(2025-12-02) The Day Was Won

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Author:	MrMook
Summary:	Atley and Shun meet in Halfhill to discuss the recent affairs of Pandaria. Grunts are had. Laughs are not.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Season 18: The Valley and the Jungle

The Lazy Turnip’s doors stand open. A skeleton crew tends to the handful of sleepy, laconic patrons inside, each hunched over steaming bowls of porridge. The place murmurs rather than speaks.

Atley marches up the front steps in full plate, trying to move slowly given the hour, but the wood still creaks under the weight and steel. Fog curls around his boots before trailing inside the inn behind him. He steps through the threshold and tugs off his helmet, tucking it under one arm as he looks about.

A few heads lift. Recognition flickers — quiet, polite, unmistakable. A farmer’s brows rise; he nods once, respectfully. Another pandaren murmurs to his companion, something soft and approving. A pair of younger farmhands straighten where they sit, suddenly attentive.

It is not reverence, and only a brief disruption of the sleepy early morning, if any — just Halfhill folk acknowledging the Company they’ve heard a thing or two about. A subtle ripple, then stillness again.

The recognition fades as quickly as it came. Chopsticks clink softly. A kettle whistles in the kitchen. The fog thins around the doorway as dawn slowly starts to settle through the mist.

Atley takes in the room.

Not long after Atley's arrival does a dark figure descend from the upper floor. As he makes his way down the stairs, Shun carefully adjusts the gloves on either hand. There's a subtle stiffness in his fingers, though he makes no other indication of what might be wrong there.

Upon spying a fellow Cobalt, he gives a curt nod of greeting.

Atley turns towards the figure and speaks up in a voice perhaps too loud and abrasive given the sleepy morning circumstances. Perhaps there’s nothing that can be done about. He remains standing just a step inside from the doorway, thumbs cinched in his belt.

“Shun. Good morning,” Atley greets, inclining his head. “I’ve come to see you. Have you got a moment?”

"Atley," Shun says in turn. There's a pause at the request, but he soon nods, "I do. Shall we step aside?"

Atley grunts and takes a step backward, nodding out the open doorway. "As good a place as any." He marches outside and takes a right after crossing the threshold, ending up on the corner of the outside patio, looking out into Halfhill, swallowed by fog.

Shun steps on out after the Blue Squad leader. Once out on the patio and off to the side, he looks Dane over.

"What do you need?" he asks.

Atley turns to face him, helmet still couched under his bicep. "Well done in the Arathi Highlands," he says. "Stromgarde is of interest to the Alliance — and to myself, personally. " He eyes Shun up and down, briefly studying his hands. "How are you handling the return to Pandaria?"

Shun grunts once in turn, "I have a vested interest in ensuring the Syndicate does not get their way."

At the question, he lightly shrugs, "It is… fine. I suppose. Spent a day punching rocks and having eggs thrown at me while you were out fighting for your lives apparently."

Atley grunts and nods slowly.

"And wot' do you make of that, then?"

"There is a time and place to do training and that probably was not one of them," Shun states, "We learned a few things out there so it was not a complete waste but…"

He just shrugs again.

Atley sets his jaw and narrows his eyes in thought before he grunts again. "I understand you lot found this 'Hidden Master' the Tian Monastery disciples were after. Gained enough of his respect to be granted his mentorship. Is this something you're discounting?" he inquires, voice as gruff as ever, but tone indicates that it's a genuine inquiry.

"That is correct. Though I am not so certain the respect was really gained until after it was all said and done. We really only needed to find him to start the whole process. From there it was a matter of going through his trials and the like," Shun explains, "Lin Tenderpaw was already out there training under him when we had gotten there, though she was struggling with the first step."

Atley raises his head. "How did the rest of you fare? Did you struggle?"

"To a degree but we ultimately succeeded with bloodied knuckles," Shun replies.

Atley scoffs with faint amusement. “That’s often how it goes, in my experience.”

His gaze lingers on Shun before turning out into the fog. “I was in the Army a long while. Grew up in it. Sometimes I find myself longing for it, even now. Especially with how tangled this deployment’s been.”

He works his jaw, eyes narrowing as if watching something move out in the pale dawn. “I miss the simplicity of it. As a footman you fight where you’re told, and you win where you fight. That’s the heart of it.”

“The Company…” He pauses, tongue pressing his cheek. “Took some adjusting to. Cobalt does its fair share of killing, no mistake, but more often than not, we’re here to solve problems. Sometimes that means gathering blasted pinecones or feathers. Sometimes it means killing Dragon Aspects and Elemental Lords.”

He grunts, low and irritated. “The trouble in Pandaria is what we don’t know. The true nature and reach of the Sha. What the Horde wants with this land — and what they’ll get. What we want with it. Where the Prince is. Why the Mists of Pandaria lifted. What any of it bloody means.”

His eyes return to Shun. “The Company’s always a mosaic, frustrating as that is. We rarely get the full portrait all at once. It comes piece by piece — how our actions, large or small, shift the greater mission.”

Atley lifts his chin. “I can’t say what’ll come of your training with the Hidden Master. Maybe little. Maybe a great deal. Time sorts that.”

A grunt.

“But I do understand the urge in you to be at the fight. It’s in my own bones. And though I can’t make you do a thing more than I can make anyone else… I’d have you not write off what you accomplished here. It’s not over until it’s over.”

Shun folds his arms over his chest as he listens to Atley's words. There certainly is wisdom in them, though he still ends up grunting as well.

"I understand that. I just find it difficult to see how helping locals make ink or whatever helps accomplish our overall goals and mission in these lands at times."

He looks over his knuckles, "Or in this case, punching increasingly harder things until they break."

Atley scoffs again, amused, and dips his head. “Aye, the martial arts of the pandaren are… unique. Effective in their own right, but far from what we learned in the Kingdoms.”

He shakes his head once. “But the Hidden Master made a case for us. For the Company. He turned the tide. Because of what you lot showed him. That matters. I’m certain there’ll be more consequences from that in our favor. Can’t say what yet, but every good impression we make here aids our cause.”

His voice lowers, growing more deliberate. “Against the Horde. Against the Sha. Against the mogu. The pandaren are still trying to sort us out — who we are, wot' we stand for. They’re testing us, even when it’s not as overt as smashing wood and stone with our bare knuckles.”

"Hmph. I suppose that is something, then," Shun murmurs, "I was not aware he made himself known to the rest of you."

"I suppose so," Atley echoes. "When the line was about to break, because it was thought that victory was impossible, he spoke up and lifted the spirits of everyone present, stating that nothing was impossible." He side-eyes Shun. "P'raps because he was shown it. Or reminded of it."

Shun let out a sigh at that, "If he had time to make it to the front lines, then we should have been able to make it as well."

Atley shakes his head and looks back into the mist. “It’s not wise to get lost in the ‘shoulds’ of things. Take it from someone who knows. It’s better to build upon wot’ was and is. The day was won.”

There's a slight clenching in Shun's jaw under his mask, but he nods, "The day was won."

“I’d have you take heart. You’ve become an asset to the Company, and we’ll need you before all this is over,” Atley says, shooting Shun a frank look.

"I will take your word for it," Shun states.

Atley grunts. “Good. I didn’t come all the way here to tell you something hollow, especially if I thought you were useless or a risk to the Company’s mission and members. Nor did I come with pity. I doubt you’d have much use for such a thing.”

For a time, Shun falls silent, closing his eyes in thought. After several moments go by, he looks back to Atley, "Is that all, then?"

“Aye,” Atley says, tugging on his helmet, giving it a few tugs to adjust it. “That’s all I’ve got.” He looks back to Shun. “I’ll be about in the area for a time.”

Shun nods, then slips back into the inn to grab a light breakfast so that he may tackle whatever is needed later that day.

Atley turns and marches down the steps, into the morning.