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Illidari Downtime

Summary:

"A night gathering? Right now? Right away?"

Notes:

Written for the World of Warcraft kink meme. Prompt was: "listen... sometimes the lord of the outland needs to relax, and his demon hunters are more than willing to give their master a soothing night to forget about legion bullshit.

please nice dom!illidan and totally consensual! demon hunters love their master and maybe even have done this before, but that's up to writer anon!"

* * * * * *

For the purposes of writing the best fill that I was able, William King's Illidan went out the window. I will not miss it at all. I might leave it out there. The only important takeaway I used from the book is that experienced demon hunters have magical, mobile 360° vision that can be way better than the vision they had with eyes.

Thank you to the OP. Once inspiration came I had a ton of fun with this one.

A tip of the hat also to the kickass lore persons of Wyrmrest Accord, two of whom aided me in deciding how to talk about Tyrande in this, and neither of whom asked any questions.

Work Text:

"There you are," Kayn says, leaning over the side of the balcony above her. Allari looks up from the mass of Legion corpses she's felled to see Kayn smiling as broadly as she's ever seen him. A victory, then. Not that Allari ever doubted the outcome.

Allari rests the base of the Scythe of Souls on the courtyard stone. "Excellent timing, if what you wanted was to miss all the action." Khadgar, the mortals he led into the Nighthold, and the other Illidari have no idea how many demon reinforcements managed to show up down here. Kayn looks like he's about to burst at the seams. "What news?"

"Lord Illidan is back with us," Kayn announces, and adds more dramatically, "and he wants to have a night gathering."

Allari shouts in triumph at the first piece of news, then laughs in sheer delight at the second as she spreads her wings and leaps up to the balcony, nearly giddy. All their planning and work come to fruition: Lord Illidan has returned. "A night gathering? Right now? Right away?"

Kayn holds out his arm to direct her path as they exit the room. "I think having his soul separated from his body made him anxious to do something with both," Kayn says as they walk. Allari laughs with elation and breaks into a jog, and Kayn follows her and she starts to run and then they're racing through the corridors, laughing together with shared victorious glee.

Kayn rapidly outpaces her with his long legs and takes the lead. "I was about to give up on finding how to get to you," Kayn calls to her. "Everyone else is already together."

"You know I'd have murdered you later if you did." Something occurs to Allari. "Has he had... you know, a... bath?"

"No." Kayn shakes his head. "But we both know he could be rotted like one of those Forsaken and you would still want to." Allari aims at a smack at him as they sprint, but she pulls the blow so she doesn't actually make contact. "Besides, he can't be any grosser or sweatier than you are," Kayn continues, beaming back at her. This time Allari connects, punching his arm. It's true that she's more than sweaty--she's battle-sweaty and splashed with a healthy amount of demon blood and gut splatter. But Kayn looks the same, with his blindfold dampened with perspiration, his perfect hair tousled, and dark smears of blood on his chest, and what better aphrodisiac for their kind than sweat and demon-killing? What better aphrodisiac than their master's return?

Kayn takes her through the halls to a wing of the Nighthold she never glimpsed during the battle. He slows finally and leads her into a room that's partitioned into something like a hallway, with most of the space out of sight behind a freestanding silk screen. Allari's about to focus her spectral sight through the screen when she notices the door's key is sitting in the keyhole, and she pauses, distracted. This will be their first time doing this outside the either the security of the hidden Illidari lodgings in the reclaimed ruins of Karabor or the sanctified confines of the Black Temple.

Sanctified not because of any mutated draenei worship, but because Lord Illidan hallowed it with his steps.

"Should I lock it?" Allari asks Kayn.

"If you like," Lord Illidan answers from somewhere behind her.

Her feet barely touching the floor from the sound of his voice, Allari darts a step past the screen and stops.

Lord Illidan is sitting on the sole backless divan in a room that's clearly a courtesan's bedding chamber, surrounded by demon hunters in various stages of undress and romance. Their master is just as she remembers: his stern, forbidding face with pronounced nose, his great size and stunning musculature, his lovely purple skin, his thick, silky black hair, his enormous horns and wingspan. Allari's heart flutters.

"I left strict orders that I am not to be disturbed." He drums his claws rhythmically on the arm of the divan, which could seat probably three sets of narrow Nightborne hips, but which supports their lord more like a plushly cushioned sex throne. "Khadgar strikes me as an intelligent man."

"Master," Allari utters, finding her voice, and she falls to her knees. The velvety floor is constructed to be springy as any mattress, and her knees bounce a bit as she lands. Allari looks around and laughs, for the interior is constructed without pretense for one purpose and one purpose alone: sex. Lord Illidan knows a thing or two about spaces given solely to erotic pursuits, and he's chosen quite the location for their night gathering. They had a less sensual, more severe room for this purpose within the Illidari quarters, but the Nighthold's sex chambers are not unlike the den of mortal delights, and Lord Illidan has returned, and for a moment all Allari can do is laugh with exuberance.

"Allari Souleater," their master says. Lord Illidan always used her peer-given title interchangeably as surname and pet name. Allari wants to fly to him and throw herself into his arms, but one does not simply embrace the Lord of Outland. She will fuck him, though, soon enough, and she will indulge in all the gratification of his physical presence then. She's blissful at the thought.

"Disrobe," Lord Illidan tells them, gesturing with a clawed hand.

Allari sets the Scythe of Souls carefully down against the long wall that's already lined with warglaives. She exchanges a grin with Kayn as she kicks off her boots and strips off her top, baring her breasts for their master, and Kayn turns his back on Lord Illidan and more slowly unlaces his pants, sliding them down over his hips as tantalizingly as possible. Though Allari is saucy with everyone else, she takes Lord Illidan's orders in earnest, all Lord Illidan's orders, and executes them in a quick and businesslike way, while Kayn interprets this type of command more playfully, because he's a show-off. Their master has never indicated a preference, only accepted both of them for who they are.

Allari glances around the room, taking stock of the others around her. She can't assume missing faces mean fallen soldiers. Most of the faces she expects to see are there and accounted for: Jace and Belath, Izal and Falara, Calia and Slitesh, Tylos and Sana and Ariana and Evelune. Allari doesn't see Demissya. Izal looks to be injured, though not badly, with her shoulder bandaged in white priests' wrappings. Allari scans a half-dozen other faces. Asha and Kor'vas are kissing and undressing one another, caught up in a level of passion they have only for each other.

The night gatherings had been Allari's idea, so long ago now, though she wasn't the one to name them. When she'd first suggested their lord needed to relax, she had not an inkling how fast and far that ball would roll.

"What did you have in mind," he'd said. She'd circled behind him and started rubbing his shoulders and neck, and his shoulders soon sagged as his neck bent under his heavily horned head. Only a few of them had been present, but the others had caught on quickly enough. Their lord had been less imperious and more tentative then, possessing no knowledge of what any of them liked or wanted to do with him or each other. Allari's smile is refreshed by the memory, one she's so grateful to have, and she's probably smiled more in the last ten minutes than she has in the past eight months.

"My demon hunters," Lord Illidan says in a rumbling, satisfied purr, gazing about at his followers as though he beholds not only their naked forms but also their insides, as though he's scanning beneath their skins to see the army of consumed demons throbbing within. "How powerful you've become."

Lord Illidan takes the sight of them in for a little longer while they finish undressing, and then he refocuses. "Jace. Come here."

Jace, always prompt to obey, hastily rises and goes to Lord Illidan, dropping into a crouch at his feet and awaiting further instructions.

"You may ready me for your sisters," Lord Illidan says, and Jace unhooks their lord's heavy belt, sliding it out from around his waist and setting it to the side. Lord Illidan stares down at him.

Jace fails to meet their master's gaze, concentrating as he is on speedily and methodically unlacing Lord Illidan's leggings. When he looks up at last, it's as he scoots closer and brings his head down, applying lips and tongue and hands to Lord Illidan's length. Jace is a large man and the only one of them able to easily and comfortably fit their master's cock in his mouth. For most of the rest of them, orally pleasuring him is a struggle. Lord Illidan sighs as he buries a hand in Jace's short-tufted purple hair, gently pulling Jace's mouth closer to his body. Jace responds readily, eager to please. Their master's sexual control is the stuff of legends, but Allari once saw Jace suck him off unexpectedly early, from start to finish in a few minutes with his eyelids closed behind the blindfold and both his hands tangled in Jace's hair, and in the aftermath was one of the two times Allari has seen Lord Illidan flash his ephemeral ghost of a smile. Jace is proficient or better at all tasks, and Lord Illidan doesn't let Jace work on him long.

"Allari, come into my lap," Illidan says when his cock stands long and hard and ready, glistening with wetness from Jace's mouth. "Jace, Belath, assist."

Flattered to be first not only of the evening but of his return to this plane of existence, Allari goes to their master, slipping past Jace to slide onto their master's thighs. Belath follows behind her, dropping to his knees beside Jace, who grabs at Allari's ass with one hand. More respectfully Jace takes hold of Lord Illidan's cock at the base, looking up to guide their bodies perfectly together. Their conscientious sexual engineer, Jace keeps Illidan's cock pointed at her cunt as their lord brings his huge clawed hands to rest on her hips. Allari sighs with anticipation, moving her hips slightly to feel the tip of their master's cock rub fractionally back and forth against her wet, secret parts, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity to run her hands through their master's hair and over the hard muscles of his chest, relishing his smell and closeness and the delicious heat of his skin.

Trusting Jace to have lined them up at the perfect angle, without preamble Illidan pulls Allari's hips down, pushing inside her forcefully. Allari cries out, unrestrained. Her master knows she likes to be seized and fucked hard, and with the prerequisite that he's in charge at all times, Lord Illidan is a most obliging sexual partner. Looking at him is enough to get her wet, and the ensuing feeling of fullness is a sensation she's ached to remember and longed to relive.

"Did you miss this, my lord?" Allari murmurs as Illidan squeezes her asscheeks and begins to bounce her more slowly.

"Yes," their master answers, and he lets go of her ass to wrap his hands in her hair, threading his fingers through, tilting her head faintly sideways to expose her neck to him. Jace immediately rises and picks up the slack, cupping Allari's unsupported butt, lifting her hips and letting her fall and lifting her again, fucking her on their master's cock with long strokes. "Being bodiless and self-aware..." Lord Illidan muses. "...it is an unpleasant dispossession. Often I thought of all of you."

Allari leans in, wanting a kiss or three, and her master obliges her with his large clawed hands holding her head. As his mouth presses against hers, Belath, sitting next to Jace's legs at the base of the throne, circles Allari's asshole with a mischievous finger. The sensation enhances--supercharges, really--the experience of riding their master's cock, and Allari throws her head back with a gasp, involuntarily breaking the kiss.

"Asha, Kor'vas," Illidan says, gesturing them forth, and then Allari has a mouth at each of her nipples and two of her closest friends are softly squeezing the rounded curves of her breasts. Someone's knuckle, probably Asha's, finds her clit, rubbing and accelerating the speed of her orgasm's approach. Belath begins to finger-fuck her in the ass: a single digit slickened with nothing but spit, exactly as much roughness as she likes.

The attention from four sources is too much, driving her quickly into throes of sexual frenzy. Jace lifts and sinks her hips over Lord Illidan's faster, and their master thrusts up into her hard, kissing her again now and then. Allari can't hold in her scream of exhilaration as she comes.

Lord Illidan kisses her neck once as Belath slips his arms around her and removes her from their master's lap, supporting her beneath her shoulder blades and her knees. Belath carries her to a free space on the floor and sets her down.

Belath's mouth finds hers and she kisses him lazily, even knowing where his mouth has been (everywhere). Belath's kisses are not languid in the least, and his cock pressed against her thigh is rock-hard, but Slitesh spreads her legs and gives him a come-hither gesture, and he leaves Allari with a smile.

Lord Illidan motions to Calia, and Allari watches her skyrocket into Lord Illidan's lap. At length Allari pulls herself up into a sitting position and crawls to where Kayn is kissing and groping Evelune. Allari joins in, pinching Evelune's nipples and nibbling at her long ears, but the greater part of her attention is focused on their master. Lord Illidan takes a turn with most of the women, sometimes two turns, one after the other after the next, and yet Allari would wager the Legion's destruction that their master makes each of her sisters feel as special and treasured as he does her.

As he's fucking Izal a second time, with only his own two hands on her, Illidan at last turns the sprawling burn of his sexual desire upon the men.

"Kneel, Kayn." Lord Illidan points at the spot in front of the divan.

Kayn drops down onto one knee before the makeshift throne, proud and upright as though he's a prince anticipating being knighted. The teasing smile he gives their lord before he bows his head is nothing short of sly.

"Souleater, perhaps you'll have better luck than I making our Kayn do as he's told," Illidan says, and Allari stands and paces a slow circle around him. Kayn smirks, watching her without looking, Allari knows. When she gets directly behind him she deliberately plants her bare foot on his back, forcing him down to his hands and knees. Kayn doesn't resist.

"Belath, ready Kayn for me," Lord Illidan says.

Belath immediately turns and applies his tongue to Kayn's backside, using both hands to prise Kayn's cheeks apart. In Illidan's lap, Izal looks over her shoulder, watching as Belath pushes the first of several fingers into Kayn's asshole.

"Head up," Illidan commands, and Kayn lifts his dark head, displaying his face to his master. Kayn's eyelids are lowered behind his blindfold, revealing none of the fel light within his sockets. The beguiling expression has vanished, and with his pale skin it's clear his cheeks are flushed from the things Belath is doing to him.

Illidan draws Izal's attention back to himself by running a claw gently and lightly along her chest, from shoulder to shoulder above her breasts, and Izal melts into him. Illidan's many remembrances of their preferences seem to have survived his death and disembodiment and rebirth. He knew Izal wants tenderness and the feeling of lovemaking. He knew Jace is willing to touch men and suck cock but is emphatically disinterested in being penetrated himself. He knew Belath enjoys rimming and Kor'vas would rather do anything else in the world. He knew Sana finds his cock uncomfortably large to ride but still wants to sit in his lap and kiss and touch him, and he knew Demissya prefers anal. Allari inwardly rejoices that nothing has changed.

"Kayn." When Kayn opens his eyelids, Lord Illidan makes an instructive circling gesture with one claw-tipped finger. Belath withdraws three fingers and Kayn turns around, displaying his ass and his long folded legs to his master.

Predictably, for Kayn's endless sexual impertinence, Lord Illidan makes Kayn wait on his knees several minutes as he continues fucking Izal with soft, short strokes, gripping her ass himself and nuzzling her neck. Allari tickles Kayn's balls to keep him entertained. Kayn grunts when she applies gentle pressure.

"Sevis," Lord Illidan says, and points at the floor next to Kayn. "On your back." A slight question comes into their master's voice. "Jace, prepare Belath?"

Belath lights up with an expression that says he was born prepared, but then his face falls.

"I will do my best, my lord," Jace says gravely, and Allari knows all three of them are thinking about Mannethrel, lost to them on Mardum, Mannethrel who was patient and kind and clawless and usually the one to ready Belath for their master, and sometimes Kayn as well. Evidently their master's thinking of Mannethrel too, and Allari glances around the room, comparing the Illidari willing to anally finger and stretch a male with the Illidari whose physiology is compatible. Far too many of them have fearsome, permanent claws. Belath's nails are discolored, but not too far distant from normal fingernails in shape and size. Belath has to be careful, but he can manage. Jace, on the other hand, has wickedly sharp talons, and Allari supposes he'll be using his mouth on Belath. A first for him, as far as Allari knows.

After Izal comes, Illidan offers her a hand to aid her dismount from his lap, and she accepts it and gracefully slides off him. Allari thinks it no coincidence that Lord Illidan never spills his seed inside her or her sisters' pussies. Eons of fucking have given them a certainty that their bodies are too twisted by demonic energies to bear children, but Lord Illidan is oddly careful all the same. Perhaps he fears a miracle conception (he is the Chosen One after all) though Allari has wondered whether there's another reason. Many of them have heard the whispered story of Lord Illidan's moon priestess choosing his brother over him. While Allari appreciates a juicy rumor as much as the next person, she vehemently disapproves of her fellow Illidari passing along the implication that their lord has any manner of weakness. If Lord Illidan did suffer misfortune in love, then out of respect the particulars should go unmentioned. Twice she can recall hushing and shaming others repeating the tale to initiates. While in prison, trapped in the hell of her own mind and her crystal-encased body, able to move only her vision and sure she would go insane from the tiny sideways slope in the position of her frozen neck, the kaldorei woman's name and so much else slipped Allari's previously ironclad memory. Still, she's never forgotten the original scrap of gossip, and seeing their master with any one of her sisters--nevermind enjoying him herself--Allari thinks Moon Priestess has no idea what she's missing. Unless Lord Illidan's brother is much like him... but Allari feels sure there is no one like their master.

Illidan moves to the floor, shedding his leggings as he goes, and he kneels upright behind Kayn, prodding with the tip of his cock at Kayn's backside. Kayn lowers his forehead to his folded hands against the floor, his back falling into a diagonal slant, bracing himself as he feels the first twinges of what will be a few minutes of intense stretching pain.

"Succor for Kayn," their lord suggests, a general invitation to the room. "He is... tense."

After a moment's consideration, Allari lies down beside Kayn, propping her head on her elbow and intending to kiss him while Lord Illidan begins the process of entering him. Allari catches a glimpse of Kayn's face and decides not to kiss him at all, for he appears to be in a world of his own. Kayn's eyelids are closed and he looks overwhelmed, either unaware he's being watched or completely unselfconscious in his submission. His eyebrows are rising and falling incrementally with each sensation. Their master progresses slowly and carefully, but the girth that gives most of the women among them such ecstasy brings only agony to most of the men, at least at first. Aside from the issue of Lord Illidan's gargantuan size, Kayn allows no one else to penetrate him, and he has difficulty relaxing for the experience. Allari can see the tension standing out in his rigid shoulders.

In addition, of course, the decade in stasis affected all of them, and between the Wardens' prison and the months chasing down their master's soul and body, much time has passed since any of them last serviced him in this way. Allari rubs Kayn's stiffened lower back, but his muscles are as unyielding under her hand as Lord Illidan's shoulders were that first time. On Kayn's other side, Calia reaches under Kayn's stomach and clasps his cock, pulling him to hardness.

Jace and Belath don't turn up to help with Kayn, and when Allari looks around for them, she sees Jace is on top of Belath, readying Belath not with his mouth but with his cock. Makes sense, Belath has none of Kayn's troubles. Belath has pulled Jace down and is whispering to him, and Jace's hips are rolling smoothly.

Kayn speaks suddenly, panting in broken breaths. "I'm so--so grateful you've returned to us."

"We all are," Kor'vas echoes, petting Kayn's thigh. Kor'vas doesn't do men, but the night gatherings have always been strictly optional in both attendance and choice of sexual acts, and Kor'vas is as welcome as any of the elite cadre to join in for foreplay even if she isn't interested in sitting on their master's cock. On the other end of the spectrum, Tylos and Methas are strictly heterosexual and don't want another man to so much as lay a hand on them, not even Lord Illidan.

Allari isn't even sure why they attend, but she doesn't mind. She supposes they deserve some credit for turning up. Some of the straight male demon hunters are too intimidated to even try coming once, despite being told Lord Illidan will demand nothing of them. But whether they come or not, as far as Allari's concerned, it's more of their master for her.

Asha crawls behind Lord Illidan and delicately strokes a single finger between his flexing and clenching cheeks, making him sigh as he pushes his cock inside Kayn by millimeters. Kor'vas leans back on her hands, temporarily pulling out of the action, but Allari watches Kor'vas smile up at the sight of their lord, her face mirroring the brimming adoration Allari herself feels.

They all love their master.

When he finally hilts himself inside Kayn, Illidan leans down and whispers into Kayn's ear. "It's been long for you, I can tell." With a claw Lord Illidan traces Kayn's chest tattoos by feel alone, keeping his voice low. "I have told you you need not reserve yourself for me."

"But who else-- could compare-- to my lord?" Kayn says, his words still coming out in broken gasps.

Illidan lavishes kisses along the side of Kayn's face, brushing butterfly-light touches of his lips at jaw and cheek and temple, beginning to move inside him as Kayn moans.

"The weight of leadership has lain heavy on you, I know," Illidan rumbles as he straightens, and while he runs a hand over Kayn's flanks he reaches back and curls the other around Asha's chin and then her hair, caressing her. "You have all done well in my absence." Illidan touches his fingertips to Evelune's for a few moments before he goes back to Kayn, fucking him leisurely as Kayn cries out in what Allari thinks is pleasure. Calia releases Kayn's cock and Allari takes over. With a number of minute re-adjustments, Allari rearranges herself and props her head on a nearby pillow to let Kayn thrust down into her hand and mouth.

After a couple more minutes Lord Illidan pulls out of Kayn. After all Calia's stroking while taking their master's cock in his ass, it's clear enough to Allari that Kayn badly wants to come. Once his hips are free he begins fucking Allari's face and hand urgently. Serving him back a bit of his teasing, Allari gives his balls a little pat and sits up. Kayn groans but holds his position. Allari shifts just in time to see Jace shudder and come inside Belath, demon spikes bursting out of his spine as his body spasms.

Lord Illidan mounts Sevis with far less slow stretching than he did Kayn; they know to a one that Sevis is a masochist. As Illidan enters him, Sevis' face crumples in a way that makes Allari think his eyes would be filling with tears if he still had eyes. Allari finds the sight discomfiting to watch even as she knows Sevis loves this treatment.

Though Kor'vas doesn't fuck men and isn't sexually sadistic, she possesses great enthusiasm for pleasing people, and she wraps a hand in Sevis' hair and viciously yanks his head back, slapping his face with her free hand. Lord Illidan rakes his sharp teeth over Sevis' neck, probably less roughly than Sevis would prefer, but still drawing forth rivulets of their black blood and licking the droplets off, kissing the scrapes.

Allari puts a gentle hand on Sevis' back, rubbing his shoulder, because she cares about Sevis and the purposeful infliction of serious pain on each other makes her slightly uncomfortable, but she's probably just ruining the experience for him, so she removes herself and goes back to Kayn, sitting beside him and running a hand over his back. Kayn remains on his hands and knees awaiting his lord's return or permission to change position, and he rocks his hips with want when she lightly and unhelpfully clasps his cock.

Illidan fucks Sevis without mercy, and as though the very act of fucking Sevis has made him more aggressive, abruptly Lord Illidan rounds on Belath, pushing him to the floor and sliding inside him. Belath has always been mysteriously comfortable with Lord Illidan's size, and he takes their master's cock with nary a wince. Belath looks visibly, unabashedly delighted to be rolling around on the floor with their master again, wrapping his legs around Lord Illidan's back and clinging to him with his arms when he can, fucking back against him. Belath even manages to get on top and ride their master's cock in the superior position, and Illidan allows it briefly before rolling them over again. Allari wonders whether their lord might let Belath go longer if not for his powerful but permanently fixed wings, probably uncomfortable to lie upon. Belath in all other situations is formal, polite, and soft-spoken, if murderous, but at their night gatherings he turns brazen and wanton, as though he's been set free.

Allari watches with amusement but sticks by Kayn, continuing to arouse and torment and deny him with her hand, doing everything she casually can to increase his level of need.

After Belath strains and spurts between their bodies, Lord Illidan too returns to Kayn, where Allari can see his wrought iron control beginning to crack and splinter. No wonder really, for he's fucked twelve or thirteen of them by this point, and fucked them each well. In the early days Allari felt concerned the night gatherings were becoming more about gratifying her fellow Illidari than relaxing their master, but with suspiciously knowing confidence Kayn assured her that Lord Illidan takes immense satisfaction both in spreading himself around and being a generous lover.

Their lord's breathing comes faster, harsher and more labored than before, and his thrusts put on speed but grow uneven. Perspiration lines his forehead. Kayn beneath him seems to struggle to hold his position, to bear their master's far greater weight as Lord Illidan leans into him, hips pushing with demanding, bestial force.

Lord Illidan's orgasm is heralded by a series of wonderfully familiar grunts; to Allari, the sound is sex incarnate. Illidan pushes Kayn down flat and holds himself over Kayn for a few moments, simply inhaling and exhaling, before he rolls off of the body beneath him and onto his back, breathing heavily. His eyelids droop and close.

Their master's stamina is as mythically proportioned as his sexual parts, but all things have their end. After their master finally tapped out, the orgies he presided over generally continued without him, and now looks to be no different.

Kayn interrupts Allari's thoughts by naked pouncing on her, growling.

*

Later, after Tylos has come on her breasts and Kayn has finished inside her with a long, low moan, after she's licked Kor'vas to one of her typically window-shatteringly loud orgasms, after Allari herself has come writhing multiple times under the fingers and tongues and cocks of some of her favorite people, they're all lying around temporarily winding down. Kayn is asleep on his side by the buffet, his face peaceful and his breathing slow and even. Jace leans against the wall folding and refolding a square piece of white parchment into an admirably three-dimensional felbat. Belath sits beside him, arms comfortably crossed, watching. Izal drinks wine and pets Sevis' hair with his head in her lap, and Kor'vas and Asha have fallen asleep in each other's arms. Lord Illidan idly examines the petals of a lavender Nighthold orchid, lost in his own thoughts.

When Lord Illidan casts the stem of the flower away and his clawed hand seeks hers, Allari brings his knuckles to her lips and kisses the back of his hand, and Falara lifts her head on Allari's other side and smiles at them. Jace tilts and pitches the felbat into its maiden flight, and as the parchment bat sails lazily aloft and down through the room, Kor'vas suddenly reaches up and slaps it out of the air, and Jace and Belath laugh with all of the joy Allari feels in her own heart.

The Illidari night is only just beginning.