Oreal and Saryss’ First Meeting

Oreal leaned forward on her elbow, gently sloshing the Pandaren rice wine around in the little dish. For such bulky people, their glassware tended toward the delicate and insubstantial. The teacups were the same. Tiny. She rather liked that, and her bags were full of such souvenirs. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she had been travelling around Pandaria, a bit bored and a bit despondent. She had just completed a circuit around the island, exploring the Jade Forest, the Valley of the Four Winds and Kun Lai Summit. She had returned to the Shrine of Two Moons, thinking she would finally return to Silvermoon City.

She could have teleported there at any time, of course. She was a powerful mage and a member of the Sunreavers. Well, she had been a member of the Sunreavers. She had also been a member of the Sunreaver Onslaught. But with Lei Shen vanquished and that bloodthirsty moron Garrosh Hellscream screaming in Hell, the Onslaught had disbanded. Most of her peers had returned to Silvermoon, Dalaran now barred to them thanks to that bitch Proudmoore.

Oreal angrily threw back the dish of wine, draining it in one gulp. She’d lived in Dalaran for most of her adult life. While she was a competent researcher, she was also a hot head and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, which made her more suited to field work. She had served at the damn Wrathgate! She’d survived only because her fire shield had burned off the poison gases around her. She had gone back into the sickly air multiple times, opening portals and guiding people to safety.

And the thrice cursed Kirin Tor, lead by that horrible woman, had thrown her in prison because of intercontinental political bullshit! She had been rescued by the Grand Magister’s raid on the Violet Hold, but she had lost everything. Her lovely apartment, filled with beautiful keepsakes and art from centuries of travel, lost to her. She took another angry gulp, a nearby Pandaren looking at her with misgivings. She sniffed dismissively. So what if she had been here for hours? She was barely intoxicated, more’s the pity.

She just couldn’t bring herself to go back to Silvermoon City … but where else could she go?

Saryss Runeweaver strode purposefully into the Shrine of Two Moons, heading upstairs to find a particular Pandaren merchant who always seemed to have the best tea in Pandaria. His body felt shaky from the rigors he had put it through in the past few weeks, and he knew he could use a thorough bathing session and change of clothes, but he needed that cup of tea. Moreso, he had earned it.

The past four years had been full of such grief and hardship, and not just his own, which would have been more than enough. Pandaria and its people had provided him with a lot of things in the past year, the most important being to help his shattered heart begin to mend, but also a lesson in appreciating the little joys in life. Like tea. Saryss could never get enough of the stuff.

Rounding the corner into the bar, he immediately noticed a blood elf woman in casual garb who appeared to be throwing back a beverage with gusto, though she did not appear to be consuming the liquid with joy. A dour expression was firmly planted on her lovely face, and she looked as if she might be ready to shout at anyone who looked at her the wrong way. Saryss decided to let her be. For now. In the meantime, there was tea to be had.

Saryss turned to the face a large and heavyset Pandaren man who was clearing some empty tables and greeted him warmly. "Kurong! How are you? Have any new brews?"

A smile covered the Pandaren’s rust-and-cream-colored face as he recognized who was speaking to him. "Saryss! My boy! I am well! Welcome back! I trust your adventure in the Krasarang Wilds treated you well? You made it back alive at least!" The words were spoken loudly – Kurong being someone who tackled life with an admirable, but unbridled, exuberance. Before Saryss could respond, Kurong had crossed the short distance between them and picked him up in an enveloping hug that nearly lifted him off the ground. The Pandaren held him tightly for several moments before releasing him.

Saryss grinned, his usually taciturn expression changing to one of joy. He placed a hand on Kurong’s shoulder for a moment, returning his own gesture of greeting. "Well enough. Though I am ready for some nice lodgings and a hot bath." He paused for a moment. "Now, about that brew?"

Kurong shook his head, chuckling. "Of course, of course. Always down to business you are. I have a fine selection to offer today. Though you might be particularly interested to try a new mixture based on an old Klaxxi recipe. Some raven-haired explorer of your kind recently offered it in trade for some information about our insectile neighbors. I was all too happy to oblige as he seemed a decent enough sort." Kurong’s expression turned serious for a moment. "Though the ingredients took several other trades to procure. I think this one will be particularly unique." He gestured to the seat at the bar next to the blood elf woman. "Please, have a seat while I prepare it for you."

"Sounds wonderful, Kurong," Saryss replied, his tone warm. "While I am sure the tea itself will be worth it, getting to watch you prepare it is always a key part of the experience." Saryss followed Kurong towards the bar, taking a seat and intently watching as the Pandaren man bent down with unexpected grace and began gathering the materials he would need to prepare a perfect cup of tea. Saryss was careful not to look at the blood elf woman seated on his left. He could almost feel the irritation coming off her in waves.

Oreal glanced over when she heard the Pandaren being spoken with a barely discernible Thalassian accent. She hadn’t noticed the dark-haired man enter, or, honestly, even approach the bar, but she was rather tipsy.

"Bal’a dash, malanore," she said genially, turning on the stool to face the newcomer. To Saryss’ surprise, the irritation on her fox-like face was gone as it had never been. "I see you have also gone native." She had a careless air, as if she did not spend a great deal of time weighing her actions.

Shaking her head to throw the silver-white hair from her eyes, she smiled. When next she spoke, she spoke Pandaren. She also had very little accent and she did not stumble over the minute changes in tone that her common of the tongue that tended to trouble others. Few races on Azeroth had tonal languages, like the Pandaren did. Of course, the staff leaning casually next to her on the bar counter indicated she was a mage – and mages had to be very careful with their pronunciation. "My name is Oreal Bloodclear, late of the Sunreaver Onslaught. Who might you be?"

Her voice was warm and pleasant in either language, devoid of the crispness that mages usually had. Saryss suspected that this Oreal could be perfectly crisp – sharp, even, if she wanted to be. For her part, Oreal was rather pleased to see a fellow sin’dorei. The Pandaren were lovely people, truly, but it was nice to see one of her own people after a year or so. It wasn’t her people that kept her from rushing back to Silvermoon. It was her people – her family. The obnoxious gits. They’d been avoiding each other for centuries, since she announced she wanted to be a mage and they disowned her. That’s why she had been living in Dalaran, and that thought brought a brief contortion to her features, but the easy going smile was back almost immediately, rage gone like the sun dispersing thunderheads.

She poured herself another tiny dish of plum wine, ready to propose a toast to her new conversational partner. He might be drinking tea, but you could toast with anything, as long as you had the right attitude. And Oreal always had the right attitude.

Saryss was a bit surprised when the blood elf turned to him and greeted him cordially. "Bal’a dash, malanore. I see you have also gone native," she said to him in their mother tongue before switching to very precise Pandaren, a language which, while he hadn’t completely mastered, nevertheless understood quite well and could speak decently enough. Since arriving on these shores around a year ago, he had allowed himself to be fully immersed in the language and culture of this special land. The past few months, even more so, as he had spirited himself away from any leanings of civilization to continue the next phase of the training he had started here.

Before he could reply, she continued: "My name is Oreal Bloodclear, late of the Sunreaver Onslaught. Who might you be?" Her tone was warm and friendly – a pleasant departure from the usual dealings with his people. He was proud of his heritage but had learned through his long lifetime that the world held so much diversity that should be both respected and explored. But that was a train of thought for another time. He blinked to clear his mind, watching as Oreal poured herself another drink, then extended a hand, bowing slightly over it.

When he spoke next, in Pandaren, his tone was friendly, though the smile on his face was more reserved than it had been when greeting his Pandaren friend. "Saryss Runeweaver. No present affiliation, but, yes, you could say I have gone native. Pleased to meet you." That wasn’t entirely true. He was technically affiliated with the Pandaren at present, at least in his mind, but did not feel it was worth stating as such. At least not yet. He was also curious about her experiences with the Sunreaver Onslaught as he had only passively heard tales about their efforts on the Isle of Thunder but decided to be polite.

"Charmed," Oreal drawled, because she was. Oreal found many things charming, but particularly she found excuses to not wallow in her own problems charming. "Did you come to Pandaria for tea?" She was ambivalent about tea, but after spending a great many years in Dalaran, she could drink tea with the best of them. It wasn’t that much different than wine, after all. You sniffed, discussed bouquet, swished it about in your mouth and discussed the strange flavors that had no business being flavors but were there anyway. Like leather. Why did most red wine taste of leather?



"Do you favor white, black or green?"

Saryss’ mouth quirked up in a half-smile at Oreal’s "Charmed. Did you come to Pandaria for tea? Do you favor white, black or green?" At this, his face darkened momentarily, before he caught himself and forced his expression to go back to neutral. No need to bring up the traumas of his past, even within the confines of his head. "Tea. And training. I’m sure the state of my current appearance gives me away." He gestured briefly at the somewhat unkempt and dusty condition of his clothes, hoping that he didn’t smell as dirty as he felt. "Most recently I have been out in the Krasarang wilds as part of a mission to study the various healing techniques of this land. I am a physician by trade and looking to broaden my horizons and skillset." He paused for a moment, quirking a smile. "But I always seem to go looking for tea wherever my travels take me. I guess you could say I am a connoisseur of sorts." He paused a moment, thinking. "As for tea – I often prefer herbal, though can be tempted by a solid green. White tea is a bit quiet for my taste, black tea often a bit loud. But, really, I am willing to try anything." He looked over at his new acquaintance. "How about you?" He glanced down briefly at her glass of wine, then back up at her face.

She glanced at his state of undress, but it almost seemed like she noted it and discarded the information as surplus to her purposes, whatever they might be. Someone to talk to, perhaps?

"Aren’t all teas herbal? Much in the same way all wines are fruity?" Oreal smiled good naturedly, indicating she was splitting hairs simply because she had a knife, although she went on to add an actual opinion, rather than just snark, lest her conversational partner find an excuse to decamp.

"I prefer black teas. Orcish brick tea, actually, to my embarrassment. Keep that a secret between friends, hm?" She held up her pinky conspiratorially. She didn’t particularly like the flavor, but it was very high in caffeine and the orcs had formulated a way of pressing the tea into literal bricks, which made it wonderful for fieldwork. You just shaved a little off into your cup and voila! medicore tea. She also imagined you could bludgeon someone to death with it – but that was the orcish way.

"I tried Loth’emar’s Missing Eye once. Have you had the blend?" It was rather a fancy tea, made by the remaining highborne. It was named after the blood elves’ current leader, because much like his missing eye, it was blue. Made from some blue flower, Oreal thought. She was gently born and as such could converse on all sorts of polite topics, although these days her polite knowledge eclipsed her polite turn of phrase.

"I don’t disagree with your logic," Saryss replied, favoring Oreal with a warm smile. All teas were indeed herbal in nature. It was more the caffeine content that varied, and Saryss was well aware of the caffeine content of many teas, having made somewhat of a scientific study of it in his spare time. It was a weird hobby, true, but it kept him busy and engaged. He unconsciously patted the little chemistry set he kept at his belt, the glass vials within clinking softly for a moment. The weight of it at his side was a constant comfort in his life. He hoped someday to write a book about the various healthful properties of all the teas he had encountered on his journeys.

At the offered pinky, Saryss put forth a hand and reciprocated the gesture before returning the hand to his side. "Of course! Though I assure you it is nothing to be ashamed of enjoying. In all my travels, I have yet to encounter such an ingenious means of packaging." He glanced over his shoulder at the worn knapsack on his back. "Because most of my collection is loose in nature, I am continuously finding various leaf bits in my bag."

He cocked his head to the side at the mention of Loth’emar’s Missing Eye. "I have not, though I have heard of it. It is definitely something I would like to try someday, however." He paused to take a sip of his current drink, looking thoughtfully into his mug for a moment. "Ah, the perfect temperature and nicely steeped. Nothing like it after a long day’s travels."

He glanced back up at his companion. "So, if it is not too bold of me to ask, what brings you to the Shrine today? It is not often I have encountered another Sin’dorei in this land. Outside of the various fronts we have established, of course. And I have been trying to avoid those of late."