Moira and Dagran Thaurissan II star in new World of Warcraft short story The Lilac and the Stone

The World of Warcraft team released another short story from their upcoming collection The Voices Within, and in The Lilac and the Stone, Catherynne M. Valente writes about two of the most ignored characters with the most interesting stories: Moira and Dagran Thaurissan II.

The beginning of the story focuses on Moira, who back in vanilla WoW left her neglectful father King Magni Bronzebeard — you know, the WOONZ guy — to join up with the Dark Irons after falling in love with Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, who her father dispatched by way of paid adventurers (that’s me!) when she was a pregnant newlywed. This backstory is explored a bit in The Lilac and the Stone, but rather than dwell on the past, we’re taken forward a bit to Moira’s son in the present day, who after 20 years of WoW, has finally grown some characterization for himself. No longer merely a head in a cradle to be regent-ed over, Dagran Junior is painted as a very studious, thoughtful Dwarf, who would rather read, study, and solve a puzzle than attend state dinners, and honestly, same.

The themes explored in the short story are very in line with WoW, but Valente adds a lot of details about Moira’s struggles between two worlds, juxtapositioning that against Dagran II’s similar first attempts to be taken seriously by all of Dwarvenkind — even though that wasn’t something he really wanted in the first place. While I personally haven’t had the pleasure of being either dwarven or royalty, Moira’s yearning for her son to succeed is so very relatable. Moira spent her life being underestimated, and she will be damned if she’s going to allow that to happen to her son — but maybe she didn’t really need to worry.

This short story was a pleasure to read, and I’d really urge anyone, even people who aren’t all that interested in Dwarven lore, to pick it up, either in PDF form, or in the collection when that becomes available.