(2025-07-11) Cobalt Company Protagonists (Lady Blanche Side Scene)

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Author:	Athena
Summary:	On the night before the battle, Oranna, Jo, and Dane talk about grief, coming full circles, how far they've come, what the plan is for tomorrow, and what if maybe somehow the Horde did manage to find a way to get the krakens to fight for them and has anyone checked to see if they're attracted to apples in the water? 2800~ words. Plot relevant RP.
Rating:	T for Teen

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discussion of grief

The sun has sunk down into the straight line horizon, leaving the ocean an inky moving darkness that seems to stretch on forever, relieved by a dome of sky of all pure dotted stars and bright moons.

Oranna Stormbreaker stands on the deck dressed in her mail and leather battle-ready armor, holding onto a rope attached to the rail, staring off into that deep black, and quietly singing to herself a folk song. Her voice is warm and sad, and if her pitch isn't perfect and she isn't precisely on key, at least it's not unpleasantly so.

"Go in to the western wind
See the ship on the sea
'Cause I am not where I want to be
Designing for the kingdom
And shaping to the crowd…"

Befound is nowhere to be…found out there; she's napping in Oranna's room.

Jo is wandering the deck idly when she hears the sweet, sad voice of a friend. She turns in the direction of the sound and makes her way towards the dwarvish woman, with very little sound of footsteps with her soft-soled shoes.

Oranna is on at least moderate alert for movement on the deck, aware that the sailors pass on by, and glances over, probably to make sure she wasn't in the way, and instead brightens up a bit in a smile that shows enough in the light of the Lady Blanche lanterns, waving at Jo.

Jo waves back with an answering smile, and moves over to her. "It's a lovely song, Oranna. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Atley is drawn towards their side of the deck. He's in his casual clothes, sturdy, warm chestnut leathers with golden embroidery, and his trademark vest. He wears gloves with a long-sleeved blue workman shirt and bites down on an apple with a hearty crunch.

Marching up to the pair, he nods and gestures. "Thought I'd heard singing," he greets quietly in the dim lighting of the lanterns. "Ladies."

Oranna waves hullo to Dane as well. "Oh, no, it's — I've no voice fit for singing, just… " She shrugs. "It's been on my mind a lot, an' it gets quiet enough at night for old ghosts to pop up in my head." She looks out over the ocean, the wind in her hair picking up a few stray strands.

"I guess I've jus' been doing a lot o' thinking of the last time we did this, sailing over together. It feels a bit — coming back in a circle, doesn't it? Been remembering all the fuss getting to Theramore, worryin' about the human king and his poor son left behind, an' the way Cress made my first ever dress an'…" A heavy sigh. "Bargrimm."

Jo's mouth does a little wobble before she firms it up into a sad smile. "It was a different time, wasn't it? And now we're sailing with that human king, and so much is lost. But not everything. The three of us, we're still here. And Cressidha… she can make new dresses, when we return."

Atley takes another crunchy bite and leans forward on the railing with both elbows, overlooking the water. He looks to his right and inspects the little women before he grunts and nods. "We're still here," he agrees.

He gestures vaguely behind him with his half-eaten apple. "Sailing and the like always bring me back as well, to times with the Company, and before. Being out on the water can be strange that way."

"I don't have any memories before the Company," Jo says, and then realizes how odd that sounds. "Of boats, I mean, I'd never been on a boat. A ship? That trip to Theramore, it was the first for me."

Oranna nods. "Me, too, of first times on a boat that trip. Only other time I've been on one was ta Northrend. But it's… like Dane says, sort o' strange, because it's like the scenery feels all the same, an' sort of timeless for it. E'en other places that don't change a lot, they still do some. Mountains shifting rock, or trees growing or cut away.

"But out here it's almost like I half expect ta turn around, and be back on the other boat, an' everything afore," Oranna says, maybe notably not turning around at that moment, preserving some of the illusion for just a little longer gazing out over the sea.

Atley takes a long moment to think over her words before he grunts.

"We're not crew, either. This is their home. Their world. They haven't got as much time as we do to lay about and think." He takes another bite from his apple and shifts against the railing, turning to inspect the two of them again. "We have come a mighty long way, haven't we? The three of us." He growls with quiet amusement. "We're not in Goldshire anymore."

Jo steps up to stand next to Oranna, looking out over the endless water, and nods at both of their thoughts.

"Water is like that," Jo says quietly. "Seems like the world could change a hundred times over and it'd look the same. But then the ship… do you remember the little transport we took out of Menethil? A far cry from the icebreaker to Northrend, and now Lady Blanche. And even on the water, you can see the other ships in the fleet if you look carefully. We have come a long way together." Jo pauses, and then adds, very quietly, "Back then, I was grieving."

Oranna reaches over to pat Jo with her free hand. "Grieving is a… Mordecai has a metaphor he likes. It's about seeing it as a box, with a button, and a ball inside. An' when it's new, the ball is huge, and so no matter how careful ye are with the box, it'll hit the button. An' that time doesn't take the button out, but it shrinks the ball, so it hits less, an' hurts less when it does."

Oranna sighs. "I don't know that it works that way for me. But I've been thinkin' about grief a lot past few years. I think some of it's… that's it's complicated. An' maybe it's sometimes somethin' about how we look at it, as loss from the start. I don't know that it's loss, at first, so much as change. That we have people, places, things… outside of us. An' then somethin' happens. A place… alters from when we knew it or disappears entirely. A person dies or things change between 'em. A thing breaks or… or gets lost.

"An' then the only way that person or place or thing still exists is inside us. We don't lose them, not then, but it all changes. We start carrying them with us. An' it's not — it's not an easy thing. Sometimes it hurts to carry them. But it's hard ta let go, sometimes impossible ta do it, because if we do, then that's loss, because they aren't outside us anymore, an' every part we let go inside us goes away an' canna come back on its own. I think it's wha' makes grief so difficult… findin' a balance between pain o' keepin', and pain of lettin' go… an' ne'er a perfect answer."

Atley side eyes the little ladies as they speak. He raises the apple and takes a smaller, more conservative bite, given the subject matter at hand, but it still produces a brief, audible crunch as he listens.

"I can see that," Jo says, narrowing her eyes as if she's looking for something out on the water. An answer to grief, floating by like flotsam on the waves? "Both ideas, maybe. It does… hurt less often, with time. At least for me. I don't know the balance, either, but I have to let go enough to move forward. I have to. They would want me to — the people, the places that are only inside me now."

Oranna nods. "Aye. Canna bind yerself up forever in it all so tight tha' ye canna breathe," she says, looking out into the water now like maybe she's also checking the waves. Maybe not for answers, but for krakens. She's heard stories, okay.

"Sometimes though, it's… nice ta have somethin' still around of it, a part tha' doesn't change inside ye. Like carryin' a part of those first few months of Cobalt Company. Tha' Company is… changed. But we still have it with us. Those tha' left ta do other things outside the Company, like Cassea an' Nilunelle… Ivri an' Gerhold."

Atley takes another bite. Crunch. He raises the apple and examines it in the lantern light before deeming it spent. Tossing it over the side, he leans against the rail and watches it fall into the water.

"The world's changed, as well. And swiftly. If you'd have told me that I'd be here in four years after picking up that flier in Goldshire, I'd have thought you mad." He tongues the inside of his cheek before shaking his head. "I can't let go of the past. I can only bear it better. I owe things to the dead."

Oranna watches the apple warily, maybe wondering if a kraken might really love apples.

"I understand that. Both ways it goes… ta owe ta the dead bein'… happy. Ta let go enough ta breathe an' find more out there again. An' the other way… that sometimes ye feel what ye carry, as the one who survived when they didn't," Oranna says seriously.

And then she leans closer to the rail nervously. "Dane… ye don't know if — I mean, does anyone know if kraken's like apples especially? Has anyone — anyone ever… tested or…"

"The Vashj'ir team didn't say anything about apples, specifically," Jo says, peering over to see what Oranna's seeing. "Then again, that kraken only came up from the depths of the sea because of Squiggles' manipulation. Otherwise, I get the impression it wouldn't have bothered them at all. Anyway, I think it swam off at the end? At least, according to the reports I read."

Atley grunts. "I warrant a bastard that size can and will eat just about anything it pleases." He squints at the horizon and sets his jaw. "I've never seen one, but I hear they are a lover of deep places." he says reassuringly, with a tilt of his head towards Jocoza.

"Right an' we're no' in deep places, we're on the top. An'… an' there's probably not something else that could manipulate a giant kraken, right? Some new sudden… force that wants ta… do somethin' bad ta a ship crossin' the sea ta fight… aye?" Oranna asks, clearly now wondering that exact nightmare scenario.

"I don't think there would be?" Jo says, looking from Dane to Oranna. "Besides, the Horde should think we're sailing for Darkshore — we ought to surprise them."

Atley shakes his head. "The Horde has grown powerful, but not even they could command that thing." He grunts and gestures to Jocoza. "There'll be no krakens on this journey. Aside from them." He nods at a nearby, dimly lit pennant emblazoned on the Lady Blanche.

"I'd like to know more about our landing plans."

"Bladefist Bay should be all but empty, with all their ships going to the blockade," Jo says, looking towards the unseen distant shore. "We'll sail right in there, disembark, and march on Orgrimmar. That's the plan."

Atley grunts. "Have we got much in the way of siege engines?"

Oranna seems uneasy, as her eyes drift to the right for a while, before she manages to focus back. "There's a lot of need fer shields for 'em. That's… that's how ye stop a siege engine type, like those batterin' rams, from being effective. Ye… ye stop the people mannin' them." She swallows hard. "A good sniper can take out crucial points an'… stop it."

Jo looks worriedly at Oranna and then nods at Dane. "Not on the Lady Blanche, but there are siege engines. That'll be the military handling that, though, not us."

Atley frowns. "Wot's it we'll be doing, then?" he asks Jocoza, before setting a hand on Oranna's shoulder. "'Tis fortunate we'll have the best rifleman I know to counter the enemy's."

Oranna grips her rope line harder, offering Dane a shaky smile. "Aye, I… I know all too well tha' any sniper above can be taken out by the right sort of shot from below," she says with a heavy weight to the words. "So will we be… tryin' ta get a small team in somewhere less defended? They dinna have th' walls or doors of places like Ironforge, aye?"

"We're expected to be… dynamic, what we're good at," Jo says with what she hopes is a reassuring smile. "We're to assist the Lady Blanche in case it's needed, if we run into unexpected opposition during the landing. Then we'll be with the ground troops. We have a spread of skills — scouts, front-line sorts, mages, and, yes, snipers — and Cobalt is known for getting things done. What specific orders we'll have, I suppose we'll see when we get to Orgrimmar and see the situation."

Atley grunts, appeased. He nods.

"I've never been on this side of a siege afore," Oranna says.

"I'll hope, for our sake and theirs, that this is a short one," Jo says, her brow drawing down. "That we've outsmarted them, and they won't have so much of a defense prepared."

He looks to Jocoza and frowns in thought. “It ought to be, given their attentions elsewhere. We, the Company, can also see to shortening it. Been through worse, haven’t we.”

He works his jaw and looks to the west, squinting. “I knew this day, this time would come. T’was always inevitable. It’s bold, to strike at their heart.”

"I think when it comes to whether we've been through worse, it's… a matter of perspective," Jo says, resting a hand on the railing. "This war has been coming for a long time, though. Maybe since the orcs came through that portal and walked through our land… through Khaz Modan… by force, rather than asking for help. I'm honestly not sure what will be settled here today, but at least I hope they'll learn they can't do what they did to Northwatch… Triumph… Theramore."

"The human king was right about that, at least. I know what I owe ta the Alliance for what was done when the orcs came for us. They have ta be stopped with what they're doin'. It's wrong, and I know… better than some that once they've decided on doin' something, the only way they'll listen ta stoppin' is if ye fight back and tell them no. So, I'm here ta… tell them no," Oranna says sadly, but with that steel that's seen her through siege after siege.

Jo smiles sadly back at her. "We'll tell them no. And maybe in the future we'll be able to have peace — peace with boundaries. Not the kind of peace where you let somebody hurt you, but the kind where they know there's a line they're not allowed to cross."

Atley looks to Oranna, and assesses her in the darkness. He then shifts his gaze to Jocoza, with a faint furrow to his brow.

"P'raps," he growls at last. "Wot' I know for certain is that there's not another group on two worlds that I'd rather be sailing to Orgrimmar with than this lot." He pats the railing firmly a few times, the pounding reverberating.

"This won't be easy. We three know well that war is the province of chaos, but so long as we reinforce one another and trust in one another, we can make the next day better than this one. The next year better than the last. That's how winning is done." He lays a hand over his chest and thuds it once. "I know that to be true."

Jo smiles at him. "Well said. We talked about grief, but I also have a lot of things I want for the future. A lot of hopes I'd like to see realized. The past remains, but there's so much of the story still to be written. You've have had my trust since the earliest days, and our company has grown so much since — so many good people. I'm glad we're all here to face this together."

"Aye. Sometimes… ye have ta fight for the future, and push the story along ta keep it goin'. It's what Elo called us at the start… when all of it was jus' a dream of a thought of what people migh' be able ta do to keep that story alive." Oranna looks up and out to the stars above the water. "Protagonists."

Atley nods once and looks between the two before he growls fondly and scoffs with amusement, shifting his gaze over the water again. "Seems we're in agreement, then."

Jo giggles a little bit, and nods. "I do hope we still are that, Protagonists. I know we've changed the ranks a bit, as we shifted towards the military. But I hope our people feel that way — like they can make a difference. Believing that is the first step to making it true."