Illidan's Private Journal - The Trust of Beasts
(Fragment, penned in Illidan's hand.)
I thought myself fearless, but today I learned otherwise.
The brush shifted, the growl came low, and every lesson of tutors and drills rose up in me. Strike first. Shield what is yours. Prepare for blood. My hand was on her arm before I thought. Yet she pulled free, not with panic but with certainty, and called the beast by name.
Nova.
I expected claws. Instead, I found cubs. Fragile things, blind and mewling, their fur a damp whisper against their mother's flank. And Lytavis—calm as if she had done this a hundred times—knelt among them, voice low, hands steady. She set moss beneath them as though the wild itself had asked her help.
No spell. No chant. No wards between her and fang. Only trust. Trust freely given, and freely returned.
I do not know how she earns it. From foxes. From ravens. From predators who would shred me without hesitation. She touches them, and they yield. She speaks, and they believe.
And when she looks at me, I feel the same.
Chosen. The word lingers still. I thought I longed for power. Perhaps it was this all along: to be trusted, not feared.
I would follow her into fire.
Into claws.
Into anything.
And the thought does not frighten me.