#lyrinde

*

Tsuuli set his pack down just inside the doorway as his brother strode in, looking around. “It’s not bad!” Jaalzek proclaimed, gesturing around the small, but tidy inn room. 

Tsuuli sighed, and shut the door. “You are used to the accommodations in this city, brother?”

Jaalzek shot him a glance, then turned to sit on the bed. “I know, Orgrimmar is nothing like Dazar’alor.” He looked up again and shrugged. “It is not so bad, but it helps to have friends, then you do not miss the comforts of home so much.”

Tsuuli frowned in thought, and set to pulling necessities from his pack. “Xan lives here, no? Quite a difference between having friends, and having a lover to keep you from being homesick.”

Jaalzek laughed, and threw a pillow from the bed at his little brother. “It does help, yes! But Xandarien does not live here. We also are renting some rooms, until we decide where to go next, now that the war is over.”

“Many things to consider, now the war is over.”

“Yes indeed! Such as, will you be returning to Zandalar, after you are done traveling? And why are you traveling alone? What happened to, umm, what was her name? The hunter?”

Tsuuli grimaced at the reminder, and Jaalzek laughed at the face he made.  “Jaal, I thought I told you, we only went out together once, but it did not work out.”

Jaalzek stared at him like he expected more detail, but sat back with a sigh when he realized Tsuuli was not going to explain. The truth was, Tsuuli had gone on exactly three dates with the hunter Onala, a pretty Farraki, until it became clear she was painfully boring. She was pleasant enough, but seemed to have no ambitions beyond getting through the campaign she was on, and settling down to a married life with children and her companion animals. 

Not that Tsuuli wouldn’t mind being married at some time in the future, or start a family even, but he liked a woman with more fight in her. Someone he could adventure with, and fight alongside. Someone who could kick his ass, if they were to fight each other. 

Someone like the feisty elf he’d met up in the mountains of Zuldazar…

“Tsuuli! Are you listening to me?”

“Absolutely not,” Tsuuli replied automatically. He couldn’t help but laugh at the exasperated look on his brother’s face, even as he realized he must have missed something important. Or rather, something Jaalzek thought was important. “What were you saying?”

Jaalzek sighed and raised his eyes and hands, as if praying to the loa for patience. It was a gesture with which Tsuuli was well acquainted. “I was saying, little brother, that Xan and I know a woman, a mage…”

Uh oh, Tsuuli knew where this was going. His brother loved to try and set him up with various women he knew. It was nice, in a way, that his brother tried to look out for him, but he’d never been able to articulate exactly what he liked in a partner, in a way Jaalzek could understand. 

He privately thought it was because Jaalzek did not care for women, that made him such a bad matchmaker. Xandarien might be better at it than his brother, but Tsuuli had his doubts. 

Jaalzek was really getting into his description of the mage, taking Tsuuli’s silence as encouragement. 

He would have to tell him. 

His shoulders sagged. 

“—we can all have dinner together so you will not feel awkward—“

“I met a woman,” Tsuuli interrupted, voice a little too loud for the small room. 

Jaalzek sat back, looking surprised, before he burst forth with a flurry of questions. “You did? When? Where? Is she going on your trip with you? Will she be here in Orgrimmar? What is she like?”

“She is a demon hunter.”

“I thought you said you didn’t care for demon hunters?”

“I did—“

“You didn’t like their ‘Prissy faces and snobby attitudes.’”

“Yes, but—“

“And you always say you like tall women, not ‘Those puny elf girls.’”

“Well you see—“

“I am getting a lot of mixed signals here, Tsuuli. Is it someone Xandarien knows?”

“Well I did not ask—“

“Though I think they all know each other, it is a bit like a cult—“

“She is Kaldorei.”

“...”

“...”

“Tsuuli.”

“Yes, brother?”

Jaalzek stood and left the room. He didn’t slam the door though, so Tsuuli counted that as a win. He went to the bed and smoothed out the wrinkles in the blanket from where Jaal had been sitting, fluffed and replaced the pillow that’d been thrown at him, and stretched out for a short nap. 

He knew his brother, and he knew he’d be back soon. Might as well get some rest before the confrontation. 

*

A single, cursory knock was all Tsuuli got as a warning when Jaalzek returned. His abrupt arrival was softened somewhat by Xandarien following him into the room with a friendly, “Good to see you again, Tsuuli,” immediately continued with, “...well, not literally.”

Tsuuli couldn’t help but chuckle at that, and the wry grin on Xan’s face meant he was better at diplomacy than one would usually expect of a demon hunter. Jaalzek was occasionally pompous and could be overbearing, but Xandarien seemed to be more than capable of handling him. Tsuuli spared a thought for how the two made a good couple, and he was glad his brother found such a bond in the middle of the upheaval of war. Even if he was being a bit of an ass at the moment, standing in the corner, silently waiting for Xan to shut the door.

Once it closed with a soft click, he began to nag, though it was tempered by his hushed tone. “Tsuuli, you cannot consort with a member of the Alliance! Our people have only just joined the Horde. The Kaldorei are one of their biggest ancestral enemies, not to mention our own—”

“How did you meet?” Xandarien’s gravelly voice cut in. “Was it after the armistice?”

“Yes,” Tsuuli replied, ignoring his brother’s sputtering. “She crashed in the mountains, on her way to her departure point out of Zandalar.” He looked at his brother directly. “She had been assisting a team with packing up a base in Nazmir for evacuation, but her mount was injured and in her emergency landing, she ended up finding the grotto. Our grotto.”

Xandarien leaned back, his mouth forming an “O” in realization. He turned to Jaalzek. “You haven’t even taken me there!” he accused. “I’d forgotten, but you told me about it when you were courting me.” He said the last with a smirk, and Tsuuli was reminded of how much he did actually like the man.

Jaalzek was unmoved though. “She told you all of this? Freely?”

“Will it make you happy if I told you she tried to kill me when she first saw me?”

“No,” Jaalzek replied.

“Yes!” Xandarien laughed. “That explains his attachment,” he said to Jaalzek. Perhaps Xandarien wouldn’t be a bad matchmaker after all, were Tsuuli to need such a service.

Tsuuli arranged his pillow behind his lower back and leaned against the wall before speaking again. “She was relaxing in the pool when I walked up, and startled her.” His eyes glazed over at the memory of an angry, naked, and dripping wet elf charging him with glaives out. “She is...quite athletic.”

He must have had a stupid look on his face, because Xandarien guffawed as Jaalzek scowled.

“What’s her name?” Xandarien asked suddenly.

“Lyrinde.”

The demon hunter tilted his head to the side, thinking for a moment, then gasped. “Oh!” He turned to Jaalzek, “I know her, she is exactly Tsuuli’s type. I think you can relax, Jaal.” He ran a hand over Jaalzek’s bicep in a soothing manner. “She’s fierce and unrelenting, of course,” he said with a proud, feral grin, “but one of the most sane of our kind. She does not suffer from her demon as much as many others have.”

Jaalzek stared at his lover for a moment before turning back to his brother. “Exactly how much time have you spent with this Lyrinde?”

Tsuuli didn’t think his brother was ready for full details of what happened when they met, and would have to adjust his story accordingly. “Weeeeelll, after I startled her out of the water and she threatened me,” Jaalzek groaned as if he just realized what that meant about her state of dress, “we spoke for a few minutes to establish that we were not in fact going to fight to the death—”

“You had to bubble, didn’t you?” Xandarien cut in, gleefully.

Tsuuli sighed at the term, but answered, “Yes, I used my Divine Shield. As a precaution.”

Xandarien’s laughing was disruptful, but Tsuuli continued his tale, “After we came to an agreement not to engage in combat, well,” he peered at his brother, “we...occupied ourselves.” He could see Jaalzek’s expression slowly turning to horror. “For several hours.”

Xandarien had to move to a small stool in the corner to sit, overcome with laughter as he was.

*

Later, when they were having dinner in the Wyvern’s Tail, a more remote and quiet inn, Jaalzek finally seemed to regain the fortitude to ask, “So after you and the demon hunter—” He swallowed and started again. “Did you talk after—” He groaned and took a swig of ale.

Tsuuli took mercy on him and replied, “She was reluctant to talk at first, but I think she found me charming.” He grinned at Xandarien, who had been nodding.

“She’s all action, not much talk, that one,” he added for Jaalzek’s benefit. “But, from what I remember, Lyr was not the type to want to stick around afterwards. I know she broke a few hearts during our time at the Temple.”

Tsuuli shrugged, “It took some finesse, but I convinced her to talk to me more, and that is how I learned of her predicament.”

“You mean, you annoyed her into talking to you,” Jaalzek deadpanned.

“If you say so, brother.”

Tsuuli was perturbed that yes, that’s exactly what it meant, but he would not give his brother the satisfaction of knowing it. Besides, he preferred to think of it as persistence. 

“You say you learned this of her, and perhaps she was not being deceitful, but the fact still remains that she is...” he looked around, then dropped his voice to a whisper, “Will you even see her again? Perhaps it was a one-time fling, and you must now move on.”

Tsuuli picked up his mug and drank deeply before answering his brother. Truth be told, he’d feared such an outcome, and Xandarien’s comments made his stomach squirm at the thought of being another broken heart left in Lyrinde’s wake.

He would find out soon enough, he supposed.

“We have written to each other,” he said slowly. “I am meeting her in Dalaran in a week’s time.”

That was the plan, at least. Her letters tended to be shorter than his to her, but he put that down to her less than fluent grasp of Zandali, her very basic writing skills in the language, and probably her strange spectral vision, fel-tinted as it was. It had been about seven weeks of correspondence since they met at the grotto, averaging at a little more than one letter a week. She’d only agreed to the Dalaran scheme three weeks ago, though he’d invited her to meet with him there before they parted ways in Zuldazar.

Xandarien gasped, as Jaal blurted, “What?!”

*

Tsuuli trudged back to his inn after dinner, a little dejected. He could understand his brother’s concerns and doubts, he could. And while he was still positive about the upcoming meeting, and that it would actually happen, Jaalzek’s doomsaying put a damper on the buoyant mood he’d been harboring ever since Lyrinde had accepted his invitation.

In his distraction, he very nearly kicked the tiny vulpera steward attempting to get his attention as he made his way through the inn’s busy common room. “Excuse me!” he yelled over the commotion. “Tsuuli of Dazar’alor? That’s your name, correct?”

Tsuuli looked down into the pointed, furred face, and saw he was waving an envelope at him. “Mail has arrived for you!”

He couldn’t help a fluttering feeling of hope in his chest as he reached down to take the letter, murmuring his thanks. The vulpera trotted off through the crowd on other business with a hasty, “You’re welcome, please enjoy your stay!”

Tsuuli recognized the careful direction written on the outer folds of the envelope and hurried up to his rooms, waiting to break the seal—blue wax imprinted with a stylized crane—until he was completely alone, a true feat of strength in his current state.

Once the door was shut and bolted behind him, he grabbed the paring knife he’d used on a tough-skinned desert fruit earlier, and carefully pried up the seal, keeping it intact as he’d done with all of the previous letters. They traveled with him in a small golden lockbox at the bottom of his pack, one of his most prized possessions.

This letter felt a little thicker than usual, though peering inside it seemed to contain only one sheet of parchment. He pulled it out, realizing there was something packed within the paper. As he unfolded it, a fresh scent of foliage wafted out, brief but invigorating. It smelled of elven magic, like the woodlands of Ashenvale, which he visited once on a short trip to acquaint him and other Zandalari troops with Horde operations.

Two items slipped from within the note, into his lap, but before he could examine them, the brief words scrawled on the paper caught his eye.

I hope this finds you, before we meet. I will look changed, and did not like to surprise too much.

Care,

L

Much shorter than her usual letters, though with the same stilting verbiage, he smiled at the note all the same. Her Zandali was rather impressive, for a member of the Alliance, and her writing was always improving. They could communicate more easily, perhaps, in Common, but she had always made an effort to speak Zandali with him, and once confessed in a letter that she was trying to improve. Having learned the basics earlier on in the war campaign from the vaunted Alliance Spymaster Shaw, she claimed using Tsuuli’s native language with him was helping her more than her lessons ever had.

Shaking off his memories, he looked down to his lap where the items had fallen out. The first was a leaf, pressed and dried, but not brittle. It seemed to be in the midst of turning, but to a shade of evening, rather than autumn. He held it between his palms and, not for the first time, thanked the loa that they’d led him to visit the grotto that one day, after over a year of being away, on the one day he might have met her.

Setting it aside to be put into the lockbox, he picked up what he at first had thought was a chain, but was in fact— 

“Oh!” he couldn’t help but exclaim out loud.

It was a long, thin braid of shimmering white hair, bound at the ends with silken thread.

Smooth and sleek, fine strands as silky as he remembered them, he caressed the lock gently, curling it into a circle, uncoiling it again to marvel at the gift, then finally when he’d had his fill, finding a coin purse to empty out and stow the precious strands in, tucking them in an inner pocket of his vest, close to his heart.