Nimaruil Nightwind vaulted off the rented hippogryph and tossed a coin to its mistress in Astranaar, body cold and patience frayed after the long flight from her posted garrison. As an outrunner she was scarcely a stranger to such rides, but they never got less tiring, and Astranaar still wasn’t home, for all that her mother had successfully reestablished her smithy after being driven west by the orc incursions.
The hippogryph mistress caught her scowl along with the tip, and frowned. They knew each other as colleagues, Nim’s duties taking her all over this part of Kalimdor, though “friends” would be a stretch. “Is everything alright?”
She shook her head and flashed a smile, imbuing her voice with as much cheer as she could muster around her bad mood. “Nothing a bit of leave won’t fix.”
Nim hauled her bag over her shoulder and set off towards the far end of town. The civilian leathers felt a bit out of place, and her awkward in them, though the pants and jerkin fit her with the comfortable ease of very old clothing. There hadn’t been a day off since Xaxas hit Darkshore and the volcano in Ashenvale appeared, and damn few before that, since the orcs arrived. Everyone was overworked.
Her combat boots left little mark in the dry dirt of the road. They must be praying for some rain around these parts. She didn’t make for a very intimidating figure with her coating of dust and ruffled cap of teal hair, her eyes a little overlarge and spaced a little too wide, combining with an upturned nose and scattered freckles to make her seem younger than her 2400 years. The dagger stuck through her belt was worn and almost laughable against the axes and magic of their enemies, but Nim mostly kept safe by not getting into fights in the first place, at least not the serious kind.
She banged into the smithy, squinting against the sudden heat, and pushed through a rack of hanging chain. “Ma?”
A sturdy woman with her green hair bound back in a bun straightened from her work and turned, raising the protective goggles to her forehead. Her smile was broad, if a touch hesitant. She glanced at the apprentice crouching over the latest set of links alongside her. “You got this for the moment, Terril?”
The lad nodded, and Mia peeled off her gloves, raising an eyebrow at her offspring. “You’re late,” she remarked, lightly.
“Yeah.” Nim coughed. “I got tied up in some last-minute business back at the garrison. No time to write ahead.”
“That’s fine. It’s just going to be more difficult to explain, now.” She pushed through a side door that led to the house proper.
“Explain what…?” Puzzled, she followed her mother.
The smithy led directly to the kitchen, an obvious choice, as a good number of dishes could be cooked merely by proximity heat from the forge that shared a back wall with the space. A man was seated at the cramped table, twiddling his thumbs. He was pretty much as Nim remembered, his long teal hair braided back and his leather robes immaculate with their embroidered decoration and feathers, and the angled planes of his face that were so different from the rounder contours of Nim and her mother’s.
“What the hell is he doing here?” she snapped, turning to Mia. The man’s expression soured.
Her mother yanked her ear, just hard enough to be a proper warning. “Manners.”
To the man, she asked, “Can I get you some tea?”
Nim’s mouth dropped open. He nodded, and Mia calmly fetched and filled the kettle. “Since when do you get along?”
Her parents shared for a moment exactly the kind of understanding smile that ran nails down the chalkboard of her soul. She snapped her mouth shut. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Nimaruil,” the man exhaled, patience clearly wearing thin. “For once in your life, do try to act your age.”
She began to retort, but her mother interjected smoothly, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Nim crossed her arms and scowled. Mia continued, in that same calm tone, “Your father is here because he has something of importance to tell you.” Then she did glance at him, unreadably, and added, “Not that I agree, but you’re hardly a child I can protect from his indiscretions anymore.”
Her father rolled his eyes. “It’s always drama with you.”
“Is THAT what you call leaving once the outpost was grown? Pointless drama?” Nim set her hands on her hips and scowled.
He looked at her mother and said, dismissively, “There’s no talking to her.”
“You were the one who wanted this meeting.” Mia’s tone was mild, but razor-edged. She stripped off her heavy gloves and added loose tea to several mugs. “You had best find a way, no?”
The comment was met with a momentary frown, providing Nim a bit of victory, before he turned back to her. “I am sorry that it has caused you such distress that more than two millennia past you’re still going on about it,” he said, testily, “But your mother wasn’t surprised. I told her it would be like that from the start. My duties-“
“Elune take your duty,” Nim replied crossly, but she forced herself to sit down across from him. “What was so important, anyway?”
Her father cleared his throat. “After all that has happened recently, your sister was forced to flee her village. She’s gone to Teldrassil to train and she hasn’t the sense a bird is born with, and I’m worried about her.”
It took a few seconds for Nim to collect herself sufficiently to reply. “My sister.”
“Yes.” A twitch in his ear betrayed his unease, or his guilt. “Her name is Arisaema. Arisaema Amberstar.”
“Dear goddess.” She sat back and folded her arms, her expression all disbelief. “You’re a real bastard, aren’t you?”
“Nim.” Mia’s tone was warning, but there wasn’t much heart behind it.
She suddenly remembered what her mother had said earlier, about being too old to shield, and she whirled to face her. “You knew!”
“Of course I knew.” The words were almost spat, with more venom than Nim expected or thought Mia capable, given her calm throughout the whole conversation. “How could I not know? You were gone, of course, but it was all the whole damn outpost could talk about for weeks-“
She silenced herself abruptly and turned back to the process of making tea. Nim thought she saw her shake, once, and her mouth in profile was a thin line of anger.
“I know this must be shocking,” her father said into the silence, “But her own family is in no position to help her and she would find my assistance as unappreciated as you. It is an imposition, I know, but I would ask you to find her and make sure she doesn’t encounter something unfortunate.”
Nim leaned back in her chair, heavily, arms crossed. “My sister.”
“Yes.” His tone had the sort of patience one used when talking to small children, or the very slow.
“And she’s on Teldrassil right this very moment, while we’re speaking here.”
“Yes.”
Nimaruil glared at him crossly a long moment, then rolled her eyes and tossed her head. “Oh, hell. How do I find her?”
Elf-Delusion 