Hope Blossoms Briefly

For no real reason other than not wanting to waste away in her rented room, Erin had, after the morning rush dissipated, made her way back over the roughly cobbled streets of Old Town, across the canal, around the outskirts of the Dwarven District, across the canal again, and then into the Cathedral District. Not to enter the grand building itself, exactly, just to be nearby. The idea had entered her mind that, somehow, as long as she was nearby, some coincidence, some twist of fate, some event might sweep her up. Change her fortunes.

Night elves were not a rare sight in Stormwind, as such. Of many different shapes and sizes, with many different colors of hair, and skin. Exotic, she had once thought. Somewhat more pedestrian, now. Save Rana and Dana, who had been taller, but, clearly, shaped from different clay. Strong, brutally trained. Broad, and powerful, in a way not too many of their kin were. Compared to humans, of course, even the smallest kaldorei was a tall, toned, graceful creature, often with a hint of the wild to their demeanor. Something feral. But that was what Rana and Dana were when compared to their kin. Rare, exquisite creatures, at once natural, and works of art. And, that morning, Erin spotted another such night elf. It was neither of the two that she knew, but someone reminiscent of them. The same kind of height, muscle, stature. As if there was some order of special sentinels, set apart from the rest. Coming to the cathedral, a few at a time. Why?

That sentinel disappeared into the cathedral, and though Erin was not barred from entering the grand edifice just to take it in, or pray, it would not help her case any further if she was caught storming in there on the trail of another large kaldorei. And, anyway, seconds slipping her grasp, the gap between them grew, and her catching the elf became a remote possibility, and then an impossibility. She stood, instead, leaned against a tree, and waited. Stared at so much nothing, at those milling around, at those going to and fro the various offices and shops, even at the more or less reputable organizations trying to recruit anyone who could wield a weapon. Or, in some cases, anyone who could be made to look like they knew what they were doing, so they could bulk out the ranks and look threatening.

It might come to that for her, too. Take up arms with some aging northerner, still starry-eyed with hope that yet another expedition would finally reclaim Lordaeron. Or might stake a claim in lands no longer claimed by the Alliance. Truce-breakers beneath a very thin veneer of respectability. Of course, there were other causes, too, and it might be possible to pick and choose and sort among the options until she found something at least partially respectable. Something that would not see her face down in the mud inside of two weeks, something that would not sully her reputation or her soul so much that she could never hope to become a paladin. Those outfits were rare gems, something one took their time to find. Not easily discovered when facing the prospect of homelessness inside of a week.

A full hour had passed, Erin having long ago made the choice to sit down on the edge of the wide beams used to make the slightly raised bed in which the tree she had leaned against was planted. Her view occasionally blocked by people, the candleflame of hope that fate would smile upon her flickering a little. What would it help her to meet with another of the sentinels, the special, statuesque kind which had so occupied and conquered her mind since her encounter with two of them? How could it possibly help her get herself back into the good graces of the Matron Mother, or the Dame?

Important questions, but also questions that slipped her mind when she spotted that same sentinel exiting the cathedral. There was something cruder about her than Rana and Dana. This one had black hair styled in a sideshave, silvery eyes, but it was the facial marking. Not the artfully done thing that most kaldorei had, but rather simpler. Four fingers, dipped in dark purple, dragged from her forehead and down over her face, to her jaw. And a welt on her left cheek, three or four inches of irritated skin. An old scar, perhaps. The others had been unblemished, had they not?

Erin shook her head, crawling, jumping to her feet so that she almost stumbled in her haste to catch the sentinel as she took the final step down and put foot to flagstone street. In her haste, the sentinel noticed her and, for just a moment, Erin realized that she might seem like she was charging the woman. She tried to slow down, to compose herself, but managed little of that. She did not bump into the towering night elf, but halted a step back. Looking up. Realizing, too late, that she had had an hour to think of what to say, but had no idea what she was going to say. The words would just have to emerge from her mind as it willed.

“I’m Erin,” she said.

A long pause, the kaldorei’s luminous eyes, seeming almost like liquid silver in the right light, appraising Erin. Top to bottom, them back up. “Nesra,” she said.

Her voice was a note deeper than Rana and Dana’s had been. Erin sensed something, some weight, which the other two had not born – experience, perhaps? The thing that had given her that scar on her face? Erin parted her lips, then closed them again. What was her plan? She closed metaphorical hands around her own mind and tried to wring and squeeze thoughts, words, from it.

“I… knew… Rana. And Dana,” Erin said. Blurted out, really.

In response, Nesra raised an eyebrow just slightly. “Rana and Dana?”

“You don’t know them? They’re… ah, they just, they remind me a lot of you. You remind me a lot of them.”

“Ah,” Nesra said. Some small shard of stone, some piece of rapidly melting ice, seemed to fall from her, her eyes softening just a touch.

Erin glanced up the cathedral steps at movement that her peripheral vision told her was somehow important. She saw the middle-aged knight, Dame Ulla, rapidly descending towards the two. Still trying to claw and draw words from her resisting mind, Erin turned her attention back to Nesra. Desperately, she said the first thing that welled up from her subconsciousness, just to say something, anything, before they were interrupted by the Dame.

“I’m… if you desire, I’m… at your service.”

An actual smile. A slight one. Nesra’s expression turned both slightly amused, but more interested, too. For just one moment, and then they were both interrupted.

The Dame, at first, halted a few steps away from them, just slightly out of breath, offering a respectful bow of her head towards Nesra. She shared a far less dignified scowl with Erin, one that informed Erin very thoroughly that her transparent efforts to try to seduce yet another representative of the allies of the cathedral was not appreciated. That she could go and practice her sluttery elsewhere, or fall over dead, the latter perhaps preferred, for all Ulla cared.

“Sentinel, the Matron Mother has had another meeting postponed, and so, she has time for your visit, after all. She would like to meet with you, and discuss future cooperation.” Ulla halted for a moment, both to breathe, and to stare another barbed dagger at Erin. “The great majority of the students expressed that they greatly enjoyed the class taught by your predecessors, and we would like to repeat the success.. If you would come back inside?”

“Of course,” Nesra said. She had long ago turned her benign attention from Erin, waiting only for a moment for Ulla to accompany her. When that was not immediately forthcoming, the kaldorei simply began going back up the steps herself. Allowing for whatever private conversation the two humans apparently needed to have.

“Remove yourself, Erin,” Ulla hissed, voice lowered just so. “You aren’t needed, or welcome, here. There are better places for you to offer yourself up to any passing night elf than here.”

Not seeming to care for Erin’s response, the knight turned on the spot, and hastened after Nesra, who was already halfway up the many steps to the main entrance of the cathedral. Erin was certain she heard a not so quietly mumbled “slut” coming from Ulla, but it was difficult to be certain. Just as the knight intended, no doubt.

Left behind, alone once more, Erin trudged back to her spot by the tree. Not quite demotivated, as she had managed to fumble her way to some kind of proposition that Nesra did not seem entirely repulsed by. But it was clear, too, that Ulla’s dislike had mutated into something worse, more personal. Erin could imagine a few reasons, but found most of them unconvincing. Jealousy, for example, was unlikely. Ulla had a partner already, and had never expressed any dislike of them, so why would she care that Erin had been with the two sentinels? And, likewise, upset at her being vaguely promiscuous seemed unlikely, too. The church just did not seem to care over-much about such things, as long as it did not become a detriment to one’s duties. Was it just those duties Erin had bungled, then? Messing with the Matron Mother’s alchemical ingredients, and her failure to clean the impossible to clean ash chamber, favoring instead her close encounter with Rana and Dana?

If both the Matron Mother and Ulla had soured on her, though, her chances of ever getting back into classes, back into her studies, into training sessions, her chances of ever being able to call herself a paladin, were grim. If relations were truly so soured, it seemed the only other option was mercenary work. Either that, or, somehow, just maybe, working with the kaldorei? Rana and Dana had talked about something. Establishing a presence, somehow, and Nesra had not refused the blundering declaration of being at her service. Before throwing herself in the arms of some mercenary company with few scruples about how they spent the lives of their new recruits, it was worth trying. And, should it come to nothing, she would at least have a pleasant memory to warm herself by, when sent to some dangerous end of the world place to see to the interests of some mercenary captain who cared not one jot for her.

Whatever Ulla had said, then, was irrelevant. No longer a factor worth taking into consideration. Erin resolved to wait outside the cathedral, at the foot of the steps, once again, insistent that she would speak to Nesra at length. She would weigh her words more carefully. Prepare a little speech, sentence by sentence, assuring the sentinel that Erin’s arms were open, and welcoming. More subtly implying that she waited for, encouraged, even closer relations.

Erin’s mind frequently fled from the task of trying to craft convincing and coherent words, having once more been confronted with one of the chiseled kaldorei sentinels. Taking refuge with the image of this one, as opposed to applying itself to figuring out what to say. Erin had never, truly, contemplated what she preferred, having thought herself rather normal. Boring, even. But, after the encounter with Rana and Dana, she had had to admit to herself that she was unusual. She knew well enough that tastes went in every possible direction, but had never really thought it possible that hers would drag her towards something as crude as they had. But, especially now, having stood before another of the towering kaldorei sentinels, she could not deny that she wanted the monstrous cock that, seemingly, only those special few night elves could offer. Another good reason to try to talk to Nesra before turning mercenary.

Another two hours passed, and Erin’s stomach growled. She was thirsty, and shifted constantly. Stood, sat, but, in truth, just needed to be elsewhere. Needed something to eat, and drink, her lips dry. Her throat feeling dry, even. Leaving her place under the tree was not an option, though, for in precisely the few moments she would be gone to take care of herself, Nesra might emerge from the cathedral, walk off, and then be impossible to find again. Where did the kaldorei even stay? How would one seek a specific one out, save asking random people, and would her own kin even help find her? Was Nesra’s type appreciated, or loathed, among their own? Erin had no chance of knowing, and did not want her plan to hinge on the answer. So, she remained. Waiting.

When Erin spotted Nesra again, a few steps out of the main entrance to the cathedral, she was flanked by two people. Two of Erin’s former classmates, walking very close to the sentinel. Much closer than strictly necessary, the two almost grinding against Nesra’s hips, and thighs, close enough that they could have linked arms behind the back of the kaldorei.

On the cusp of storming up the stairs to greet Nesra once more, Erin stopped in her tracks. A realization hit her, at last, something terribly obvious, but something she had nevertheless entirely failed to take into account: She was not unique. However few people might be interested in someone like Nesra, the number was not zero. It was not even, necessarily, few. Among this group, given how rare an opportunity it was to even find one of Nesra’s kind in Stormwind, the competition would be fierce.

Erin had heard, briefly, tales of the training that had gone on when the last batch of sentinels had come by. Certainly not nearly as explicit as her encounter with Rana and Dana, but more than a few of her classmates had reported that they had been wrestled to the ground, legs up, the frightfully endowed kaldorei seeming to consider them subdued only when able to grind that massively thick bulge in their trousers against the crotch of their training partner. A great many more of them than Erin had imagined seemed to have enjoyed that. Some openly, others with a greater degree of shame. The two now flanking Nesra had been some of the shameful, but that had, evidently, passed. What had Nesra even been doing in there, for two hours? Repeating the training, perhaps? Going further? Perhaps all three of them were off to somewhere more private in order to take that training to its natural conclusion. The two women certainly made an effort to stay close enough to Nesra that that was a reasonable conclusion to make. Erin lowered her brow, just so.

All she had, really, was Rana and Dana’s promise that they, or someone else, would return to visit. That was it. Why should Nesra care for some soon to be homeless nobody, a street bum, living in run-down squalor, not a friend to rely on. No doubt talked down at every possible opportunity by those inside the cathedral, for the crime of being too eager to help the Matron Mother.

Finding herself stripped of energy, a quietly churning, cold ball of wool occupying her chest cavity, Erin could not make herself move. Could not make herself try to catch up to Nesra, who seemed perfectly content walking along, a girl at each elbow. Westward, towards the exit from the district, to the canals. To Light knew where, no doubt to introduce the two to the demanding, but mind-blowing, deep pleasure that her kind were capable of.

Erin breathed out. Tried to keep her mind still, and sedated, though her body, once again, knew when something significant happened. Her cheeks and forearms prickled and tingled, not with pleasure, but with anxiety. At the uncertainty returning to her life. The plan had been too fickle, anyway, too bound and tangled up in the whims of a single sentinel. And, had things been different, what was a single kaldorei to do, anyway? She could not somehow fix everything wrong in Erin’s life. No one would do that for her. She would have to do it herself, however she could. By signing up for a mercenary company the next morning, being sent somewhere to guard, or to be muscle. But to live, at least. To be paid, and fed, at the very least.

She sighed, again. Stayed still for a long while, looking in the direction that Nesra had disappeared. Finally, Erin turned, and walked back the way she came.