“Night elf scum!”

The snarl escaped his lips just as soon as the two hit the ground, words forming with the force of the impact of their bodies on the forest floor. Underneath him, she growled and spat, a prized beast at last caught by its tireless poacher. After so long, he had her now, the tables turned; he hadn’t come here seeking revenge, but if it would find him, then he would take it — after all, was that not what any good Sin’dorei of his caliber would do, not least in the interest of maintaining some semblance of his dignity and pride? They were away from scrutiny here, away from the prying eyes that could stop him or at the very least deliver swift news of her death to the enemy. Out here, he could take the glory or leave it, vanquisher of a menace as feared as Elinarah, hero of the Alliance. The threat of the fallen Aspect was not his fight now, and aside from his storied tenure there were no good graces for him to fall from; the Argent Tournament had been long forgotten in the year since, and all that was left now was the return to the rhythm of war.

“The fear in her eyes, whatever he could glean from that silver glow, felt palpable. The thought of it brought him a sensation of smug pride, like a brilliant bird preening precious pinions. Pinned beneath his own weight he’d somehow managed to get the drop on her this time, overpowering her feline form through some strategic exploitation of a few precious key moments and from there, miraculously, managing to wrestle the resultant whirling dervish to the ground — during which time she decided to take it upon herself to make life even more inconvenient for him by turning back into her primary elf form. She was certainly crafty, if she was going to go all out like this — and desperate.

One hand bearing down on her neck, he raised his dagger above his head, its magnificent and polished blade glinting in the moonlight of the Ashenvale night. She moved not a muscle; she barely even reacted, and were he not an elf himself, keenly aware of the general unreadability of their eyes to most other races, he would not have even been able to notice her vision tracing the arc of his blade as he pulled it back above the both of them. The darkness around them was unyielding, like a shroud; a spotlight that kept them at the centre of the action. He found himself almost transfixed by the moment, puzzled as he was by her lack of continued reaction.

Watching her expression shift was all the time she needed, his hesitance an allowance. What was once the expression of a trapped animal quickly faded, cycled through to a crafty grin. His continued confusion, now evident on his features, gave her yet another inning, and bought her the time for one snarky remark, something she’d obviously been dying to make from the moment they encountered one another tonight.

“You know, sometimes it really does pay to think like an animal.”

Astatheas had little time to ponder what it was, exactly, that she had meant by that; just as soon as she had said it, his lower abdomen exploded in a rush of sudden pain, almost as if he’d been stabbed. He retched, and in one swift movement she threw him off to the side, shifting back into her cat form effortlessly as she jumped back and landed with silent paws on the leafy earth beneath them. Blinded by pain and clutching his stomach, he rolled onto his back and groaned, looking up blearily at the endless darkness of the night sky through the canopy, blanketed by a carpet of stars.

Whatever his exact thoughts were, primarily fixated as they were on the idea that he had royally fucked up and was now definitely going to die here because of some stupid night elf eating him or whatever their kind did, both they and his scenic view of the atmosphere were quite suddenly interrupted by the large and imposing frame of one very violet panther, baring its sharp and somewhat stained teeth in a mock grin above his face.

The sudden shock was enough to make him bolt up defensively, to which she jumped back; though he definitely immediately regretted that choice when he almost keeled over again from the stabbing pain in his gut. If it was a dirty fight to the death she wanted, then so be it — being a little worse for wear from getting kneed in the abdomen wasn’t going to keep him from not getting killed… probably. Seriously, did she need to do it so hard?

Still wheezing, he hadn’t even noticed he’d voiced his question out loud until she answered it; despite the strange and somewhat raspy nature of her voice in this form, the offense she took to his question was still plain as day in her tone.

“You were trying to kill me, dumbass!”

Oh, that was true — but still! Didn’t these Alliance dogs pride themselves on their… oh, he didn’t know, superiority over the Horde, or whatever? Their honor? Honestly, he’d kind of gotten so lost in the moment he just assumed that that brand of honor meant she was just going to give him the satisfaction of victory… or at least he’d hoped. Most of them, anyway. Night elves were always savage, and at least somewhat cunning, perhaps not quite so unwilling to resort to dirty tactics — but he thought such a prominent hero as her might at the very least be somewhat tamed by her status by now, cowed by the idea of her looming reputation. Or it may very well be that they liked her better like this. Part of the charm? Whatever.

“You started it,” he coughed.

“Wh—” she growled indignantly, “What the hell do you mean, I started it?”

He growled, turning his head to look at her as he clutched his stomach with one hand, having pulled himself up into a somewhat reasonable sitting position. “In Eversong, fool.”

“In Everso— really? Really. Really! It has been literal years since then, I thought we were, I don’t know… past that!”

“…You tried to kill me first! This is only fair!”

“I did not try to kill you,” she stressed, stepping forward, thick and stained claws digging into the soft earth below. “Not exactly, anyway. Not you.” The addition came out a scolding scoff. “…You were there, and you have a brain,” she hissed, her ragged voice lowering dangerously, “If I had really wanted to, I could have ended your life right then and there. You would have been nothing more than collateral. Do you really think I would have cared to let you go if I was planning to kill you?”

“How reassuring,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t there to kill me, specifically. Goody.”

“Indeed, I wasn’t,” she sneered. “So, nothing about it had anything to do with you. Is this just a blood elf thing, you thinking everything revolves around you, specifically? — And, and hey, let’s not act like you’re above this whole killing thing. Seeing as how you just tried to do it to me. Now we’re even, not like it matters; neither of us are above this prattling war dance anyways. Killing’s just the business. Besides, pray tell — what have you been doing here in Ashenvale, hm?”

His eyes darted to the side, before flickering back to meet hers again, an endless silver void.

“As I thought. You’re no better than I am; we both play the same game. Maybe this means you could step off of my tail for a few minutes and we could have a normal, civil conversation like regular adults, yes?”

“…Fine,” he snorted, though to his own chagrin he wasn’t exactly sure why he agreed. The two of them had been rivals (albeit fairly distant) for years now, their relationship ranging from being on somewhat-friendly-but-unspeaking terms (if you could call the forcible truce between them thanks to an armistice ‘friendly’) to being on hostile-trading-insults and attempting, vaguely, to outcompete one another in everything when they came into close quarters from time-to-time terms. He couldn’t deny that that time they’d spent at the Argent Tournament — together, in a way — had served to soften his opinion on her a bit; it did some good, however small, to have that place where both the Horde and the Alliance could shed their distinctions — even if momentarily — and reach some common ground. Not everyone there was particularly friendly, nor willing to mingle with the enemy, but those that were willing to give it a shot soon found that more connected them than divided them.

If only it could have lasted. It never did.

The nagging regret in the back of his mind that he felt when considering how fast he’d left behind the time he’d spent on the tournament grounds, the time, however limited, that he’d spent with her — the lessons he’d been imparted and had imparted on people he’d otherwise consider his mortal enemies and dreadfully, that sort of terrible fondness for the night elf in specific that had began to unfurl in his chest like a weed — in favour of the next big war push would have swiftly overcome him if he were a lesser man… but a lesser man he was not.

He hated above all else that he even felt that sort of admiration for someone like her, that he had let it take root in his chest. This adoration was one that hadn’t gone away no matter how much he’d tried to ignore it or nip it in its metaphorical bud; no matter how hard he tried he could not excise this particularly stubborn weed from the otherwise meticulously kept gardens of his mind. Its mere presence was an affront to his selfhood, a betrayal of all of his principles, of his pride, of the Horde but more importantly of the Sin’dorei; the portents it brought with it spelled only doom, a cross-faction tryst to be considered nothing more than the scandalous nighttime fantasy of a repressed man which was something that he, though he may not be many things, actually was.

═══

“You’re lucky I wasn’t in cat form,” she snorted.

“And why is that, exactly?”

Emphatically, she rolled her eyes. “I only kneed you in the abdomen,” she answered, “Not much killing to be had there, comparatively, unless I had blades attached to my kneecaps. Now, if I were in cat form, it would have been a lot less pretty. Living the wild way will teach you many, many important lessons, not the least of which is that you should always go for the soft underbelly. It’s impressive how many people forget that, really. Makes my job a hell of a lot easier.”

“…You don’t say.”