wingclipped

It’s still strange, sitting on her parents’ porch. Delta remembers it now, sort of—like the memory is kind of hers, and kind of something she saw in a book. She watches the trees, tall and still, the pine breeds unhindered even in the winter.

Haruhi sits next to her. Her hair is long, like Delta’s was in her earliest memories of undeath, before she cut it when she left Northrend. Haruhi wears it back in a ponytail, sloppy but efficient.

It’s awkward. Delta still thinks it’s fear making everything weird. But Haruhi opens her mouth, and does her best.

“I like to practice archery by the lake,” she says. “I catch ducks, Hazelnut brings them back so we can make dinner.”

Delta’s unholy-blue eyes shift across the property, until they spot Hazelnut: a big, friendly gryphon. She’s a pretty lady, and Delta sees something familiar in her, but that one’s definitely not a memory.

Haruhi leans, arms wrapped around her legs, as she peers at Delta. “You recognize her?”

Delta startles. “How—“

“Gramma says she’s the daughter of your old military gryphon’s sister.”

“... Really?”

“Uh-huh. I bet you recognize yours in her.”

Delta looks back out at Hazelnut, as the cheery beast careens about the fields. Her dead heart aches. She wishes she could remember more of her own gryphon...

“Hey,” Haruhi says. “Can I ask you something?”

Delta, again, looks alarmed. “Sure. Anything. Well—I’ll answer as best I can. Memory, and stuff.”

“It’s not about that,” Haruhi says. She shifts on the porch steps, facing Delta. “Before you came back... I always just called you Mom. Would that be weird now?”

The stunned silence Delta is left with must communicate the wrong thing, after a few moments, when Haruhi shifts away.

“I mean, it’s okay if it is—I know you don’t remember a lot. Like, I don’t remember much about having a mom, so, it wouldn’t be too hard to just call you Miss Delta, or—“

“No,” Delta finally blurts, and recoils to her own voice, gentle as it is. “No, I... I’d like that.”

beta—lyrae winevein, san’layn. the mage, with the title of ‘blood countess’, she was one of the many elves slain and raised by arthas during the elves’ revenge strike after quel’thalas. she is fervently loyal to her lich king, be it arthas or bolvar.

gamma—jhin, trollish fleshcrafter. the ‘healer’, she specializes in the raising of dead and constructing of monsters. she is devout to bwomsamdi, a trollish loa, to the point of zealotry.

"Down! Down girl."

Freckles gives the monk a VERY suspicious look. Delta holds up her hands, further urging the beast to stand down.

"See that?" She points at Freckles’ prey: a chihuahua. "That's a puppy. Not food. See? Do not eat."

Freckles remains unconvinced. She squints at the puppy, who cowers in the corner she's backed it into. A human woman is crying on the other side of all this madness.

"Here, baby," Delta coaxes. "You wanna head to the sewers? Munch on some big fat rats? Huh?"

Freckles gives one low, unhappy rrrrrrk, then stomps over to her rider. The woman DIVES for her dog, gives bird and monk the stinkiest of eyes, and marches away, her slippers splashing in the rain water pooling between cobbles.

Delta sighs, and tugs Freckles along by her reins. "Come on, you big jerk. Let's go find you some rat nuggets and a side of sewage."

“Who th’ fuck was that?”

“Gamma—“

“Who wassit, Delta?”

Delta goes quiet, as far as Jhin can hear over the rushing winds of Freckles’ flight. Zul’Drak breezes by underway, a splotchy muck of black and white. They’ve lost the Pandaren monk—Shan-li, Jhin recalls—but she’s still rattled and frustration.

“Delta—“

“She’s a student from Kun-lai,” Delta interrupts, flustered and still shaken from the ordeal. “The niece of my teacher, Sensen. I...”

She’s quiet again. Jhin feels the girl trembling, as they keep close to help balance Freckles’ flight; she would take a breath if that’d work with the living dead. Instead, she watches the forests pass below.

When Delta speaks again, her voice bleeds with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Gamma, I never thought Kun-lai would look for me, let alone find you—but please, you can’t go back—“

“I ain’t goin’ back nowhere,” Jhin gruffs. She suddenly looks indignant, lichfire eyes leering back at Delta like an upset granny. “But I be sendin’ Blades to get m’shit back, I tell ya! I gots years’a work in that cabin!”

“I know,” Delta says. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that woman gonna hurt’cha?” Jhin asks her seriously.

“I... I don’t know.” Delta looks out ahead, not so much as wincing against the cold wind biting at her face and hair. “She was sweet as could be in Kun-lai, before—...”

And she trails off again. Jhin leans closer, and in a raspy but not unkind hush, “What happened, girlie?”

For a long moment, it seems like Delta is somewhere else and won’t answer. Then, “I killed her uncle. My teacher.”

Jhin takes her turn being quiet. She waits as Delta works through the guilt and shame that comes pouring forth.

“I didn’t mean to—“ she says, like a child. “We—we were sparring, we wanted to test me after the day’s training. I just—“

Her fingers curl tightly into Freckles’s feathers. The hippogryph gives a worried caw.

“I lost control of the Ache,” she whispers, barely heard in the wind. “I barely remember it—when I came to he was...” An impulsive swallow. “And I felt reinvigorated. I... I knew what I’d done.

“I didn’t think anyone saw me, so late at night,” she continues after a silence. “I buried him—hastily, but, in the traditional way the monks taught me. I buried him and then I ran.”

“That’s when y’came to me, innit?” Jhin asks. “When y’found her.” And she gives Freckles a little pat on the flank.

“Yes,” Delta says, composing herself a little bit. “It’d been weeks, but, yes.”

“Aw girlie.” Jhin sighs and slumps forward, resting her chin on Delta’s head like a big lazy cat. “Y’always came runnin’ t’ me.”

Delta says nothing for a long time again, stewing in the guilt. “I’m taking us to the Howling Fjord,” she eventually tells Jhin. “There’s a Forsaken settlement on the shores of that region. I’m returning to Tirisfal.”

“To ya Corps?” Jhin asks.

“It’s been months,” Delta says. “They haven’t called for need of me, but it’s good to check in.”

“And ya’ll be safe from that monk,” Jhin says, voice lowered.

“... Yes,” Delta admits. “You can come with me—the Corps have taken in past members of the Blade befo—“

But Jhin is already waving a hand dismissively. “Y’have fun, girlie,” she says dryly. “I’ll find my way.”

Delta huffs, fretting. “All right, but keep in touch? Please?”

“Delta,” Jhin says, her voice turned teasing, “you’s an itch I’ll never scratch.”

“Thanks,” Delta says. “I think.”

It gets only marginally warmer as Zul’Drak and the Grizzly Hills fall behind them. Jhin watches the black ocean ebb in from the distance, and eventually, equally dark buildings begin to rise out of the fog.

“Vengeance Landing,” Delta says when she points it out.

“Y’sure these Forgotten—“

“Forsaken.”

“—are ya kinda crew?” Jhin sneers, fondly. “‘Vengeance’ Landing?”

“It was named as a statement against the Scourge!” Delta defends. “Probably!”

Jhin just snickers away. No one bats an eye as the three of them land—two deaders and a zombie bird? Fits right in around here. Jhin idly watches the zeppelins pulling in and out of towering skydocks overhead.

Delta is antsy being on the ground again, but she gives Freckles a much needed break at the stables. She even buys her a ton of bird food. Er, zombie bird food. A feeding bag of rats and maggots. Freckles is THRILLED. The monk is quick to buy herself a seat on the next zeppelin headed for Tirisfal.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with me?” Delta prods, as they sit by the stable, the docks in plain sight.

“Like I said,” Jhin gruffs, “I want m’shit back.”

“But after?” Delta pushes.

“Go back t’ya friends.” Jhin is waving her off again. “I got my own.”

Delta just sighs. “Very well. But now you know how to find me.” She points at a zeppelin rolling in.

Jhin grins her ugly rotting grin. “It’s been fun havin’ ya, as usual. Come back soon.”

“As soon as this scare blows over?” Delta stands to start unhitching Freckles again, flipping the stablemaster a couple gold. “Definitely.”

She takes Freckles by the rein and loads her onto the zeppelin, then picks out a spot along the upper deck railings so she can watch the sea go by. As the zeppelin prepares to depart, she spots Jhin down below. She waves big and enthusiastically, hoping the fleshcrafter doesn’t miss it.

"Hello."

Jhin, a woman of alarming height even for a troll, drops her attention down to the unexpected guest at her doorstep. A pandaren woman? Jhin has seen maybe one or two in her time, and only in the last few years. Something something... land of the mists... warchiefs... She is a fleshcrafting hermit living in the wilds of Zul'Drak, all right, news doesn't travel well to her. But the woman is bundled up warm, even with her soft brown fur, and she has a bright- but determined look in her eyes.

Jhin is curious, and hunches down to meet the tiny woman at eye-level. "Salutations," she greets, impressed when the woman doesn't recoil to the smell of her rotting breath or sight of her ragged teeth. "T'what do I owe th' pleasure? Y'don't see such plump examples of th' living in these parts, lassie. 'Cept in the Tundra, mayhaps."

"So I understand," the pandaren says, and offers a small bow, bangs briefly falling over her face. "My name is Shan-li. I was told I could find Delta here?"

Jhin blinks at her, slow, then chuckles. "I don't know any 'Delta', m'afraid."

"Is that so?" Shan-li asks, politely doubtful. "Are you not the fleshcrafter known as Gamma?"

"I be a fleshcrafter, s'true, but—"

She stops, lichfire eyes flaring at the sound of a shriek not too far off. Shan-li hears it too, and before Jhin can grab hold of her, the woman dives into a practiced roll down the snowy hillside, with a three-point landing that launches her easily into a sprint. Jhin grabs her staff from the door and pursues.