Aurorana

I walked at their sides today, from our burning and broken forests of Ashenvale to the place they will stay and fight from. Navires told me it was good to see me, she smiled and acted as if it was true, but I did not forget her last words to me. Child, gifted and only allowed to stay because of my gifts. She is not pleased to see me, not the me that is anything other than these robes I wear.

I walked beside Aquanus who said not one word to me. Beside Soto who called me friend but did not come see me the long days I was at the Temple. I walked beside these people that call me sister but do not see beyond the gifts that Elune gave me.

My sword brother is dying.

He came like a shade over the snow in the perpetual winter's dark and I confess that I did not know him.

His eyes are fish black, his hair and beard witch white. As pale as ice with the shadows about him, I thought Tanas a mirage made of blowing snow. Not until he called my name aloud did I recognize him.

The snow had soaked through the heavy wool of her cloak by the time Aurry returns to the keep. She makes sure to stay away from the shelter Tamlin has built on one side of it, she can't even look in the direction of it. Elune help her, why did she have to seem to get everything that had to do with emotions wrong?

Silent, with an expression of pain on her pale face, she enters the keep. Ignoring anyone that may be near the main hearth, dripping and shivering almost violently from the cold, she makes her way to her room and nearly slams the door behind her. The tears take over again as slides down the door. Sobs that cause her to curl on her side and hold her knees to her escaping despite the fact she had already done this very same thing curled in the snow.

The hunter comes awake with a violent startle, sitting bolt upright and meeting the timber wall with his shoulder. He rebounds to his feet and stands bristling and panting. His eyes make slow sense of the shapes in the dark. At the far end of the room a small hearth glows softly with burned down coals. His breath fogs the air in front of his face and he shudders, clammy and sweated from sleeping under furs.

An old soldier's trick, to brace shoulder and cheek against the straight trunk of a young tree and sleep thus. An enemy won't approach directly a foe that stands watchful. It is the first sleep Tamlin permits himself in two days of stubborn pacing wakefulness. He is certain the facade will anytime fall and he will find himself facing a demon, bound and caged.

It makes little difference he has learned what his waking eyes see or even what his body feels. He is farther gone away from himself now than he ever has been but for death. Or ….his paranoia whispers...mayhap you are dead. And trapped thus, unredeemed and unseen.

There is no dream this time, just a waking in the cold and dark. His mind hopes for the snow and cold of northrend. You found a place to bed down..you were hunting...and you went to ground in the wild...

No. he tells himself and moves his hands which are swollen to the point of splitting and held before him in cuffs of dull green heavy fel iron. His own smell is not healthy and that is perhaps worse of all for with that realization he remembers the dart sent at him from the demon's hand and sits bolt upright.

He rides more closely to her than normal decorum would allow and has since they left the perch at the border of dragon territory in the Dragonblight. The reds are at war and will hardly brook a strange drake's passage so they must proceed to the fort by ground. Fortunately, both of their sabre cats are perfect for running the night in snow. Their supple spines flexing easy past trees and over bracken, their wide thick furred pads like snowshoes and able to claw for purchase on ice as well, Talah and Vaash make the ride through Lothalor more quickly than any dragon could.

He sets his teeth hard together just before the bone shattering impact of his opponent's lance on his shield. Painful experience has taught him that it is better this than to bite his own tongue near clean through. The blow he rocks with slightly; sit too stiff in the saddle and the strike could force him loose of it. The nightsaber he rides is a burly dark beast; its low posture makes it near impossible to stagger and the cat's supple spine permits superior agility.

What possessed him to come here? Surely, he does not recall. The reason is fading like a dream, growing shadowy and indistinct in his mind. He can smell the salt of her tears, the swell of her anger and the hot musk of moon's blood. Mairead is cursing him, he missed her ill fated wedding to Ulciscor. The paladin is nowhere near and Mairead is hurt. This stone building is a healing house, but Tamlin can tell that she has been tended poorly. And Ulciscor, gods curse him, only proves what Tamlin has suspected long of the Templars. They have fallen to depravity and ruin. How could the once noble paladin having only been wed a sevenday not only drug and abduct Mairead but also leave her hurt and

There's times when the busy streets of Dalaran are no longer amusing or comforting to Aurry, Tonight is one of them. Standing on the side, watching and listening to the bustling city only seems to add to the weight on her shoulders. Everyone she knew was off being busy or enjoying some down time with others. Even Glaneon was no where in sight and Aurry could only assume he was somewhere with Shellbella.

So it's in a lonely haze that Aurry's feet take her to the portal to Darnassus and farther yet, towards the camp that might hold Tamlin, Mairead, or both. Even if they did possibly only talk to her because of what she is, at least for a time she could pretend it was more. If it turned out that neither of them where there, she could sit and be lonely in quiet.

Quiet voices spoke in the hall's outer rooms. Annoyed by the debate he wanted no more part in, Tamlin padded to the locked door of the Warden and knocked hopefully. The sun was high overhead, he'd been hunting, and he wanted sleep. Discussing the strange male hunter, the Draenei priest Phiandria spoke quietly to the newcome, a half-Draenei, half-orc who listened to her words and made wry faces as she replied.
"So you see, even those I disagree with can have their good sides." The priestess laughed softly. The half orc sighed at the other, remembering being attacked by Tamlin. " I cannot say that I've seen that part of him, the only part I've seen is the bully and hatred towards others"
"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps someday you will see the better side of his nature. I will pray that it may be so."

The Warden sat upon Talah, eyes on a distant peak of the towering mountains of northern Feralas. Rising from the temperate rainforest of the rolling hills, the mountains bore swirling patches of fog like fluttering ribbons of fabric about their stately majesty. The peak her silver eyes gazed upon bore what had been her home for nearly five thousand years. Like an eagle's, Aktarin's eyes sought the tiny gap among the dripping trees where the ancient fortress of Sentinels had stood for the long centuries. Her mind lovingly constructed the Hall as if she stood at its door - the stairs winding down into the forest to merge seamlessly into a hidden path marked by a carven owl. The great doors so richly carved by the many hands who'd lived within - most recently by the pair of Draenei called Aladiana and Nuuliniir. Patches of beaten bronze made a curious, alien look to the doors the huntress had stepped in and out of almost daily for millenia.

Aurry chews her bottom lip and looks in the two packs on her bed. Extra clothes, blankets, and baby items made one bulge. The other was stuffed full of food, water, and milk. Aurry just hoped it was enough. Then again, it wasn't like she would be terribly far from a city, but she was hoping to stay as long as needed without having to, well, leave. She smiles when Est squirms and sticks one fisted hand in her mouth, making those adorable sounds she makes when the withdrawls from the arcane didn't make her scream in pain.

Brean gave a brisk salute before walking out of the building. Heading to the inn, she went upstairs and changed from her armor to a pair of pants and light shirt. Pulling on soft leather boots, she gathers her things and leaves them with the innkeep. Whilse she takes a walk, her gear will be repaired for her. Heading out and around the lake she lets her mind wander. While Moonglade is beautiful, she doesn't enjoy visiting it. There where just too many memories here for her. From the first time she and Val and made love to when they had pledged their lives to each other. She was so lost in her memories that she barely noticed where her feet had taker her until she looked up and saw the barrowden and the warden's that normally stood there.. dead. Seeing a figure she reconized, she approached him.

"What happened here?"

   As usual.. he ran his fingers over the small control box. Pushing buttons and turning dials as he prepared to use the goblin transporter to make a quick trip to Winterspring. It worked out quite well since Mellira and he had started spending alot of time in Moonglade with their child. Smiling to himself as he thought about them he made the final adjustments on the small device. Locking the piece to his belt he pressed the final button and closed his eyes as the energy began to flux around him. Reality ripped and tore as he was taken away through the tear it made in the very fabric of space and time.

   The soft moans of his lover set his mind at ease for the first time in a very long time. The feel of her skin under his fingertips, her breath against his skin, her body pressed to his.. finally everything felt as if it was right for once. It had been a long time since he had known the touch of a woman, a long time since his heart had felt something this true. Looking into Samai's eyes, he felt love again.. and it strengthened him. Being with her made many of his fears melt away. He loved her.. and he felt deep down she loved him too..

   The water burned like wildfire and he snapped awake again. His screams muffled by the depths of the magical torrents. What was this? How deep could this possibly be? His body jerked and lurched in agonizing pain as magic ripped and tore through him. Every fiber of his being was soaked in the raw magic as tried to fight.. but it was just to much.. again, darkness took him.

The huddled and shivering Draenei girl somehow made it worse. The frightened expressions on those made viciously blind... it sickened her. Young Kaldorei, their eyes gouged and left to heal, so that no healer could restore what the body now deemed natural.
And the casual invitation, the casual threat.

No.

It would not be thus. The Kaldorei do not obey the Sindorei. Nor should they. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander to the events only a few weeks prior.