Chapter 3

In the twin handfuls of years since Kerendra and Brialla’s first trysts, there had been many intense, joyful moments. There had been moments of conflict, often prompted by the pressures of child-rearing, which they had nevertheless weathered. Not because, Brialla had decided upon reflection, they were the perfect couple, nor perfect parents, but because the kaldorei way of raising children gave them time to reaffirm their bond – in the predictable ways. So it was these next four days, Elennia seen off with the communal child-rearing group to go into the forest and try to bond with a group of sabers and their cubs.

That left Brialla behind, managing affairs in the warehouse granted her by the priestess, which she oversaw on behalf of her family’s merchant house. So, though she appeared on the surface to have come far, having grown roots into the local community, she still had responsibilities to those back in Quel’thalas. And, as a consequence of the odd, theocratic meritocracy in which the kaldorei lived, she never stopped having to prove her fitness in various small ways. In Silvermoon, if she had bought and paid for a warehouse, offices, they were hers until she sold them again. Here, though the kaldorei obviously understood currency, it did not rule in the same way. One also traded in, earned, spent the currency of opinion, of devotion, of the approval or lack of it from the Sisterhood of Elune.

So, in truth, there were always several people nipping at her heels. One could never become truly settled, truly comfortable, and, upon long reflection, Brialla found that though she could rarely fully relax, she also would not have pushed herself quite as far without that fire always burning. More so, of course, with Elennia to care for. Kerendra would be fine, whether they controlled the warehouse and its offices or not. Kaldorei, a sentinel even if not a guardian of the priestess at present, she earned her place every day. As an outsider, even with a child who seemed to have taken entirely after her kaldorei sire, Brialla was put under more scrutiny.

At first, and for a long time, she had worried that she would never be at home on kalimdor, that the kaldorei would never accept her as one of their own. Gradually, then, she came to realize that their expectations of her were, in fact, a product of their acceptance. Or, to some extent, a result of their focus on the abilities of the individual – they expected her to live in, to benefit the settlement. If she suffered anything as a result of being sin’dorei, not of local stock, it was hungry looks from those who wished they had matched with her, instead of Kerendra. Several had openly propositioned her, and still did, there apparently not being as much stigma with regards to multiple partners in kaldorei society as there might have been back home. It seemed, even, that Kerendra was open to the prospect, at times, when Brialla had brought it up to her. Brought up the advances. Brialla, however, found herself too traditional to want anything or anyone but Kerendra. An odd realization, given that she had been adventurous enough to cross the seas, latch on like a lamprey around Kerendra’s pride, and from that extract a mate. Grow roots.

Late morning, they lay together in the bed they had shared for near ten years, huddled for warmth, yet having shed the covers. Brialla, at least when they were alone, took to employing her sturdy sentinel-wife’s chiseled abs as a kind of uneven, slowly shifting table, rising and falling with Kerendra’s breaths. There was ever business to attend to, correspondence with which to deal, accounts to settle and check. Expenses for her handful of employees. Appointments to keep track of, something she continued to do herself, not quite successful enough that she could have someone around purely as her own assistant. So, instead, she took care of these matters with Kerendra’s hand lazily caressing her upper back, her shoulder, the back of her head. She leaned down, in between one letter and the next, pressing a kiss to her beloved’s skin, dotting her lips dangerously close to the base of that monstrously thick dick.

Many things had changed since her first arriving on kalimdor, but certain things never did. Her desire for what Kerendra could offer had never waned, and it was a wonderful tool for evening out any disagreements they might have, too. Something she had never been prepared for, at home, sparse as any talks about what to do with a partner, how to coexist with someone else, had been.

A final letter at hand, and then she might indulge in just that tool. If she kept hinting, suggestively pressing her lips closer and closer to Kerendra’s thick base, it would soon become irrelevant whether she wanted to deal with more inquiries, anyway. There was only so long she could draw things out, tease her beloved, though prodding and poking the metaphorical, growling saber was always engaging.

“The priestess has gathered a shipment of goods,” Brialla said, having opened the final communique of the day. It was late. They would sleep, soon. Possible after ensuring that her stomach bulged with the fruits of her beloved’s pleasure. “Ivory, furs, herbs, art, cultural pieces produced on order. To be sent to Quel’thalas.”

“And she tells you this, personally?”

“Not just me,” Brialla whispered, half distracted by looking up at Kerendra, and then lowering herself to kiss one hard, bulging curve of muscle. “It reads more like a ‘to whom it may concern’ sort of letter.”

“Who else would it concern? You’re the only one here with connections to Quel’thalas,” Kerendra said. She carefully pushed spread fingers into Brialla’s hair, at the back of her head. Locks trapped between digits, all of which where ready to bunch up for a more secure hold. A hold that remained elusive.

“She’s the one who gathered it all up. Which means whoever’s interested will be competing for her favor,” Brialla said. She let the letter slip her fingers, the paper hissing as it slipped down Kerendra’s side, and then off the bed, to the floor. Forgotten by both, Brialla’s eyes resting on Kerendra’s for as long as possible as she kissed a trail from navel and down to the hilt of that huge, fat dick. An inch onto it, and then another.

“Best to go meet her, I suppose,” Kerendra said.

“Best to.”

“In a hurry?”

“I have to be able to walk to go and meet her, dearest,” Brialla said. She smiled, and then planted another lingering kiss directly against the base of Kerendra’s massive shaft. “Which means, I’m afraid, that you will have to wait until I return.”

“Don’t stare too deeply into the eyes of any guardian sentinel, my love,” Kerendra said. She relaxed her fingers, though they remained at the back of Brialla’s skull.

“Tsh.” Brialla emitted a mock scornful sound, delicate fingers curling around Kerendra’s shaft, offering a single stroke. “No one compares. You know that well enough.”

Brialla waited outside the priestess’ office, having made her way there too slowly, too many minutes spent languidly caring for Kerendra’s terribly attractive features. Something for which no one but herself could be blamed, of course, and, in retrospect, a bad idea. But who, really, was going to be a better choice to handle the shipment of wares than her, with her contacts in Quel’thalas, and her obvious ties to kalimdor?

Salkannia. Salka. Someone Brialla had not heard of, nor cared for, when she had first spent time in the settlement, and had first let her desires lead her into Kerendra’s strong hands. A kaldorei trader of some means, of some skill, certainly, but not someone who had much overlap with Brialla’s area of expertise. So she had thought, and so it had been, for years. And, yet, in that moment, standing with her hands gathered behind the small of her back, head high, back straight, staring into a dusky corner of the ceiling outside the priestess’ office, waiting, she cursed herself for her complacency. By the sounds of it, Salka was inside, and they were boisterously finalizing the whole deal before Brialla had gotten so much as a word in.

The door opened, and Salka, at first not noticing Brialla’s presence, shared a self-assured, conceited, half-lidded stare with the sentinels standing guard on either side of the door. Some connection, there. Salka’s pink-ish purple eyes then slid over the dark wood of the interior, until they fell upon Brialla. Entirely coincidentally, of course, she soon after made a declaration to no one in particular, to the guardian sentinels, perhaps.

“Contract’s mine already.”

Always nurturing the feeling of her own inadequacy in her breast when compared to the more experienced kaldorei traders, Brialla nevertheless narrowed her eyes only just. Kept her breathing even. Continued to look up at the ceiling, as if she had not noticed Salka’s appearance, nor heard the confident words. And, inwardly, formed a long procession of curses which she would have to let the Light, let Elune, hear, rather than the trader. Was it the sexual rejection a year back that had made Salka into a rival?

“Might as well go back home, hind,” Salka said, having turned to obviously address Brialla.

If there was any victory at all to salvage from the situation, it was that Salka appeared mildly annoyed at Brialla’s ability to outwardly completely ignore her. Even so, despite the spreading, soft hollow in her chest, the weight materialized in her stomach, Brialla was not going to blindly believe Salka’s words without speaking to the priestess. Such manipulation was too easy – and, anyway, even if Salka had secured the contract, perhaps its moorings could be cut once again.

“Might as well go home and repaint your faded stripes, old zhevra,” Brialla said. She spared but a single glance for Salka, walking past her and into the priestess’ office. She had barely closed the door before being addressed.

“You have come to convince me to let you have the contract, have you not, Brialla?”

“So I have, priestess,” Brialla said. She bowed from the waist, and then approached the priestess, who sat not behind her desk, but upon a white, solid stone bench with no back save the wall of the building. She did not even lean back, the priestess. Would cushioning or enjoying comfort be a sign of weakness, somehow? Perhaps Brialla ought to buy a bed made of stone. Maybe that would convince the oldest, most ornery, most stuck in their way kaldorei that she was made of sterner stuff than they imagined.

“Salkannia has made the reasonable point, uncomfortable for you, that she is no one without us. She was born here, raised here, and is forever tied to us. She believes that you can never really be a part of our society,” the priestess said. She took a breath, and, as Brialla readied a response, raised a casual hand to prevent an interruption. “Many, in the past, were thought neutral. Potential allies, even. And yet, they proved otherwise when it came time to show their allegiance. When Teldrassil burned. If your people again go to war with us, whose side will you be on?”

Brialla’s mind raced in a small circle for too long. Whose side would she be on? She did not want war, at all, whether instigated by the Horde or the Alliance. She would be neutral, of course. But was that an acceptable answer? No, of course not. But, by the time she settled her gaze upon the priestess, she knew that her pause, outwardly but the length of a heartbeat, had yet been too long.

“Do not think you can lie to me, Brialla.”

“I would want to be neutral, priestess,” Brialla said. “I would not want to fight my own kin. But this is my home, where my family – Kerendra, Elennia—”

“A home is something you are prepared to fight for.”

“That’s it, then? I can never be a part of this place, not really, and so I will always be the second choice? The last resort?”

“No one has said that.”

“What can I do to prove my loyalty, then? Do I need to fight for this place? What of all of your own people, those who do not rise to fight, who are mere civilians, are they also second rate?”

“No one is second rate, Brialla. You are emotional. Salkannia has the contract, but I shall hear your case again, when you have calmed down,” the priestess said. “Provided you have some new point to make. Go.”

If Brialla had learned anything in the presence of the priestess over the last decade, it was decisiveness. Not to stand around, an open book to be read from start to finish with a simple, piercing gaze, but rather to take action. Any action. Figure out what was right later. And so, she covered the onrushing flood of indignant thoughts and words by bowing from the waist again, turning, and leaving the office.

Salka was gone. Off to marshal her resources, no doubt, certain that she had managed to pick at the singular thread which could always be pulled on to produce uncertainty about Brialla’s intentions. After all, what did it matter that she had a child with Kerendra when she remained sin’dorei? Not that she could change that. Not that she wanted to change it, even if she had somehow been able to. The kaldorei, in the end, were not fundamentally all that different from her own people, or so many other peoples. They cared for their own. Their homes. Sometimes overmuch. Sometimes to the point of exclusion.

“Ask Kerendra if she’s coming along for the guardian hunt, later, will you?”

It was one of the guardian sentinels, who seemed entirely indifferent to Brialla’s struggles. She could easily have heard everything through the door, but if she had, she made no indication of it. And, anyway, the woman was clearly on Salka’s side, or friendly to her, at least. Brialla allowed herself a little sigh, and then nodded.

“I will, sister,” she said. Using the same Darnassian word that Kerendra would have, for a fellow sentinel. A fellow kaldorei. For that, at least, she was not reproached. It was accepted without rebuke.

Brialla closed the circular door of her home behind her, and spent a moment leaning her forehead against the wood. Shaped, as most kaldorei buildings were, not by tools readily available and well-known to most of the species of the world, but rather by the words and nature bonds of a druid. To their specifications, in part. To the druid’s whims, in lesser part. To a greater degree, walls and floors and ceilings and such things seemed rather to have grown and filled out according to the whims of nature itself. To where the sun had shone, to where there had been water. Perhaps it would have been simpler to study under a druid, rather than to insist on trying to make mercantile enterprise work among the kaldorei.

Perhaps.

Nevertheless, Brialla exhaled, pushing off from the door when it was no longer cool against her forehead, hoping that she had not imprinted some latticework pattern into her skin. It would be impossible for Kerendra not to focus on it, and, just that moment, Brialla needed her mate to be sharp, to center thoughts around how to beat Salka. How to convince the priestess. Or, possibly, put a good word in with a nearby druid, if everything came crashing down.