Personal Demons

She checked the locks on her shop briefly, and listened closely for the sound of her daughter. Nothing. Good.

Stalking down the cobbled road of Silvermoon, it was all Thienna "Vinguld" could do to control her anger and fury. How DARE they threaten her? Send their pansy to do their work? HOW DARE he? Wasn't it enough, the hell he put her through while she was with his son?

It had been almost two years since Ythfas Vinguld's wife and son had been slain, and her lover and everything-but-husband had vanished in the night. It had been two long years of pining, of hoping he would come home, only to find herself alone, in her empty bed, night after night.

She had borne his child and nearly died in the process, and their son had died. Without him there to name him, she had taken the task on herself and now, the plaque was bolted to a small hole in the crypt of the chapel, where the ashes were interred.

Ythgar Vinguld.

Oh certainly, Ythfas' father would be livid, but even if he came across the plaque he would likely think it an ironic joke that he had one there. There was no date, and no matter the enmity between father and son, honouring one's past was the right thing to do. So she had done it, then packed up her elven daughter, stole money from the vault — money that would have been hers, had Ythfas been there to ask — and fled back to Silvermoon.

Her crazy cousin would never hurt a child, and with that in mind, she had set up her shop again. One would-be assassin had troubled her, but she had sliced his foot near in half and he hadn't been a bother since.

But tonight! TONIGHT.

Someone had come looking for Thienna Fen'Relah and her daughter, Stephanie. Stephanie, the legal name of her and Ythfas' adopted elven daughter, named after the brother he loved, Stephan.

She had denied the messenger. The information-seeker. Over and over and over until he had lost his patience and run off, screaming obscenities. And names.

Reaching the mail box, Thienna found her fury absolutely unabated. They thought they could threaten her? Her child?

The scrap of charcoal worked well enough as a pencil and her words were quickly written. One to Jasper, and one to Iloam, the two names yelled by the messenger.

A promise that if they threatened her again, she would leave nothing of them left behind to be found.

And then a letter to her dear 'father-in-law," Ythgar Vinguld. He should have kept his corpsy fingers to himself.

* * *

The fountain in Dalaran was a nice enough place to look - and well lit and public enough that she had agreed to meet the dead Marquis. The trouble lay in deciding whether or not to leave Nikusha behind. Behind, where there was risk - or with her, where there was equal risk.

In the end, Thienna chose to take the child with her, as alone Nikusha was in more danger than she was in the middle of Dalaran. And for all she hated Ythgar Vinguld, and he hated her, there was no risk to the child. She did not bear his name, was not his blood, and therefore - an innocent.

This all went out her mind when he looked up at her. She did not see her enemy, Ythgar Vinguld.

She saw her husband, her lover, her soul-mate. His son, Ythfas. It almost drove her to her knees. She saw the quirk of his eyebrow as he noted her reaction, and she quickly sat on the edge of the fountain.

They would talk. And then she'd either have peace from him, or she'd hunt him down and destroy him, like she should have but couldn't have all those years before.