No Mistake [A Farstriders' Tale]

(( Alright, this is from a while back. This takes place during a plot I ran in which Rinth's unit of Farstriders was stationed in Camp Winterhoof trying to deal with increased Scourge activity in Gjalerbron, the vrykul stronghold. Essentially, some Death Knights had taken up residence there and were causing some havoc in the northern Fjord. That's kind of irrelevant, this first part's mostly some flashbacks intended to provide some background for the characters' past together. I do mean to continue this, but the next scenes are a bit hard for me to write (they make me sniffle, most of you know why)... I'll get to it.))



At night, when Camp Winterhoof and the rest of the Fjord grew quiet and truly frigid, most of the Farstriders and their taunka allies would gather around the bonfire to eat and keep warm. It had proceeded this way for several nights, but now, the numbers dwindled. The healers saw to the wounded, and the wounded increased in number, and worse, so many had disappeared.

Rinth stood at the edge of the camp, her shoulder against a tree, staring out at the road down the hill and across the lake's edge. The bonfire, with only a few taunka and elves standing about its wavering glow, crackled and flared behind her. One of them, sitting on the ground and leaning a shoulder to a log-bench, was Dionys Alaceris.

Dionys prided himself on being sneaky, and for all she hated to admit it, his pride was usually well-founded. Slender, apt, and quiet only when he wanted to be, the man had always been a capable scout and, to her chagrin, an even more capable thief. Thus, she found herself surprised as she watched him eye the pouch of another Farstrider for several minutes near the fire, hardly inconspicuous. Even from the little snow-covered slope on which she stood a distance away, Rinth could see the man's thick-gloved hands clench and unclench, one finally darting from his lap into the bag.

He withdrew a glinting bottle. In the firelight, she only saw it a moment.

Rolling her eyes, Rinth chose resolutely to ignore him—it was not as though he was on duty, or a single flask would do any damage. Deep within, she almost wished to turn and scold him, a remnant of the authority she'd once held over the man. But it was not her place, not anymore.

She turned her gaze back down at the darkened road, losing track of time and paying no mind to the grumbling and scuffling of boots in snow behind her. When all was quiet save the crackle of the bonfire, Rinth hardly noticed the bit of movement in the faraway dark, just off the road. Blinking, she spared a glance back at the fire again and saw the surrounding log-benches empty.

“No, damn it,” she muttered to herself, squinting off into the shadows, “He wouldn't dare...”

The movement in the dark, marked by a streak of familiar red, slipped from her vision.

~*~

He sat just outside their target practice for three days, leaning against a signpost with his arms crossed and ears perked through a mess of dirty red hair. Rinth found it excruciatingly difficult to concentrate with his presence, for after every shot taken, he had some snide remark to follow.

“Ha! Can't hit that, y'can't hit a horse!” he'd taunt, scratching at his head and casually removing a leaf. “Think y'can hit somethin' that moves? 'Ey! Tuskies're fuckin' skinny, how th'fuck can y'train on these -circles-? Y'won't hit 'em! We're fuckin' -dead-!”

The chiding continued every day, and most of the Farstriders learned to ignore him. Rinth, on the other hand, stood with her arms crossed and blood simply boiling, until finally, she ordered a halt to practice and demanded that the man tell her his name.

He raised his eyebrows, wearing a wicked, mocking grin. “Y'serious?”

“Your name, sir,” she snapped, her chin upturned, staring down her nose. She heard the Farstriders behind her approach, cautiously.

Looking her over and appearing to debate the worth of answering, he finally replied, “Name's Dionys.”

“Well, Dionys,” Rinth growled, slipping her quiver from her back and offering it to him. “You seem to know plenty about this—please, by all means, show us how it's done. I'm waiting.”

Dionys grinned.


~*~


Rinth found him sitting against another log, this one much bigger than the bench in the camp, slumped against his arm. Making no effort to conceal her approach, she knew he must've heard her coming, but he didn't move. She stopped a stretch away from him and crossed her arms, hissing, “Are you an idiot? What the fel are you doing out here, Alaceris?”

He flicked his gaze back at her, his eyes dim and heavy, darkened by a scowl. “Fuck off, Rinthy,” he growled. The empty flask, she saw, lay in the snow just in front of him. He wasn't drunk, not at all, she'd seen him that way enough times to know it by his voice.

Rinth snatched up the empty flask and used the other hand to grab at Dionys' tabard, yanking him up with effort she did not show. He didn't truly resist, and she felt a distant pang of surprise. “Answer me,” she snapped, “You know what's going on, you idiot, I have scouts out here risking their damn lives and you're out here having a fucking drink? Get up.”

He stood up, wiping at his mouth—his hands shook, and he glared back at her as he always did, but where she expected the usual snide remarks she found silence.

“Well?”

Nothing. Dionys growled and repeated himself, “Fuck off, Rinthy.”

She reached to grab at his tabard again, yanking him forward. “Get back to the camp. Now.”


~*~


Her superiors expressed a great deal of disapproval in her decision to make the two men partners. Tindryst Northsun was the son of Lieutenant Lyrennus Northsun, an upstanding and well-respected member of the Farstriders. He had scowled, skeptical and reluctant, when he first heard the news, and to some extent Rinth understood his frustrations: his son, Tindryst, was to be paired with a homeless rat of a man she had pulled from the streets just a few weeks prior to her decision.

They were nearly equal in capability—Tindryst, practiced and steadfast, excelled only slightly beyond Dionys' abilities. She put them together, however, not for this, but for the contrast in their temperaments: Alaceris was flippant and unappreciative while Tindryst held a stern respect and dedication to his work. He took after his father, Rinth knew, and many saw promise in the man.

“Your son will be good for him,” Rinth told the lieutenant, confidently. “It will take a good, reliable example to force a change out of this recruit. Your son will provide such an example. Trust me, lieutenant.”

Dionys, however, refused to change. In practice he was crude and distracting, despite his increasingly surprising abilities with a bow. Rinth and her unit often found themselves gaping at his comments, and Tindryst would grumble and put his hand to his face. At first, Rinth realized, it was in shame—then, to her horror, it was to hide his little smirks.

First came the incessant 'surprises'--the disappearance of the mailboxes from Farstrider Retreat, and the confusion resultant from lost missives and letters. Then there was Dionys' insistence on using a gun instead of the traditional bow—Rinth could not object, for his ability with the Dwarven thing exceeded his prowess with his previous weapon. To her dismay, however, Tindryst followed suit. They were reckless, trying on her patience, obnoxious, but still she did nothing to separate them, nothing to remove the cause—Alaceris—from her unit.

For together, she held with unwavering stubbornness, they were capable and deadly. They were an asset. Rinth held to her decision; Dionys and Tindryst, for all their disregard for tradition and authority, were the core of her Rangers.


~*~


“I don't care that you were drinking, Dionys.”

Rinth strode up the hill to Camp Winterhoof behind him, watching warily. He seemed to move slowly, and held one arm tightly in the grip of his other hand, glaring at the ground. It began to snow, very lightly, more a discomforting wet mist than anything else.

“You could've done that in the damn camp,” Rinth continued, raising her voice a bit, “I saw you take it out of that bag. I wasn't even going to do anything, one damn flask isn't going to--”

“Then why th'fuck did y'follow me?”

“The scouts are disappearing.”

“Yeah,” he growled, shaky, “Yeah. N'you keep sendin' 'em. Don't follow them, do ya?”

She paused a moment. “I didn't send you, Alaceris. You left. To drink.”

“N'they're leavin' t'scout, n'fuckin' disappearin', you keep sendin' 'em. Th'fuck's it gonna do, Rinthy? Yer terrible at this, yer still fuckin' terrible, yer not even a captain n'yer fuckin' up th'whole damn...”

Rinth stopped again, tugging her cloak around over her shoulders as she crossed her arms, inhaling sharply. The taunka guards huffed and eyed her before returning their gazes to the road, and she felt a sudden weakness in her throat. With Dionys still rambling and growling, she snapped quietly, “Shut up.”

“What?” Dionys continued, raising his voice and turning to glare at her. They stood at the base of the camp, now, just outside the largest tent. “What? Y'go after me n'drag me back, but y'send everyone else out on th'roads y'don't want me on? Ha!”

“You weren't scouting--”

“S'not th'damn point!” Dionys threw his hands in the air and backed away from her, shaking his head. He moved towards the back entrance to the camp, which led to a bridge and a path up the mountain. The usual taunting tone in his voice had faded, replaced by a vicious malice. His hands still trembled, but his voice did not follow. “Do yer fuckin' job...!”

Dionys strode away from her, shoulders slumped. Rinth seethed where she stood and watched him. “Where are you going? Where the fel are you--”

“Fuck off, Rinthy.”

The taunka, Rinth would realize later, must've lost some respect for them both—if they'd had any from the beginning for Dionys. The guards watched as Rinth ran a few stretches to catch them, grab at his shoulder and turn him around—Dion's eyes widened and he recoiled. Rinth snarled.

“If you want to go out there, fine. Get out. The only thing up that way for you to worry about are the Alliance,” she paused, bitterly adding, “and the cliffs. Don't fucking fall off, Alaceris. If you're not back by morning I'll come myself to find your body and burn it.”

A silence fell between them; Dionys stared spitefully, with a strange grin, and one taunka guard gave a snort of clear disapproval. Rinth pursed her lips, raising her hand to salute him even with the scowl tightening the muscles of her face.

She did not wait to watch him leave. Turning away, she heard only the crunch of his boots in the snow, fading.


~*~


The scent of ash and rot stung her eyes—it wasn't the prick of tears, it could not be. She could still hear the screams and cries from the village nearby, she could still see the plume of smoke on the horizon, rising up from the Isle of Quel'danas.

Her ambush had failed. She had attempted to await the Scourge at the road near the East Sanctum, spreading her units about the woods. Before the enemy's assault, however, came their scouts, their gargoyles and skittering shades, ghouls—with her Rangers spread out, they had been easy targets, picked off group by group, one by one.

Only two ran with her, now, through the woods and over the hills, searching for survivors. The Scourge were spread about, overtaking more and more of Quel'thalas, leaving the Rangers scattered in their retreat. Rinth moved towards the shoreline with her survivors, forgetting the Sanctum and those left behind.

They reached a rise of hills, the brush thick, and Rinth ducked down in the grass—something moved up ahead, a rustle in the bushes and the shade of the trees. She clenched her jaw, hissing to the two rangers beside her, “Wait.”

Something cried out in pain from the bushes, a grating and familiar voice, gasping and swearing. Another followed it, deeper, “Come on! Come ON!”

Her eyes widening, Rinth stood up to see Dionys and Tindryst stagger forth from the shelter of the brush, the latter tugging the former along. Dionys was wide-eyed, speckled with blood and dirt, and Tindryst beside him looked equally grim.

Tindryst Northsun looked up to Rinth, and when she met his gaze he drew a breath and pursed his lips. He nodded, sternly.

Rinth stood stunned for just a moment—they had survived. Together, they lived, despite her failure as a captain and despite the misgivings of all her superiors. For all of her own dismay at the pair, Rinth felt a swell of pride, her eyes stung again.

It had never been a mistake to make them partners.

<3 Dion, even though Cyn can barely tolerate him.

Moar! I wants moar!

(( Dion's not supposed to be a tolerable character IC, Cyn. That means I'm doing my job in writing him correctly. Huzzah.

Anyway, about this part... sorta short, and I feel like I have to offer up a bit of OOC background on the trio beforehand. Tindryst quit the Farstriders a little bit after the Scourge Happened, and he eventually went to go do mercenary-ish work for the orcs/Kalimdor. Dion quit the Farstriders a bit after Tin, but he stayed in Silvermoon and continued to irritate Rinth, which made her hate him a lot more than Tin (who she actually respects to some extent). Dion and Tin eventually met up again blah blah blah. The next part's going to be so hard to write. Oy. ))

~*~

Tindryst took no great pleasure in working alongside the Farstriders again. The state of Rinth Emberdawn's unit proved to him that the once-proud Rangers of Quel'thalas were just as disorganized and incapable as they had been when he'd quit. He turned the word 'unit' over in his mind a few times and decided that the elves occupying Camp Winterhoof could not be called a unit at all—a unit had practice, cohesion, familiarity. These Rangers, many of them recovering from injuries or else heavily disheartened, were stragglers, survivors of units that had fallen in battle.

Rangers, Tindryst still believed, were deadliest in practiced groups—they needed partners, they needed to trust and understand each other.

It wasn't Rinth's fault, not this time. A she'd explained in her letter, the Ranger-Lord had requested that she temporarily retake her position as a captain to assist the forces in Northrend. Since the events on Quel'danas, they'd found themselves painfully undermanned. If not for that fact, Tindryst would have never answered Rinth's letter, and he would have never come to assist her.

Despite his misgivings about the unit as a whole, Tindryst enjoyed the relative freedom he had in assisting the Farstriders without actually being one of them. As part of an agreement of sorts, he did not have to follow Rinth's orders; he scouted as he wished to scout and reported to her when he returned.

With his worg Tahni trailing behind him, her coat a blend of red and golden brown reminiscent of autumn, Tindryst made his way back to camp as the day began to fall to darkness. It was, of course, safest to travel while the sun's light still lit the roads, but Tindryst was rather late. In any normal case, Rinth would undoubtedly express her disapproval. This time, however, he knew she'd have nothing to be dismayed over: Tindryst had spotted one of the Scourge Knights in the mountains earlier in the evening.

Clad in black armor that glinted like the icy cliffs of the northern Fjord, the Knight had ridden from east the mountains surrounding Gjalerbron to linger in the hills above the Camp itself. As he was alone, Tindryst did not expect an impending attack, but it was a good report nonetheless.

“Lok'tar,” Tindryst murmured. He nodded respectfully to the taunka guards at the entrance to the camp. It bothered him that the other Farstriders rarely did the same; these taunka, like their more familiar cousins, were strong and honorable creatures.

Warmed by the steaming hot pools around which both taunka and elf huddled, Camp Winterhoof began to melt the chill from Tindryst's body. Pausing a moment to pass Tahni to the stable master, he made his way up the little slope, glancing about through the lenses of his engineer's goggles. Usually, he'd find Dion either asleep or brooding by one of the log-benches, but the man was nowhere to be found.

His gun, however, stood leaned up against the log closest to the fire.

Rinth strode up to stand beside him, her arms crossed and gaze intent. “Northsun.”

“Hey,” Tindryst said. He jerked a thumb to indicate the gun in the firelight. “Where's Dion?”

The flames seemed to catch in Rinth's eyes, an extension of the frustration in her voice. “Gone. Out in the woods somewhere. I don't know, Northsun.”

Tindryst furrowed his brow and took a moment to understand. “He's out there? And he left that here?” The gun, a slender silhouette before the fire, held his gaze.

“That's what I said.” She shook her head dismissively. “His own decision, Northsun; don't concern yourself with it. Do you have a report?”

“Why?”

She blinked and scowled. “Why? I don't know why; because he' an idiot, Northsun; now, your report--”

He felt a swell of anger and a twitch of his arm; Tindryst raised a fist and Rinth's jaw dropped in surprise. Rinth had never been cordial to Dion after he left the Farstriders, but even this was unlike her. The moment of rage passed and Tindryst dropped his fist. “Which way did he go?”

Rinth clamped her jaw shut again and spoke through half-clenched teeth. “That way. I couldn't stop him.” She motioned to the path leading out of the camp and up a hardly-marked path into the hills to the northeast. Past the taunka's carved totems, the snow glistened in the last remaining light of day.

“How long ago?”

“Five minutes.”

Tindryst swore under his breath, tugging his gun from his belt with one hand and adjusting his goggles again with the other as he left the camp. He briefly considered bringing Tahni, but he knew Dion couldn't have gone far.

Behind him, Rinth snapped, “Don't be stupid, Northsun!”

He ignored her and the taunka guards; they snorted as he passed, confused.

“Damn it, Tindryst!”

It occurred to him as he rounded a turn in the path, following a single trail of staggering, uneven footsteps, that he'd never said a word about the Scourge Knight in the mountains.