#zarannis

“Th’People didnae come ere t’die.”

“Then you were naive. The only reason to enter a war is to die for it.”

“Two heads’are nae worth th’undreds that joined this war for -you-, Ighdawn. Th’People ave nae reason t’fight for Theron.”

“Wintergale’s worth one thousand heads. The Alliance Commander was six-hundred, if not more heads, that would kill twice their worth another day. I made… a calculation. Four hundred of our’s to gain, and save, thousands later.”

“Ya killt everyun, ya dumb bastid. That wasnae worth it! They was family— alluh them. Ya didnae kill them for th’war. Ya killt them for th’Crows. For ya dumb fuckin sensa sponsibility t’a dead woman. Th’fuck are ya gonna do after this? Come back an try t’act like ya some landowner? Like th’People can really make it there? Naena us gonna want to follow someone who uses us up like firewood.”

“I’m not expecting an ‘after.’ And our People can stay in our mountains.” comes out level - distracted.

She hadn’t been listening to Ciril - not really. There was other things to do. Too much dead or gone to pile their names. So she was working backwards. Counts of all of the units that survived were coming in from the diminished campfires of her army. Taking those, striking the names from the whole of the lists - the remainder would constitute those that required word sent back to their loved ones. Dead, or M.I.A.. Basically dead, at this rate.

The blood and ink kept gluing the pen to her skin. Difficult to shift from line to line. Annoying; grating. At least what was on her hands, was old. She could feel fresher crimson oozing through her chaussures.

“Donae say ‘our.’ Ya donae ave that right. Ya ain’t one’a—”

Thanidiel looks up.

“I’m not one of you? Why? Because you’re angry at me? Because you think I’m some ruthless prick?

Get the fuck in line.

They all hate me too, and I’m still one of them, and one of you, no matter how much you hate me too. I don’t give a fuck about how you react as long as I win this war.

Bugs you?

Get the fuck out of my face then, too. Get out of my camp, and get down onto your knees in front of whoever else is wailing tears about all of the bad things I’ve done in this war then. I did what I had to do with what the job, and my job, was.

The objective was to extract. We extracted. The Crows are our charges. We protected them. Everything else is useless semantics.

You don’t sign up for war unless you would die for it. And they all did so gladly. ”

Her eyes flit back down to the papers, another soldier, a Crow, places another scrawled status-update on the army remnants onto the table.

“We sign out then. Th’People are out. We made a mistake ere.” The diminutive other, her Kinswoman, had stood there for some time before saying that; all wild orange hair and clenched fists. Building up her little thunder.

Thanidiel looks up.

She squints.

“Then you are out. Equipment issued by the Thalassian military is to be returned by tomorrow’s dawn. The rations stay - we aren’t surrendering that for goodwill during such a time.

You all leave that same night. You all find your own ways back to Home. The rest of us will commit to this war one way or another.

Get out of this tent.”

She thinks she sees something akin to shock flitter across the dark skin of the woman’s face. Like Ciril wasn’t expecting that - the decisive apathy applied to the orders, not orders. Demands. Those didn’t qualify as orders anymore between them.

She didn’t have time anymore, for anyone who questioned the necessities of this fight - of sacrificing now for truer victories.

It is not as though she and the Lieutenant were not bonded comrades before. It was Ciril who ran and jumped over roots and brush with her, in the nights before the war, preying on the little foxes that once filled the woodland southeast of Autumnvale by plenty. And it was her and Ciril who spoke of lifetimes and things well beyond the punier worlds of the others.

But she didn’t have time for this anymore.

The sacrifice, after sacrifice, and after sacrifice, in the constant roll of the cyclic curse at her back.

It all had to pay off to something. It would pay off to something.

Those who didn’t believe; didn’t belong here anymore.

They all had to devote themselves to the art of dying, and war. 

Tal’dorei.

She takes in a sharp breath at the same time as the mountain elf parts the flaps of the command tent - a pain ripping through her thigh as she stands. Still, Thanidiel performs the whole of the action and some with her chin held in that unending imperiousness.

Following after, she holds the felt high and open, her vision unseeing of Ciril as she catches Oridren and Harthen’s attention nearby.

“We need to send word to the main host for their cavalry reserves. From here on out, we’ll be replenishing the ranks under this banner with Sunguard personnel.

Fury Company is… retired, until we return to Autumnvale to rebuild.”

Another soldier approaches. Another count of those among the living in the spread-out camp-circles over the horizon passes into her hand. This one does not return to fire and food so easily.

“You have a new assignment. Go to the Crows. Let Garris know he’s ready to be seen.”

-

Zarannis laid still, curled into herself, staring at the canvas walls of the field hospital. She had not moved since she had penned her report to the Archon. Of retreat. Of defeat. Hundreds of lives lost, including their Nightborne allies from across the North Sea. 

“You have a visitor,” announced the Oathsworn Dawnmender on duty who ushered in a blood covered Farstrider, bearing the insignia of the Kestrel Lodge on his lapel.

“Kestrel, Ranger Summersong reporting” he saluted his commander who hadn’t bothered to face him. “The casualties have been tallied. Two hundred and fifty nine dead. Hundred and ninety eight wounded. Thirty missing.” There was no response from Zarannis, it was unclear if she was even listening. But that did not seem to bother the company captain in the slightest. He continued counting off their numbers for her benefit. “Fifty three Farstriders remain combat ready. The wounded can be mended and be back in action in a matter of days- Light willing. We await your orders, Kestrel.”

“Stop calling me that,” Zarannis croaked, her throat dry as dust. “The Kestrel lays in an unmarked grave outside Tor’Watha. All real successors lay in pieces under the burnt husk of our Lodge. It’s nothing more than a dead title for a dead man.”

The captain paused, then pulled to him a field chair. Sitting by his commander’s bedside, he spoke softly. “Do you know why The Kestrel lays in that unmarked grave? Because you gathered us up to go after him. Do you know why the rest of us haven’t joined him in the ground? Because you stole us from the Amani. I don’t call you Kestrel because the title fell to you. I do so because we followed your lead. You earned our command.”

“And I commanded you to die,” Zarannis snapped, the disdain made plain in her voice. But the fight soon left her and she curled once more into herself, as if she was in agony.

“And I respectfully disobeyed,” Summersong responded. “Sometimes you need to act against orders in the best interest of your men.”

The words had cut her deeper than she had expected and she lay still once more. “What’s your name Ranger?”

“Keres Summersong.”

“What do you want from me Keres?” Zarannis asked the man, to which the Ranger obliged.

“The final battle at the Sunwell is at hand. It might even already be over. We need our commander. Not just for the Kestrels but the entire Northern Vanguard. Whatever the outcome of the battle, we need to be ready for it.”

Zarannis coughed, the dryness in her throat causing her voice to crack. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you’re a bigger coward than I thought possible.”

“Cowardice?” Zarannis stirred again, fire returning to her. “You think it is cowardice that would make me refuse? Is it cowardice that I won’t throw hundreds of lives away a second time, all for nothing?!” She broke down in a fit of coughing.

“Would you have preferred to throw thousands away? The last battle would have been a slaughter had you not sounded the retreat. Many did not make it out, but I think you fail to realize that you still saved enough of the Vanguard that it still needs leadership.” Keres handed her his waterskin, which she took with a measure of desperation. “Don’t you dare push that responsibility on the rest of us.”

-

“You look nothing like the General of the Northern Vanguard,” Beathyn jested, pulling out a seat for himself before her. “Took longer than I care to admit to track you down.”

Zarannis was pulled back to the present, and the ever warming mug of ale that had long lost its foam top. She gazed at him in her time-lost state, measuring her friend’s features and a cheek-to-cheek smile. She hated him for it. Had he not also led men to their deaths? Had he not also ended the lives of hundreds?

“That,” she sneered. “That was a title I neither asked for or wanted.”

He raised her eyebrow at her. “Then why did you volunteer for it?”

More memories flashed in her mind’s eye, dredging up old promises that she could not keep and people she could not save. 

“Someone had to.” Zarannis looked him in the eyes. “You lost men during the campaign didn’t you?”

The smile on his face faded. “I did.”

“I lost everything that I held dear. The Lodge, the Farstriders, the Tal’dorei who followed me, the Oathsworn of the Northern Vanguard, and the order for which they died for. I lost them all. So I detest the title. It’s tainted with their blood.”

Beathyn held her gaze and matched it with an intensity of his own. A rare sight for those that knew the light-hearted man. “You were among the Waywatcher Assassins. A Farstrider that held the border of the Amani for centuries. Blood is your profession, Zarannis. As it was theirs.”

“Not anymore.” Zarannis turned away, focusing on her drink. “Not a Farstrider, not a General, and not a pawn of Solendis’ schemes. Just a girl.”

“Fair enough,” Beathyn nodded, sliding over an envelope in front of her. “So you can attend this as just-a-girl then.”

Zarannis spied the Emberheart's wax seal. “What is this? A bribe?”

“It’s an invitation,” he replied. “A funeral of a friend.” Beathyn rose to his feet, dusted himself off and rose to his feet. “And that’s all?”

He nodded. “I’ve got to deliver more of these now.” Beathyn turned to leave. “You can head over early. It’s not for another few weeks but I’m sure they won’t mind. They’ve got enough guest beds to put up a garrison.”

-

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@retributionpriest @stormandozone @curiouslich @thanidiel @esheyn @thenaaru @forever-afk @cynfuldax @felthier​ @azriah​ @korkrunchcereal​

“Thank you for coming,” came a voice from behind her. But Zarrannis did not turn. She was fixated on the corpse of the man she had once known. Sederis Emberheart, laid out to rest. Dame Everleigh had returned him, probably half-expected that her worthy adversary would be resurrected. But try as they might, Sederis had refused to return. “It means the world that you braved the perilous journey here, behind enemy lines.”

“If you think I came here to pay my respects, I’m afraid you are sorely mistaken,” Zarannis stated coldly. She didn’t particularly dislike the man, though they had a difference in opinion about many things. But she didn’t believe in mourning.

“Yet you stare at him, unmoving,” she knew it was Solendis Emberheart. She could tell he was circling her. “I’d wager that you were.”

“At his body. Not him. This was his prison, of responsibilities he was forced to carry, and of promises he could not keep. Respect has nothing to do with it.” Zarannis turned at last to the Steward of the Emberglades. “At his body,” she repeated. “And Zin’jang.”

“Our family’s weapon.”

“His weapon. Your family took it in as a trophy- a symbol of the blood it took you to win these lands off the Amani. Sederis took it back to bridge the gap between divided traditions. He reforged it into his own,” Zarannis turned back to the spear, and the body that clutched it tight to his chest.

“What will be done with it?” She asked.

“He will hold it until this war is over. Once it is, we will bury it with him in the family mausoleum. There it will stay until Stenden is old enough to claim his birthright.”

“If he becomes old enough to claim his birthright,” Zarannis corrected. “You know full well, with the soldiers of the Heartlands obliterated, and the loyalists of the Broken Bulwark destroyed. No one will come to your aid. Lord Ilithia and the whole of Westheath will be at your throat the moment this war is over.”

“We still have House Goodember and Wintergale.”

“Neilio Goodember will support the highest bidder. How much gold will you have left in your coffers after this war is over?” Zarannis began pacing, orbiting Solendis now. “And House Wintergale? My father has wanted independence for generations. This would be the best opportunity to achieve it.”

Solendis swallowed hard. “Arenias will come for you after he’s done with us. There is merit in supporting your Lord.”

Zarannis laughed, deep and rich as if there was true humor to be found. “Tell that to my father. You forget I’ve been disowned.”

“Why is it do you think I’ve called you here,” Solendis shot her a look that stopped the Far Strider in her tracks. “The Emberglades needs a Warden, Zarannis.”

“And I’m your third candidate?”

“First.” “Times must be truly desperate indeed,” Zarannis smirked. “For you to think that a member of disgraced nobility is a worthy fit.”

“Dorrence Tar’saren was lowborn soldier-turned-Lord of the Broken Bulwark. Sederis was a runaway mercenary captain-turned-Lord of the Emberglades. Worthy fits are few and far between in these lands,” Solendis stepped towards her. “You are distinguished Far Strider of Lodge Kestrel. You have protected Quel’thalas for centuries. You have kept the Cloudrend Glades safe-”

“Secure,” she corrected. “I hope this war has taught you that no one is truly ever safe.”

“It has, which is why we need a Warden.”

“A Warden of a sinking ship.”

“A Warden, of Stenden Emberheart, Lord of the Emberglades. The recognized ruler by the Crown.”

“Until Arenias takes that title for himself,” Zarannis quipped. “And you assume that there’ll even be a crown after this.”

“A Warden of the Emberglades, Lady of the Broken Bulwark, and bearer of Zin’jang,” Solendis raised his voice, stating all that he had on the table. All she needed to do was collect. “Keep your family name, make a new one, that is your prerogative. But you will be given everything we have lost and more.”

“And swear my life away- Throw my life away in a future war for a pile of ruins and a stolen relic? You offer things you have no ownership over.”

“What would you have me do then!? Let my family die?” Solendis yelled, a phenomenon that has been witnessed before or since that moment. “When Arenias comes for us, we’re going to be strung up on the walls of this very courtyard and I won’t have it! But I’m not a great warrior or a charismatic general. I’m a man with a mouth and a birthright, nothing more. I can’t save my family. I was hoping- no- I am begging that you do.”

His outburst caught her off guard. She had known him as the ever calculating, ever scheming spymaster of his brother’s regime. This was probably part of his game- but not under the pretense of some scheme. This game he played was closer to home, with personal stakes that were closer to him than the man was comfortable with.

“Begging does not suit you,” she said, walking up to the embalmed body in the center of the courtyard. She thought of Illsei, her sister, next in line of House Wintergale. She thought of Rendra the brat of a brother, and of Ameli, who still refused to wear dresses. Zarannis loved them all. Fiercely. She’d do anything for them. Kill for them. Die for them. She felt for the man.

Zarannis shook her head. “I appreciate the offer. But I have got a war to win.”

Solendis hadn’t the strength to save his family. But neither did she. Already upon her shoulders were the lives of the surviving Kestrels. The Tal’dorei who exiled themselves for her. Waywatchers from Emberlight. Oathsworn of the Sunguard.

She would not bear anymore. Not if she could help it.

-

Just a girl.

I am just a girl.

Not a Farstrider, not a General, and not a pawn of Solendis’ schemes. Just a girl.

Zarannis stared at the corpse of the man she had once known. At last beginning to understand the weight that he had carried upon his shoulders. How a thousand lives could be only a word away from death.

She thought of the war. She thought of her mistakes. Of Honor. Of Naivety. Of promises that she could not keep and people she could not save. But what she regretted most of all, wasn’t the things she had done.

It was the things she hadn’t.

--

Art by Harris Clook

“Unnatural.”

“Of course,” she mumbles. “But seeing that you made it to the other side and then came back… I figured you’d be the best person to ask about what waits for all of us on the other side?”

“That depends on what you believe.” 

Zarannis paused in her step. “Right…” she held the end of her word for a second longer than she needed to. “So if I believed that I wanted to be reincarnated and do my life over again, that’d happen?”

“Possibly. There are rules there, Old rules. If that is the path that you wish for, there is some patron or some way to achieve it.”

“Good to know,” she says as she makes it to a dead end filled with crates on the first floor. Cocking her head, she follows the wall. There had to be a door soon that’d take her to the kitchen or the pantry. “Beats getting my soul sucked up to feed some sort of Troll deathgod,” she mumbles dryly as she finally makes it out to the moonlit courtyard.

Passing by House Guards on patrol, she finds her way towards the storerooms, and her eyes light up at the sight of barrels. But frowned again when she smelled variations of olive oil.

“I’m just wondering where the Kestrels all ended up. On the other side I mean. Or the Tal’dorei who followed me. If they all got what they wanted in the end- if they sold their souls to do it- or if they just… Dissipated into the void.”

Lirelle wasn’t sure if she should tell her that there wasn’t some treasure at the end of her hunt, some secret cellar full of alcohol secreted away at some corner of the house. Between her and Vaelrin, they had probably finished most of what was in the estate. “If they wished to, they did.”

Zarannis bowed her head. There was some peace in that at least. “If that’s true, then hopefully it’s all been worth it,” she said as she went deeper into the store rooms into the back where the grain was stacked. “I’m still deciding if it was. I lost everything I cared about in that war and all it did was usher in an uneasy peace and an age of banditry and Warlords.”

Lirelle regarded the drunk woman as she searched. All the decisions she had made in the war were easily made, and she would have made each and every one again a thousand times over. “Peace is peace. Bandits and warlords are easily put to the sword. We won, and that’s all that matters.”

“What good is peace when you’ve no one to share it with?” Zarannis poked through the storeroom and when she was satisfied, headed back out and tried the opposite side of the manor. Her mannerisms darkened. “Do you think Lady Thelryn got what she wanted?”

Lirelle could still remember Azriah’s face, the way the shadows danced in her eyes. It had rolled off her like a current, and she had felt the magic granted to herself stir in the confines of her will. “She got exactly what she wanted, which is why she gave in.”

“Do you think-” Zarannis stopped. “I did the right thing?” The girl looked back at her friend, “I followed orders. We all did. We won the war. Yes, I know. But was any of it right?” The weight of the war seemed to catch up with her now. The hold that whiskey had over her was starting to fade. “I acted without question- Ever the good soldier- Ever the stoic general- But there are things I should’ve put a stop to and didn’t. People I should’ve listened to. And perhaps, just left Everleigh to the whims of our Grand Arcanist, we’d still have her with us.”

“We were always in the right. They brought the war to us, they chose to endanger our civilians. Every action we took to bring an end to it was right. We would have won whether she had taken the Dame or not, such things are irrelevant.”

The ex-ranger shook her head. “I doubt that such things are irrelevant. You speak of winning as if it were the highest order of things, but what would you have sacrificed to win if you had had to? Dawnveil? Your family? Would it still be worth it then?”

Lirelle just stares at the drunk woman. Perhaps she was too far gone to even have this conversation. “You don’t seem to understand. I would have died a thousand times to keep them safe. You win for them. So they never see the things that you do. That is the entire point.”

Zarannis tipped her head downwards in the candle light, and shadows pooled round her eyes. “Everyone I won it for died in that war. You are lucky, that the ones closest to your heart never had to see the same things you had to. I didn’t have that luxury.” She looked up at the ghost before her. “So perhaps it may have been worth it for you. Dawnveil is safe. Your loved ones alive and well. Everything you fought for still stands at the end of the day. But for me- The Kestrels are dead, our lodge is burned- Tal’dorei who followed me are buried- and the Sunguard no longer exists. Everything that I fought for no longer exists.”

“Never bring something you aren’t willing to lose when you go to war.” She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, and to her, it was. More than half of her life had been spent on one battlefield or another, this harshest of realities learned early on.

“I didn’t bring them with me. The ones I weren’t willing to lose had come of their own accord- and I cannot make their choices for them.” The girl shook her head, turning back towards the darkness, stepping forward into the unknown in the hopes of finding something to dull her senses once more. “They were beside me, around me- they were the war.”

“Then why ruin yourself over the choices made by others?” Her voice rang out in the quiet.

“I guess,” she said softly, as she finally found herself a crate of unopened whiskey. “That’s something you may never understand.”

“Perhaps I won't, but answer me this. If they meant that much to you, why didn’t you die for them?”

“Because I loved my country, more than I loved myself,” she turns back to Lirelle, then at the crate she now cradled in her arms. She gazed at the way the bottles reflected the candle light. “But now? I’m not so sure.”

--

Renalays:"I am no parlour person.... whether your castaway is, is another question." Someone's been talking to this wicked witch.

Beathyn glances at Vissehn.

Vissehn lifted a brow, and in very Eliza Doolittle manner, sheds about % of his terrible way of speaking. "I have no idea what you mean, marm."

Renalays:"'Madame' is the acceptable variant in these parts of the Kingdom," is her ONLY acknowledgement.

The party is directed inside by the Wintergale Guards. Their count, higher than usual but given the circumstances were understandable precautions. Inside sat Lord Mediea, who stood as his 'guests' entered the dining room. Zarannis got up from her seat, nodded at the three of the representatives and stood off to the side of the room.

Zarannis:"No armed posse, no tricks, just agents come to speak." She looked at her father-by-blood but not by name.

Renalays lofts one of those blood-red brows at Zarannis' brusque sentiment, turning to Mediea and offering a more courtly, "Well met, Lord Wintergale."

Mediea is an elderly elf. Most certainly already approaching the end of his life. But though grey hair covered his scalp, he still carried the platemail of his station on his back with ease.

Vissehn doffed his cap, offering a low and perfectly executed Hawk-bow to the lord, but said nothing as yet.

Mediea gives a long measured nod at Renalays. The courtly mannerisms of one of his three 'guests' was appreciated. "Well met indeed." He looks at Beathyn who stood at the head of the group. "So, you come with requests and I make none."

Beathyn mentally cancels the long-winded flattery he was about to make when he took the measure of the man before him. Clearing his throat, he makes a half-bow. "Lord Wintergale. I am Beathyn Val'cinder, this is Vissehn Bladeborn, and Renalays Bloodhollow. We come on behalf of House Emberheart. We've come to speak of Peace- Lasting peace- Long after this Civil War is over. Because the sentiment back in the Heartlands is troubled that one of their vassals won't answer their call for aid during these times- of all times."

Mediea remains expressionless. No doubt a result of centuries of political plays, backstabbing, and plying in the Emberglades. "I don't care for the sentiments of the boy in the Heartlands. The Emberglades hasn't had a real leader for close to a twenty years now- I'd rather have my loyalties lie with the Crown directly rather than... Middlemen." Lord Wintergale ends with his dismissive remark.

Vissehn glances to Renalays. She's the voice of the State here; he won't trod on those toes.

Zarannis keeps her eyes on the Lord, giving him a knife-like gaze into his back. Whatever she had spoken to her family about, it was clear that while she had made Mediea agree to having an audience, neither of them saw eye-to-eye on the situation.

Renalays:"That is not your whim to make, unfortunately, Lord Wintergale. Meredred Emberheart and the bargains he struck is what structures the hierarchy and jurisdictions of your lands according to greater Law as it stands. To withdraw your assistance in the matter of the rebel Illithia is one thing, to place yourself 'independent' as far as that goes, is another. You know yourself that such freedom amongst the aristocracy has never been the way of the Sin'dorei, before or after the Reclamation. Perhaps you have independence as far as this rebellion lasts - but the Emberglades will have a State-backed casus belli to pursue upon your heirs, if Zarannis Wintergale's own claim is not revived and pursued."

"There are ways to pursue your goals of a Cloudrend Glades free of the Emberheart's control - but this is an -elementary- way of performing it."

Mediea does not give away his thoughts from his expressions, but speaks once she is done. "Perhaps you are right. But you fail to understand that I am the will of my people. If it was up to me, I'd spend the rest of my days kissing up to the Emberhearts and let my children reap the benefits. But alas my people are tired of dying for someone else's wars. If we're going to have to die, we'll die for ourselves- Rather than some Lord sitting in gilded halls- or worse, a Horde Queen who is off her rocker."

Zarannis eyes narrow, tension rising in her brow as he speaks. But she stays silent.

Vissehn:"If I may sir-- they're tired of dying, period. And let me tell you, and I mean this as no threat, the forces they would face should this nonagression be considered a threat in itself are not something to be trifled with. Whether they die for Sederis or Stenden or you? Doesn't mean a fuckin' lot. And die they will, in a short battle or the political fallout of refusing to support your liege."

Renalays 's long swooping brows -twitch- at the idea of even considering something so... insignificant as the common people in this equation. The rest of her expression is unreadable underneath that mask. There is no physical glance towards Vissehn, but the slithering pull of her invisible Shadow upon the Tel'dorei is almost like a 'push' forward-- and there he goes!

Mediea tsked. "The people of the Cloudrends aren't tired of dying. Just don't for the wrong people and the wrong causes. True there are consequences to our actions but I will not send my people to die in some stupid civil spat." He sighs, his first show of emotion of the day. "I will remain neutral in this- Perhaps I will negotiate with the Lord that comes out on top of this Civil War- Perhaps I will not."

Beathyn changes tact, lowering his voice. "To paraphrase one of the main members of our coalition we have gathered. 'When we are done with Arenias, we will come for you.' Now- Personally, I do not wish for things to come to that- Which is why we are here, speaking, and trying to avoid... Catastrophe for you," he nodded at the second floor of the manor above him. "And your family."

Vissehn visibly swallows something back and looks to Renalays.

Renalays 's almond eyes squint....

Vissehn sings softly. "Crows and Hawk went flying down, tryin’ to catch a bastard..." His brow lifts.

Mediea narrows his eyes. "Hm." He turns towards Renalays, who spoke more of the stately language he was accustomed to. "So. What are your demands then? Support my rightful Lord? Send my people to die for yet another cause they don't believe it?"

Renalays:"Do not send your swords nor your people," is her sickly-sweet response, those same feline eyes tightening to hint towards the cheshire cat's grin underneath her mask. "Do nothing at all aside from what is -easiest- for you, removes all of the opposition you currently face. Support Emberheart by word, deny Illthia travel through your border. Reassert your obedience to the State - who has no interest in your want to kneel to us but in the maintenance of proper -Order- and -hierarchy.-"

"...then perhaps we will talk, me and you, about the raise of status for your heirs. -Lawful- independence that does not see you burned by Emberheart nor Phoenix Guard."

Mediea contemplates this for a moment. "And if I decide to do so, and the people do not?" He looks to Vissehn, who seemed to speak for the common man.

Vissehn tossed his mane of shorter hair. "Aye, well as I see it, you're not risking them none by closing your borders. They don't got any reason to take up with the soldiers, an' scurryin' with you won't make Illithia the firm force they'll wanna be-- they won't risk spreading thin to break your defense, and your people will only have to guard a strip of borderlands." He shrugged again. "Seems to me like they'd be well pleased to keep their lives, livelihoods, and indistinct notions of their honor, which matters. Keeps lords heads on their shoulders, when the people feel like they've been good and honorable at once."

Vissehn:"However, if you send a message by not participating at all-- by standing against none, and all at once-- well, when there's any little problem, famine, flood, armies at the borders-- suddenly they'll remember a certain stand and position."

Beathyn clears his throat. "And if you could allow Emberheart's forces through your lands to start a second front on Westhearth's... Western border." The last bit didn't roll off his tongue as well as he liked. "Then the war will be done with twice as quick with even less doubts of supporting- in word of course- the losing side."

Mediea places a hand on his chin, mulling over the solution presented to him by the party. "I won't make any promises at the moment. But this talk as been... Fruitful." He looks to Zarannis. Then back at the agents of Emberheart. "We will support Stenden in word. That I say. More than that," he gives Beathyn a look. "I will send word with Zarannis."

He took the invitation, stepping out of the cold and into the spartan manor. “What am I delivering exactly?” He asked, and as if to answer his question, Solendis presented to him a war banner that laid across the long dining table. “That was carried by Sederis’ standard bearers.”

Solendis nodded. “It is the Banner of the Broken Bulwark. He used it to rally his men to join the Sunguard and its causes as Oathsworn. It also belonged to the soldiers of its namesake who died to a man defending the Broken Bulwark against Dame Everleigh.” The Steward of the Emberglades ran his finger along the tattered length of black canvas. “I want you to give this to Ms. Wintergale along with the following message: Return to the Emberglades at your earliest convenience. The Bulwark needs a Bannerlord.”

Beathyn gave him an incredulous look. “You’re trying to bribe her back into the fold by offering a wasteland?”

“The Bulwark isn’t a gift,” Solendis snapped. “It’s a responsibility. Much like how Lord Tarsaren before her inherited it after The Fall. Her duty will not be to rule, but to rebuild a broken land.”

Beathyn paused, looking at the banner that represented so much to the hundreds that had died in its name. “And what happens if she refuses?”

“Then you return it at your earliest convenience.”

“No,” Beathyn looked Solendis in the eyes. “What happens to the Emberglades if she refuses?”

“Since when did you care about our domestic problems?”

“I don’t. But the Glades were important to him.”

Solendis took a moment to consider the man before him. The Spymaster knew that before Beathyn had become a smuggler turned quartermaster, he had once been part of the Blood Knights during the Burning Crusade. He was no stranger to politics and power. Perhaps he could prove useful in the days to come. “You’ve helped keep tabs on Sederis for a long time-“

“Because I cared about him,” Beathyn snapped.

“Yes, that you did. But it also means that you wouldn’t betray his family in their time of need. Especially now, by repeating the things I’m about to tell you,” Solendis gestured to Beathyn to take a seat at the Emberheart’s table.

Art by Isharton