Conquest of the Horde

Joo-buh-lee - noun
An appointed year or other period, ordinarily every fifty years (ordinary jubilee),
in which a plenary indulgence is granted upon repentance and the performance of certain religious acts.

The grandfather clock had been collecting dust in the attic of the Stormwind Orphanage for close to a decade. Early in its storage a child had pried open its front and spilled the brass gears and spindles within out and spread them across the attic's floor. Over the years a generation of bats had taken to nesting in it and the constant habitation had caked white filth over what few metal fixtures remained. Age snapped the leads and a crack upon the glass front had let moisture in to warp the paper face.

The Matron had offered to pay Valira five silver coins and a cup of soup a day to mend the clock. It would help, the old woman believed, with the children’s instruction on time. The priestess had taken the offer instantly. Five silver was enough to keep a smart woman of modest needs well fed and comfortable for a duration.

It hadn’t been long until Valira settled into a routine. Every morning at six, without care for sun or rain, the human priestess would make the trek from her Old Town apartment to the Orphanage. Her personality was of the exacting variety, a precise woman who viewed all facets of life a form of chaos to be wrangled into order. Even breakfast was a ritual to be performed down to every meticulous detail.

Every morning the priestess would stop by the baker's to pick up a slice of bread and re-fill her flask with water. No butter. No fat. No meat. No beer. The meal cost her nine coppers. With her copper’s worth of breakfast in hand Valira would then spend the next few hours at the Faol Fountain. In her travels she would come across the odd piece of literature and squirrel it away for these morning rituals. During her meal she would devour the odd scrap of paper, taking down anything from newspapers, manuals, recipes, scraps of text books and religious texts with the same plain, methodical speed which she used upon her meal. It often took the woman an hour to read even the small scraps of paper, her mind drifting lazily between different thoughts as she worked up and down the page mechanical. It was these moments of quiet reflection that drew her to reading, her interest more on the free movements of her mind than anything the page’s cramped lines of text could offer.

Spring was starting to yield its warmth and the priestess had taken to wearing the thin gilded uniform of a Confessor. It was the first day she had been able to get away from the heavy coat and gloves that had been her main-stay during the winter and she was enjoying the freedom. Every morning she would sit with her back to the stone fountain, her legs crossed tight till the bare flesh of her thighs pressed together and one knee overlapped the other. A hand rested comfortably upon the crossed knee, fingers splayed and nails scrapping along the satin of her leggings. The other hand would busy itself with whatever was needed, alternating between paper and food as the whim struck her. Her head remained fixed, turned slightly to the left and angled down, her jaw set and lips fixed to show the hardness to the corners of her jaw and the sharpness of her chin. Her black hair fell down around the ends of her chapeau to tickle the nape of her neck. The hair, though long, was never allowed to touch her shoulders.

Though she was well enough known and, thought slightly boney, pleasant enough to look upon, few people stopped to pay the woman much mind. Her pose had a queer effect on those who noticed her, many coming away with the odd sensation that the woman was posing for a painting. Though she was clearly comfortable, there was an odd sense of stiffness and rigidity to the way she held herself. Her eyes were always slightly lidded, her gaze -when not upon the page- fixed upon a far wall or fixture.

When she had finished with her meal and literature the woman would make her way to the Orphanage proper. And there, amongst the children, she would pick up her work from the day before.

“A clock is like a good adventure.” The children always wrung about the Confessor and her clock when she set up at the end of the hall in the morning, the younger ones sitting in the laps of their elders while the oldest stood, aloof, from the circle. Yet each child’s gaze remained on the woman in the tabard and gold-leaf cap as she presented before the standing clock.

“An adventure is only an adventure,” she reached out a gloved hand and, delicately, plucked at the long brass pendulum. With the face of the clock removed the guts of the machine were visible to the children. They all let out a little murmor as, with the pendulum's first stroke, the delicate bronze gears and wheels began to spin and tick. “When everyone is doing their part. Only when everyone is working together can the adventure move forward.”

Settled in her story circle and with a hand in her clock's organs, the good Confessor would recount stories of bravery and heroism while checking the timing mechanisms and sharpening the escape wheel. In the beginning they had been old tales, stories as old and musty as the clock itself. Though the children listened politely, no amount of embellishment or creative narration could rouse their interest. Soon the old tales gave way to new ones, the woman drawing instead from her time in the Third War. They were her own stories to share, pure fantasy born from a nugget of truth. They seemed to keep the children happy.


When the children scurried off for lunch at one the Confessor would settle in for earnest work. From her bag she would unroll a worn bed of felt and spread it out across the wood floor. Upon it she would place the delicate cogs, spinners and lines that composed the clock's meat. And it was this that occupied her focus for the next three hours, her delicate fingers polishing, twisting and replacing the odd pieces with her hooks, scrubs and lenses.

After her work the priestess would take dinner with the children. It was then that she would often share her more factual experiences in Northrend with the older children. They were tales of common heroism, of honest emotion and petty bravery. The only things she removed were the horrors. When the stories weighed too heavily on her she would give the children a soft, somber little smile before sending them off with promises of more. There always were.

With a full stomach she would finish up her task before putting away her tools. The Matron would see her out before the priestess’ evening confessions, often to hand over a little extra with her day's wage. Pausing only to place a chaste kiss on one or two of the children’s cheeks, the Confessor would be gone and off to help ease other's woes.

After a few days of work Valira began to sneak back into the orphanage every night to quietly break and snap the delicate work that she had done the day before. She had re-assured herself that it was a necessity for survival. The Matron's money and an Argent Crusade stipend was all that was keeping her alive. She wouldn't see half of her living go out the door because some unwanted children wanted to know when nap-time was.

Yet even after she found work as a governess she still continued to sneak into the orphanage to sabotage her work. It wasn’t about money anymore; she had waved the payment after the first week. It wasn’t love towards the children; though she was fond of the orphans, to be sure, she had no real parental affection for them. The only pleasure she found was at the end of the night, in the smile of the orphanage's workers and their thanks for her labor.

It felt good to be needed. And it felt good to be respected.

What the orphanage clock came to represent for Valira, her daughter’s job as a governess was quickly becoming for Mary von Rosenstiel – an obsession.

The priestess’ mother, though pressing on sixty, still bore the force and presence of her youth. At forty she had been a powerful woman, the sole daughter of a rich father and wife of a powerful priest’s son. The two had met in a park, though if asked later neither could remember the location. Shortly after marriage they had given birth to Valira, named in honor of a great grandmother Mary's father had been fond of. The family had been poised, when the wealthy parents left their respective worlds, to take on the wealth and prestige that had been their right since birth. Neither of Valira's mother or father were prepared, gifted as they were with a degree of natural intellect and beauty, to earn their own life.

When their homeland of Alterac fell during the closing war years the two’s wealth and birthright were lost with it. Quietly they fled to settle in a cousin’s cottage in Redridge where, for the next few decades, they lived the life of quiet mediocrity.

Valira’s father, Julius, became a blacksmith. His talents extended only to making horse shoes and nails of suitable quality, both –mercifully- commodities that were in demand. Mary, who had spent longer in school and in her father’s library, became a school teacher until another of life’s commonplace landmarks, child rearing, forced her to remain at home to take care of the budding infant. The two earned a modest salary and lived to the limits of it, preferring to invest in rich food and fine wine than a bank’s box.

Until her father’s death the two raised Valira with as much dignity as they could, bestowing her with the same modest education and bearing that they had been given at the same age. And, for their efforts, Valira enjoyed a pleasant enough upbringing. Yet, despite this familial warmth, there was always something missing from the day to day activities of the Rosenstiel household.

The two were bitter over their life’s path. Surrounded by the comforts relegated to peasants the two grew increasingly withdrawn, their normal poise and pleasantness fading into poisonous resignation. Valira’s father took quickly to drink, a hobby his wife spat bile at him for constantly. Mary absorbed herself in the past and any free moments she had were spent in recounting the years of pleasure that had in her childhood. The two were old without the age, their minds withered and arthritic. They were resigned to their fate, too obsessed with what could have and what was to see what is and what could be.

After her father’s death Valira urged her mother to move out of Redridge and find an apartment in the city. Neither shed any real tears for the man: Someone who was not truly living made no impact when he passed, and their life continued at the same dull pace without the father and husband. Valira found a small place in Old Town for her mother. The rent was cheap and, with modest help from a relative in Duskwood, Valira made sure her mother had a pleasant life while she was away serving in Northrend.

After the war Valira had taken to visiting her mother every night. She had offered, in that absentminded way that had been hers through her life, to share her home with her only daughter. Yet pride had kept the priestess in the cramped barracks, every time the offer came up she deflected it with a wan smile and a slight excuse. Though initially out of pride, Valira soon came to abhor the idea of remaining near the slowly decaying woman.


Mary’s summer had slipped well into winter by the time her daughter returned from Northrend. Age had crept over her and the matron’s body had bloated with poor care. The fat hung off her cheeks and throat in wrinkled strings. A recent fall had left her bound to her chair, her feet too swollen to carry any real weight. It was there that Valira found her, day in and day out, still wearing her old pearls and paints.

“You’re looking fine, mother.” The saccharine sweetness of the priestess’ voice was saved for the children. In the comfort of her mother’s drawing room she was sedate, her tone and gaze never raising to show anything but the slightest of smiles.

“Oh. Yes. Yes.” The old woman looked up from her needlepoint and smiled. Though old and chair bound, her daughter’s daily care had kept arthritis at bay. The steady hands had allowed her to fill the small room with an assortment of embroidered pillows, covers and throw blankets. “My feet hurt. But they hurt less than yesterday.”

Valira shifted over to the couch and opened her mouth to speak. Yet the old woman was not finished, the end only a stutter while she caught her breath.

“They’ll feel better tomorrow. I’m sure. And even better the day after that. That’s how you heal, you know. In steps until you can step.” She turned her smile to Valira, looking towards her daughter to see if she could appreciate the wit of her statement. Dutiful, the priestess laughed.

Though Valira had done her best to keep her mother healed of the slight malisons of age, no amount of care could stop the corruption of the woman’s mind. Dementia was rotting the mother’s mind, her thoughts slipping into a haze of confusion and consternation. It was, Valira thought in her more somber moments, ironic that the older her mother grew the more her mind became that of a child’s. Confusion had made the woman petulant, her normally calm ways transforming –in moments of memory less- into ashamed stubbornness.

“Have you had a bath recently, mother?” Valira took her seat on the couch, carefully smoothing out her tabard before removing her chapeau. She caught the hair before it could fall and began to pin it back into a bun.

“Hmmph!” The woman’s face flushed. The mother had forgotten such a basic point of personal care and knew, in the dark way that the paranoid knows, that her daughter knew as well. “Yes. Yes. I did. Scrubbed just an hour before you visited.”

“That’s fine. You should be washing every day,” Valira smiled softly and let her hands fall back to her lap. For the next few minutes while they spoke she busied herself with arranging them, moving them across her thigh while experimenting with closing and spreading her fingers. “If you keep it up you do-”

“Enough. I am washing. I am not a child.” Valira recoiled from the harshness of her mother’s voice. It cracked before she could say anymore, her face was frozen in a look of indignation.

“I…” The priestess re-arranged herself on the seat and calmed herself. When she spoke next, her voice had gained a clipped, annoyed air. “I am not calling you a child, mother. You know that. You’re being silly.”

The two lapsed into sullen silence. A rift had been growing between them since the Confessor returned from the north, an unspoken resentment that bubbled up during these times. Though her mother would never admit it, Valira thought, she knew that she hated her daughter. It was a childish hatred, an ugly hatred; it was the hatred of beauty, the jealously of the young towards the old for the youth that was once theirs. Thirty years ago the aging woman had everything she could wish and every opportunity before her. Now all she had was swollen feet and a beautiful daughter to mock her with beauty and skill.

Mary looked up from the half finished embroidery in her lap and scowled. “Are you still taking care of that child, Valira?”

“I am.” The Confessor began to pick at the hem of her pants, tracing the frayed ends of the split with the tip of her nail. Her silence annoyed the woman further.

“It’s biological, you know, this working with children. It means you need a man. Need kids.” A sickly sweet smile spread across that swollen face. Though her thoughts were clouded, she knew where to push the blade.

Valira was silent. She picked the last few fraying threads from her pants and began to coil them about her finger, letting the string bite into her flesh and discolor it red. The discomfort distracted her for a moment and it was a longer pause then appropriate before she answered her mother.

“No. I just enjoy the work. I like teaching her. It keeps me occupied.” She finished winding the string around her finger and tucked the loose end underneath her nail. It hit the bits of dirt and dust that hid in the crevice and stuck fast.

“It’s childish?” Mary continued, her smile only widening. “You’re being childish. You can’t keep like this, Jennifer. Father is already livid.”

Valira began to unwind the string. There was no talking to her mother now. She had become unstuck in time, her memories clouding and mixing. Already, the confessor noted, there was the slight glaze creeping over her vision. She was thirty now, still flushed from marriage, seated in some ballroom or church scolding her sister Jennifer for sloth.

“You need to find a man,” Mary parroted again, her voice growing hoarse.

“You’re right, Mary. As always.” Carefully Valira rose from her seat and dusted off the cushion. The thick stuffing had barely registered her weight. “I’ll go find a man immediately.”

This seemed to calm the woman and she nodded, settling back into her throne. Idly she sifted her feet, the swollen flesh nettling her.

“Before you go whoreing yourself around, Jennifer…Go and fetch some tea. We should have some while the weather holds.”

“As always,” the woman turned to the small kitchenette. Her mother always kept the kettle on a shelf by the stove. “You have the most lovely ideas, Mary.”

As Valira filled the kettle from the sink she let her thoughts wander. It was true that she enjoyed her life as a governess. Though it did strain her from time to time, she had the feint feeling that she was reaching out to the rich man’s child.

Back in the drawing room Mary was already beginning to doze. After her nap, she thought dimly, she would go off and find Julius. A smile touched the swollen jowls of the elderly woman at the thought before she sank into complete thoughtlessness.

The visit to her mother was still fresh in Valira’s mind the next day when she returned to her home. The walk from Old Town to the Dwarven District was pleasant, spring’s warmth still present from the day before. Yet a thought chilled the woman’s heart, sobering any joy she could feel in the early day.

It had been a year since she had returned from her time in Northrend. Though her service had been marked with distinction she had found life back in Stormwind undefined and purposeless. Shifting she had moved from petty job to petty job, earning enough to subsist and little more. The visits to her mother, bitter and decaying in her chair, had further darkened her thoughts. Not even the prospect of a job –a true job, with pay and chance to rise- did little to lessen her dread.

An Argent Commander, now retired, had stopped in to visit her during her evening confession a week ago. The two had been stationed at Icecrown during the fall of the Lich King and had shared, if only that, a drink when the news had reached the Argents. They had fallen out of touch during the years since, the common strain of life drawing them in different directions.

During the pleasantries the old man had let slip that he and his wife were looking for a tutor for their daughter. The child had recently come of age and, while the church had offered their services, the two agreed that foisting religion on the child could be saved for a few years. The conversation switched to the point and they bounced around a few ideas before they settled on the subject of Valira. The Confessor was educated, pleasant and matronly. She was free of any sinful hobbies and impurities that could rub off on his budding daughter. After a few details were settled the man hired the girl on the spot.

Valira had taken well to being a governess. Though the pay was poor the commander, Eric Albraucht, had opened his home to the woman and had given her a small room off to the corner to live in. She had rented her apartment out and, with that money added to her monthly stipend, she could enjoy luxuries again. Her weight, steadily in decline since her return, had returned and she had even managed to win a few nights of honest sleep. After her third day her complexion had already warmed.

No complaint could be found about her ward, anyway. Emily Albraucht was a pleasant girl and at ten years of age already showed the even temperament and curiosity of a fine priest or scholar. When not taking lessons in the home’s garden or study the two would speak at length about things that interested them, whittling away the odd hours chewing over topics as varied as biology, English, history and art.

“Why do you wear that outfit, Miss Valira?” It was Sunday and the two were enjoying breakfast out on the porch. Emily was busy eating her toast, the Confessor behind her braiding the girl’s blonde locks.


“This?” The woman laughed. Usually she worked in a black smock, unflattering but comfortable enough. Yet the day was warm and she had signed on to help with a morning prayer so the girl the normally modest tutor chose to glow in her white silks and black garters.

“It’s shiny! You look pretty in it.” The girl turned back to give the older woman a smile. “What’s it for?”

“Hush now and finish your breakfast,” the woman scolded lightly, turning the child back to her meal. She set back to braiding her hair. “It’s what Confessors wear.”

“You’re were a Confessor?”

“Still am, dear.”

“But you live here!” The child laughed, her logic as tight as the knots in her hair. Satisfied she returned to her bread.

“I can do both, Ms. Emily!”

The girl frowned slightly and hummed in thought. The woman finished the child's hair in silence and took a seat across from her to tend to her own breakfast.

“What does a Confessor do, Ms. Valira?”

“A Confessor…Helps people, Ms. Emily.” The cook, who had a soft spot for the slender priestess, had given her an extra helping of egg. Smiling the woman cut them both in half and let the yolk run. “We listen to people who have problems.”

“And then what?” The girl had forgotten her breakfast and was staring at the governess.

“Well…That’s all, usually. People feel guilty or worried. When they get like that its hard for them to live good lives. So sometimes they need to just sit down and talk.” Valira left her eggs and began to steep her tea, measuring out the leaves herself before dipping the sieve into the kettle.

“And that’s where I come in,” she continued, removing her gilded chapeau and dropping it on the child’s head. For the rest of the conversation the girl fiddled with the large cap, smiling as she rolled her fingers along the sequins and little ridges of gold silk. “Sometimes, if they are in real trouble, I’ll offer them advice. Tell them ways to live a better life.”

“Ah!” The girl nodded, understanding. “And you like it?”

“Love it,” she affirmed. A wispy smile traced along the corner of her mouth.

“When did you start?”

“Oh, ages ago. Back before the war,” she said, her smile settling on the child’s plate. “And don’t think I don’t see you pushing those greens to the side, Ms. Emily.”

The girl made a sound. Yet she relented, returning to her meal. Between mouthfuls she continued her inquisition: “Tell me about the war! What did you do?”

“Ah. Same thing as I was now,” she sighed, though not dismissively. “I was a Confessor, dear. A real Confessor.”

“Are you not a real Confessor now?”

“It’s different now, dear. People have problems, yes, and I do help them. But back then I…Well, it’s hard to explain. Do you help your dad sometimes with work?”

“Plenty,” the girl chirped, almost bubbling out of her seat. “I sort his paperwork every week!”

“And I also know you help your dolls. Give them dresses, wipe stains off their cheeks.” The girl nodded in the affirmative.

“Well, it’s kind of like that. When you’re helping your dad you’re helping him do really big work. Really important stuff. And you feel good knowing that you’re helping him, yes?”

“Yeah!”

“And while you’re helping your dolls it’s…Well, it’s still important,” the woman corrected. She lifted the pot and poured herself a portion of tea. “But you’re only helping your dolls. Just helping them with their little problems. Not helping the do anything besides that. Being a Confessor during the war was like that.”

The girl’s brow crossed and she frowned slightly. Her mind, impressive for a child, had to chew over that point for a time.

“You feel better when you’re helping with something greater,” Valira helped, smiling. “You feel important. And that feels good.”

Emily nodded and smiled. “I see!” With chapeau still on head she returned to her meal and the topic ended there.

Valira nodded and, for her part, smiled. Yet she knew the girl didn’t understand. It had been a moment of weakness to let that bit of darkness out and her stomach fell away when she saw such bitterness in herself.

The two ate the rest of their breakfast talking about a scrap of poetry they had read the day before. Afterwards Valira took back her cap and, giving the child a peck on the forehead, left to the Cathedral. She would think more on the matter after the prayer.

The morning’s religious duties drew Valira out of herself and, till the sun set, her mood remained light and warm. It was only when she returned to her room and settled into her idle hours did the morning’s conversation return to her.

A blush burned her cheek. It had been foolishness to bring up the war. It had been foolishness to even think of dropping the ugly thing on anyone’s shoulders. But to drop it on an Argent Commander’s daughter! What would the man, a man who had toasted the fight’s end beside her, think when he heard that his daughter’s teacher was pinning for war?

Was it pinning? Valira couldn’t find any other word to use. Quietly she crossed from the door to the window and opened it. The sun had already set and with it the fire oranges and blood reds of romantic thought. All that remained was the muted colors and ash gray of twilight. She closed the window and drew the blinds.

Fear gave way to doubt. Was there anything wrong with pinning for the war? Wanting the war? Loving the war? The priestess moved a chair from the far wall into the center of the room and climbed onto it. It wasn’t as if she missed the blood, tears or sweat. Everything about the war itself was abhorrent. Yet why, if service was so savage, did even now a smile tug the corner of her lips at its memory?

From her pocket the priestess removed a match and struck it upon the copper bottom of the lamp. She lit the wick and let the oil catch the flame, toying with the knob till the room was awash in the dark orange of the twilight lamp. Satisfied she blew the match out and let it drift in the lamp oil. Before the war she had been a child, the daughter of two who were as dry and empty as corpses. Beneath their weight she was doomed to the same no-life of living decay. War had given the girl’s life purpose. War had given her an escape. In some moments she had even allowed herself the romantic simplicity of a girl much younger and had thought, with a sardonic smile, that she had earned her life through death.

Valira replaced the chair and prepared for bed. To the best of her ability she tried to push the thoughts under a weight of logic. It wouldn’t do to fall into the same trap as her parents. What the war had been to her was in the past. A week in and she was settling well into her work, her health and passion returning to her. She had even earned a few precious nights of sound sleep, the most elusive and valuable of things. For years Valira had dealt with insomnia. Each night she would remain, sleepless, eyes turning red and raw. When she was young she was given medicine, bitter-tasting broth that was more alcohol than herbs. When she grew older she gave up the tincture for a real bottle and, soon enough, fell into alcoholism. Faith wiped that habit away and until then had found relief in quiet meditation, though the strain and stress of life had done little to help her condition.

Shedding her clothes the woman, naked, slipped underneath the sheets. Rustling the silks she moved onto her side. Her mind retreated and she sank into her thoughts, retreating until she hung on the ragged edge before oblivion. There she remained, willing herself over but unable. And there her mind wandered, her thoughts tracing along the cliff’s line.


Memories found her there, the slips of thought and sense clinging to her like paper twisting in the wind. They built, bit by bit, until the picture was complete in her mind. It was morning. The tournament grounds had been opened today and the Crusaders had gathered to hear the Confessor lead them in prayer. It was morning and the crusaders had gathered to prayer. The chapel still smelled of fresh oak and silk, the chill of the Icecrown fields not yet tainting the warmth of the newly built tent. The flock was similarly strong, faces scrubbed and polished with rest and good humor.

The woman’s voice carried well from the altar. Softly she recounted the tenants of the Lightly, her voice rising in passion with each pillar until it flowed and rolled with every word. The passion troubled some, zealotry being a fear of many veterans of the Scarlet Crusade. Yet the fire was only there and left her voice quickly, a smile coming over the young creature’s soft features. By the sermon’s completion her voice was as soft as it was when she had begun.

After the morning prayer she drew the printed screen from the corner and opened up for Confessions. For the rest of the morning the priestess heard the crusaders, their fears and darkness falling on kindly ears. To each she offered what aid she could, from advice to words of gentle encouragement. She remained with each for as long as necessary and not a moment less. The hours bled away, every Confessor unfolding fresh in the woman’s mind.

It was absorbed in these memories, two hours after she had first laid her head upon the pillow, that the Confessor Valira von Rosenstiel drifted off into thoughtless sleep.

The work agreed with Valira. Her job expanded with every week, new difficulties bubbling up from the coagulation of past success. By the second month’s end she had graduated (Or been demoted, depending on your look on the affair) to nanny and wherever the family went she, as the new warden for the littlest Albraucht, went as well. At parties she remained in Emily’s shadow, a kind word or little bauble always at hand for any slight difficulty the child may find. Yet even a woman in an ugly smock can demonstrate her worth and, gradually, she shifted from the child’s side to the commanders. Though soft-spoken, she chose her words carefully to be most flattering to the company the man kept. The commander’s retinue appreciated the young woman’s intelligence and beauty, their own senses warmed in her presence. Soon the woman was invited without the child and, amidst the thick smoke and bitter spirits that was the mainstay of these parties, she proved herself a suitable bedfellow.

It was during one of these little gatherings that the Confessor crossed paths with Sir Robert de Mench.

Though the two had never met before, Robert had served in a similar capacity during the Third War. Like the Confessor, he had entered the war as a priest, a poor boy just a year or two over twenty with only the slight instruction of his father to guide him. He had quickly excelled at his studies. Unlike the Confessor, however, he proved himself unsuitable for the rigorous introversion needed to enter the priesthood in earnest. Disheartened but still quite eager to fight he had turned instead to the ranks of paladins. At the war’s conclusion he left an accomplished warrior of the Light, his breast weighed by half a dozen medals and commendations.

Robert was a friend of the Commander and, being a local boy himself, would often visit the man. After a few parties together the priestess caught his eye and, when the commander had him over next, he came and sat with the woman to speak. The Confessor found the blonde-haired boy handsome enough, even more so when she managed to tease him out of wearing his armor to the gatherings. Beneath the heavy plate he was an oddly slim boy, the only muscularity he had bunched and squeezed uncomfortably on his slender frame. The few cuts and gashes won during the war did little to detract his childish charm. His hair was pale yellow and cropped short and, though he still had a bit of baby fat around his cheeks and jaw, he cut a handsome figure.

The parties fell into a rhythm after that first meeting. The two would come in at different times, both well dressed and groomed. They would drift between the groups, chatting and socializing for a bit before finding a cluster of friends and settling in with them. For much of the evening they would thus spend apart, drifting in different bubbles of conversation. After dinner (or, increasingly as the weather improved and held, lunch and some brunches) the two would finally come together in some quiet corner. There he would court the woman, raining warm words and slight compliments upon her. This erratic courtship went on for a few weeks, the two drawing increasingly closer.

It was well into summer before they met outside of any party or social gathering.

“It’s nice to have some quiet, for once,” started Robert, conversationally. The two were sitting the Stormwind Mage District. Robert had offered, in the sly-but-not-quite-sly way of his, if she would enjoy dinner at his place. She had declined. It was, after all, too nice of a day for such things, she explained, and a meal should be taken outside.

“It’s quite fine,” she said. Neither she nor Robert were wearing their usual armor and robes and each felt naked in the blouses, ruffles and pantaloons that they had instead. Valira herself was finding some particular discomfort in her pants, picking at them every few seconds and adjusting how the fabric fell. “Stormwind is fantastic in the summer.”

Robert nodded in agreement before turning back to his meal. “I almost forgot how fine the weather could be here. It still amazes me,” he said, between mouthfuls. “I missed Stormwind. Glad to be done with the war and be home again.”

Valira drew a stuttered breath at the mention of the war. The two rarely spoke about it, content in the knowledge that any experience one of them had was either mutually shared or not worthy of mentioning. But the topic bled over from time to time in little slips and idle comments. It was to be expected; the two, both young, had dedicated so much of their youth to the fight that they left service with its shadow over their lives.

A waiter arrived with a bottle of wine and their focus shifted to him. After he poured two goblets the two returned to looking at each other at their leisure, with a sort of enchanted familiarity, over the gold-rimmed cups.

“You sound like you’ve just returned from the front,” Valira added, picking up the conversation and continuing with it. “It’s been months since either of us have seen Northrend, Robert. There’s no need for that sort of talk.”

“It’s just talk, Ms. Rosenstiel,” he added quickly, a blush touching his cheeks. The coloration, a habit of his when caught doing something silly, was one of the many boyish things that Valira found oddly pleasant about him. It was his habit, after being caught, to plaster over the wound with a compliment.

“I don’t lead a very interesting life; I only have the war and cards to talk about, most days,” he followed, smiling away the flush. “I am sorry. I really should leave the conversation to you.”

“You are anything but dull, Robert,” Valira returned, picking up her fork and twisting a bit of lettuce between the prongs. “We just need a new topic: How is your work going?”

Robert was not completely wrong when he spoke about only knowing ‘war and cards.’ The two things were his life’s obsession, both things that he prided himself on. Yet, ever since his return to Stormwind, a third topic had begun to crept over him: His father’s business. The son of a cartographer, Robert had always held a fondness for researching and making maps. Though the hobby had been put on hold during the war, the combination of his return and his father’s declining health had forced the paladin into taking up more and more of the family business.

“Well! My father’s comfortable and his appetite has returned. Until he’s back, I’ll keep up the business.”

“And it’s been going well?” she began, keeping the focus on the business. Soon the topic of war would be abandoned and the meal would continue without that shadow hanging over the food.

“Very well. It was difficult, at first. But I am settling into the role well. With my father’s blessings I’ll try my hand at revising some of the maps of Kalmidor,” said Robert, satisfied with the new topic. He continued talking about maps for some time and Valira listened, occasionally contributing the occasional nod or agreement while she prodded her salad.

Despite all the outward signs, Valira was enjoying herself. Until today all of her social interactions had been between either children or churchgoers. Her mother came to mind as well but, after a moment, she decided to lump the old woman in with the children. It was refreshing to be able to speak, even if it is about nothing, with someone her own age.

Robert drew the woman out of her thoughts with a question. Blinking the confessor glanced up.

“Could you repeat that, Robert?”

The paladin smiled and repeated the question: “But what of you, Ms. Rosenstiel? I hear so little of your own work.”

“That’s because there is little to say, Robert. Very little,” the woman commented, offering the boy a smile. “Emily is still a sweet girl. I am still quite comfortable. Any want I may have I can either purchase or it is provided for me.”

The paladin lapsed into a smiling silence. Valira could see that, while he continued to eat, something was working behind his gaze. After a moment and a few mouthfuls he looked up and continued: “It must be nice. The work, that is.”

“Yes. Emily is such a sweet-heart. And the Commander has been only generous to me.”

Robert nodded, his gaze remaining fixed on the woman. He smiled. “I can imagine,” he offered as way of agreement. “I could only hope for a daughter like her.”

Valira nodded and returned to her meal. Yet the man’s gaze still remained on her and she looked up, surprised. The topic was not finished.

“Yes….Well, she is delightful. A bit masculine, yes, but nowadays that shall serve her well in the future.”

“What of you? What would you prefer: A daughter or a son?”

The suddenness of the question struck Valira and she was silent, her brow knitted. Robert had brought up children in passing before, always casually. He wanted them, she knew. He wanted a four of each, an even mix of sons and daughters. The idea was queer to her now, thinking back, that he would have such an unrealistically specific desire. Robert had never spoken so forwardly about the subject before, let alone even dwelled on it as a topic to discuss.

Valira blanched. Quietly she set aside her fork before speaking up: “I..I haven’t thought about it, Robert. Not seriously.”

“Oh! But you must have a preference?”

“No. No…I never was fond of children,” she said, off the cuff. When Robert opened her mouth she silenced him with a quick reply. “I mean being a mother. I love children. But raising them…I wouldn’t have the time.”

Robert laughed at that, a bit too quickly and easily for the priestess’ liking. He covered it up with a smile and a wave. “You would need a husband of course! That goes without saying. With a husband you would have only time on your hands.”

“What…A home-bound wife?”

“Why yes.”

Valira looked at the boy. The thought repulsed her on a deep, physical level. It made her stomach churn and she inched the plate away, unsettled by the sight of food. If Robert noticed her sudden displeasure, he didn’t mention it.

“That’s…Well, that’s true,” she said finally, wearing a wan smile. “I just don’t…Well, I don’t think that sort of thing is for me.”

Robert blinked. After a few moments he laughed and returned to his meal, eating in silence. The two didn’t speak of the matter again and, after a few moments, Robert returned to talking about Northrend. Valira didn’t try to change the topic.