Jaina Proudmoore, princess of Kul Tiras, Arthas's fiancée, student of Archmage Antonidas, the leader of Dalaran, a prodigy in frost and spatial magic, and the young mage most likely in recent decades to earn the title of Archmage in Dalaran by the age of twenty.
Jaina probably had considerably more titles than Arthas, and the princess was powerful, too. At just eighteen, she already possessed strength comparable to an Archmage's. All she lacked was the experience befitting the title.
Even setting all that aside, Jaina's beauty and figure alone were enough to make some young nobles consider her their ideal sweetheart.
Unfortunately for them, she was already spoken for. Jaina and Arthas's fathers had arranged their engagement, and the two had known each other for over a decade. Who would dare come between a couple like that?
Yet when Arthas himself learned that he was engaged to Jaina, he felt nothing but shock, without a trace of joy. They were childhood sweethearts, certainly, but they absolutely should not have been engaged at this point.
For six months after learning the news from his father, Arthas had not enjoyed a single good night's sleep-not from excitement, but from anxiety and worry.
Who knew whether this marriage, which never should have happened, would make that Bronze Dragonflight jump out of the toilet and "restore" me? In Azeroth's original history, we were lovers, but there was definitely no engagement!
Fortunately, what Arthas feared never came to pass. The world he inhabited seemed to have been left entirely unattended. Had he not learned of the four Dragon Aspects joining forces against Neltharion, the Black Dragon Aspect, he might even have suspected that Nozdormu, the Bronze Dragon Aspect, had been killed.
Ultimately, this incident made Arthas realize that perhaps he could loosen some of his self-imposed restraints and begin taking actions that should never have occurred in the "correct" history.
Sure enough, the Bronze Dragonflight never appeared.
Still, Arthas did not let his guard down completely. He continued to regard the Bronze Dragonflight as one of the most immediate threats, even though these "timekeepers" seemed to have vanished from his timeline.
He believed the Lord of Time must have discovered this unusual timeline long ago. Why he had not sent any dragons to correct it, however, remained a mystery to Arthas. Every one of Azeroth's Dragon Aspects possessed godlike power, and their thoughts were impossible to fathom.
In other words, as far as Arthas was concerned, every Dragon Aspect was a problem child whose mind worked nothing like a normal person's.
Naturally, Jaina knew nothing of Arthas's forward-looking thoughts. When she learned how the prince she loved had reacted to their engagement, she thought he despised her and had no intention of honoring it.
The princess of Kul Tiras was dejected for quite some time. Just when she thought she would receive word from Lordaeron that the engagement had been broken off, Arthas came to Dalaran to find her himself. Using "further study" as his excuse, he stayed with her in Dalaran for nearly a year.
Only then did the weight lift from Jaina's heart. So Arthas wasn't afraid of our engagement after all.
Those days ranked among Jaina's happiest memories. Arthas was not only witty and amusing, but also knowledgeable and well-read. During their studies together in Dalaran, Jaina felt much less pressure and learned a great deal from him about the world as a whole.
She still remembered asking him once what he thought of the orcs confined in the internment camps.
"Arthas, don't you think those orcs are rather pitiful?"
The orcs in the internment camps had grown weak from the aftereffects of drinking demon blood. Defeated and captured, most had also become dispirited and despondent. They were no longer the red tide that had swept across the continent, but a band of wretches plagued by sickness and weakness.
Arthas did not immediately crush Jaina's sympathy, nor did he answer her question directly. Instead, he asked, "Do you hate these orcs?"
"I... should hate them. They brought disaster to this continent, and my brother died in that war..."
Jaina's brother, the eldest prince of Kul Tiras, had sunk to the bottom of the sea with his warship during a naval battle. Not even his body had been recovered.
Her brother's death gave Jaina her first taste of the grief of losing a loved one, and strengthened her longing for peace. She began studying the orcs and discovered that they were not as savage as most people imagined. They, too, understood kinship and family.
Her upbringing made Jaina unwilling to inflict the pain she had suffered on anyone else, even her enemies. Once they had already been defeated, did we really have to torment them at all costs?
As a result, she and her father began to disagree over the orcs. She could not accept his extreme stance, while he could not understand why his daughter felt sympathy for them.
Her father considered Jaina's views naive and foolish. Daelin, ruler of Kul Tiras and commander of its navy, had a simple philosophy: the only good orc was a dead orc.
"Jaina, hatred is not a good emotion. It blinds you and makes you commit terrible mistakes." Arthas was perhaps the person most qualified to say those words. "But while we can restrain our hatred, we must never discard it entirely."
"Why?"
"Because hatred also means remembering. If we completely abandon a particular hatred, it means we have forgotten our history and our past. Then we will make new mistakes and create new hatred, repeating the cycle without end."
Arthas held Jaina's hand and spoke gently to her. "The orcs destroyed countless people's happy lives and brought pain and sorrow to countless others. Even if they had no choice, they must still atone for the sins they actually committed."
"We need not inherit our fathers' hatred and anger, but we must remember this history and its lessons. Otherwise, we will only repeat those mistakes in the future."
"You are the kindest girl I have ever met. But please remember, Jaina: don't let others exploit your kindness and compassion to hurt everything you cherish."
"The orcs will regain their freedom one day, but only on the condition that they no longer harm Azeroth or us."
Under Arthas's guidance, Jaina stopped avoiding the issue. She faced the hatred left by history and took a more objective view, discarding unnecessary naivety and misplaced kindness. Her destiny was quietly rewritten as well.
The change in his daughter's thinking delighted Daelin. He loved her dearly, but her earlier views had truly infuriated him. Once he calmed down, he began listening to some of what she had to say, and his extreme attitude gradually moderated.
Although his stance toward the orcs remained among the most hard-line in the Alliance's nations, he no longer wanted to kill every orc he saw to avenge his son.
In truth, Arthas deserved much of the credit for that, too. After one of the Alliance's regular meetings, he had spoken privately with Daelin, turning his blind fury into a more shrewd understanding of the orc problem.
Thus, the entire Proudmoore family was especially fond of Arthas. Even before he married Jaina, Daelin already treated him almost like his own son.
For this banquet, however, Jaina arrived a little late.
When Jaina stepped out of the portal, impatience was plainly written across her pretty face. She had intended to reach Stormwind City that morning, but something unexpected had happened just as she was about to leave!
A magic circle project under her supervision had been perfectly fine the previous night, only to malfunction shortly before her departure. She had spent a long time making emergency repairs before she managed to save several months of hard work from going to waste.
But she could not recover the time she had lost. By the time she finished packing, the hands of her enchanted wall clock had already passed the appointed hour.
She would certainly miss the midday banquet. Her teacher had only granted her a week's leave, yet she had wasted an entire half day before even setting off. How could Jaina not feel disheartened?
Fortunately, she could still make the private banquet that evening, though she no longer had time to choose an outfit in her Mage Tower. She grabbed a few dresses and tossed them into her Space Pouch, hastily touched up her makeup, then plunged into the portal in her mage robes, staff in hand.
By the time she came down from the Mage Tower, the sun was nearly setting over Stormwind City. Jaina hurried into a carriage and rushed toward Stormwind Keep.
Luckily, she was attending in a private capacity to offer Kul Tiras's and Dalaran's blessings to Varian and his son. Had she brought a retinue of attendants as well, she would have been even slower.
When Jaina's carriage stopped before Stormwind Keep, she saw most of the nobles already filing out of the Royal Palace. Varian was hosting the evening banquet in a private capacity and had invited only a small group.
Despite her impatience, Jaina did not forget her manners. Guided by a royal attendant, she first hurried to Queen Tiffin, hoping to borrow a room where she could do her makeup and change.
"Jaina? You're finally here! Varian and I were worried something might have gone wrong with your teleportation-"
"I'm very sorry, Tiffin. There was a small mishap in my Mage Tower that kept me from getting away," Jaina replied apologetically. "Could I borrow a room to do my makeup first?"
Tiffin looked Jaina over, noting that she was still wearing her mage robes. "There's no need to rush, Jaina. The banquet won't begin for a while yet. I'll have a maid take you to my dressing room. Hmm, do you need a gown? Shall I pick one out for you?"
"Thank you, Tiffin, but please don't trouble yourself. I brought my own gown."
Jaina steadied her emotions and regained her usual poise as a refined young lady.
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