#kaede silverstag

[houseildanan]

Argents Lost - Summer Winds (part 3)

The former Ebon he’d met on the trail still hadn’t given him her name, but she’d told him enough to win enough wary trust for him to return to the outpost with her.  The enterprise had been aided by a sudden ache that began somewhere deep inside his knee and a shift in the wind.  He’d lived in Northrend long enough to know what those two things together heralded.

Stormclouds swept down onto K3 as they reached the inn, led by biting wind that stung his face and made his eyes water.  The inn at K3 was decidedly worn, weather-beaten, but in good repair.  The windows looked like they’d been replaced recently and the floors and tables in the common room were decidedly clean, though they still carried a timeworn, hard-used charm, battered and scuffed as they were. Its warmth and shelter—and the smell of venison stew and cider—were a welcome comfort after so narrowly dodging the storm.

The table his newfound companion led him toward was tucked into a shadowed corner and was already occupied by a figure tall enough that he guessed it must be another Kaldorei.  The figure had both hands wrapped around a mug of something steaming, beringed—and there was something else, something he didn’t quite see until the figure lifted the mug to drink, a glint of silver.

His heart slammed into his throat and he stopped in his tracks.  His companion put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“She won’t harm you,” she said softly.  “You have nothing to fear from her.”

“There are—”

“Yes,” she said.  “But something tells me your face will strike her familiar.”

“I’m not—”

“It has nothing to do with your resemblance to Ildanan Sunstar.”

He swallowed bile, but started walking again.  The figure—a woman, and unless he missed his guess, the woman called the Mistwraith—was looking at them now, argent eyes gleaming in the shadows of a drawn hood. He swallowed again as he carefully drew one of the chairs out from the table and sank into it, glancing back over his shoulder to see where his companion was going to sit—and found her gone.

“She’ll be getting you something bracing,” the hooded woman said.  There was a faint rasp to her voice but the familiarity was unmistakable. He nearly swallowed his tongue.

“I—”

“You’ll be needing it, Lord Kyvare.”

He rocked back, eyes widening.  In the shadows of her hood, there was a flash of a smile, almost but not quite feral.

“Yes.  I’m aware of who you are.  I’m also aware of what you were taught.”

“How—”

“I’m not certain the answer to your question matters overmuch, but if you really want an answer, I’ll give you one in exchange for an answer to a question of my own, first.” She leaned back and he could feel the weight of her gaze hanging heavy upon him.  “Why are you, of all people, seeking them when you have a family and responsibilities that should preclude a mission like this—one, I might add, that has been forbidden by the organization that saw you bound to them? Of all the sorts seeking those lost, you were among the last I would have imagined to see here.”

“What of you?” he blurted. “Why are you two looking for them?”

“Because she is my mother,” she said.  “And they are her family and I should think, with all that’s happened, I should owe her that much.  And you?”

“Because I didn’t think anyone else was and I wasn’t about to ask my family to come unless—unless I knew.”

“Whatever goes into that gully doesn’t come out,” she said.  “But they’re not dead.”

“No,” he confirmed.  “No, they’re not.”

“You’re certain?”

“Your cousin is.”

She fell silent.  The former Ebon returned to the table, setting a mug slowly down in front of him as she looked between him and the hooded woman.

“Well,” she said dryly. “I see you’ve gotten started without me. I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

The hooded woman reached up to push back her hood, smiling up at the Ebon.  “One time.”

“Near unmitigated disaster one time,” the Ebon said, seating herself.  “And a lesson learned.  What have you told him?”

“Likely no more than whatever you did to get him to come back with you.”

He coughed politely and wrapped his hands around the mug, letting the warmth bleed into his fingers. “My apologies, ladies, but I think we’ve missed a few things.”

“You already know who I am, Lord Kyvare, and I know who you are,” Mistwraith said, studying him.  “Unless it’s not pleasantries you’re getting at.”

“I—well, it was, yes, but also no.  How—how long have you been looking?”

“Long enough to know there are two sites of interest,” the Ebon said.  “You stumbled across one.  The other is a frozen waterfall and a river that don’t seem quite right.”

The mug between his hands shattered.

[isryael]

A Hint of a Rumor

“Did you learn anything?”

She flinched.  The weight in her companion’s voice was one she hadn’t heard in a long time, a gravitas that was enough to instill concern in her unbeating heart.  But even more concerning was the weariness and worry she could hear half buried beneath the weight.  “Kaede—”

“No.”  The priestess turned away from the window, arms dropping to her sides as she did.  “Tell me.  What did you find out?  Leave nothing out.”

“What makes you think—”

“You have a bad habit of trying to protect me from things.  We both know I don’t deserve that.  Now tell me what you found out.”

“Nothing’s certain,” the Death Knight said slowly.  “But there is a rumor.”

“From the Crusade?”

She nodded.

“Then what is it?”

“They were dispatched to check on a disturbance.”

“In Northrend?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” she hedged, watching the priestess’s expression slowly shift.

“It’s somewhere we’ve been.”

“Yes.”

“Recently?”

“No.”

Brow furrowing, the priestess turned away, back toward the window.  “What else?”

“No one seems to be sure where the initial report came from.  I’m trying to get my hands on it.”

The priestess sighed.  “Don’t burn all the capital you still have for it, my friend.  We both know what we need to do.”

“It could be nothing.”

“It could be,” the priestess admitted.  “What are you thinking?”

“We check on your brother and sister, first.  We decide after that.”

A wince.  “They’ve not seen me—”

“I didn’t say talk to them,” the Death Knight said softly.  “I said check.  Assure ourselves of their safety and then we’ll do as we must.”

“To the Eastern Kingdoms, then.  First.”

“Aye.  First.”

[darlingknave]

The Hunt: Waking Up

“You don’t send a butcher to do a surgeon’s job.”

Sound ebbed and flowed, crashing against him like waves upon the shore, leaving him stripped bare and shivering in its absence. Sight was a hollow, fickle thing. He saw without seeing; trees, paths, faces in the mist. The cave in which they huddled was no darker than the midday sun. The mug, once a gentle comfort, was as ice in his bare hand. Even touch had betrayed him.

Was this death? He couldn’t know. Perhaps this hungry nothing was the same sickness that drove the Forsaken to Sylvanas’ loving arms. Yet he ate when they fed him and walked where he was led. He slept, he drank. He never thought to wonder at things. The why of it all felt so far away.

Every now and again some worried face would shield him from the abstract world he’d come to know. Eerie eyes would gaze deep into his soul and, finding nothing they much liked, look away again with only a disgruntled sigh and mumbled prayer.

Warm hands hold his own. A mender’s touch traces ingrown stitches and fresh scars. His ears burn where they’ve been cropped, aching in ways that missing flesh shouldn’t, can’t, and often does. The wet rasp in his chest is gone now but scorching heat floods his lungs all the same. He can’t breathe. It’s too much, too real. Too soon.

The mug was- is-

The mug is warm, but it grows fainter by the moment. He can see the last few tendrils of steam rising from the ceramic, giving way to Northrend’s chill. The cold leeches into his fingers, into his bones, into his nose and mouth and chest and soul.

“Does it matter if he remembers?”

Ask.

“I think you’re projecting, little sister.” The kettle is just within her reach. A foot to her left, maybe two. It would be such a simple thing.

“I could be,” whispers one.

“Someday,” vows the other, her voice ringing in his ears. “I promise.”

He feels it slipping away again. Reality threatens to bend, to leave him adrift.

Ask. Ask, ask, ask.

He isn’t sure that his lips part and form his raw voice into words. He only knows that they have fallen silent, and that his mug is filled to the brim with black coffee. The cold is gone.

[isryael]

Lucky ones - Part 5

[See @tenebreashember for part 4, @wynilthyrii for part 3, @graceintheshadows for part 2, and @lordaeronslost for part 1]

Isryael looked up from tending the fire as Kaede dropped heavily into one of the chairs in front of it.  The priestess stared blankly into the fire, a sheet of parchment dangling from two fingers, seemingly in danger of slipping to the floor.  The former Warden sat back on her heels, regarding the other woman for the space of a few breaths, then asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“They need me to check on the children,” Kaede said.  “On my brother and sister and Nikus’s grandson and the rest.  Make sure they’re not finding trouble while they’re away.”

There was something about the way she said it that set Isryael’s teeth on edge.  “You don’t mean while they’re on-post at Valiance.”

“No,” Kaede agreed softly.  “The rumors were true.  About Dalaran.  They—” she stopped, taking a slow breath.  “Another few days and they might have been there.  They might have been part of—part of the tragedy there.”

The ancient priestess stared into the fire.  Isryael watched her, seeing for the first time in what seemed forever the child that she’d once been, the girl raised in the midst of war by a mother and uncles struggling with their own grief and still actively involved in the fight—and more than that, involved in something that Isryael didn’t understand and probably never would.  She saw the girl that was given over to the Temple and shaped into a weapon that her mother had been intended to be.

Molded by a woman that Isryael had given her life to protect.

She pushed to her feet.  “Kaede.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” she countered softly, moving to stand in front of her friend.  Kaede’s brow furrowed as she looked up to meet Isryael’s gaze.  “They’ll be all right.”

“Their luck will run out at some point,” she whispered.  “It can’t last forever.  They should have died a thousand times.”

“We all thought your father did,” Isryael said softly.  “And then last year—”

“You’re just providing more evidence that at some point, their luck will finally run dry.”  Kaede took a shaky breath, glancing down at the letter in her hand.  She folded it carefully and slipped it into a pocket of her robe.  “We’ll leave in the morning.”

“Where are they going?”

“They were mustering in Stormwind for immediate deployment,” Kaede said, the words sounding as if she’d quoted the letter directly.  “They’re likely already gone.  But we’ll ask that friend of yours in the Argent encampment for a portal.”

“He won’t be able to send us directly to Stormwind.”

“Then we’ll walk from Redridge,” Kaede said.  “And we’ll find out what’s going on—what’s really going on.”

“You think there’s more to this than the whispers?  Than what’s in that letter?”

Kaede caught her gaze and held it, something grim in her expression.  “I don’t think it, Isryael.  I know it.”

The chair creaked as she stood, slipping past the taller woman to disappear back into one of the cottage’s tiny bedrooms.  Isryael watched her go and sighed softly.

“Tomorrow morning it is.”

[isryael]

The Hunt: Whispers

The auroras still lit the sky as Isryael quietly slipped from their shelter and headed down to gather snow to melt for their morning libations and breakfast.  She stopped to watch them, the colors dancing through a clear, moonless sky—Elune hid Her face tonight, a favored time for action by those who walked in the shadows of Her light.

Women like Kaede, like her mother, like their aunt.

Sometimes, Isryael could almost hear the whispers of their goddess—sometimes.  She rubbed at the scar near her collarbone, the one where the old pendant had scorched her flesh in the days between death and remembering. It was gone, now, and gone for good reason.  Now she understood what Nessiana had meant all those years ago, but what she still couldn’t understand was why Nessiana had done it in the first place.

She wondered sometimes, now, how Shadowgrace’s life might have been different if Nessiana had not done what she had—and how that might have changed Kaede’s life.

But those were leaves long blown away, lost to time.

As she crouched to fill the buckets with snow, she could feel something at the very edges of her senses, like the tip of a knife against her flesh, cold but not quite cutting. She took an unnecessary breath and exhaled slowly, steadying.

“It’s nothing,” she whispered to herself.  “It’s nothing.”

The feeling faded a second later and she blew out another slow breath, straightening and heading back to their shelter and the warmth of the fire.

Kaede sat near the fire, cross-legged, her eyes silver crescents.  Isryael paused in the doorway, watching her for a few seconds before she moved inside, setting the buckets near the fire.  Kaede opened her eyes, looking up to meet Isryael’s gaze. She arched a brow almost delicately.

Isryael cleared her throat. “I didn’t expect you to be awake.”

“Someone’s looking for him,” Kaede said softly, glancing back toward their sleeping companion, still wrapped in his bedroll, fast asleep.  It would be perhaps another hour before he stirred, if the new patterns continued.  Her gaze lingered there for long enough that Isryael shivered.

“Should we be worried?” she managed to ask, trying to force down sudden fear—and regret?  Yes, regret.

“I don’t know yet,” Kaede said, her brow furrowing as she looked back toward Isryael.  “There was something familiar.”

“Familiar?”  Isryael forced herself to relax, filling the kettle and the cookpot with the snow to melt.  “Familiar how?”

“It felt like Uncle,” Kaede said softly.

Isryael frowned. “Dawnstar?”

She shook her head. “No.  Sunstar.”

Isryael sat back against her heels, watching Kaede’s face.  There was something close to wonder in her gaze as she stared past Isryael to the sky beyond their shelter’s doorway, though Isryael suspected that it had less to do with the view and more to do with whatever she’d sensed.

“I thought that line died,” Isryael said slowly.

“No,” Kaede said, shaking her head slightly.  “No, they followed Sunstrider across the sea.  Uncle Ildanan would have stayed, I think, but for Mother telling him to go.  It was better for the children, she thought—and for him.”

“Did he--?”

“Yes,” Kaede said. “Yes, he knew.  He forgave her before it ever happened.  It was never love.  The children were the best thing that came out of that.”

Isryael watched her, lips thinning slightly.  “Who told you that?”

“He did,” Kaede said, her gaze finally meeting Isryael’s.  “I had to know.”

Isryael nodded.  “Of course.”  She looked away, checked the kettle and pot, added more snow.  “So—so they went across the sea with Sunstrider?  Lord Ildanan and the children?”

Kaede nodded, glancing back toward their companion again.  “Yes,” she whispered.  “And now one from his line, with his gift, is looking for our friend.”

[isryael]

The Hunt - Confessional

“Don’t you love me?”

The elder kaldorei turned toward her, brow furrowing even as her jaw went slack.  “Oh.  Oh, Moonbeam, of course I love you.  Of course. It’s just—you’re all I have of your father, Kaede.”

“Is that why?”  She stopped fidgeting with her hymnal, eyes shimmering as she watched her mother, watched the elder woman’s face.  “Is that why you—why you gave me to the temple?”

Her mother shook her head slowly, tears shining in her eyes as she came to kneel beside her.  “No,” she whispered.  “No, I gave you to them because I knew they’d keep you far safer than I could.”

“Is what you and Uncle Nikus do really so dangerous?”  She caught her lower lip between her teeth.  “Mamau, why can’t I come with you? You know they’ve trained me to defend myself.  I could help.”

There a hesitation, then her mother shook her head, hard.  “No,” she whispered.  “No, no, I couldn’t.  I can’t risk you like that.”  Her mother’s hands were cold against her cheeks, rough and calloused.  She felt her eyes stinging.

Why wouldn’t she let her help?  She was capable, wasn’t she?

“It’s not risking me if I want it, Mamau,” she said quietly. “Please.”

Her mother squeezed her eyes shut, resting her forehead against her daughter’s.  Her mother’s arms closed around her.  She settled into that embrace, tears starting to stream down her cheeks.

Then her mother was gone.

“Kaede!  Kaede! Wake up.”

With a quiet, gasping breath, she jerked awake, blinking up at Isryael.  “What?  What is it? Do we need to move?  Have we—”

“No,” Isryael said, her voice quieter now as she moved back toward the fire, stirring the embers and adding another log.  “No, you were calling out in your sleep.”  Her gaze strayed toward their companion, fast asleep a few feet away, breathing deep and even, his eyes sunken shadows in a weathered face that still seemed impossibly young.  Kaede followed her friend’s gaze, sitting up slowly and exhaling a sigh.

Was I ever so young?  She drew her blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.  “Calling out for what?”

“Not what, who.” Isryael settled into her spot near the fire, her eyes gleaming in its light.  “You were calling for Shadowgrace.”

Kaede closed her eyes, shivering slightly.  “I was having a dream.”  She stood up from her bedroll, padding across the stone floor of their shelter to where their companion slept, crouching to tuck his blanket and cloak higher over his shoulder.  It had only been a few days since he’d started to actually tend their horses every time they stopped and to water and saddle them in the mornings before they started riding again.  He hadn’t breathed another word since that night he’d asked for more coffee, but she had to believe that whatever harm she’d done would heal with time.

If it didn’t, she was as much of a monster as they’d ever accused her of being.

“Are you all right?” Isryael asked softly.

“Are you?” Kaede countered, straightening and skewering the death knight with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’ve been paranoid and more taciturn than usual lately.”

Isryael stared into the fire for a few moments, her brow furrowing, lips set in a line.  Kaede shook her head, exhaling a testy sigh.

“Fine.  Don’t tell me.  Let it fester like a sore.”

“It’s not that,” Isryael said, looking at her.  “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because it has no bearing on what we’re about.”

Kaede frowned, crossing her arms as she paced back toward her bedroll.  “And what, pray tell, are we about these days?  Other than dodging everyone and everything while we wait for that poor boy to sort his gray matter out again so I don’t end up facing a hangman’s noose or worse?”

“You say that like you’d want to die.”

“As I said, it would be good penance for all shit I’ve put people through and all the blood on my hands, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t want you to die,” Isryael said, then looked at the fire again.  “So stop it.”

“Fine.”  Kaede sank back down to her bedroll, curling on her side but facing her friend.  “So what is bothering you?”

“When I went to the Argent camp for supplies, I heard some things,” Isryael said softly, staring at the flames.  Wind whistled quietly past the entrance to the small cave where they sheltered, a favorite haven of Isryael’s in her common sojourns across the northern reaches of the Dragonblight.  “There are reports of untethered Scourge.”

“Untethered Scourge,” Kaede echoed.  “What does that even mean?”

“Scourge that aren’t being controlled by the Lich King—not properly, anyway.”

“I thought that was the Forsaken were.”

“No,” Isryael said. “Not technically.  These are—these are Scourge that follow no master that’s discernable, at least not yet.  It’s hard to say.  It’s mostly just scattered reports and rumors, some unsubstantiated.”  She hesitated, her voice growing quieter. “They asked me to keep my eyes open. They’re worried, Kaede.  I’ve not seen them worried like this in a long while.”

“Worried,” Kaede said softly.  “About maybe a few Scourge wandering around uncontrolled?”

Isryael nodded. “Aye.”

“What does it mean?”

“That’s the problem. It could mean anything.” Isryael’s jaw tightened.  “And none of that anything is good.”

“So we need to be careful,” Kaede said.

Isryael nodded again.

“Then we will be.” Kaede wrapped herself tighter in her blanket.  “Perhaps we should go to Outland after all?”

Isryael choked and shook her head.  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“No, likely not,” Kaede said, one corner of her mouth quirking toward a smile.  “But is an option, isn’t it?  If things get too dangerous here?”

“Too dangerous,” Isryael echoed.  “As if that was ever something in your vocabulary.”

Kaede didn’t answer, her throat growing tight for a moment.  She convinced herself that her eyes had begun to sting because of the fire’s smoke and nothing more.

Isryael sighed after a few seconds, settling in again.  “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t be,” Kaede said faintly.  “I wouldn’t want to wake him.”

Isryael glanced toward him, then back to the fire, nodding slowly.  “Nor I.”

“Then we’re agreed.”

“Yes.”

Kaede took a slow breath. “I’m going to go back to sleep. Good-night, Isryael.”

“Good-night, Kaede. Sweet dreams.”

Maybe, she thought as she closed her eyes.

Maybe.

[isryael]

The Hunt - SNAFU

              The wind tugged at the hem of her fur-lined cloak as she stood on the edge of a rise, peering out over the mottled green and gray of the landscape.  These lands were familiar, now, more familiar even than the woods of her homeland, now sundered and long lost.  The chill was there, bone-deep, in that wind.  She could taste its bite, bitter on her lips and tongue.

              “Well?”

              “We’re close,” Isryael said, glancing back at her friend.  “Only another few miles.”

              “Good,” Kaede muttered, glancing at the third of their party, wrapped in Isryael’s spare cloak against the deepening chill.  The man sat easily in the saddle of Isryael’s warhorse, green eyes staring off into the distance.  He was dressed simply, far more simply than either of them had expected a lone blood elf to be out in the middle of nowhere in the Howling Fjord. He hadn’t said a word since Kaede had finished, and the thousand yard stare seemed fixed.

              Isryael frowned.  “Has he—?”

              “No,” Kaede said, her voice far more cheery than it should have been considering the day they’d already had.  “Not a peep.  But he’s good at riding a horse while marginally aware, so there’s that?”

              “I think you took it a step too far, Kaede.”

              “Oh, probably.  But at least he doesn’t have post-traumatic stress anymore.”

              Isryael deadpanned at her.  The priestess’s eyes gleamed and she grinned, as if proud of her handiwork.

              “You said you were going to fix him.”

              “I did!  His mind is his own and the pain’s gone away.”

              “You scrambled his brains.”

              “So I got a little overzealous.  Maybe in untangling the mess I crossed a few wires the wrong way.  But he doesn’t have anxiety anymore either so there’s that.”

              “Elune’s holy fucking teat.”

              Kaede’s expression darkened.  “Watch your tone.”

              Isryael rolled her eyes.  “Goddess forgive me for taking your breast in vain.  Kaede. You broke him.”

              “I fixed more than I broke.”  She cast a glance over at the elf seated on horseback beside her, studying his profile for a second.  “I wish I could shed my baggage that easily.  Seriously, why couldn’t someone scramble my brain?”

              “Because it would be your mother and she has moral compunctions against doing that these days,” Isryael said, expression deadpan and her voice flat.  She glanced away, rubbing at the old brand against her breastbone, the one in the shape of a crescent moon pendant that she’d worn for decades at the behest of an old friend—the same friend who had trained both Kaede and the priestess’s mother.

              “Mm.  Right.”

              “If you really want her to, though, you could ask her nicely.  You did fix her friend.”

              Kaede winced.  “I also almost killed him in the process.  I’m not sure how well it worked out, either, and one of her protégés probably still wants to shiv me in the kidney and then slit my throat.”

              “Next time do a better job of making sure they know that you don’t actually want to kill your mother.”  Isryael sighed.  “How long do you think we’re going to have Thousand Yard Stare here with us?”

              Kaede grimaced and shrugged.  “Damned if I know.  I’ve never—I’ve never done this before to someone I didn’t mean to do it to. I mean, She doesn’t usually tell me to fix people like this.”

              “Did you ask Her how to undo it?”

              “Our lines of communication aren’t exactly like that.”

              Isryael closed her eyes, counted to three.  “This isn’t terribly helpful.”

              Kaede shrugged.  “Sometimes it’s not.  Do you really think that half the things my mother did were things she wanted to do, that she felt right doing?  Do you think Nessiana did?”

              “Yes and yes,” Isryael said, deadpanning again, staring at her.  “Don’t play this game with me.”

              Kaede sighed.  “Right.  Right, fine.” She slanted another glance toward the silent third of their trio.  Her expression softened slightly, going slack.  Her voice got quiet.  “I don’t know how to fix him, Isryael.  I wish I did. I just did the best I could with what I know.  You don’t send a butcher to do a surgeon’s job.”

              “Except She did.”

              The priestess nodded, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Isryael saw tears rimming the other woman’s eyes. She sighed, moving toward the younger kaldorei, reaching to touch her knee.  Kaede squeezed her fingers, sighing and swiping at her eyes with her free hand.

              “Yes,” Kaede said softly.  “Yes, She did.  Now I just have to figure out what to do now.”  She glanced at the third elf again, studying him, his face, his armor—what little was visible beneath the cloak—and frowned a little.  “Are you sure your friend is trustworthy?  That they’ll be discrete?”

              Isryael nodded.  “They will be.  They’ll keep this quiet.  We just—we need to make sure he’s physically sound, that’s all.”

              “I know,” Kaede said softly.  “It still makes me nervous.”

              “It’ll be all right.”

              “Isn’t that my line?”

              Isryael smiled.  “Sometimes.”

              Kaede stared out over the landscape.  “Well, let’s go, then.  Let’s make sure he’s okay.”

              Isryael nodded, taking the reins of their companion’s horse and starting down the winding trail again.

[isryael]

The Hunt - From Here

Follows directly from here.

“Please pass the coffee.”

Both of them stiffened. The voice was rusty, deep, perhaps a little scratchy, by the Darnassian was flawless, right down to the accent—upper class with a faint thread of the environs around Suramar.  Kaede actually shivered.  Isryael was the one that turned.  She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or not, not really, but she stood, abandoning her watch and moving to the pot.  She took it up, crouched in front of their sin’dorei companion, watched his eyes as she refilled his mug.

He didn’t meet her gaze. She could tell something was there—someone was there—but it was still in hiding or perhaps in retreat or something else.

Does it matter?  She wondered silently.

Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Kaede was right.

There was a first time for everything.

For a second, Isryael laid her gloved hand over his where it was wrapped around the mug, then she withdrew, returning to her post.  Kaede looked at her, lips thinning.

“Do you think...?”

“I don’t know,” Isryael said honestly.  “I really don’t know.”

Kaede nodded, her gaze returning to the sky outside.  “Where do we go from here?”

Isryael wasn’t sure if she meant with their sin’dorei companion or their travels.  She opted for the latter, shrugging slightly. “We’ll have to be careful to dodge the patrols here, but I’m pretty sure this is where I died, Kaede.  If we’re going to solve the mystery behind that, we’ll solve it here.”

“Not in Icecrown?” Kaede asked, her voice still low, though there wasn’t any hiding what they were saying from their companion.  Isryael glanced back toward him again.  He was drinking the coffee, slowly, but the thousand yard stare had returned.  She suppressed a sigh.

Kaede followed her gaze and frowned slightly.  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Maybe we should be careful what we say around him,” Isryael said slowly, still studying the sin’dorei. They didn’t know much about him—or, at least, she didn’t.  Kaede might have known more, but she’d also been the one to scramble his brains. Whatever she knew, she was keeping under wraps.

Her friend’s brow quirked as she took a sip from her mug.  “Why?  What’s he going to do about it?  Stab you? Stab me?  You’re already dead, you’ll be fine.”

“What about you?”

Kaede shrugged. “Well, it might be unpleasant but I might deserve it.  Karma’s a bitch, right?”

Isryael just stared at her.

Kaede canted her head to one side.  “What?”

“How can you possibly be so blasé about this?”

“Isryael, my mother would literally kill me if we ran into each other again—at least, that’s what I’m assuming.  I’m on borrowed time anyway.  Goddess help me, but I’m trying to make up for all the bad shit I’ve done in my life. If getting stabbed and then possible immolated by a Blood Knight is how I meet my end, I’m probably going to end up being okay with that.  All things for a reason, right?”

“You are batshit crazy.”

“Yes,” Kaede said with a firm nod, standing up and shaking out her robes.  “Thank you for noticing.”  She glanced back at their companion, then back to Isryael, her expression softening slightly.  “I’m going to get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay.”  Isryael watched her as she headed for her bedroll, watched her as she stopped to wrap another spare blanket around the sin’dorei’s shoulders.  There was an odd sort of tenderness to her gesture and it made Isryael’s stomach clench.

For all that she pretended that she’d forgotten how to feel, Isryael knew Kaede far better than the other woman suspected.  She knew that Kaede, like her mother and like Nessiana before both of them, felt deeply, keenly.

She’d just taught herself to forget.

[isryael]

The Hunt - Border Crossing

They crossed into the Dragonblight four days later, setting false trails in case they were being tracked and delaying half a day to avoid the normal circle of an Argent Crusade patrol—Isryael’s mandate, not Kaede’s.  Their sin’dorei companion had no opinion on the matter—or if he did, he kept it to himself.

There had been no visible change since their visit to Thaedril.  Kaede was pretending not to worry.  Isryael knew otherwise.

It was nearing dark when they finally made the border, moving silently, both women alert for signs of activity.  The sin’dorei moved as quietly as they did, staying close to the priestess as she led their horses on.

“Why did we wait for so long back there?” Kaede asked as the sun slid further toward the western horizon, shadows lengthening, a chill wind starting to blow as they grew closer to the spot Isryael intended for their camp.  The territory was familiar to both of them, now, their years spent in Northrend showing.  “I thought the Argent Crusade knew you.”

“They do,” Isryael said quietly, drawing her cloak a little more tightly around herself to ward off the cutting wind—not that the cold entirely bothered her, but the sound of the wind whistling through her armor did.  “But they might also know him.”

Kaede followed her gaze toward their silent companion and huffed a soft sigh.  “And if they did?  Wouldn’t that work to our advantage?”

“One of us has enough death marks on her already,” Isryael said in a measured tone.  “You don’t need another, little sister.  We both know that.”

The priestess winced. “Point taken.”

Isryael smiled briefly, then turned away.  The snow was starting, but they were close.

“Will we be able to have a fire tonight?” Kaede murmured.  “It’s colder than a yeti’s backside out there and it feels like a storm.”

Isryael nodded.  “It should be safe.  We’re nearly there.”

“Good,” Kaede said, glancing at their silent companion.  She reached over and pulled up his cloak’s hood over his head and maimed ears. Isryael thought she caught a flicker of something, but chalked it up to a trick of the light and the wind.

If he was still in there, he was buried deep.  But she didn’t know if there was anyone still there—not anymore, not after what Kaede had done.

And yet, of all the things Kaede had ever done, this was far from the worst.

The flames of their fire cast shadows against the walls of the abandoned tower, tucked into the heart of the old Scarlet Crusade camp on the northern edge of the Dragonblight. Isryael stared past the old tapestry hung in front of the open doorway, the faint green glow of the Wrathgate visible in the moonless night.  Kaede watched her from her spot by the fire, where she bent over a soup pot and their kettle, tending to their dinner and tea—tea instead of coffee, as Isryael had sternly told her that there was an expectation of sleep that night for both Kaede and their sin’dorei companion.

It had been at least half an hour since Isryael had so much as moved, let alone breathed a word.  It was unnerving, even to a woman who was rarely unnerved by anything.

“What are you thinking, sister?” Kaede finally whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackling flames and the moan of the wind beyond the tower.  There was a storm brewing—she could feel it, sense it in the whispers at the very edges of her senses.

“Wondering about our friend,” she said softly.  “Wondering if he ever served here.  Wondering what he might have remembered once about the Wrathgate, about Icecrown, about everything that happened here.”

Kaede exhaled softly, getting out bowls for the stew she’d made of dried venison, a little wine, and some potatoes and carrots from her pack.  “I didn’t pay enough attention when I was trying to fix what was broken. I imagine the memories are still there somewhere, once he sorts it all out.”  She filled the bowls, poured the tea.  One bowl with a spoon and a mug of tea went to their silent companion, whose gaze had settled on the walls of the tower, on the play of light and shadow against the stone.  Kaede settled a blanket around his shoulders before she carried two more bowls and two mugs of tea to where Isryael sat nearer to the doorway.

Her friend took one bowl and a mug.  Kaede settled next to her, cradling her own mug between her palms.

“What about you?” Isryael asked softly.  “We never talked about it.”

Kaede winced.  “I was,” she said after a long silence.  “I was hiding in a supply train my mother’s contingent was escorting.  Of course, she didn’t realize I was there.  Uncle was still awake and fighting the good fight then and she was concerned with watching his back for the most part.  We were a mile away from the edge of the blight zone when it happened.”

“When Wrathgate happened?”

Kaede nodded, following Isryael’s gaze to the faint glow to the west.  “Does it really matter what he remembers?”

“I don’t know,” Isryael said.

“Does it matter if he remembers?”

“Don’t you think so?”

Kaede shrugged.  “Maybe this happened for a reason.  Maybe he’s meant to start over somehow.  A blank page, a clean slate.”

Isryael reached over and squeezed her shoulder.  “I think you’re projecting, little sister.”

“Am I?”  Kaede stared into her mug and shook her head.  “I could be.”

“Someday, Kaede,” Isryael said.  “I promise.”

All she did was nod.

[isryael]

The Hunt - Due Dilligence

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

Isryael exhaled a long-suffering sigh, looking back over her shoulder at Kaede, who eyed the tiny house critically.  They were on the very edge of the Grizzly hills, half lost in the mountains that rose along its northwestern corner.  “Yes,” she said, the word almost a hiss.  “I’m sure.”

The priestess sniffed and dismounted, then turned to start tugging their blood elven companion down from his horse.  He didn’t take much prodding, swinging easily down from the saddle.  Isryael watched for a moment, grimacing.

“I still don’t understand.”

Kaede shook her head. “There’s a lot that you don’t understand, sister.  Are you going to knock?”

Isryael sighed again and headed for the door to the cottage.  Kaede took their companion’s arm and led him forward.  He came without complaint, his gaze faraway, not quite vacant but not wholly present, either.

“I don’t understand it, either,” Kaede muttered under her breath.

At least, that’s what Isryael thought she said.

She rapped on the door in a quick, staccato cadence, knowing that the resident inside would recognize it. Still, she held her—unnecessary—breath and waited.  Beyond the door, she heard shuffling footsteps before the door opened.

He was black-haired, but now the ebony was streaked silver.  He peered up at her with a curious gaze, brow furrowing.  There were glimmers of gold in the green, now, as if something had changed.

Perhaps it had. Isryael didn’t keep up with sin’dorei politics now, just as she’d never cared for Highborne politics in the Before. She was just glad to see he was alive and relatively intact.

“Thaedril,” she breathed, smiling.  He smiled back.

“Isryael.  It is good to see your face.”  He reached up to cradle her cheeks and jaw between his hands for a second, then let them fall away, looking past her toward her companions. “You’ve brought friends.”

“I did,” she said softly. “The sin’dorei—we need to make sure that there’s nothing physically wrong with him.  You were the first one I thought of.”

“There are others who are more skilled,” the healer began.  Isryael shook her head and he fell silent.

“None so discreet and none I trust more.”

“Surely the one who works with the Argent Crusade in Dala—”

“Clearly you don’t get out very often,” Kaede said.  “Dalaran’s long gone.  The bloody mages moved it to the Broken Isles—it hovers a stone’s throw from Suramar, now.”

The healer blinked, then peeked out his door, craning his neck.  He frowned.  “You never could see it from this angle anyway.”  He sighed heavily and shook his head, turning to move back inside, waving for them to follow.  “Come, then,” he said.  “I’ll have a look at your friend.  Has he a name?”

“If he does, Kaede didn’t bother to get it before she did her work.”

Kaede sniffed.  “I didn’t think it would affect him like this.”

The interior of the cottage was warm and snug, a welcome relief from the growing chill outside, the chill of winter coming on.  Thaedril waved them to chairs, motioning for Kaede to settle their companion on the couch.

“Take the cloak off,” he said quietly.  “Let’s see what we have.”

Kaede glanced at Isryael but did as she was asked, unclasping the cloak that covered the sin’dorei’s armor.

Thaedril’s eyes widened. “Oh.  Oh my.”

“What’s wrong?” Isryael asked.

“Nothing,” Thaedril said quickly.  “Nothing, nothing.  Now, let me have a look.  Isryael, will you make some tea while I work?  Terrible chill out there and I’m sure all of us could use it.”

Something in his tone made her think that perhaps he’d like something a bit stronger than tea, but she nodded and headed to his kitchen.  Kaede trailed after her.

“Who is he?” she asked in a whisper, glancing back out into the sitting room as the healer reached for their companion, his hands already starting to glow faintly.

“A sin’dorei in self-imposed exile,” Isryael murmured.  “He worked for the Argent Crusade the same as I did, but he decided he’d had enough of war and opted to disappear.  When I was still here more than I am now, I’d bring him supplies when I could.  He has a network, I’m sure.  There are many who linger here in Northrend who owe him much.”

“And you’re certain he can be trusted?”

“More than you,” Isryael said, meeting Kaede’s gaze.

One corner of the priestess’s mouth quirked upward in a smile.  “Well.  That’s comforting.”

Isryael shook her head and concentrated on making the tea.

It wasn’t long before Thaedril joined them in the kitchen, looking a little shaken.

“Well?” Kaede prompted, watching him as he made his way to the kitchen table and dropped into a chair there.

“He’s been sorely used,” Thaedril said quietly, his voice rough, abruptly gravelly.  “But he’s healing well from that.  I can sense no physical trauma from whatever was done to him recently, no reason for the blank stare and the distance.  Whatever your friend here did, Isryael, she caused no organic damage.  It seems strictly mental.”  He stared at a cabinet for a moment.  “Isryael, the bottle on the second shelf in there.  Bring it down for me.”

The bottle he asked for was a half-full bottle of Lordaeron whiskey.  Isryael brought it to him wordlessly, watched as he uncapped the bottle and quaffed a measure in a single swallow.

He wiped his mouth on the cuff of his shirt.  “There are traces of someone I remember there.  Someone I worked with.  In the healing weaves, I mean.  I recognize it.”  His gaze flicked between the two kaldorei.  “What have you two fallen into?”

“Nothing that a goddess hasn’t commanded,” Kaede said.  Isryael pinched the bridge of her nose.

“It’s fine, Thaedril. We’ll handle it.”

“You’re certain?”  He studied them both, gaze more intent on Isryael than Kaede—he seemed to recognize which of the two was more responsible for getting them out of trouble.

She nodded.  “As certain as I can be.  Do you have any advice?”

“Watch and wait,” he said softly, glancing out into his sitting room again.  “And be careful.  Light only knows what will happen if and when he suddenly snaps back.”

“If,” Isryael echoed softly.

“When,” Kaede said, looking at her friend.  “When he does, we’ll be with him.  We’ll cross the bridges we need to them.”

Isryael exhaled and shook her head.  “Right. Of course.  Bridges.”

Why do I feel as if those bridges burned long ago?

[isryael]

The Hunt: A Grace’s Veil

The fire crackled merrily, though their breath still steamed in the air if they ventured too far from it.  The mountain heights soared above them, but Isryael had assured her that no one would see them here, and if they did, it wouldn’t matter anyway.  It was Veil Eve, and nothing short of a major Scourge attack would rouse anyone from their celebrations and devotions tonight.  She would know better, after all.  She’d spent many years among the younger races, far more than Kaede ever had.  Winter Veil wasn’t exactly a kaldorei tradition.  Years ago, she would have scoffed, scolded, and worse in response to its celebration.

Now, it no longer seemed worth it.

Standing at the very edges of the fire’s warmth, the priestess’s gaze drifted skyward, toward the starlit firmament above.  Behind her, Isryael tended the fire, heating spiced cider and some other holiday treats she’d acquired from one the Argent posts they’d passed before they camped.  Isryael had gone alone, gleaning information and obtaining supplies.

After all, as far as the Crusade was concerned, she was an ally, beyond reproach.  Isryael had worked with them for years.  She wasn’t like Kaede.  Kaede was a spectre, a ghost, one of Elune’s Grace--one of the last of that order, she and her mother perhaps the last of them after thousands upon thousands of years.

Perhaps that was why any holiday designed to celebrate connections, family, all of that was hard--perhaps that was why she never liked Winter Veil.  Her connections to everyone and everything but her faith and her duty had always been fragile, transient things.

“What are you doing over there?”

The sound of Isryael’s voice chiding her jarred her, but she was careful not to show it.  Kaede turned slowly, canting her head to one side, her brow quirking.  “What do you mean?”

“Come over here,” Isryael said, filling a mug from a pot over their campfire.  She handed that mug to their silent companion, who seemed to be watching everything and nothing all at once.  His gaze was still vacant, but somehow--

Kaede brushed away the thought.  Either something was going on in their sin’dorei companion’s head, or there wasn’t.  They would know when the time was right.  She turned fully back to them, crossing her arms.

“Why?”

Isryael heaved a sigh, filling another mug.  “Just come over here and drink some of this wine with us.”

“Wine?  I thought you brought back cider.”

Isryael grinned as Kaede started drifting back toward the fire.  “They gave me cider.  I might have snitched some wine.  It’s not as if they’ll miss it.”

Kaede exhaled, not bothering to stop the smile that tugged at one corner of her mouth.  “Why would you do that?”

“There’s a tradition I learned when I was serving with the Argent Crusade,” Isryael said, handing her the mug before she started to pour a third.  “Winter Veil was hard for a lot of them, either because they’d lost their families or because they were so far from them on what was supposed to be a joyous time of the year--sometimes both.  We always celebrated that we were alive--or, at least, still walking around trying to make a difference.  When it got close to midnight, we’d drink a toast.  It didn’t matter, really, what we toasted.  It was just something we did to remind us that we were still here.  There was something about it that was comforting.”

“Comforting,” Kaede echoed, cradling the mug between her palms, letting the warmth of it bleed into her fingers.  “What makes you think I need that?”

Isryael just smiled.  “Come on.  Let’s drink a toast, the three of us.”

Kaede opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again.  She took a deep breath.  “What shall we drink to, then?”

Isryael glanced between her and their companion, then smiled again.  “Maybe to new beginnings.”

Kaede frowned.  “But--”

“You might pretend you don’t,” Isryael said.  “But some of us might.”

Kaede’s gaze fell on their companion.  For a second, she could have sworn she saw him smile, but she blinked and whatever she thought she’d seen was gone.  She sighed and lifted her mug.

“To new beginnings,” she said softly.

She couldn’t help but smile.