Daring To Dream

Streets with stones both pale and tan blended into another, the people distinct only when they were in Silendiel’s sight. Obstacles to navigate around, and little else. Pressure, hot, and churning, and weighing down, covering the reasonable and logical parts of her mind, pervaded everything. Despite the danger of running into yet more idiotic drunks, she forged ahead, such that Neryn had to actually walk to keep up, rather than casually stroll in her wake.

They passed through one arch, moving along a street lined with shuttered stalls and homes now emitting sharp, orange light. Lances that sought and found them, marking them as potential targets as they made their way back to the embassy. Another arch. Another street. And then another. Ever fewer people, save those carousing. All Silendiel saw were the homes of future enemies, lining the streets. Rising up in stacks, multiple stories high. People, her own people, who would rise to fight her for no better reason than her choice in partner.

At last, refusing to relent, to step aside, she bumped directly into a drunk who either had not noticed her, or had, like she, decided that they would not yield for anyone. So, she stumbled backwards, finding Neryn’s steadying hand on her shoulder, and against her back. The woman who had hit Silendiel seemed uncertain of what had even happened, too affected to comprehend the world as it was. Had there really always been so many unhinged people in the streets? Silendiel remained still, her sentinel’s hand on her shoulder, exhaling. Dispelling the pressure beneath her sternum, breathing out some of the invisible fog that her filled her skull.

To no one, then, she spoke. To the street. To Neryn, perhaps, but not really. “I refuse to believe that Surielle has become so irrational. The woman we saw today, was… was…”

“You, a handful of weeks ago, but worse still?”

Silendiel set her jaw, for a moment. Let the words wash over her, trying not to let them sink in. It was not Neryn she was angry with. “Much worse,” she said, at length. Another swift sigh, sampling the sunbaked stone’s evening scent, the thick warmth still rising from everything. A non-smell that nevertheless felt as if it filled her nostrils. “There is something we can do. Something we do not yet see.”

“I am not so sure, little sun,” Neryn said.

Was it the first time Neryn had used the pet name in public, where someone might hear? Silendiel thought that she might have cared, found it inappropriate. Or, if not improper, then that she might feel a rush of emotion. Instead, there was very little to detect. It was not wrong. It was not pompous, or presumptuous. It was what she was. To Neryn, at least.

“We must return to the embassy. Formulate a plan,” she said. “There is a chink in her armor. There always is. With everyone.”

They remained where they were, the ever more thinly populated streets of Silvermoon at night presenting fewer and fewer other pedestrians. The occasional single person moving quickly, interspersed with a few groups, either celebrating, or moving as one. For safety. Perhaps as retinue for someone. Silendiel stood, for a while, waiting for a lull in the sparse traffic, only then turning to face Neryn.

She did not speak. She looked up, and locked eyes with her beloved sentinel, and wanted to stand there, shutting the world out. But there would be more passersby, eventually. Interruptions. So, she made herself raise her hands, fingers finding the thin, silver chain granted her by Neryn weeks ago. The crescent-moon necklace, blessed by Iralis. Still maintaining eye contact with Neryn, Silendiel lifted the chain over her head, and, continually looking up, folded it up until, eventually, she could hold it in her left, closed hand.

Not immediately, but growing from nothing, having first had to take root, the beating wings of butterflies manifested in her chest, and her stomach. Prickling, tingling pinpricks came into being around and beneath her ribs, and a sensation like that, but much weaker, spread from her heart and to her arms. To her hands. A simple thing, removing that necklace. But she stood, now, before Neryn, and felt herself once more to be very small. Not in the way of earlier, contemplating her beloved sentinel’s capacity for ****, but rather, her capacity to irrevocably alter a long, proud line of sin’dorei.

Without wishing to, Silendiel took a trembling breath, and then let it out. Even less controlled, then. There was something soft in Neryn’s eyes, something like sorrow, too. And joy. Complexity which was difficult to interpret, which did not lesson Silendiel’s anxiety and excitement, but made her feel lighter, too. Made the little tingling spots in her cheeks and arms blossom, for a moment.

Neryn raised her right hand. Index and middle finger, still curled, settled beneath Silendiel’s chin for a moment, encouraging her upwards just so. The fingers moved, then, up to her cheek, caressing it. Despite the mixture of emotions, how could Silendiel understand her sentinel’s gesture as anything other than affirmation?

“We should talk, little sun. Back at the embassy,” Neryn said. Calm. Lowering her hand.

“Yes,” Silendiel responded. Too quickly. Too eagerly. But she found no source of energy within with which to further chastise herself. It was exhausting and, ultimately, unsatisfying work, holding herself to everyone else’s standards. And they could leave. She had never been anywhere but Silvermoon, save for a few pleasant and pampered excursions around Quel’thalas. But they could leave, surely? Be somewhere else. Together.

A wild thought, and one she let slip with another sigh. Lingering on Neryn’s eyes for a while longer, and then tearing herself away, at last. They could stay, too. The city was hers as much as it was Surielle’s, and the drunkard’s. More hers, even, perhaps.