Blood and Sunset, Continued.

[Ulthanon]

"Shirvallah, Queen of the Silent Pack, hear me."

It had been a long time since Ulthanon had attempted to make contact with a realm beyond the waking world. Ever since Fedwyn had plagued his mind with nightmares and nearly driven him insane, he'd been unable to spirit-walk. Shirvallah had saved him; she had thrown back the poisons that had paralyzed his soul, but it had left his body unresponsive to the rituals that allowed him to make contact with the spirits. Ever since then, he'd been pulled to the north. He knew she had something he needed to see there, perhaps something to do- something that, before which, he would remain trapped in the waking world. She'd spoken to him, now and again, through half-heard whispers on the very edge of his mind... the memory of a thought that didn't sound quite like his own, and then gone... now, he'd gone north, and he could wait no longer. His pack needed him.
The fire crackled, casting its light around the dunes. He always made best contact out in the deserts- something about the solitude made him feel infinitely at peace. He'd sat for a time, merely enjoying the quiet crackling of the logs and the popping of embers, clearing his mind of all distractions. My worries about Threnn, I cast you out. My fears for Indarra, I cast you out. My memories of pain and pleasure alike, I cast you out. Leave me for a time, O transient mortal concerns.
He sat, cross-legged and eyes closed, regulating his breathing into slow and deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached to his right and tossed the first of a series of small packets into the fire. The heart of the flames burned a bright blue, and the smell of mint reached his nostrils. Silverleaf and Dreamfoil, to calm him further and open his mind.

"Mistress of the Hunt, O Greatest of the Jungle, hear me. Your Champion calls."
I am the Eagle-Eyed, I am the Wolfrunner. I hear the silent and I see the invisible. Mine is the blood of the mountains and the breath of the storm. I move as the rivers and twilit shadows, I am he who has no predator. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached behind him and grasped a second small packet, no more than a linen bag the size of his fist, tied at the mouth with rough twine. He tossed it into the fire as he had the first, and the heart of the fire burned green. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and he could smell the pungent seclusion of earthen caves. Ghost Mushroom and Grave Moss, to percieve and honor the dead.

"You, who runs with the strong and preys on the unworthy, grant your humble servant an audiance."
I am the protector of my pack, he who runs point and he who finds the way. I am that which adapts without mercy or remorse, I am change incarnate. I have renounced my bloodline to follow you, the only pure truth of the world. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached to his left and grasped a third small bag, similar to the first, and tossed it into the fire. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and he could veritably taste the bitter qualities of the Felweed that overpowered the slight sweetness of the Dreaming Glory. The fire burned purple and silver, and he could feel himself begin to vibrate in a new way, like a bard who slides his fingers up a fret on his lute. The various notes and sounds that made Ulthanon Kaidos who he was in the mortal world began to shift and change, falling more into harmony with each other with each passing moment.

"Shirvallah, Queen of the Silent Pack, hear me. My name is Ulthanon Kaidos. Hear me!"
He reached in front of him, tossing the fourth and final bag of herbs into the fire. Fel Lotus that had soaked in a mixture of three vials of blood; one of a tiger, one of a wolf, and one of his own, all taken in accordance with tradition. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and the air was suddenly choked with the distinct smell of ozone and the metallic taste of blood. There was a blast of smoke from the fire, a cloud far larger than there should have been from a fire of that size, and though his eyes were still closed he could see in his mind a face in the smoke; the face of a great animal, grinning back at him. It opened its mouth, with its rows of razor-sharp teeth and fangs, and whispered to him with a snake's tongue. The creature said but a few precious words before it rushed past him and out into the night, but when the smoke had cleared and he'd opened his eyes, he could feel himself resonating more purely than he could ever remember before.

He grinned to himself, uncrossing his legs and looking at the skinning knife that hung from his belt. It was still caked with the blood of the wolf and the tiger, as well as his own, but it seemed to shine as if it had just ben polished and keened. Soon, he thought, It will taste the blood of the dreaming panther.

[Threnn]

Calm was a long time in coming. Threnn remained on the battlefield a while longer, until she was sure Fedwyn wasn't coming back for her. She didn't know how much time had passed, how long she'd knelt there waiting. The sun didn't move in the sky, frozen forever at the moment Bricu had laid waste to the great tree and its inhabitants.

Eventually she moved, leaving the ruins of Teldrassil through the shimmering portal. Rut'theran Village was still there on the other side, devoid of inhabitants. The boats remained, though, fishing skiffs and other small craft pulled up along the beach. It had been a very long time since she'd gone sailing; the last time she'd been in charge of a boat had to have been ten years ago, with Anna and the Bell twins. Old knowledge would have to suffice.

Threnn managed to push out to sea smoothly enough, taking off her boots and rolling up the legs of her breeches as she gave the skiff a shove into the water. Staying relatively dry seemed easy enough until she tried climbing into the boat. Her footing slipped, the boat tilted, and she went into the water with a splash. Fuck. This wasn't supposed to be the hard part. Two more tries, and she finally hauled herself inside, dripping, cold, and annoyed. Right. Last time, William held the boat steady while Robert gave us a hand up. Of course it seemed easy, then.

The skiff drifted a bit as she unrolled her pantslegs. "That was bloody useless," she muttered. The thick netherweave clung to her from hips to ankles. Her shirt had gained so much weight from its soaking, she felt like she was wearing a woolen breastplate. On a summer day, wet clothes might have been pleasant, but in Bricu's dream, even Darnassus felt winter's chill. At least her boots were still dry, though. Slipping the oars from their locks, she began to row.

She didn't have a destination in mind, really, aside from away from that particular dream. A little way offshore, everything...shuddered, as though she'd crossed a larger boat's wake. I think I've left his dream.

For a moment, Threnn thought of turning back, trying to find Bricu and tell him where she was, that she was all right. But she didn't know how to get back. Already, the shore had receded faster than she'd truly been moving away from it. When she pulled hard on one oar, trying to steer the boat around, the current pushed her back the other way. Whether that was Fedwyn's influence or the way the Dream itself worked, she didn't know.

Nothing for it but to keep going forward, then.

The wind over the water picked up, slicing through her wet clothes. Should've stopped at the inn and found a change of clothes. Or some food. Do I need that? To eat? To sleep?

Hell, I'd settle for just being dry.

Time for an old soldier's trick, before her hands went too numb to work the oars.

"Tell yourself you're warm," the commander had told them, as the new recruits blew into their hands and stamped their feet in the Alterac snow. "Say it until you believe it. Your socks aren't soggy. Hell, you never even stepped knee-deep in the slush in the first place. Your fingers aren't cold. The tip of your nose isn't about to fall off. The wind doesn't sting; it's a gods-damned midsummer breeze! Say it to yourself. SAY it, until you believe it. You repeat those lies until they're truths. Until you can FEEL the fucking summer sun on your face. Worry about frostbite later. Ready your swords for now. You hear me? I said, DO YOU HEAR ME?"

"Yes sir, I hear you," Threnn whispered, closing her eyes. "Loud and fecking clear." She imagined the sun breaking through the gathered clouds, shining hot and strong. Her hands tightened on the oars; they still wanted to rub together to drive out the cold. She imagined herself that day on the water with Anna and the Bells -- it was so warm there, with her sister in a sunhat, trailing fingers through the water as Robert and William worked the sails.

Threnn's boat rocked a bit

"Threnny," said Robert, "you have the helm. Don't capsize us now, aye?"

His voice sounded so close. She opened her eyes. For the briefest moment, she saw him there, sitting in the stern. His dark curly hair was tousled; tattoos peeked out of the collar of his shirt, more than he'd had that day years ago when they went sailing. He seemed as surprised as she was "Threnn? Where--?"

And then he was gone, faded away as another wave passed.

Threnn stared at the empty space where her friend had been. He'd been so real. "Robert?" she called, reaching forward to feel the empty air where he'd sat a moment before. Something else was different though, too. She looked at her sleeve.

Dry. Her shirt, her pants, her hair. The air was still cold, but her clothes were as dry as they'd been when she put them on this morning. "Well, I'll be godsdamned," she said. Inspiration struck. "I wonder..." She thought of something else: Bricu's cloak, the one she'd asked him to give her before they left Stormwind. Its image came easily to mind, and just as easily, she felt its weight settle around her shoulders, protecting her from the cold wind swirling around her skiff.

"Right. Okay. That's a start." She shipped the oars and let the boat follow the current a bit as she experimented. The druid couldn't be trusted to simply let her go. Which meant, if she wanted any hope of getting herself out of the Dream without his aid, she'd have to understand it first.

Her shirt changed colors, dark purple to blue to white to black. That was easy enough. Changing the shape of the boat was harder. She added some scrollwork to the front, coaxed it out of its Kal'dorei shape and into something of human construction. She gave it a mast, but that faded quickly.

Hardest was turning the oars into swords. She could do it, but it took a long time -- as though her mind kept insisting that no, these were oars, swords did not belong in their place. If she let her concentration wane once they'd changed, they'd switch back in a heartbeat. That was going to take some practice. For now, it was enough to know such a thing was possible.

She wondered if something bigger might be possible.

Fedwyn hadn't just changed his own face. He'd made the world change around them, too - making the world outside the bedroom in Valiance Keep go from the jungles of the Dream to the streets of Stormwind. And from there, Stormwind had shifted into Teldrassil. If she could affect the things surrounding her by concentrating, could she travel that way, too?

Stormwind, she thought, feeling slightly foolish. Was this too big? Too much? Stop doubting, you git. Just bloody do it. The harbor, right up against the docks.

Her boat thumped against something solid. She hadn't realized she'd closed her eyes. When she opened them, she let out a whoop of triumph.

The boat floated lazily aside one of the long wooden docks in the harbor, already tied off. The city rose above her, its walls shining in the light of the setting sun. Threnn clambered up onto the solid planks and grinned. It worked. It bloody well worked. Smiling, she turned back to the boat.

It was gone. "Bloody hell." She pulled Bricu's cloak closer against the sudden chill, and set off into the dream of the city she called home.

[Threnn]

She wandered awhile, not entirely sure just where to go.

Some parts of Stormwind didn't seem entirely sure of themselves - signs on shops changed names as she passed; entire buildings changed facades. Other parts of it resembled the Keep as it was before the orcish invasion - not a city, but a barracks, with swathes of grass trampled down by the boots of drilling soldiers. Tents kept appearing in the Trade District, ghosts leftover from dreams of rebuilding. Threnn wondered if one of them might be the one her family had called home for a winter and much of the spring while the shop was being constructed.

Sometimes, too, whole sections of the city would fade away, replaced by the verdant fields of Elwynn. The first time it happened, Threnn thought she'd done something wrong, let her thoughts slip and bring her to some other place. But the sky was the same, and up ahead she could see one of the bridges arcing over the canal. Stormwind was still a new city, in the scheme of things. The forest was far older. Maybe peoples' dreams were strong enough to hold the city there most of the time, but there were sure to be incidents of nature's long memory asserting itself.

A few places seemed more solid than others. The Cathedral rose high above her, its spires kissing the clouds. Old Town held itself together well, though she didn't dare go into her parents' shop. Did they know? Had Bricu or Anna told them what had happened?

The Stockade, too, was an undeniable reality in the center of Stormwind. It felt permanent, heavy. The outlines of its stone walls never wavered. It made sense. Who didn't have crimes to pay for in their own minds, however real or imagined they might be? The Stockade, then, might be where their dreams brought them, to work such things out. Did the prisoners inside dream of their punishments? Or did they dream of freedom?

I know one of the prisoners.

Threnn watched the flags fluttering at the gates, chewing her lip as she considered. Fedwyn had placed her in Bricu's dream. She thought she might have touched Robert's, out on the sea. She didn't know how it had been done, in either case. But this was worth a try. Maybe being in the Dream near where they slept in the waking world would help.

Nodding to herself, she stepped through the gates and down into the forboding hulk of the jail, looking for Fellsie's dreams.

The world shivered.

---

The Hinterlands are, in reality, a nearly idyllic place. Look past the savage trolls and the bloodthirsty worgs and the beings comprised of gelatinous goo and bones, and the landscape is nigh perfect for the stables that she and Laurus have planned. The buildings stand completed, bustling about with faceless forms of people she's yet to meet, and spectacularly bred steeds canter through perfectly-fenced pastures.

Fells is in prison. Small wonder, that she'd be dreaming of home, whole and completed.

Threnn walks quietly into the house, pausing to tap at the door, but not seeming too sure that anyone's home.

The answer from within comes in the form of something small and flame-haired, pulled into twin pigtain braids. The girl smiles up at Threnn from the doorway. "Hi!" She wears green-checked silk, an odd combination. Clearly, that's as close to noble finery as Fells's mind is willing to get. Her features are blurred slightly.

Threnn smiles, a bit nervously. She twists the braided copper band on her middle finger around as she talks. Other things might shift, the color of her blouse, the length of her hair, but the ring always remains. "Is, uh. I'm looking for Fells Drachmas?"

The tiny thing giggles, and it's very much like Laurus's snide snicker - the asshole quality is gone, making the laughter somewhat more befitting of a child. "Mama's in the kitchen! Maaaaaaaaaama!" She turns and makes her way across, calling into a doorway. "Maaaaama, Mama. Mama. Mama. Ma. Ma. Ma."

"Whatsit!" finally comes a harried if amused voice from inside.

"There's a lady at the door Mama."

"Oh, welp, let her in."

The child turns, clearly quite proud that she has an Important Message To Deliver. "You can come in, missus!"

She follows the girl to the door, resisting the urge to ruffle hair, and peers inside. One hand goes to her pocket, but there are no butterscotches there. Not this time, at least. "Uh." She looks at the woman in the kitchen. Is this a good idea? Well. No one's stopping her. He's not stopping her. "Fellsie?"

She has her back to the door, preoccupied with stirring something on a stovetop that's far too rustic for the otherwise well-furnished home. There's something tiny in swaddling on her hip. Fells glances over her shoulder and smiles immediately. "Hey, Threnny. Coulda buzzed if'n y'was gonna come an' visit!" She clearly must always come visit. It makes sense, in the bleary way that things always seem to in dreams.

"Yeah. I..." Keep it simple. Light only knows what the rules are in this place. She's so far from figuring even a fraction of them out. "My box. It's broken."

"Tha's a shame. Y'hungry?" She takes the excuse in stride. It makes sense. The babe on her hip is shifted to the side, and in doing so his mop of black hair lightens into auburn. "Near gots allis finished. Could brew up a pot'a tea."

"Tea would be lovely." She waggles her fingers at the little boy. "How's. Uh. How's everything?"

"Oh, y'know." When she turns, she is still quite herself; flat, scrawny, and horrifically un-motherly. The children are there nonetheless, and that they are hers is something simply to be understood. "Busy. Things t'do. S'terrible nice t'see ya, though." A kettle is set on the table, and she sets about retrieving mugs. "Been s'damn worried 'bout ya." Something close to confusion crosses her features. Why had she been worried again?

"I'm--" Threnn starts, but beyond that, words won't come. She opens her mouth a few times, searching for words that are allowed, but they're slow in coming. Rules, she thinks. Restrictions. The Dream's? Or Fedwyn's? Shaking her head in frustration, she toys with one of the mugs.

Fells sits across from her, cradling the tiny son tenderly in her spindly arms. "Yer fine?" she offers hopefully.

"'s... yeah." Maybe more neutral territory. "Been... busy." Even that is a struggle.

She nods. Though she clearly doesn't fully accept the explanation, she wants to, and that's close to enough for now. "Wouldja mind holdin' him?" The babe coos. "I'll pour fer us."

"'course." She reaches out her hands for the baby and settles him down on her lap. "He's getting so big." Is he? Or has he always been this way in Fellsie's dreams?

Possibly - probably - the latter. "Ayeh, he is," Fells states with no small amount of pride. The boy squeals and reaches for a strand of Maybell-dyed red, grabbing it in his plump fist. "Laz'll be home soon. Been s'damn lonesome fer him as'a late."

Threnn hesitates, noticing that her hair is a color it hasn't been in two years. Fells' doing, then, not her own. She is not in charge here, not truly. What might happen if she asks a question that would cause Fells to become aware that it is a dream? What happens to piggybacking dreamers when the dream's true owner awakens?

Maybe it would get her home. "Where's Laz been?"

"...out?" The answer is uncertain, and her brow furrows as she pours them both tea. Steam rises from matching mugs. "He's been...I can' see him. But he'll be back soon," she repeats with forced certainty.

"'s... good. What about yourself? You holding up okay?"

Absently, Fells rubs at her wrists. They are suddenly rubbed raw. Red, angry flesh circled in matching bands. "Well's I can be! Musta...burnt m'self with the tea..." She ignores it as best she can. The marks are out of place here.

Threnn winces. Her fingers flex like she wants to hold the Light, but it won't come. "Best put some salve on that," she says. "Or have someone look at it."

"Oh it ain't nothin'," she says dismissively. They are out of place. Surely that means that they don't matter. "Done had worse afore, ain't I?"

"Likely so. Doesn't make these hurt any less."

Fells winces at that. Her eyes drop again to her injuries. Around them, stone walls and pane-glass windows seem to swirl in and out of existance. "Ayeh, they...a'right, they sting, but..."

Threnn glances at their flickering surroundings. "No buts. You get someone to take a look at those. Bandages, salve, whatever."

The child in Threnn's care grows lighter and heavier, flickering in and out of being in time with the insubstantial walls. "But, I -- " Smooth, hewn stone is replaced with rougher, and the windows that let warm Hinterlands sun pour in on them dim and disappear. "Threnny, don' wanna..." Somewhere around them sounds the quiet creak of a canvas cot, and iron clanks faintly.

"No, 's all right. I know." She backed away from that line of questioning. It wouldn't be fair to take Fells' dream away from her. You didn't have many ways of escape, when you were behind bars. She bounces the baby, humming a nursery rhyme. "Tell me something good. The first thing that comes to mind."

On her lap, the little semi-incorporeal thing squeals delight. "Buh buh buh buh!" Fists full of her hair are held up, as though in triumph. Auntie Threnny is always fun. "I..." Fells's mouth hangs open. "I don'...know?" Threnn is right. There aren't many things to use to escape, when you are imprisoned. Fells's mind desperately races to find something. "Shad cleaned m'hair up!" There, that's something.

But the damage is done. The dream is already fading, growing thin. She hears the chains again as somewhere, the guards change watch. "Fellsie, I should go." She disentangles magenta-colored strands from chubby fingers as quickly and gently as she can, and holds the baby out to his mama. "You be well, yeah?"

"Threnny..." Fells takes her son, frowning slightly, but it's all beginning to wane.

Threnn waves bye-bye, so the baby coos and giggles. As soon as she's out of the kitchen, out of sight of Fells and her children, she begins to run.

---

She burst out of the house at a full-on sprint and felt the world tremble, thinking of home as hard as she could, imagining the sounds and smells of Stormwind surrounding her. An unseen rock sent her sprawling, skinning her palms and bruising her knees on hard cobblestones. When she had her frantic panting down to a more dignified ragged gasp, she looked up and grinned wildly.

Above her swung the sign welcoming travellers to The Gilded Rose.

[Threnn]

Stormwind City seemed so empty at first. Streets that could at times be teeming with travellers, peddlers, and citizens jostling to get to their destinations were now deserted. About the only company she had was the occasional cat.

The first one scared the hell out of her as she paced the square in front of the auction house. She could smell the bread when she stood by Thomas Miller's cart, even though the bread itself was sometimes there, sometimes not. This was a mystery to her - was someone nearby dreaming of baking bread? Or was it manifesting because it was what she was used to smelling here? Food appeared and disappeared on the cart - loaves of bread, pastries, a few whose like she'd never seen before. Other dreamers, then. Else I'm making up new cravings.

As she stood contemplating a crusty roll that seemed content to remain solid once it was in her hand, something brushed past her ankles.

Threnn yelped, expecting Fedwyn. The roll fell from her grip, vanishing before it hit the ground. It was replaced by her sword, polished and sharpened. When she saw her companion, she forced it away, sheepishly. Like the roll, it, too, disappeared.

No, this wasn't Fedwyn -- the druid had come to her here as a black cat; the one that looked up at her now - completely unimpressed by her weapon - was a huge orange tomcat, one ear missing its tip, his crooked tail swishing as he regarded her. He yowled and bumped his head against her leg again.

"The hell'd you come from?" she said, but the cat didn't answer. Then he turned and strutted away, disappearing before he'd gone three steps.

As the day wore on, she saw more of them: a grey mouser stalking in Cutthroat Alley, a brown tabby sunning himself by the moonwell in the Park, three tiger kittens tumbling and wrestling outside of the orphanage. Some of them let her touch them; they felt more real than most other things.

It seemed she was as much a novelty to them as they were to her; the ones who didn't bolt from her sniffed at her curiously, as though she had rolled in catnip. It probably wasn't often they had humans wandering through their world.

When she plunked herself down on a bench outside the Cathedral, a silver tabby climbed into her lap and curled up, purring. She couldn't help but smile. "You look like my kitty, you know that?" She scratched him behind the ears. The purring grew. "But he went with us to Northrend. Bet he wishes we were curled up here rather than up there in the cold, yeah?"

Most of the cats she'd encountered so far vanished within minutes, likely surfacing from their own catnaps in the waking world. This one, though, stayed put, rumbling contentedly and snoozing, proving that even in the Dream, cats slept most of the day away. Threnn passed the afternoon with the tabby in her lap, stroking his soft fur while she pondered what to do next.

[Threnn]

There were many dreams Threnn could peek into, it turned out. She had only to learn how to listen. Wandering in and out of the buildings, she'd sometimes catch movement out of the corner of her eye, or hear the murmur of voices as though they were on the other side of a sturdy wall. Following those let her find...soft places that she could step into, places where the air blurred, or sounds were distorted.

She saw big dreams and small, grand ones and common ones. People dreamed of balls and battlefields, and those shifted into picnics and strolls in the park.

A watchmaker tried in vain to shoo his last customers out of the shop, but no matter how heavily he hinted, no matter how many times he cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the clock, more people kept wandering in, keeping him from going home to his dinner.

A member of the guard rode into battle at King Wrynn's side, carrying Stormwind's banner to the front lines. They met the enemy in the desert, and as an orcish arrow flew towards Varian's heart, the soldier leapt ahead, so the shaft pierced his own breastplate. They carried him from the field, and the King decreed that for his bravery, he'd be knighted, and would be paid in apples and tin. This made the man immensely happy.

Donna dreamed that her dolly had been stolen - again - and Gil turned it into a big ugly fish while she cried. But then someone stepped in and took the fishdoll out of Gil's hands. As the man handed it back to her, she was good as new - not the hand-me-down dolly she'd had since she came to the orphanage, but really, truly new - shiny button eyes, a full head of yellow yarn-hair, her dress no longer in need of yet another mending.

"Here yeh go, lass," he said, and Threnn's breath caught from her vantage point on the bridge.

But the man who turned at her gasp wasn't Bricu, not really. He was taller, for one thing - nearly seven feet - and the smile was all wrong. His hair was too pale a red, his eyes too dark a green.

Even still, it made her heart hurt. She reached out a hand, his name on her lips.

This was Donna's dream, though, and the man who wasn't her husband dismissed her, turning his attention back on the little girl.

Threnn took the opportunity to flee.

---

If the Riders were dreaming, Threnn couldn't find them. She'd lost track of time searching for them, willing herself to the places where she'd last seen them, or the homes they kept when they weren't fighting in the North.

She found Bricu, once, from their rooms in the Rose. The silver tabby had reappeared, twining around her legs and batting at sunbeams for her amusement. There was a sudden, strong scent of tobacco, but it was tinged with something else, something that reminded her of Anna and the vials she kept lined up with her concoctions. Threnn tried stepping into the dream, closing her eyes and hoping to find him there when she opened them.

But when she did, the room was empty except for herself and the cat. She tried it again and again, taking slow steps, walking in circles, getting a head start and running across the room. She called his name, hoping to pull his dream closer to her, make it stronger, but her voice only drifted out the open window and echoed along the streets.

"Gods damn it," she said. "Gods fecking damn it." Her mind raced as she flopped onto the bed. There had to be a way to get through. The cat jumped up with her and started licking her forehead. "Thanks, kitty, but--"

Thunder shook the building. The cat bolted.

Outside, the sky, which had been an unvarying shade of blue since her arrival, clouded over. In a matter of seconds it was a churning, inky black. From somewhere nearby - the Park, maybe - came a gibbering.

She hurtled out of the room and down the stairs. When she got outside, everything had gone eerily quiet.

The cats were gone.

There was a crackling and a twisting, and one by one, the buildings around her shuddered and faded away. What replaced them was the verdant forest of Elwynn, but something dark and...crawling was spreading through it. Its edges oozed forth, turning green grass into dead brown stalks. Flowers withered and decayed before her eyes.

Things moved in the darkness, creatures gamboling on limbs bent at impossible angles, their features contorted into grotesque parodies of their waking world counterparts - centaur and dryads and treants, made ugly by the Nightmare.

Because that's what it was, wasn't it? That's what it had to be.

And Threnn was in its path.

She tore her gaze away from it, reluctant to take her eyes off of what slithered within for too long. Her feet were slow in obeying her brain's command to run. Her limbs felt heavy, as though she were walking through molasses. The Light came to her when she called on it, letting her tear herself free. Movement returned as she flung herself down the street, towards the gryphons.

Westfall, she thought. Sentinel Hill. In her mind, she saw the stone towers and smelled late-summer grass, the way it was when she was stationed there so many years ago. She could almost hear the high, clear notes of a tin whistle, though she couldn't remember who in the barracks had played one. Stormwind shifted around her reluctantly, the cobblestones beneath her feet becoming, for a moment, the well-trodden earth of the road leading to the garrison.

But then the Nightmare surged behind her, bending Light and sound and smell, and pulled her into its grasp.

---

Nothing was right here.

Threnn darted through a forest of warped trees, the branches grasping at her with bark that felt like cold fingers. The light here was dim. Roots and rocks threatened to trip her up with every step. She was afraid of falling; something shadowed her progress, hiding just out of her sight but making no attempts to mask its presence. It grunted from behind fallen logs. It matched its footsteps to her own and cackled as twigs snapped beneath its heavy tread.

She came upon a cottage, and couldn't help but think of every fairy story she'd heard in her childhood - kindly woodsmen lived in them, or wise women, or fairy godmothers. But this one held neither woodsman nor witch. A man looked up at her as the door swung open. The knife in his hand was covered in gore. Whatever lay split apart on the table had once been human. It screamed as he lowered the knife once more.

Back into the forest she went. Time lost all meaning as she tried outrunning the things that lived here. Her shadowy companion never left, but neither did it show itself, though she thought it sounded as though it had grown. Twice she nearly ran headfirst into massive spiderwebs, the silken cords as thick as ropes, woven into patterns taller than she was. She thanked the Light their owners weren't home as she ran as far from them as she could, terror in her throat.

If she stopped for too long, she could sense the denizens of this place coming closer, surrounding her. Several times, she consecrated the ground as she sprinted away, holding the Light in her hands until it was nearly painful, hoping it would make anything that was too curious shy away.

Then came the third spiderweb, and this time, its creator was present. It looked like the one she'd plucked from Aleros' dreamcatcher -- slick and black, its legs separated into far too many joints, the eyeless face peering at her nonetheless -- only this one was twice her height. She backed up a step...two... and came up against the trunk of a tree. No sound came from her mouth when she screamed. The spider lunged, its mandibles clicking.

"No," she moaned. "No, no." Her disobedient limbs turned to jelly when all she wanted to do was run. Darkness gathered at the corners of her vision. Her head felt light; the world reeled drunkenly. I'm going to faint.

There was a tug on the back of her shirt, and she was suddenly travelling upward, into the trees. She kicked out weakly as her feet left the ground. The spider chittered below her, outraged at losing its prey.

"Stay still," said her new captor around a mouthful of fabric. He leapt from one branch to another. "You do not want me to drop you just now." Her struggling stopped as she recognized who it was that carried her and she hung limply from his jaws, shaking with fear and relief.

Fedwyn Earthsprung's voice had never been such a comfort.

[Threnn]

((Co-written with Yva. As I should have mentioned in the Fellsie-dream, all lines that make you go "oooh" can likely be attributed to my partners in crime. <3))

Fedwyn ran, the paladin hanging limply from his jaws. After a time the terrain went from treetop jungle to clotheslines between roofs in Stormwind. He balanced on a cord with unnatural grace. The terrain shifted, and they were looking down at the Cathedral of light. With one last jump he deposited both of them on the front steps.

He spit her out, amusement and irritation forcing a smile. “I said I didn’t want your life. It seems, however, you’re intent on risking it.”

She smoothed out her shirt as best she could, trying to regain her composure. The effect was ruined, however, by her shaking hands. She didn't so much sit on the steps as sank down to them, not trusting her legs to keep her upright just yet. "I tried to get away from it. I ran, and then I tried to..." Her brow furrowed as she tried to find the right words for how she'd learned to travel. "I tried to go away. Somewhere else. Westfall. But... it didn't work."

“You panicked. If you’re panicking you can’t concentrate on your surroundings, and the nightmare feeds on your fear. It weakened you. Your legs grew heavy, yes?”

Fedwyn lost his cat shape. Fur became toned, muscled skin and a deep blue kilt. He sat on the steps of the cathedral, sinking his chin into his hands and peering at her.

"Like there were bricks strapped to them." Threnn tapped the stone steps to illustrate. "But where did it come from? All of a sudden, it was just there. And is it still there? I mean, does it just pass through, or is the Rose and the bank and the whole square gone?"

He shrugged. “It’s got a mercurial nature. It’s likely trying to find you, and when it doesn’t because I pulled you elsewhere, it’ll move onto the next dream thing. There are no rules for it, that’s why it’s been so hard to combat.”

He sat silently for a moment.

“I would tell you more, but there’s not much to tell. I’ve toiled in here for a thousand years and never – never – have I seen anything like this. I was like you at first, afraid of it. Unlike you, I didn’t have someone to pull me out.” He spread his hands wide, palms up. “And thus I am what I am.”

"Sweet Light. Think I'll just try staying the hell away from it. It felt like... like I could stay lost in it. Forever." She wrapped her arms around herself. "The book mentioned it. Guess it's one of those things you don't understand 'till you've experienced, yeah?"

“It’s not pleasant. I was a druid and even I couldn’t do anything about it.”

For a moment, his expression softened.

“When I first thought about rejoining the world, I thought I could simply be me - I could be a kaldorei and find the woman I loved and pick up the pieces of a life I helped destroy. It is disconcerting to find yourself incapable of finding your own flesh because the nightmare has corrupted you beyond any recognition. I am not one to dwell, nor will I attempt to garner pity because I don’t deserve it, but . . . the nightmare has made everything more complex than it had to be.”

He eyed Threnn.

“You likely don’t care, you likely don’t believe me, but there is a great part of me that regrets having to take you here. I would not wish it on anyone. When you’re free of here, don’t come back. It will get worse before it ever gets better. I’m not sure there is a better, now.”

She bit her lip. "No offense, but I don't plan on it. They're trying to figure out how to fight it. The druids, I mean. But not being one, I've never really paid attention to how." She spread her hands wide; the shaking had lessened a bit. "Never really thought I'd ever be here to have to worry about it, you know?"

Her wedding band was still on her finger; that had been a constant since she'd first awakened here. She twisted it around idly. "Guess I don't have to tell you it's lonely here, either."

He didn’t say anything for a long while, but eventually, he narrowed his eyes. In front of him, the city of Stormwind faded and there was a shore at sunset, reddish hued streaks glittering on the water. The air smelled of salt. Waves lapped at the sand.

“If I could have brought her to me to not have to go through all of this I would have. It wasn’t safe, though. I doubt you’d put Bricu at risk just for want of seeing him.”

"No," she said softly. Picking up a handful of sand, she let the grains sift through her fingers. "I'd never. But he's likely putting himself at risk trying to get me out. Especially if he's read the book, and the part about... about the nightmares." She shuddered despite the warmth of the night. "Listen. I know I'm being presumptuous, but, uh."

There had to be a right way to word the request dancing on her tongue, but nothing eloquent came to mind. Besides, the druid would know if she were bullshitting. Nothing for it but to take a deep breath and plunge forward. "Would you let me send him word? I just want him to know I'm all right. Light only knows what he's imagining I'm going through here."

He stared at her and his hand fell to the glittering band on her finger. He frowned. “I don’t want to make things easy for him. You have to understand why.”

"I do. I know that. But I don't even know how long I've been here. Every day that goes by, he's going to try harder and harder to get me out, and Light only knows what he'll do. I won't tell him about the vine, I promise. I just want him to know I'm not hurt."

He smiled, and it was almost rueful. “You have to tell him about the vine. We both know you have to. But, you don’t have to tell him about it now. You can’t tell him now. I’m close, but not done yet.”

It took him a few moments to sigh. “I have a valid concern that your husband has laid a trap in his dreams. That annoying friend of his with his dreamcatcher’s. I think . . . perhaps . . . I don’t know.”

She sighed. "Likely so. I haven't been able to find him. Maybe that's why." She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. No way in hell was she going to let Fedwyn accuse her of histrionics again, or trying to use tears to convince him. "What if I told someone else, then? And had them carry word to him? They can't all be laying traps."

Fedwyn stared at his lap, and suddenly there was a plate of steaming sticky buns with drizzled icing and cinnamon. He pulled one off the top and slowly chewed, offering her the plate.

Eyeing them warily, she took one and sniffed at it. Her mouth watered and her belly betrayed her with a growl. Grinning sheepishly, she bit into it.

They sat in near-amicable silence for a while, enjoying the sticky buns. He offered her a cloth napkin before manifesting his own, using it to dab the icing away from the corners of his mouth.

“All right, but you tell me who you would send this message to, I’ll decide who you speak with.”

Threnn thought while she used her napkin. "Well, my sister's not fecking dreaming, so she's out. And I suspect she'd be as likely as Bricu to try laying a trap. Sey and Sky live with Ale, so I'm guessing they're off the list." She shook out the napkin and began folding it neatly, as though it were a piece of fabric in her parents' shop about to go on display. "Tarq's not dreaming. Hell, hardly any of them are." She paused, mid-fold. "Ceil? I haven't tried looking in on hers."

“The estranged druid. The dreaming darkly beauty with the blood-blind eye.” He nodded and stretched, his hands wavering between paws and flesh. “Fine. I’ll agree to her.”

Relief washed the tension from her shoulders. "Well, then. Thank you. 's... 's as much a comfort to me as it will be to him, if that makes it any better."

“It won’t comfort him. It’ll fuel him to find you and irritate me.”

He stood from the cathedral steps, the backdrop so strange against the sunset beach. “You’ll go home soon, I promise you that. I only have one word of advice that you may wish to extend to your husband.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Can you do that for me? For an early return?”

"Yeah, I can. What is it?"

“Keep him away from Indarra. Keep his hatred, and his . . . just keep him away from her. If he pushes her too far, he’ll prove himself right about her capabilities, but he’ll be far, far too dead to enjoy her destruction, and you’ll be a widowed mother. He needs to walk away.”

"Hell. Yeah. I'll... I'll pass that along."

“I doubt he’ll listen, but it’s worth a try.”

There was a flash and before them the beach faded. Instead there was a white room with a table on it. A small, black charred lump was half covered with a sheet.

“That’s the last man who crossed her.” He pointed at something that looked like an overcooked roast. “That is shadowburn. Now, I sincerely doubt she has that much potency LEFT after their rituals, but on the off chance she does? It would be an unfortunate end, and I don’t see you patching that up.”

His stare was intense. “He has to leave her alone.”

One hand flew up to cover her mouth. "Sweet Light." She nodded, eyes wide as she tore her gaze away from the table to meet his. "I'll get it across. I will."

“Good.”

He paused, a strange look crossing his face. “She’s not all bad. I know it’s hard to believe seeing that.” The image with the table faded away. Stormwind began to rebuild itself brick by brick. “But there are times that she is – was – wonderful. She was capable of great things. Not all of them were so violent.”

The druid gave weary sigh. “It does not matter what you think of her, I suppose.”

"I can't help it; I'm partial to the part of her that's Indarra. 's not the woman you love, I know. But maybe she retained that capacity for doing great things." Her sigh matched his. "Not very likely that either of us is going to convince the other."

“Not likely.” He smiled. “I think then that’s it. If you need me, I’m around. Just will me there, and stay out of trouble.”

There was a streak of black fur and the elf was off, tearing through the cobblestone streets of the trade district.

[Threnn]

((So much <3 for Ceil, for leading Threnn through her dreams.))

Outside of the Pig and Whistle, there's a familiar sight - the Argent Dawn's banner that graced the top of the steps all during the Longest Night. However, instead of how well kept the real banner was, this dream-banner is ripped, torn and stained with what looks very much like fresh blood.

Threnn looks at the banner, slightly uncertain. With a quick glance up and down the street, she seems to satisfy herself that the Nightmare isn't chasing her, and climbs the steps.

Inside the Pig it's obvious that some one's long night wasn't nearly so successful - there's partially eaten bodies strewn everywhere. All of the Langstons have perished, even Elly, who's body is half-drug under a table, blocking most of it from view.

"Oh, sweet gods." Threnn bends and says a prayer over the dead woman, straigthening up after a long moment. She's steeling herself to look around for survivors.

The only things that move in the upper room of the Pig are flies, lighting off corpses and puddles of blood that soak through the well-worn floorboards. Looking upwards, the balcony shows much of the same upstairs, but the kitchen doors are closed, blocking the view.

Threnn moves with great reluctance towards them. She takes several deep breaths before trying the knob.

The kitchen looks like it was the site of some massive, almost epic battle. The risen dead are no longer risen, but fallen in pieces and piles everywhere. The air is thick with the smell of stomach-twisting, bits of the dead having fallen into the dying hearth. It seems like the ghouls were making a last rush at the stairs, where a single body sits by the wall, slumped, two long blades in hand.

The paladin takes in the carnage, the set of her mouth grim. When she spies the figure by the stairs, her posture becomes almost... military. This is her field-medic training kicking in, as she steps over to the form she's afraid she's recognized.

The form may or may not actually be familiar - it's a human man, looking somewhere in his 20s or early 30s. He wears the black and green leathers of the Defias, his skin is pale and his raven-black hair lays across his cheek in an nearly poetic way. He holds the long blades in a death-grip, though there's a single hank of moss-green hair wound around one of his knuckles. In the unnatural silence of the Pig, soft weeping can be heard from behind the doors at the top of the stairs.

Threnn shakes her head. Not who she thought it would be. Another prayer, then, for the dead, before she taps at the door.

The soft sobs stop the moment Threnn's knock breaks the thick silence. At her touch, the door swings open, revealing the stairs down into Tarquin's office and the storerooms of the Pig. The stairs are pristine. Cleaner than they usually are normally, at that.

"Hello?" She calls out softly, trying not to frighten the other person. "Is someone there?" Her voice echoes down the stairs, but is only greeted by the silence, resumed. "Right. I'm coming down. Unarmed, yeah? And, uh. Living." She goes down a few steps and pauses once more, listening.

A few heartbeats pass, then the quiet sobbing resumes. It's an insistent sound, mournful, low and persistant. Threnn descends the rest of the way, looking for the source of the sounds.

The door to Tarquin's office is very often locked more than is entirely needed. Now, however, it's left wide open, candlelight flickering from inside. She drifts through it, touching the doorframe as she passes, running her fingers over the wood.

All of the paperwork and piles of unaccountable stuff has been slid off of Tarquin's desk - it lays on the floor in piles, around the young kal'dorei woman slumped against the bare wood. Laid out on the desk is the body of its owner.

Tarquin ap Danwyrith hasn't been dead for very long - there's still a touch of color to his cheeks and his hair looks like melted tarnished coins in the candle light. Ceil's shadow is thrown over him, barely hiding the grevious wound tearing through his stomach. Her weeping is a refrain.

"Oh no. No, no, no, please." Threnn forgets all caution and rushes the rest of the way in, to stand on the other side of the desk and look at Tarquin's form.

The kal'dorei doesn't look up - her hands are bloodstained, clutching at her husband's torn leathers. "...they were trying to..." Her voice is a broken sob, her musical accent gone hoarse and weak. "...they were just trying to save..."

"Ceil?" Threnn reaches out a hand across the body, to let it rest on the taller woman's shoulder.

"No, don't take him to the Towers, I won't let you, not--" Ceil's voice breaks off in surprise as she looks up to see Threnn - she looks like she would have stepped away from the touch, but she's too loathe to let go of Tarquin's body. The expression on her pallid and drawn face is of extreme shock, actually, a deep furrow between her brows.

"What Towers? I don't..." Threnn stops, waiting. She doesn't want the dream to shatter around them both, afraid that saying too much will jar the other woman out of sleep.

Ceil looks around the office, then down at Tarquin's body, her voice hesitant. "The Bone Towers. That's where it always ends up."

"You've... seen this before?"

"That's how it goes," the night elf replies, still surprised, though factual as she continues. "That's how 'tis. They die, and they're taken from me to the Bone Towers, and..." Here Ceil stops, staring at Threnn. Even in her dream, she doesn't make eye contact. "Are you val'kyr? A battle angel to take him some place else, this time?"

Threnn shakes her head. "No, I'm not." She makes her voice as gentle as possible. "Just plain old Threnn."

"Threnn?" Ceil stares for a moment longer, like she's trying very hard to remember something, then her shoulders slump and she looks down to Tarquin's cooling body. "I thought you died with the rest. 'Tis usually how it goes."

"Nope, still here, or so it seems." She smooths a lock of Tarquin's hair with her free hand, trying to hold it together herself.

Ceil watches Threnn smooth Tarquin's hair and some how manages to relax her grip on his leathers so her fingers aren't so white knuckled. "He was trying to protect me. They came through the front...we couldn't hold the doors. I couldn't hold the doors." She swallows tightly, holding back a sob. "He and Loche. Both of them. Just trying to..."

"Hell. Bloody, godsdamned hell. I'm... I'm sorry."

Ceil leans over the table, resting her forehead on Tarquin's shoulder, moss-green hair stark against the blood over his rent leathers. Her voice, when it comes, is oddly calm and painful in it's surety. "And soon, it will happen again. Everything will shift. Everything will change. And then they'll both die again, and so will the rest of you, and there's not...not a fucking thing...I can do..." She beats her fist, suddenly, on the edge of the desk. "It's never enough!"

"I'm... hell. I don't know how to..." Threnn steps around the desk, boldly this time, and puts her arms around Ceil, or tries to.

The night elf is too thin, and trembling just slightly, her face raw as she looks at Threnn, single eye wide and alarmed. "'Tisn't right. This isn't how it goes, you...don't you understand? 'Tis what happens, because 'tis what I deserve." Despite her words, she doesn't pull away from Threnn's embrace.

Threnn blinks at her. "What you des... No, it bloody isn't. This hell, over and over? No one deserves that."

Ceil doesn't say anything at first, looking over at Tarquin's body. Finally she replies, slowly, "I try to save him. And Loche. And my falore. And my Riders. But 'tisn't ever enough. It won't ever be enough." She looks back to Threnn, her face lasped not into despair but some kind of freakish peace. "You're out of place here, like this. 'Tisn't how it goes."

Threnn hesitates. She's dancing a fine line here. "Is a respite so terrible, then?"

Ceil looks at Tarquin's body. His cheeks are nearly white now. "His only respite's death, when I'm about. 'Tis our only recourse." The words are spoken with hollow pain, old pain.

Threnn frowns. "Says who?"

Ceil blinks, unused to being questioned on this. "I have to watch him die. 'Tis how it goes." There's that furrow in her brows again, looking at her husband.

She can't help the fierceness that creeps into her voice. "Who set this punishment for you? Him? You?"

The furrow deepens. Threnn's questions are interferring with irrefutable dream logic, and Ceil is still trembling, staring harder at Tarquin's corpse. "'Tis just what..." She closes her eye, weird peace disappearing, her voice a whisper of reality in this nightmare. "He's going to die. He's going to get old and he's going to die, Threnn, and he'll be gone."

That softens her. She chews her lip a moment before letting out a long sigh. "He will. But you have years before that happens, yeah? That's the time that matters. Can't live every day dreading the one that takes him from you."

She doesn't seem to know how to absorb these words, her eye closing. She replies, hesitantly, "What would you do? If you lost Bricu?"

It's better that Ceil's eye is closed; pain twists Threnn's face as she answers. "I don't know. Suppose I ought to have a plan in place, but I think about it, and I can't imagine the days without him. I don't want to imagine them. But he'd want me to keep living."

With Threnn's answer, Ceil frowns and slips her hand over Tarquin's cold cheek, her palm against his scuffy beard. "Do you think he could do the same if you died...?"

"No. And I don't think I could promise to do it myself."

She doesn't reply at first, too caught up in the horror of what her hand is touching. Finally, she takes in a slow breath between dry lips. "He..." But whatever the young kal'dorei woman was about to say is drowned out by the distant sound of a horn, echoing deeply.

Threnn looks up at the sound of the horn, frowning. "The hell?"

Ceil looks up with an expression of terror that lasts only a moment. As the horn echoes again, her face changes to blank acceptance, though she doesn't remove her hand from Tarquin's cheek. "They're coming."

"Who are 'they'?" Threnn's takes her arm from around Ceil's shoulder and lets her hand hover over her sword hilt. She hadn't been wearing one when she came in, but now it peeks over her shoulders like it has always been there.

Ceil's reply is a whisper in emptyness, because as soon as Threnn's touch is gone, so is she. So, in fact, is the basement office, the young rogue's dead body, and Stormwind. "The Scourge...."

For a moment Threnn stands in an odd between place, where there's nothing but the smell of evergreens, mint and fire, but in a bare blink, she's surrounded by huge trees taller than humans have ever dreamed of. The sky is a verdant blue-green, and there's something very much like music on the wind, a whispering chime and the blue-white sparkle of whisps just out of the corner of the eye.

She lets her hand drop back down, taking in her new surroundings. "Ceil? Are you... here?"

Her only reply is another blow of that somehow threatening war-horn in the distance, at least at first. As the forest clearing becomes more solid and real, the smell of smoke in the air gets more noticable and the thin threads of clouds can be seen overhead.

Threnn takes a few steps in the direction of the horn's sound, looking for its source, and the source of the smoke's scent.

As she looks up, especially towards the sound of the horn, she can notice something towering above the forest - another tree, a huge tree, unbroken and grand, reaching so far into the sky that it's canopy is nearly out of eyesight. This is Nordrassil.

She doesn't even try to conceal her gasp of awe. Her neck cranes, following the Tree's great branches up and up and up.

The next blow of the war-horn almost drowns out the very soft voice that answers Threnn, finally. The voice is thick with a Darnassian accent and stilted in it's Common, coming from above the paladin. "Do not go that way."

"Pardons. I'm a bit... lost."

There's an elf girl sitting on one of the low branches. She's barely a teenager, still chubby with baby-fat in a way few kal'dorei really ever show. Her hair is a mess, moss-green and filled with leaves and twigs, hanging past her shoulders. Both her silver eyes are wide and the markings about them look either like leaves, or tears. It's difficult to tell, really, especially with the look of fright over her rounded face. "Everyone is running, but not in that way."

Threnn smiles carefully. "If there's danger, shouldn't you be running, too, then?"

The young face tries to make a stubborn look through her fear - she wears a kilt and blouse fashioned of leather and grasses, but it's torn and smudged with soot. "Anar and Osa did not run. I need to find them."

"Surely you're not going to go in on your own?"

The elf-girl clutches her branch tighly with dirty fingernails. "Tsoshen left me. I have to go find them, or there will not be anyone left."

She winces. The girl looked familiar enough, but with this name, she's near-certain. "Ceil?"

The elf girl cocks her head to the side slightly, then slips out of the tree. She does not move with kal'dorei grace; it looks like she fell out of the tree and managed to somehow land right. She is just a little shorter than Threnn. "...Anar and Osa and Tsoshen like to call me Ceilly, you can, if you would like." She looks up at the human woman with wide-eyed fear on a solemn face.

"Ceilly, then. I'm Threnn."

"Elune a'dore, erro Threnn." Ceilly clutches her hands together before her chest and bows, legs bending at the knee. "Will you help me find Anar and Osa? They are fighting."

Threnn offers a bow of her own, mililtary and efficient. "Certainly. Show me the way."

Ceilly looks over Threnn hesitantly, then gently takes her hand and starts to lead her towards the now-silent war-horn. At first her hand is just a guiding tug, but soon the young-elf is running through the forest, pulling Threnn along.

She keeps up as best she can, keeping an eye out for danger as they run.

One of the reasons they are running so fast is soon apparent - the young elf is trying to run past the Scourge that are shambling through the forest, zombies and ghouls breaking through the otherwise untouched purity of nature. The girl whimpers when they pass a clearing where the Scourge are not shambling, but are instead very obviously feasting on something that may once have had skin of a purple hue.

"Sweet Light." She whispers blessings on both of them, offering what protection she can.

The elf girl finally has to stop, panting quietly behind some brush, her eyes darting around. They are near the edge of what, at first glance, just seems like another grove of trees. At second glance, however, one can see the trees are shaped oddly, grown into homes, and there's beaten paths wandering between them. However,

this kal'dorei village is burning, and gathered around the edges are more Scourge and humans dressed in the colors of the Cult of the Damned.

Threnn tries her best to keep calm for the girl. "Is this where they are? Your... Anar and Osa?"

"This is home." The young elf-girl replies softly, sucking on her lower lip. Her gaze moves from the burning village to the World-Tree that's barely three miles off. Everything around the tree is burning, up to the banks of the lake under it. "They told us they were going to stay and we had to go to some where safe. They said they

had to stay and that they had to fight for us."

"Do you know where they were going to be?"

Before the girl can reply, the ground shakes and something MASSIVE appears in a shadow, on the other side of Nordrassil. There's a sense of brimstone and horror in the air, and the war-horn sounds again.

Threnn instinctively tries to get in front of the girl. She curses softly at her lack of a shield.

Ceilly drops down behind Threnn, pressing herself to a tree. In the not-too-far distance, Archimonde begins to scale Nordrassil. The elf-girl makes a low groaning sound and motions towards the horror. "Anar and Osa were going to fight for us. Anar and Osa were going to fight for Nordrassil."

"They're up there?" Threnn bites her lip. "Oh, sweet gods."

Ceilly nods, staring as the monster steps foot onto Nordrassil and her home burns. "They had to go..."

She can only stare as he wreaks his destruction. "Gods, Ceil, I'm so sorry."

The elf-girl doesn't reply for a long while, the only sounds are the crackling of the fire and the groaning of the Scourge. When Ceil finally does reply, she's sitting behind Threnn, adult again, though dressed in the same torn clothing as her younger memory.

"Anar and Osa never came back."

"I..." Threnn turns slowly. "I didn't know." She lowers herself down to sit facing Ceil.

"It's common," Ceil replies with a stiff shrug, though her single eye doesn't leave the sight of Archimonde on Nordrassil. Her other eye is closed, the lid slightly concave. "Many died here."

"Doesn't make it any easier on you, though."

There isn't much Ceil can say to that, so she simply nods.

Threnn runs her fingers through her hair. "Is this why you were so upset with me? With us?"

It takes her a moment to admit it, but she nods again, slowly. "They did the right thing. They fought for their home. For what our people had spent ten thousand years living for...and they died. And we were alone."

"I don't want that to happen. I'm trying everything in my power to make sure it doesn't."

"I don't think they wanted to die. I don't think they wanted to leave us alone." Ceil runs a hand over her face, looking apologetic for her words. She, however, still can't look away from Nordrassil. "...I miss..." And finally she does look away, only to stare at the burning village.

"If staying in Stormwind made it any safer for me, that's where I'd be. But it's not a luxury I have. It's no safer than anywhere else right now. And I can't..." Threnn doesn't usually let people see her vulnerable. She can't keep it off her face this time. "I can't do this without him."

Ceil hears something in Threnn's voice that makes her set her eye on the other woman. Despite the horror of the dreamed memory, Ceil somehow musters up a smile and lightly, carefully, touches Threnn on the shoulder. "...you're doing the right thing."

"I wish I could feel so confident of that."

"Then...feel confident in US." Ceil touches her breast - there's a tabard there now, where there wasn't before. Crimson flames licking over a black field.

"I do." Her smile is tentative but genuine. "'s what gets me through."

"You have to." Ceil furrows her brows and looks at Threnn, something tickling her beyond the oddity of dreams. Something urgent. "Get through. You need to."

"I know. Listen," This is it. Now. She places her hand over Ceil's. "He's going to let you remember this. I need you to do something for me."

Ceil stares intently at Threnn - in the background, there's a final blow of the war-horn. It echos time after time through Hyjal. The end is so very near.

Threnn glances in the direction of the horn. "Please. I need you to tell Bricu something for me."

Ceil doesn't look. She knows the scene too well - she knows that right now the whisps, ancient spirits of kal'dorei long gone, are rising from the forests of Hyjal, at Malfurion's urging. "Anything."

"Tell him that I"m safe. That I'm all right. And that he's promised to let me go. I don't know when, but he gave his word, whatever it's worth."

Ceil turns her hand, tightening it around Threnn's, with a nod. "You're safe. You're well. He'll let you go. His word."

Threnn looks suddenly frightened, intent, and more than a bit haunted. "Tell him to stay away from Indarra. For me. To leave her alone, not to push her to become Grizelle. Make sure he hears that. He can't just... he can't just say he will."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Ceil manages a wry expression. "Tell the northman not to do something. Then make sure he doesn't."

Threnn grins a little, too. "I know."

"I can. I will."

Some of the tension goes out of her. The worry-line creasing her brow lessens just a bit. "Good. Thank you. And..." She whispers the last. "Tell him I love him. He knows it, but tell him anyway, yeah?"

Ceil squeezes Threnn's hand, the wry expression melting from her face into a look of understanding. In the distance, there's a whirling gleam of spirits swirling around Archimonde with inevitable velocity.

Threnn squeezes Ceil's hand back, watching the spirits with a mix of dread and pity on her face.

Ceil doesn't look - the music in the wind, the music of the spirits, seems to pick up. "We can't change the past. Only make sure the future is better," she murmurs.

"We'll do our damnedest."

Ceil doesn't reply, because she finally has looked at Nordrassil, past the flames of her home. Archimonde roars, he screams, but there's no sound, and as the whisps explode, the color and reality drain from the dream.

[Ceil]

((<3s to Bricu for excellent RPs.))

Ceil has already checked Cantrips and Crows for the man she'd rather not converse with - it would be the ground she'd prefer, especially if she could have a nice tall glass of bourbon to make the conversation go down smoother. He, of course, is not there. She isn't really surprised that he's less than helpful even in his location. So instead of sitting in a shady bar with some booze at hand, she stands outside of the room at Valiance Keep, dreading going inside so much that her fist's been poised to knock for the last few minutes.

Bricu is blissfully unaware--as blissful as one can be tending his sleeping wife. He is singing--not particularly well or bad--only the keen eared could really hear it.

Ceil is too caught up in her own turmoil to hear the singing at first, but finally the strains of Bricu's voice make it through to long ears that twitch in recognition.

It's the Minstrel Boy Song. The most common of Northern war songs.

Ceil closes her eye, something inside twisting hard enough to bring her to send her fist crashing into the door. It's less of a knock and more of a pounding and not exactly what she was originally going for.

The singing stops. A few moments later, the door opens a bit. Bricu, dressed in a scowl and his civvies, sees Ceil on the other side. He drops the scowl to more blank expression. "Oi."

Ceil gets her hand back down to her side and has her eye open by the time Bricu gets to the door. She's in what she almost always wears in the North - strapped and buckled leathers, high boots, a blade on each hip and the unannounced feeling of more where they can't be seen. Her expression is likewise neutral, but her melodiously accented voice sounds far more stilted than usual. There is still the very last greening of a bruise around her lips.

"Hail."

Bricu opens the door wider, enough so that Ceil can see some of the room. It's sparse. The converted room has a hearth, a bed, a new desk but not much else. "Yeh comin' in or yeh stayin' at the door?"

Ceil gazes past Bricu, dull-silver gaze on the bed for a long moment. Finally she shakes herself out of it and darts her eye to Bricu with a nod. "I should come in. I've something to tell you. A message to relay, that is."

Bricu nodded in reply. He opened the door wider so she can enter without getting to close to him. Ceil slips inside the room sure as a shadow and keeps her back to the wall. Once inside, her eye strays again to Threnn in the bed, more than just sadness in her gaze - there's a knot between her brows and an odd twist to her lips. Bricu shuts the door gently. With his back to her, Ceil can see he has his old service dagger in the waist band of his pants. He turns to her.

"I sent most o'our stuff ta Dalaran. I'm thinkin' o'movin' Threnny as soon as I can. The cultists have been more active as o'late, an' they've got a wee grudge against me."

Ceil doesn't take her eye from Threnn, though she does nod slowly in understanding and even agreement. Her voice continues to dance on a line between awkwardly stilted and cool. "Aye, it makes sense. I think the more of us are beginning to set up shop there, at that. At least, from what I've heard."

"S'where we had our meetin' 'bout Threnny. Shai was there. Aely an' Tarq too. I'm thinkin' the place is...well safer than Shattrath. Not as dirty. They've got the underbelly for that... " Bricu sighed, the continued, "Lass, I can ramble an' apologize all day. That ain't why yer here."

"No, 'tisn't," Ceil grumbles, finally shooting a glance at Bricu. The grumble fades quickly. "And you're not apologizing. 'Tisn't what I came for, anyway. I came about Threnn. 'Tis the best reason to come, isn't it?" Despite the grumble having faded, there's still a pinch of bitterness to the bladewoman's words and voice.

"I was 'bout t'apologize but It looks--oi, wait, Threnny? what 'bout her?"

Ceil is silent at first, the knot back between her brows as she tries to think of how to say this. She's been trying to think of how to say this since she's been looking for Bricu, and it hasn't ever sounded right. "I dreamt..."

Bricu says nothing. He remains cool, composed and difficult to read.

She crosses the room to the bed and leans against it, looking down at the sleeping Threnn. "I dreamt of her. I always dream of..." She shakes her head and bursts out suddenly in an explosion of words, blunt and bare. "I dreamt of Threnn coming to me. She had a message for you. A thing she wanted to tell me. There was more, but I don't remember it, not clearly, and that isn't how my dreams are. I always remember them. But this bit of it, the bit for you, I remember." The young kal'dorei looks up from Threnn, looking as much in Bricu's face as she looks in anyone's face that isn't Tarquin's. "She's well. She's in the Dream, but Earthsprung's promised to let her free. And she wants you to keep clear of Indarra."

"She's...she told yeh this, in a dream? Only bit yeh can remember?"

Ceil looks intently at Bricu, all the awkwardness and bitterness gone - replaced by her fierce explosion of words. She nods. "She said 'twasn't good to push Indarra, not to become..." there's a moment of hesitance, not recognizing the name. "Grizelle. She said it wouldn't end well."

Bricu nods. "She's...she's well?"

Ceil softens, the urgency lessening. "She's well. 'Tis the Dream, Bricu, not the Nightmare. Do you know of the difference?"

"The Nightmare came shortly after Ysera took her nap. Its been 'round for a while in human reckonin', but not as long as yer elder's idea o'a long time. nightmare pushes out corrupted spirits an' shades. An' some tosser in Darnassus said I'm connected to it. I also broke his teeth a few years ago, so he's full o'shite."

Ceil gives a slow nod, glancing over at Threnn. "The Emerald Dream's the lay of sleepers and walkers - 'tisn't a safe place, but 'tis warded and held protected. The greenflight, and our..." She has to pause to correct herself. "And the druids. Tisn't the Nightmare by far. It's a better place, a place every living thing touches."

"But yer sayin' ta me she told yeh she's alright then?"

She looks back to Bricu with a simple expression on her face, nearly gentle. "And that she loves you."

"Strewth." Bricu draws his hand over his face, dragging it across his beard. he then rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Och, Threnny," he says with a whimper. Then he begins to weep.

Not cry, Not sob. Weep.

Ceil stares at Bricu, struggling with the fury still raging deep within her and the overwhelming knowledge that the man weeping in front of her is one of the truest men she knows. The struggle doesn't last long and she goes to him, open armed and making soft sounds that are a mix of a cat's purr and an attempt of comfort.

For a few moments, he weeps as he hold Ceil for support. The weeps turn to very-un-northern blubbering, "I'm sorry, boss, I'm sorry...I'm sorry."

Ceil keeps her arms around Bricu fearlessly, immune to the awkwardness this would have inspired a week ago. She closes her eye at his apologizing, calloused hand rubbing small circles over his back, wordless for the time being. After a few seconds pass, Bricu pulls himself together and pulls away--gently,as if the embrace is over--from Ceil.

"I've...I'm sorry for the display an'the words boss. I've not been sleepin' since she's.... been sleepin'."

Ceil lets her hands fall to her sides and takes a step back, watching Bricu. "I can imagine. Don't apologize for being human. 'Tis what you should be, what she needs. She doesn't need you killing yourself with weariness, though."

"Fedwyn steals dreams. He got the book from Annie's dreams. If he knew me plans...then Threnny wouldnt' be alright."

Ceil looks like she's considering something, then she sighs and lets her eye move away from Bricu. "Dreamless sleep potions. They're terrible for you, but potions are better than sleeplessness. 'Tis working for...for other people with the same worry."

"Aye.... Och, aye," Bricu doesn't make eye-contact.

"There was more to the message - mostly on the subject of Indarra. 'Twas something Threnn seemed truly set on." Ceil looks back to Bricu, intent again, but not fierce. "She really bloody wants you to keep away from the priestess."

"I am. I gave..." Bricu clears his throat. "I gave me ace to Tarq. Got nothin' ta do with the harpy anymore."

Ceil doesn't look incredibly thrilled with this, but she nods with understanding. "'Tis good then. You wouldn't want Threnn angry with you, when she wakes, aye?"

"I'm thinkin' the anger comes later, if at all."

"Why would it?"

"Depends on what happens is all. If bad shite happens--unthinkable things but shite yeh plan for--then she'll be pissed at me. If things go off with only a wee hitch, then she wont' be mad."

"Pissed is better than..." Ceil can't help it, she glances at Threnn. "But she's a way of surprising the lot of us. I'd not put coin on anything but her wakening."

"Och, she'll wake up. That part's true 'nough. There's gonna be a cost though."

"Earthsprung's still beating heart?"

Bricu sighs, "Boss, there's salt rings around her now. Some sorta northern charm again'st evil an' shite. But what happens when we spring the trap? What if this bloke has his wee eyeless spider 'round? What if Grizelle makes her apperance? Grizelle bein' the real Indarra...shite. Too many variables."

Ceil assumes a calm, almost neutral expression, inclining her head at the truth of the possibilities. "We bring more variables." She pauses. "Ones in our favor."

"Which one is that?"

She touches each blade on her hip, then, finally, the flames licking her black-and-red tabard. "Fedwyn Earthsprung's nothing to what we've fought before, and he's nothing to what we'll fight going on. He's a ghost, and we're greater than ghosts, aren't we?"

Bricu looks up at Ceil. "Boss. We've got two mottos: 'While I live, hope.' The other is just as fittin': 'They have it comin'.' Fedwyn's got whatever we Riders can do." Bricu shook his head slightly. "Its Indarra that worries me."

"Indi? She's...a trifle mad, to be sure," there's a pause as Ceil understates the very obvious. "But she wants Earthsprung taken care of as much as we do."

"Yeh know 'bout who she was, right boss?"

"Vaguely. Not every detail. I know she did things the Temple didn't quite like." Again, understating the matter, and she seems to realize it.

"Boss...she was born before the first war waged by yer folk. Her name is Grizelle Indarra. She's was Fedwynn's weapon o'choice for political assisination. She was a master o'shadow weavin'. She also had more jewels than yer average princess--which, I'm thinkin' made her a workin' girl or a holy whore," he says without disrespect, "She killed sixteen sentinels 'fore she got held. Turns out she killed an' tortured even more. Not for the greater good, a cause or money--but 'cause fer Fedwynn. When she realizes who she is...I'm not so sure she's not gonna wanna be her again."

"Tarq and I spoke with her, not so long ago." Ceil shakes her head - the dissertation on Indarra's crimes doesn't really seem to phase her. "She spoke one knowing who she was, and not being sure about it. I told her what I'll tell you: if you don't like who you are, be some one else."

"When she is sure, if she gets sure, an' she likes Grizelle, we're fucked. IF she isn't...we've got a chance. That's why Threnny wants me ta stay away..."

"We're not fucked. There's no single woman who can undo US." Ceil frowns at the assumption, shaking her head. "An assassin, even. Fucking hells, Bricu, who ARE we, after all?"

"We're the Wildfire riders--who the hell do they think they are?"

"Fucking aye." She smiles softly, though there's still weariness to her eye. "Remember it, won't you?"

[Yva]

Fedwyn left the paladin in her Stormwind-scape, leaping into a room he'd fashioned from memory. The furnishings were fine, the incense was a heavy, rich spice. The curtains in the windows were crimson velvet that billowed as breeze trickled through.

He left his cat skin and looked at the bed.

She appeared like she was carved from ivory. Her hair was longer, nearly to her knees as it had been thousands of years ago. She had her head dipped over a book. When she sensed his presence, she smiled over her shoulder and opened her mouth to speak, but no sound would come. She blinked at him, confused.

This is not Grizelle. This is my memory of her.

He raked his fingers through his hair and settled into a tall back chair, staring hatefully at the pseudo-woman lounging before him.

A year ago, his memories of her had begun to fade. He’d always kept her image here for personal amusement, but then he forgot her voice and he couldn’t recreate it with dream thread. The loss had done something to him. The need to find her, to hear her speak again, had been overwhelming. He searched thousands of dreams in hopes of a glimmer of his woman, and then he’d found Kaidos. The face in the hunter’s dreams was Grizelle but the presence, the person was not, and that alone made him sure that he’d found his lost priestess. She’d been changed after all, reworked in the shape of the temple’s own whim.

Which meant, of course, that when she spoke she didn’t sound at all like the woman he remembered and loved. She was totally different. The huskiness of her words, the little musical lilt – they were gone. He hated her for that, for not being who she’d been. He hated her for not living up to his memories, and so he’d set out to destroy this construct and bring Grizelle back. A year’s worth of efforts, and now . . .

He still had nothing to show for it; just this mute of a memory and a small army of angry humans nipping at his heels.

Time was running short. He’d found what he could do within the confines of his prison, and thanks to Threnn, he'd found a way to break into the real world. He owed her much and yet he had to keep her here, which was a torture unto itself. He told himself the ends justified the means - after all, she wouldn't die here, just linger while he studied his form - but it was still unethical. Perhaps he was getting old. His conscience never bothered him before, yet now, seeing her bumble about like a blind kitten, he felt weighted by the choices that had brought him to this point.

It likely didn't help matters that his faith in Indarra's return was dwindling to nothing.

All of this for someone who can't even appreciate it. Wasn't that always the way with her?

He waved his wrist and the fake Grizelle flitted away in a blast of feathers. He watched them fall to the floor with a heavy heart.

It was odd, then, that when the feathers disappated the book remained.

He hefted himself out of the chair to examine the tome. The green binding was etched with golden letters, and he glanced around, suddenly suspicious of the thing in his dreamscape he didn't manufacture. Where had it come from? Why hadn't it gone when she had? What purpose did it serve?

Dor Dieb lo Mandalas.

He cracked it open, and he began to read.

[Threnn]

The Pig and Whistle drew her, again and again, though the tattered banner from Ceil's dream didn't reappear. Most times, it was simply the Pig, the polished wooden floors gleaming in the late afternoon sun, or by the light of its lamps in the evening. The shelves behind the bar were like the breads on Thomas Miller's cart - their shapes and sizes and labels ever-shifting, though they solidified if Threnn selected one.

She came here mostly in what she judged to be the evenings, after spending her days exploring the Dream. It was hard getting a fix on what might be happening in the waking world; she suspected it took a long time to get things within to dream to reflect changes. Instead, she settled for peeking into the dreams of strangers, trying to get a glimpse of goings-on, trying to find common themes she could piece together into a bit of truth, but the images were too random, too jumbled.

She might have been in here days or weeks or months; she didn't know. She hoped it wasn't years.

No matter how far she traveled by day, though, Stormwind was where she came at night. Oftentimes, the silver tabby trotted along at her heels. She'd build a fire if one wasn't already lit, then conjure a dish of cream for the cat and a plate of something simple for herself. Her imagined meals tended to mimic the bar's menu; her attempts to replicate Bricu's dishes hurt her heart. Plus, she'd discovered she was just as bad at thinking food into existence here as she was at cooking for herself at home.

The books on the shelves were interesting distractions. Most of them, she'd realized, didn't truly exist in the waking world. After dinner, she'd select one and curl up in an armchair of her own creation --I'll have to try convincing Reese to order one for real-- and the cat would hop into her lap as she read. The only problem about these books-that-never-were was, if she let her attention drift, the story had a habit of changing completely, skipping chapters, renaming characters, reordering events. Sometimes the book itself would shift in her hand, changing size and shape and becoming some new imagining altogether. They seemed to like becoming L'ree Lovelace novels the best.

Twice, she was able to touch the dreams of Riders while sitting in the Pig.

The first time, there was a sudden thump from downstairs. Threnn set her book aside and called her sword to hand as she went to investigate. The cat, jostled from his nap, stalked ahead of her. He pawed at the office door and yowled, wanting in.

Luckily, this door wasn't set with the hundred complicated locks Tarquin had so painstakingly installed. She pushed it open and peeked inside.

No one. But... someone was there. Dreaming. She could smell leather, almonds and hand-rolled cigarettes, and immediately knew who she'd found. Briefly, she feared finding him the way he'd been in Ceil's dream, but she shoved that thought away. The cat hopped up onto the desk and sniffed around, puzzled.

Threnn stepped forward, trying to find that place where the Dream would touch Tarquin's dream, looking for that tell-tale waver.

But it wasn't so much a waver as a sudden yaw, and she threw her hands out in front of herself as she stumbled. It was as though she was looking over his shoulder, at a woman on a bed, curled under several layers of blankets.

Oh gods, is that me?

Her hands slammed into the desk as she caught herself, and Tarquin's dream was gone. Yet, sitting atop a pile of mail, being eagerly and thoroughly inspected by the tabby, was a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned black hat. Threnn picked it up, turning it over in her hands. No question, it was the boss'. Here, though, holding it, it felt...

It felt like it was meant for her. She brushed her hair back and tried it on. "What do you think, kitty? Is it me?"

Bored now, the cat hopped off the desk and meandered back upstairs.

The second dream was Anna's.

Again the noise from downstairs, but this time the shudder came as she opened the office door. Her sister was a blurry figure sitting at the desk, face buried in her hands as shoulders shook with sobs.

Threnn came around the desk to stand behind her. Putting her arms around Anna was like trying to hold moonlight; something was keeping her from seeing the dream completely. It was close to the feeling she'd had when trying to look in on Bricu's dreams, like there was a barrier she couldn't cross.

She didn't need to. Anna seemed to feel her touch. She looked up, eyes red from crying. "He's gone, Threnny," she said. One pale hand pointed at a letter open on the desk -- the only letter on the desk. The words were an indecipherable jumble, shifting and reforming whenever her eyes tried to make sense of them, but the signature stayed the same: Fingold.

"He left," said Anna, staring at the page. "Walked away. Just like I knew he would." Her face crumpled; she turned in the chair and cried in her big sister's arms, growing just solid enough for Threnn to stroke her hair.

They sat like that until Annalea faded away, like smoke.