Lady and Knight (1/4)

((This is the first of four first-person perspective pieces told by Harrowheart and Lieselotte Durant, mother of Viatorus and Isidor. Lieselotte's companion piece will be on the votivescholars journal. Companion Piece #1.))

When I first met Mrs. Durant, I liked her. I still like her, I think. It ain’t fair not to. She’s been so nice to me for the most part. I felt bad for Mrs. Durant that night at the engagement party. She’s so nice, and her life’s gotta be so lonely. She’s married off to a husband who don’t pay her any mind, and if she’s like Isidor I figure she ain’t got many friends. It’s a sad sorta life she has to live. If my mother lived like her I’d want to fix it real quick, take her someplace nice, make her feel thought-of. That’s why I offered to show her my world. I thought she could use some time away. And I guess she must have needed it, cause pretty soon she got a hold of me and asked for a little adventure.

A little adventure turned into a day trip to Stormwind. Mrs. Durant spent the whole day asking me questions. Questions about all sorts of things. Culture and history and races and all about the noble houses and the government and all. I could answer most of them. I could tell her who was good and bad, tell her things like ‘dwarves are smiths who drink a lot’ and ‘elves are snooty mages’ and all the things people might call me racist for even if they are kinda true. I think she liked my answers. She liked talking to me, I could tell. She paid attention to what I had to say and didn’t treat me like an idiot. I know I bring it on myself with the way I act in the Nexus, but like I told Isidor and Viatorus, I’d rather be a happy idiot than sad and grim. Still hurts sometimes knowing what my friends think of me though.

But Mrs. Durant thought I was real smart and helpful. She even helped me a little, too. She fixed up some of my German grammar that I didn’t even know I was getting wrong, and she didn’t even treat me like a fool when she did it. She’s too nice to be a Durant, just like her children. We had such a good day out until all of a sudden I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her we had to go, but I didn’t tell her it was because of what I was thinking about. Death knight thoughts. She said she wanted to stay. I had a hard time not being angry but I don’t think she noticed because she didn’t look scared. She just kept saying she wanted to stay a while. I told her Stormwind doesn’t have any good inns, but I decided it wouldn’t be too bad an idea to stay a day in Dalaran. I figured since she didn’t have any Azerothian coins we wouldn’t be able to stay for long on my budget, but then she whipped out this big ol’ bag of gems and I just about fell over seeing that. A whole bag of gems! Like some kind of famous adventurer! I was looking at more money than I’d ever seen at once, and it was all in shiny little rocks.

And that’s how a day in Stormwind turned into a few weeks in Dal. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had to leave her all alone every night to go to Acherus or the Shore. After all I couldn’t just get drunk or high to forget what I was thinking about and the things I needed to do. I had to be ‘upstanding’ when I was with her. She helped me with that, too. She taught me how to stand and how to sit when to do this and that. I showed off how Isidor taught me how to point with a flat palm, and I told her that I’ve been trying to make a habit out of it. I think she liked that and was proud of me. She taught me how to greet fancy people (the way she wanted me to, anyhow) and how to introduce myself and her. I had to be her translator. She made me feel like I was an Ambassador for Earth, which is crazy. If I went back in time and told myself I’d grow up to be a translator for a rich queen of magic, I’d have called me a liar. I wore my engagement outfit and felt handsome. I felt good about myself. I looked good, and someone respected me, and when people who didn’t know me saw me on the street they looked impressed before they looked that way people from Azeroth always look when they see me.

And more than any of that... I was helping Mrs. Durant. I was showing her something new and exciting. I was making someone’s life better instead of breaking it, and even though both can be fun sometimes, fixing is better than breaking. So when she asked me to help her make some friends, of course I said yes. Of course! She deserves friends. Almost everyone does.

She said she wanted me to make her friends like her though. That was the real hard part. I had to find rich nobles like her. I didn’t feel so confident with myself all of a sudden. She had faith, but she don’t know what it’s like being undead and from Westfall. I told her I might fail, but she believed in me, and so I tried.

Zandros Alter

A few days in I went back to Stormwind. I knew I could find a couple people there for sure. Nobles spend time in the gardens of the Cathedral District back by the lake. When I saw people there dressed fancy, I went up to them. I told them that I represented a noble woman who was new to the area and looking for contacts. Most of them didn’t believe me. They made faces at me and turned away. Sometimes they laughed at me. One of them said they’d call the guards and tell them I was trying to trick people into following me into dark alleys so I could kill them, which wasn’t true. If I wanted to kill them I would have knocked them over and stepped on their throats right then and there. I didn’t tell them that though. I kept that to myself.

A guy who was out with his friends heard all of this going on and came over. He said he heard my accent and heard what I was saying and he was interested. He believed me. I was relieved. People don’t usually stick up for me like that and usually I just gotta stare until I can walk away without causing trouble.

He told me his name was Zandros Alter, and I was surprised, cause I knew that family name. I asked him if he was the son of the head of House Alter, and he said he was. I told him that I knew some folks from Westfall who went to work for his family after the Cataclysm, and I told him their names, and he laughed and said ‘Yes!’ They work for his family now and live in the city.

We got to talking and we had a lot in common! He fought in Northrend, too, and he was in the Stormwind Army. He still is. He’s a knight-commander. He wasn’t dressed like one, but I wasn’t dressed like a death knight either. We talked about fighting and he told me he’s a spellbreaker. I was like, ’No way! That’s only for elves!’ He told me that when he was in Northrend he worked with a band of Argents, and one of them was an elf, and he saved her life, and she taught him how to be a spellbreaker. I was like ’Wow!’

I got to tell him all about Mrs. Durant. I let it slip that she’s a mage from another world. I’m not sure if he actually believed me, but he said he did, and he said he wanted to meet Mrs. Durant. I told him she’s in Dalaran, and he invited us both to their family manor the next day.

The Alter Manor
Mr. and Mrs. Alter are the heads of House Alter, and they met us right at the gates of their mansion, which surprised me. They brought Zandros and his sister, too, but I already forget her name. Daisy, I think. She was weird and a lesbian. Not that being a lesbian had anything to do with her being weird. She was just weird and also a lesbian.

Introducing Mrs. Durant made me feel so important. She told me to call her ‘Mrs. Lieselotte Durant, Wife and Honorable Patron of the Current Archon.’ I changed ‘Mrs’ to ‘Lady’ cause I thought that’d fit better. I couldn’t figure out if we got a word like ‘Archon’ in Common, so I just said ‘Archon,’ and I think the Alters liked that weird sound. What a great title and all though. Sort of makes me wish I had a title that was fancier. Mine’s weird and I don’t get to use it much. It was fun for a minute to pretend be Ambassador Harrowheart, or Regent-Lord Harrowheart, or whatever else folks call themselves when they live up their own ass.

The Alters live in a big hillside mansion near Stormwind with a real nice view of Elwynn Forest. When I stood on their balcony I could see logging operations way, way off in the distance. I told Zandros that it reminded me of Grizzly Hills, and he said the logging land I could see was theirs, and they did own land up in Grizzly Hills. They own land in Redridge and Stranglethorn, too. That’s when I remembered for a minute that they’re rich – that everyone but the help, who were all from Westfall, was rich. It made me feel strange inside. It made me feel angry somehow, but not death knight angry. I kept it to myself. Isidor and Runa have been teaching me better than to be mad about people being rich even though secretly sometimes I still am.

We entered the great hall and sat right in the middle of a long table made out of all kinds of inlaid wood from all over the world. All the pillars in the room were Titan stone and metal with carvings of the races of the world and strange runes I couldn’t read. A breeze came through the open window-doors and I could smell the outdoors. Wood and roses and horses and smoke.

I had to pay real close attention to everything that went on next. I had to be on my best Earth behavior and my best Azeroth behavior at the same time. We started off with the setting aside of weapons, which I ain’t ever seen for myself. They gave Lieselotte a sword to hold just so that we could all disarm ourselves and hang our weapons on racks on the wall. Not like any of us were gonna stab each other, but it did help to have my swords away from me in case I maybe did want to stab someone.

Turns out it was mostly a good time though. Mostly. We got to talking, I told them about her, I told her about them. I translated for them from Common to German and I could tell they were real impressed. I felt like a puffed-up little sparrow, bigger than I really was. We talked about their land, their military service, and the favors other folks owe them. Zandros saved a blue and red dragon in Northrend during the Nexus Wars (Azeroth’s Nexus Wars, of course) and now the dragons owe the family a favor. Daisy studies how arcane residue settles on objects, and she spends a lot of time at the Theramore Crater, which I told Lieselotte basically made her a Scholar. They got all sorts of noble families whose sons and daughters they protect in the military. When times are hard they send food to other families, and they give a lot to poor folks, which should be nice but I still resented it for some reason. How can you say you give a lot to others when you’re living in a mansion and some folks in the kingdom still got no clothes, no food, and no home?

But the part that made the night the worst was when they started really talking about Zandros. Handsome Zandros with his tan skin and his wavy golden hair and his emerald green eyes. How he channels the Light like a good noble son. How he had a wife once, but Deathwing killed her when he caved the Park in. He’s single now. A single young man who needs a wife. Needs kids before long.

And ain’t it such a coincidence?
Ain’t it just perfect?
Why don’t you tell ‘em, Harrowheart?

Mrs. Durant has a daughter.
Round about his age.
A powerful mage woman born to succeed.
And best of all…
She needs a husband.