(2023-08-07) Sil Did Not Send a Calling Card

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Author:	Alli
Summary:	Sil drops by the Aspenwood townhouse, the day after the mission with the king, to check how Cressidha's holding up. They talk for a while about politics, Cobalt, and families. ~2800 words.
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Cressil

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Stormwind doesn't seem any different, the day after the mission into the Undercity with King Varian Wrynn. And yet, some things have definitely changed, even if they aren't visible. Sil Silentstep is not wearing his nicest leather armor today, because it was covered with slime during a fight with a giant worm - the leather may not be recoverable. In any case, his current business doesn't require armor. Hopefully. He's wearing brown boots and pants with a white shirt and dark blue jacket, possibly what might be considered casual clothes for visiting nobility.

When he reaches the Aspenwood townhouse, he hesitates. Should he have sent a calling card in advance? He does not own any calling cards, so maybe that answers that question. If it's a bad time, he can always leave. He knocks on the door.

Perhaps because Sil did not send a calling card, it takes an entire thirty seconds for the door to open. The man who answers the door is very obviously a butler, a dignified-looking gentleman with a pencil moustache and neat black hair that is starting to go gray. "Greetings," he says, looking at SIl without recognition. "What is your business here?"

"I was hoping to call on the Lady Cressidha Aspenwood," Sil says politely, careful of his diction. "I'm Sil Silentstep of Cobalt Company, a colleague who was working with her yesterday. No business, though, not really. Social call."

The butler nods. "The Lady Cressidha had not informed me to expect visitors today. I will have to check if she is open to receiving a guest. If you would kindly wait here?"

"Of course," Sil nods, stepping back. "I'll wait."

"Thank you. I will be back shortly." The butler shuts the door with such care that it doesn't make a sound.

It is a minute, perhaps two, before the butler returns. "The Lady Cressidha will see you in the parlor. Right this way, please." He leads Sil inside. The foyer is elegant, very clean, and well-decorated, but he passes through it to a door on the right and holds it open for Sil.

The parlor is a long rectangular room, oriented with the windows to the front of the house on the thin side. Closer to the door Sil entered from are a couch and an armchair that have carefully coordinated, although not identical, upholstery. In the center of the room is a dining table, surrounded by six chairs. A fireplace at the far end of the room is unlit, given that it is summer.

Sil follows the butler, stepping so softly that his footsteps are not audible. He may not even be consciously aware he's doing that, it's so much of a habit by now. He walks past him into the parlor, and then glances back.

"Thank you," Sil says, glancing back at the butler with a smile. He moves over to sit in the armchair, waiting for Cressidha.

The butler nods to him. "She will be down soon," he says, and closes the door, leaving SIl alone in the room.

Or perhaps not so alone.

"Mrrrp," says a cat as it oozes out from underneath the couch in the way that cats do when they have crammed themselves into somewhere they don't look like they should be able to fit into. It hops up onto the coffee table and sniffs curiously at Sil.

Sil tenses for a moment when he notices motion in his peripheral vision, but then smiles and relaxes when the cat hops up on the table. He reaches out one hand, palm up, for the cat to sniff.

The cat sniffs the hand, then smushes his entire face into Sil's palm, purring loudly. That didn't take long at all.

Sil's smile takes on a more gentle cast as he pets the purring cat. Cats demand a lot of focus - he may not even be watching for Cressidha's entrance anymore.

By the time Cressidha enters, the cat has become a purring puddle on the coffee table. Cressidha is dressed in a red, white, and gold mage robe, and her hair is pinned up in a very neat bun. There is no visible sign that she got chewed up and spat out by a slimy thing yesterday.

"Silvestre, good afternoon," Cressidha says, sitting down on the couch across from him. She traces water-conjuring sigils in the air and sets a bottle of water on the table in front of each of them. "I see you have met Oswald."

Sil looks up when she speaks, and sits up straight, pulling his hands back to his lap.

"Oswald," he says, glancing back down at him briefly with a smile. He reaches out for the water. "Really friendly little cat. Good afternoon, Cressidha. And thanks for the water."

Oswald makes a disgruntled noise. The petting has stopped. Why has the petting stopped?

"Of course." Cressidha smiles faintly. "He's a rescue. Jo found him in the Deadmines."

Sil is an easy mark. He drops one hand back to resume petting Oswald. He says, still in that proper, careful diction. "We've come a long way, haven't we? Cobalt, I mean, from those early days."

Cressidha nods. "The recognition is quite a change. And the scope. I've been on one squad or the other since they implemented that system."

"And I've been, on and off," Sil hesitates, then looks seriously at Cressidha. "But yesterday was… something else altogether."

"Yes," Cressidha agrees. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm f…" Sil starts, and then pauses, shaking his head, abandoning that sentence. "I've been better. How about you?"

Cressidha says in a calm, mild voice, "I am absolutely furious and thoroughly disappointed with King Varian's decision-making, and quite relieved that Lady Jaina intervened when she did."

"Yeah, I did pick up on some of that yesterday," Sil says, with a quiet sigh. "The Warchief seemed reasonable. Even the… the banshee kind of did. And I've got friends in the Horde, they wouldn't just… I understand why you objected. I just don't know where we go from here."

"It is my hope that Lady Jaina will speak with the rest of the leaders of the Alliance, and that they will listen to her and be a voice of reason for the king that we cannot be." Cressidha sighs. "We do not need to fight two wars."

"No, that we do not," Sil shifts back from the cat again. "I think we saw that at the Wrathgate, what that looks like. I hope you're right, and she and the others can talk him down from it. If not, maybe Cobalt can focus on the one that matters, against the Lich King."

"Of course we'll be returning to Northrend, I'm certain of it," Cressidha says with confidence.

Sil nods. "And you'd… you'd be alright, fighting alongside Cobalt?"

Cressidha blinks at him. She looks genuinely taken aback, enough to show through the polite neutrality. "Would… you not be?"

"No, of course I would, it's just…" Sil starts to glance down at the bottle of water, but then catches himself and meets her gaze. "I don't think I've ever seen you so upset before. Not even when you died that one time. I know you don't show it much, because you're you, and I know you don't need me checking after you. You've got plenty of people, I'm sure. But if you're angry enough that I can see it… I don't know how wide and deep it goes. And I worried about you."

Cressidha nods, smiling faintly. "I'm not angry with Cobalt Company. Ben was put into a very difficult position, and he handled it incredibly well. I am angry with King Varian, for the choices he made alone."

Sil relaxes a little, and there's just the slightest smile on his lips as well. "I did not expect things to go off like that. It started alright, with the diplomatic visit. I'd never been to Orgrimmar before. But… should we have not told him the Undercity was in a civil war? I can see how some people might want to reclaim it, Lordaeron was home to a lot of our people. But there's people already liv… habitating there now. And since now we know it wasn't all of them…"

"We did not have full control over how much the king was told," Cressidha reminds him. "Lady Jaina was also there, and she returned before we did."

"That's true," Sil says slowly. "I don't think she expected things to go quite like that either. Does it bother you that we don't have so much control? There's the anger, but there's nothing to be done but hope somebody else can talk him down, is there?"

"I shall be speaking to my mother about it," Cressidha says, sounding very much like a privileged rich kid. "We simply do not have the resources to both claim and then hold Lordaeron. It isn't logistically possible, not with our focus on the Lich King."

Sil nods. "I could say something to my parents, if they'd listen. Not that they've got the ear of the king, but they're still pretty prominent in trade facilitation, if resources and logistics might influence anything."

Cressidha smiles faintly at him. "It is not something I would ordinarily, ah, pry in regards to, but if I might ask… what transpired between you and your parents for you to shed your family name?"

"Oh, it was a lot of small things. And then a few big ones, but that was after." Sil sits back in his chair, grabbing the water and taking a sip of it. He smiles at the taste, and then returns his attention to Cressidha.

He speaks seriously, but it sounds like an old pain - a wound that still aches sometimes, but has otherwise long since healed. "I was always the spare child, growing up, you know? The only real plans they had for me involved elevating the family's social status, and I did not prove very skilled at that. So… then it was just the lack of weight of no expectations. So I left, and they didn't really try to get me back. And after a while in Cobalt, I sort of felt like it would be right to make it official? A new family, with all sorts of expectations."

Cressidha nods. "You needn't reach out to the Sullivans if it would be difficult for you, especially if you believe they do not have the ear of the king." She smiles a little. "The 'spare' child… I suppose that might have been Colson, in our family. His marriage was being held in reserve. But he was hardly ignored, the way you seem to have been."

"Glad to hear he wasn't," Sil smiles again, and shrugs slightly. "Didn't work out great for my parents, since now I'm the only one left, and they've lost me. But still, I could reach out, if it might help. The other reason I changed my name was so that I couldn't go back. Even if I do go talk to them now, there's no risk of getting pulled back in."

"I'm not certain that a legal name change would be enough," Cressidha says slowly. "I would… remain on the safe side, if I were you."

Sil's smile fades, and he looks at her with concern. "You think? I thought I was free and clear. I mean, except I do still keep in touch with my sister-in-law and her kid, ever since she lost my brother to the plague. Do you think that's a risk?"

"Your sister-in-law, probably not. I imagine that's fine." Cressidha shakes her head. "I do not know your parents, or how they think. Perhaps I am simply being over-cautious."

"Hm, maybe if considered from the perspective of a House like yours…" Sil says, thinking it through, "If they suddenly lost all their heirs, they might find themselves with new plans for the runaway."

"That was my thought, yes." Cressidha shakes her head. "Were they… bad parents? Or merely… neglectful?"

"Neglectful, I think?" Sil says, but it sounds like he's not entirely clear on the distinction. "They'd just do stuff like… if I caused a fuss, or if they were tired of dealing with me for whatever reason, they'd have me locked in my room and just leave me there." Sil seems to consider how that sounds, and adds hastily, "Which was honestly fine, once I figured out how to get out the window and down the wall."

Cressidha looks baffled. "You did not have a key to your own room?"

Sil also looks baffled. "Why would they give me a key?"

"So that you could lock your room if you wanted privacy," Cressidha says, blinking. She sounds like she thinks she's stating the obvious.

Sil looks at her, genuinely puzzled. "Wait… did you used to lock yourself in your own room? For privacy?"

Cressidha nods. "Once in a while. Rarely. It was rare for any of my family members to enter without knocking, but sometimes Bertrand would forget."

Sil blinks. "Oh, okay. They wouldn't usually enter without… I think our families were a little bit different, Cressidha. But I'll take your point, and steer clear, just in case they'd think alike in that one way."

"I think they were," Cressidha agrees. "That was… my first visit to Lordaeron. Colson went there for his paladin training, but I remained behind in Stormwind, continuing my magic studies, and I simply never… made the trip."

"For a weird fact, I was actually born there, in Lordaeron City," Sil gives an uncomfortable sort of laugh. "I don't remember it, though. We moved back to Stormwind while I was still really young, and I never went back before the fall. I did go up to Tirisfal last year, for uh… well, I was chasing after my sister. But I'd never been down in the ruins. It must've been hard for him, to see it like that."

"Oh? I didn't know that. How old are you, if I might ask?" Cressidha drinks some of her own water.

Oswald, tired of being neglected, takes this moment to jump onto Cressidha's lap. Excuse me. Hello. The petting stopped.

"I'll be twenty-four in a few months," Sil says, taking a sip of water as well. "Just a few years younger than you and Colson, right?"

Cressidha nods. "We are both twenty-seven, yes." She sets the water down so she has two hands to pet her cat with.

"Well, in any case, it was a hell of a first visit," Sil says. "It's hard to imagine what the City might've looked like, without all the slime and the undead and everything."

"I admit that I was looking at what I saw from a tactical perspective rather than a historical one."

"That's fair," Sil says. "And tactically, it seemed like a nightmare. All those bridges and corridors… not a place I would want to invade, even if it was a good idea."

Cressidha nods, settling Oswald more comfortably on her lap. He gets the good ear scritches. "And obviously, I have never been to Orgrimmar, although we saw very little of it."

"Yeah, right into a building, and then whisked right away," Sil nods. "I sort of thought maybe one day I'd get to see Silvermoon. Just, you know, as far as Horde cities go."

"Maybe one day," Cressidha says hopefully. "I would like to see Silvermoon as well."

"Aze… you know her too, right?… she says it's beautiful," Sil smiles hopefully. "Maybe we'd have a guide, if it comes to that day."

"Yes, I do." Cressidha nods. "She's in Northrend. Ah, have you heard from her since… the battle at the Wrathgate?"

"No, but she wasn't…" Sil's expression crumples a little. "She wouldn't have been there, would she? She's not military anymore. She would've been somewhere else."

"I certainly didn't see her there, and I had quite a good view," Cressidha says, in what she hopes is a reassuring tone but might unfortunately sound a little bit condescending. "Do… your parents know that you survived?"

Sil lets out a breath and nods, looking a little relieved. One more friend probably not dead, he'll take it. Then he shrugs. "I guess if they keep up with me they could've asked Cobalt, or the 7th."

Cressidha nods. "That's true. Very well." She looks down at the cat in her lap, humming thoughtfully. "Was there anything else you wished to discuss?"

"I think that pretty much covers," Sil says with a smile. "Mostly I just, you know… wanted to make sure you'd be alright."

Cressidha nods. "I shall be. And you as well, given time, I hope?"

"Yes, I think so," Sil nods, and starts to get to his feet. "Given time."