Northwest By Southshore

Chapter 1

“So tell me, how can someone so pretty be evil?”

Sprin heard the question clearly. It cut through black oblivion like a beacon as she used her elbows as a prop to peel her face off the gritty stone floor. As consciousness slowly crept from her ears to her eyes, she could see a human man – young, probably too young to even be called man – watching her with interest through the barred door three paces in front of her.

He grinned humorously at her and tried again. “So what’s a pretty elf like you doing in a place like this?”

The elf narrowed her green eyes in irritation, but concentrated instead on flattening her palms against the cold ground and pushing herself back and up onto her haunches. She felt sick to her stomach and her head ached and spun. Through the pain, she tried to take a quick inventory of the situation. She had clothes still, but her staff and wand were gone. She was locked up and a scrawny, pale boy with unconvincing stubble on his chin was hitting on her.

“Don’t try using any spells,” he suggested solicitously, just as she was wondering if she had sufficient strength and mana to hit the door with a fireball. “This cell is pretty well Silenced.”

She stared him in the eye for a long moment before blatantly attempting the spell anyway, never breaking eye contact. The boy shrugged.

“Told you.”

Privately, Sprin decided to test just how strong the Silencing spell was later if she could get some time alone. For now, she chose to bide her time.

“Where am I?” she asked, speaking carefully to keep her voice from shaking.

“Hey, you can speak,” he said obnoxiously, ignoring the question. “Considering how you managed to get yourself caught, I was figuring that we’d caught an elf who was a complete retard.”

Sprin clamped down hard on her temper and mentally cursed whoever had thought to Silence the cell. She would have dearly liked to turn this little prick into a sheep.

She must not have completely suppressed her wrathful glare entirely, because he quirked his eyebrows at her and mocked, “Well, it was a little dumb to assassinate Citizen Wilkes when you were close enough to aggro the entire guard detail.”

A mistake, to be sure, and a big one. If she made it out of prison alive, she was never going to live this one down. What irritated her most was that she’d proven her father’s point – that she never should have set out with her restless cousin and his group of wild friends. Alketh might have been cut out for a bohemian lifestyle of adventure on the roads, but little Sprin Daywatcher should have stayed home in Silvermoon where she belonged.
“Wilkes was a murderer,” she shot back smartly. Take that, you twat blanket.

“Oh, yeah?” He gave her an exaggerated look of surprise and interest that was thoroughly insulting.

“Murdered an innocent potions maker over at the mill,” Sprin retorted. Actually, she knew nothing at all of the person Wilkes was alleged to have killed except a name – Apothecary Eli. “You Alliance scum think you’re so high and mighty, so entitled by your self importance to do anything you want to anyone you want.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Innocent potions maker my ass. I’ve seen what kind of potions those undead alchemists over at the old mill come up with. Stuff I wouldn’t do to my worst enemy.”

“You’re Alliance, I’m Horde,” Sprin said coolly. “I’d say that should put me in the position of worst enemy at the moment.”

She managed to stand up as gracefully as possible and slowly approached the door and her captor, who looked thoughtful.

“You know,” he began, looking as though he hadn’t heard anything she’d just said. “I really could make the case that Wilkes hardly could have murdered a man who was already dead, right?”

Sprin’s index finger suddenly shot through the bars and tapped him sharply on the nose. He leapt back in alarm and a thin smile spread across her delicate face. Ah, there it was, the familiar tingle of magic in the tip of her finger. The Silencing only spread as far as the door to her cell. It was a pity that she needed the use of her whole body for spell casting.

“Don’t – don’t touch me,” he stammered, visibly shaken.

She pulled her hand back through the bars and wrapped the fingers of both hands around the iron bars. “You’re a miserable guard.”

He recovered a bit of his cockiness. “Lucky then that I’m not the only guard here, hmm? My da’s the captain of the guard. I’m just one of the men working here.”

Sprin snickered.

“What? What’s so funny?”

She waved her hand dismissively, still grinning wickedly. “Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about it. I just thought it was amusing how you called yourself a man.”

He flashed a naughty smile at her. “Want me to show you just how much of a man I am?”

Sprin made a face and stalked back to the far end of the cell. “Oh, please.”

“Give you a taste of man meat, eh?”

He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. This time, she almost laughed for real at the combined absurdity of her situation and his facial expression. She resisted the urge and changed the subject.

“So now what happens to me?”

Her captor lounged up against the cell door. “Maybe send word to Stormwind, but that city has its own troubles. Maybe take care of you ourselves.”
“Take care of me?” Sprin cried. She hurried up to the door.

“You don’t want to do that,” she breathlessly blurted out, nose to nose with the boy. “My father is an important elf. My name is Sprin Daywatcher. If you would just contact him in Silvermoon, I’m sure he’d get you whatever – “

The guard laughed. “If we just contacted Silvermoon? What, sent a messenger to strut right into Horde territory looking for your da? You really are stupid.”

“Please,” she said desperately. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I mean, I was, but it seemed like a good idea and – oh, fuck.”

Sprin slid down to the floor, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.

“Look, kiddo,” he said uncomfortably. “I don’t know what will happen to you. If you’re as important as you say, maybe there’s a chance you’ll get sent away as a political prisoner and someone with more power than us can arrange something with your father.”

“You’re just saying that,” she whispered. “And if I’m left here? What do you do with captured Horde here?”

He sighed.

“You can’t kill me,” she said, a bit hysterically. “You just can’t.”

He cleared his throat again. She stared at the floor. “Hey, well, maybe you should have thought things through before you decided to murder Wilkes.”

Sprin made a strangled sound in her throat.

“Don’t worry about things now,” he said softly. “For now, you’re not going anywhere.”

She heard his bootsteps as he walked away, but for a long time, she just sat, looking at the grey stone floor but not actually seeing it.