The prompt: Write a mini-story (100 to 250 words) that begins with: "They had nothing to say to each other."
- Prompt #161, Creative Writing Prompts

They had nothing to say to each other. Adriestia could hardly look the Farstrider in the eye, only sure that Calendre was there because of the lingering scent of a bloodthistle cigar. Hypocrite, she thought. And wondered why she was here again: hadn't Calendre tried to kill her once?
Adries hated her because everyone else in Silvermoon loved her. Including Sathien, who'd gone on to live happily with his new wife and abandoned her. She should have been angry with Sathien, but she couldn't be angry with the dead. She hated Calendre instead.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Yeah. Me too."

(Apologies to Anacrusis for the 101-word format. The Anacrusis-style title would be "Adriestia".)

(or "The King of Durotar")
The prompt: Weave a story around the cliche, "drown your sorrows."
- Prompt #141, Creative Writing Prompts

Arienne would never understand what he saw in it, she decided. She'd been to the gladiatorial arena every day for two weeks with the corpse that called himself Damien.
No. Damien Duskwhisper, she corrected herself, staring down at her Halaani whiskey. Logan's little brother.
Which brought her back to the Steamwheedle Cartel's Arena Exhibition, about which Logan seemed so passionate and Arienne could hardly care less. The mornings were early, and she was more than a little sick of getting whacked upside the head by a rogue's maces or the huge hammers most warriors preferred. Ari rubbed at her temples, and swore she tasted blood in her whiskey.
It seemed to appeal most to the kal'dorei and the Forsaken, from what she could remember before the goblins inevitably carried her out on a stretcher into the care of medics both magical and mundane. No scars, they'd promised. They hadn't been so generous about pain. Arienne Songblade rose to her feet at the insistent buzzing of her hearthstone, a tinny voice calling her name.
"Dawnforge," a familiar voice greeted her, the crackle of the Twisting Nether making Logan sound far away.
"Duskmourn," she replied, nudging a few gold coins at the sin'dorei barmaid in exchange for a skin of whiskey to take with her. It was silly, these noms-de-guerre, but it went with the whole Arena ... mess, she decided. "What is it?" she replied in easy Thalassian, making her way out of the World's End.
"Come to Durotar." Like she hadn't expected that already: it was unsanctioned, but there were always at least a handful of people milling around out there.
"Already on my way," the blood knight purred in reply, stepping through the portal into Orgrimmar.
The transport sent a chill all through the sin'dorei girl, making her side hurt anew. No scars. Bruises maybe, though she hadn't bothered to check after stripping out of her plate. She was garbed more simply now, in a silk shirt and the tabard she'd plucked from an Illidari champion, scale-mail protecting her slender legs. A whistle summoned Shekinah, and Arienne quickly mounted up on the Charger, trotting through the streets of the orcish capital. Midday here, though it had been evening when she'd left Shattrath. The high noon sun beat down on the cracked earth of Durotar's deserts. The older and wiser were probably napping in the orcish huts she'd seen dotting this parched land, but there were still a handful scattered about on the salt plain. Stormaxe stood as steadfast as ever, two female grunts glaring stonily at the knot of duelists from their post at the gate. Arienne saluted each of them, offering greetings in Orcish that still felt like stone on her tongue.
"Dawnforge!" he called out from on the plains, and Arienne dismounted from her Thalassian horse, wincing, and approached the only blood elf amongst the group.
Logan Duskwhisper, she found herself thinking, was unlike any other blood elf she'd ever met. Probably because he'd lived for so long away from other elves, so close to humans. And when the plague had come, then, he'd been surrounded by the Forsaken. He'd confided to her once that the Deathstalkers had trained him.
Which explained why he fought less like a Farstrider and more like a savage. Those near-Scourge, they frightened her, and she sometimes saw too much of his younger brother in him. But less so in broad daylight, even with that death's-head helm. He shook back his hood, pulling up the faceplate to smile at her. There was something in her retainer's green eyes that a stranger might not recognize, or might misplace as the simple loyalty of a servant. Arienne knew better: Logan had his own quarters and his own bed in her apartments above the Scryer's tier, but they went largely unused. "Did you bring lunch?"
"I wasn't really aware it was lunchtime," Arienne laughed. She lifted a hand to greet the blue-haired Forsaken who stood behind Logan. Just as she was always partnered with Damien - whom they called "Stormfall" - Logan and this mage were partners. She had no idea of his nom de guerre. "Hello, Bill," she greeted him in Orcish. "I don't suppose you'd be kind enough to make us a refreshment table?" The frosty arcanist, ever a man of few words, simply nodded and began weaving the spell - with Arienne's help, and Logan's. The group of them ate a quick lunch; Arienne had never much cared for the taste of mage food but she had to admit, at least to herself, that it made her feel much better than her whiskey had. The three didn't speak, Logan watching the rest of the gathering crowd with eyes like a hawk until Arienne nudged him in the side. "What's going on?" in Thalassian, "I thought that the activity out here didn't pick up until the evening."
"King of the hill tournament," he responded, plucking the canteen of water from his mistress' hands, and she shot him a faux-annoyed look.
"It's not sanctioned, is it?"
"Of course not!" he laughed.
"Then why bother?" Logan turned his head to regard the knight now, his lips curling up into an amused smirk. "If I were in your position, I'd save my strength for this weekend's bouts."
"Have you seen my new sword, Arienne?" he asked then, and she nodded. She could hardly miss the weapons he wore so openly, an unspoken warning to her enemies that he was a force to be reckoned with; her crest on his tabard noted that such a force was hers to command. "The goblins gave it to me," he remarked.
"Yes, and they've made such promises to me as well. All the more reason --"
"And do you see what the rest of them carry?" He pointed at a troll woman with a shock of violet hair who was slathering a pair of maces in foul-smelling poisons.
"And I scavenged my equipment from Medivh's tower," she remarked. "What's your point?" He handed her back the canteen of water, rising to his feet and quickly dusting off the leathers he wore, pulling his hood up over his silvery ponytail, hiding that handsome elven face behind a skeletal mask. She'd never quite cared for the look, though she understood why he did it. Arienne watched with slight interest as Logan coated his own weapons with poisons.
It had never really struck her, before, just how accustomed to him she'd become. He'd come back into her life on the heels of a betrayal, when she'd had desperate need of a companion and protector. When Ascilia Shadowhand had succumbed in Outland and joined the Illidari, Arienne had lost the most successful deterrent against highwaymen she'd ever known. And then there returned Logan, who had agreed to enter her service for reasons that Arienne still couldn't fathom as she watched them stamping out the outlines of the ring, pairing off for their initial bouts. Logan ended up with the troll woman, who shook back her braids as she sized up the sin'dorei.

Arienne watched most of the fights with disinterest; the more skilled combatants quickly weeded out the lesser duelists among them. She watched Bill tear apart a shaman, and a familiar-looking Forsaken warrior quickly overpowered an orc warlock. The losers were sent licking their wounds to stand further in the desert, drawing up brackets to skirmish amongst themselves. The warrior - Damien, just as she'd expected - snatched Arienne's whiskey from her hands, settling in on the sand dune next to her.
"Why aren't you competing?" he asked.
"Don't want to," the blood knight responded simply. "Besides, we both know I'm the weak link in our team." They were both silent a moment. "The only match left is Logan's. Is it another rogue he's fighting?" Elf and troll circled each other a moment, fading to shadow and leaving Arienne to wonder just how they did that in midday.
"Her name is Renata," Damien offered in a gravelly voice. "We haven't fought her, but the word is that she's good."
"Logan is better," Arienne replied, and in the same moment the troll landed a strike that left Logan stunned for a moment. Her maces rained blows, but Logan was quick to recover, whirling on the blue-skinned rogue to parry her attacks and riposte, driving her back a step or two. Renata cried out in fury, lunging forward - too late; Logan already behind her. "Shadowstep," the blood knight observed quietly. "We never see that in the Arena."
"Most combatants specialize in other things," Damien replied, watching the pair raptly. "Mace combat, for example." For all the good it did the troll: Logan had her in lockdown, those debilitating blows rendering her unable to move until she fell to her knees, shouting a single word in Zandali. Mercy, a word Arienne knew because she hadn't granted it when she fought the Darkspear's jungle cousins. Logan stayed his blades, and Renata stood, dusting herself off in shame. Arienne rose to her feet, muttering an incantation in Thalassian to call the Light. Logan lifted a hand and she stopped silent, rogue and warrior glancing at the brackets posted up by a troll voodoo priest. "Heh," Damien laughed, plate armor clanking as he walked away. Logan said nothing, only scrutinizing his blades to ensure they were still thoroughly poisoned.

Another round of fights about which she could hardly care less; she watched the duelists from behind her skin of whiskey and shrinking stack of biscuits. At least until she realized the source of Damien's amusement, both of the Duskwhisper men entering the ring. Each bowed humbly to his brother before Damien lifted his axes and Logan faded to shadow. Arienne jumped to her feet, making her way down to the edge of the ring to watch in fascination. The ringing sound of a blow on plate; Damien stood reeling before his brother appeared behind him, drawing a garrote along the warrior's throat. Putrid blood leaked slowly from the wound, the warrior whirling on his brother in a flurry of blows. Logan's blows glanced off the warrior's breastplate, harmless, until the rogue found a weak point and tore into it. Damien retaliated by knocking the swords from the elf's hands. Barefisted there was little left to Logan but to try and dodge the incoming blows, but Damien pressed him, overpowering the sin'dorei and staining his sharpened axes in his brother's blood.
And then - he licked his blades, as Arienne had watched him do so many times in battle. Every time, it brought the bile rising in her throat that she considered such a wretched creature her ally. Yet she couldn't look away. Logan dove to retake his swords, grabbing a handful of desert sand and throwing it into the Forsaken's face to blind him. He sprinted off into the desert, found a shadow to hide in and slunk back to the center of the ring. He buried his off-hand in Damien's back, strafing away. The warrior gave chase, but the poison in his veins left his movements sluggish, and he left a trail of blood behind him in the dust. One last burst; Damien dropped his axes and charged forward, rending the elf's flesh with bare, clawlike hands. Logan intercepted the movement, landing a solid kick to the warrior's chest and knocking him backward in the sand.
"I give," Damien muttered, and Logan slackened. Arienne moved immediately to hold him up, blood still oozing from the rogue's wounds. Everything in her, the priestess she'd once been, the blood knight she'd become, screamed to heal him and then exorcise the undead threat. She steeled her jaw, pulling off his helm to trickle water down his throat. After a moment, he seemed to recover slightly.
"The whiskey," he muttered, stripping off her livery tabard and his tunic to expose the deep gouges left from the warrior's assault. Arienne offered him the flask, and he immediately doused a few scraps of cloth, cleaning his wounds, then binding them. The girl could only look on; when she healed it was by virtue of magic and not through the use of poultices or bandages, but he'd staunched the blood flow somewhat. With her arm around his waist they made their way out of the ring.
"Are you going to be alright?" she asked, whispering in Thalassian. The rogue nodded, shrugging out of her support after a long moment. Back in the ring the undead frost mage faced off against another opponent, but the bout escaped Arienne's notice completely. "Why wouldn't you let me tend to your wounds?"
"These are duels, Arienne. Solo combat. I survive through my skill alone, not through depending on you." The knight nodded solemnly, the rogue glancing at the duellists in the ring before wiping his blades clean and reapplying his poisons.
"And Damien?"
"He'll recover." She had to wonder what kind of bond the pair of them had, that they could so easily forgive the brutalities they'd inflicted on one another. She'd never asked Logan for a duel: he'd beat her, easily, and she wasn't sure she could forgive him. Another cry of yielding in the distance, the crowd gathered around the ring clapping for the victor.
"I don't suppose a kiss for luck would go amiss?" she asked, glancing at the preoccupied crowd. Not waiting for a response, Arienne kissed her retainer's forehead lightly, giving him a warm smile as he rose to his feet.

The final match came down to Logan and Bill. Hardly a surprise, given how well the pair had done in Arena. The noon sun had sunk somewhat, the heat relenting, and the orcish peseants came out of their huts to look on. Even the guards seemed a little bit intrigued. As for Arienne, she maintained her vigil on top of the sand dune, digging through her pack for a few sprigs of mana thistle.
Logan stepped into the ring, stripped to the waist and swords at the ready. He and his partner bowed to one another, and as always, he slipped into stealth. Almost immediately after the referee had thrown down the duel flag, Bill began muttering an incantation. His words faltered immediately as Logan drew the garrote across the mage's throat, remaining behind him to land a few quick blows while the mage was silenced. A few gestures and muttered words in Gutterspeak froze Logan in place and Bill transported quickly away. He whirled around to sling a few bolts of ice at the rogue, but the shadow embraced him - in much the way it did those Forsaken priests they called "Shadow Ascendants" - and the spells simply fizzled. Now on top of the mage, Logan quickly gouged him and stepped behind him to bury his blades in the frail mage's back, the robes he wore offering little protection, though some cantrip or another coated Logan's blades with a veil of rime. Whirling, the mage began once again to cast, the wind knocked from his lungs by one of Logan's sturdy boots. Though the blood elf continued his vicious assault, Arienne could see the mage steeling himself, gathering his wits. A single word in what must have been Kalimag, and there was a figure beside him forged of all the wrath of the tides, and held in check only by the thick bracers bound around its wrists. Pet and master both began to cast now; the elemental freezing the rogue in place and the mage throwing shards of ice at the frozen rogue, who tossed down a flashbomb and was gone from sight, prowling away. The bindings broke after a long few silent moments, the elemental reduced to a puddle of water that evaporated quickly and quenched the parched earth, nothing more than mud now. This a signal, Logan impaled the cryomancer on his sword, and finally, Bill muttered, "I yield."
A roar went through the crowd, the defeated brother cheering the victor's success. Holgar Stormaxe broke into thunderous applause and turned to survey the assembled duelists.
"Soldiers of the Horde, I give you Duskmourn, the King of Durotar." Arienne smiled proudly, setting the woven mana thistle crown atop her guard's silvered hair with reverence.

The requisite revelry went on throughout the afternoon, the crowd dissipating a few hours later as the sun sank, leaving the desert skies clear and dark, a chill overcoming the land as severe as the heat that had preceded it. And yet nightfall found a very sleepy Arienne Songblade not returned to her apartments in Shattrath, but still atop the same hill with her retainer, who was now its king.
"I still don't see what any of this has to do with the arena," she murmured, nuzzling his shoulder as he stitched his tunic back together where it had torn. His tabard, already mended, sat folded in Arienne's lap, where she traced the outlines of her house crest with one slender finger.
"Arienne," he addressed her gently, looking up from his sewing. "Why do you compete?"
"Because you do," she admitted. "I thought I could make you ... proud of me, I suppose." He laughed, and the knight looked bewildered. "Have I done something funny?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"Not at all. You just don't understand," he sighed, though his lips still twitched upward in that grin of his. "I hate the whole system. Damien thinks the goblins have rigged it and he probably isn't wrong."
"So if you hate bloodsport, why compete?"
"Did you see what Renata was wearing? Did you see what any of them was wearing? Goblin armaments. Goblin weaponry." He sighed again. "I compete in group situations so that I can keep up to standards in duels." Arienne nodded slowly, pulling forth the last of her Halaani flask, but in moving to press it to her lips, Logan took it from her to drain the last of it. "I hate it."
"But you're good at it!" the girl protested. "Your team is one of the top ranked in the circuit."
"But I hate it, Arienne. My partner and I don't have a damn thing in common; we have nothing to discuss except how our last matches went and what we can do in the future. You pay me well enough, but all my money goes back into that system. Charter fees. The herbs I need to make my poisons. The cloth I need to make my bandages. Armor kits. Enchantments. Gems, all of it to have the upper hand in a match whose outcome I don't actually give a damn about except that it gets me what I need to pursue my hobbies." He pulled his tunic back over his chest, and the blood knight wrapped her arms loosely around him. She didn't speak for a long moment.
"Does this make me queen?"
"It might, at that."
"Then it's high time the Queen learned to hold her own in a duel. Do you think you could teach me?"
Logan laughed, reaching over to take the tabard from Arienne's lap. Instead of pulling it on, he tucked it away safely in his pack, giving the elven girl a loving smile. "In the morning."