(2025-11-18) An Offer of Manpower

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Author:	Athena
Summary:	With the sort of uncanny timing that makes some people think Lady Fallon might be a witch, Avrenne sends Siamus a letter of her recent persuasions and efforts for Pandaria's diplomatic front, and then a gift of herself in miniature (well, more miniature). Be advised, a Rated A image under the spoiler. 1100~ words.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

Chain: Siarenne

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November 18th, Year 29

Dearest and Most Admired Admiral,

You will be pleased to hear that the event for the worgen and pandaren was an unmitigated success, and I anticipate benefits from it to pay dividends in both near and far futures. Lord Ference was well convinced to reach out to some of his people for those with experience in healing land and people both, and encourage them to consider Pandaria as an assignment for their talents. I also had the fortune to at last make the acquaintance of Captain Robin Reeve, and put in contact with Mr. Bel, who has been of a mind to work a venture that requires an able sailor, and whose brother was one of those Captain Reeve evacuated to safety from Theramore. It is not so large a contract that Morgauna will miss it, but it will be of use for Captain Reeve to perhaps have greater capital to invest in her fledging fleet.

I wish all the news was equally positive, but I came into the knowledge through Lady Merelda Veyne that Surwich has encountered a stumbling block, and the loss of their leader to fel corruption. She has secured the assistance of her cousin, Captain Tyrrell, and the W.E.B. for expertise, but they are in need of more experienced personnel than they expected. I have attempted to direct some pandaren to consider the location, with perhaps an alliance of exchange for some worgen to work in Pandaria for the benefit of knowledge with their harvest witches.

To that, I have spoken with Lukas on leading the way for some of his people to take some time in Pandaria, as he is technically of Cobalt Company himself, and therefore will be allowed through with minimal paperwork. It’s my hope that he will arrive shortly after this missive, and you may commiserate on both of your diplomatic efforts vigorously to satisfaction.

I am sending with this letter several items. The first is that Isla entered into a writing competition with a respectable literary newspaper, the “Two Copper Review,” and won third place. It’s a story of the dangers of mages who overindulge in temporal related magics, with something of a love story, as is her preferred genre, and I must assume it follows some conventions of the genre that I am not aware of personally. She is quite proud of it, and you read it in its own form of her making, as she did not decide to alter any part to any other opinion. Her tutors have been hence once more reviewing conductivity and electricity, you will be reassured to know. It came with a money prize, which she promptly, without any persuading, donated to the pandaren and worgen event to support it.

You will note the package. The topmost portrait is the one you may show others, and will give you something of a visual for what I wore to the event on the 31st. I had a mask made of a red crane for the occasion, and put some of my wedding dress net pearls to use in my hair for the festivity.

The bottom portrait is one you may not show others, but I expect I would not need to tell you this.

I hope that they both are of some interest, and you are pleased with the application of your gift of material. As always, I trust that you are keeping well. I have already begun the paperwork for my own entry to Pandaria, and I will update you as soon as I am certain it is in order.

With fondness,
Your wife,
Avrenne Esprit Fallon

You May and You May Not (RATED A)

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Within the package are two rectangular paintings, of a moderate travel size, 5x7, though particularly flat to be easier to stow and take up very little room when packed tightly. Even the frames, gold colored, are thin and light.

Duchess Esprit, Lady Fallon

The topmost portrait shows Avrenne against a rich red velvet background wearing a sumptuous dress of draping red and gold silk, the silhouette tight against her body, a decorative belt playing the part to flatten her softer stomach, and a rectangular veil of gold and red over across her upper chest, emphasizing the line of her collar bones. Her hair is woven into a chignon, and her makeup is minimal, all well suited to her composed expression. It is a painting of Duchess Esprit, Lady Fallon, in her element of cool elegance.

One hand rests at her hip, and the other lifted just up to her face, as if she might brush her fingers along her hair in the next moment, drawing purposeful attention to her wedding ring, which glints in the light.

She wears only one other type of jewelry, earrings of gold bars and spheres, in a symmetrical pattern – on a closer inspection, it is revealed that these are purposeful Morse code: Anamchara.

The second portrait is so little like the first that its intimacy is not only in the content of the painting, but the very fact that this is also a truth of Avrenne Esprit Fallon, who she is as his wife.

Here, her hair is a cape of gold behind her, catching her within a triangular frame. Her head is tilted back, an expression of exquisite joy on her face, a blush to her cheeks, a warmth that has spread down the line of her throat to kiss her collarbones. The same silk of her dress is here, but only in lines linked together by a few clasps, one of which she has been captured in the moment of undoing. Her thighs are spread, the muscles from her riding visible in the kneeling, leading to a string of pearls at the center.

His Wife

The painter has not altered her skin in any way – the scars of her arms are rendered accurately, much faded from the past year of application of treatments, and the scar on her leg is as he knows it to be. So too are the stretchmarks that now cover her belly, though she has lost more of the hanging softness since August, the skin tighter than it was, but the marks are as visible, not fantasized edited away.

It’s a gift meant clearly to entice, but with the actual subject as she truly is, rather than some softened lens of a more perfect version, and in that, it is another message of love and trust.