(2024-05-18) A Devastating Answer

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Author:	Jessa
Summary:	Ismene receives Lord Fallon's letter containing everything.
Rating:	T for Teen

Ismene sat, slicing open the envelope and tugging out the sheets of parchment paper. She felt soothed enough, after her visit to A'dal, to read it. She knew, of course, that it would discuss the loss of her people and her orchards. It must. Before today, she simply lacked the courage to even read about anything that touched on her loss. But now things were different.

She still ached, still mourned, but the black depression had been lifted by the deep acknowledgement of the naaru. Knowing, down to her soul and back, that the embodiment of the Light had understood her pain, had grieved with her to some extent, had brought her back to herself. Others, Ben most notably, tried to understand and maybe even did, but she had felt so alone.

Not anymore. And now she felt she could stand to read the sympathies of someone who couldn't possibly understand.

Stormwind City
15 May

Lady Ismene -

I must first of all beg your pardon; I have been unforgivably remiss in not replying sooner to your letter of 1 May. I will make no excuses; my own situation has been no worse than most and better than some. I am myself obliged to you for your timely notice at what was surely a time of terrible tribulation to you yourself.

Ismene sipped her coffee – cold now but still tasty – and smiled a little, sad and wry. The vice-admiral couldn’t know that her letter to him had been prompted only by a desire to scream to the world the damage that had been done, not only to her home, her orchards, but to her soul. Timely? Necessary.

It seems to me that the greater part of any sympathies on offer should in fairness be yours, and so permit me to extend them. Though the title in the land resides with my family, it was yours that was settled there and keeping the orchards on behalf of the Talbots before the Fallons ever came to the Eastern Kingdoms. I know how long and well the Callises tended that land, and so as shocked and outraged as I am, I am grieved as well on your behalf. To be exiled from one’s first and fondest home, to see the loss of a well-tended legacy after generations: these are deep wounds indeed, and I pray that you find healing in time.

That was kind, she thought. She had been so sure people wouldn’t understand, would be annoyed with or mock her for base sentimentality. They were just orchards. Not to Ismene, of course. To her, they symbolized – had symbolized – everything that was good in life. Love. Freedom. Happiness. The loss of the people was almost as bad, but not quite. Not quite. It wasn’t something she had revealed even to Ben. How could she, a healer and priestess, admit that trees and fruit meant more to her than people?

Not that she didn’t mourn the loss of people she had loved. She did. The Barnsbys especially; they had taken better care of her than her parents had, but they had also been limited in the amount they could intervene. No punishment had been abated by the couple, no parental neglect could be ameliorated by the care of the married couple.

So it was the orchards and everything they had been to her that she mourned most.

There is no cause whatever to apologize to me for the outcome of such an atrocity – indeed, an act of evil so incomprehensible that it could never have been foreseen by any decent soul. It is a remarkable stroke of fortune that you were able to save the people that you did. Please convey to them my condolences. I will arrange a small stipend for each and do what I can to see them resettled within the kingdom; I know that these are difficult times for many.

She knew, as doubtless the vice-admiral did, that no stipend could make up for the loss of loved ones, but it would help see to the security of the widows and their children. It wasn’t something that even basic decency required of him; he hadn’t known the families and now that they were off his land, they weren’t his responsibility. On Ference land, they were still hers. Frankly, the stipend would make it easier on her and Ben as well. She would have to ask Ben what they were going to do about those families. Everyone had the same problem, in Elwynn, in Westfall. Too many people, not enough jobs.

I intend to visit the territory in question in some few days’ time in company with your father-in-law, Lord Ference, so that we may provide firsthand testimony before the House of Nobles, the better to advise His Majesty on the kingdom’s next course of action. You have my word that this vile act will not go unanswered.

If there is anything I might do for you or your family, I hope that you will tell me. The Callises were stewards of the orchards for generations, and though they were tenants of the Fallons for less than one, it behooves me nonetheless to see such long and faithful service rewarded.

She would be well-rewarded, she thought, if he did see that there was an answer. What would such an answer look like, though? Could the kingdom simply move in and retake the land? It was so close to Lordaeron, that was the problem. Logically, tactically, she knew that it was a sheer miracle that Southshore had lasted so long, lacking any real crown support. There should have been an entire garrison posted there, though she supposed they’d have not been any help against the kind of plague-borne devastation she’d seen in Southshore.

So then, what? War? That wouldn’t answer; war was just bodies piled on top of bodies buried before them. It would probably come to war anyway, she thought. Otherwise, what was to stop the Horde from continuing their attacks on human cities? The invasion of Northshire had shocked her, even through her grief. It had been such an innocent place. Surely that, so close to the capital, would rouse the king to declare war.

But it wasn’t an answer. Maybe there was no answer. Only loss.

The great wave that came to the kingdom’s shore destroyed a substantial portion of the land behind Fallon House and washed our gardens out near entire. I hope it may gladden you to know, however, that the northeastern slope behind our stables and pasturage was untouched, and it is there that the apple and pear seedlings that you and your husband very kindly sent to Her Grace and myself for our wedding last year were planted. It would be my honor to offer you cuttings of both trees at any future point, and so restore to you some small piece of your legacy.

Seedlings! She set her cup down carefully before she could drop it. The seedlings. Something had been preserved, some tiny portion of peace and joy. It wouldn’t bring back the people, but it was a remnant of her orchards, still growing, still living.

She cried, then, from loss and hope that blossomed and grew together. Seedlings. That was her answer. A small piece of her legacy? No. It was everything.

"Ben!" she called. "Ben, Lord Fallon has the most wonderful news!"