Chapter Text
There were things in the woods no one spoke of. Tales told by candlelight and fireplaces; stories of those who wandered too far into the trees, of men and women lured away by the call of something older than time itself. Every child in the village knew the stories.
Every child in the village knew of the Banshee.
Jaina was born with the sea in her veins.
The brine and breeze of the ocean in her lungs, the rock of the ship as her lullaby. She took her first steps on the deck of her father’s ship, sang the shanties of his men as her first words. She knew the call of the seas before she knew the call of the land.
Jaina knew the lure of the ocean waves long before she knew the temptation of human touch.
And then one day, she heard the call of something else.
----------
Somewhere in the woods, there was a faerie ring.
Jaina knew of it — everyone in the village knew of it. They knew better than to go looking for it. Some spoke of glimpses of it from between the trees; pristine and harmless, nothing more than a slab of limestone polished smooth from the years, ringed by caps in blood-red.
Harmless, truly, in the same way dancing flames or the glint of a knife tempted curious little hands.
Not many dared to take a second look. Those who did never looked away again.
In daylight, the forest was nothing more than grass and trees. It was a place of bounty; to forage and hunt and harvest wood for homes and hearths. It was a place where children played by the treelines and plucked berries from bushes, coming away with hands and mouths and teeth stained red.
In the dark of night, they locked their windows and barred their doors, and warned unruly children of She Who Walks in the Shadows.
Ghost stories.
Tales to frighten children into obedience.
Jaina was too much for the sea to heed them. She took to her father’s old ship more than she did the village; thought more fondly of the Sable Rose than she did Proudmoore Keep. The tides and changing winds took her beyond the shores of Kul Tiras for many months at a time, and it was easy enough for Jaina to begin to prefer the distance from her homeland.
Still she loved her mother dearly, still she came home to visit as much as she dared, but who else could tame the seas and ride the waves than Daelin Proudmoore’s last living child?
Who else could call their Fleet home, untouched and unscathed by the raging storms?
When the moon was high and the tides were restless, Jaina sang to soothe them. On the clearest nights and the darkest skies, her voice carried across the waters like sacred hymns that swept aside the snarling waves and tempered the whirling breeze.
She was the Daughter of the Sea, and when she sang, it would listen.
When she sang, the oceans of her eyes woke, bright and gleaming as the moon itself.
Sometimes, when she sang, she thought the waves sang back.
-------
It had been too long since she had made landfall back home. The waves had a way of whiling away the days and weeks and months, and when Jaina finally felt the pull of Kul Tiran shores, she was welcomed home with open arms.
Katherine Proudmoore met her at the port. As Jaina descended the ramp from the Sable Rose, she found her mother rushing forward to meet her. They embraced tightly, and Jaina revelled in the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume and the warmth of her touch.
That night, the village raised their voices and sang well into the night — the Daughter of the Sea had come home. Kul Tiras was, if only for a moment, whole again.
The celebrations ran on into the week. Endless, it seemed. Dancing and singing and chanting over mugs of ale and port and wine. Everyone wanted a moment of her time; everyone listened for a tale or two she would spare. They listened, rapt like children, as she told stories of distant lands and exotic creatures. Swooned and cheered when she sang the songs of the seas and led the shanties of her men.
They cried when she sang the mournful tune of Daelin Proudmoore’s fall, of the lives of her brothers lost too quickly to raging storms and the dark call of the ocean’s Abyss. The same songs she had sung for too many years to count — songs she always carried with her.
It was a bittersweet homecoming as it always was.
Here, in her homeland, in her room at the Keep — it felt like a prison. A cage of her past; of memories she thought were lost at sea. She walked the streets of the village, saw the friendly and awestruck faces of her people and felt like a creature on display. A separate entity all on her own — a freak of nature. Out on the seas, her men revered her in different ways. Respected her for her skills as a sailor more than the Daughter of the Sea; but still, they were sometimes slack-jawed and starry-eyed when she walked the length of the helm and sang. Still, they clapped her on the shoulder, affectionate and ribbing. Those who had served longest with her father would ruffle her hair gently.
She was, in some sense, an equal to the sailors aboard the Sable Rose.
At the very least, she did not feel so strange and foreign.
Her mother had told her all too often that she had been spoiled by the ocean, of its vastness and endless directions. That she set her sights on far too distant shores and forgotten what it was like to plant her feet on solid ground.
It was all too much.
Jaina slipped away one night, hidden in the shadows and beneath the low hood of her cloak. With such merriment abound and most of the village’s attentions drawn towards the stories told and shanties sung in the taverns by her men, she would not be missed.
Her eyes caught the forest edge where it met the beach, and her feet guided her without thought. She walked a path along the treeline, eyes turned towards the broad expanse of the glistening sea. Its waves rippled and the starlight blinked across its murky canvas, and as she stood at the forest edge, she felt a great longing take hold of her bones.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker of light.
Jaina blinked.
She turned her head slowly, watching the stillness of the trees, the silence of its creatures. The flicker rose again, like the blinking of fireflies — only now, its light was a vivid blue.
The will-o'-the-wisp.
Ghost light.
Fool’s fire.
They danced before her, swaying to a rhythm entirely their own. It had been years since she’d seen them last; when she had been no more than a girl, chasing spirits and storybook endings in the moonlight. She remembered her youth spent standing at the edge of the dock, at the precipice of the cliffside, watching the waves lure away the ships onto the tide.
She looked at the wisps and saw the same temptation.
The wisps danced and fluttered before her like delicate bird wings, speaking in the quiet chatter of Living Things that weaved between the realms of Here and There. She moved closer and they flitted away, swaying back in whenever she paused too long. With each step closer she took, they floated backwards with a whisper or a croon. Jaina paused briefly, darting a glance behind her towards the village; the faint lantern light of homes dotting their windows. The rowdy singing and chattering heard from the great hall in the middle of the square and the taverns around it.
She turned back to the forest, and it was still. Silent and waiting.
The pull of it was familiar.
Jaina took another step.
Their soft blue light tempted her further and further into the woods, through the dense mass of trees and bushes, with looming branches that swept across her shoulders and head like the caress of ghostly hands. The wisps hummed a song she couldn’t quite hear, only knew that it was a song she had to chase. The song became a low, dulcet voice; feminine and fleeting through the trees. She pushed further and further away from the village, away from the warm lights. The undergrowth beneath her feet hardly made a sound as she passed, until the huddled treeline began to give way to a sparse row of trees, withered and leaning.
She stepped forward through the trees — and then she was in a clearing.
Before her, she saw the faerie ring.
Within it, a spectral figure illuminated in moonlight.
The woman sat in the middle of the circle; not entirely present, and yet not altogether ethereal. She perched atop the polished rock face as if it were a throne, her cape rippled black as night behind her, and in the shadows, it unfurled like velvet wings. Her armour was tooled leather and gleaming silver, made from the very mists and moonlight that shrouded her. The hood pulled low over her face did not hide the elegant silhouette of her features; her aristocratic nose and feline eyes.
In her hands, she carved an arrow.
When she spoke, it was like a thousand leaves rustling in the wind, like the howl of sea-breeze against the window panes. It filled the space of her throat in a tremoring croon. “Such an hour to be wandering the woods, child.” Between her fingers, a blade flashed. “Your mother must be worried.”
She looked up through her hood, and in those blazing embers of her eyes, Jaina found herself rooted in place. Hair of silver threads spread like veins, like roots taking hold of her neck and shoulders, and they seemed to move as if afloat in water.
“Tides,” Jaina gasped. The woman did not look like the mournful hag the sailors would speak of; she did not wear tattered rags and sported a face so gaunt it was only bones.
She looked, to Jaina, like a dream.
Perhaps she should have seen something more wicked.
Still, Jaina knew exactly who — what — she was.
It was pulled from her without thought. “Banshee.”
The woman inclined her head. “I am.” The arrowhead glinted in the moonlight, steel so bright it sparked like silver.
Jaina couldn’t find the strength to pull her gaze away. “I hear your cries on the waters. I’ve heard your wail across the seas. You herald the death of fine sailors."
“It was my song that led you here, was it not? Whose death do I herald now?” The Banshee smiled a smile full of teeth, razor sharp and deadly. "I am many things, child. Dark Lady, hag, witch. Here, I am Queen.” She swept one hand grandly about them, gesturing to the dancing fireflies and winking wisps.
Jaina was no fool. She did not look away and did not blink.
Under Jaina’s unwavering stare, the Banshee Queen tilted her head slowly, thoughtful. “Are you lost, little one?”
“No.”
The Banshee’s voice dropped into a low coo. “Then did you come to find me?”
With care, Jaina asked, “Who have I found?”
Blinking, the Banshee Queen sat up, crossing her legs in an elegant sweep that made the shadows dance. Faced with the Dark Lady’s steady gaze now, Jaina could see the true beauty of the creature before her — the long curve and arch of her brows, the tapered length of her ears. The unnatural hue of her skin; so close to human flesh and yet too much like the ghoulish shade of something entirely Otherwise.
Voice like velvet, she purred, “Clever little thing. Give me yours and I will give you mine.”
Jaina hesitated. She knew the stories well enough; the being before her was a fae — otherworldly and unpredictable. Dangerous. Each word she spoke came from a tongue of lies, each moment Jaina spent near her was only feeding into the influence the Banshee had on her. To give the fae her name would be to surrender her very soul.
The smile on the Banshee Queen’s face was knowing and coy. “Where has that clever tongue gone? Won’t you spare me this courtesy of giving me your name?”
Courtesy was key, and yet in excess was deadly.
Daring to lower her gaze long enough to dip low into a bow, Jaina spoke, “Forgive me my manners, but I daresay that I have asked you first.”
The Banshee Queen tilted her head, watching her with the calculating eyes of a predator gauging the worth of her prey. “How bold,” she murmured, and to Jaina’s ears it sounded like a breeze through the bushes. “How refreshing.”
“I mean no disrespect —”
“You meant some,” the banshee drawled, eyes like brightest amber. “How lucky it is for you that I am feeling generous tonight.” The arrow and blade in her hand were there one moment, and gone the next. She rose to her feet with the long-practised grace of royalty, and standing now, Jaina saw the full height of the Dark Lady, looming and broad.
Swallowing back the bile in her throat, Jaina tried again. “Forgive a humble sailor for her slights. I’m not much for the ways of the land. Surely, good Queen, you would spare a wandering traveller such a folly?”
The Banshee Queen smiled again, coy but deadly. A smile that could turn as fast as a viper’s strike. “Ah, but you are no lowly sailor, are you, little one?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I have heard of you.” The Banshee Queen gave a haughty toss of her head.
Jaina tried to keep the surprise from her face and her tone even. “You...have?”
“I have heard you,” she clarified, and suddenly her eyes were bright as the stars, as the heart of the flames burning in the village. “Your voice on the waves as the tide washes in. Your call upon the seas when the clouds threaten to burst overhead.”
Still, Jaina frowned. “My call?”
The Banshee Queen tilted her head once more, her ears pricking with amusement. “Why — your song, O Daughter of the Sea.”
Jaina’s breath hitched, and for an instant, she felt the lick of fear climbing up her spine. Was she trapped now? Had this all been nothing more than a vicious little game the Banshee played with all her prey? She tamped it down and schooled her features, but in the face of the Dark Lady she could already see triumph.
The daring in her blood flared.
“You know my name, then. You always have.”
The Banshee Queen’s smile was languid as her voice. “Perhaps. Speak it once, so that I might remember.”
Jaina eyed her sidelong. “I am no fool, Banshee. No wandering child you can beguile and trick.”
“And yet I have you here,” she said, folding hands that bled mists and shadows behind her back. “Have you come to make a wish, little one? Perhaps I shall grant it.” The Banshee Queen gave her an indulgent look, an amusement that wasn’t entirely friendly.
“What if I were to wish for your name, proud Queen?” Jaina asked, with a boldness she could not temper; with a thrust of her chin outwards.
Slowly, the smile on the fae queen’s face shifted into a chiding glance. “Careful, little one. You’ve spent too much time with the seas tamed to your whim. The laws of the land are not so fluid.”
Gritting her teeth and swallowing back the roil of fear and indignation in her belly, Jaina inclined her head. “Forgive me, Dark Lady,” she said tightly. “Again, I am but a humble sailor. My kind is not bred for the likes of court and royalty. We sail the seas and wander the shores. That is all we know.”
The Banshee Queen’s brow arched superciliously, and the fear returned with a vengeance. She loomed close then, skirting the edge of the ring, and Jaina felt the forest shift with her.
“I get the sense that you know more than you think, O Child of the Wind and Sea.”
She leaned forward then, so far Jaina thought for an instant that she would traverse the border of the ring. Instead, she hovered just so, her cloak unfurling like grasping claws encased in smoke. Her words came like winter’s first breath against Jaina’s cheek.
“So sweetly you sing for the ocean. Perhaps one day, you might sing as sweetly for me.”
A plume of smoke rose around her, the smell of the trees and the earth and cold steel of starlight enveloped the ring. It tickled her nose, and Jaina sneezed.
She opened her eyes and was alone.
--------
She never spoke of her encounter with the Banshee.
She had returned with the dawn chasing her through the treeline, cresting over the horizon of the sea. Her mother pressed her at breakfast, and Jaina wondered for a moment what would have happened if she answered with truth. Instead, she spoke with the lazy shrug of a lie and told Katherine the same thing she always did when she climbed beyond the Keep walls and climbed the tallest towers to woo the rain.
“I took a walk by the water. It helps me when I can’t sleep.”
Katherine had pressed her lips together, doubt in the seafoam green of her eyes, but she did not press for more. For that, Jaina was grateful. She was a grown woman, not a child; not a girl growing into the burdens of her title. She was a sailor, a master of the seas. The sound of crashing waves met the echoes of her beating heart.
She knew the pull of the ocean. What was this pull of the land?
For days, Jaina did not sleep, only paced the length of her rooms and peered through the windows out towards the lush forest and its verdant glade. The distant curiosity was beginning to bloom in her chest, to fester like an open wound left too long unattended. She knew the feeling well. That hollow ache that began in the pit of her stomach and grew into the depths of her chest.
Longing. More so than childish curiosity and daring.
An increment of longing, steadily building behind her breast.
On the coldest night, when the skies opened to bless the earth with the cleansing drape of rain, Jaina heard the voice again. Low and keening; not quite a lament as it was a croon of invitation. She wasn’t sure if the song was meant for the gathering clouds or —
She gathered her cloak about her shoulders and made for the woods again. She walked until the rain had soaked into the fabric of her cloak and nightdress, hardly even felt the wet cling of them around her legs and shoulders and hair. She walked, as if led, as if tethered to an unseen thread winding deeper and deeper between the trees.
She walked and walked and walked, the deluge near-blinding as she stumbled among the thick press of trees.
She staggered out onto the clearing, pulling her cloak tight around her shoulders. The rain seemed to muffle and slow above the canopy of trees, like the sound of waves crashing against the rocks from beneath the waters. A drop landed on her nose, then her lashes, and when Jaina blinked them away, she saw through the burden of rain-heavy lids —
“Hello, little one.”
The Banshee Queen tilted her head curiously, arms folded behind her back again, skirting along the edge of the faerie ring. The rain did not seem to touch the confines of it; its blades of grass pristine and dry. There was no rain bogging down the Banshee’s immaculate armour, and once more Jaina wondered what sort of banshee this was; resplendent and mystifying.
She clicked her tongue, sharp like the snapping of twigs underfoot. “Such weather to be outside in. You’ll catch your death in this chill.”
The shiver that rode Jaina’s spine had little to do with the cold. “I heard your song.”
“Did you?” The Banshee Queen cooed, regarding her with the distinct intrigue of a feline. Her eyes stood out like blazing coal in the gloom. “Did you also hear me in the winds when you sail, child? Did you feel my breath guide your path?”
Jaina stood and stared. Her tongue could not be trusted at that moment; her words could not be lured from within her chest. Instead, she shrugged. Then she eyed the ring thoughtfully.
“Can you leave here?” she asked, and the Dark Lady looked at her with a quiet surprise. “Your faerie ring. I’ve heard you on the waters.”
“What do I get if I answer?” came the reply.
Pursing her lips, Jaina fussed at the frayed edges of her cloak and thought of the serene, feline smile on the Dark Lady’s lips. A sharp, quick thought flashed through her mind, and Jaina’s eyes widened. Was she going mad? “I — have nothing of value to offer you,” she stammered. The rain was beginning to weigh her down, and she could feel the dampness cling to her hair and skin.
“Oh, but don’t you?”
“No.”
Sultry and low, the Banshee Queen purred, “Is your name not something of value, Daughter of the Tides? Won’t you give it to me, then?”
Jaina nearly scoffed. She did not, for it would have been disrespectful, and the last thing you did to a fae was disrespected them. Instead, she shrugged a shoulder again. “You ask for too high a price. My name and my life are all I have.”
“Then perhaps, an answer for an answer.” Spinning on her heels, her cloak rose like the spread of wings behind her once more; like tendrils unfurling to reach for Jaina.
With her heart in her throat, Jaina breathed, “What do you wish to know, Banshee Queen?”
One shadowed tendril reached out towards her from the ring. “Why did you come here, little one?” It uncurled around her head, reaching to brush against the barest edge of the hood pulled low over her face.
“I don’t know,” Jaina whispered, and truly, she did not. “Why did you call me here?”
The Banshee Queen paused, and the tendril recoiled back into her cloak. She regarded Jaina seriously, hands hidden behind her back again. It was only an instant, as if she had forgotten in that moment who she was, where they were.
Then she smiled again, full of guile. “Ah, but I did not.” The shadows gathered around her again, sparkling with twilight. “You came to me on your own feet; on your own will.”
“But I heard your song,” Jaina insisted, the smell of steel and starlight in her lungs again.
“Not many people heed such a call from a Banshee, little one.” The mists swallowed the banshee, until all Jaina could see were the twin embers of her eyes. “How was I to know that I would lure so sweet a fool as you?”
Overhead, lightning flashed and thunder snarled, and took with it the Banshee Queen.
-------------
On the next turn of the tides, Jaina left. She could not linger for long; she who wasn’t made for the land, but the boundless reaches of the sea. Her mother, as always, frowned when she left, but nevertheless hugged her tight and kissed her brow. Katherine understood it well enough. She was the Daughter of the Sea. To keep them apart would mean asking Jaina to abandon part of her soul.
So she hoisted the sails of the Sable Rose on one cool, clear morning, and watched the shape of Kul Tiras fade into the distance. She kept the memory of her mother standing at the edge of the dock; growing smaller and smaller in the horizon, until she was nothing more than a speck, a ripple on the sea.
As they rounded the corner of the first looming bight, she heard the song upon the waves. Jaina looked up into the cliffed coastline, the crests of it shrouded in rolling mist and morning dew.
There in the fog — perhaps it was the sun? Cast against her back, it could deceive her — she saw the shape of a woman, garbed with armour made from the shadows.
The winds carried the voice down onto the seas, soft and full of longing.