(2026-03-09) We Won't Lose

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Ralaea responds to Siamus's urgent summons to hear about the MacBride situation.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: The Bride Will Fall

The last, late trace of the sun is an orange blaze in the west like a bonfire on the horizon that casts firelight sparks on the surface of the darkened sea. Only the brightest early stars show in the blue-violet sky, but as the eastern horizon fades to ash, more are glimmering to gradual life.

Construction at the harbor has halted for the day. At the moment, the "harbor" consists of a pair of half-built docks — sturdy stone pilings have been sunk into the seabed, but the docks themselves are still skeletal — and the line of a stone foundation being laid around the perimeter of a flat-rolled rectangle of sand marked off with stakes and rope. A few workmen — dwarven and pandaren — are seated on the foundation stones and sharing some companionable beers. At a campfire nearby, a sailor laughs too loudly at a joke another has just told, and then the rest of the gathered sailors laugh at him.

Set between the in-progress fortress and the elevated cannon-battery at the end of the beach is an open-sided tent that is mostly occupied by a long worktable and a couple of hanging lanterns. It is also occupied at present, however, by an Admiral. It might be hard to tell he is an Admiral if you are not familiar with him, because he is not in uniform, but he is sufficiently heavily armed at the moment that no one is going to argue with him about whether or not he is an Admiral.

He is standing at one end of the open tent, his arms folded, watching the beach and the treeline.

With only a moment’s warning — a faint rumbling, a flicker of light — a ram erupts from the trees at a damp charge, a pace soon further slowed as it arrives on the sand. The ram continues at speed until it nears the earliest mark of foundation, and the way its rider turns in her saddle to glance behind her suggests there may have been a chase. In support of this theory, a few dark shapes appear along the treeline, only to skitter back the way they had come when it becomes clear their lone prey has found company.

Widow slows to a walk, and Ralaea dismounts, looking the slightest bit winded as she glances around at the construction.

Siamus strides out of the tent, pistol in hand, as soon as it becomes apparent Rae is being chased. The companionable evening scene suffers briefly, too, as two of the sailors at the campfire and one of the dwarves on the wall are all on their feet with rifles ready, and another sailor with cutlass drawn.

When the chase dissolves and Rae slows, though, the sailors and workman all settle again, and a couple of the men at the fire call cheerful greetings to Rae.

Siamus continues to move toward her but at a more sedate pace now. "Ralaea," he calls to her approach. "Ye well?" The question does not sound conversationally casual.

Ralaea, fully armed and armored as usual, waves her greeting back to the men, before leading Widow towards Siamus to meet him. “Yeah. Just some saurok,” she says. “Startled them on the way by, so they didn’t even have an ambush prepared. They’re not dumb enough to follow this far, which is good for them.”

She pauses to search his expression.

He looks tired and a little haggard, scruffier than usual, like he hasn't slept and didn't shave this morning. His gaze is restless, shifting from Rae to the dark treeline to the far edge of the beach and back again, and the set of his jaw is tense.

Siamus puts a hand on Rae's shoulder. He cannot give her a shoulder-squeeze because she is armored, but he doesn't let go of her as he steers her toward the tent. "D'ye want something to drink? We don't have milk. Towson can do ye the lemon thing if ye want. Ade. Lemonade."

“Sure, yeah,” Ralaea says, a wary edge creeping into her voice. “Lemonade’s good.”

Her own gaze starts to roam as they walk, following the path Siamus laid out with his. Fortunately, there’s no one watching them that she is supposed to pretend not to see; Ralaea is not subtle.

Siamus glances back at the campfire and nods, and Towson gets to his feet to arrange The Lemon Thing for Rae.

Once they are beneath the illusory shelter of the tent's canopy — it's an open-sided tent, they're not fooling anyone — Siamus says, "I'll tell ye before anything else that everyone in the family is fine. Aye? Everyone's well."

“What, so someone else died or something?” Ralaea asks, regarding him with suspicion.

Siamus hesitates. "I'll come to that. Be patient with me, aye? What d'ye know about Her Grace's first betrothal?" He glances sidelong at Towson as the cook comes in to offer Rae a glass of lemonade. The man nods politely and slips discreetly away again.

Ralaea takes a slow drink of lemonade, her eyes never leaving him. “That… it wasn’t you?” she guesses.

"Aye," says Siamus. He exhales. "The shor– the brief version: she was betrothed to a wealthy commoner called Green. Joran Green. He'd put the wedding off a few times, but Her Grace never doubted him: they had a contract. And then she was obliged to send him to Northrend to handle some business when she couldn't go herself, and on the ship north, he met a woman called Brigitte MacBride and married her. He'd known the woman a little more than week. Abandoned Her Grace on the verge of financial ruin."

Ralaea wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Since this doesn’t seem to be good news, I’m guessing he didn’t die,” she says.

Siamus cracks a grim smile at that. "I'm sorry to say he did not. I did offer a duel, but Her Grace preferred that I not. The heart of the matter, though, is the MacBride woman. Finley had… an odd hunch about her. He didn't believe it was pure chance that put her on that ship with Green, or let her seduce him so easily. There were coincidences to do with her and her family that looked… too coincidental. They're an odd lot. Live out in the Swamp of Sorrows. Tend to have strange streaks of 'good luck' at the expense of other people's misfortune." He hesitates, but it's Rae so he might as well say it: "I suspect witchcraft."

“Witches,” Ralaea says, nodding along. “Or demons. Demons have a way of manipulating people, too, and isn’t the Swamp of Sorrows right there by the Dark Portal? Finley’s got a good sense for people, so he’s probably right, with his hunch.”

Siamus is silent a moment and then nods heavily. "He has a fine, sharp sense, aye. And he'd been keeping a weather eye on the lot when he noticed something queer a couple of months ago. A young lady who is a member of the family — a sister of Mrs. Green — seems to have been meddling in family business. Our family. She seems to have a peculiar knack for being unmemorable, so no one had noticed until Finley caught it. He started looking into the manner of wi– enchantment she might be using."

At this, Ralaea frowns, but a drink of lemonade soon smooths out that expression. “Finley did?” she asks. “Not Avrenne or Miss Curran? And meddling how?”

"Finley was looking into it — Finley caught it — because as ye say, he's got a good sense. An unusually good sense, I think," Siamus says. "Her Grace is a brilliant lady, but she prefers… data, sound reasoning. She's not one to rely on a hunch or an instinct, like Finley is. Miss Curran was able to find Finley a lead when he asked her about it, but she didn't catch it beforehand because she's always managed my business; she's new to Her Grace's. And the MacBrides seem to have a grudge specifically against Her Grace.

"It seems that the courier who delivered the news to Avrenne that kept her home from Northrend — that made her send Mr. Green in her place — was this MacBride sister, under an alias. She had a number of aliases, when Finley dug into her, and she had disposed of a few of them by faking their deaths in… ways that seemed directed at us." He regards Rae steadily. "One of her false identities, for example, was recorded as having died in the Shattering when she was impaled on a fencepost in Stormwind."

Ralaea sits with that for a moment, her gaze going distant in recollection. “Then I did better than the false identity, because I didn’t die,” she says, missing the point, at first. But then the wheels start visibly turning, and she stares at Siamus in confusion. “But if they don’t exist, how did their deaths get recorded? And why…”

It's easy to tell when Ralaea reaches the desired conclusion, because her grip tightens on the lemonade and a flash of anger streaks across her face. “How did they know about that? Were they watching me? I know I wasn’t exactly keeping it secret, but I didn’t shout it from the rooftops of Stormwind, either.”

Siamus nods, his own gaze dark. "I think they were watching all of us. There were… other things like that. It made Finley uneasy, so he wrote to tell me about it, and he kept digging into the matter.

"But this woman was, as ye say, watching, and she found out Finley was trying to watch her too. She confronted him, confessed she had some ugly plans for the family." His voice goes a little rough. "She meant to steal the babies, and give them to her sister."

He clears his throat. "And she attacked Finley. He killed her. But she killed him also." There is a steel edge of suppressed fury in the words. "He's fine," he adds immediately, anticipating outburst. "He's fine now. Isla brought him back."

There is a pause as Ralaea tries to imagine what a death match between Finley and some random girl would even look like. “Okay,” she says. “So a witch sends her non-witch sister to attack Finley with a dinner knife, Finley kills her because he’s tall, but gets stabbed in the process, and then… Isla was there?”

Siamus regards Rae for a long silent moment. "Aye," he says at last. "Except for the bit about… no, aye, close enough.

"Though I think the sister was a witch as well. I think there's a chance the lot of 'em are. Witches operate in packs. They're called… communes, or… convents. Convents." He nods firmly. Pretty sure that's the one. "At any rate, the lot of 'em are shifty, and at least some clearly mean Her Grace — and now the family — harm."

“Finley killed a witch?” Ralaea asks, because somehow that’s the part she can’t wrap her head around. “You must have discussed their weaknesses with him. Is it onions? I knew someone back in Lordaeron who swore up and down that witches can’t stand the smell of onions.” She might be adding ‘Finley had onion breath’ to her mental reenactment.

Conclusion drawn, Ralaea’s expression fades from bewilderment into somber thoughtfulness. “You said he’s fine. Is he? Was that his first kill?”

"I believe it was," says Siamus. "But he wrote to me and assured me he's all right." He pauses. "I hadn't heard about onions, no. The thing is, Ralaea — the family's now acted against Her Grace twice, the second time killing a member of our House, and with what was, evidently, a plan for a third action in the works. Now they've killed one of us, and had one of theirs killed by us, they know that we know they're watching us and plotting. They know we are going to bring hell to them. There is a chance they will try to act first, and so there is a chance any member of the House could be in danger from them.

"I have written to Emerine Nightvine — the Sentinel, ye recall her — to ask if she'll keep ye company on your work in Pandaria, just to keep an eye on things for ye. I will write to Mourningdew, if ye'd like."

“Anyone can say anything in writing,” Ralaea mutters. She taps the hilt of one of her swords, a scowl darkening her face. “Can I ask you honestly, as Siamus Fallon, not an Admiral of the Alliance or anything… would you rather have me at home, to help keep an eye on things there, and make sure nobody eats the children?”

Siamus is startled — genuinely startled — into silence. He stares at Rae.

There is another gust of laughter from the campfire on the beach, and the sound seems to shake Siamus from his astonishment. "That's —" He glances out at the dark silhouette of the Lady Blanche, and then back to Rae. "That's a hard question." He exhales. "I'd say the war here is important for them at home, for the future, we need every blade… but aye. If I weren't tied to this… I'd be there myself right now." He studies Rae. "If ye would be willing to go, just to look out. And then ye can find out how Finley's properly doing."

Ralaea nods. “I’ve done a lot of fighting,” she says. “And if I’ve learned anything from it, it’s that there’ll always be more fighting. The Alliance is here. Cobalt Company is here. But what’s the point of it all if our family still dies back home? So yeah, I’m willing, and I hope it’ll put you at ease knowing you’ve got an extra soldier to hold the line at the House. I can still give you Harvey, if you want him. He’ll be mad, but he’s loyal to the Alliance.”

"Ralaea," says Siamus, and then seems briefly at a loss for words. At last he nods. "You're a good lass and a credit to the family. Ye go home and help Her Grace look after your brothers and sisters, aye?"

Ralaea finishes her lemonade — she’s not going to waste it — and flashes him a reassuring smile. “Count on it,” she says. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back immediately.”

Siamus smiles at her. "I'm grateful, Rae. And make sure Finley's properly all right, will ye? If he gives ye fuss about it, ye tell him I told ye to make sure."

“I will. Hopefully I can take some pressure off him, too,” she says. “And I’m probably behind on my studies.” She makes a face at the last, before striding out of the tent to find a spot for her empty glass, collecting Widow’s reins on the way.

After depositing her glass, Ralaea climbs into Widow’s saddle and grabs a couple bombs from her bag, preparing them for the ride ahead. Any lurking saurok are about to get a nasty surprise.

“We won’t lose,” she calls back to Siamus. “Not the war, or anything else.”