![](http://cobalt-company.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images/writing:2025-06-03-there-there-baby-bear/style="margin:/medium.jpg) |
| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Oslynn Boles, wandering Wyrmrest Temple during some downtime, runs into Costentyn Shine, and they discuss bad dads and Lady Lessons. It turns out knives are not Shine's only silverware expertise. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Costentyn Shine has claimed a quiet, isolated spot at one edge of Wyrmrest Temple's open ground floor, tucked mostly out of sight behind some quartermaster's as-yet-uninventoried crates. He is seated cross-legged on the floor, and laid out before him like some particularly advanced game of solitaire is a remarkable array of knives. They are arranged in meticulous rows by size and blade-shape, and Shine is reviewing the collection one at a time. Beside him on the stone floor are a pair of whetstones, a rag, and a small, stoppered bottle of oil.
A druid-marked bear with bald patches, mostly about the head and shoulders and fading to full thick gold-touched brown pelt at the hindquarters, shuffles over and comes to a dead stop at the sight of Shine. It looks on the verge of shuffling backwards the way it came. Maybe on tiptoes.
"Is it Oslynn?" Shine asks mildly without looking up from his knives.
"Yeah," the bear says. "Errr… didn't mean to innerupt yer…" She gestures with a huge, clawed forepaw at the knives.
Shine glances up and gives her a faint smile. "You're not interrupting. I'm only killing time. Anything I can do for ye?" He surveys her and his brow tips down. "Look like you’ve had a time out there."
"Yeah. Burns is 'ealed up good but givin' 'em some air just in case. Also not sure I wanna see if it messed up me uvver 'air. One o' me friends loikes it, so I've got real protective about it. By the wye, I'm friends wif yer girl now too, dunno if she said. Gonna talk wif druids about Good Warlocks for 'er. The Web ones."
Shine nods and sets down the blade he was holding. "You're a good friend, then. She's been uneasy with the druids for a time now."
"No' much I can do mesewf," Ozzy-bear clarifies, wiggling gently at the praise, "but me Shando, that's elf for teacher, she's been around fer a dragon's age, knows Shando Stormrage personal loike. Bet she could do somefing. Once I get back to trainin' I'll start workin' on 'er. Assumin' I don't pop me clogs 'ere."
Shine raises his eyebrow and smiles faintly. "There's an expression I don't hear so much on the mainland. Let's hope ye don't, aye? You have a lot of road ahead of ye in those clogs, and you'd grieve a lot of people besides."
The bear blinks wide bear-cub eyes at Shine. She does a little wriggle again. "I dunno a LOT," she says. "No' loike Malcolm. Everyone loved Malcolm, an we was all gutted. But Merry'd be a mess about me for sure, blame 'ersewf, an' she's been f'rough enough. 'Sides, I gotta live long enough for me Laydy Lessons an' all. I'm gonna learn to talk proper an' get pinchy clip-clop shoes an' paint me face."
Shine's smile twitches wider at pinchy clip-clop shoes. He tamps it down again. "And Lord Graves, and Lena, and Elle, and myself and all the rest of us ye just backed up in the Highlands." He turns his head to regard her more directly with his lone eye. "Ye mean to have Lady Lessons?" A bland shift falls over his expression, a cordial, neutral mask, and he says in that polished upper-class Stormwind accent he'd lapsed into once or twice in Highbank, "I concede it's useful knowledge to possess. Whom do you intend will tutor you?"
"Buncha peopwe," she says. "Lots ta learn. Some Lord Falrevere's meant to work on me accent an' manners, but Lena moight 'elp me wif fings loike when to flirt an' when to blend in, wot topics isn't roight, an' so on. Gotta learn dancin' from someone good, an' 'ow to be proper courted, in case a gentleman finks me pretty once oi'm all painted up. Oh and table stuff. You know, a' the table."
"I'm acquainted with Lord Falrevere," Shine says, and looks around as though he might pick out any single person from behind these crates and across the whole swarm of activity that occupies the Temple. "He's here somewhere. Have ye met Lady Sintha? Admiral Fallon's sister?"
Ozzy shakes her big patchy bear head. "Oi ain't met 'is sister. Barely talked to 'im yet about nuffing important neiver. Probably fer the best, as e'd be a bad one to pi– to offend. Fingers in every pie, seems loike, tha' one. In a good way, 'less you make 'im angry. Then no pie fer you, heh heh. Why though? Fink she'd loike me?" She looks very dubious.
"Her brother does," Shine says. "Fallon's inclined to like people. Lady Sintha would probably like you as well, and she could be someone else to teach you… lady lessons. A social fixture in Stormwind noble circles for years." He pauses, drops his gaze to resume inspecting knives. "If you're interested, I could certainly teach ye… table stuff. I was the First Footman at Fallon House for years."
"Oh yeah??" the bear says excitedly. Then a pause. "Wot's a First Footman?"
Shine looks up and smiles at her again. Not faintly, this time. "It means I was…." He considers his explanation. "The First Footman's a servant, a high-ranked one, sort of… the second in command of the staff. Among my other duties were waiting at table, serving meals and overseeing the dining room."
"Oh, roight, so you know ALL that shite. Stuff." Ozzy considers for a moment, then says a bit fretfully, "If oi was a proper laydy I'd 'ave all them fings. Feetmen an' servants an' fings. Oi'll 'ave to act loike I do I reckon. Better learn 'oo does wot in a fauncy 'ouse an' all."
"I could teach ye that business easily enough. As I'm someone who actually knows it, and not some rich tit ordering around whoever's in his general vicinity." Shine lays down a knife and picks up the next absently. "A great many nobles — not all, mind ye, not Fallon or your Lord Graves or Lady Merelda, but many of them — are among the most ill-bred people ye could meet."
"Oh yeah," Ozzy agrees, nodding emphatically. "Where oi came from, most of 'em was shite. Lady Merelda's da's shite. But Lord Graves is the best, an' —" She course corrects mid sentence. "Couple uvvers. You know, ones tha' really wanna stand up fer the little fish."
Shine nods. "Ones I went to school with were all shites, apart from Fallon. And his whole family's shite, apart from himself and Lady Sintha. He looks after his people — Lena could tell ye — but his father was a piece of bloody work, and all his uncles besides."
"Ow it goes, innit? Fawvers, I tell ya. Merry's just ain't 'appy wif nuffing. She's beautiful an' an architeck an' a druid an' all, but nooooo she ain't good enough fer 'im. Some men need their 'oses tied in a knot so they can't make kids to be miserable at, you awsk me. Nobody awsks ME nuffing though."
Shine looks up and flashes a brief but actual grin before sobering again. "Fallon's father was just the same. Joined Fallon up in the navy when he was eight years old and took him off to fight a war. Spent all his life insisting Fallon be the best at everything, but when he was, it wasn't best enough. Never would be happy." He shakes his head. "My da, now, he's a ferryman — rows a ferryboat day in day out — and a dozen times the man Simon Fallon was." He whets the blade he's holding as he speaks, then sets the whetstone down and angles the blade to study its edge in the light. "Nobody asked me nothing, neither, for a long time. Makes it easy to know you've found the right people, though, when they do. Ask ye, I mean."
"Well you know a lot o' stuff," Ozzy says. "Maybe oi will too one day, oi keep awskin' people. That's shite, the A'm'rl's da. Good about yours. Moine was a drunk 'alf-arse cobbler sure as anyfing the wrong bloke squirted me, an' ma popped her clogs roight after droppin' me so oi can't even awsk. But in any case 'ow's that my fault? I didn't choose nuffing includin' bein' born at all. Ain't give 'im the roight to smack me around."
Shine looks up sharply, his expression flint-edged. "No," he says after a moment. "No, it doesn't give him the right to anything like it. No one's got a right like that."
"Well 'e got wot was comin' to 'im. Me sister ran away to Lordaeron to join the awmy an' 'e didn' loike THAT one bit. So 'e 'unted 'er down loike a dog, an' the brain-damaged bawstad started beatin' 'er 'alf to deff roight in front of 'er captain. But guess 'oo woz 'er captain? None uvver than Zaff Teerl, scariest @#$&in warlock in Lordaeron. I awsked Teerl, oi did, 'ow 'e killed Da an' if it 'urt. 'E said it 'urt real bad, an' I shivered all over, the way 'e said it. Damn glad e's me benefactor an' don't 'ate me that much. On account of me bein' Keiley's only next o' kin awfter Wraffgate. Keiley woz me sister. Master Sergeant, 'e said, by the time she kicked it. Only Boles ever did squat."
Shine listens patiently to this story, his brow furrowed — not as though he's struggling with her accent, simply processing the sudden disjointed flood of personal information. "Ah," he says at last. "Captain Tyrrell. I know the man. He's a close friend of Fallon. And Lady Sintha serves with him in the same unit of the 7th now." He pauses. "I'm sorry about your sister. Not sorry about your da, I'll tell ye."
"Yeah. Me sister was nearly as ornery as cuss as me da, but she looked out fer me, pulled 'im off me. She woz the only —" The flood of personal information stops, perhaps thankfully.
But oh no.
The choked pause turns into a long, low, pained bear sound that rises gradually in volume. The bear plops down into a sit, eyes squeezed shut, and then it collapses into a human form, no longer going GRAUUUUGH, just the ugly snotty keening of a 24 year old woman raised by witches and wolves.
She at least has all her hair, though. Gods, so much hair.
Shine looks baffled by the bear sound — a naval career does not give a man much direct experience of bears — but perplexity tilts steeply into concern at the human translation.
After a moment, he sets the current blade down, rises silently to his feet, and steps to the other side of the knife arrangement to settle on the stone floor beside Ozzy.
"Oslynn," he says. "Ozzy. I'm well sorry, girl." After another considered moment, he puts an arm around her shoulders. The gesture has a paternal quality.
(Not, like, Ozzy's paternal. A good paternal.)
Ozzy sniffs and hiccups and leans into him, quieting. She drags a forearm under her nose, leaving a slug trail.
"Sorry," she says. "I'm just so knackered, wif all this." She gestures around vaguely with her snotty arm.
"Aye," agrees Shine. "Proper done in myself. When did ye last catch some rest?"
"Oh, oi nap when oi can," she says. "Oi ain't need much sleep really, lucky loike tha'. But even oi ain't gettin enough round 'ere." The shadows under her tear-reddened eyes attest. "But… it'll be over soon one way or the uvver, innit?"
"Nah," says Shine, and squeezes her shoulders before releasing her. "We're bound to win it. I've got a wedding to have and you've got all the rich tits to tie around your fingers. We've got plans."
He gestures to the far side of the knife arrangement, where he was seated previously. "Ye can go and have a lie-down in the shadows over there and I'll see no one disturbs ye while I work."
She pauses, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Well awroight then," she says softly, a little uncertainly. "You sure ain't loud enough to disturb me, you ain't." She shifts into cat form and pads over into the shadowy spot. She gives Shine one more confused look, then curls up, tail covering her nose.
Within 90 seconds, she is snoring softly.
Shine gets up to step over and settle in his former place, his back to the curled-up cat. Silently, he resumes his work.