Daughter of Azeroth

59 | A NEW HOME

Double checking the gilt card listing the tower, floor and room number of her accommodation, Idira turned the key in the lock of the blue door and walked into her dormitory room. Apart from two narrow beds with bare mattresses on plain wooden frames, a pair of bedside cabinets and two slim wardrobes standing just inside the entrance, the room was completely empty; no rugs, no curtains, no paintings on the wall. Above the bedside cabinets, a high, thin window stretched up to the cornice, tapering to a point. Idira wrinkled her nose, the walls must have recently been painted; the acrid tang of resin still lingered, faint, in the air.

The furnishings had been laid out in the small rectangular room in perfect symmetry, one side the mirror image of the other. Setting aside the box containing her new dress, a fine linen the same colour as her eyes, she sank on one of the beds' mattresses and looked around, shivering a little in the room's oppressive austerity. After the endless opulence she had observed as she followed the guard through the Academy's campus to the dormitories, she rather thought her living circumstances would be a little more luxurious and colourful. But no, it seemed for the apprentices at least, no such comforts would be provided. She leaned over the bedside cabinet, set under the ledge of the window, to find herself looking down a sheer drop from an incomprehensible height. She pulled back, trembling with vertigo. A soft laugh came from the open doorway.

'It takes ages to get used to that,' a young woman—a little plump and quite a bit shorter than Idira—said. From her pretty, dark eyes, she regarded Idira, her expression open and frank, her face framed by thick, dark hair, falling in loose waves around her face and down her back. She moved into the room, holding out her hand in greeting. Idira took it, and let the other woman pump her hand up and down.

'First time I saw that, I puked,' she said, laughing, her cheeks dimpling, the warm, infectious sound of her laughter filling the sterile room; her smile so warm and engaging, Idira couldn't help but smile back.

'I'm Wynn, and you are?' she asked, letting Idira's hand go and looking Idira over, curious and not the least bit shy.

'Idira Northshire, from Westfall,' Idira answered.

'Westfall?' Wynn replied, pursing her lips and screwing one eye tight as she looked up at the ceiling, far above. 'Isn't that the notorious place of villains and gangsters?'

Idira blushed. 'You could say that.'

'Oh, how exciting!' Wynn plopped herself down beside Idira. 'I would love to meet a villain or a gangster, so romantic! You must tell me all about them, are they all handsome and roguish, with battle scars and big, hard muscles everywhere inside their leather jerkins and breeches?'

Idira was so taken aback by Wynn's enthusiastic description she burst out laughing. Wynn raised her eyebrows, waiting, expectant.

'Some of them are, I suppose,' she said, thinking of Kip, and even grudgingly of VanCleef.

Wynn screeched, throwing her head back and clasping her hands against her chest. 'I knew it!' she exulted, gleeful, kicking her satin-slippered feet. 'Father always said it was nonsense, just stories, but I always had a feeling that all the really interesting men ended up in Westfall.'

'Oh, they were interesting all right,' Idira admitted, shaking her head, incredulous anyone could find criminals, mercenaries, or thugs appealing. Seeing the naïve look of pleasure on Wynn's face, she decided not to tell her how bad they smelled most of the time. It seemed wrong to ruin her fantasy, and anyway, VanCleef hadn't smelled bad, or at least up until Myra died, he hadn't. Afterwards he only smelled of cheap rum.

She glanced at Wynn's dark green dress, the hem, cuffs and neckline had been embroidered with pretty golden flowers. Despite the neck being a little low and the bodice cut a little tight, it worked without looking indecent, accentuating her full figure to a very pleasing effect. Unlike all the other apprentices Idira had passed as she trailed after the guard to the dorm, Wynn's dress didn't look expensive, at least no more expensive than the dresses Idira had seen the women wearing in Stormwind. A tendril of hope ignited in her as she sensed in Wynn a kindred spirit, offering the tantalising possibility that perhaps not everyone in this intimidating, hierarchical place was, as Vanessa so scathingly called them, 'a societal inbred'.