It took some doing, but we managed to get Faranell somewhat calmed down. Since he woke up, Liadrin’s been the only one who’s been able to approach him with any success, so after we received the buried letters from Southshore, I had her go to deliver his. After that, we left him mostly to himself for a couple days, because seriously, the reality of the situation is more than anyone could be expected to digest. Last thing he needed was to have extra people coming at him while the whole world was going topsy-turvy. I can’t imagine what it must be like trying to come to terms with everything he’s just gotten dropped on him.

The only break in his seclusion came after the first day, when he asked Liadrin to let him see what had become of Lordaeron. She was smart enough to send word over to the Undercity to have them clear everyone out of the upper ruins – she figured the sight of what had become of the city would be enough for him to try to deal with, without undead Deathguards wandering around. When he finally went over, Liadrin tells me, he was viably shaken by the sight, and when they went into the throne room, he just knelt by that little blood stain on the floor – the one that nobody has ever bothered to clean up FOR WHAT REASON I CANNOT IMAGINE – and just stared off into space with his head tilted as if he was listening to something. He finally pulled himself together and asked to go back, in a voice that was barely audible. He hadn’t talked to anyone since then, until this morning.

While that was going on, I was working on what to do about his situation. He can’t stay in the Undercity – it would be cruel, for one thing, to try to make him live there, or in any of the towns held by the Forsaken now, considering what he remembers them being like, literally just a few days ago from his point of view. Plus, I don’t much like having him somewhere filled with Sylvanas’ people, considering her first reaction to learning about the new-old Faranell was to refurbish him to be closer to the other model.

Orgrimmar would be safer for sure, and I could personally make sure he was being watched out for, but that’s not such a hot option either. Considering his most recent associations with the orcs, I’m thinking he’s not going to get comfy living in an orc city anytime soon. And I mean, yeah, sure, I’m all about the orc pride, but not even I would expect him to be able to swallow, basically, “So, yeah, about all that shit we did? We were kind of going through a thing. We’re a lot cooler now, really.”

So, I finally came up with the best of a field of less-than-ideal options.

This morning, I picked up Faranell and Liadrin in Brill, and made the trip east to Hearthglen.

Between a good word from Eitrigg, and some paladin-speak from Liadrin, Tirion agreed to bring Faranell into the fold and help keep an eye on him early on. We’ve given Tirion the rundown on Faranell’s story – I swear, the part where I was explaining how future-Faranell rigged things might have been the only time I’ve ever seen Tirion go speechless – so he knows what’s going on and what’s at stake. Tirion and his Argent Crusade people still have plenty of work to do cleaning up the Plaguelands, so he’ll be able to put our boy to work helping with that. More importantly, Hearthglen is mostly a human town, he has family there, and it’s a pretty insular community, which should limit a lot of potential problems.

I had a short meeting with Tirion when we brought Faranell up there. He’s agreed to watch over him and keep us updated if he runs into any major wrinkles. Eventually, once Voice From the Past gets settled, we can see about taking him around a little so he can see more of the world as it is now. But that won’t come until he’s ready.

While I was there, I also had to give Tirion a little shit about his kid making life more difficult for us while we were in the past. Once we were finished talking about Faranell and I was getting ready to go, I was like, “Oh, by the way, your kid is a dickwad.” Tirion just kind of looked at me a minute, and then he pointed out that his son died a few years ago, killed by Isilien, in fact, after the kid came to his senses about the Scarlet Crusade. So I took that in for a minute, and then I corrected myself: “Your kid WAS a dickwad.” Fucking nit-picking Tirion.

I can’t really complain, though, since for once he didn’t seem all that ramped up to talk my ear off. Part of it was just the shock of hearing Faranell’s whole story and trying to absorb it, I’m sure, and part of it was the fact that we had business to go over that involved him getting information from us more than vice versa. Plus I think he had a meeting with Bolvar or something later today, so for once he was able to go about his business like people actually have things to do with their time.

Anyway, that’s done. I’m back in Orgrimmar now, and Faranell’s off in Hearthglen getting settled in. Hopefully he’ll be okay once he gets adjusted. In a way, you kind of have to be jealous of him – I mean, how many people basically get to skip over the part of their lives that sucks? At this point, like our old Faranell said himself, the future is wide open for him.

Good luck, Edwin.

[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]