Complication

Brialla waited outside the priestess’ office, having made her way there too slowly, too many minutes spent languidly caring for Kerendra’s terribly attractive features. Something for which no one but herself could be blamed, of course, and, in retrospect, a bad idea. But who, really, was going to be a better choice to handle the shipment of wares than her, with her contacts in Quel’thalas, and her obvious ties to kalimdor?

Salkannia. Salka. Someone Brialla had not heard of, nor cared for, when she had first spent time in the settlement, and had first let her desires lead her into Kerendra’s strong hands. A kaldorei trader of some means, of some skill, certainly, but not someone who had much overlap with Brialla’s area of expertise. So she had thought, and so it had been, for years. And, yet, in that moment, standing with her hands gathered behind the small of her back, head high, back straight, staring into a dusky corner of the ceiling outside the priestess’ office, waiting, she cursed herself for her complacency. By the sounds of it, Salka was inside, and they were boisterously finalizing the whole deal before Brialla had gotten so much as a word in.

The door opened, and Salka, at first not noticing Brialla’s presence, shared a self-assured, conceited, half-lidded stare with the sentinels standing guard on either side of the door. Some connection, there. Salka’s pink-ish purple eyes then slid over the dark wood of the interior, until they fell upon Brialla. Entirely coincidentally, of course, she soon after made a declaration to no one in particular, to the guardian sentinels, perhaps.

“Contract’s mine already.”

Always nurturing the feeling of her own inadequacy in her breast when compared to the more experienced kaldorei traders, Brialla nevertheless narrowed her eyes only just. Kept her breathing even. Continued to look up at the ceiling, as if she had not noticed Salka’s appearance, nor heard the confident words. And, inwardly, formed a long procession of curses which she would have to let the Light, let Elune, hear, rather than the trader. Was it the sexual rejection a year back that had made Salka into a rival?

“Might as well go back home, hind,” Salka said, having turned to obviously address Brialla.

If there was any victory at all to salvage from the situation, it was that Salka appeared mildly annoyed at Brialla’s ability to outwardly completely ignore her. Even so, despite the spreading, soft hollow in her chest, the weight materialized in her stomach, Brialla was not going to blindly believe Salka’s words without speaking to the priestess. Such manipulation was too easy – and, anyway, even if Salka had secured the contract, perhaps its moorings could be cut once again.

“Might as well go home and repaint your faded stripes, old zhevra,” Brialla said. She spared but a single glance for Salka, walking past her and into the priestess’ office. She had barely closed the door before being addressed.

“You have come to convince me to let you have the contract, have you not, Brialla?”

“So I have, priestess,” Brialla said. She bowed from the waist, and then approached the priestess, who sat not behind her desk, but upon a white, solid stone bench with no back save the wall of the building. She did not even lean back, the priestess. Would cushioning or enjoying comfort be a sign of weakness, somehow? Perhaps Brialla ought to buy a bed made of stone. Maybe that would convince the oldest, most ornery, most stuck in their way kaldorei that she was made of sterner stuff than they imagined.

“Salkannia has made the reasonable point, uncomfortable for you, that she is no one without us. She was born here, raised here, and is forever tied to us. She believes that you can never really be a part of our society,” the priestess said. She took a breath, and, as Brialla readied a response, raised a casual hand to prevent an interruption. “Many, in the past, were thought neutral. Potential allies, even. And yet, they proved otherwise when it came time to show their allegiance. When Teldrassil burned. If your people again go to war with us, whose side will you be on?”

Brialla’s mind raced in a small circle for too long. Whose side would she be on? She did not want war, at all, whether instigated by the Horde or the Alliance. She would be neutral, of course. But was that an acceptable answer? No, of course not. But, by the time she settled her gaze upon the priestess, she knew that her pause, outwardly but the length of a heartbeat, had yet been too long.

“Do not think you can lie to me, Brialla.”

“I would want to be neutral, priestess,” Brialla said. “I would not want to fight my own kin. But this is my home, where my family – Kerendra, Elennia—”

“A home is something you are prepared to fight for.”

“That’s it, then? I can never be a part of this place, not really, and so I will always be the second choice? The last resort?”

“No one has said that.”

“What can I do to prove my loyalty, then? Do I need to fight for this place? What of all of your own people, those who do not rise to fight, who are mere civilians, are they also second rate?”

“No one is second rate, Brialla. You are emotional. Salkannia has the contract, but I shall hear your case again, when you have calmed down,” the priestess said. “Provided you have some new point to make. Go.”

If Brialla had learned anything in the presence of the priestess over the last decade, it was decisiveness. Not to stand around, an open book to be read from start to finish with a simple, piercing gaze, but rather to take action. Any action. Figure out what was right later. And so, she covered the onrushing flood of indignant thoughts and words by bowing from the waist again, turning, and leaving the office.

Salka was gone. Off to marshal her resources, no doubt, certain that she had managed to pick at the singular thread which could always be pulled on to produce uncertainty about Brialla’s intentions. After all, what did it matter that she had a child with Kerendra when she remained sin’dorei? Not that she could change that. Not that she wanted to change it, even if she had somehow been able to. The kaldorei, in the end, were not fundamentally all that different from her own people, or so many other peoples. They cared for their own. Their homes. Sometimes overmuch. Sometimes to the point of exclusion.

“Ask Kerendra if she’s coming along for the guardian hunt, later, will you?”

It was one of the guardian sentinels, who seemed entirely indifferent to Brialla’s struggles. She could easily have heard everything through the door, but if she had, she made no indication of it. And, anyway, the woman was clearly on Salka’s side, or friendly to her, at least. Brialla allowed herself a little sigh, and then nodded.

“I will, sister,” she said. Using the same Darnassian word that Kerendra would have, for a fellow sentinel. A fellow kaldorei. For that, at least, she was not reproached. It was accepted without rebuke.