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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | During the evacuation of Stromgarde Keep, Corvin and Dane meet and discuss how things went at the ambush. They find they have more in common than they'd realized. ~2700 words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
The evacuation of Stromgarde Keep is proceeding at a rapid pace. There's an air of anxiety over the entire fragment of a town, and it's not uncommon to hear a child crying, or to see one of the civilians looking worriedly west. However, it is a peaceful evacuation, and not one at the point of an undead war machine. This time, this safety, Cobalt Company has given to them.
Corvin Trent is outside the local inn, loading crates of foodstuffs and other supplies onto a cart. Despite the heavy physical labor, he holds his human form, and sweat darkens his blond hair. He's not wearing his Company tabard right now, just the usual drab scouting gear that helped him pass unnoticed for months in the wilderness of the Arathi Highlands. He works relentlessly, something a little hollow in his gaze. His fox, Gon, is nowhere to be seen.
Atley weaves his way through the crowd, helmet tucked under his arm, cloak and hair flowing in the wind. He's not dressed as humbly or discreetly — perhaps a deliberate choice to inspire strength, confidence, and hope. Or, perhaps he's simply comfortable in his armor and Cobalt Company regalia.
He comes up short near the inn, and nods at a bedraggled-looking family passing by, before his gaze shifts to Corvin. "Not using your worgen form?" he asks, outright, briefly glancing around at the evacuating populace before he grunts. "I'd have figgered' it'd have come in handy at times like these."
Corvin drops down a crate on top of the stack, and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand as he turns to Atley. He leans slightly against the cart as he scans Atley's attire coolly.
"I thought they'd likely had enough of monsters," Corvin says, his own gaze flicking west for a moment. "I'm stronger in worgen form, but I'm strong enough like this. Are you staying to help with the evacuation?"
Atley nods once and tosses another look around at the refugees. "I am," he begins. "I want them to know that the Alliance and the Company haven't forsaken them. I know wot' it's like to have you leave your home under threat of invasion."
Looking back to Corvin, he squints in thought for a time before moving to stand at his side, looking over the mass exodus. "They will return. These people are strong and proud. Stromgarde won't fade."
"Probably," Corvin allows, turning away as well to watch the people pass. "Strength and pride don't always win out. But they won't die tomorrow, and that's something." He glances at Atley in his peripheral vision, just for a moment, and then says calmly, "Have you decided, then, that I'm trustworthy after all?"
Atley meets his gaze and holds it for a moment. "I'd rather cling to strength and pride than the alternatives," he says, before he furrows his brow and gives his head a light shake. "Decided? I wouldn't have accepted you on any Cobalt task force if I didn't think you trustworthy."
Corvin turns to Atley then, startled, though he smooths away his expression almost immediately. "I thought…"
There's a pause, pieces of a puzzle shifting around in his mind, before he continues, "I know you put me in charge up here, before. And I hope I didn't let you down. But this time—" Corvin draws a breath. "My orders. Keeping me at a distance, having people back up everything I did, like you expected me to fail… why?"
Atley's frown deepens as Corvin continues, and he slowly turns to face him.
"I kept you at a distance because you're a marksman," Atley growls sharply. "As you saw last night, combat in a confined space — especially a ruined manor — is a bloody meat grinder." He squints for a time longer. "The plan went sideways, as it often does. Adaptability and initiative saved the mission; they often do."
"Yeah, not quite as planned. We didn't catch any of them alive, but… the papers," Corvin says, looking down at the ground. "So maybe it didn't matter. Whatever signal their people are waiting for won't come, and even if it did we'll be long-gone before then." Corvin takes a breath, and says, "It really didn't have anything to do with — Win… with Kuroda?"
Atley shakes his head, still openly gruffly mystified. "Wot' are you on about?" he inquires.
"I talked to him about — " Corvin seems to draw in on himself slightly, but the question is raised now. He says, very carefully, "I had a guess on who she was. The assassin. A girl I'd grown up with, that I — it doesn't matter now. I just thought you were… keeping me out of the way." He drops a hand to his armor, like there's a pain in his stomach. Then he notices, and drops his hand to his side.
Atley stares at him and slowly shakes his head as he seems to understand. "I hadn't known any of that," he states evenly. "Be certain that if I hadn't trusted you, I wouldn't've jeopardized the lives of our other Company members to test your loyalty. I expected you to perform last night. The same thing I expected from the others."
"I followed orders," Corvin says, and there's a faint hollowness under the words. "I didn't interfere, or try to…" he swallows. "Thank you for your trust, sir."
Atley studies him for a long moment, regarding his words carefully, the thumb of his free handed gauntlet cinching in his belt. “Must’ve been tempted to, mm?” he inquires steadily.
"I doubt I could've turned her," Corvin says, rolling a shoulder. "She chose her path, and I chose mine. Even if I'd had a chance… I guess I'll never know. But it probably would've ended just the same."
Atley nods slowly and grunts. “That sympathy alone doesn’t make you a traitor,” he begins. “Or anything of the sort. But I would have you know that you’re not amongst brigands here, Trent. We’re a Company. Companions. When I tell you something, you’ll know I’m being true with you.”
He looks out over the refugees. “I chose to trust you when we first met and I learned of your background. You proved me right last night,” he says, looking at Trent, before his features spark with a gruff wetness. “If I had wanted to test you, I could hardly think of something better.” He sobers up after a moment. “Aye, she chose her path. Her fate was hers alone. But, she must’ve had some decency to her if you’d thought save her. We’ll never know how things would’ve been different if we’d taken other paths.”
"She did," Corvin says, without hesitation, and then looks away, clenching his jaw. It's a long moment of silence before he speaks again. "We were… orphaned together. But she, Gayle…" Corvin falters as he speaks her name, but then he continues, "I think she saw too much darkness, and marked it as truth. She grew as cold as she thought the world was, is all."
Atley nods slowly and looks away with a grunt. He lets Corvin’s words sit for a moment as the hustle and bustle of the evacuation fills the silence.
“I was orphaned,” he says flatly. “Later on in the campaign trail I came across a group of other lads of Stormwind. Orphaned.” He slowly shakes his head. “They were more than my mates. They were my brothers. Only we understood each other. T’was us against the world. Not many can understand the bond that forges.”
"Not many," Corvin agrees, crossing his arms at his waist. "Stormwind, for you? Must've been… First War? It wasn't even part of a war, for me. Just, a little while before the Lordaeronian prince went wrong. Still orcs, all the same. Defenders came, but not in time for…" he pauses, "…for some."
Atley turns to look over at him. “Where?”
"Up north," Corvin says, nodding vaguely to the northwest. "Town that used to be called Strahnbrad. I've been back since — it's just a ruin now."
“Strahnbrad…” Atley says, nodding slowly, as if speaking the name of an old rival. “I was there that day. We reinforced the town.”
Corvin starts to unfold his arms, and then recrosses them the other way, casting a glance over towards Atley with a new interest. Maybe trying to place him in an old memory.
"You were?" Corvin asks. "With the Menethil prince? I was… you wouldn't have seen me, I'd guess. Just one of the kids, hiding. The orcs would have found us, eventually." He pauses, thinks. "Then I owe you my life. And so did she."
Atley shakes his head, but says, “Aye. I marched with the Prince.” He raises one gauntlet off of his belt to itch at his jaw, the metal audibly scraping against his wiry beard. “How old are you, then?”
"Twenty-two this year," Corvin says, resting back against the cart. He turns slightly towards Atley, bending one leg casually. The haunted look in his eyes might seem older, but experience and years are not always the same thing. "Why do you ask?"
Atley nods once at the issued age. “I remember that day,” he says. “They were sacrificing townsfolk and soldiers,” he growls, working his jaw. “Blackrock. We tracked them and put them all to the sword.”
Corvin nods. "I don't think I ever knew why. Maybe there wasn't even a reason, just orcs seeing a peaceful village and…" he shrugs one shoulder. "… it's just how things are. But they paid for it. Your lot, you made them pay."
Atley tongues the inside of his cheek and grunts. His gaze shifts to the horizon and he nods a few times. “It was demons,” he says. “They were trying to bring them back. Thought they could … smell something in the air. Some sort of change. Only it was the rot of the Scourge and not some ‘Second Era’ of slaughter and bloodshed for them.”
He nods one final time and looks back to Corvin. “We made them pay.”
"Calling in demons," Corvin says, drawing in a breath. "As if they weren't a blight enough on this land, all on their own." He shakes his head. "Doesn't bring anyone back, I know, or set right all the things they made wrong. The lives set on courses they'd never have chosen otherwise. But I'm glad, at least, that they were stopped. That they couldn't do the same thing to anyone else."
Atley grunts, and another silence passes.
“You have done well here, Trent,” he says, looking back at Corvin. “And you may as well use that bloody worgen form. It’s earned. These people can’t expect you to fight for them, serve them, and hide yourself in the same breath.”
Corvin looks at Atley for a long moment, perhaps trying to gauge if there's any trap hidden in the statement. But then he nods, taking the knight at his word. There's a shimmer in the air, and a loosening of the tight control Corvin keeps over his form, then the grey-furred worgen stands next to Atley, a larger form leaning against the cart.
"Did you track yours down?" Corvin asks, his voice a little lower and gruffer in this form. "The orcs in Stormwind, that took from you."
Atley glances around during the middle of the transformation, as if daring someone to make a scene. Before the transformation is fully complete, he looks back to Corvin and studies him for a moment before he shakes his head.
“No,” he says to the larger form. “Not that I know of, at least. They’d be the old ones, and Grand Admiral Proudmoore sent most of that lot to the bottom of The Great Sea. I’ve killed plenty of their sons and nephews.”
"You've told me that story," Corvin says, and his eyes glint, though it's harder to read an expression on his worgen face. "There's been some recompense, then. Maybe more to come, depending on how the war with the Horde goes. And after that, I hope we'll be back here, to reclaim this place. It feels like…" he breathes in the cold air, "…a place I could belong, maybe. Someday."
Atley gives a firm nod at the notions of reclamation and looks out over the crowds before he issues a thoughtful grunt and turns back to Corvin. “Why here?”
Corvin starts to put his paws in his pockets, but they're a little large. He crosses his arms instead, and gives that same one-shouldered shrug he did in his human form.
"Whatever the Syndicate says, Alterac is gone," Corvin says, looking back at Atley. "Back in Strahnbrad, my mom used to say we were part of Lordaeron, but that's gone now, too. I know my lot… my ancestors, whatever you want to call it… we've had our troubles with the Stromic folk. But… the air here, in the Highlands, the sounds of the wind, the stone… there's something in there that calls to a man. Or at least, it does to me."
His ear twitches, and he adds, "Stormwind is a fine city, but I just feel… lost there, half the time. Missing all the handles I'd use to orient."
Atley nods once and looks over the heads of the refugees, of the ruined city, and takes in the breadth of the Arathi Highlands. “Aye,” he concurs somberly. “This is country.“
Atley shakes his head with a wistful air and slowly takes in a breath. “Where our people — as we know them — properly started. Whether we became Alteraci or otherwise, it was here.” He looks back to Corvin. “I’ve a deep love for this place, and a hope for its future.”
Corvin looks back to him curiously, "The history's important, but… do you have other ties here? I did wonder why you came to help, when there's so much else going on in the world as well."
Atley lets out a breath. “I learned to sword fight here — properly.” His gaze shifts to the distant mountains on the northeast horizon. “It must’ve been my sixteenth summer. T’was under the tutelage of a Stromgardian knight, of House McTavish.”
His gaze flits back to Corvin. “Bloody hard training. But good,” he says. “It’s an ancient tradition. We trained in the Old Way. The Arathi way.” He inhales slowly. “I’d see Stromgarde returned to its former glory. I owe it to him.”
"The Old Way," Corvin repeats, looking out to the mountains. "Like… old Arathor, back when all the human kingdoms were together? Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to move back towards our roots, our old roots, for all of us."
"But McTavish…" Corvin's gaze shifts over to the Keep, recalling the names there, the people in the League, the Stromic knights. Then he shakes his head. "This land has lost so much. But not forgotten."
Atley nods at his question, and looks off in the same direction. “Much, indeed,” he says, before looking over the refugees. And more still. I’d see Arathor restored in time, as well. But,” he says, with a nod, raising a hand to firmly clasp Corvin on his worgen shoulder. “We have the Alliance.”
There's the slightest hesitation, but then Corvin nods. "We have the Alliance." He nods out at the people hurrying around, preparing to leave. "And they'll see that, when we get to Stormwind. They'll be welcomed."
Atley grunts.
“‘Till then,” he says with a nod, looking out over the masses, before he turns and extends a gauntlet to Corvin with a handshake.
"'Till then," Corvin repeats, reaching out with his own claw paw to clasp it firmly. Then he steps back, and there's something easier in his manner when he adds, "And in the meantime, I'll get back to loading up."
Atley nods, and looks over Corvin’s handiwork before he raises his helmet and tugs it over his head. “Right,” he says. “They’ll need it.” At that, he turns and marches off into the crowds.