(2025-01-08) Our Particular Strengths

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Author:	inkie
Summary:	Three members of the House of Nobles have a quiet conversation about the attempted Remembrance Day assassination of the King. Their plan is straightforward; that doesn't mean it will be simple.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Twilight In Stormwind

"Adjourned," declares Count Ridgewell sharply before anyone else can raise their voice. He brings his gavel down on the table and the rest of any debate is forestalled when Lords Lescovar and Gilliam and their cronies rise at once from their seats, gathering their papers and turning away pointedly to make conversation among themselves.

Siamus Fallon, slumped back in his own seat and scowling, drags a hand down his face and sits up wearily. He plucks at a corner of his copy of General Marcus Jonathan's report, laid on the table in front of him, and turns to his tablemates. "A drink, gentlemen? I'll buy."

Devon Tennerow tucks his own copy of the report away in his briefcase, a dazed look of resignation in his eyes, but his gaze sharpens at Fallon's words.

"That would be welcome, after today's session," he says heavily, turning towards his usual voting bloc, Fallon and Ference. "To celebrate the day ending as well as it might have, given the circumstances. And to fortify us for the future, as this clearly isn't over."

Elohad, for once, seems short on words, his olive-green gaze abstracted and thoughtful. He looks every day of his forty-eight years. He simply nods, tucking away his papers and rising to approach Fallon and Tennerow.

#

The Crowned Lion — or the Corrupted Lion, as the latest sign-vandalism has dubbed it — is a theater of glad-handing and passive aggression at this hour, with the House of Nobles session ended and certain of its denizens now joining its taproom crowd, along with various clerks and aides and a few savvy civilians intent on some informal liquor-lubricated lobbying.

The three gentlemen find a discreet table for themselves near the back of the place, and Siamus, as promised, goes to the bar to collect drinks. He only has to shake eleven people's hands and make excuses to eight of them en route.

Having returned to the table and distributed drinks, he shrugs his coat off to drop it over the back of his chair, and then drops himself into the chair and rubs his eyes with both hands. "So," he says. "A bloody — " He glances around them and leans in to put his elbows on the table and lower his voice. " — assassination."

"In the middle of Stormwind City," Devon says, his face darkening. He accepts his drink and looks at the other two. "On a major holiday. My biggest question is how? If we can't answer that, it may happen again."

"Of course it will." The words are flat, quiet. Elohad's gaze is unfocused, fixed vaguely on a point somewhere between Devon and Siamus and behind them. "They were behind the Defias… Lady Prestor… we keep defeating them. And for what?"

Siamus fiddles with his glass on the tabletop, frowning into it. "The Defias and Prestor were… subtler attempts at sabotaging the kingdom, the government. But this — there couldn't have been a thing more direct. I can't decide if they're more desperate now that we're at war wi'them around half the world, or if they're feeling that much more brazen in what they can get away with."

He lifts his glass but still doesn't drink. "It's — the timing is curious to me. Not just that it might have very publicly disrupted a very public holiday, but on Remembrance Day, wi' the city as full as it ever is and swarmed with outsiders, and all the guard called even from around the Keep to watch the public spaces, the streets and the Valley. None with even a sightline on His Majesty when he went off on his own.

"Which wouldn't have been the case if the guard had the numbers it did before the dragon. And I don't like the thought that someone knows how their numbers have shrunk, and how they'd be stationed for the festivity. That's someone who knows the city." He pauses and knits his brows. "And someone who knew His Majesty and the Prince would be alone and away from the festivity, and when. They were in place and lying in wait, watching."

He looks up at the other two. "Or ye can tell me I'm starting at shadows. I've done my share of that lately, as well."

"Of course you're not," says Elohad, turning his own drink around in his hands as he stares at it. "How can it be paranoia when it's happened before?" He raises his eyes to meet Siamus's — sort of. They're still oddly unfocused. "The Defias plot was orchestrated by members of our own House who had ties to the Twilight's Hammer. Those members were taken care of, but those were just the ones who tipped their hands in some way or other. Before they did that, they seemed no more sinister than any of the other shortsighted nobles who push for decisions that harm the common man. That's what the Twilight's Hammer does. They fool us into thinking they're dramatic crazies in purple robes with 'EVIL' stamped on their foreheads. When in reality they have agents everywhere who look just like the rest of us. Cult of the Damned was the same way."

"This is why I'm in the military, and not intelligence," Siamus says dryly. "I like it better when they wave swords at me. Easier to tell."

Elo manages a dry laugh.

Devon chuckles and shifts his drink to his bad arm, a certain weary tension to his frame. "Yes, it's much easier to tell who the enemies are on a battlefield. If the both of you are jumping at shadows, then so am I. I found myself looking from face to face as we spoke in the chamber, trying to find who might be reacting a little bit off. And I don't know. Lescovar's an ass, but he speaks out in favor of focusing on the threat of the cult and the dragon. Unless that's a misdirection? Ridgewell… I've known him too long to seriously believe him one of those nihilists. He has his flaws, but he'd never raise a hand against the king."

Siamus laughs. "Duchess Aspenwood, then. She's the subtlest of our lot." He pauses and then looks between the other two. "I'm not genuinely slandering Her Grace, ye understand. A joke." He has a sip of his drink. "Tides below but I'd love it to be Lescovar. The smug shitheel. Pardon my Tirasian."

"I'd love it too," says Elohad, "but he's not his father. Both of them are rotten and selfish to the core, but whatever else you might say about him, Gregor was clever. Had a sort of elegance about him. Aldous is nothing but a brute, as can be seen in the details of his ham-handed efforts to slander Cobalt Company. It's often the case, when a father is busy with plots and schemes, that his own children grow up wild and ignorant from lack of guidance. A fate I try my best to avoid."

"Ah, you're a model, Ference. Good lads, the both of 'em," says Siamus absently, swirling his drink. "But we know it's none of us, nor Countess Thenedain, nor — I am as startled as anyone to admit — Count Amerith." He has another sip. "Of course, they could be anywhere else, just as likely: the Keep, the guard…." He trails off. "I am doing the opposite of narrowing it down."

"The trouble is that even if we could identify one of their people, it's like…" Elohad takes a drink, struggling with a metaphor. "They're like Gilnean roses. For every bloom you see above ground, the roots stretch all over. Miles of networks. It's why that rose is unkillable. A wonderful trait in a rose, or in SI:7, but not so much in the Twilight's Hammer."

He pauses, considering.

"But I suppose what makes the Hammer different from the Gilnean rose is that there is no center to the way that flower grows; it's by its nature diffuse and chaotic."

His fingertips on the table sort of trace what he's describing, wandering and then beginning to draw an inward spiral.

"But the Twilight's Hammer revolves around the Old Gods, and the Old Gods have their primary foothold in this world right now through Deathwing." Here he taps the center of the spiral he was drawing. "That's why they're rising in power, because he's free. We have to focus our efforts on defeating him somehow — " his hand flattens over the spot as though squashing it, " — then the organization will fracture and die."

He sits up and leans back slightly in his chair. His gaze is more focused now as it moves between Devon and Siamus.

"Cobalt Company has already seen on a smaller scale how easy it is to fragment their numbers and undermine their efforts when they fail to stand united. Take away a massive uniting force like Deathwing and they'll go back to being a nuisance. … I think. Right now I'm not very sure of anything."

"Killing Deathwing will solve any number of problems," Siamus agrees dryly. "I'm all for it, aye. But whatever Lescovar and his friends may think, our defense against the Horde isn't the chief obstacle to that cause. We couldn't unleash the whole of our armed forces and all their resources on him anyway — bloody unwieldy. We'd be herding people into formation for the dragon to — " He falls silent, staring across the table, and then has a sip of his drink, looking at neither of the other two. His fingertips are pressed white against the glass.

When he lowers it, he continues casually, as if the pause hadn't happened, "It will have to be a mobile, specialized force, like what we sent into the Citadel, and I don't know that we're yet training or organizing any such thing. The Horde may be the distraction from that project, I'll admit. But perhaps the 7th, or — " He flicks a glance at Elohad. "I don't suppose Cobalt's been brushing up on their world-ending dragon combat tactics?"

Elohad smiles a slow smile that is both sly and tired. "You know we have," he says quietly.

Devon looks curiously at Elohad, and clears his throat uncomfortably. "My own sister did meet with Deathwing, in employ to your company, Lord Ference. I expect it is in a report. I do not think she gained any dragon fighting intel from the experience, however."

Elohad frowns slightly. "I do regret that she had to encounter such a terrifying enemy at such an early phase of her training. Deathwing is… difficult to predict, and he has taken more than one of our number by surprise when they were trying to help in other matters. But I assure you that when Cobalt Company does engage him it will not be by chance, and we will have a plan."

Siamus lifts his glass to Elohad. "Ah, I could kiss ye, Ference."

(Whether this is to do with Cobalt Company's dragon preparation is ambiguous.)

Then he frowns again, ruminatively. "The Horde may be the distraction," he repeats. He's silent for a moment. "The timing of… all of it — Hillsbrad, Gilneas, Ashenvale, Tol Barad — I've thought they were just taking advantage of the disarray. But if they mean to distract us…." He is clearly about ten seconds from suggesting the entire Horde is Twilight's Hammer.

"They were opportunistic in the fight against the Scourge, as well," Devon points out. "And I don't think they had any alliances there. They can be villains in general without being these particular villains. Besides, I doubt the Horde would have the resources to strike at our king in such a manner. This much, at least, seems an internal problem."

"Oh, aye, no." Siamus waves his glass at Devon. "The assassination — that had to be someone inside. And I will happily concede that the Horde's a pack of villains in general. The business at Mord'rethar is what made me assume from the first that they were exploiting disaster again."

"I know for a fact that both Horde and Alliance have lost people to this cult and their message of gaining power through the destruction of others." Elohad frowns, deepening the lines on his brow. "But most troubling of all is the way that the Twilight's Hammer has used both sides' hatred of each other to achieve their own ends. That mess with the Llane's Oath and the evidence our people found of attempts by the Twilight's Hammer to stage apparent acts of war by one side on the other… I am in full agreement that the Horde has behaved selfishly and cruelly during times when all the world should be banding together… but it's difficult at this point in time to be certain which acts are the Horde's own villainy and which are the Twilight's Hammer pretending to be Horde."

Devon frowns deeply. "I had not considered that angle. And how long they might have been playing both sides. Tensions have been worsening steadily, but if it is intentional, to sap both our strengths in the face of the corrupted dragon… I would be among the last to suggest we ignore the Horde's provocation, but the wellbeing of the world itself takes priority."

"I fear I'm not going to discriminate overly in which Horde we're killing," Siamus says. "Hellscream's a bloody piece of work, Twilight or no, and the Banshee — " He shakes his head. "I do agree, though, that we ought to be looking at assembling our dragon-killing specialists." He pauses and then adds dryly to Elohad, "If it comes to Cobalt's hands, best make sure Ralaea Westwind's on it. She's only been asking me for six months whether and when she can kill the dragon."

After another sip of his drink, he adds more seriously, "That was a hell of a piece of work Cobalt did, with the Llane's Oath."

Elohad inclines his head in theatrically humble acknowledgement, as though he himself had been present and possibly landed the ship single-handedly. "I couldn't be prouder of my people," he says, voice roughened slightly with sincere emotion. "It meant the world to me to see them recognized for it in the Keep."

"I appreciated knowing that it was such a heroic company with which my sister found her place," Devon says with warmth. "That was, truly, above and beyond, and the medals were well-deserved." He pauses. "My instinct would be to request Dara not be included in any future dragon-fighting teams, but I recognize that as a brother's protective impulse. I will trust your judgment on the matter."

"I can tell ye from experience," Siamus says, "best not to request sisters get kept out of harm's way. Makes them touchy."

"I always send only the most experienced to deal with threats on that scale," Elohad assures Devon. "Unfortunately I'm unable to choose based on who has people who love and care about them, or I'd not be able to send any of ours. That's the trouble with being a courageous, honorable, intelligent person who works well with others — there's a tendency to attract a whole web of people whose happiness depends on you. If sacrifices are needed, hearts will be broken, and there is no getting around that. But in your case, Devon, your sister is still a bit new to combat situations, and so she isn't in any danger of being attached to one of our forward squads. That's the only comfort I can offer."

"'If sacrifices are needed, hearts will be broken,'" Siamus repeats, and shakes his head. "I'd ask ye to write my speeches for me, Ference, if ye weren't so busy delivering them yourself. And doing a better job of it than I could by half. It was a fine one ye gave for Remembrance Day, in fact. Entirely different caliber from Stonebridge and whatever the priest was on about."

Elohad turns a little pink. "Very kind of you," he says gruffly. "I'm too old to help out much these days, but I certainly have no trouble running off at the mouth."

Siamus laughs. "Nor do I, but people like it when you do it."

"Well, you're mostly insulting them," Elohad allows. "Deserved, but generally unappreciated." He winks.

"We all have our particular gifts," Siamus says modestly. "Unsung as they may be."

"It was a fitting speech," Devon says nodding. "I think it suited the temperament of the crowd, reminded them why we were there. I'm not entirely sure what the Archbishop was talking about. Perhaps he had a point he was working toward, when the king appeared." Devon frowns. "Though we may ask the Archbishop himself if he noticed anything amiss, anyone asking questions. He did some of the organizing and scheduling, I believe."

Siamus nods slowly. "Aye, there's a thought. He's a connected man, knows people that might come and go…." He looks between the other two. "Though I can't say I know the man from Thoradin, so one of you might be better off speaking with him? I'm not… a Church sort." He considers. "I have contacts in the guard I can talk with."

"Then maybe we can leave the guard to you," Devon agrees. "And for all my sister is now a priestess, I have few close ties to the Church myself. Lord Ference, might you speak with the Archbishop? I expect he would be more candid with a fellow caller of the Light."

"I'd be happy to speak with him," Elo says. "Might be good for me, as well. It's easy to forget about the spiritual side of things when you're up to your eyebrows in politics."

"Aye, good. Brilliant." Siamus looks to Devon. "Tennerow, ye have your old connections in the army, aye? Perhaps ye could speak to General Jonathan or his people yourself, see if there's anything the report's… left out, or if they have any suspicions."

"I do, and my brother is still an army officer at present. A captain, now, after the conclusion of the Northrend campaign," Devon says, and there's no mistaking the touch of pride in his voice, though there is a layer of wistfulness beneath it that might escape notice. "I expect that I will be able to catch General Jonathan's ear to ask a few questions, and his people were the first to search for the King. They may have seen something amiss that they did not recognize at the time, in their hurry to locate him."

Siamus lifts his glass in salute again at mention of Leric and then settles back, frowning. "No good going to Shaw or any of his people, I expect, though one of my contacts might be able to come at the thing sideways wi'them. Unless either of ye knows anyone closer to the center of the spider's web? Mine's well out at the edge."

"I'm afraid I have very little natural contact with Shaw's people myself. Does Cobalt Company have a liaison?" Devon glances back at Lord Ference.

Elohad hesitates, ever so slightly. "Well," he says easily after a moment, "Shaw himself is well disposed toward our people, and has been ever since we ended Van Cleef."

"Then you may be the best person in this case as well," Devon says, considering Elohad's reaction with mild curiosity. "Even if you don't have a direct liaison."

Siamus nods. "So Ference handles the two subtle men, and Tennerow and I will take the sword-wavers, as usual." He flashes them both a smile.

Elohad grins back, a sincere spark of good humor in his eyes.

Devon flashes his own grin, half-raising his mug as if in a toast. "We all have our strengths."