A Song for the Harvest
Begins during AQ, pre-BC, spoilers. Respect, Tenacity, and Compassion. The core Virtues taught by the Church of the Holy Light bring comfort and guidance to countless souls. Yet for three paladins trying to find their way in a world torn apart by war, the Virtues are anything but -- and the Light is far from kind.

The sun of the Tirisfal afternoon was weak through the cloud cover. Hours of summer heat had thickened the humidity in the air, breeding promises of rain, but no assurances of relieving the haze. The world was slow and sticky. In the cloisters of the monastery, stone fought with wood; doors swelled and stuck on their hinges, bloating with moisture. Tables creaked, their legs uneven on the stones. Chairs were warm to the touch. Flies beat their translucent wings listlessly, and crawled along the windowsills in search of a way out.

In the gardens, one initiate lifted his hand to test the breeze, and remarked to his companion about the weather.

Inside the libraries, an acolyte squinted at the narrow windows. She scowled, reaching for the curtain sashes to draw them shut. The book she had been unsuccessfully attempting to transcribe lay open like a discarded insect: the parchment crinkling from residual dampness, ink refusing to dry.

One man was cursing in the halls.

Dim light made the inner cloisters murky -- a poor choice for his battlefield. All his previous experience against enemy opponents had been outdoors, with each detail of their movements lit clearly by the sun. Now that sun worked against him. Aided by the glare coming through the windows behind her, his current opponent was a dervish of short knives and long reach. He had passed her twice, and had scored a shallow cut each time, but neither wound had slowed her speed; he was running out of ideas on how to stop her.

He squinted against his opponent and attempted to shift the balance of his sword into a parry. Heat made his grip clumsy. His palms were sodden with sweat.

He wondered what the inquisitors would tell his family if he died.

"The Crusade will never falter in its defense against intruders," he spat -- or tried to, before the woman reversed her hand suddenly in an arc towards his head, and drove his wits into blackness.

With a sigh, Jenna pulled her punch-dagger back and checked the tines. One of them had scraped against a wall during her assault, scoring a pale line on the stones and a worse one on the edge of the metal. Careless work; she hadn't thought to be alert when taking the corner so sharply, and had come face-to-face with a hostile set of patrolling guards. She'd have to remember to have the dagger repaired.

The whole monastery had been a trial to fight through. Despite the humidity working in her favor and weighing everything down, Jenna had still discovered opposition to her visit. She had not bothered to give her name at the front archways; similarly, she had not been provided with any sort of guide either. Her presence was seen as an intrusion, an unforgivable annoyance to monks who only wanted to drowse away the afternoon in peace. By the time she had searched through two wings of the estate, even the warning bells had begun to slack, as if weary of their efforts and hopeful that any invaders would be polite enough to die on their own.

She dropped to her knees beside the most recent guard to be felled. He groaned, struggling to recover his senses; with a practicality that had served her well on the field, Jenna gripped his head by the scalp and rapped it against the floor. He shuddered, going limp. Deftly, she set the blade of her dagger flat against his neck. The outline of the metal pressed against the man's defenseless skin, indenting it sharply along the edge; then Jenna sighed, flicking the weapon away before it could spill blood.

"You're lucky I'm not as bad as my mentor," she grumbled, rocking back on her heels. "I'd leave you with a scar to remember."

Turning the dagger, she prodded him experimentally with the pommel. When he did not twitch, she leaned forward and yanked his helmet off, testing its size in her hands. The man's mouth was half-parted, slack in his insensate condition; he did not stir when she dropped the helmet beside his nose, straps jingling, the metal booming like a hollow drum.

The helm rattled when she kicked it, bouncing off the finely carved wooden benches that decorated the monastery. She followed it along. One particularly vicious swipe of her foot sent the helmet hurtling in a straight line down the hall, narrowly missing a crash into an ornate candelabra.

A second kick knocked the candles over.

Slices of her reflection played Seek-Me off the windows as she padded deeper into the monastery, like ephemeral little girls ducking around the sills. Their originator was a woman grown: skin browned from long hours on the road, a scar up one cheek and freckle spots down the middle. One of her earlobes was marred with a coin-sized knot of tissue where a cut had healed badly. The bridge of her nose was crooked where a break had been left to mend on its own; it veered gracefully towards her right eye, giving her a rakish cant that she took frequent advantage of by tilting her head. She had a small mouth, with overly expressive corners that could have been destined for flirtatious smiles -- hiding one moment, teasing the next -- or endless claims of innocence.

Instead, Jenna had turned it towards matters of war. She was as human as they came, with no pretense for great beauty and no use for it either. Jenna was a fighter. She preferred knives to hayfields. In the mirror of the stained glass, she could see the tight warrior's knot of her hair coming loose in tufts around her head, streaked with grime and sweat. Her brow was smudged with swordblack. She looked as if she had come straight from a battlefield that was still raging in her absence; she looked exactly as she should, which was completely out of place in a remote monastery.

The helmet rattled as she continued to kick it along. It bounced off corners and pillars, earning fresh dents each time. As Jenna worked her way down an elongated corridor, the helmet ricocheted off a windowsill and rolled unevenly, spending its momentum as it wandered towards a hunched shape sitting on one of the benches.

The figure lifted one boot, and stopped the unlikely missile against the arch of its heel. It bent down and picked up the helm with human hands. "Jenna."

Exhaling sharply, Jenna slunk forward. The patchwork light shifted around her, painting stained glass faces on the stones and across the man's legs. His pupils looked blown; she wondered if he'd remembered to eat. "Liasin."

He made a soft laugh at her greeting and set the helmet gently beside him upon the bench. Clad in simple plate, Liasin blended in with the Scarlets far better than she wanted to admit. He'd left camp in the middle of a repair day, and she'd seen his regular armor waiting on the stands for adjustment -- the pauldrons he wore now were filched from his reserve gear, which had long been outdated as their battles grew less and less forgiving. His hair was worn field-style; the straw-colored strands had been allowed to grow long by way of negligence, bound in twin hanks to keep them out of the way. Like the other paladins in the Brigade, Liasin chose to wield a mace for utility. It leaned against his leg, resting its blunt head against the interlocked stones of the floor. The dormant glow of enchantment puddled from it like a never-ending waterfall of dust, spilling motes of pale light that died before they hit the ground.

At first she wondered if that was the only weapon he'd brought with him; then, after a second glance, she noticed the glimmer of Lethargy's hilt on the far side of the bench. Plain as any practice weapon off the racks in Stormwind, the sword was made distinguishable only by the length of grey cord that Liasin had affixed to the pommel to keep the blade from getting mixed in with the Brigade's general armory. Despite the weapon's history, he'd refrained from any attempts to make Lethargy fanciful, only wrapping the leather of the hilt a second time with braided copper to give it a better grip.

The sword's presence was encouraging, but not by much. He looked dazed and awful, and she wanted to hit him for it.

Instead, she settled for scorn. Pursing her lips together coquettishly as she gauged her words, Jenna readjusted her punch-daggers on their belt. "So you're alive." The technicality was hedged. With the man slouched over, hands folded on the pommel of his mace, he looked more like a propped-up corpse than a living being. Liasin was barely older than she was, but his thin shoulders were bowed beneath his armor; he sat like an ancient patriarch, crumbling underneath decades of guilt and poor choices. "Old Foulwind won't have to go recruiting another captain after all. Maybe I should recommend that he does anyway."

The threat seemed to give Liasin more spirit. He shifted his weight on the bench, straightening at last to look her in the face. The blue of his eyes looked bruised in the dusky cloister light. "That's assuming Blackwind would be able to find one. You know how picky he can be."

"Even more reason why you should return quickly, before he gets angry." When words alone did not have an effect, she sharpened her tone. "Liasin. Come on."

He did not move, but his attention slid away. She followed his gaze with her own. Further down the hall -- almost hidden around a corner -- three guardsmen huddled together, the red and white of their Scarlet tabards crumpling over their armor. An automatic curse burst out of her mouth; with her luck, they would have been ordered to make sure Liasin stayed well into the evening. The same rules that allowed him to visit safely also bound him to the Scarlets' bizarre whims. Liasin's presence was tolerated so long as he took no hostile action and only sat in the halls, watched by an armed escort at all times. The libraries were banned to him, as were the deeper reaches of the stronghold. He was never allowed to heal any of the wounded Crusaders, or speak directly to the novices. As she understood it, they had also initially demanded his armor and his weapons in exchange for a plain linen robe -- but this at least, he’d found the spine to refuse.

No one in the Brigade could figure out why Liasin went to the Scarlet Monastery instead of visiting Light’s Hope for his meditations. Most of them had tried. Why d'you pray at a cathedral that's corrupt? Coppershine had asked him once, and he'd pretended not to hear. Why do they let ye come, she'd tried after that, and to this Liasin had replied, Because they feel I want to be redeemed.

Jenna had her own guesses. They sat like rotting chestnuts on her tongue: too rancid to swallow, and too repulsive to spit out and reveal to the world.

The trapped heat of the monastery was painting lines of sweat along the seams of her clothes. She rolled her shoulders in a futile attempt to loosen them and distract herself from brooding. Though she'd only bothered with a few choice pieces of plate, the chainmail that composed the rest of her armor was beginning to make its weight known the longer that she waited. Her own choice armor was also in the care of the blacksmiths at camp; the greaves she'd been loaned were too big around the calves, and the cotton padding underneath had started to wad and chafe the longer that she waited. She fought the urge to yell -- to shout or curse, condemn the Light, anything that might earn a reaction from any of them. The three Scarlets down the hall looked too nervous to be veterans. If she'd already encountered Liasin's assigned escort, then they were currently disabled in unconscious and bleeding heaps, and she was in for an earful all the ride back to camp, no matter how patient she tried to be.

If not, then she could at least have fun before she earned a chiding.

"Are these your guards today, Liasin?" She cocked her head towards them next. "Hello, I'm Jenna All-Bright." One of them waved; she favored him with a particularly wide grin before adding, "Hope you don't mind being buried at Faol's Rest."

They reacted predictably, two of them stepping forward around the corner, one back. The man in the lead -- she figured it was their captain, judging from how quickly he had thumbed his sword clear from its scabbard -- tossed his head in challenge, glaring at her down the bridge of his pinched, rat-like nose. Jenna wondered what he'd look like with it broken.

"You're making it very hard for me to come here in Brigade colors," Liasin informed her pleasantly, interrupting her fantasy. He still had not left the bench. "We've started to build up quite a reputation. One of them spat at me the last time I asked for their offerings plate."

Struck momentarily dumb by the news, Jenna resisted the urge to do the same. "Are you serious?" she blurted, wheeling on a heel and fanning her hands at the paladin. "You're tithing to them? You know what they're capable of, and you're still giving them money! And then you wonder why you have to ask me for supply gold!"

Liasin had the poor grace to look unruffled. "Not everyone in the Crusade joined out of sadism, Jenna. Most are common folk who wanted some sense back in their lives. They need to feel as if they can fight back against the Scourge. Many are still desperate and confused -- and our attacking them only reinforces their fears. We shouldn't forget that they're people as well, underneath the red and white. How do you think they like it when we destroy their supplies and send them to the infirmary? The Brigade alone has taken its fair share out of their savings. Do you think it's right to limit the Crusade's means of taking care of their people?"

"And by helping to fund them," she lashed back, "you're also helping them continue to commit their acts of prejudice and torture. If they didn't have money, they wouldn't be able to fight us at all. If they wanted to help their own people, they'd spend their gold on medics instead of swords. How do you rationalize that?"

"I can't," Liasin replied quietly. The hush of his voice barely carried to Jenna's ears. "You know I can't."

Normally that conclusion was enough of a sign to end the argument, but Jenna sneered, unable to keep herself from pressing her side of the issue. "I'll never understand why you encourage things that you claim to hate. Something is wrong with you for liking these people. Or are you still obsessing over about what you couldn't stop?"

His eyes flicked to the side, confirming her suspicions. She was right.

Months had passed since the first time the pair of them had braved the Crusade's domain. Out of their small group, only Jenna and Liasin had made all the way through to discover the cul-de-sac hidden within the twisting inner cloisters. Split apart from the others, she and Liasin had dodged carelessly through the hallways, expecting to find only angered clerics and the threats of hurled books.

What they been confronted with had been far worse. There, in the stuffy interrogation chamber, even Jenna had lost control of her stomach to nausea. She had been the one to hassle the guards, driving them away from the cramped prison -- but Liasin had been the one to linger, staying behind to try and heal the victims that were too badly injured until she had had to brave the cloisters again, and drag him out herself.

Months had passed since then. She hadn't stopped wishing she'd gone back for him sooner.

"William," she said softly, resorting to his first name in a moment of weakness. "There's no point in playing nice with the Scarlets. You can't change anything."

Liasin sighed. The weary tone was familiar; it hadn't been the first time Jenna had assaulted his logic before, and she knew from long experience that it wouldn't be the last. "You didn't come to find me for a philosophical debate, Jenna." He reached out towards Lethargy, covering the hilt of the sword with his hand: an unconscious, habitual reassurance that she had seen him perform a thousand times before, usually when Blackwind was on a tirade. "You might as well say what's on your mind."

Made wary by the shift in topic, Jenna tried to gauge the paladin's annoyance. The guards were of secondary importance; if any of them tried to attack, she had faith that she could drop all three before a fresh alarm could be raised, but Liasin's irritation was a treacherous thing, prone to subtle revenge and what he claimed were accidents with blessings. "Blackwind's about to break camp to move against the Bonegrinder," she admitted grudgingly. "He sent me to fetch you. And to remind you that it's not safe here. He said," she added with relish, "that I was fully authorized to use force if I thought you were in a threatening situation. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty threatening right now."

"The Monastery is always dangerous." Liasin arched an eyebrow, but the line of his mouth had softened, changing from somber to wry. "Everyone's tried to assault this place at one point or another. It's nearly a rite of passage these days. Remember the last time the Brigade took someone here to show them the odds? There must have been at least two different Horde guilds doing the same thing, judging from the colors on their tabards. And then the fighting broke out."

"He was looking at me funny," Jenna interjected mulishly. "I was within my rights to defend myself."

"He was undead, Jenna. He didn't have any eyes."

The banter was putting her at ease. Outside, the air was quiet. The alarm bells of the monastery had fallen completely silent, their brass tongues slumbering once more. Even so, Jenna remained grimly aware that she was not entirely out of danger. Enough Scarlets could physically overwhelm her, regardless of her degree of combat skill; instinct kept her ears primed for any whispers of activity, even as she let her attention roam between the guards, Liasin, and her armor. The latter reeled her back in as she flexed her wrists. Distracted by a hardening spot of red on her thumb, Jenna squinted at it before realizing it was a blood blister. She couldn't remember which guard might have caused it. The splash of color was brilliant against the tan: the mottled, tiny glory of ruby turning into a hard spot, with a wad of pale skin on top. She poked at it, privately amused by the tiny clots before she popped her finger in her mouth and bit down hard.

Around the taste of warm iron, she mumbled, "You're still not moving."

At last, Liasin stirred, straightening up and uncricking his shoulders. She could hear the pop of bone underneath his armor, testament to how long he'd been cramped. "Leave the poor guards alone," he ordered. His voice was tired. "Did you hurt anyone as you were coming in?" When she nodded, he sighed again. "I'll donate to their collections to help pay for the damage you've done to them. Don't protest. How many?"

"Only a few. They're annoying," she added, defensively. "They heal themselves. If they just lay down and bled, it'd go much faster for all of us."

"They’re no real threat to you, Jenna."

"They're a threat to my livelihood," she wheedled. "How else am I supposed to pay for the dents they put in my armor if I don't rummage through their pockets?"

He smiled then, unexpectedly, the moment of somber disposition hiding itself once more. It made him look entire campaigns younger. In one sudden motion, he stood. The trappings of his armor clattered on the bench; the thick-stitched cloak slid heavy as a shroud, licking at his ankles. His mace brightened when he reached down to pick it up, the enchantments responding to his presence; Lethargy, true to its nature, did not react, remaining docile and dormant to the eye. Liasin slung both belts around his waist, patiently fumbling with the buckles to allow the sword to hang properly against his left hip, where it would not interfere with his shield arm.

Unable to restrain herself, Jenna leaned forward, her weight rolling onto the balls of her feet. "Why do you do this?" she hissed. Down the hall, the three guards shifted awkwardly; she shot them a thinly-tempered glare, unable to keep her silence any longer on the subject. "Can't you go visit Uther's shrine to clear your head? I know you'll probably stay there until the priest throws you out, but I'm sure we can bribe him. Eventually."

Liasin raised an eyebrow as he shook out his cloak, looking mildly vexed. "It's a matter of compassion, Jenna."

She scoffed. "Compassion. There you go again about the three principles of your Order: compassion, hope, and nonsense. If you're that dedicated, then why don't you stop the Scarlets from preaching their version of the Light? You can't possibly support their methodology."

Another tug, and Liasin finished settling both of his weaponbelts in place, checking the swing of his arm. Satisfied, he leveled a patient stare on her. She tried not to squirm. "You know that, and I know that, but not all the Alliance is aware of the corruption within their ranks, Jenna. Kill them without public cause, and you make them into martyrs. And if you take away the Crusade and gave people nothing in its place, who’s to say that what they’ll come up with to replace it won’t be worse?"

"A paladin, pleading for evil to be allowed to exist." Jenna rolled her eyes, hoping to dismiss the gravity of the moment. She felt leggy and restless. The mismatched chain and plate of her armor had settled onto her bones over the duration of the argument, as her muscles cooled and her heartbeat had gone to rest. One of her calves was beginning to cramp. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Caught in the middle of digging his shield out from underneath the bench, Liasin paused. His silence held as he remained kneeling on the stones of the hallway, one hand braced on the floor, the other cupping the beveled edge of the shield's steel. "Perhaps you're right." Then his mouth quirked again, and he gave the same dry laugh as before. "It might not be the best philosophy out there."

"What an understatement." Giving in to the urge to move, Jenna stretched, wiggling her fingers. Her shadow rippled across the floor as she shifted her feet through half-hearted fighting stances. The ghosts of practice routines nipped at her ankles. "You'd make a fine warrior, if only you could get your head out of the clouds. Are you sure we can't convert you?"

"And what good would a warrior be to Blackwind today?" he threw back in her direction. "You came looking for a paladin to serve as his captain. Bring him a Scarlet instead, and see if he likes that any better."

She grinned. Judging from the tone of the last line delivered, she'd managed to lure Liasin safely into good humor once more. "Come on. There's time to think, and time to act. And time to get your things together, and get back to camp. Tell you what," she challenged merrily, knowing how she was pushing her luck, but unable to resist. "My horse is hitched south of here at the usual post. My signal horn's lashed to the saddle. The faster you get there and sound it, the less of a disturbance I make, and the less you have to apologize for. Sound fair?"

For a second, she thought she had him, but then Liasin shook his head. "I still have to settle payment," he protested. "That might take close to an hour, depending on who you've left standing."

Jenna barked a laugh. The thrill of adrenaline was sneaking into her bones, turning her giddy with the lure of fresh mischief. "Do it fast, then," she warned. "There's a battle waiting to be fought, and the rest of the guild itching for it. You can't miss out on all the glory. Can you? Come on," she repeated, and laughed, darting towards the bench. Liasin began to reach for her -- but not fast enough, and she scooped up the helm and danced away before he could get any misguided ideas about trapping her.

Back three steps, and she had a clear view of the hallway junction that harbored the cluster of Liasin's guards. With a snap of her wrist, she sent the helmet spinning directly towards them. One was too slow to dodge the unlikely missile; it smashed into his shoulder with a harsh clang, causing him to throw up his arm with a shout as the helmet ricocheted off his armor and clattered to the floor.

Before the echoes even had time to fade, Jenna was off and away. A quick jog and a twist into a narrow service passageway, and she had left Liasin's hallway completely. As she plunged through a fresh wing of the libraries, a pair of monks lifted their heads with yelped cries of surprise. They overturned their benches as they scrambled to defend the chamber and its acolytes from her assault.

Jenna began to whistle through her teeth. The day was shaping up to be profitable after all.