Daughter of Azeroth

45 | NEW FEELINGS

Hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, Idira began to believe her prayer to the Light might have been heard, her wish granted for a peaceful, quiet life. A year passed, the garden flourishing under Unambi's gentle care, supplying them with vegetables and staples. He decided to plant one of the smaller fields with wheat, his first harvest so bountiful, he didn't need to plant any wheat the second year. Logan brought them chickens, providing the farm with fresh eggs, though Idira refused to allow either Unambi or Logan to kill the chickens for their flesh. Margle visited often, his courage growing by increments until one day she turned to find him standing behind her as she worked in the kitchen, holding up a crab, shy in his new surroundings.

The days and nights blended together, warm, identical, unchanging. It rarely rained, but when it did, it poured, brought in by heavy clouds blown in from the sea, drenching the dusty earth and turning the air cool and humid for days.

Logan visited every time he passed by on patrol, carrying a small cache of supplies hidden in his backpack; honey, sugar, flour, coffee beans, things he knew they wouldn't have. As the years passed and he moved up in the ranks of the People's Militia, he no longer worked on patrol, his duties keeping him in Sentinel Hill or fighting Jac's men in the south and east. After his patrols stopped, no one else ever came by. Idira wondered if he used his station to ensure their continued protection. He still managed to visit, however, turning up on his horse at least once a month.

Besides the goods he brought from Sentinel Hill, he also carried news, just as precious. Soon after Idira reached her seventeenth year, she learned the People's Militia had broken Jac's stranglehold on the eastern part of Westfall, and had even begun to reclaim parts of Moonbrook, or, at least what was left of it after years of vandalism. Still, it was progress, Logan had said. Jac would soon fall, and after years of misery and oppression Westfall would belong to its people once more. They would rebuild.

The years sped past, comfortable and calm, Idira's peaceful, rustic routine broken only by Logan's visits. In what seemed the blink of an eye, she reached her twentieth year, her girlishness long gone, her breasts and hips straining at the seams of Myra's old dresses, worn thin with age and use. Logan went to Stormwind and came back with a thick bolt of cerulean blue linen, scissors and thread for her. He'd said it was a late birthday present as he handed it to her with a confident smile, his boyish awkwardness long gone, replaced by the easy assurance of a man full grown and experienced around women.

She'd smiled with delight as she touched the fabric, suspecting his gift meant he might be courting her, the way Benny used to do with Myra. Logan was handsome. Very handsome, in fact. Neither had she failed to notice how his body rippled with solid muscle under his leather tunic. He had long since replaced his daggers with a massive two-handed sword; its scabbard strapped to his back, the sword's enormous goatskin-wrapped hilt rising high above his left shoulder.

On his last visit, when he saw the woodpile was empty and Idira needed to light the stove for dinner, he had offered to fill up the pile for her. He had shed his leather tunic and shirt and worked bare-chested in the broiling heat, his tanned and taut body making Idira experience feelings she hadn't felt before. Shy, she went inside and watched him from the sitting room window, half-hidden by the curtain, her fingers drifting to her breasts, imagining what it would be like to press her naked body against his. He looked up and caught her watching him, her hands on her breasts. He smiled, cocky, confidence oozing from him and carried on with his work. Cringing with embarrassment, she fled into the kitchen to work on her dress.

The blue linen was very good quality. It felt expensive. Despite Logan's attention and obvious interest in her, she still thought of Khadgar, though under Logan's influence and innuendoes, her thoughts had become much less innocent than they used to be.

Lately she had begun to imagine Khadgar without his tunic, holding her against him, his mouth on hers. Alone in her bed, she would replay the time she had seen Benny and Myra together in the hidden room in the cellar, and imagine doing those things with Khadgar, her cheeks burning from her naughty, shameful thoughts.

Though she longed for it, she never so much as even dreamed of Khadgar again. She had begun to wonder if her Light and her connection to Khadgar had been an artefact of her childhood, something she lost as she grew into womanhood. When she asked, Unambi said he didn't think so, that it only worked when it needed to protect her, and since she was safe, there was nothing for it to do until it would be needed for its real purpose, whatever that might be.

The night she had seen Logan chop the wood, she lay in her bed, wondering if Unambi was wrong and perhaps she was meant to be with Logan. She bit her lip as her hands drifted over her full breasts, her fingertips caressing her nipples, thinking of Logan when he caught her looking at him as he chopped the wood, imagining his strong hands on her breasts instead of hers. She closed her eyes and imagined him kissing her. She snatched her hands away, suddenly uncomfortable. No. It felt wrong, like she had just imagined kissing a brother. She pushed her thoughts of Logan aside, thinking instead of Khadgar, her hands creeping back to her breasts, touching her nipples, imagining his hands there. She sighed as her nipples hardened. She opened her eyes and stared at the rafters. It could only be him. She turned onto her side, hoping with all her heart one day she would find him on that balcony like her dreams foretold. If not, it seemed she was destined to lead a lonely, loveless life.