(2025-11-22) Dancers Reunite

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Author:	Alli
Summary:	Florande happens across an unexpected Raschal! Is it time to bring their unusual style of dance to Pandaria? ~2100 words.
Rating:	T for Teen

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some body talk (not negative), brief mention of alcohol

Florande Wildbloom is curled up as a cat, beneath the stilted inn at Zhu's Watch. She blinks her silver eyes lazily at the near-ever-present rain drumming on the ground just outside, and yawns with a flash of sharp teeth.

Nearby, a masked kaldorei man in black armor stalks the perimeter of the settlement, ears upright and alert. There's something quite familiar about the way he moves… agile and almost… dancelike?

Florande blinks at the kaldorei man once, then twice. She shimmers into the form of a crouching elvish woman and mutters, "Mind is playing tricks?"

His messy teal green hair, nearly shoulder length, is tied back on top but otherwise a bit disheveled. Also very, very familiar. His head turns toward her as she mutters, and glowing silver eyes widen slightly over the mask. "Well, hello there."

Florande starts to rise, and then flinches as she nearly bonks her head on the floor of the inn above her. She steps out into the light rain a little more gracefully, maybe aiming for a smoother recovery. "It is you? You came to Pandaria!"

The masked man laughs heartily at the near head-bonk. "It is I indeed!" he says, in the same tone in which he’d dramatically remove the mask - but he does not remove the mask. "I was hoping I'd run into you. They said you were working in this area, so I asked to be assigned here." He does lower his mask briefly, so she can see that it is indeed Raschal Crowflight. Then he raises it again.

Florande quickly steps over towards him, so she can lower her voice to say, "Why the mask? You are here with Cobalt? Is it secret? But… but yes, I've been working down here, in the wilderness."

"I'm uh… not here on behalf of Cobalt this time," Raschal says, leaning casually on one of the wooden pillars supporting the stairs. "I'm following other orders just now, and the mask is part of a sort of uniform. I’m working for someone very important. But it's highly classified."

"Ohhh… like Andy-Ian was classified," Florande whispers, nodding. "Should I not tell people you're here? If… if it's allowed, there are people we could show our dancing… but not if you're busy with important secret things."

Raschal's eyes brighten a little. "I was hoping you’d bring up the dancing. I'm pretty sure the locals would LOVE our style, and it would be hilarious to try to teach them. I am just dying to see what they'd look like bouncing around and throwing each other.” He takes a moment to picture it, his eyes merry as he gazes into the middle distance. “But yeah, I would have to make sure I don't have important work assigned. Mostly I'm just… keeping an eye on things, though. I can do that and also dance."

"Good, good," Florande smiles brightly. "So I can tell people you are here, and they will just assume Cobalt. And we can dance! The pandaren would be good at it, I bet. There was one here we rolled all the way from the cliffs back into town. Very bouncy."

"Aren't they the greatest? The way they move is just incredible. But I haven't tried teaching any of them to dance yet. I've been keeping kind of aloof, you know. Have you made any pandaren friends yet?"

Florande considers. "There are some Cobalt pandaren. One, Mi Shu, is around here sometimes. She's pretty friendly. As for locals, I've mostly been hanging out with the kaldorei who teleported in blindly using a ten millenia old scroll, when I'm not here."

"I'm sorry, what?" Raschal bursts out laughing.

Florande giggles. "I still can't get over that. The elders always seem so careful, and then it's just like… let's just teleport our whole team into Elune knows where."

"I thought age was supposed to bring wisdom," Raschal says. He grabs the pillar and swings himself around it in a full circle, playfully, then leans on it again. "The way you just kind of slipped that in there casually was hilarious."

Florande grins, leaning up against the pillar next to his and tilting her head back. "I try. I'm glad you came to this place after we drove out despair and not before. You wouldn't have liked the pandaren all despairing, I bet."

"What were they despairing about?" Raschal says, tilting his head. "This place is heaven."

"It was weird, it was just like… despair in general," Florande raises her hands in confusion, and darts a glance towards the center of town. "It's such a nice place, really. I guess sha make people feel things very strongly."

"Oh right, the sha." Raschal snaps his fingers, then strokes his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. "I haven't had any run-ins with them yet."

"I wonder if you'll be immune to them," Florande ponders. "You are a very happy person, I think. Whenever I think of you, I think of happiness."

"Oh yeah?" Raschal tilts his head and smiles crookedly. "How often is that, exactly?"

"Oh, all the time," Florande says, shaking her head. "I miss practicing the dancing. Here it is mostly fighting, which is fun in its own way, but it isn't the same. Have you ever thought of being on a Cobalt squad?"

For possibly the first time she's ever seen, Raschal looks a bit taken off guard by her forthright answer to his question. He blinks a couple of times, then reorients himself. "Oh definitely not," he says. "I'm not really the… soldiery type."

"No?" Florande tilts her head, looking him up and down. "Some people say dancing is like fighting. I don't really see how exactly, but maybe it is just because I am usually a cat or a bear when I'm fighting."

"Don't get me wrong," he says. "I love a good fight. It's just all the … groupthink and mindless obedience that isn't really my style."

"Hm, yeah," Florande nods. "I think this five-person team is the best I can do, soldier wise. My mother was a soldier. She tried to train me, but it didn't work out. I think I'm a good soldier in small soldier groups, where they don't mind if I wander off a little sometimes."

"Usuallly I like the kind of jobs I can do solo," Raschal says. "Like this one. But if you're working with the right people, and you have some leeway to make your own decisions, group work can be fun, too. So who's on your squad right now? Anyone cool?”

"Oh, yes," Florande beams. "There is a snow leopard and a tanuki and they're friends? It's really fun to see. Oh, and also their owners. The snow leopard works with a very serious dwarf lady. And the tanuki works with…" Florande pauses, looking at Raschal. "You might like Shine. He is very quiet, and seems like a solo job sort of person, too."

"I'm glad you've got lots of animals to pal around with," Raschal says with a warm smile. "Sounds like you're enjoying it. Not your first time on squad either, is it."

"No, I was in Vashj'ir… that was different, because I followed Ben and now it is Dane. They're both humans," Florande says, considering. "We meant to go to Tol Barad back then, but ended up being crashed by a kraken. Oh! Brannagen was there, too, back then! He wasn't on the squad yet, but he is now. He's a healer who sketches and knows things."

"Are they fun to hang out with? Or is it all mortal danger and seriousness?" Raschal whips out a dagger and starts carving his initials in the pillar.

Florande eyes the knife and the wood, but more in a measuring way than betraying any sign of concern or disapproval. Her own hand drifts to a hilt at her waist. "Yes, we hang out and eat dumplings, and some of them like rice wine. Food here is good."

"Oh yeah, definitely can't complain about the food," Raschal says cheerfully. He pauses in his vandalism and studies Florande for a moment with a little smile. "I bet you'd look cute all round like a pandaren from chowing down on the local cuisine."

Florande laughs. "I would be so round people would not be able to tell if I were in elf form or bear. Now I imagine you as a pandaren. Maybe like their monks all swirling kicks and punches."

Raschal chuckles. "I'd have to learn my moves all over again. I'd better stay all lanky and lean; I'm too lazy to do my training a third time. I already had to start over when I almost got digested in that silithid pod." He grins. "So do you have much free time, or do they keep you busy?"

"I have a lot of free time," Florande admits. "I spend much of it here, trying to make sure no more despair gets in, or at the Temple with… uh… temple people, or at the kaldorei camp, because I think I might be wiser than they are."

"Low bar," says Raschal. "I think even I'm probably wiser than those guys from the sound of it. What were they thinking?"

"They were thinking with their…" Florande tilts her head, as if searching for the right word. "…their desire for immortality, maybe. I don't think they will find it here. But there is still a Light thing they're after, I think."

"Oh, huh," says Raschal. "I'll have to let the - my boss know about that. Might be of interest."

"About the immortality, or the Light thing?" Florande asks, drawing her own knife casually. There's nothing threatening in the gesture, more like she's… showing her knife. It's kept to a very carefully honed edge. "The immortality ended up being a mogu trick."

"I should probably report all of it," Raschal says. "I'm not even really sure what my boss is looking for exactly - he just wants eyes everywhere. Pretty easy job, really. Just watching and listening and reporting back whatever seems interesting."

"That does sound pretty easy," Florande says, and she digs in her pocket to pull out what looks like a small lump of driftwood. "Maybe what you'd want to do anyway, in a place like this. There is so much that's interesting."

"Yeah. Doesn't pay as well as my Cobalt work, but I don't have much in the way of expenses either out here. Everyone just says I'm too thin and gives me free food."

"Oh yes, they say that," Florande giggles, her gaze dropping to where she is carving the little block of wood. "One day they will get used to us. Until then maybe it is not a bad thing, being always offered tasty meals."

“So when do you want to get together for a little dance demonstration? And where? Paw’Don village maybe? Usually a lot of folks hanging around there and no major crises lately. I’ll take off the uniform of course - this is meant to look kind of grim and dangerous, and that’s not exactly the mood we’re going for.”

“Yes, it is very mysterious person-like,” Florande nods seriously. “Paw'don village will work! I think nowhere in the Wilds, it is too dark and sad here. Also, there's tigers, and I would not want the audience to turn into a buffet for them. We could start in Paw'don, and then maybe up to Tian Monastery. I bet they would appreciate our style there. As for when,” Florande pauses to drop a curlicue wood shaving from her little block, “I think I will need to help the kaldorei around here a little longer. Not sure how long. Maybe I could leave messages for you here, under the inn, for whenever you stop by?”

“Yeah that’s perfect. Like a dead drop. I might leave you some stuff too.” Messages, he means. Probably. He pauses, watching her whittle for a moment, then tilts his head and says, “I think we’ll both have more fun now that we’re both here. I’m going to go report to my boss before I forget everything you said, but keep an eye on our dead drop, yeah?”

Florande looks up at him from the wood carving in her hand, and her smile is bright and uncomplicated. “I will, too. It will be nice, having someone here that is familiar, someone I like. Even if you are also a little secret.” She tilts her head, looking over his uniform again. “Though maybe that part is fun, too.”

Raschal’s eyes gleam mischievously over his mask. He gives her an exaggerated, gallant bow, and then… vanishes into the shadows.