Friday, January 15, 2016

[WoW Fiction] Lady Letömi and Tanla Crystaltear meet some Dwarves.

(Written with permission from Letömi)


Changed from "Camp the Mage"

♫ There I see her,
With her silk robes all in red,
On the floor they are soon shed,
With her I'll soon be engaged
Don't need no excuse
Dying to let loose
I 'm gonna kiss the mage. ♫

* * *

Tanla was leaning back against Letömi, nose deep in a book. The death knight was on her stomach, lying on a towel, as she scrawled battle plans in a journal. Imogen was curled up in a ball, snoring puppy snores after yet another morning of tug and fetch. It was a rough life in the south seas of Azeroth, but one just had to suffer through the relaxation and enjoyment.

It was a bit strange to be leaning against skin that was cool to the touch. Not as cold as the Forsaken, who always seemed to have the chill of the grave wrapped around them, but certainly colder than a 'normal' body. The skin was certainly as soft and pliant as any other elven maid's, for all that hands were calloused from a sword.

The mage was jostled as Letömi made one of her usual lightning quick movements, changing to lie on her side. “That boat has been out there for three days.”

“Mmmhmm.” Tanla agreed, not paying particular attention. She wasn't quite sure how the Xth dimension particularly affected the Zth in the equation and really, had this human being smoking something when he was writing this? And if he had been smoking something, was he reselling it to the gnomes for some profit or was he getting it from the gnomes in the first place?

Letömi smiled with amusement and gently nibbled on Tanla's ear.  “Are you listening yet?” She rumbled in Tanla's ear.

“Yes. We were discussing picking up a sleeping puppy and going back to your cabin.” Letömi's cabin being far tidier than Tanla's. Her's had all sorts of magical debris and paraphernalia cluttering every surface. If you moved too quickly in Tanla's quarters, you might knock something over and cause a minor explosion. Not that she'd done that in the last twelve hours of course. The mage turned around to steal a kiss.

Letömi returned the kiss with fondness but wasn't distracted, stroking Tanla's hair, “No, we were discussing that dwarven vessel that has been sitting out at anchor for three days.”

Tanla frowned and turned back to look at the horizon, closing the book of gibberish. The writer's portals to Dalaran would probably open five miles above the crater in the Altarec Mountains. The idiot.

Letömi patiently waited while Tanla stared off at the horizon. She finally gave up; the mage was many things, but a strategist wasn't one of them. “Didn't you say our goblin hosts were having a tit-for-tat with their dwarven neighbours?”

Tanla sighed. Obviously, Letömi was itching for a fight after a week of little else. Apparently cuddling on blankets didn't take all her energy no matter what she spent her nights doing. And afternoons. And mornings.

Well, Tanla supposed to couldn't blame the knight, it had probably been her longest time off since Arthas came to call. The psychopathic asshat. While the mage could happily spend her entire life on a beach reading, it appeared Letömi required a bit more action. Or at least, of a different sort than recent days. Letömi's paladin lover wasn't here to keep her out of trouble, Tanla supposed a mage would just have to do. She gave it one last try, “Shouldn't we leave this to our hosts?”

Glowing blue eyes widened in mock innocence, “Why should they have all the fun?”

Tanla shook her head with tolerance and amusement before tossing the book into her nearby purse of holding. She had a lackey in Shattrath who sold them by the cartload for a ridiculous profit. She fished out her staff and stood up, using it as a prop. “Alright, let's go.”

Letömi grinned and rolled smoothly to her feet. Imogen yipped, awoken from her nap, and ran around in circles. She picked up the puppy and got her face licked. The death knight was frowning at Tanla's staff. “Isn't that Jaina Proudmoore's?”

“Hmm?” Tanla looked at the staff as if it was new to her possession and then gave a happy smirk. “Why yes, yes it is.”

Letömi let out a sigh. “Kill her or leave her be, you're leaving a dangerous foe alive while you toy with her.”

Tanla made a brushing motion and a pfffft noise. “I don't think we've actually been trying to kill each other for years. It's a convenient distraction from other horrors. One day we'll probably even end up in the Legerdemain Lounge drinking wine and bitching about idiot men.”

Both blood elves muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Feckin' Orcs.”

Deciding discretion was the better part of valour, Letömi let the Jaina argument go. She was pretty sure any final duel would end up with a second crater in the face of whatever part of the land they happened to have it – and Azeroth, the Outlands, and Draenor already had more than enough damage to them. It was also far more likely Tanla would lose what little patience she possessed with Khadgar first.

“So,” Letömi said, changing the subject, “How well do you ride?” She smiled sweetly.

“Nurrgh,” Tanla grumbled. Until Silvermoon had been forcefully subdivided and dragged into the war, she'd been to exactly two places; Silvermoon and Dalaran. Neither city had required her to learn how to ride. “At best? I'm a sack of potatoes. There's a reason I portal or disc everywhere.” Magical discs were comfortable riding.

“Right then, you can ride in front. I promise not to let you fall off.” She summoned her deathcharger to her from the stables. Constance arrived and sniffed at Tanla dubiously before giving Letömi an 'are you kidding me?' look.

The death knight shrugged, “She probably won't pull your mane out.”

The undead horse gave her knight a long-suffering look before turning to let them mount. Letömi more tossed Tanla into the saddle than boosted her. The mage hadn't been kidding about her lack of skill. Letömi then swung up behind her, snuggling up before putting her arms around the mage to take the unnecessary reins. Being half a head taller than the mage meant she was only getting a mouthful of hair rather than eyes and mouth full of hair.

Constance pawed the waves and Letömi made a gesture in the air, drawing a rune of frost that pulsed for a moment and then burst, coating Constance's hooves in a soft glowing cold blue light. The charger nodded and trotted out onto the waves, a natural gait onto the mostly calm ocean.

“I wish I could explain how that felt to a mage,” Tanla said, rubbing the top of her head against Letömi's cheek. “The energies..” She gave a delighted shiver.

Letömi chuckled, “You're hopeless.” She teased.

“Nuh uh, if I were hopeless, I'd be begging you to draw runes in the air all night with your powers and not on me with your tongue.”

Blink. Blink. Why were they going to beat up dwarves again? Oh, right, she was pretending that they were gathering intelligence on the movements of the alliance while they fought a war with time elsewhere. Both blood elf women had already agreed Garrosh should have just been beheaded and they'd have been done with it. Sometimes Sylvanas had it right.

Tanla grinned having successfully distracted Letömi and went back to trying to grasp the edges of the spell that kept the steed on the waters.  She was drawn out of her futile efforts by Constance's coming to a stop.

“Hold on,” warned Letömi.

“Uh..” Tanla managed, right before Constance took several bounding leaps and then jumped up onto the desk of the ship. All that kept her in the saddle was Letömi's iron grip around her, even still she almost cracked her nose flat against the steed's neck. Much to Constance's seeming amusement. Bloody horses, alive or mostly dead, they all had the same sense of humour.

Letömi swung quickly out of the saddle and took Tanla's hand to help her as a deck of dwarves and gnomes all stared at them. “Why hello boys and girls!”  Letömi said cheerfully in surprisingly good common.

Magics allowed Tanla to understand any language, speaking it was another matter entirely. She was perfectly happy to let  Letömi bear the burden of carrying any conversations. Of course, considering the profanity that came from the Allied troops on the deck of the ship as they readied weapons and charged, not much translation was required. An alarm started to sound deep in the vessel.

Tanla was more than happy to reach into the arcane and gather power.

“Don't kill them!”  Letömi called as she waited for the throng to reach them.
“Wait – what?!” Tanla spluttered. Wasn't the entire point to paint the walls with their enemy's entrails?

“I don't want to restart the war and leave us with two fronts to deal with!”

“Oh for the love of..” Tanla grumbled, weaving arcane energies around her hands. “Fine!” Well, this had suddenly gotten a lot less fun.

Letömi was effortlessly weaving in and out of the sailors as more poured on top of the ship to deal with the invaders. Tanla shot stunning barbs of energy into them, causing them to flop, trip, swear and drop weaponry. Actually,  Letömi may have had a point; this WAS more fun than mindless slaughter.

“Archers!” Tanla called as she blasted a wave of energy through the air to disentegrate them.

It wasn't hard to see over the crowd; they only came up to  Letömi's chest at their tallest. She'd kneed more than one gnome in the chin with enthusiasm. The death knight powered a rune on her blade and pulled the lagguards at the back into the pack. She circled and looked to her lover, “Now!”

“Yay!” Tanla cried, skipping a happy jump of glee. She pulled in a wave of energy and blasted it at the sailor's feet, sending them all sprawling into the ocean.  Letömi threw some life jackets overboard after them.

The two women watched them swear and swim for a while.

“Is it our fault if the sharks eat them?” Tanla asked conversationally, slipping her arm around  Letömi's waist.

“Probably. But I stopped caring. C'mon, let's see what this ship's been up to.”

“Do we get to sink it when we're done?” Tanla asked, following  Letömi into the depths of the ship. At least, it had been built with humans and draenei in mind and they didn't have to duck their heads the entire time.

“That depends on why it's here.”

It didn't take them long to find the Captain's quarters and start digging through logs and journals.  Letömi put down one of the latter with a sigh. “A patrol to make sure the Goblins don't take it into their heads to visit Dwarven Island. These Goblins are unaligned and the alliance are idiots.”

Tanla raised an eyebrow, “That, unto itself, is not news.”

“On said island, oh so witily named, they are developing a device that will create a magical nullifaction field that will cover a battlefield.”  Letömi passed the book over to Tanla.

The mage swore. “This is ridiculous, they'll never pull it off. The energy requirements alone..”

“I absolutely agree,”  Letömi said, still looking quite put out.

“But?” Tanla said warily.

“Vol'jin needs to know.”

Tanla swore enthusiastically in three languages. “Back to work?”

Letömi nodded, “Farewell south seas, hello war. Back to work.”