Hurr Hurr Hurrem

The three Windrunner sisters stood agape, jaws practically hitting the floor of the State Guesthouse garden. They had expected many things from Duke – a desperate dodge, a last-ditch magical shield, perhaps even a dramatic monologue about the unfairness of it all. What they had not expected was for the man, without so much as a flinch or a whispered incantation, to resolutely meet Sylvanas's arrow with his own flesh and blood.

A look of profound, almost blissful relief bloomed on his face, a mug that wasn't exactly a masterpiece of handsomeness, but certainly wasn't hard on the eyes either. That's right! Pure, unadulterated liberation!

In the stunned eyes of Alleria and Vereesa, a seventeen-year-old Duke, barely old enough to shave, had no business looking like he'd just won the lottery while staring down a pointy stick of death. This was the same Duke who, when his homeland was reduced to rubble by the rampaging Orcish Horde, never once threw in the towel. The same Duke who, when his very capital lay under the iron boot of the greenskins, refused to give up the ghost. Even when the Alliance was on its last legs, with the crowns of more than three kingdoms shattered and Lordaeron, the mighty leader, teetering on the brink of oblivion, he'd been a stubborn mule, never say die. He'd stared down the ravages of the extraordinary Red Dragonflight and endured the cruelest, soul-sucking curses known to man, and still, he'd clung to hope like a barnacle to a battleship.

Yet, at this very moment, Edmund Duke, the man who had faced down dragons and demons, chose to hit the eject button for the first time in his life. And all because of a little, shall we say, emotional entanglement? What he was giving up, with all the dramatic flair of a goblin opera, was his very life!

Duke's choice hit them like a ton of bricks, an earth-shattering shockwave that reverberated from the tips of their elven ears right down to their very souls.

"You blithering idiot! Duck!" A flash of genuine, unadulterated surprise finally ripped through Sylvanas's perpetually angry facade.

"Duke, you numbskull!" Alleria shrieked, but in the back of her mind, a tiny, annoying voice whispered of Duke's uncanny True Mirror Technique.

"No—" Vereesa screamed, her mind flashing back to the impossible, last-second Ice Barrier Duke had conjured in a desperate pinch.

And so, in that critical heartbeat, both Alleria and Vereesa hesitated, caught between primal fear and the nagging suspicion that this was all some elaborate, Duke-esque parlor trick.

But…

In the sisters' hyper-focused, slow-motion vision, a vision so exaggerated it belonged in a goblin cartoon, Sylvanas's arrow, tipped with vengeful magic, ripped through Duke's chest unimpeded. The sickening thwip of the arrow tearing through the wizard's fine robes was a sound that scraped against the slender, sensitive elf ears of the two sisters, a sound they would carry to their graves. The very next moment, blood, a shocking crimson spray, erupted like a geyser.

That blood, spurting out at almost the same breakneck speed as the arrow itself, assaulted the sisters' visual nerves with the force of a thousand suns.

Fake? A trick?

No! This was the real deal!

There wasn't a single flicker of arcane energy, not a whisper of magical fluctuation! Duke was truly going for the full monty, pulling a Romeo and Juliet for love! All because of a little sisterly pressure.

Edmund Duke, the greatest hero in the history of the Alliance, a man who had stared down millions of rampaging orcs, survived the fiery breath of an enslaved red dragon army, and even outrun the relentless pursuit of Deathwing himself, was now choosing to shuffle off his mortal coil over a domestic squabble?

No! Absolutely not! By the Light, no!

Whether it was out of genuine affection or cold, hard logic, the two sisters had never intended to push Duke to such a desperate edge. And the thought that their playful badgering had driven him to such a miserable, heartbroken state? That was a gut punch they hadn't seen coming.

In the final, desperate nanosecond, the two sisters moved as one, striking like twin bolts of lightning.

"Hiss—" A searing flash of arcane energy, a crackle of pure power, sliced through the air.

Time, it seemed, threw up its hands and simply stopped.

In the manicured garden, the four figures were caught in a tableau, as if frozen by a potent time-stopping spell. Every movement, every twitch, held captive in the silent moment.

Ten meters away, perched precariously on a gnarled old tree, Sylvanas remained locked in a stiff, furious archery pose, her bow still drawn.

At the front, on the meticulously manicured ground, Vereesa's right hand was clamped onto the tail feather of her second sister's arrow. Most of the raw, crackling thunder power that had been attached to it now coursed through her seemingly fragile arm, leaving her fingers scorched and blackened, a stark, pitch-black contrast against her pale skin.

In the middle, Alleria's left hand was clamped around the very middle of the arrow shaft. The sheer, high-speed friction had practically flayed the skin from the Windrunner sister's fingers, leaving a shocking, crimson smear of blood streaking down the polished wood of the arrow.

And at the back, Duke, ever the dramatic one, held his chest high, a martyr in the making. The impossibly sharp arrow had already pierced his pectoral muscles and gnawed at his ribs. If it had traveled just half an inch further, a mere hair's breadth, it would have punctured his pericardium, sending him straight to the Shadowlands.

But it was almost there.

Duke, by some miracle, or perhaps by sheer, bloody-minded determination, had survived after all.

"Are you out of your mind?!" The two sisters, as if rehearsed, whipped their heads around simultaneously, their voices a furious, synchronized roar.

"Crazy? Maybe. But it beats forcing you two lovely ladies to duke it out for the winner's circle, doesn't it?" Duke replied, his voice a theatrical sigh. "Sorry, truly, I just can't pick a favorite..." Just moments ago, it had been his left eye, now, with impeccable timing, a second, solitary tear slid down his right cheek, a shimmering testament to his profound, utterly manufactured anguish.

Catching sight of the bewildered, almost horrified expressions on her eldest and third sister's faces, Sylvanas finally, painfully, realized she'd been played for a fool, a patsy in Duke's elaborate scheme. Her Majesty, the future Banshee Queen, who would one day make countless mortals wet themselves in fear, could only grit her teeth in impotent fury, stomp her foot like a petulant child, and stalk away, her cape swirling dramatically.

All that was left hanging in the air was a parting shot, a venomous curse: "You got off scot-free, you rotten scoundrel!"

Such a grand spectacle, such a ruckus in the hallowed garden of the State Guesthouse, naturally couldn't be kept under wraps. Fortunately, Gavinrad, ever the diligent one, was still on the ball. He dispatched Vanessa to shoo away the gawking onlookers and, with a heavy sigh, reluctantly played the role of the world's biggest third wheel, helping Duke and the two sisters patch up their wounds. In truth, Sylvanas had been holding back. If she'd truly let loose with all her might, the two sisters wouldn't have stood a ghost of a chance of stopping that arrow.

As the late night deepened, the State Guesthouse finally settled into a fragile quiet once more.

On the balcony, bathed in moonlight, Duke bid the two sisters a fond farewell with a pair of lingering kisses. Alleria, without a moment's hesitation, claimed her share first, a bold, confident move. Vereesa, fuming but unwilling to be outdone, watched her elder sister demand her due, then, with a defiant glint in her eye, took her turn, matching Alleria's duration down to the last nanosecond. Not a minute more, not half a second less. It was almost as if the two sisters had struck some sort of secret pact, a silent agreement that Duke, blissfully ignorant, knew nothing about.

"Get some sleep, you big lug," Alleria murmured, her voice laced with genuine concern. "You've got that Alliance meeting bright and early tomorrow, right?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Dream of me," Vereesa added, her words simple, direct, and utterly Duke-esque.

"Mmm-hmm."

Duke, finally, had managed to 'defeat' the two formidable Windrunner sisters and could, at last, drift off to a peaceful slumber.

Settling into the plush comfort of his bed, Duke let out a long, contented sigh. "Lucky for me," he mused to himself, a smug grin spreading across his face, "I'm a regular Einstein. Risked life and limb, sure, but I saved one life instead of losing one. Smart move, Duke, smart move."

That's right, folks. It was all a meticulously choreographed song and dance. Who said Duke couldn't pull a rabbit out of a hat, or, in this case, a resurrection out of thin air? Anyway, if he lost a little bit of his moral high ground, he could always find a chance to get it back later. But if he genuinely broke anyone's heart, if he truly led anyone down a path of sorrow and despair, Duke knew he'd never be able to look himself in the mirror again.

Duke drifted off to sleep with surprising speed. However… less than five minutes later, a sudden jolt.

In a hazy, half-asleep state, Duke was ambushed.

His eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw was a shimmering cascade of golden hair, glowing even in the dead of night. "Alleria?"

Blast it all! How dare she sneak out at this ungodly hour? Hadn't the two sisters made some kind of ironclad agreement not to pull this kind of stunt? Duke had just put on his best performance of being torn between two loves, and now he was caught red-handed, practically spooning with Alleria! Wasn't this a bit like shooting himself in the foot?

Duke immediately tried to stammer out a feeble "no," but Alleria, swift as a shadow, sealed his lips with a finger as soft and delicate as an onion skin.

Duke could have probably conjured ten thousand excuses to shirk responsibility, but Alleria, with a single, devastating sentence, cut through all his defenses like a hot knife through butter.

What she said was:

"I miss you."

"I miss you." "I love you." They were both deceptively simple phrases. Any wordsmith worth their salt could churn out countless flowery attributes and adjectives for such sentences, but in the end, none of them could ever pack the raw, unadulterated punch of such a straightforward declaration.

That single sentence ignited a firestorm in Duke's chest, a conflagration that swept away all his carefully constructed defenses. His emotions, suppressed for far too long, burst forth in an instant, a dam breaking under immense pressure.

System prompts:

"You launched a Rending Blow on Alleria's armor!"

"You activated Suppression!"

"You activated Duke's 'Heartbreaker' 9000 Combo!"

"You activated 'Charm Offensive'!"

"You activated 'Emotional Overload'!"

…

"Boss Alleria was defeated and fell into 'Paralysis' state!"

Finally, he'd won! A glorious, if slightly scandalous, victory!

At that precise moment, a pair of arms suddenly snaked around Duke's neck from behind. In the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the same unmistakable, shining silver light.