Humbled Service

Harrigan walked through Dragoon Hall.  His footsteps, and those of his guards, echoed hollowly through the empty corridors.  The vacated rooms looked more like robbed tombs as they passed the open doorways.  Bereft of weapons, deprived of his guildstone, walking through a mausoleum that was once home to his command, his –people-, he felt the weight of hopelessness bearing down on his shoulders.

Naturally, he refused to acknowledge it.

Somewhere in the pre-dawn light, Alynore found the moment of quiet she’d been craving since that awful evening. She took a swig of Haalani whiskey as she leaned on her footlockers. She’d been saving the potent Draenic brew for a special occasion; this seemed to count.

Ten hours ago she called the Dragoons to attention. They’d stood in front of judges and a prosecutor who called into question all of their decisions and actions, individually and as a unit.

Eight hours ago the Silver Dragoons ceased to be a part of the Stormwind military.

Dragoons,

Writing and speeches aren’t things I learned.  I learned how to figure out what the enemy was planning, how to stop them and mostly how to kill.  That’s what I did for the last thirty-some years.  That’s what I’m good at.

I told you from day one what I was and what I do.  I told you I’m not your da and I’m not your friend.  I told you I would send each and every one of you to die without hesitation if it would protect our people and finish our mission.  That was my duty.

The only promise I made was this – not one drop of your blood would be wasted.  No one would die without a reason.  I take care of my people.  No one touches any of them and lives as long as I have a say in it.  I hope I lived up to that.

Nelenna gave a sigh as she layed in the hospital bed, trying not to squirm around in it at all, not being able to use her hands for anything right now was driving the worgen crazy. She knew she wasn’t suppose to try to use them but it had just gnawed at her. And now her arms had been tied down so that the Gilnean wouldn’t succumb to temptation. Though it also made the itch on her nose grow even worse making the worgen crazier.

She was a doer and not being able to do anything just got to her quickly, not to mention Nelenna felt alittle uncomfortable in the Dragoon Infirmary. Mostly because she wasn’t a Dragoon anymore, she didn’t hate them or even dislike any for being dismissed. They were still her friends as far as the Gilnean was concerned, she was just sorry that her own troubles had made things worse for the unit.

Even with the relief of the Cataclysm’s end, the world was dark and upside down if one wore Dragoon colors—which made finding reasons to smile all the more important.

Lirriel found Wesley Brennan dozing in the Library. The young corporal had been pouring over paperwork and personnel paperwork for weeks. She let the worg pup she’d brought off its leash and told it to sit. It waited obediently while she walked up to the desk Wes slumped over.

“Good evening, Wesley.”

“You know,” Alynore said between accepting bites of stew, “if we do this, I’m going to lose weight and with my luck, it won’t be any of the flab I’ve picked up the last couple weeks.”

“We need our commander on her feet,” Lirriel answered as she offered bread. “Especially since you seem so intent on getting yourself killed before you heal.”

The room couldn’t possibly hold any more people.  They were crowded on every available seat and standing when none could be found.  Voices murmured as they observed.

Harrigan looked at their eyes, all of them focused on him.  Some glowed with hatred, a few with sympathy, most with understanding.  And there was one pair, as unique in their emotions as the owner was in this crowd of humans, dwarves, gnomes, draenei and elves.

“Ignore them, Harri.  Don’t do this to yourself.”

“It’s my fault and my blame.  They know it, I know it, and every damn person in this kingdom knows it.  I’m going to pay for my mistakes.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll finally get that rest everyone says I need.”  Harrigan couldn’t look away from that one pair of eyes, so distinct and singular.

She was the only orc that haunted him.

To: Commander of the Silver Dragoons

From: Frederick Callistan of Palace Inquiry

Subject: Dragoon Nelenna Kaltrone

Commander, I do understand you are dealing with quite a lot right now. Topics I will not go into as they do little beyond exasperating the concerns of whom I represent. This writing is concerned with Dragoon Kaltrone and her rather rampant issues. Issues that I find it hard to believe can have completely escaped all notice and casts a rather bad light on the so called discipline that a unit such as the Silver Dragoons is supposed to have.

“Commander.”

The squire had to repeat it twice before Alynore remembered that he was addressing her.

She took the reports, trying to ignore the twisting of her still-healing guts. Reading said reports didn’t help, and the stress-blocker tea the Judiciary had given her was long since cold.

No weapon on or near the woman dozens of witnesses had watched Bennett Harrigan kill. The Royal Guard who arrived on the scene to take the investigation said it sounded more like a lover’s quarrel, not part of some shadowy political scheme. Harrigan’s reputation with women wasn’t helping that perspective.

Nore still wanted to punch that damned captain in his smirking face.

((This is...a lot of text. I really did think about just flashbacking it, or using excerpts of it, but in the end there were too many good lines from people and I couldn't just yank out a couple of them. So, here's the whole deal in all its glory. Hope you enjoy!))

Giulietta approaches Harrigan quietly, hands clasped behind her back. He’s sitting quietly in the window by the gardens, the one that overlooks the lake, and he’s working on something in his lap. “Commander.”

“Corporal.  Shomething I can do for you?” Harrigan takes a drink from the flask beside him.

Giulietta winces at the slurred speech, but makes no comment. "A word, please."

“Have a seat.”

Giulietta comes over to the window, but remains standing. She looks down at Harrigan for a few long moments, not saying anything, just looking him over. He looks much the same as he always does, drunk or no – he looks like her Commander, the man that she’s supposed to trust to tell her right from wrong.

Harrigan sets the jewelry he was working on aside. “What's on your mind, Corporal?”

Giulietta lifts her chin and looks away from him, staring firmly at the opposing wall. "They found Timothy, sir."

"Thrice damned Meddlers!" curse Brigit as she fought her way through the woods of Silverpine. She stuck to the forests, avoiding any Forsaken patrols. A branch slapped her in the face hard enough to cause her to stumble back. If it hadn't been for the Meddlers tracking her, she'd still be in her safe, secure bunker, enjoying a nice hot bath. Instead, she was struggling through the insect infested forest, branches poking and prodding at her from every angle. It wouldn't be long before one of the Meddlers discovered her bunker, so she'd packed what she needed and abandoned the rest, following his orders.

Nelenna moved through the streets, listening to the chirps of crickets as stars twinkled above. The Worgen was enjoying the evening despite the notable absence of Rex, something that saddened her as the old worg hadn’t survived the fire when the Dragoon Stables had burned down. While considered rather ill-tempered by many he had been a loyal friend to her through most of her life. The worg had felt like another family member and now he was gone leaving Nelenna alone unless she ever found where her parents had gone to after escaping Gilneas years ago.

As she continued her walk the worgen noticed a shadow going into a nearby alley in a most suspicious manner. The Dragoon was bright enough not to simply charge in, instead moving to the entrance of the shadowed corridor and peering in eyes widening.

The envelope was plain and unremarkable.  “Commander Bennet Harrigan, The Silver Dragoons” was written in a nondescript hand.  There was nothing to indicate where it came from.  But Harri knew.

She knew he wanted to meet.  The word was out in every channel he could think of, and he finally had a response.  He started smiling as he opened the letter.

Humbled Service and Old Soldiers

“Harri, you can’t let her get to you.”

“She already hash and she knowsh it!”  Harrigan ignored the glass on the table and took a swallow from the bottle.  “I can’t play theshe damn gamesh!   Give me a shtraight-up up fight, damn it!!”

“She did that once, Harri.  She’ll never make that mistake again.”

1. Friend
    My best friend is hurting, and there’s nothing I can say or do to help. Just a few hours ago, we were laughing and joking on the docks with everyone else at Tailn’s party. Everything changed so quickly when that alarm went off.
    Someone hurt my friend. Someone is going to pay.

((Written as part of the Silver Dragoons' Humbled Service storyline. And Children's Week, Children's Week, Children's Week. >.> ))

Giuli rode stiffly on her horse, acutely aware of the small person perched precariously behind her on the saddle. Initially, this had seemed like a good idea. The Commander had told them to be nice to the children, after all, and the Matron had seemed so earnest about their plight. Just a day, she'd said. Just a day of seeing the world outside Stormwind's walls -- though why it was necessary, Giuli hadn't quite been clear. Stormwind was the most breathtaking place she'd ever seen, and she'd spent most of her life outside it. Sure, there was adventure and battle and cleaner-smelling mud out there, but surely a kid wouldn't want to see all of that. Or maybe they'd want to, but they probably shouldn't.

Harrigan watched the fire through a haze of alcohol.  He knew his sergeants were on a fishing expedition, but he actually enjoyed sharing stories and whiskey with them.  Maybe they should do it again sometime, only without the ulterior motives.

They were asking about her, of course.  Everyone was.  He understood they needed to know, but he had to make sure they used their own eyes to look at things and not his version.  She knew what he saw and how he thought; if he influenced their actions they had already lost.  Besides, how much could he tell them anyway?

Alynore stared at the slip of paper in her palm. She looked over at Captain Culbraith, clipping a potted mageroyal as he sat at his desk. His office was known in the general headquarters for practically being a greenhouse. “This can’t be serious.”

He glanced sideways, brows raised—he couldn’t lift just the one. “Orders are orders, Forrester. We don’t have to like ‘em, we just have to follow ‘em. It’s not a bad assignment, either, given what you’ve done the last couple years.”

“Don’t have to remind me,” she said, crossing her arms. The transcript crinkled in her fist.

Pinapple Peppercog sighed happily as the morning air touched her face. She took her time hopping down the marbled stairs leading away from the keep, intent on enjoying her day off by gettiing some shopping done, perhaps even getting some fishing done later in the day. She made the usual rounds about town, saying hello to some of the shopkeepers she frequently visited as they set about opening and cleaning their stores. She smiled at Mortimer, the lank little boy that delivered the weekly news prints, giving him a wave and a few silver for one. She tucked it under her arm and carried on, soon settling on a promising looking bakery with outdoor seating to take her breakfast.

She unfurled her paper, and her eyes widened at the image that associated the lead story, one of a gnome dressed in raggedy clothes, sleeping beside a cargo box near the canals.

Dishes, unfortunately, did not pack themselves. Lirriel wrapped each plate and stacked them carefully in the crate. Soon the house in Elwynn Forest would be finished. It would be nice, she thought, to be a local healer, watch her husband train young people for the militia—and start their family, finally, now that the world-ending threats of the Lich King and Deathwing were dealt with.

For now, a little voice in the back of her mind whispered, bringing with it a brief memory of cold, and burning eyes invoking a promise…She shook herself from those unpleasant thoughts, reaching for a bowl. She almost dropped it when someone knocked on the apartment’s door.

The sloop limped into the harbor under the power of her jury-rigged mast.  There were a few, scattered holes in her hull and a large one, hastily covered with a canvas patch, near the waterline.  People on the docks fell silent as she passed, and wondered.

“Pay off the crew,” her red haired captain said to the first mate.  “Their whole share.”

“Captain!” the mate protested. “If we do that we’ll never see half the bastards again!”

“We’ll be damned lucky to see any of them again.  At least this way we’ll have a shot.  I’ll never have it said that a Taggart doesn’t pay their debts.  You have your orders, Richards,” she said and turned to go.  “And don’t forget your share.”

“You ignored my last few invitations, Ben.  I’m crushed.”  The woman dropped her cigarette into the snow and ground it out under her boot.

“Why’d you drag me out here?”  Harrigan glowered at her through narrowed eyes.   He unconsciously flexed the fingers of his right hand, aching for the sword that still rested in its scabbard.

“Because I can, Ben,” she laughed.  “And you hate it.”

Nelenna walked down the streets, mulling as she often did about nothing in particular, just letting her mind wander every which way. Stormwind was fairly quiet, most of the daily bustle having calmed down once the sun set. Streets were still alight from lamps and the bright full moon. She couldn’t help but feel unsettled however, the last several days the Gilnean had felt like someone was watching and following her though she’d never seen anyone. Nor had Rex been on edge at all, so Nel just figured she was going crazy.

“Where’s Derringer!?”

“...You sent him to tail the Witch-Counselor three weeks ago, Sir.”

In a secluded office, a tall, slender man settles down at his desk, nursing a glass of brandy as studies the opened dossier before him.

Report on Gilnean Recruit Alphonse Wiemar

Alphonse is the son of a minor Gilnean nobles, little more than the landowners of a small hamlet near the Gilnean border with Silverpine.

Trained and graduated at Gilnean Military Academy

Defected to join the Gilnean resistance after the erection of the Gilnean wall. Officially declared a traitor to the throne.

Served as Recon/sharpshooter, earned commendations for service from captain. Captured when squad surrendered, incarcerated three years. Officially released and pardoned by King Greymane during the Worgen Invasion, subsequently infected during the chaos.

Alynore checked off the last item on her list. The supplies were clean and secure for the most part. There were a few things, she decided, that could find better use in the soup kitchens and charity markets of Stormwind and Sentinel Hill. New stocks could be purchased for the guards’ use and that ever-present “just in case.”