![](http://cobalt-company.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images/writing:2026-05-25-filling-up-on-sunlight/style="margin:/medium.jpg) |
| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | After the Empress's attack on Klaxxi'vess, Shine leaves the sha-corrupted land to visit Lena in the Vale. ~3k words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Shena
The afternoon sunlight is golden on the grove of trees north of Mistfall Village, causing the small yellow leaves to glitter like unclaimed treasure held by the gnarled alabaster stands of trunks and branches. This area is peaceful for the moment, and the only sounds are bubbling of the nearby stream, the occasional calls of hawks and howls of wolves.
Lena Shine is perhaps the least peaceful part of the scene. She's in battle robes, dark blue and gold, with her dagger at her waist and her hair pulled into a small bun at the base of her neck. She isn't attacking anything with the fel or demonic energy, but she does seem to have it in for a nearby tree.
"Just fall already," Lena mutters, eyeing a juicy cluster of pomfruit on a branch just out of reach. She kicks the tree again, and the leaves shake, but the fruit does not fall.
Scurrying around near her feet, Bun makes a kind of scolding squeak at the tree trunk, clearly taking Lena's side in this argument.
"Is it something I could help you with, perhaps, madame?" inquires a man's deferential voice. The accent is pure, polished, upper-class Stormwind. The man to whom it belongs is an unshaven one-eyed Kul Tiran in well-worn leather armor. He is standing a few paces behind Lena, seeming materialized from nowhere.
Lena stumbles mid-kick, catching herself with a hand on the trunk as she turns toward the familiar voice, with its out-of-place accent. She laughs in surprise and delight, her whole manner brightening as if the sun just came through from a passing cloud.
"Mr. Shine," Lena says, and her own voice is full northern farm-girl. "This tree seems not like to give up its fruit anytime soon, for all the pandaren are waitin' hungry. I was fixing to try fireworks next, but maybe you can lend a girl a hand." For all her words, Lena isn't looking at the tree or its fruit anymore. Instead, she's closing the two steps to her husband, reaching out as if to confirm by touch that he's really here. "You're back. It's over?"
Bun squeaks in delight and runs over to paw at Shine's ankles.
Shine is reaching too, and catches Lena's hands to pull her close. He wraps her arms around his back and then wraps his arms around her in turn. He ignores the tanuki. "No," he says, and drops his face to Lena's hair. "Not over. I had to get out again for a while. Ye look like sunlight, princess."
"One thing we've no lack of here," Lena says, pressing herself against him. She ignores the tanuki too. "Fill up on it, then, before you're back under the cloud again." She holds him like that for another few heartbeats, her cheek against his chest, and then draws back slightly to see his face. "Did something happen?"
"Aye," he says. On closer inspection he looks haggard and sleepless, his gaze dull. "The Empress… we thought it was done. That we'd won, or were about to. The Klaxxi'va had a ritual…." He trails off, looking briefly haunted.
He takes a deep breath. "The Empress came. Not even… it was just an image of her. A projection of some kind? And she just — " He shakes his head. "A single spell, and half of them dead in an instant. The amber corrupted. It's not… safe anymore, Miss Fey said."
"Dead and corrupted… is it the sha?" Lena asks, raising one hand to brush against his jawline, as she studies his face. "The sha corrupted your camp?"
Shine nods. "She was stained by it. Wreathed in it. A single spell corrupted it all. She… all of the color crept out of one of them. He died a shell."
"Tides," Lena breathes, and she's still studying him, looking for something she seems relieved not to see. "It didn't touch any of you? Do we need to take you to the Shado-Pan? I will, if we need to."
"I don't think — no. I don't think it… touched any of us. Is that — can the Shado-Pan help with that, if I'm wrong?" He studies her back, unease etched plainly in his expression. "I don't want — what if I'm wrong?"
"Aye, I think…" Lena says, brushing her hand back across his hairline. "Like in the early days, the Cobalt reports of Rell Nightwind? The Shado-Pan pulled the sha out of him, aye? And then the reports from the Shado-Pan Monastery, where Taran Zhu had trouble, but he came out of it alright. Their monks line the walls, so we could ask, to make sure. But I feel like… I would see it, looking at you, hearing you. I know you, and I don't see anything like the sha. I only see Shine."
Shine exhales, closes his eye briefly, and then sweeps Lena into another fierce embrace. "I'm glad ye can, sweetheart. I'm glad. I'm not sure… I'm not always sure what I see in myself these days. It's so dark over there. I can't… always tell if I'm thinking right. I think they know."
"The other people in your squad?" Lena asks, clinging to him. "Or the mantid?"
"The other people," he says, lowering his voice as though they might be hiding behind trees and listening even now. "Almeiria looks at me. She asked me about it. If I'm afraid of the sha. Estel put a fear ward spell on me. They can tell."
Lena pulls back again to look at him. "Do they not do that to themselves, and to the others? It is the land of the fear sha. I'd imagine everyone needs to be warded for it, as much as they can be."
"But I'm afraid, Lena. They can tell that." His gaze is dark with anguish. "They know I'm afraid. They tried to send me back first. That was my — I asked, I spoke too soon, I asked if we could come back. I had to come back to see you. But the others… they wanted to stay. Said it was important."
"They tried — but you didn't come back first?" Lena says, leaning her forehead toward his. "You stayed, even so?"
"I didn't want them to think that I — had to. That I couldn't stay, like they did. I said Anareline should go first. She's only left once. I couldn't have gone before her. It would have looked like cowardice." He closes his eye again, refusing to meet Lena's gaze at this proximity.
Lena closes her own eyes, letting him evade her gaze. "I don't think a coward would have offered. And she… she needed out of that place too, then. And she's always looked so distant and cold, all I've ever seen of her."
"She's not that," Shine says. "She's… principled. Disciplined. I've seen her being uncertain, in the field. I've seen her being… I don't want to say 'human.' I think kaldorei are like trees, generally." Talking about someone else seems to draw him out of his own darkness for a moment. "She has people here. She was rattled. I didn't want them to think… I was afraid enough to be selfish. To run."
"And so you weren't — choices are more important than feelings," Lena says, her eyes still closed, then she opens them to say, "I think I've worked with a few of her people here in the Vale. Caspis Silvershade and… I don't really know how the younger one, Florande, is connected, but all the kaldorei here seem to know one another. Could be that Ceiya's one of her people, too."
"Caspis and Florande, aye. She said those. I don't… think I know a Ceiya." He pulls her close again and wraps his arms around her, bends his head to put his face in her hair. "You've been well here?" he asks, slightly muffled. "Everything's well? I kept imagining…." He shudders against her.
"Everything's well," Lena says, still not letting go of him. "That is, the war's still on, but when isn't it? And I've been… Bun and I have been looking after one another. Things've been lively here. Want me to tell you about it? We can gather some pomfruit, for Mistfall, and you can keep me safe from the wolves? Maybe you can tell me more about what it's like over there, help me see you there."
"Aye," he agrees, holding on to her for a moment longer. He draws back at last reluctantly. "Tell me about it. And what's pomfruit? That's your motive for abusing the trees?" He stoops to pick Bun up absentmindedly, an old habit, and set the tanuki on his shoulders. Bun begins wiggling excitedly and nearly falls off again.
Lena chuckles, the question letting some of the dread out of the air. "Aye, you could say that. They're pretty much like apples, grow in the orchard here. With all the refugees in Mistfall they're always after us to gather up the pomfruits and the lushrooms for food supplies. That and meat, which is not exactly my strength, unless you like fel flavor. But there's no rush, it's an errand and not a crisis."
"An errand, not a crisis," Shine repeats dryly. "Sounds novel. I don't suppose Bun could be trained to climb up and get the things."
Bun heard his name! He kneads Shine's shoulder with his front paws. He is Bun! Bun is here!
Lena eyes Bun speculatively. "I expect he could at the least gnaw through the stems, if we could convince him to. The convincing's always the sticking points, with little creatures, isn't it?"
In lieu of Bun, she finds a nearby fallen branch, and tries to use it to prod the fruit down. "This is part of what we've been doing, past few weeks. Fighting at the Golden Stair, then helping out here, the lake, the garrison, the ruins. Sometimes there's mogu, often not. Ceiya's a bit of a newcomer, elf who bursts into flames — not a demon hunter. I'd give her warning before introducing her to Fallon."
"An elf who…." Shine contemplates that with some consternation. "Ah." He is silent a further moment. Nope, nothing else to say about that. "Bun would be more likely to eat the fruits than help collect them, I expect."
Bun! Heard his name! He wiggles and almost falls off Shine's shoulders again.
"How far are the mogu progressed into the Vale?" Shine asks. "Ye holding them off?"
"Pretty well, aye," Lena says, just as she manages to dislodge a pomfruit. It thumps to the ground. "Mostly keeping them at the stair. They range down to these orchards sometimes, and once they overran Whitepetal, but we drove 'em off. Ran into Zhao-Jin again, but he got away."
Shine's expression goes coolly neutral. "Zhao-Jin. The one who captured you all? He didn't do ye a harm this time?"
Lena shakes her head. "Foiled him this time. They were after gearing up the Thunder King. Had his sight on a helm, but Ren froze it, and he ran off tail between his legs."
"Ren?" Shine knits his brow. "Hartrim? The guard?"
"Oh," Lena laughs, surprised. "No, he's a pandaren, but they've a similarity, now you mention it. Kind of broadly flirty. I did run into the human Ren as well, though, together with some of the folk from the Highlands."
Shine nods. "Aye, that's right. Dinnsfield and that lot? Joined up with the army, I heard. Fallon said they were looking after the Prince. You've seen them out here?" He squints at a pomfruit hanging overhead, and looks around for a thwacking stick of his own.
Lena nods. "We ran into them over on the stair, briefly. They're helping, but I've not seen them directly with the Lotus. One way or another, I'd bet the help is appreciated. Each of us to hold the line. But… it's steady. We've got a daily rhythm now." Lena gives another fruit a few tentative jabs. "What's it like, where you are? You've got a place to sleep, decent food…? I hope they've not got you eating amber."
Shine grimaces. "Amber? No, they'd probably consider that blasphemous, to judge from its importance to them. We've got… Atley and Mordecai put food at the wall occasionally. Otherwise it's hunting or rations. I'm not best pleased about eating the meat of anything that lives over there, but it seems simple enough to tell when an animal's sha-tainted. Most aren't. Aspenwood knows plants and forages for some, but I don't want to eat anything grown in that soil.
He steps to the side of the tree and prods another fruit with his newfound stick. The stem snaps and it thumps to the ground. Shine crouches — so as not to dislodge the tanuki on his shoulders by bending — to pick it up, inspects it, sniffs it. "Are these any good? And aye, we've… an area to sleep in. There's a stone terrace at the edge of Klaxxi'vess, near some incubators for warmth."
"Aye, they're sweet, a touch tart, and definitely sha-free," Lena says, with a slight smile. "You ought to eat what you can while you're here, in that case. Sounds like wilderness survival over there, for the most part. A stone terrace by some incubators… I guess with their shells they're not much for soft things. Can you stay tonight? I want you to."
Shine lowers the pomfruit and casts Lena a bleak look. "I want to. Aye. I think I can. I will."
Lena breathes out slowly, watching him. "I tell myself I'm used to being on my own, that I can take care of myself. And I can, and I know you can too, but… I'd much rather be with you." She steps closer, and says, "I miss you every time I see… well, I don't know what it is about a war campaign in a pretty place, but there'll be weddings out of it."
"I miss you every bloody minute," says Shine, rough-voiced. "And we — wait. Weddings? Out of the war campaign?"
Lena raises her hands helplessly. "Well, Baird and Melancholy escalated pretty sharply, and now Sil and Lady Cressidha are engaged as well. Might be a crop of weddings come the next season."
Shine shakes his head wearily. Young'uns. "As someone who ran into a marriage young, I'll say I wish Baird and Melancholy the best and hope they're being smarter than I was. Still not clear on all that. Baird's never been…" He shrugs. "Lady Cressidha and Sil at least have been courting a while. Still a queer place for an engagement, though."
"Part of the speed might be the circumstances. Meet a fellow you fancy and then go through war with him. Some people it breaks, but some people maybe it just makes them feel closer," Lena says, prodding another fruit. "I'm not sure about Sil and Lady Cressidha. Might be they had an unspoken understanding that just turned into a spoken one on the battlefield."
Shine smiles faintly, though it doesn't quite reach his eye. "Maybe I'm only envious. Feels like just a few days ago I was on my honeymoon."
"It does, doesn't it? Now less than a year in, we're the older ones. Looking out for the others," Lena leaves off the fruit, turning to him. "I don't feel all that much older or wiser. I've been playing that part, though. The one who's got it all together." She smiles faintly herself. "I've been pretty good at that, before, I think. Putting on a face for people."
Shine winces slightly. "I don't want you feeling like ye have to put on a face for anyone. It's not like that, is it? I'll say I'm surprised again at Baird. Melancholy…." He pauses. "Melancholy does seem very young, aye."
He holds out a hand. "Come here, princess."
"I won't put on a face, for you," Lena says coming over to take his hand. "And Melancholy… she's not so much younger. Just a different life, makes the gap seem wider."
"Aye, that's what I mean. She seems. But she isn't. Baird's even closer, and he's never seemed… Well, but I'm not on the ship with the pair of ye. Maybe it's just deference to a lady." He lifts her hand and kisses it, then pulls her closer. "Tides, but it's good. To stand in sunlight with ye looking so beautiful, talking about… ordinary things."
"A tonic, of sorts," Lena says, moving closer and kissing him lightly on the lips. She pulls back to say, "So you'll remember this is here, too, whenever you're under the cloud."
"I never forget this is here," Shine says quietly. "That's all there is, some days under that cloud. Trying to remember you, and this." He bends to kiss Lena again, and Bun makes a tiny alarmed squeak of protest as his perch on Shine's shoulders shifts.
That means it is time for Bun to be unceremoniously dumped on the ground again, so that Lena can be kissed.
Lena isn't worried about Bun at the moment — he lands on his feet. She doesn't care about the pomfruit, either. Her attention is solely on Shine, and on being kissed. And then, there's more attention on kissing back, as she meets his passion with her own.