Anya Eversong listened to Sylvanas instructing Areiel. She liked it. For once there was a task that was not hurriedly desperate and for once it was not something that the dark rangers had to do alone.
And for once it was something that might actually get them somewhere.
”I want you to be in charge of this as it is of the highest priority, but there is no need to engage the rangers, anyone who can read Common and possess a smatter of brains should do. You are to scour the archives and library for any information regarding Jaina Proudmoore and the Alliance expeditionary force to Kalimdor. Officially, and especially if Varimathras or his lackeys wonder, this is an attempt to gauge the military strength of remaining Alliance forces with strong national ties to our territory and to Dalaran.”
Areiel grinned at the last bit and saluted, already on her way. Anya didn’t even have time to nod at her, but then again she had a mission on her own on her mind right now.
”Dark Lady?”
”Yes, Anya? Is something the matter?” Sylvanas answered with a barely recognizable tiredness behind her even tone.
”If it’s alright, I would like to talk to Sylvanas Windrunner.”
Sylvanas raised an eyebrow.
”If I’m not much mistaken, you already are.”
”Am I?” Anya asked softly and looked intensely at Sylvanas.
Sylvanas sighed. ”Anya, I don’t intend to pull rank on you when it’s just you and me. Out with it now. What’s on your mind?”
”You.”
”Me?”
”Our Dark Lady does everything she can and more to keep us safe. Our sister Sylvanas suffers alone.”
”What is left of her.” Sylvanas replied depreceatingly.
Anya had heard more than enough of that hated litany.
”Everyone is encouraged to take time off sometimes. Ordered, I would say. When did you last take a moment to yourself, Sylvanas?”
Sylvanas’ jaw seemed to clench a bit.
”I have too much to do.” she said curtly.
”Of course.” Anya agreed. ”Lucky for the rest of us that our tasks are so unimportant that we can slack off at our leisure at least…”
Sylvanas narrowed her eyes.
”Mind your tone, Anya.” she warned. ”And you all need your rest, whether your bodies crave sleep or not, to keep your mind sharp and you know that well enough. And it’s still my job to see to it that you get it.”
”I used to have this Ranger-General who badgered me about the same being true for commanders.” Anya remarked absent-mindedly. ”Who told me that I would get my rangers killed if I made decisions with fog in my head.”
”Leave me alone.” Sylvanas muttered, not meeting Anyas stare. It was a testament to the deep bond between them that she didn’t literally throw Anya out. But doing that would violate a trust that ran far too deep to be broken in a moments irritation. Rangers did not back down from difficult things. Rangers did not turn their backs on one another.
But now Anya was the one getting irritated.
”Excuse me, but for a moment it sounded like you were thinking we should entrust our safety to someone refusing to take even a moments pause to recover her wits. Or perhaps to someone so overconfident she believes herself so superior to everyone else that she is completely above the need to rest and recover.” she pointed out, with a hint of steel behind the sarcasm.
Sylvanas stared back, then she slumped and admitted defeat as if tiring of their nagging game.
”Fine, have it your way, Anya! What the "#¤%& would you have me do? Sit in a corner weaving baskets? Whittling? Tin smithing?”
”You did stitch my cloak once…” Anya remarked, her tone unconsciously growing a little warmer.
”Only because we were in the field and your arm was torn up by a troll.”
Anya smiled inside herself at the memory. It was a sad little smile but a smile none the less.
”You kept watch over me all night. Allow me to return the favor, Sylvanas.”
”Anya, you owe me no favours, you have done all I could ask for and more.” Sylvanas replied, no longer hiding her tiredness.
”Will you stop being so damned stubborn? Just come with me! The water’s getting cold.”
That at last seemed to pick Sylvanas interest.
”The water?”
Anya nodded towards the door and led the way, silently cherishing the quiet sound of dark red boots behind her.
They navigated the unstable maze of half-ruined stairs and corridors that remained of the keeps upper levels to the room Anya had laid claim to and prepared. The wall had a large hole in it and the roof had fallen in, but it had a working fireplace and a mostly intact floor at least. In the middle of it stood Anyas prize, scavenged and bolted together again during hours of thankless toil with rusting tools and worse materials.
A huge, barrel-like bath tub, filled nearly to the brim with water that she had painstakingly climbed the walls with. Hung over the crackling fire was Anyas other discovery, a miraculously whole cauldron she had traded many hours of work for, filled with boiling water.
Sylvanas raised an eyebrow.
”Do you intend to cook me, lieutenant?” she asked dryly, amused and clearly surprised even if she tried to hide it.
”Yes, I discovered an absolutely fabulous recipe for boiled mule, I just need to get some salt and root vegetables. In you go!” Anya ordered and used her ranger cloak to keep her hands wrapped up as she dragged the cauldron over to the tub and heaved its steaming content into the rest of the water, which thankfully hadn’t cooled too much.
”I will keep watch.” Anya promised and mockingly began to parade back and forth across the small unlittered floor area. ”I will guard you with my last breath against Scarlet peepers, Scourge squatters and dreadlord busybodies.”
”With your last breath?” Sylvanas quirked an eyebrow as she loosened the straps of her pauldrons.
”Petty details!” Anya smirked and presented arms before an imaginary visiting officer.
”Alright, I yield, just stop that incessant pacing and sit down, will you?” Sylvanas smiled.
Belore, how long it was since Anya had seen that smile. Sylvanas was removing her breastplate and Anya promptly busied herself with picking up the discarded parts of her ranger armour and arranging them orderly, wiping the dust from some places. She knew that the scar on Sylvanas’ chest where Frostmourne had pierced her heart was a sensitive thing for her and one she preferred to neither discuss nor display.
Bent over her task, she could hear Sylvanas removing her boots and pants and slide into the bath.
”How’s the water?” Anya asked and tried to not sound as nervous as she felt.
”Not bad, lieutenant… Why, I’m almost thinking you mean to butter me up to whisk a promotion out of me…” Sylvanas drawled.
”Don’t get any ideas now, I am not Areiel. The horror…” Anya almost shuddered which earned her an amused chuckle form Sylvanas. Sylvanas’ insistence that Anya would make a fine ranger captain one day was as old as Anyas unbridled dread at the very thought.
And for a fleeting moment, everything was almost like before.
”My lady, I have a present for you.” Anya said and held out a lump of something distorted with a sickly colour and not particularly pleasant smell.
”And what is that?”
”Soap, my lady!” Anya announced and couldn’t hide her pride. She beckoned for Sylvanas’ left arm and for once the stubborn woman did not protest. Anya dipped the piece of soap in the water and rubbed her hands with it, silently relieved that i actually seemed to work and turn out to be soap and nothing else. She followed the outside and inside of Sylvanas upper arms, admiring their toned muscles and the intriguing myriad of scars that told the history of the Ranger-General of Silvermoon. Anya thought they had faded a little, but it was hard to tell of course with the stark difference in skin colour compared to before. She gently lifted Sylvanas’ elbow and slid down around and along her forearm with the other hand. Sylvanas sat still as a statue, watching Anyas hands wrap around hers and then slowly lower it into the water again.
”How much can you feel?” Anya asked, partly curious and partly concerned about keeping Sylvanas’ mind on something else than her awkwardness with someone doing something nice for her.
”More than most of us, I believe. Physically. I feel the heat of the water, not just that it is water. Some sense of smell and taste remain I guess. It seems to be rather random. I know that Kalira claims to be able to taste sweetness and Velonara could tell the difference between fresh and blighted grass without looking.”
Typical Sylvanas, Anya thought as she worked on the other arm. Deflecting any personal questions at the first opportunity. She currently didn’t give a damn about whether Kalira snacked on an entire cake or if Velonaras was growing a rose garden.
Still, so far it was going fine. Anya was here and Sylvanas was here and that was all that mattered.
”Would you care to lean forward, my lady?” Anya asked quietly. To her relief, Sylvanas obliged her without a word. She traced the back muscles up and down, smooth and hard and…far too hard. Tense from months of neglect followed by months of monstrous pressure without a moment of relief.
”Apothecary de’Urden claims that soap could be weaponized to make things explode. Like the dwarves’ black powder. He seems a bit unhinged in my opinion.” Anya remarked.
Sylvanas snorted and shook her head.
”At least it would be clean shot if it could be made to work…” Anya mused innocently.
”Ugh, that was worthy of Areiel. I tell you, captain material…” Sylvanas mumbled with her head resting against her knees. But she put no real effort into sounding annoyed.
Now came the hard part. Anya almost bit her lip.
”Would you like me to…wash your legs?” she nearly whispered.
Sylvanas was silent so long that Anya thought that she would say no, but then the banshee queen sunk back into the water and lifted a dripping leg to rest on the uneven edge of the tub. Anya could see her shrinking into herself and hiding under the surface. Of course. Sylvanas did not care about showing her her leg, she was worrying about the scars on her chest. No, Anya corrected herself, Sylvanas was worrying about The Scar.
The Amani had left their marks along Sylvanas’ thighs and calves nearly as much as on her arms. Reminders of spears, axes and arrows crisscrossed all along her skin but Anya could not care less. Sylvanas was still the finest ranger of them all. Sylvanas still had the most gorgeous calves Anya knew. She ran her soapy fingers along them almost reverently, and not especially efficient for an impromptu chambermaid, but it didn’t earn her any complaint. In fact, Sylvanas was leaning back a little and Anya felt the leg stretching under her and then relaxing against the wood. She grabbed Sylvanas’ calf with one hand to keep in off the uncomfotable surface as she ran her fingers over the foot and between the toes. She had to restrain herself from outright caressing that leg or doing something silly like pinching Sylvanas’ toes.
”I’m going to get something.” Anya said, careful to look at Sylvanas eyes and not down her chest. ”You can wash the rest of you in the meantime if you like.” When I am not watching, so you don’t need to think about that.
Anya deliberately took her time readying her last surprise, listening for the sound of water splashing to stop before turning around with a clay jar, or at least a broken half of it as the top had been smashed.
”This is something the apothecaries have been working on. It’s basically a simple oil but seems to do the trick to keep Forsaken skin from drying and cracking.” Other Forsaken skin, was the unspoken addendum. The rangers and the most powerful other undead were spared from those particular ills. ”Soon enough a flaking hide will be soo last month, and it wouldn’t do for the dark lady to be unfashionable, would it?” Anya chattered, trying to distract them from the present tension.
Sylvanas looked at the broken jar.
”You should not be wasting it on me.” she said flatly. ”Others will need it more.”
”We still get stiff, and if we get stiff and fail to pull our bows fast enough the others die. Besides, this one is mine to do as I please with.” Anya countered, soft but insistent.
Sylvanas’ gaze locked on Anyas, who found herself caught in it. They may all have red eyes now but Sylvanas’ were mesmerizing. They did not glow so much as burned, smoldering deep inside or openly when she was furious.
”Then do as you please, Anya.” Sylvanas breathed, her voice now dark and hoarse.
Anyas hand cradled sylvanas neck, gentle as if the merest pressure would shatter it into pieces. She tried to feel every knot and every hurting, strained muscle that Sylvanas would be all too eager to dismiss and ignore. Her hands ran down the broad shoulders, much firmer than when she had merely been washing them, and upper arms that Sylvanas let hang out of the tub. It wasn’t a massage in the proper sense, although Anya did her best to knead the stiffness out of the shoulders and neck as best she could, but rubbing and caressing and caring until Sylvanas leaned back just barely into her hands and Anya felt her unbeating heart soar. It was working. Belore, it was working.
Folding a part of her cloak to a small pad, Anya tentatively guided Sylvanas’ head to rest and tilted it back to allow her access to her face. Her thumbs rubbed tenderly around the too often clenched jaw and followed Sylvanas sinewy but slender throat down along her shoulders and up again, along her collarbone, up and then carefully down the middle of her chest and…
"#¤%&
Sylvanas jolted as if struck by some mages lightning spell and inhaled for air she did not need. Her eyes, almost heavy-lidded a moment ago, flared and she became rigid as a post.
Anya pulled her hands away as if Sylvanas had burned them, no, worse, as if she had burned Sylvanas.
I’m sorry! Please don’t go. Let me fix this. Let me…
”I have to go.” Sylvanas’ curt tone tore into Anyas soul.
Anya said nothing. She knew when she had lost.
She had brought no towels but a ranger cloak would have to do. Anya mutely held out one piece of armour after another for Sylvanas to don in equal silence. She averted her eyes.
”It…must have taken an effort to prepare.” Sylvanas mumbled.
”It was nothing.” Anya mumbled back, almost unintelligible, and stared straight ahead at the floor as Sylvanas left.
She did not tell Sylvanas how long it had taken her to obtain the ingredients and the materials for making soap and oil, or how greasy and unpleasant the ordeal was even for her. She did not tell Sylvanas how thankless it was to saw plank after plank with a bent saw that broke after the first tries and forced her to chop them into shape with a spare dagger and a piece of firewood for a hammer.
Anya kicked angrily at the bathtub, but filled with water it was too heavy to topple. Instead her foot crunched through it effortlessly, the wood no match for ranger legs and undead strength.
Stupid scar. Stupid stubborn Sylvanas. Stupid damned everything.
Anya sank down on the floor against the wall and watched indifferently as the water pooled around her and soaked through her pants and cloak.
Her eyes itched. Something wet dropped on her hand. A blackish liquid, like too diluted ink.
Huh, so apparently she could do that too.