The Trouble

The trouble with nocturnal living in a city that disagreed was that one’s official, busy morning ran into the free time of those who sought to use it as an escape. In the streets. So it was that, having left the embassy behind and turned three corners, Silendiel and Neryn made their way past a small band of clearly drunk, aggressively bantering common people. And, the moment they were spotted, the three men and two women resolved that a noblewoman and an enormous kaldorei were, in fact, the perfect representatives of the rumored night elven invasion of Silvermoon.

“You!”

Neryn successfully ignored that first yell, though it was clearly directed at her. Silendiel, used to a higher level of respect about her person, and, if nothing else, accustomed to having people around her who would shield her from ruffians, halted for a moment. Looked around. Caught the faded, golden eyes of the man who had shouted, who now advanced on them from behind. His four friends, confident in their **** and constant fumbling for balance, followed immediately after, a glance making them seem more eager to see what their friend would do than antagonistic themselves.

“You!”

“Keep walking,” Neryn said, not even turning her head. Quietly, in the hope that the man would get tired, and leave them alone. She tried very hard not to react, but then had to ruin the pretense a moment later, placing a hand upon Silendiel’s shoulder in order to direct her forward again. Clearly, it was noticed.

“Yeah, you! Purple shit!”

“Most eloquent,” Silendiel said, over her shoulder. Trying to dismiss the man with an icy, if fairly sedate, barb.

Responding, however, engaged them in conversation, and the man rushed up next to them, and then stood before them, blocking their path. His friends came around both sides, standing to either side of him, a pace back.

“Shut up,” he said, not even bothering to register Silendiel’s sneer of deepest discontent. Instead, he turned his attention on Neryn. “Get back in your house, and piss off.”

“Remove yourself,” Silendiel said. Summoning, trying to summon, every ounce of noble scorn and authority she had at her disposal. Unfortunately, all the petty drama and the weeks of living in the embassy had somewhat sapped her of her previous, venomous power. That, or the drunkard simply did not care for what she said.

“We’re trying to rescue you, you stupid bitch,” the man said, sparing Silendiel a look that told her that he figured she ought to be grateful for his mere presence. His breath smelled like the cheapest possible cherry wine. He turned, again, to Neryn. “Let her go, and fuck off, and there won’t be any more trouble.”

“I am not in need of rescue. I need you to leave,” Silendiel said. Her flagging authority turned her tone almost conversational, falling just short of pleading. What had the embassy done to her?

“Shut up. Stupid bint. We’re trying to help,” another of the drunkards said. A red-haired, red-bearded man. He slurred his words only slightly, finding his balance as he moved forward first one step, then another. Not in Neryn’s direction, but in Silendiel’s.

Frozen as the man advanced on her further, Silendiel only registered what happened, unable to react. A terribly swift, sinking weight manifested in her stomach and pulled her towards the ground as she realized that the man was coming for her, not for Neryn. Even that, she could not move to react to. That he was approaching with violent intent at all was incredulous.

The next moment, in a movement so fast that it felt as if her brain had to process it in parts, a second later, the man crumpled to the ground. Something clattered against the smooth, large stones of the street – a thin, metal cup, not a weapon – and rolled away. He seemed as surprised as Silendiel had been at his mere approach, though his surprise manifested in his tumbling backwards, falling down to sit on his ass. Curling arms around his stomach, he turned, and was almost demonstratively sick, a watery mess, probably more ale than anything, spreading on the stones. He held his stomach, and then held the wrist in which the cup had been.

Neryn, in a fluid, incredibly swift move that seemed to Silendiel impossible, her stature taken into account, had stepped in, using the back of one hand to knock the cup from the man’s hand. And, the attack against Silendiel parried, she had, perhaps not in one move, but in what seemed a practiced one-two, instantly punched him in the stomach with her right hand. Neither he nor Silendiel had processed what happened, and already, then, the drunkard was slipping, falling back. Neryn, for her part, did not draw any weapons in response.

Instead, as if to reinforce Silendiel’s earlier thoughts about the growling saber beneath the often placid surface of her beloved sentinel, the one she had invited in and, somehow, felt safe around and in the arms of, had emerged. Lips curled back from fangs, white eyes narrowed to slits. Arms extended, nails seeming suddenly rather more like claws again. All of this could be seen for just a moment. Then, seeing no immediate reaction from the four friends of the drunkard, Neryn closed her mouth again. Packed the fangs away, her nose scrunched in disgust as she observed the man, wiping his mouth, and his companions.

“Fuck you!”

Perhaps not terribly eloquent, Silendiel thought at the excitable shout from one of the four still standing. She remained largely unable to move. At least Neryn had taken a step closer, such that she stood partially in front of Silendiel, allowing her to complete her useless, arrogant, practiced thoughts of the commoners.

The message came across just fine, even if the drunkards seemed to have been taught a lesson. None of those that still remained standing seemed eager to have their wrist potentially broken, nor to get punched with the amount of **** leveled at the seated drunkard.

Given time, two of them convinced themselves, and each other, to clumsily help up their fallen comrade. Pulling him inelegantly to his feet, each holding a hand, so that he could not use them to balance himself, nor even support himself. It might have been both tragic and comedic, had Silendiel enjoyed misery as a form of entertainment. Had they not just tried to attack her.

“Piss off, tree-fucker,” one of them, helping their stricken friend along as they slowly left the scene, said.

“Fuck you,” another said. Halfheartedly flinging an empty cup in their general direction. It did not travel far enough.

Not realizing she had been holding her breath, Silendiel exhaled, and rapidly took a new breath. Wet her lips, and blinked, and tried to make her sluggish limbs and mind react. Do something. She had been entirely useless. What could she have done, even if she had moved? She was trained for another arena than this, the streets. She would have gotten in the way of Neryn, had she tried anything. Just as Neryn was apt to get in the way of anything to do with sin’dorei politics.

Neryn.

Silendiel looked up at her guardian, her beloved, who still stood straight, tall, still looked after the five friends, who seemed to have forgotten the altercation already. Based on their now jovial shouting and incomprehensible internal negotiations about which awful bar to go to. Neryn seemed still intent on showing any of the five, should they look back, that she was aware of them. That she was still ready to fight. That she despised them.

Without thinking, Silendiel took a step closer still to Neryn, raising her right hand. Finding, to her surprise, that it trembled slightly. She stilled it by placing her fingers on her sentinel’s forearm, near the elbow. To calm Neryn, who seemed to instinctively be taking some sort of superior, combative position which made no sense in Silvermoon City. To be closer to her protector.

“Thank you,” Silendiel said, after a while. She could think of no other words in that moment, though the bile rising in her as she began to process what had happened would no doubt turn into several extremely vehement and expansive entries in her diary. Or perhaps a long rant to Neryn, once they were back in the embassy. Perhaps, even, should things go well, a confession to Surielle.

Neryn did not respond, though her shoulders sank just so, signaling some small measure of relaxation.

“We should go,” Silendiel said. “We must go and meet Lady Silversong.”

The response was a slow nod. A great, measured exhalation of tension from Neryn, after which she turned softened eyes on Silendiel. A faint smile. The sentinel seemed to think little of what had just happened, Silendiel realized.

Disgust grew in her chest. A thick, **** rage that made Silendiel struggle not to scrunch up her nose. Made her struggle, for a long moment, to put on the always untroubled, dignified, ever composed mask she had trained herself to wear in the presence of anyone at all. Save her closest confidantes, save Neryn.

It was not the attack itself, nor even that the fool and drunkard had stumbled in her direction. He represented a part of public opinion she had inflamed, true, but something that had always been there. Something she had comfortably ignored, when it was easy to do so, when it was possible to remain in the murk of indecision. So comfortable were those waters that she had not even been aware of needing a push to move on from them – not until the push had arrived in the form of that idiot. And his four friends.

Again, Silendiel looked up at Neryn. Breathed out a slow sigh, still trying to dispel tension. Her beloved’s white eyes returned her gaze, calm once more. The growling huntress once more tamed, and packed up. Below the surface, safe. Seemingly thinking nothing of what she had just done. Of having just been put in danger for the sake of Silendiel’s desires. For her mistakes. And with this woman, who did not stop to consider putting herself in danger for the sake of someone who had but a few months before been a disrespectful stranger, Silendiel dreamed and illicitly hoped to have a family. A child of two worlds, though undoubtedly more kaldorei than sin’dorei, born into a city who would view it forever as a symbol of her uncontrolled, shameless passions.

“We should go,” Neryn said, repeating Silendiel’s words that neither of them had acted on.

Silendiel nodded, at last.