Reunion of the Greyharts

Summary
A now-dead Yreine meets her daughter Magwen again. In true Yreine fashion, it does not go nicely. Reunion of the Greyharts is a sequel to both Harlan's Bakery and Warmage Greyhart, as well as being canon to ''Hordecraft. ''

Reunion of the Greyharts
Gilneas.

Since their brutal defeat at the hands of the Forsaken amid the chaos of the worgen curse and the timely arrival of the cataclysm, the Gilneans had fought tirelessly to wrest back control of their homeland. As of yet their efforts had brought them little more than a stalemate, but desire for revenge burned hot in their blood and fed the hope in their hearts.

Among the hopefuls were the last three survivors of the once populous Greyhart clan--- siblings Magwen, Awryn and Arric. All three were pale-skinned and red of hair, but that was where the similarities ended.

Magwen, the eldest of the three, was a shield-bearing warrior with the face of a delicate doll and a body strong enough to launch a grown man right across the Forsaken battlefront. The more worthless varieties of men commented that she would be a rare beauty if she were not so built for battle.

Awryn was tall and thin and had a long face, her hair a darker red than her siblings’. She was a skilled warlock, a crafter of terrible diseases that rotted the very souls of her victims. Some had deemed her power as vile as the Banshee Queen’s horrid Plague itself-- and Awryn was deeply proud of it. Her eyes, once the same shade of sky-blue as the other Greyharts, had turned a livid green from her extended use of fel magic. It was even more noticeable in her worgen form.

Arric, the youngest, was small and fragile-looking, and the only of them to remain untouched by the worgen curse. His face was marked with a smattering of freckles and his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. He was a priest-- or soon to be, at least, for he was in the process of learning the ways of the Light from more experienced Gilnean clerics. So far it was discovered that Arric had a natural talent for healing, which was why he had been allowed to accompany his sisters to the edge of the Greymane Wall today. He and the other priests would tend to those inevitably wounded by the Forsaken forces lurking within their stolen city.

Now, Arric was safely within the medical tents behind the line of Gilnean forces. Magwen stood at the forefront with the other soldiers, jostling her shield about impatiently. Awryn came to her side and placed a bony hand on her arm.

“Clear a nice path for me, Mags,” she said with a smirk. “I’ve just the spell to send their commanders packing.”

“I bloody well hope so,” Magwen replied, shrugging her sister’s hand away. “There’s so many of them-- any chaos you could cause would be a blessing.”

Awryn laughed. “Leave it to me, sister. ‘ Chaos ’ is my middle name!”

“Oh? I always thought it was Ethel,” said Magwen. Awryn rolled her eyes.

“Be safe up front, Mags,” she said, moving to return to the ranks of casters. “And use your worgen form this time, for Light’s sake! You’re much stronger that way.”

It was Magwen’s turn to roll her eyes, and she did so with an unhappy sigh. As a general rule, she would only use her worgen form only if absolutely necessary. It was difficult to control, and even more difficult to bear. It was, after all, in that very form that she had ripped her father to shreds in a fit of irrepressible bloodlust.

“I will, don’t worry,” she said after a time. Awryn nodded in response and vanished behind the rows of footmen. At once Magwen felt more at ease-- the Forsaken would have to cut down an awful lot of solders to reach Awryn now, herself included. And she had no intention of letting that happen.

The shout from the commanding officer came none too soon, and the Gilneans charged upon their city. Immediately silhouetted Forsaken archers appeared on the parapets to pelt the approaching army with arrows laden with deadly poisons and volatile magics. Magwen held her shield aloft, arrows bouncing away like a persistent hail on a windowpane. A bolt of sickly green energy shot up to meet the Forsaken, exploding into flame and sizzling what little flesh still clung on to their bones. Magwen grinned and glanced back, catching a glimpse of Awryn behind a sea of shields and silver armour. They pressed forward, enemy footmen starting to pour from the cracks in the perimeter wall like ants from a disturbed nest. Magwen roared and leapt forward, bringing her heavy shield down to shatter the skull of the nearest unfortunate foe. She shook grey sludge and fragments of bone from her weapon as she jabbed another through the throat with her sword, twisting the blade until the head came loose. In the back of her mind, she recalled a time when she would have been appalled by such a gruesome attack. But she had seen what the Forsaken were capable of, and in comparison she felt her actions were quite tame.

They pressed on, slowly but surely carving a path through the Forsaken ranks. Arrows still pelted down at erratic intervals and thinned the pack of the Gilneans, but this time their numbers were great enough to fill the spaces where others fell in a heartbeat. Most chose their worgen forms for this fight, making use of their heightened senses and more resilient bodies. Magwen held off for now, but felt the urge to shift grow with each enemy she cut down.

They fought their way past the Greymane Wall, clambering through an enormous split in the stone and covering their heads with their shields as they emerged into its shadow on the other side. Magwen took her first look at the city since she had been forced to leave it, heart sinking when she saw Forsaken outposts and Plague-riddled war machines dotted endlessly throughout the land.

She had not been the only Gilnean to falter at that moment, and an explosion of magic caught them unaware and scattered their ranks, blanketing them in smoke. Magwen coughed dirt and dust, blinking to clear her vision as she and a handful of others scrambled to find air, each blindly staggering in different directions. Through misfortune or a cruel twist of fate itself, Magwen found she had wandered away from her allies when the smoke cleared. They were not far-- she could see them clashing with the Forsaken-- but for the first time in a while Magwen stood alone. She ducked behind a row of dying trees for cover, wary of being spotted, and crept carefully back towards the battlefield.

She felt the voice before she heard it, like a crackle of static on the back of her neck.

“All alone in such a dangerous place? My dear, I’d hoped I’d taught you better than this,” it said. Or she said, for Magwen recognised the voice at once, and it made her blood run cold.

She whirled around to face the mother she thought long-dead, sword and shield at the ready. Yreine Greyhart was not as Magwen remembered. Her skin was sallow and hung loose about exposed bones, her blonde hair that once caught the sun’s light and flung it back with brilliance now ashy and limp, cropped short at the base of the skull. But her magic had not faded-- Magwen felt her arcane potential like a pressure against the air.

Yreine creaked her head to the side, pulling her black lips apart in a rotten smile when Magwen did not reply. “Cat got your tongue? Come now, don’t be rude. Say hello to your mother.” She held her arms outstretched, beckoning Magwen for a hug. A wand and several vials of who-knew-what glittered on a sash at her waist. Magwen took a step back.

“My mother died in Icecrown,” she growled, channeling anger to mask how distraught she was. This was not the family reunion she had been hoping for. “She’s dead,” she affirmed.

Yreine laughed and folded her arms across her chest. “Aye. A pity the Lich King did not raise me as a death knight instead-- I would have liked a body that would not rot as this one does. Replacing limbs with fresher ones is exciting at first, but soon grows tiresome.” She looked Magwen over, taking note of the scars on her arms and face. In particular she focused on the marks left from a swipe from a feral worgen that had threatened to take her eye out.

“Are you afflicted, Magwen?” Yreine asked. “What awful scars. But my, how strong you’ve become! You look as though you could rip a man in two.” A grey tongue slithered over her lips. “...How formidable you must be as a beast. Show it to me.”

Magwen blinked in surprise at the command. “What? No! I won’t answer to the likes of you.”

Yreine gave an exaggerated sigh and slipped the wand out from her belt. “I’d anticipated a reaction like this. Fortunately, I’ve come prepared. They didn’t let just anyone train as a battlemage, you know.”

Magwen looked at the wand in alarm and at once leapt back, moving into a defensive stance. There was not much she could do to deflect Yreine’s magic, but perhaps she could throw her shield and make a run for it before her cast was complete. She took a deep breath and moved her arm back to throw--

--but she could not. Though she tried to move it, the limb would not budge. She tried again, and again, then tried her sword arm. It was motionless. Perhaps she could inch backwards-- no, her legs would not move either. She was frozen. Everything but her head was stuck in place.

“What did you do to me?” she shouted, starting to panic. “How did you... but you didn’t cast anything!”

Yreine grinned. “Not just now, no. Days-- no, perhaps a week ago-- I cast upon myself an aura allowing me access to the minds of any child of mine I speak with. Now, I can command your body as easily as I would a golem or an arcane servant. Its very simple, really.”

Magwen felt her stomach churn. The pressure in the air, the crackling magic in Yreine’s first words to her-- how had she not noticed something was wrong?

Yreine moved to her side now, reaching up to caress the side of her face with a cold, papery hand. “You’ve grown to be so pretty, Magwen. Have Awryn and Arric been so fortunate? I would like to see them too.”

“Stay away from them!” Magwen roared, trying to flinch away from the hand on her cheek. She’d never liked being touched-- much less by the terrifying remnants of her dead mother.

“No, dear,” Yreine replied simply, lifting her wand until it bathed them both in its colourless light. “Be reminded of your place in this family. I will give the orders, and you will follow.”

A sharp pain ripped through Magwen’s head and she cried out in agony, trying uselessly to fight against the magic that paralysed her. It felt as though a fire had started inside her skull, roving about in its hunt for fuel. Fuel that would be her individuality, her very self, her hopes, beliefs, memories, everything. All was engulfed in vicious bursts of unbelievably complex spellwork, a parade of sigils and runes that meant both nothing and everything to Magwen. They shimmered and danced, and she screamed in pain, tears streaming down her face. They would not relent for a moment, not until Yreine was satisfied. Her memories of her life were the first to go, each one flashing before her as it crumbled. Then came her basic instinct for freedom, her innate desire to preserve herself. Emotional capacities were flung away like discarded toys-- even her ability to recognise pain fell to pieces. As it faded, so too did her scream. She stood silent and motionless as Yreine finished her spell-- instilling within Magwen only one desire, one belief: to obey her, and her alone. No matter the request or its cost.

At last Yreine pulled away from her daughter’s mind, shaking arcane residue from her wand. It was challenging to apply her magic in this way, but very rewarding. She examined Magwen’s dead-eyed face with pride.

“Show me your worgen form,” she demanded, dropping the paralysing spell and stepping back to allow Magwen the space to transform.

Magwen’s head nodded slowly, and she forced herself to shift. Usually, such an uncomfortable process would have her grunting and flinching as her bones reshaped themselves, but now she simply stood there, eyes looking at nothing.

When she was done, Yreine clicked her tongue appreciatively. “Bigger than I had expected. And those claws! My, we shall be sure put those to good use. Now then. Where are Awryn and Arric?”

“Awryn is among the first line of casters,” Magwen droned, her growling voice devoid of expression. “Arric is in the medical tents.”

Yreine smiled at that. “How wonderful! My babies have all grown so much. Take me to them, Magwen.”

---

Crouched behind an overturned cart not too far behind, Awryn had watched the entire exchange. She had seen Magwen stagger off on her own after a blast and became concerned, following at a distance to ensure she would be safe.

She had not counted on seeing Yreine.

She stayed low and silent, watching with increasing horror as Yreine effortlessly dominated Magwen’s mind, something she had only known the most elite mages able to do. Wisely she kept her distance, though the urge to fling a bolt of corruption squarely in Yreine’s shrivelled face was strong. But she knew Yreine would be fast enough to counter it, and then she would have given away her position.

“Take me to them, Magwen,” Yreine’s voice croaked. It stirred Awryn into action. Teleporting was tricky since she had left her study of the arcane for fel, but the urgency of the situation forced her to remember the technique. She ported behind the wall and ran to the medical tents, seeing Arric carefully apply a Light-infused healing salve to a wounded worgen’s bloodied shoulder. She wondered if she should alert the commanding officers to the threat Yreine-- and now Magwen-- posed, but in the end the fear of losing time won against it. She grabbed Arric by the back of his robes and tore him away from the camp, using every spell in her arsenal to get them both as far away from Gilneas as possible. Arric pleaded in protest and confusion, but Awryn ignored him. Once she had the chance to explain everything, he would thank her later.

---

Days later, Awryn and Arric received news of the massacre at the Greymane Wall. Reports of an obscenely powerful Forsaken mage and her worgen mind-slave stood out among the reports. Awryn supposed she should feel guilty for her choice to run on that day. She didn’t.