A Deep Welcome To Dustwallow Marsh

On the rocky, northern coast of Dustwallow Marsh, somewhere along the peninsula reaching out into the sea, Rynia had landed the little rowing boat used to conduct guests onto land when there was no harbor, or the harbor was considered too hostile to moor in. A small creature, a quel’dorei serving aboard the lone alliance vessel still tasked with bringing occasional supplies to the marsh where Theramore had once thrived, ostensibly merely taking a circuitous route on its way to Ratchet, it nevertheless took on and unloaded small amounts of cargo to support those Alliance remnants still present. Independents, really, since the Alliance no longer officially maintained any substantive presence.

In Stormwind, the vessel had taken on several passengers bound for kalimdor, but two of them had laid their eyes on Rynia almost immediately. That attention had been repaid, but had also remained as no more than attention. Passing glances, touch lingering just a little too long when passing one-another during daily activities on the long crossing. That high elf had certainly not been the only person of interest, and Rana and Dana had even managed a brief moment of privacy with the ship’s captain. Not enough to really get acquainted, but that only meant saving up all the more vigor for when they went ashore. When Rynia took them ashore, just the three of them.

Really, the high elf could have just brought the boat to a stop a little off the beach, and seen the twin kaldorei off. But, instead, she brought it onto the beach, pulling it up to be safe from the waves, into a little cove. Not sheltered from the elements, though it was, thankfully, a sunny day, but shielded from prying eyes from the ship – even its lookout.

Rynia had known little for certain, but enough generalities to start digging into the situation in the marsh. Her intention, of course, had never been to be the perfect spy. She spent her time on ship, not gathering or trading information about backwater provinces far from what mattered to her kin, and to the humans of Stormwind. She had been antsy and anxiously prodding and pushing for something else, an experience which Rana and Dana specialized in providing to those hungry souls on the lookout for just that. So, as payment for what scant information they received, they engaged in requisite payment.

The quel’dorei girl, silver-haired, blue-eyed, slim and seemingly fragile, craved something that should have been beyond her ability, her body’s ability, to take. And yet, she was quiet, pressing her forehead into the sand against which she rested on all fours, ever closer to the ground as the three delved into the prearranged predicament.

Rana settled her hands around the girl’s naked hips, a solid grip, fingers creating little divots in the small quel’dorei’s skin as they sought to make escape impossible. Not that Rynia would want to escape, of course, but it was one thing for a petite elf’s mind to be made up, and another for her to actually manage to take tree-trunk kaldorei cock. More so because Rana had been unable to find any release during the long trip across the ocean, and so, she imagined, would soon find herself rather forcefully eager. Dana likewise.

The simple, smearing, straining closeness of pressing that fat cockhead up between Rynia’s cheeks brought pumping forth a series of considerable beads of cum, each one soon mashed into no more than sticky lubrication between them. A warm, quiet tingle of satiating, pleasant feeling growing from nothing into Rana’s limbs. A long, ailing breath came from below, the quel’dorei clearly struggling as Rana pressed that behemoth forward just an inch. And then a second. Carefully, little by little, as she knew she had to in order for the girl not to collapse into a twitching bundle of overstimulated nerves. There remained a part of her which wished for someone sturdier, so that she could hammer herself in without such great care, but that someone was not Rynia. Much less so when, in a few moments, Dana would work her way underneath the small quel’dorei, and then join in on trying to core her out by the both of them fitting in. Overwhelming, for the petite elf, but experience proved that it would be something she would never forget. Would think back on, fondly, and so, she would be eager to work with kaldorei again.

Weeks of abstinence played some part in a minor accident, Rana steadily, the musculature of her arms tensed just so, grinding that huge, fat dick into the girl, the ridge of her cockhead at last swallowed by molding, shaping, firm ass. That moment of clamping down, Rynia gasping as the monster settled within her, brought forth a single, quaking, pulsing, enormous rope of seed, Rana exhaling a strenuous, rasping breath, a jolt of pressure rising, building from nothing in a flash, overtaking her. Subsiding, then, after that fat pillar of cum had pumped freely into the quel’dorei’s ass. She remained still, then, toned form rising and falling with breaths that sought to control herself.

As Rana focused on exercising control over herself, Dana worked herself in beneath the already trembling, straining girl. Eyes half rolled up into her skull already, she barely reacted to any manipulation of her body, seemingly only grateful to be lifted off of the sand, and instead placed upon Dana’s thickly-muscled form. Not a comfortable rest, exactly, but less grating than a million grains of grit and sand. And a much better position from which to begin taking a second, equally massive, fat cock into her already straining, overstuffed ass. Molded around Rana’s shaft, Dana moved a finger down to dig in next to her sister’s pride, tugging Rynia open just a little more. Testing to see whether the impossible might, after all, gradually become possible.

With an easy, almost joyful breath, Dana settled the broad crown of her cock against the quel’dorei’s aching, clenching, tight ass, and carefully, meticulously, pushed forward. Very slowly slipping inward at the same glacial pace that Rana now moved at, too, one helping the other with finding space within the desperately gasping, twitching, shaking high elf’s body. Rana’s hands remained around the girl’s hips, Dana’s settled around trembling thighs. Rynia seemed, mouth agape, a string of drool running from it to her chin, settling against Dana’s leather-clad chest, eyes rolled nearly all the way up, to be lost in her own overstimulated world from which only a rapid series of almost panicked, soft moans escaped. Breath spilling against Dana’s garments as both twins mercilessly, unceasingly pressed mammoth cock into the high elf’s clenching ass.

Moments in which Rynia’s unsteady, superficial, needy gasps intermixed with Rana and Dana’s more strenuous, almost growling breaths passed, each one allowed just a fraction of another inch of those twin, mammoth cockshafts to sink in. A reluctant acceptance, quite clearly, the little high elf moments from complete collapse, and yet she did nothing to escape the predicament inflicted on her by the ruthless twins. Could do nothing, her hips, her thighs, her body controlled in firm grips, purple fingertips sinking in to whiten the girl’s skin as grasps turned crushing, so as to keep her locked in place to receive what those monstrously fat dicks gave her.

Rynia tried to speak, tried to formulate but a single word. Emitted a sound that would perhaps have been an expletive meant to emphasize just how truly, stupidly full she was, how much was added to that fullness every passing moment, but came out only as a tremulous, wavering breath. Cut in half, then, as Rana, and then Dana shortly after, laid the first thrust into the quel’dorei’s ass. For all their strength, for all their weight of muscle, all their determination, that twin effort nevertheless only hammered a little over an inch of each girthy, fat shaft in, though even this paltry conquest was enough to see Rynia collapse upon Dana, limp arms settling on either side of the large, chiseled kaldorei, fingers first merely scraping listlessly against the sand, then grasping at it, curled handfuls of it into masses that then escaped between fingers. The girl curled her toes, arched her feet, and let out a more substantial moan, a sound more animal than sentient and elven, and so one that caused Rana to loosen one hand and instead reach up to clasp it across Rynia’s mouth. When the next quaking moan came, a reaction to another dual, hard thrust it was, at least, muffled.

They settled, then, into an offset pace of thrusts, Rana cramming two inches of massively thick dick into Rynia’s ass, rolling backwards perhaps half an inch, and then settling for a moment as Dana repeated the same maneuver. Thus, with Rynia’s cratered, clenching, tight ass just barely managing to mold and take shape around the monstrously fat shafts of both the twins, the rhythmic movement, rocking forwards and backwards, but ever more forwards, continued. To the muffled sound of ailing, overwhelmed moans – sounds that ceased being identifiable as pleasure, even, at points, Rynia’s eyes rolled up into her skull, seemingly no more awareness left that might try to shape those straining, hard sounds into something pleasing to the ears of the two kaldorei.

With no one coming to interrupt them, and in no hurry to conclude matters before they both extracted their pleasure from the blessed union, Rana and Dana hammered those short thrusts into Rynia for near a minute. Meticulously, at a measured, steady pace, so as to not overwhelm her, but keep her at that maddening, sizzling edge of consciousness. For as long as possible, even taking to pulling back a few more inches than each rammed in, preferring to grant the quel’dorei girl an unforgettable experience over the more immediate, primal pleasure of hilting in her straining, petite form.

The inevitable came to pass, however, both kaldorei seeking ever greater depths, breathing rising, growing needier, and so, soon enough, those twin, massive pillars of kaldorei might pressed the final, thick inches into Rynia’s ass, Rana settling in first, and then Dana, soon after, as best as they could. Their comparatively enormous size compared to the little quel’dorei made it difficult for both, at the same time, to truly hilt, to press up so closely that their balls settled against Rynia’s skin, though they alternated trying to do just that, for a few awkward seconds. Between them, that twin, colossal cockbulge distended the girl’s front to obscenity, each invader having hammered its own impression up her stomach, and making a home there. Moving only just, as each twin adjusted themselves.

It was Rana, again, who moved first. Withdrawing a handful of inches of that behemoth cock, allowing Dana to cram entirely into Rynia’s aching, tense rear, flattening it partly. A moment’s pause, for breathing, to wordlessly align and communicate, and then, as Rana mashed and pressed that tree-trunk dick back into the quel’dorei, Dana heaved six colossal inches out. Their thrusts offset, they settled into a rolling, hard, unceasing pace, one that ensured that the squirming, shaking girl never had to suffer a single moment without enormously fat kaldorei cock plowing into her depths, filling every possible nook and cranny of her insides.

Steady breathing accompanied each of those thrusts, each night elf exhaling as they bottomed out, drawing in breath again as they withdrew. Little by little, thrust by thrust, more of those weighty, wide inches were added to each rhythmic, pumping thrust, heartbeat-moments rolling by, minute after pounding, hammering minute, until both Rana and Dana slammed several handfuls of inches into Rynia for each brutal union of monster cock and petite quel’dorei.

In their relentless, skilled hands, the girl had convulsed several times, and alternately held on to, and then greedily sucked in breaths, her hand-muffled moans halting, redoubling, settling down. Each time, it seemed, one long, sweltering, quaking period of ecstasy was ignited by either Rana or Dana bottoming fat dick out in Rynia’s clenching, conquered ass, though neither of them sought the girl’s pleasure specifically. It was a mere byproduct, something that seemed to come naturally, whenever they united their efforts – the blessing of Elune, who had granted them their great assets, no doubt also infused their unspeakably lucky partner, so as to cement every moment of merciless, slam-fucking thrusting as a permanent, core memory.

Thrust rolling into thrust, both of them breathing heavily, a hint of sweat making their grip of Rynia’s hips, of her thigh and face, just that little bit more treacherous, it was clear that the apex of the play was coming up fast. The one part of the act in which they allowed themselves to compete, rather than steadily working together to utterly, completely conquer Rynia’s pleasure-wracked, squirming body, was in search of that final peak. Who could reach orgasm first, while still maintaining the pace. Without having the carefully cultivated, ruthless, swift, pounding pace break down.

In an odd way, then, even that silly little competition, which they kept a running score of, and had for many years, ended up only reinforcing the taxing, brutal pace with which they crammed massive cock into Rynia. When Rana allowed the pace to become just a little more staccato, in order to plow a brutal, more singular thrust into the quel’dorei, Dana echoed just that, and so the pace might change in intensity, in rhythm, in strength and speed, but it nevertheless remained in some sense unified. And, therefore, the overall score, having climbed up into the hundreds, remained remarkably close. Not that either of them spent overmuch time thinking of their number in those final moments, where strained muscle was urged on to greater speed and strength in search of the last peak to ascend, to reach the summit of.

Dana powered one final, hard thrust into Rynia’s clenching, tight ass, fingers straining, knuckles whitening, a rasping, grinding breath emerging from momentarily clenched teeth as she bottomed out completely, every single, pulsing inch of that monster cock embraced by the girl’s small form. She broke the rhythm, then, and left Rana to complete her final few thrusts alone, even as Dana’s shaft packed on another half an inch of girth, that wide cumvein rising as her core musculature tensed, flexed, and then saw to prickling, scorching coils of pleasure thumping, hammering through her, each rising plume of it carried aloft by her body’s bio-mechanical, primal impetus. Each moment a reward for allowing a colossal, copious load of thickly-flowing seed to pump through that massive shaft, and into Rynia’s depths. The first rammed in, molten, and churning, followed by a second, equally powerful strand, Rana still pounding thrust after thrust in, each pressing into the base just as Dana loosed another fat rope of seed.

Five, and then seven, and on the eighth, massive load, Rana let out a growling, thick sound, grinding herself in to the hilt, muscle bulging, curling as her grip of the straining girl only reinforced the prison Dana already held her in. Where Dana’s orgasm was a steady, uncompromising thing, each pounding, fat rope a seconds-long event, Rana had evidently built up a rather more pressing need, and so she near doubled over as her already tense core muscles near cramped, flexing with great speed as her body worked, strained to produce those same, titanic, fat cords of cum, mixing within Rynia’s ass with those of her sentinel sister’s, but loosed in half the time. Rana’s stomach thus pulsed, clenched, at the swift pace of her heart, pumping those loads through that monster of a cock, catching up to Dana.

Neither, it seemed, in their moments of orgasm, much noted Rynia’s predicament. Still captured, held firmly between the two kaldorei, caught within her own climax as first one, and then the other began to pump her full, she could do little but let go desperate, moaning sounds of pressure, of strain, her body twisting aside just so, not just to accommodate the bulge of those twin monsters, but to allow room for her blooming stomach to grow. First at a steady pace, at Dana’s behest, and then, when it had already reached a dome large enough to begin to drown out the distended shape of those two shafts, Rana’s efforts as well. Each second smoothing skin further, growing that bulging, elliptical, heavy stomach until Rynia came to rest more on its churning, sloshing, colossal mass than on her side.

Slowly, then, each of the three elves spent, gasping for breath, returned to each other’s reality, even as both Rana and Dana occasionally, every few seconds, still pounded another, rather more modest rope of seed into Rynia’s ass. Something much less than what they had just produced with every rising, punishing pillar, perhaps managing to fill but a single pair of cupped hands, rather than vastly overflowing them. Dana’s hands, carefully, untangled from around Rynia’s face, releasing her nose, and her lips, allowing her to breathe more easily again, even allowing her to speak. Not that she had any words to share, seeming still too overwhelmed by the mind-blowing, overwhelming union she had just lived through.

Rana, then, was the first to slip backwards. A few inches at a time, halting as her body seemed to decide to bless Rynia with just one more thick, sweltering rope of seed at every opportunity, causing the sentinel to press just one monstrously fat inch back in, momentarily, and only then resuming her backwards journey. Dana was rather slower with disentangling herself, so slow that Rana slipped from Rynia’s ass entirely before Dana could begin, though that allowed the twins to assist the struggling, gasping quel’dorei off the muscled rest upon which she had laid in a more controlled, gentle fashion. Onto the sand, where she breathed superficially, arms protectively curled around that enormous hemisphere, her domed stomach, trying to regain some measure of control.

By the time both Rana and Dana had removed their uniform and clothes, bathed in the ocean, and then returned up on the beach, allowed the air to dry them, and then put back on their outfits, Rynia seemed conscious, at least. Aware of her surroundings. Eyes followed the twin, sculpted elves, though she remained quiet. Once, a long time ago, Rana recalled that she had been worried that their partners would emerge from their wordless, pleasure-dulled reverie having regretted the brutal coupling, but such a thing had never happened. Not once. She had come to rely on both her and Dana’s skillful, merciless lovemaking as an explanation, but also allowed the goddess, Elune, her significant place in what might otherwise have been inexplicable. So, when Rynia tried to draw in a deeper breath to speak, it was expected that she would not speak ill of them. That she would, instead, say something rather more indulgent.

“When… will you-- need… transport, back?”

Rana offered a quiet, wry smile to Dana, who returned an even more subdued version of that same smile. Much like the human girl in Stormwind, Erin, the question Rynia asked of them was not about their over-strenuous fucking, how they dared do what they did, or anything of the sort. Instead, having just gone through the most mind-bending pounding of her life, the small quel’dorei’s only thought was for when she might get to experience round two. With a quiet, metaphorical patting of herself on the back, a kind word thought in the direction of the goddess, Rana pursed her lips. Squatted next to the exhausted high elf, trailing the back of her right index and middle fingers over the girl’s cheek in a caress meant to be comforting, rather than demeaning.

“I don’t know. Do you want us to come back?”

“I would… I’d give…”

“Anything,” Dana said. She looked to Rana. “Naturally.”

“We’ll be back, Rynia,” Rana said. “And if not us, then someone like us. You won’t have to be without an understanding kaldorei for terribly long, if you’re interested in aiding our kind.”

“Aiding?”

“Providing information. Shelter. A warm bed,” Dana said. She offered an encouraging smile to the reeling quel’dorei, and then turned her attention to Rana. “We should be on our way.”

“So we should,” Rana said, though she took another moment to caress Rynia’s cheek again. Went down on one knee, bent down, and then pressed a gentle kiss to the girl’s cheek. “Remember us fondly,” she said, to Rynia.

Rynia nodded wordlessly, her recovered energy spent after that briefest of conversations. Rana and Dana stood, and walked away from the sheltered cove, in order to find a way between the cliffs, off the beach.

#

Beneath the crown of a hanging willow, behind the low branches like fingers reaching for the sopping ground – thick with vegetation both living and in various stages of decay – Rana and Dana sat. Leaned against the trunk of the tree, a relative youngster compared to so many of their homeland forests in the north, but nevertheless at least a century old. Visible to one-another as lumpy masses of shadow, the blessing of the goddess, the well, the spirits, drawing shadow into their grasp, tendrils reaching onto skin, and clothes, forming a mass of darkness on them, and around them. Insofar as there was safety anywhere in the marsh, that willow seemed, then, quite safe. Enough to cover the scraps of information they had picked up on the ship, and from Rynia.

With Theramore’s destruction, the place had become not a front line battleground, but no more than a backwater, as far as the Alliance and, indeed, the kaldorei were concerned. Notable only for the largely human remnants, mostly people left behind from the city’s destruction at the Horde’s hands, and those unlucky few that had seen the desolate marsh as a suitable place to hide.

According to Rynia, however, the human groupings that remained, only loosely associated, smaller or larger gangs ruled mostly by petty, cruel bandit-kings, had found some sort of unity, and turned their attention from squabbling among each other, instead becoming belligerent with the Horde once more. A noble cause, naturally.

“Someone has risen to lead them. Beat them into place,” Dana said. Her voice an odd monotone, her lips, her whole body barely moving. To keep the shadows friendly and wanting to cling to her, and to Rana. “Someone none too clever.”

“I’d say they’re understandably upset with the Horde,” Rana replied, in much the same monotonous voice.

“And with the Alliance,” Dana continued. “Who’ve forgotten them almost entirely, for all the new threats. The war moved on, and then ended.”

“Just didn’t end here, for these people,” Rana said. “Which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Except the local Horde might just about have had enough. And no matter how angry the bandits are, they won’t like having to deal with actual military forces.”

“We just need them to wait. Until the right time,” Dana said.

“Find someone with some pull, some significance, turn them. Maybe several someones,” Rana said. “Whatever happens here, we’ll have someone left behind. Someone in a position to shelter our sisters. And move on the Horde, given time.”

“You want to fuck someone, don’t you?”

“Isn’t that what we do? Fuck. Only fight when we have to. Isn’t that what the priestess wanted?”

“I thought,” Dana mused, after a few seconds, “that you would counter by saying that I wanted the same, not some little tirade. I know what we were sent out to do as well as you.”

“So, we find us a local, someone who’s with one of the remnant groups, and start working our way into their good graces,” Rana said. “Shouldn’t be too hard. I see traces of humans passing by already. Though they’ve tried to be careful.”

“Where?”

Rana raised her right hand slowly, in a steady movement that never jerked, never moved quickly, but eventually arrived at a right angle from her body, pointing north west from their little shelter beneath the willow and its many hanging branches.

“In the mud, over there,” Rana said. “By the broken reeds. They weren’t trampled by hoof or paw, but by boot, I should think.”

“Let us be off, then,” Dana said. She stood, carefully, her back sliding up along the trunk of the tree, the inky tendrils clinging to her form, still, though they would retreat once she started moving in earnest. The sun would set soon, at least, and the humans did not see well in the dark. Until the sun was down, though, they would have to be quiet, and careful. And slow.

#

Several hours later, with complete darkness settled over the marsh, rustling of wind and the insects and creatures of the night that made the night their home their only companions, Rana and Dana located a rise and, upon it, someone’s camouflaged camp. The rise was cleverly enough chosen, one that they might even have used themselves, if need be, but much less secreted-away a hideout than its current inhabitant seemed to think. It was a little island, of sorts, surrounded by shallow water all around, such that it would be difficult to get to it without making noise. At least for anyone in any kind of hurry to be somewhere. If the water did not make distinctive noise, wet clothes and boots would, once one made it through.

Almost certainly, that was the idea of the human scout who sat atop the island’s center, wrapped in an odd garment. A kind of net, it seemed, woven with leaves and vines and thread of the color of the marsh – not a bad disguise, certainly one that might fool those with lesser eyes than a kaldorei. So Rana had to remind herself, always, when the humans hid themselves. Their enemies were not the kaldorei, and so, they had never been forced into developing camouflage that truly allowed them to blend with the land, rather than merely pulling a green and brown and gray blanket up to their ears.

Half asleep, the man was thoroughly shocked when Rana, soundlessly having moved through the ankle-high water and up the rise behind where he faced, near collapsed into a sitting position a few feet to his left.

“Hello,” Rana said, as she slipped the still, silent mask drawn over every move.

“Fuck!” The man, clearly acting on instinct, flinched and tried to scramble away from Rana, fumbling for the knife at his belt.

“No need for that,” Dana said, sitting down to his other side in much the same fashion as Rana. “We are here to talk, not to fight. My name is Dana.”

“And I’m Rana.”

“Ffhu… Light,” the man said, scrambling, half standing. Breathing heavily. “What do you want? And who are you?”

“We’re allies,” Rana said. “Friends. Looking to get in contact with, well, you. And your comrades.”

“My comrades,” he said.

“Compatriots. Buddies. Fellows. All the bandits you know. The noble resistance fighters,” Dana said.

“I’m not a bandit,” he said. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course,” Rana said. “Forgot we’re being all secret. Lying to each other for fun. Fine. I’m… Bana, and I’m definitely not looking for Veraline.”

The man perked up, in an instant, at the mention of that name. They had picked it up from the ship’s captain, when speaking of the marsh, and had it confirmed by Rynia. Even though who controlled the various human groups, this or that thug or self-styled warlord, varied, the structure, the hierarchy, largely stayed the same. By necessity, they often operated in small groups, but they had long ago been forged into a loose whole. Like the individual links in chainmail, alone they did little, but together, they might stop a sword. Who was at the top changed, too, over the years. But, at that moment, it was some youngster named Veraline.

“Shall we go, then, Bana?” Dana’s face was studiously neutral, offering no amusement, nothing to indicate that she took Rana seriously, or thought she might be funny – nothing at all. “This one does not know anything.”

“No, wait,” he said. He took a few steps down the side of the small island hillock, the ground compressing, weeping swampwater tears at his weight, raising a hand to comb through grimy hair. “Listen, I couldn’t tell you where Vera is, even if I knew. And I don’t.”

“You do,” Rana interrupted. “You definitely do.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. He made a wide gesture towards the south and west. “Can’t take you to her. All the ambushes, the attacks, we’ve got the Horde all riled up. I’m here to watch for them passing on the road, over there.” He indicated a well-trodden, muddy path leading inland before continuing. “But here’s the thing: I’m not supposed to come back, either. They’re so worried they’ll be found, we only do drops. Meet with a few others at those spots. That’s it.”

Rana’s eyes flickered to someone, something, moving in the distance. She breathed in, and Dana’s subtle shift of musculature told her that the mere act of that breath told her sister that they were not alone, the three of them. Nevertheless, Dana left the watch to Rana, instead keeping her attention on the human scout.

“But you could tell us where Veraline is, still,” Dana said. “You have been given ample proof that we are much more difficult to spot and follow than your kind. Just now.”

“I can’t,” he said. “And I won’t. You might be night elves, but you don’t know what it’s like, here. We don’t know you.”

Quietly, Rana exhaled three little bursts of air. Her eyes were locked on something, some whirl of fog and swamp-gas and vegetation, a shimmer. When the scout noted her gaze and followed it, he seemed to see nothing of what had alerted her. His turning was a signal of a sort, and so, both Rana and Dana stepped away from him in unison.

While scouting for the thing that Rana had seen, the man continued to speak, albeit more slowly. Quietly. “Day’s walk along the road, inland. You veer off the road, north, when you come to the ruins of a tower. Burned down clutch of houses, too. Follow the stream for two hours, you come to a boulder the size of five men, seems just tossed on the ground by some giant’s hand. We meet in its shadow.”

“How often?” Dana spoke to his turned back, though she slowly slipped backwards, shadow enveloping her, as it did Rana.

He never answered. He stood, for a moment, his throat working, but nothing came out. He raised his hands, clutching at it, as if trying to tear a choking grasp free of his skin, but found nothing other than himself. His throat. His convulsing muscle. Gradually, then, as the seconds wore on, a sparking, shining disc of white and pink and blue energy faded in, hissing like a cloud of angry insects, like heated metal stuck into water so that it bubbled and shifted and screamed steam.

Ten seconds passed with only those sounds, the marsh having disappeared, crawled into hiding. Twenty, thirty. A full minute. The scout had at first taken a knee, but then gotten up, blundering around, looking for the two elves that had made him break cover. Nowhere to be found. Nowhere to be seen. Like a self-conscious drunkard looking for a place to throw up in peace, he lumbered back down the hill, splashing into the low water. Across the moat around the island, onto contiguous land. As if he might, somehow, find someone nearby who could release him from the collar choking him, he wandered towards the path, until he collapsed. And all the time, the hard, blazing light stuck to him, circling his throat. Even when he had fallen, when he rolled, when he tore at his own skin, his fingers passing through it, it remained in place. Until he moved no longer.

“We have no quarrel with you,” Dana said, after a while. After the silence had grown deafening, and then been swallowed by the returning background buzz of the sea, and of the marsh’s infinite insects.

Down the little island, across its little moat, ashore, but a few feet from where the man had stumbled about, the air shimmered and its transparency bled away to reveal a dark blue-skinned woman, hooded, her face, save her eyes, masked. With pointed, elven ears, hung with silver filigree chains. Clad in loose-fitting, midnight blue fabric from top to toe. When she spoke, despite what had just transpired, her voice was lilting.

“No? I suppose I ought to thank you, ‘cousins,’ for alerting me to his presence. You made it considerably easier for me.”

“Isn’t there an armistice?” Rana said. She stepped out of the shadow, past the tree trunk. Neither side, it appeared, could hide from the other. There was little point in trying, then. “Isn’t this a breach of it?”

“If these were Alliance, it would be a breach, no doubt,” the shal’dorei, for that was what she was, said. “But these are bandits. Rebels, who harass and murder us. Who care nothing for the armistice themselves.”

“Not Alliance, no,” Dana said. She glanced to Rana, and then back to the shal’dorei. “But the armistice is strained?”

“You may not believe it, ‘cousins,’ but we are looking for the leader of the bandits to preserve peace, not out of habitual cruelty. To end this unpleasant business, and go back to living in peace.”

“We shall not disturb you in your efforts, then,” Dana said.

The shal’dorei offered both of them an appraising, disbelieving look, but nevertheless turned and left. Back to the path, stepping over the scout’s body, where the disc still sparked about his neck. She disappeared westward, leaving behind the uncomfortable, bright light, which continued to flare and hiss for another half an hour until it dissipated.

Rana and Dana watched and waited for that last sign of the shal’dorei to disappear, saying nothing. Not moving. Scouting, listening, but sensing nothing. When they acknowledged each other’s presence, at all, it was to exchange simple signs, gestures with hands, facial expressions, and no more. Nothing that could be listened in on. They remained in the shadows, otherwise, waiting. Letting time pass, long hours drifting by in silence. Only by the time it was past midnight, where most would be asleep other than the nocturnal kaldorei, and the night denizens of the marsh, did they speak.

“We cannot merely try to quietly connect with the humans, here,” Dana said. She sat with her back against the tree at the center of the little island, staring in the direction of the muddy path.

“We’ll need to do some diplomatic work,” Rana said. She sat on the other side of the trunk, staring out into the night. Without the grand treetops of Ashenvale, the starry sky bloomed with a hundred thousand, twinkling points of light. Warrior-souls set there by the goddess. “Doesn’t matter what sort of connections we make if the humans here are decimated.”

“Veraline might be dead by the time the next of our kin comes by,” Dana said, nodding. To herself, more than anything.

“She needs to be alive for months,” Rana said. “A year, at least. It won’t be enough just to embed someone sympathetic, but low-ranking. We need to convince -her- to relax. Ease off, for now.”

“You suggest we introduce her to our charms, sister?”

“Isn’t that what you’re fond of saying I always want? You’re just along for the ride, entirely innocent in all things,” Rana said.

“I do not say that,” Dana said. “I quite look forward to convincing her.”

“Backed up already?”

“Merely eager, sister. To do the priestess’ bidding.”

“Believable,” Rana said. She reached up to scratch the bridge of her nose.

They did not speak again for the rest of the night, and though it was, to her, early, Rana slept a few hours later, so that Dana, after having kept watch, could sleep from mid-morning until afternoon.

“We move when it is dark again,” Dana said, the one sentence shared between them all that long, hot day.