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tentoriwrites · 3 years

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Lunar Eclipse: Chapter One

Chapter One: The Betrayer’s Cage

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7490 words.

After thousands of years of playing warden, Maiev and Illidan come to know each other in a particular way. But what is the feeling between them and is it strong enough to overcome their circumstances and their fate? Who will break first if either of them breaks at all? How will Maiev fare after her time with the Betrayer? How will his time with the Warden change Illidan?

Notes:

This was inspired by a piece of art by AlexaelArtworks on Twitter and Instagram. It's amazing. 10/10. Highly encourage you to check them out!

I thought it would be interesting to approach this from the angle of Maiev once being a priestess and how that would still have lingering influence over her. I also thought it would be interesting if Illidan at least knew of her from her time in the Sisterhood with Tyrande. This explores Illidan's motives a bit in an attempt to reconcile his two seemingly incongruent lines of lore and how they wrapped things up in WoW.

This may get more spicy in the future so additional tags may be added.

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A single drop of water fell from a gap between two stone blocks in the ceiling. The room was small, wide enough for an average sized Night Elf to barely miss the walls if they reached wide. It was slightly deeper from the barred door to the back wall. A single torch crackled to the left of the door, but it did little to illuminate the dark space. A ragged breath followed the drop, almost a growl from a feral animal. Maiev’s eyes burned with anger as she stared at the hunkered form before her. Leather bound fingers curled tighter around the leather binding of her chakram handle. “You feel nothing for what you did…” She hissed under her breath before backhanding the prisoner with her free hand.

“With your narrow sense of virtue and justice you could never hope to understand…” The prisoner answered in a mocking tone even as blood trickled from his busted lip.

“Do not speak to me of justice,” she yelled losing her last bit of composure. The chakram blade flashed to his exposed neck. “You killed so many innocent lives in your pursuit of power! Then endangered us all with your recklessness!”

“Lives that would have been lost to the Legion. I did them a… service,” he answered nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders as best he could.

“Or they may not have died at all,” she seethed as she pressed the blade just a bit harder into his flesh. “But do go on about how our brethren sing the praises of Illidan the Merciful.” Her voice lowered to a growl as she leaned in just a little closer, put just a bit more weight on her blade.

“Does anyone truly survive a war like that? Clearly you came out the other side unscathed, Priestess. A model of the goddess herself.” A cocky smirk quirked one side of his lips up as a small trickle of blood seeped from the wound on his neck.

“Elune forgives all for those who seek it. She’ll forgive me leaving her temple to protect her people.”

“Do you really think such things as gods exist and they care about us?” His voice drawled on sarcastically to the sound of leather clenching around leather filled the room. “If they do exist, surely they abandoned us. Why else would this have happened?”

“Perhaps because the foolish abandoned them first.”

“And yet the faithful suffered in measure with the faithless.”

“The faithful retained their original forms. That is more than I can say for the faithless.” She grabbed one of the horns at his forehead and pulled his face to meet her gaze head on.

“I really thought too highly of you, Priestess. Blinded by the radiance of your baseless faith you cannot see the darkness of this world. All you “Sisters” are alike in that…” He maintained eye contact and every part of his cockiness as he spoke.

“Do not confuse me with HER.” Maiev’s voice took a much more even tone of hate as the blade drew a long, thin cut across his neck. Deep enough to be noticeable but shallow enough not to kill him. “Tyrande isn’t coming to see you, to tell you all the pretty words you want to hear.”

“Do you think bringing HER up will give you any sort of advantage?” For the first time his façade cracked in the form of some disdain in his voice.

“No… just reminding you how alone you are. How no one thinks you a hero, a savior, or whatever it is your delusions would lead you to believe. All you have left to look forward to is me. For… a… very… long… time…” She gently tapped each side of his face. Then, with a smirk of her own she healed the wound on his neck, but still left him weak enough to remain restrained. There she left him on his knees cocky smile still on his face.

“You think to comprehend what I’ve seen. What I’ve come to know. There is nothing you can do to me worse than the Legion.”

“Perhaps not.” The cell door closed with a dull thump before a magical barrier surrounded him. “But I have far more time with you than they did.”

Days passed and ran together in darkness and quiet. The only light the faint glow from the fel-scar tattoos covering his body and the light of his eyes. It had been so long since he had anything to eat or drink and weakness was starting to dull his senses. He pulled on the blessed chains that secured his arms. They rattled dully but did not budge. His reward for his efforts a burning sensation on his skin. Though, he had to admit, the burning had lessened recently. He couldn’t be sure if that’s because he had become numb to the feeling or the blessing was weakening.

The chains on his ankles and wrists were the same. The chains on his wrists running through a massive ring anchored deep in the wall before wrapping around his ankles. The more he tried pull the more he only hurt himself. Standing was impossible. So there he kneeled, for so long her had lost any sense of time.

“I wonder why they didn’t just kill me.” He said it a loud but he didn’t expect an answer.

“The High Priestess and your brother thought it in ill taste to kill you.”

He looked up to the bars only to “see” Maiev there in no armor and apparently weaponless. The hubris to presume she could enter the cell of the Betrayer as if he were nothing more than a saber kit. He kind of like that bold confidence. Perhaps he could use it against her.

“I thought it foolish myself. But I do not lead the Kaldorei. So here we are.” She sat a wooden tray with bread and water in front of him just far enough away that he couldn’t reach it for the chains.

“Something we can agree on. No robes today? No sacred armor to mark your false righteousness, Priestess?” Illidan scoffed at her turning his head away from the sustenance his body clearly craved.

“I’ll give you a little lesson.” Maiev sat a stool down inside the cell before closing the door and the barrier came back up. “Perhaps the hardest lesson to accept as a priestess or druid is that life and death are not separate entities. One cannot exist without the other.”

“Then we agree some must die in order for others to live.” He interrupted her with an air of vindication in his voice and that same smirk on his face.

“Likewise, there are two sides to the moon. The bright side we see and the dark side we cannot.” She sat down on the stool and leaned against the bars completely ignoring his statement. “Up until now all we have ever seen, all we have ever known, is the bright side of the moon. The side that promises life and hope. But the old texts speak of a way to invoke the dark side of the goddess. A warrior cloaked in shadows and driven by vengeance. Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“Because you want me to know you still prescribe to bedtime stories told to children?”

“Tyrande is the light side of the moon. The side that believes in life and hope. But someone has to be the dark side of the moon and do that which the light side cannot.”

“And that’s you. The lapdog doing the dirty work so she can keep her righteous hands clean.” The words tumbled from his mouth as if he had been given poisoned food by a trusted friend. The betrayed and not the betrayer.

“As you said, no one truly survives a war the likes of which we’ve seen.”

A long silence settled between them. Illidan finally glanced at the tray but quickly looked away.

“Answer my questions truthfully and I’ll give you some food and drink.”

“We could do this for a thousand years and you’ll never understand my motives.” He scoffed and looked her in the eyes.

“I don’t give a shit about your motives. I want answers.”

“What good are answers now? Answers won’t change anything.” Defiant even now, he challenged her. “Why don’t you just kill me and tell them I starved to death?”

“Shall I give you the same mercy you gave the innocents you killed?” Maiev donned her own cocky smile. “Sorry, I’m not feeling very merciful today.” She got up only to crouch in front of him. “I have a different kind of mercy in mind.” She grabbed his dirty ponytail and yanked his head back.

“I had no idea you harbored such proclivities, Priestess.”

“Disappointed you outlived my chastity, Betrayer?” She didn’t give him the opportunity to answer. Instead she poured the water down his throat as soon as he opened his mouth again.

He only managed to swallow part of it, the rest falling down his dirt caked face and chest. He choked and coughed causing some of the water to spit back in her face.

“The bread won’t go down as easily, but I’m willing to try if you are.” She forced his head to one side.

“I’m not hungry.” He managed as defiantly as he could through continued coughing.

“Funny your stomach growling earlier would suggest otherwise. Luckily for you, I thought this might happen so I took the liberty of liquifying the bread for you. She reached to the tray for the other wooden cup.

“I won’t fall for the same trick twice…”

“I counted on that…” She smirked as she released the matted strands of hair from her hand. A balled fist struck him in the side. He gasped just enough for her to force the cup to his lips and force the contents down his throat.

After another coughing fit that left him covered in bits of bread she leaned in close and whispered an incantation he didn’t recognize. The chains around his wrists, neck and ankles felt burning hot against his skin eliciting a muffled scream.

“This is your idea of mercy?” He attempted to mock her through grit teeth.

“I never said it was a mercy for you.” She took up the tray as the bars opened for her and the barrier fell. “Until next time, Betrayer.” She kicked the stool out the opening and the bars swung shut behind her.

“I look forward to it.”

Days bled together once again until Maiev finally returned. Dim eyes met her as the blessed shackles drained more of his strength each day. No greetings were exchanged as a group of wardens came in and cleaned up the cell. Once it had a modicum of cleanliness, they left Maiev and Illidan alone with a tray of food and a stool. After a long silence Maiev forwarded an ultimatum.

“Food or a bath?”

“Is this some kind of joke?” He couldn’t hold back the indignation in his voice.

“Both it is.” She moved to take up the liquified bread.

“There will be no need for your previous tactics.” Illidan’s voice was weak but still maintained a certain level of cockiness despite it all. “Just do what you came here to do and…” His voice trailed off as his brow furrowed in anger, nostrils flaring. “Satyrs. The true betrayers of our people.”

“The Watchers and I cleaned up a group of them several days ago. I bathed since then…” She sounded almost impressed.

“It is a stench I will never forget. The smell of cowardice and shamelessness.” More and more disdain seeped into his voice. Despite his long imprisonment, speaking of it seemed to give him strength. Or his rage did, eyes flaring brightly to emphasize it. He pulled against his restraints in a show of his desire to be free to fight the demons he once hunted.

Maiev plunked the stool down in front of him and pressed a cup of water to his lips. “What makes you any better than a satyr? You sold yourself to demons to become stronger.”

“But I did not become one, contrary to what you may believe.” Illidan answered her only after he had drunk all the water she offered him. “I pretended to serve them only long enough to understand them. Understand how to use their own weaknesses against them.”

“What did you really accomplish in doing that? Who did you save?” Maiev’s voice was tired, there was no hiding it. It lacked all the usual bite from the previous times she had come to see him.

“If the Sundering had not happened it would have saved many more. That blood is not on my hands.”

“No… I suppose it isn’t. But we are also assuming the Highborne could have abided by not continuing their ridiculous machinations that started all of this in the first place.” She sighed outwardly as she tore a piece of bread off and offered it to him.

“It’s more than just satyrs you’ve been fighting.” He almost sounded thoughtful before taking the bread in his mouth.

“It is none of your concern.” She tried to sound more awake and sharp but it came off as forced.

“I can help you.”

“You’re not leaving this cell.”

“I can help you from this cell.” He smirked just a little bit.

“I’m not some naïve fool as to trust you.”

“Then I’ll answer one question as a show of faith.” The smirk got just a little bigger, hidden only by chewing the next piece of bread she offered him.

“Why did you take water from the Well of Eternity?”

“The Well of Eternity was the most powerful weapon we could have wielded against the Legion going forward. The power it contained would have been more than enough to help us destroy them.”

“Destroy them going forward?”

“That’s a second question for another day.” His cockiness turned grim signaling something unsettling.

Maiev sighed again, with frustration this time. “That isn’t enough for me to trust you.” She pushed his cheeks together forcing his lips to part for the last piece of bread.

He smiled as he chewed it. “Never let your guard down, do you?”

“I can no longer afford to be complacent.” She offered him one last drink before getting up.

“Heavy is the burden of the strong to protect the weak.”

“How very ignoble of you,” she mocked as she cleaned up the tray. She muttered the same incantation again before turning to leave the cell and Illidan’s pained groans behind her.

“You need a bath and you’re getting it next time whether you want it or not.”

“Does the smell offend your delicate senses, Priestess?”

“I haven’t been able to smell anything but death in weeks.”

Illidan didn’t have a comeback for that. Instead he looked thoughtful a moment through his pain. “The Well was our greatest weapon against the Legion going forward.” He repeated what he had said earlier. “You possess something those foolish Highborne do not.”

“Oh? What might that be?” She leaned lazily against the bars while she waited for him to answer.

“A noble purpose.” There was no sarcasm in his voice. No cocky attitude. Just sincerity for the first time.

Her brows furrowed harshly and she pushed off the cell bars. “There’s nothing noble in bathing in the blood of demons and traitors every day. It’s a job that needs to be done. That’s all.” With nothing left to say that day, she left him.

After she left, he shook his head. “It is not what you do, but why you do it that is noble…” He let out a long, frustrated growl accompanying a stiff tug on the chains. “I should be the one out there fighting them… not you…” One more strong, but futile, pull and every muscle in his body relaxed on a ragged breath.

It took much less time for her to return again. As promised, she came with buckets of water and other various bathing supplies. Once they were all arranged, she sat down on the stool and got to work on his hair.

“I fail to see the point in this,” he muttered as she sat behind him cutting the binding from his ponytail.

“It’s psychological.” Maiev was clinical in her response, tiredness still creeping in her voice.

“I fail to see how making me look and smell pretty will change my attitude,” he scoffed with the same damnable smirk.

“I know. I know. You cannot fathom the horrors I have seen. I am not so easily broken,” she mocked him as she worked a brush through the ends of his hair giving it a solid yank in a particularly nasty knot. “I never said it was for you.”

“I overestimated you, priestess, to have been so easily swayed by my charms.” A teasing swagger filled his voice now but it was quickly replaced by a grunt of pain.

“I am well and truly aware of your status as Azeroth’s biggest ass,” Maiev hissed as she lodged the comb in his hair and pulled with a great deal of force. His head tilted back as a result to meet her sharp gaze. “But the others will start to doubt the threat you pose if they continue to see you in this decrepit state.” The knot untangled and his head shot forward again. “You deserve no sympathy and so you shall receive none.”

“A poor excuse.” There was something in Illidan’s voice that she had never heard before and couldn’t quite place. It was cocky as ever, and yet there seemed to be something else there.

“I told you before, didn’t I? You have no one to look forward to but me.” Her subtle way of telling him no one put her up to this was not lost on him.

Silence fell between them again as she continued to work the comb through his hair until all the knots were gone. She set to work wetting and cleaning his hair next.

“Do you have a family?” Illidan finally broke the silence as she blocked the soap and water from getting in his eyes with a hand to his forehead. He went on when she didn’t answer. “Besides your Brother.”

“No.” She ran her fingers through his hair making sure all the soap was out of it.

“Yet another thing your faith denied you.”

The cynicism in his voice elicited a sigh. “It was not forbidden, clearly. But my duties kept me too busy to pursue such frivolities.”

“Duties such as washing the hair of prisoner of war?”

“The sick and injured.” He was starting to raise her ire despite all her best efforts to not let him get to her.

“Ah yes… the grace and mercy of Elune bestown upon the faithful through the hard work of her devout priestess.”

“You would mock such experience even when it benefits you?” She grasped one of his horns and gave his head a yank to one side.

“I… did not… ask for you to do this.” Defiant as ever, he gritted his teeth to speak through the pain. The pleasantly scented soap did nothing to hide the smell of searing flesh filling the cell.

She finally released him and went back to the task at hand. She braided his hair to keep it out of the way so she could wash the rest of his body. When she stood and released the shackles on his ankles he gave her a momentary, questioning look over his shoulder. “I can leave your ankles restrained and cut those filthy rags off but then you’ll get to sit here naked for the rest of your miserable existence.”

“Is that the only reason?” Cocky Illidan was back again.

Maiev started to close the shackle around his ankle again.

“I don’t think I can stand on my own.” Illidan pointed out more seriously this time. “It has been too long.”

“Then sit on the stool.” She pulled him back on to the stool with seemingly no effort at all. As she handed him a tray of food and water, he could appreciate for the first time her physique.

“You’ve been training.” He grabbed her wrist and held her fast.

“Of course I have. You didn’t think I could wield a blade so well from lifting sacred tomes, did you?” She snapped trying to yank her arm free.

He held fast to her arm and traced one of the scars with his thumb. He seemed fixated on it for some reason. “You could have healed this easily, yet you still have it and others.”

She finally wrested her arm free and rubbed her wrist with her free hand. “They are a part of my past and so a part of me. These scars are a reminder of what is required of me. A reminder of the sacrifices I made so they will not be forgotten. A reminder of what will happen if I fail.” She turned away from him after she explained this.

Illidan touched a glowing scar on his chest lightly. “You are your scars and your scars are you.” He seemed thoughtful as he said this. His hand came back to the edge of the tray he was no staring at. “Perhaps we are not so different in that regard.”

“Perhaps not.” Maiev went back to work cleaning up her prisoner. "I suggest you eat quickly." Maiev's skilled hands cut a swath down the middle of his back. She didn't seem the least bit put off negotiating around his slumped wings. In fact, she picked one up and made quick work of cleaning it. "In a hurry to be rid of me? Where is your virtue of patience?" Though he teased her, he couldn’t deny he felt the slightest bit touch starved after so much time feeling nothing but decaying clothes, burning irons, and cold darkness. "I'm in a hurry to get you locked back up again. Besides, it'll be difficult to clean everything with a tray in your lap." She was completely nonplussed as she said it, not even hesitating as her hands wiped the last diaphanous pane of a wing. "You were serious?" "Have you known me to be anything but serious?" She moved on to the other wing. In another time, he did. Back when she was a priestess. There was a time when she could even laugh. Now he wondered if she even knew how. "I had no idea you harbored such proclivities, Priestess." Illidan cocked his head to the side as a wash cloth slid across it. The wet cloth wrapped tightly across his throat. Maiev leaned in close to one ear. "Let's be clear on one point. If I wanted to have my way with you, I could have at any time. All your suggestive comments would lead one to believe you would like me to have my way with you." "Only someone denser than a moon festival cake would assume that from my comments." He sounded almost offended as he scoffed at her assertion. "Besides... you are far too refined to handle the beast inside me." "Big talk for the chained tiger." She stood and glanced down at the tray in his lap. "And coming from the man who seems hell bent on keeping his pants on."

Illidan looked down at the tray of uneaten food. He huffed out a chuckle in the face of her challenge. “I’ve underestimated you in more ways than one, Priestess.” He took his time eating and drinking while she finished washing his other wing. Staring at her every move intently in an effort to throw her off. Without saying a word, he sat the tray aside and waited for her to crumble.

“Lean back.” It was an authoritative command.

“As you wish, priestess.” He lounged back on the stool casually, invitingly.

Maiev rolled her eyes momentarily but didn’t break eye contact for a single moment. She stared directly into the burning green lights as she bent down next to him and worked off his dirty pants and underwear. Not once did she look away while she washed his waist and legs. Especially not when she finally got around to cleaning THAT. All with an expression of absolute seriousness. When it was all said and done, she got up and dumped a whole bucket of now ice-cold water all over him.

“You almost made it.” He teased with a smirk. “You almost convinced me you could keep this professional.”

“If I didn’t think you needed to cool down, I wouldn’t have a reason to do that.” She crossed her arms over her chest in triumph as the bucket dangled suspiciously over his crotch.

“A physical reaction to stimuli is hardly cause for celebration.” He picked the bucket up and sat it aside leaving no further way for her to avoid seeing him in all his glory, or lack thereof, as the case may be.

Her eyebrow quirked momentarily, but otherwise she bore no outward reaction to the sight. Instead she looked away quickly to pick up the change of clothes she brought. A strange noise behind her made her turn quickly. Illidan had managed to stand and was using his wings to maintain balance on unsteady legs. But he had his back turned to her.

“Suddenly feeling embarrassed?” It was a tease more than anything.

“You said you had no family. Not that you didn’t want one.” He was uncharacteristically serious. “One day you may have one and I wouldn’t want to ruin that for you…”

For a moment she thought he was trying to say something, trying to make her understand something more. Then she remembered this was the Betrayer and he was trying to play mind games with her. Every word carefully crafted and deliberate to get her to let her guard down. After realizing that, she started to laugh. It wasn’t the same laugh he remembered, but it was a laugh nonetheless. It sent a wave over his very being almost like happiness.

“One steamy night of passion with the Betrayer and I’ll be ruined for life? Is that what you’re getting at? The evidence would suggest you are in far more need of me than I am of you.” She threw a long tunic over his head, one that laced together at the sides to accommodate his wings.

He grabbed her wrist again when she came to the side to tie one set of laces. He looked down at the scars that riddled her arm again. “You deserve to be someone’s first thought, not enjoyed for a moment then lost to eternity.” He slowly released her arm. “I haven’t been capable of giving anyone my first thought in a very long time.”

“What are you trying to say?” She cocked an eyebrow at him suspiciously.

“Nothing… nevermind…” He let go of her arm completely and stared straight ahead. “I grow tired of this game, Warden. And time is not on our side. Do what it is you came here to do and leave.”

Maiev was thrown by this sudden change in attitude but didn’t let it deter her from the task at hand. Without any further distractions, she was able to reclothe Illidan quickly. He kneeled down again and allowed her to clasp the shackles without a struggle. Before leaving, Maiev uttered a different incantation this time. The chains rattled violently as they changed configuration to force Illidan to stand. Chains crisscrossed his torso, arms and legs. Now chained to the wall he had to use his legs or face the burning blessings cutting into his whole body. He growled louder than usual to suppress his pain this time. It wasn’t clear if it was from his unused legs revolting or the new blessing.

This was the rhythm of Illidan’s life in the Warden’s prison. Long periods of darkness punctuated by Maiev’s succinct deliveries and reinforcing the bindings on him. More often than not, they said nothing. Every once in a while, she would be in a mood to talk about things other than extracting a confession from him.

On one such occasion, his hands were shaking from atrophy as they had been secured behind his back for some time. The bowl of soup slipped from his hands and splashed all over his face and hair. Something about the scene caused Maiev to crack just a fraction. She couldn’t help the slight smile on her face. Seeing it made Illidan smile a bit.

“Is my plight amusing to you, Warden?” There was a playfulness to his voice where there would have been harshness otherwise.

“I suppose it…” A piece of potato that had been stuck in his hair suddenly dropped back into the bowl sending more soup flying into the air. Maiev tried to hide her smile and laughter behind her hand.

“Yes, take joy in the suffering of your prisoner. You will pay for this transgression in time, Warden.” Though Illidan made a big show of the threat, it felt more than somewhat hollow.

Maiev cleared her throat and tried to put her serious mask back on. It was still smiling a just a little. “I’ll bring something to clean that up.” She left the cell and Illidan could hear laughter echoing off the stone halls just before the barrier closed.

If it had been anyone else seeing him like this, let alone laughing at him over it, he would have been mad. “It’s your fault I have grown incapable of even the most childish of tasks as feeding myself!” He would growl at them with fierce eyes. But for some reason, he was rather pleased to have seen that smile for the first time in so many years.

“I had forgotten how beautiful she is when she smiles.” He muttered a loud to him himself. “She always did rival Tyrande in her own way… To see her like this now.” He lifted his face towards the ceiling. “I had hoped to save more…” His fingers wrapped around the chains at his wrists until his knuckles turned white. He yanked at them as hard as he could, arms trembling under the force he was suddenly exerting on them. His efforts yielded no results. “I will escape this accursed prison and I will finish what I started. Complacency is no longer an option…” He brought his head down and stared at his reddened wrists.

The bars opening again did not draw his attention. He didn’t stir as Maiev started to clean the soup off his face until she reached for the tie to his blindfold. “Do not touch it.” He grabbed her wrists as he growled out the warning.

“It’s disgusting. Thousands of years with the same piece of cloth over your eyes.”

“It is for your protection.” His hands tightened around her wrists.

“Then close your eyes.” She started working the blindfold again. “I… I can’t kill you, you know. Tyrande and Malfurion would likely remove me as leader of the Watchers if I did.” The last bit felt like it had been added as an afterthought.

He heaved out a sigh as his hands slowly, hesitantly slackened. Eventually, he let out another tight breath before his shoulders relaxed. The green light that once seeped through the blindfold disappeared and she knew it was safe to proceed.

“I have seen everything more times than I can count and the one thing you can’t stand for me to see is your eyes. Is that because of the abomination you’ve become?” She removed the blindfold and tossed it aside. She ran the wash cloth over his face and into his hair gently.

“All power comes at a price. One I have paid is to see many things you could not even begin to fathom. Things that would drive weaker beings mad.”

“Are you suggesting I’m weak?” She couldn’t help but challenge him at the merest suggestion he was stronger than her.

“You would survive the visions of that I have no doubt.” He took her hand when she got too close to his eyes. “But you have already lost enough in this life. I would not presume to take more from you.”

“How very noble…” She scoffed as she turned for a new piece of cloth to put over his eyes.

“This is…”

“It was a scrap the tailor had left over. Don’t think too much of it. Silk is more durable anyways and will stand up better to the conditions in here.” She retreated after the explanation so she could hand him another bowl of soup. “Try not to wear it this time.”

He chuckled and smirked as he pondered how much of her explanation was truth and how much was a cover. He didn’t say anything though. Once he finished eating, she took everything aside and prepared to leave.

“This cell cannot hold me forever. I will escape and continue my work.” It was a declaration, gravity etched into every word.

“If that ever happens, I will hunt you down and bring you back here. As many times as it takes for you to see justice for what you have done.” Also a declaration.

“It is unwise to make promises you cannot keep.” A ghost of a smirk.

“How many times have you said you’ve underestimated me?”

Illidan’s smirk grew a fraction wider. “Thank you for the bath.”

He couldn’t deny he looked forward to her irregular visits. Especially taunting her during bath days. But she became increasingly less fun as the years wore on. He watched as her once vibrantly colored hair and bright eyes faded. A tinge of regret wheedled into the back of his mind that she had to keep fighting and caring for him. She could just as easily torture him for the information she wanted. Yet, she had not. That was the puzzle he kept coming back to over and over again. If she truly was the dark side of the moon, to Tyrande’s brilliance, surely she would not be above torture. Had she been forbidden from its use?

He had plenty of time to think about that later. It was time to focus on his mission and how to escape the prison again. One thing at a time. First the blessing, then the chains, then the magic barrier. Then… her. He surmised Maiev would be the most powerful deterrent of them all. As well she should be. Death wasn’t an option, but perhaps he could fight his way out. The sense of urgency within him grew stronger each day as he felt tendrils of darkness seep into the very earth beneath him. He started to formulate the thousandth plan, the millionth contingency, when Maiev appeared before him. She stood tall as ever, but there was no hiding the blood-soaked bandages all over her body.

“You are… injured…” He sounded genuinely surprised. It was clear she had just freshly bathed. Hair loosely tied and still dripping onto the linen shirt made the many bandages underneath even more apparent.

“It is no concern to you.”

“You wreak of demons.” He growled.

“All your friends are dead.” She replied flatly as she sat the tray down. Today he had his hands bound behind his back as he sat crossed legged on the floor. She released his hands so he could feed himself and made to retreat to her stool by the door.

“I would not starve to death in a day or two.” He grabbed her arm before she could leave and pressed his other hand to a seeping wound on her arm. Felfire danced from his fingers incinerating the bandage and cauterizing the wound.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Maiev growled painfully between clenched teeth as she wrenched her arm away. The act a painful reminder that he was dangerous and she always needed to be on guard. Her hand reached instinctively to the dagger she always wore hidden on her person. For a moment she chastised herself for being so foolish as to come here in her current state.

“An open wound is apt to fester.” Illidan’s flippant response was accompanied by a slight shrug before he started eating.

“How long has it been now?” She sighed as she stared up at the ceiling while clutching her burnt arm. “Still you refuse to answer any real questions.” Maiev tiredly let her inward thoughts spill from her lips. Feeble rays of light radiated from her palm to heal the wound.

“You would have a much better idea of that than I. There are no days or nights down here.” A casual enough response but the bitterness couldn’t be ignored.

“Several thousand years of this same song and dance has grown quite bothersome.” The bars rattled gently as she settled against them.

“Then change the cadence.” Illidan smirked up at her for the first time in centuries.

It was more attitude than the weary warden could handle. She vaulted from the stool and threw a fist into the stone wall right next to his head. The impact splintered off a piece of rock and sent it shearing into the hair that exploded from its binding. A few cut strands wafted slowly on to Illidan’s hand.

“JUST TELL ME WHY YOU DID IT! Why did you steal water from the Well and open up the possibility of them coming back?! Just what did you hope to do?!” There was a wild desperation in her voice as if the last strands of her patience, or sanity, were about to snap.

Though she had nearly hit him and screamed in his face, Illidan looked completely unfazed. But the smirk on his face drifted to something listless.

“Have you ever loved something so much you would give up everything, even your very soul, to protect it?” Illidan’s question was sincere in tone, his face a vision of seriousness.

Maiev’s eyes shifted back and forth rapidly as they searched his face for the meaning behind the question. Unable to determine it, she answered truthfully. “I would die to protect my people.”

“That’s not the same.” The chains rattled softly as he pushed a hand against her cheek. “You have given so much of yourself to everyone else are you even capable of loving as deeply as…?”

Maiev’s eyes narrowed as Illidan trailed off. She wrenched his hand away and slammed it into the wall. “You cannot hide what is already well known. And your pretty lies won’t work on me. You said it yourself centuries ago, you haven’t been able to give someone your first thought in a very long time.” She pushed herself back and slowly stepped away, never taking her eyes off him.

He just shook his head and looked back to the tray. “I also seem to remember telling you your narrow sense of virtue and justice could never hope to understand my motives.”

“I can’t even begin to understand them if you never tell me!” She roared with her whole body before grabbing the now loose hair at her temples. “All you seem to allude to is that you did it for love. I call saber shit on that.” She pulled on the hair for a moment then abruptly pulled her fingers free of the strands.

“Even though it’s been thousands of years, you still don’t seem to realize we are two sides of the same coin.” Illidan’s low voice harbored no cockiness. Only straight forward truth.

“I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU!” Maiev roared with her whole body again this time punching the wall adjacent to the one Illidan was chained.

“We both gave up all the comfortable and good things in our lives to fight an endless war.” He gestured to the cell. “We sacrificed our bodies, a very piece of ourselves.” He gestured to his eyes. “We gave up on old paths to pursue ones that would better serve us in our battles ahead.” He tapped his arm where the wound he cauterized on her sat. An indication that he understood she was growing incapable of using the Light to heal herself. To say he knew she had been away from the Sisterhood too long to remember its lessons. “We both chase after an illusory dream to lengths others cannot understand. But we do so with complete conviction in ourselves.” He pulled the blindfold from his eyes of his own accord for the first time since he had been imprisoned though he kept his eyes closed to shield Maiev from the dangers that lurked in their depths. “And it would seem... we both gave up any hope of happiness in this life.”

Maiev’s hands fell heavily at her side. Her weight grew too much for her tired legs to hold. She sank slowly down with her forehead to the rock wall she had just maimed. She breathed in the stagnant air of the cell on heaving breaths.

“You wasted so much time and strength running from this truth. But the moment you stepped into the shadows you stepped closer and closer to it.” There was a soothing quality to his voice as the chains rattled gently. “But there is one crucial thing that separates us.”

Maiev twisted her head to look at him from behind a veil of hair. Her heavy breaths caused one section to move in and out in time. “I can think of plenty, but what did you have in mind, Betrayer?”

“The only person you were willing to sacrifice for your noble cause was yourself.” Illidan gave her a pressed smile as his head tilted to look at her better.

Maiev’s eyes narrowed slightly as the acknowledgement of his confession settled over her slowly. “Then you admit your sin of using the lives of innocents to further your goal?”

“I will not apologize for what I did.”

She rolled her eyes at the expected response. “Why are you suddenly so forthcoming with information?”

“Because I have been thinking about you a great deal lately, Maiev. Let me go so I can help you put an end to all of this.” Illidan reached out and brushed the hair out of her face.

For a moment the way he said her name and not some teasing title made her feel… something. But it was short lived as the voice in the back of her mind screamed danger. “Do not toy with me, Betrayer.” The dagger she kept hidden found its way to his throat. She muttered an incantation and Illidan’s body was sucked back against the wall. It sent the tray clattering leaving the remaining contents splattered on the floor. “I know… I know the only thought on your mind is how to escape this place.” She approached him on slow, purposeful steps. “And the only name in your heart is Tyrande Whisperwind.”

“It is true, I will never love someone else as much as I love Tyrande. But…” He pulled against the chains with all his strength. They seared into his flesh twisting his face in pain but he still didn’t relent.

“There are no buts with you, Betrayer. You lost the right for me to trust you millennia ago and I will not ever trust you again.” She shook her head as if she was trying to convince herself of the words. “Struggle all you want, all you’ll do is hurt yourself.” She set out about cleaning up the dishes off the floor.

“Your hair at least…” Illidan finally relented and stopped pulling again the restraints. “Let me fix it for you.”

“You?” Her eyebrow quirked up slowly. “You know how?”

“I do not profess to have the skills of Azshara’s handmaidens but I can braid hair.” He dangled the blindfold in one hand.

“The what about your eyes?” She sounded unsure, but not unwilling.

“You can bring it back to me next time.” He drew a sly smile, despite the burns on his body.

Maiev let out a long sigh. “It would do me no favors for my subordinates to see me like this.”

“As a leader you should inspire confidence. An unkempt appearance would sow doubts,” he offered encouragingly as he swayed the blindfold again. When Maiev didn’t answer or make any move he frowned and sighed. “You let yourself very open multiple times. Did I ever make a move to hurt you?”

“Yes. Just a few minutes ago.”

“That wound was bleeding far too much.” That was true at least.

Maiev sighed again and walked over to him, dagger in hand. “I will know if you try anything suspicious.” She gave a word and the chains loosened. “Can you stand?”

“So considerate. Yes, I can stand.” He gave her a coy smile.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this…” Finally, she turned around. “You can open your eyes.”

#world of warcraft #warcraft fanfic #maiev shadowsong #illidan stormrage #enemies to lovers #slow burn #denial of feelings #angst #solitary confinement #nudity #bathing/washing #hand feeding #power dynamics #emotional hurt/comfort

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