw and shift again uncomfortably. “I know I've discussed this with you before. You limit yourself to Ashenvale, whereas all of Azeroth is your home. And yet, you continue to only defend such a small portion.”

“Not so, forrrr I am herrre, Commanderrr, in the norrth lands.” Tamlin straightens his spine and levels his shoulders. He forces himself to ignore the pressure in his bladder and maintain attention on the Blade Mistress.

“Only because Aktarin asks it of you.” Her smile says. “Your wish to defend your home did not bring you here.”

“The Warrrden uses herrr soldierrs as she may. All of us arre but herrs to command.”

“And if she is insane you would not question?” Aradhel laughs. It is a surprisingly loud sound and sharp with true amusement.

“I have questioned, Commanderrr. Foolishly and out of place have I spoken. I will do so no longerrr. I am content wherrreverrr I am told to go.” He almost scowls at his own thick growl but does not, schooling his snarling face to what is for him a neutral expression.

“Only because you fear the punishments you have received!” She scoffs at him.”You were on the right track, Tamlin. Your want for the Warden has twisted your ways of thinking.. though I cannot fault you, you are a male in the end.”

Tamlin takes another settling breath. That word, is like the others they use for him...she uses for him. His sex is a fault, like his meager winters or his strange wild blood. It is something to learn to conquer and control; a fact of his existence that adds to his already treacherous and volatile pride; a defect in him, and though he knows not how, and even as he feels his blood hot in his face, Tamlin at once accepts and resolves to excel in spite of this and his other shortcomings. His stubborn heart surges in his chest and demands he stand to and defend himself, he breathes and remains still. Another test...another jibe.

“I fearr nothing, Blade Mistrress but that I brring dishonorr and shame to this house.” Tamlin states firmly.

“Then why do you listen to me at all?” The ancient warrior asks him incredulously. “You know my opinions and thoughts sometimes are directly are in conflict with Aktarin's.”

“You arre the Blade Mistrrress and the Warrrden's most trrusted soldierrr. She is everr pleased with you, Commanderrr and I have much to learrn in that rrespect. I would be a fool not to listen.” The hunter masks a wince at a stabbing pain in his belly. He wishes desperately she would be satisfied and let him go.

“Tamlin... come closer. I wish to speak to a more base part of your being.” Aradhel commands quietly and then takes another drink from her bottle and grins.

He tenses inwardly. She has asked this of him before. The Northlands are loveless, lightless and cold. His year here has been solitary and full of worry. Often has he come to Aradhel where she perches above the dizzying activity of Dalaran and listened to her. The proof of his sincerity that earns him her words is what she orders of him again.

Tamlin glances down at his boots that just rest at the edge of his invisible boundary and raises his head again to speak formally to the Warden's Blade Mistress. “With rrespect, Commanderrr, I am not allowed furrrtherr unless it is to venturre out to the latrrine trrenches.” He swallows and risks an attempt to ease his discomfort. “I would prrreferrr to be dismissed if it pleases, you.”

“Well then, if I come closer,  you will not move away?” She chides him, her grin widening.

“I have no cause to disobey you in that, no.” Tamlin resigns himself  as she stands fluidly and prowls closer with a bark of a laugh.

“You will not move from where you are, truly?” Her voice is light, one of her long brows raised in mocking interest.

“I stand as you ask me, Blade Mistrress.” The hunter replies...focusing his gaze on a point in space just beyond her right shoulder. She walks up close, well within arm's reach and lifts her unburdened hand, the other balancing the bottle against her pale chest. Her palm waits just under his chin.

“Do as you have done before... I wish to speak with you without certain reservations.” She tells him, her breath musky and sweet with honey mead.

His jaw works fiercely just above her fingers and his ears pull back and flatten. He stands thus at war with himself for several moments. At last he lowers his head to rest his face in her hand.

“Now, tell me, honestly, why you cage yourself so... I know it has been demanded of you, but why do you agree?” Her voice is an even tenor..pleasant and pitched without scorn or judgment.

Tamlin breathes her words as she speaks them. His eyes blink slowly as he turns them in his mind. He is aware of her touch like a warmth that spreads from his cheek where her long fingers brush him down through his throat and chest and into his lower spine. He can hear her well enough, but her words come with long pauses between and he puzzles to put them together. He is certain the floor sways, like the soft rise and fall of the sea, but it troubles him not at all.

He has a just the barest moment of alarm that her touch should affect him so; that the world widens and slows in its interminable spin. Then it is gone and he remembers Aktarin's hand on his face, long ago in Un'goro where she found him with Tiger hard on him.

“I would mourn the loss of my friend should you become more cat than Kal'dorei...” She told him openly, with her long pale hand cupping his chin. And in that moment he loved her and wanted her fiercely.

“I love herrrr.” Tamlin says aloud, his voice a low rumble.

The implacable female mask before him grins. “Such a simple answer you could have spoken days ago, is it not?” Aradhel tips her bottle to her lips then to take another drink. “I did know, but it only comes forth when you speak of it.” Her thumb rolls over the ridge of his jaw. She leans in, her face close enough to his for a kiss. “What is it about her that you desire to such an extent? It cannot be her body, no... for so many of our kind are as physically as beautiful as she, it must be some part of what she does, no?”

“She is like the moon and starrrs. I was borrn to sing forr herrrr.” He murmurs. His jaw flexes under her fingers briefly. He shifts his weight if only to control the now distant ache in his bladder.

“And what is it, that you think that you did, made her deny you?” The Commander's large hand spreads around his face and jaw.

“I set my will against herrr. I forrced herr to chose between herr love forr me and what she holds most sacrred.” He sighs these words. Shame colors him. His face becomes hot under her touch. “I know what she looks like in herrr soft drreams...herr duty binds herr, defines herrr.”

“Tamlin, you are a good man. Though too easily swayed by those very very few you care for... Yes, her duty binds her, which made her do what she did. There are issues she has dealt with that you cannot influence.And, by what I've heard, you continue to try to do so anyway.” Aradhel informs him bluntly.

“Not anymorrre..” He breathes over her wrist, his eyes half closed now, but still he does not gaze at her directly.

“That is good, though the reason you stopped is wrong and too late.”

“I cannot believe so.” He denies this with a tightening of fear in his heart which beats a little more quickly. He feels his pulse in the tips of his ears which have loosened and angle forward, listening intently to Aradhel.

“You stopped... because it seems to you that nothing you did or can do will change her mind, correct?” She breathes deep and rolls her shoulders. She bends to set her bottle on the floor but does not release her hold.

“She forrgot me..I must frriend herrr again. Love is ...rreaching forrrwarrd and never using what she is against herr.” Tamlin asserts with quiet yet stubborn insistence.

“Do you truly believe you can? Women do tend to say one thing and mean another... even if she mentioned a fix for you, it doesn't mean she will ever accept you again.”Her fingers loosen and then grip again, a rough caress to soften the impact of her words or a simple need to flex her hand, he does not care to know which.

“I must believe so.” His words soft enough as to be said to himself alone.

“You must? or you wish to because you don't believe you can find such a feeling again?” She chuckles. “I'll understand either answer though you are old enough to know better I think.” She eyes him with a glimmer of mischief. “I may have tried to seduce you at some point, if you weren't so convinced of yourself.”

“She is my lifemate.” His answer comes slowly and is heavily obscured by his ever pervasive growl.

“You believe a race as long lived as ours has only one mate to be had?” Aradhel raises her brows. “Quite the human you are.” She readies her hand to grip in response to a negative reaction.

Tamlin blinks slowly. This is another easy arrow to deflect. Being called human-like is a common stab at Kal'dorei character. Woe to the short born...”Therre arrre some among us...that take a mate in such a way. One forr life...rregarrdless of time orr otherrrs that pass as shield mates or companions...say trrrue, Arradhel?” He asks even as his mind watches wind blow back Aktarin's silver shining mane high atop the cliffs of Nagrand the evening he asked her to take him as shield mate. And take him she did, then and there before a painted riot of a sunset.

Alas that I was so foolish as to forget my bounds as such and demand more...He winces at this thought and exhales for a stab that this time assaults his heart.

 

“Tamlin, look at me.” Aradhel raises her hand to point his face at hers. And his amber gaze settles on the wide silvered mirrors of her eyes. “We are an immortal race, though the bronze say currently we may live a few thousand years, we will fix it in time.” She shakes her head slowly to add weight to her words. “Your total age is a fleeting glimpse at life. You are incredibly young, I am not trying to be insulting but it is the truth. I do not want to make you feel diminutive to my lifespan, Tamlin, but I have perspective based on experience through several of even our guessed lifetimes.” She thinks to herself for a long moment and tightens her grasp on his chin slightly. “I understand your love, of what it is and what would be lost. It may feel like a lifetime now, but it will be but a simple memory, though joyful or hurtful will be your choice.”

“She loves me.” Tamlin insists, resting the weight of his head in her hand, his neck relaxed and his gaze dreamy and unfocused.

“She may, yes.” Aradhel grins again and sobers to point out sternly, “But she is older and wiser and understands the weight which her love conveys to her duties. According to her life anyways... “ She pauses to consider him. “It is intruiging to me that you rest yourself upon my hand, Tamlin. She reaches for her bottle and takes another sip before setting her face firm once more. “And I do appreciate the acceptance you give me, regardless of what I've said or done to you. But, this same acceptance I wish you to consider my words... that people change. The Warden may have loved you, may still love you. However, the conditions on which she does so now are so skewed that she likely cannot act upon them.” Aradhel warns him.

“I hearrr you verrry well, Commanderrr.” The hunter assures her even as his mind sorts the words she speaks and recoils from the meaning.

“You do?” She chuckles at him. “You truly understand that no matter how much you want things to be one way they may never be?”

 

The battle is a wild rolling tumble on floors that are made of ice slicked skulls. The flasks keep him overheated though and he pants endlessly with his heart racing. The treants that Commander Navires set to watch him try to hustle him to the waiting portal, but she is there. It takes courage to approach her. She too is feeling a battle rush though likely not as keenly as he. Aktarin is a figure of lean deadly beauty in dark mail and her heavy weighted leather cloak. She has her weapons close at hand and when he asks for a word she regards him with a scowl of stern warning.

Tamlin finds his words with difficulty. He hears himself ask after the request he lodged for a formal audience. He is careful not to glance at her directly but to hold himself straight and tall, a soldier's posture. He feels her eyes over him. Her soft voice is sonorous and smooth and she acknowledges that she does have his request.

“I wait on yourr convenience then to answerrr. I will have my worrrds rready.”He told her and it is then that he catches the ghost of a smile.

“Good.” She said and that was all. A gesture dismissed him and he bowed at once and turned to his sapling watchers, but his heart soared.

 

Hope gives him courage even now, standing in the grasp of the fickle and strange Blade Mistress, aching with the urgent need to relieve himself, berated and humiliated, hungry and confused. None of it matters. For the sake of her smile, it is enough to know that Aktarin is pleased with him, that he has a chance of seeing a true smile again, given just for him when she can see him again and remembers him.

“Therrre will be light if Elune wills it.” Tamlin answers at last, sturdy in his faith in this truth.

It is Aradhel's smile that rewards him now though. “I have one more question for you, Tamlin. Though I know not if you can answer it.” She tells him and again her fingers crawl over his cheek and jaw. Her strength is terrifying, he can feel it in her touch, how easily her large calloused hand could twist and force him down. “Why do you submit yoruself to my touch this way?  I do not look down upon it or demean it... I just wish to know.” Her fingers tighten very lightly even her face brightens.

“To prrove that I listen and hearrr. You would speak yourrr wisdom to me always you said beforrre if I would but listen well with my whole hearrrt.” Tamlin exhales and does not stir in her grasp.

“A good answer, though I do not think it is the entire answer, it is a good one.” Aradhel decides and releases his face and moves away. "I think we will have more to discuss later. She shakes her near empty bottle and walks back toward the larder, smiling to herself.

He straightens his posture as if waking and remembering whom he stands before. He watches her wander off from him and shifts uncomfortably again.

“You may go, Tamlin.” The Commander calls over her shoulder.

Outpacing easily the lumbering treants, he moves past the great doors of the Lothalor fort. Their branches encircle him minutes later and herd him without protest back inside to the barracks.

You cannot believe she will keep you here for years...Aurorana demanded of him.And he had to admit that he did not know. Nor does he believe it matters.

Tamlin tends to the small hearth once he returns, building the fire until some warmth fills the room where he lives and eats and waits. He hopes for a meal for he is hungry. He straightens the furs on his bunk and rolls up his bedroll tightly. The worn fabric is grayed from use and still holds the smell of warm earth and wood, or sky and forest. He will pace tonight and think, listen and deny the songs of the trees and the call of wolves outside when exhaustion wins again then he will run with them and lift his calls to mingle with theirs and sing the moon down.