Atlas Treasure Salvage

Who am I to guide the young?

When did I become...responsible?

The skinny blonde flopped back onto the rented bed – sending a pile of paperwork fluttering like frightened doves. 

 ((I had so much fun with this one, http://www.rp-haven.com/blog/lilliana/perchance_dream that I felt a throwback was in due order. A perversion of it, if you will.))

Nothing, no one...

They all stood at a distance now, those masked people that had so enjoyed the dance.

The chestnut-haired elf in the elegant dress glanced around hurriedly at those gathered.

The tempo was heart-breakingly frantic, as she was swallowed by the crowd suddenly. They pressed, and writhed against her...all these nameless, face-less bodies. The dragon's maw here, a frog there, and a gnoll next to a grim fairy.

 Where...?

The dark-plated paladin...he'd left her here alone, hadn't he?

Of course, she'd known all along that accepting her station wasn't going to be all peaches and cream.

But she hadn't expected Iloam to avoid her like...a pile of kodo dung.

The soft grass tickles my ears as I stretch comfortably in the grass, post Fancy Cakes.

I wanted to simply revel in the silence, and think on the night's news...but it wasn't silence I got. There was a small frog nearby - an orange and blue fellow - croaking at the water's edge. And I keep hearing the odd splash - and then another...turns out there's a small school of fish leaping to catch their evening dinner. It was nice, actually...the forest's symphony always was better than silence. Another splash now, as the frog takes to the water, skimming across the top - towards the swarm of gnats the fish are after.

I must tell the truth,

And dismiss long-hidden fear.

Truth was never hard...

Suddenly it is.

The workers kept shooting her strange glances – what was she doing helping?

Since when did nobles get their hands dirty? Especially with hands as dainty as her own.

The long, lean blonde picked her way through what was left of the Whitedawn estate, after the fall of the Sunwell – long after the scourge, the wretched, and looters had picked their ways carefully through it.

She'd push aside debris here, and there – pausing every now and then to cradle some broken object thoughtfully, before dropping it to wade through the wreckage of her once-home.

Soft kitty, warm kitty...

Its not always a bad thing.

Throw my shield forward - slash for the legs.

Well that wasn't my original intention.

And it SURELY wasn't Ael's intention when she suggested I go socialize.

Not like you're complaining...

Light! That's...her talking. Not me. The lioness is blunt. She's that damnable voice in the back of my head that's unafraid to be brutal, and straight forward.

She gets things done.

I'd had a meeting with a man I didn't even know.

At 1830, in the Royal Exchange, on the third Tuesday of this month.

His letter had come out of the blue – a name I'd never heard.

Tylel Tel'Arar.

Eryth and I perch on a ridge just outside Stormwind.

Like two ravens, in a flock of doves.

He seems my only friend in the world, at the moment.

I should leave.

I shouldn't have come.

In the end, we each do what we must.

Ythgar asked for someone who deserves death. So that he may feed his hunger on someone...who deserves the punishment.

But how does one simply...obtain a criminal? By that time, Ythgar might have lost himself completely. And if that occurs...I am the best equipped one to...to...to put him down.

There was no answer on the Marquis' line.

This was a bad idea.

Even Stephan's fearful little voice would be a boon, now. I would have some idea of where to go.

The trip to Stormwind had passed faster than expected- once I'd convinced my drake, Eryth, to fly me here. He'd never really liked the Marquis, or the...'relationship' that existed between us. But for me, there wasn't much the dragon would not do.

Even if it meant helping me to infiltrate Stormwind.

He could simply take the form of a high elf, and walk right in.

Me, though...here I sit in the Elwynn grass, and wonder if I should take my chances at trying something similar.

If I should simply strap this Hallow's End mask on...and walk in as though I, too, were still a member of the Alliance.

The veritable capital of the Alliance.

One does not simply walk into Stormwind.

“Miss Recruit Lilli?”

Stephan - his young voice, frightened.

Ythgar's grandson.

There was always a dark cloud that seemed to pervade through the small camp here at Light's Hope, before a nobleman or high-ranking officer came through. It never really struck me as to why, until it was the Marquis that struck that chord.

How terribly different a creature, humans are.

“Yes, that's what I said. The Marquis should be here by this time tomorrow.”

A young man's hushed, harried words drifted to my ears, across the campfire.

That was when the mood shifted.

Nothing was more pleasing than the intimate breeze that whisked about my kitchen through an open window. The outside air invited me to leave my tower and relish the warm sunshine mixed with autumn air. Ah, the smell of hot tea, buttered fresh biscuits with cranberry and orange jam. I'd risen early this morning to finish some chores, my usual routine, and then still had time for some baking before I did need to head towards the village for a few ingredients and materials for a potion I'd been commissioned to craft here and there.

It had been a long time.

It isn't fair.

They don't deserve this.

None of them.

I lit votive after votive in the tiny chapel that sat flanked by tall, pruned trees. At each flicker of a new flame's life, I saw the face of another friend...another Sin'dorei.

There is nothing I can do...

It sweeps through my kingdom, decimating my people.

"You're always the confident one. What are you so damned afraid of?"

This was a battle the slender paladin was ill-prepared for.

She wanted to run. Fast, and hard – she wanted to go and run through Durotar until her legs collapsed, and the only feeling in the world was the ache in her legs, and the burning in her lungs.

She nodded at the blue-haired Death Knight, unsure of anything at all in those moments that Jericho laid his heart bare.

She tossed and turned in her tent. She needed his insight – and damnit, she missed him.

Light's Hope should be the last place for such thoughts, she chided herself...but the place constantly bombarded her with memories of their time.

The tired blond glanced at the most recent message on her comm - another one from Jericho.

He wanted to see her.

She needed to see the Marquis.

There was a tug at her arm, as she groggily opened her eyes.

Blindfolded...the muffled sound of hooves...

The damned succubus-

The paladin's brain sluggishly tried to make sense of the situation.

I thought she was dead?

Those cold lips were pressed to her bicep – which was in turn, upheld at the wrist by a shackle.

“Its urgent that we speak.”

                                               “I'm sorry if I was cruel...”

“She asked me to kill you.”

My boss's brogue- concerned, wafted from the box...then not all of his emotions were gone?

 “Anyone seen Lily since this afternoon?”

The Marquis' rich bass, stretched taut over the comm that I could not see,

 “Do you need my aid?”

Kharris' shock, at hearing of demons on their own ship...

His brogue is back...again, and again. Only the voices, and this damned succubus to keep me company.

She awakened slowly...painfully. The lean blonde was shackled to a wall- unable to move much at all, much less find a more comfortable position...and gods, was she weak.

But hadn't Asarel told her that her luck would run out, eventually?

Why, why have I given my word to try and save the life of one I so loathe?

 Petitioned first by the Marquis, who wouldn't give me any solid details as to what the issue was...

 “Lilliana, I am an enemy of the Horde, due to the Forsaken. It would be remiss of me to explain. If your employer thinks you ought to know, then he shall tell you if you ask. Your skills would be useful in this instance.”

She'd been gone for the better part of two weeks, what with the Tol Barad flu that resisted healing..and then all her time spent at the club in Dalaran, the next week...

 Talk about coming back to a mountain of paperwork- and one pissed off boss.

I had, indeed, betrayed one of my own.

For a human.

For a Death Knight.

I had justified it. I still feel right for the course of action I took- if the betrayal itself still glares at me. Still makes my stomach turn.

I don't lie unless I have to. And I do not betray trust. But I had- and I'd done it without a second thought.

The crimson-haired, amber-eyed, faux-elf stood silhouetted in the doorway.

She lay before him-