#windrunner lore

Anya didn’t need to look back at Sylvanas to know just what she looked like lounging on her cot. This wasn’t their first night together. This wasn’t the first night she’d gotten dressed to slip through the darkness outside and back to her own tent. It didn’t bother her, of course. The Ranger-General was a talented lover and lovely to look at, after all. Everyone who had shared a bed with her knew that much.

“You’re quiet tonight.” Sylvanas’s voice was low and soft as she reached out to touch along Anya’s lower back just before her shirt slid down to cover it.

“You don’t usually want to talk,” Anya explained simply before she stood and reached to retrieve her boots, which she sank down to the floor of the tent to slide on.

“There you go.” Sylvanas grinned as she positioned Vereesa’s elbow in a way that allowed her more control over the little bow she’d been shooting all morning. “Now. Always push towards your target. Draw to your eye, don’t lean into it. Relax your right arm.”

Vereesa groaned as she released the tension on your bow and turned the frustration in her expression towards her sister’s sympathetic gaze. “What is it, Little Moon?”

“How am I supposed to relax my right arm?” She demanded. “When that’s the arm doing all the pulling?”

Sylvanas’s ears were pressed back as they marched through the undergrowth almost silently despite the heavy cover of fallen leaves. They twitched sideways any time she heard a sound she wasn’t already expecting to her. Her eyes, however, darted about rapidly in the hazy, early morning light. She had been on edge since her mother’s departure. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt normal. Nothing, aside from Velonara’s presence beside her. For that, at least, she was grateful.

They had passed the point where she expected her mother and her officers to be waiting for them nearly half an hour ago, yet she remained steadfast. None of her emotions - her fear, her immense worry, were displayed outwardly.

“Sylvanas?”

The news had spread like wildfire. Velonara wondered how long it had taken it to reach Sylvanas. She wondered how many people had known before her. Not many, perhaps. She was the General, after all. News of a lost Captain would reach her rather quickly. Especially if that Captain was her sister. No one thought less of her when she’d excused herself until the time of the memorial service. Days from now, still.

“Ranger-General.”

Lireesa lifted her gaze with a faint furrow of her brow and tilted her head slightly. “Lor’themar. Your formality is troubling.”

“The Rangers we sent.” He continued with furrowed brows - his fist clenched so tightly around his bow that his knuckles were going white as Lireesa laid down her quill slowly and pushed herself to her feet with her hands atop her desk. “They were captured.”

“There were over a dozen Lor’themar. Some of our best. That isn’t possible. What could have...” Lireesa’s voice was low and dangerous Lor’themar wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before.

Lor’themar clenched his jaw and turned his attention towards the floor instead of the piercing gaze being leveled at him. “The Orcish Horde. Just past the grasslands. There’s already a rescue party on its way to them. They aren’t lost just yet.”

“More, then? Our solution is to send more of our Rangers to be captured?” Lireesa’s voice had only grown more measured now as she walked around her desk towards the Captain who had been addressing her.

Ranger Captain Loralen looked at the disheveled, panting group of young women in front of her - some of them bent with their hands on their knees and some of them halfway to the ground in their exhaustion as she walked along the messy line they’d made. “Every one of you could have run that faster. We are elves. Not dwarves. Not snails. And you…” She paused in front of Sylvanas - who was standing perfectly still at attention with only a faint sheen of sweat on her brow. “You look as though you didn’t even try. Explain yourself.”

“With due respect, I am only as fast as the slowest Ranger in my unit, Captain. It would do me no good to lose them behind me and have to turn back for them.” This gave the Captain pause and she tilted her head as she looked into the eyes of the girl who was the most promising of any group she’d ever worked with.

“See that they become faster then, recruit. See that they do not slow you down.” Her voice retained the same harshness of edge - of stern, disconnected authority. But there was a faintly impressed smile playing about her lips.