without time in mind

The slope of his jaw always intrigued her.

So many of her own people - not humans, she no longer... really could associate, acknowledge them as hers, she meant Forsaken - had so little definition left to their jawlines. Some had even go far as to staple or slam or cement metal against their cheekbones to make false jaws; she had seen a few without the lower portion of their mouths, tongue hanging out as they wrecked havoc on the landscape. She knew, personally knew, a warrior woman with the skin of her lower jaw completely gone, like she had spent her time as Scourge screaming so much there was no flesh left to remind her of civilized conversation.

So the blood elf, with his strong jaw, intact with slightly tanned skin without a noticeable flaw and frighteningly smooth except when she caught him accidentally in the morning, had in turn always intrigued her. Even the times she had walked into his room in Silvermoon City to ask about their next arena battle or request assistance in battle, he still had looked good. Disheveled, embarrassed, clinging his sheets against his bare chest, she easily could tell he was still just as intriguing. The dark scruff around his mouth and on his cheeks and throat only registered as something more attractive.

However, as they crossed through swirling violet lines in the cavern deep in Tanaris, she watched his face transform with utter surprise.

His features turned stronger and less subtle. His skin darkened considerably, the color of mud after midnight, and his hair flitted once. His long blonde locks started to spiderweb black from his forehead, then poured backwards like water pouring over a sudden cliff. His brow shortened violently, which amused her the most. Those long, flexible, cat-like things swept down to just bushes over his now very brown eyes. Similarly, his ears went in immensely, curving now, no longer pointed like thin equine knives.

He was blinking rapidly. His red-armored mount had yet to change and wouldn't, she knew, their steeds remained the same through the illusion during their stay in the Caverns. But his stance was different on the horse, as was hers on her strange steed from the Outland.

His gaze was turned just on her. He had yet to assess himself. His eyes - normal, warmer, more telling - fixed on her body.

She felt no embarrassment and smiled widely at him. "Get off your horse," she demanded mildly, and he obeyed, still struck by the change that had come over her. She dismounted without care.

"You're human again," he echoed hollowly.

She had to giggle and pushed his shoulder. She could feel the thicker muscles and fat and stronger bones under her incredibly heavy plate armor as she moved as such, and she enjoyed it as much as she could, knowing it was an illusion and that she once was like this but could no longer remember it.

"You are human, too," she told him, and his expression blossomed into confusion then shock as he looked down at at himself for the first time. His hands went for his helm strapped to his hip, and he slammed it on hard enough the metal clanked and spread throughout the cavern hallway.

She slapped his neck - the only non-armored part of him she could reach now - and snapped half playfully, half in real aggravation, "You take that off! You look good as a human."

He shook his head in genuine humiliation, but she would not take no for an answer. She shoved his armor again, her death knight glove causing his paladin's armor to ring unhappily as the contact between unholy and holy. "Take it off, or I am leaving now."

He paused uncertainly but removed his helm uneasily finally, looking displeased at the change from lean and pretty to rough and gruff. She shrugged at his expression and patted him on the cheek, momentarily marveling at her own now-human hand. Though she did not notice it, he relished it, leaning into her touch so softly it would have been hard for anyone to realize it, let alone her of all people.

In her mind, her view, her assessment of him, she found his new jawline just as intriguing as his elven one.