Never Gonna Come Back Down

TOURNEY
Inspired by: "I NEED 25 MORE VALIANTS' MARKS BECAUSE I WANT THE FORSAKEN WARHORSES", by my dorkbutt DK, by Varian being VERY LOUD, by Kyl's sexy belfadin Rauthien and her adorable Draenei mage Zalandra, and by Kyl and her fantastic headcanon that i now share in :D
Warnings: Varian being grouchy and jerky about the Horde, though not as loathsome an ass as he is in game. He is, however, still being rather a closed-minded jerk.

I want to expand on this later hence no formal title block. :B


***

The Horde and Alliance champions filed into the ring one-by-one, and if not for this temporary armistice, the crystalline trees towering so far overhead that they were visible even now, and the bit of Dalaran's floating land-mass visible between the canopies, this could have been any ordinary tournament--much to Varian Wrynn's irritation.

Sooner or later the other shoe would drop. One or the other of those ne'er-do-wells under the red banner would show his or her true colours and then everything would go to pot. Varian scowled at the Horde;s champions, held his figurative ground when the pigtailed Orc woman met his gaze and grinned, then looked away hurriedly when the Blood Elven paladin next to her caught him staring. The man's level green gaze and quirked brow were a hell of a distraction.

When he glanced across the arena at the King of Silvermoon, that blasted Sunstrider gave him the self-same look. Then he SMILED, and Varian bit back a splutter and sulked.

"Louts, all of them," he mumbled, and sipped his tea. Even in the sheltered valley of Crystalsong, it was right some cold. "Louts to the bone."

Jaina gave him That Look. "Loutishness isn't limited to any particular race."

"Yes, well, THAT lot"--here Varian gestured at the Horde's champions--"is more inclined to be loutish." A pause. "Except maybe that paladin. He probably isn't a lout. But he could be a rake instead. He looks like a rake. So we have a rake and his pack of louts. And they're all of them together hooligans. Wonderful."

Jaina watched a Dwarven paladin--Ironforge's champion, a woman with brilliant red curls and a nut-brown complexion--cheerfully exchange rude gestures with the Orc woman. As these got more and more amiably crass (still with no violence pending), a Draenei woman nearby tried to intervene. She did her best to keep a straight face whilst she leaned down from her Elekk and scolded them for being ridiculous, but in the end didn't manage. As she started to giggle and that warm, softer sound mingled with the Orc woman's uproarious laughter, Jaina quirked an eyebrow at Varian.

"Well?" she said.

He pretended he hadn't heard her or seen any of that, tugged his warm cloak more fully around himself, hunched his shoulders, thanked the light for the umpty-umpth time that he'd brought a scarf, and grumbled into his mug.

"I didn't come here," he said, "to sit on my laurels and watch these hooligans thump one another--and my allies--about the head and shoulders with sticks."

Jaina didn't even bat an eyelash. "Drink your tea, Varian," she said.

Varian grumbled into his mug again and obeyed.