Wretched

[Nymare]

The moon hung full and heavy over the horizon, its light reflecting in countless glimmers across the black waters off of Silverpine's quiet coast. A gentle breeze slipped from the waves and around the stone pillar that towered ominously over the obscure cove where Nymare sat next to a lit brazier reading over one of the texts Qabian had given her earlier in the night. The salty breeze swirled through her hair and then died away. Not looking up from the text, the Blood Elf dropped her hand to the stock of the crossbow loaded on the ground next to her as she sensed the Kal'Dorei approach.

"Well..." Illisade announced in Thalassian, casting a long shadow across the ground toward her as he slipped his mask off to reveal hair and skin she found as ghastly as the moon itself, lacking the colors of nature and twilight so characteristic of his brethren. "I see you like to play games."

Nymare chuckled menacingly to herself and then glanced skyward, trying to judge just how long it might have taken him to find his way here with the little scavenger hunt she had sent him on. Long enough to warrant commentary from him, which was almost long enough, but it seemed that he had managed to avoid being attacked or attacking anything on the way. Pity. A simple game of misdirection. She wanted to make sure he had little idea of where he was going or coming from and that he really did have something he thought she should see.

"Had to make you work for it." With that, she put the text away and stood. Moonlight surrounded the Kal'Dorei's looming form in an almost phantasmal silvery corona, leaving the rest of him obscured by shadow and making the act of aiming for vital organs more difficult than it needed to be. She frowned.

"Hmmm, I see that," the taller elf remarked flatly and then moved onto the reason she had bothered to meet with him at all. "I received a very interesting letter." Meet with. Not kill. Her frown deepened at herself, paying little to no attention to his words or the letter he pulled out of some hidden pocket in his armor. She observed him quietly by the moonlight, memorizing his mannerisms, how he chose to move, how he did or did not guard himself, observing potential openings. Yet.

"Yes, you seem to think so," Nymare spoke up and then hushed herself again as another figure approached, one that quickly revealed itself to be an orc that seemed oblivious to the fact that it was walking across a private meeting. She continued on distractedly, her voice low, "Interesting enough to come all the way out here."

"Yes, I did," the Kal'Dorei reaffirmed simply, choosing not to remark on the female Sin'Dorei's painfully brilliant grasp of the obvious.

"Orc," Nymare addressed the trespasser. "If I were you, I would leave this place"

"I think I'm Ok." Illisade grinned, but his response provoked a quick glare from her, fel eyes flashing brightly in warning at him as if to imply he was in no way Ok.

"Not you," Nymare clarified with a bristle of irritation and then pointed to the orc woman that had stumbled over them. "Her."

But the orc remained studying the stone, entirely oblivious. Nymare's head tilted to the side, her eyes squinting through the darkness at what appeared to be a sign pinned to the woman's back. She could barely make out the words.

"'Kick me, I'm deaf. And stupid' What the...?" Something seemed vaguely familiar -no wrong- about the orc, something she could not quite place before her vision was suddenly obscured by a parchment being presented to her. Slowly, Nymare pulled her attention from the orc woman and tugged the letter from Illisade's grip to read a safer distance away from him.

__________


Illisade,
Yes I believe that is your name, I noticed you have made a new friend.
A beauty of a huntress she is....
However she has a destiny to fulfill.
I do not like you or anyone getting in the way of that. I suggest you walk away before you get hurt. She brings sorrow and death with her where ever she goes. You should ask her what happened to Jedadia, Maybe then you will understand what she awoke.
Until next time.
__________


She remained quiet for a few moments, the lapping of waves against the shore filling the silence as she read and re-read the words, the glow behind her eyes simmering over the handwriting.

"Who sent this to you?" she finally asked.

"I don't know."

With a look of unamused disbelief, Nymare repeated, "You don't know? So... you could just have made this up."

At that, the Orc walked off, humming very out of key.

"Would I come all the way out here to bullshit you?" the rogue asked, the golden burn of his eyes mirroring Nymare's disbelief through the shadow cast over his face almost to the point of offense.

"Yes?" What did she really know of Kal'Dorei? She knew enough of men, rogues, and obsession, however, to not put anything past them or him. She had no information for him, nothing he wanted that she was aware of, and he did admit to admiring her race. If he was not sinking daggers in her back like he should be, this could easily be just a reason to see her and hope against hope that she was as weak as some former Grim. He seemed to catch onto the unspoken implications.

"Putting my life at risk??"

Tucking the letter away, she gave him a sardonic smile. "I'm sure I'm worth it"

"Are you, now?" She feigned a look of hurt in response to his doubt and then angled her crossbow to where she was fairly certain his heart would be located.

"You put your life in danger, regardless," she reminded him coldly, her finger slipping to the trigger.

"Indeed I do," the rogue admitted in response, though he made no attempt to move away from the weapon being aimed at him. "But, I wouldn't lie." For all THAT means to me, Nymare thought sourly.

"In any case, I have no idea who 'Jedadia' is," Nymare frowned. If not for the name, she would have sworn that, for some reason, Sabachthan had sent this Kal'Dorei a letter, though why he would feel the need to do such a thing was beyond her understanding. "So, clearly, you must know some other 'beauty of a huntress'."

"I do not." Such a simple, plainly-stated answer. So matter-of-fact. Nymare could not help but roll her eyes with a smirk.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," she warned in a sing-song tease.

"I'm not trying to flatter you..."

"Just alert me, then?" She laughed. The last thing she wanted was someone else trying to protect her, let alone a Kal'Dorei.

"Indeed." The confirmation made her groan.

"Of what, exactly? That I bring sorrow and death everywhere I go? I'm sure there are many who'd agree with that without sending letters to you. I'm not even sure how you would or could interfere with that." She could vaguely see the irritation working into his features.

"I believe it to be something more," he began to explain, though she was already shaking her head. "Someone must be paying very close attention to you."

No, someone was paying very close attention to him. He was sent the letter, and she was not even sure the writer was referring to her at all. Close, so close, but--

"Look, I have no idea who Jedadia is, or what I could have awoken which was not already awake. You've got the wrong huntress," Nymare repeated, a sudden breeze off the water capturing her voice and carrying it back and forth between the two as a veil of clouds covered the moon, leaving them both in a strange darkness illumined by her emerald gaze and the dim crackle of dying embers in the brazier off to the side, obscuring him even further from her sight.

"Fine."

When the clouds parted and silver washed back through the cove, he had vanished, but the chill that ran down her spine told her that she was still very far from alone.

[Tillna]

((When we get to the take out part?

[Nymare]

((soooon! I just need to write it up))

[Sabachthan]

[[ I can definitely understand your suspicions. Wow. Except that somebody out there is awesome and I'm not gonna interfere, I'd name your ex-taint Jedadia and bam! ]]

[Nymare]

The shadows seemed to darken deeply as a sinister laughter echoed around her. Nymare paused, lifting her crossbow, though not certain in exactly which direction to aim.

"Illisade..." She spoke his name in warning, but also with the faintest expectation that she might receive an explanation that she knew would likely not come. This was not him. The laughter was that of a woman. From the silvery light of the shore came an answer to unspoken questions in the form of a dreadsteed burning against the dark horizon and charging toward her. Bolts whistled from the crossbow but did nothing to stop the fel stallion or its rider, who leapt from the beast's back and was instantly on the elf with a growl. Knocked back by the rush of the woman, teeth ripping into the flesh of her throat, Nymare did something she rarely did as she brought her crossbow around to try to strike at the woman - she screamed. At that, the shadows around her seemed to move to life.

Illisade. Charging forward, he ripped the woman away from Nymare and, with her, the chunk of flesh she had bitten into. The force of being ripped apart knocked Nymare back, flinging the crossbow from her grip. Tripping over the rocky ground, she barely managed to brace against the fall.

"What in Elune's name are you doing!?" Illisade roared at the woman. Human. She smelled human and fel and something else far more horrible. Wrong. Familiar... the orc. "You fucking followed me??"

I should have known. Glaring daggers at the ground, Nymare picked herself up to sitting and turned a deadly gaze on the Kal'Dorei's back.

"You KNOW her?" she spat in a feral tone and pressed a hand to her throat to stop the warm liquid oozing from her wound. She struggled to fight back the sickening daze that was creeping through her thoughts as well. Crossbow... where...?

The woman growled at the Kal'Dorei that was keeping her from her prey with a sword so valiantly pressed to her throat. Blood crept over her lips from the modest amount of flesh still in her mouth, and then she smiled, answering the Kal'Dorei by chewing and swallowing and then reaching her hand out toward Nymare. Purple torrents of shadow shot for the Sin'Dorei.

No defense, nothing to stop it. Her skin burned beneath the layers of leather and mail as she tried to cast an aura of protection and failed. She cursed under her breath at herself and then she felt the beam hit her, the tug. Violet fingery tendrils gripped at her soul and pulled.

A deafening roar shattered through the shadows. The woman froze, her spell breaking under the weight of the shadowcat that tore out of the darkness to her left and struck her. Claws and teeth tore through the simple fabric of the woman's robe and even more delicate skin of her stomach, to which she only laughed while the cat gutted her. Laughing a spell... Blood and gore gleaming from his phantom fangs, Aeacus was sent running from her in a moment of shadowy terror, a fel hound emerging from the Nether to nip at his heels as he dashed away from the warlock.

Illisade watched, stunned, as the woman picked herself back up despite the arrows that had been lodged deep into her body and the various juices that were pouring from the horrible gashes across her abdomen.

"Wh-what..." Illisade stammered in disbelief, "what are you doing here?"

"What I said I would," the woman smiled simply and answered, her attention once more drawn to Nymare. "You are so... delicious... but, I need more of your essence." Something small and violet glimmered in the woman's hand by the moonlight. Even through the haze, Nymare recognized what it was immediately. Her stomach turned. I'm going to be sick... She was still fumbling with bandages, warmth unstopped snaking slowly from her neck and coating her chestpiece. Graceless, she grabbed a wad of netherweave cloth and pressed it to the wound, but her head continued to swim. What's happening? Illisade and the warlock were becoming a nauseating blur to her.

Without another word, Illisade snarled at the threat and lunged forward with a sword drawn, impaling it into the warlock's chest and twisting before yanking it back out again. Aside from a less-than-amused frown, she remained unphased.

"Are you trying to kill me, Elf?" the woman accused as if genuinely surprised.

"Stay away from her, you filthy warlock!"

And then something small tumbled out of one of the wounds in the woman's stomach. Looking down, she picked up the bit of flesh and sniffed it. With a shrug, she popped it back into her mouth and swallowed again, just for it to drop back out to the ground.

"This is... not good. Uhh... anyone have a bag?"

"I swear to Elune I will slay you right now..." Illisade threatened, for all the good it would seem to do him. "I told you not to follow me!"

"You can try," the woman grinned, though still strangely preoccupied with exactly how she was going to keep the little bit of flesh that she was trying to eat... or carry... or whatever. "It won't do you any good. I've been threatened by better."

The blurs churned in her vision, one coming toward her to kneel next to her.

"Are you all right?" It was Illisade's voice. Low, concerned. Nymare snarled and scrambled back from him.

"Get away from me!" she roared. Behind them, the woman was mending, blood and guts magically reversing back into her body.

"She is not with me!" Illisade explained desperately, though his words were starting to blur together in her ears as well. "I did not intend for this to happen!" With a sick groan, Nymare flung her own blood from her fingertips spitefully at the rogue, desperate to be away from him, the warlock, and this horrible feeling working through her body.

"Kal'Dorei scum," she growled wretchedly and curled away from him.

"So tell me, elf," the woman's voice sang up from behind them, "...how does it feel?" Wiping Nymare's blood from his face, Illisade picked himself back up to glare at the warlock.

"I'm going to end you..."

With a smile, the woman pulled a set of horrifying teeth from her mouth and let it drop to the ground. Felhound teeth. Her own teeth sparked maliciously in the moonlight as she spoke again.

"And how has Qabian been?"

The churning downward spin of Nymare's world slowed at the sound of his name, evoking, instead, a cold sweat. She struggled to find her voice again.

"I didn't give you permission to speak!" Illisade barked and brought the hilt of his sword crashing against the woman's skull. Her head broke back with a sickening crack. Nothing. She began counting back from fifty.

"H-how do you know Qabian?" Nymare croaked. Pain. She was becoming vaguely aware of a pain, sharp and gnawing, in her neck. The woman's head snapped back up, a large dent appearing in her skull before evening out again. She tilted her head to try to view the Sin'Dorei around Illisade's form.

"I stole his soul once..." the woman explained whimsically. "About half of it. You... you I have about... a fourth."

"Fucking hell...?" Nymare blinked. In the darkness consuming her, a wave of memories twisted into the chaos. Qabian's voice telling her about what had happened to him, bits and pieces. Moving through Shattrath, frowning at a human woman who grinned at him - Illisade's companion in the Tavern. She searched through the madness of her own thoughts for a name.

"You..." Nymare hissed at last. Barov.

[Nymare]

((WARNING: Blood, gore, and bad words. ONOES))

"What did you do to her?" Illisade demanded, grabbing the woman and slamming her to the ground. More threats. "If you did something irreversible, I will make sure you will never walk this planet again."

"What I did? You'll have to wait...a few more seconds..." Shigana smiled from her place on the ground across from Nymare and continued counting back.

Swallowing hard, Nymare twisted her neck uncomfortably and dug her fingers into the wound, feeling for something. Her fingertips slipped across something hard, something that should not be there. Grunting, she ripped it out and held it up to the moonlight - an almost animalistic pointed fang, unnaturally long and thin. "What...?"

Illisade looked back over his shoulder at hearing the confusion in her voice and blinked at what she had pulled from her neck. "What... in Elune's name is THAT?"

"I borrowed it from Khaatom?" Shigana interrupted her counting to answer and then immediately picked back up again. She watched Nymare anxiously as the countdown was coming to an end. "Tell me... are you hungry, kiddo?"

The sickness was subsiding and being replaced with something far more horrifying. Hunger.

"Three... two... one..."

Silence. And then pain. Nymare doubled over with a groan, clutching at her stomach as fire worked through her veins and ripped through her mind. Mana. Swirling mana. Turning on her. Fel. Hunger.

"Heh... She's gonna want me now," Shigana murmured before Illisade gripped her by her robes and shook her fiercely. Her voice only compounded the need, the world around her suddenly alive with everything she could not have but wanted desperately. Nymare's gaze fixed on the warlock. She could see all too clearly now.

"What the fuck did you do to her?!" Illisade demanded, but Shigana only laughed at him. "ANSWER ME, WARLOCK!"

"Nothing much."

"Ger her away..." Nymare warned. The pull she felt inside of her to go to the woman and feed off of her mana was frightening. She could not remember what it was like - the pain, the hunger, that came with the Sunwell's destruction. She had never been an addict. She had never felt that need, not like this. Her fingers clawed into the ground in a desperate attempt to keep herself in place.

Shigana squeezed the shard in her hand.

The panic within was rising, the inability to stop herself becoming overwhelming. Moving against her will, Nymare stumbled on hand and knee in a slow crawl toward the woman.

"Get her away!" Nymare commanded again, the struggle apparent in her voice.

"Let me up," Shigana addressed the Kal'Dorei and drew a finger along her neck, opening a wound. Blood creeped forward and dribbled over her skin. "Or else... she's gonna kill you." Even in her distress, Nymare still managed to snarl at that, cold and calculating under the moon's silvery glow. She would kill him anyway... just as soon as she was finished with the warlock. But the blood, brimming with fel and clogging her every sense, quickly derailed all other thought.

"Let you up?" Illisade repeated. Gripping Shigana's arms tightly, he hefted the woman into the air and then flipped her in his arms before shoving her back down toward the shallow pool that sat so placidly in the small cove. Taking a massive handful of hair in his fist, he pushed her head under water. She did not do much to struggle, the voice to the bubbles breaking the surface could have been the sound of words or simply more laughter, but the water helped to dilute the fel spilling so slowly from her throat. He wrenched her head back up so she could hear him.

"Stop this. Now!" he snapped at her. Shigana spit water from her lips between gasps for air.

"Fine!" she coughed, "but I have to be near her."

"NO!"

"Then nope." She flailed this time, sending water in all directions as he shoved her head under water once more and held her there.

"I'm going to kill you..." he growled to the submerged woman, keeping her there longer than most others could have lived through before ripping her head back up again. He said nothing, only waiting to see if she had changed her mind.

"Let me see her..." Shigana sang. "I'll fix it!"

"You will not go near her!"

"Under water..." Nymare demanded weakly off to the side, her head slowly clearing as the blood was being washed away. "Put her under water..." Shigana grinned at Nymare and then at Illisade, the goggles she had been wearing, once dim, now starting to glow an ominous red.

"Then no fixy..." Shigana sighed, blowing more water from her lips. And then her goggles sparked, the effect instant: terror. Fear gripping him, Illisade let the woman go and ran.

Shigana quickly covered the distance between her and the huntress, moving with the frenzied skitter of a hungry silithid, and grabbed Nymare's head in her hands. Without another word, she pressed the elf's face to the blood pouring from her neck, smiling, her cruel teeth shining by the light of the moon.

Lost. All control was lost. Her senses were drowning in an oily blackness, screaming for only one thing as blood pressed against her face, past her lips: more. And so she took. Biting, drinking, devouring, tapping at the source of the mana, and there was still not nearly enough to make it all stop. Chunks of flesh getting in the way were ripped off, followed by shaking hands coming to the warlock's throat. Her fingers dug hungrily into the wound that had been created for her and tore.

Shigana's smile faded. Gripping the huntress by the shoulders, she pushed back and released a bolt of pure hatred to free herself. Nymare collapsed back against the stony ground, half-in, half-out of the shallow pool. She watched the Sin'Dorei with a grunt as she closed off the gaping wound at her throat.

"And with that," she announced as Illisade charged back up the shore, "my mission is completed. I'll be going."

"You..."

"Me, yes," Shigana smirked. "Take care of her, she's gonna be going crazy." But off the side, Nymare remained motionless except for the weak flutter of her eyes burning brightly up at a sky only she could see through all the blood lost and blood taken back.

The Kal'Dorei made another leap at the woman, but again where his swords created new and horrible wounds, she only laughed and mended. Slowly, she backed away as the futility of the act became apparent to him.

"I'm not going to die, you bitch," Shigana taunted and then looked to Nymare one last time before activating her stone. "She's gonna want me so hard. Have fun with your crack elf ............ Bastard."

And then she was gone.

[Tillna]

((I feel like a villan. Quick, Draw her being villan like!))

[Kyrion]

((DOOM!!! I LIKE!))

[Nymare]

The once peaceful alcove now reeked of blood and fel. Illisade cursed under his breath and forced his swords back into their sheaths. He knelt next to the fallen Sin'Dorei, unsure of exactly what to do. She seemed dead, except for her eyes. Her breath was so shallow that the shadows barely betrayed the rise and fall of her chest.

"Nymare..."

Her head lulled heavily to the side, brilliant fel searching in an almost drunken stupor through the darkness for the one who had spoken the name. The wound at her throat yawned open wide into the moonlight, releasing fresh blood to mix with that which was already covering so much of her. His own golden gaze went wide in shock.

"By Elune..." he whispered into the humid night air and searched frantically for some bandages to press to her throat. "We have to get you to a cleric--" But he was cut off by the menacing growl of Aeacus emerging from the shadows. The ghostsabre dropped a piece of the felhunter's flesh to the ground and stalked forward with deadly intent, fangs bared, and ghostly tail swishing wildly.

Between them, Nymare smacked her lips together, sticky with drying blood. "...hommmme? mmm..." Aeacus bellowed a roar at the Kal'Dorei who was very boldly reaching out a hand over the cat's mistress as if imploring the beast to wait.

"I need to get her help..." Illisade continued in Thalassian. "You have to trust me to help her."

The cat roared again, more quietly this time. It paced slowly at its mistress' side, keeping a smoldering glare on the foreign elf so close to her as its ghostly form bristled through a snarl. It had already searched. There was no one else. The Ghant. The Mage. The Knight. The Priest. No one. Only this foreign, tree-smelling elf. Tree... and something sinister. Aeacus slowed to a stop and then padded a few slow steps back with what could be considered a nod.

Letting out a relieved breath that he had not realized he was holding, Illisade carefully slid his arms very gently under Nymare and scooped her up. Aeacus kept uncomfortably close to the rogue's heels as he walked with Nymare to where his own saddled Saber waited. He pulled both himself and the huntress up onto its back. The two cats regarded each other with veiled hostility before Illisade spoke up again.

"I'm going to need you to lead the way where she can get help..."

At this, the ghost cat gave another belligerent snarl and then tore across the eerily silent forest.


Getting in had been... tricky. Springing the lock on her door had been even harder while still trying to support her. Giving one more cursory glance over his shoulder, he disappeared into the dark room with Nymare, the scant Forsaken downstairs seemingly oblivious to their tenant and her guest.

Here? Really? Illisade looked her over as he carefully placed her on her bed. What are you doing living in a place like this? The growl that came from beyond the shadows at his side warned him that his welcome was now outlived.

"Thank you for trusting me," he whispered to the darkness. "You are going to need to find her a cleric." Another growl in return. He could almost feel the shadows coalesce around him and bristle malevolently.

"All right... all right..." he reassured the ghostsabre and began to stand. He reached into his vest and pulled out a blood red rose, weaving it's stem through her fingertips where they rested on her stomach. "Be well, Nymare."

She responded with a blood-filled gurgle.

Striding away from the bed, Illisade slipped his mask back on and pulled out a small contraption, throwing it into the other room. After a few seconds, it burst into a fireless explosion, shaking things from the wall to crash to the floor loudly.

The rooms below filled with alarms being shouted in Gutterspeak and the sound of bodies, decomposed as they were, rushing up the stairs. Waiting in the shadows, Illisade watched as a few Forsaken poured through the door to her room and then slid past them, escaping into the night.

[Kyrion]

((Very well written. I couldn't have retold the story better myself))

[Nymare]

(( reserving spot for next post so others can begin to be put in without waiting on my slacker ass to get caught up with weeks of unwritten updates DX ))

[Qabian]

Things had been more than a little strange of late. For Qabian, pain was an annoyance, irritation, distraction. There were times when it could be used, beneficial, but its constant presence at all times was less than appreciated. Healers had made sure he was functional, but could do little to calm nerves that refused to quiet on their own. He'd taken to the thistle, a technique he was not completely unfamiliar with in his younger years. He could control his thoughts within it, see through the fog. He never lost any hours using it, and its connection with the runestones that once held his world together was nothing if not a comfort.

So when the opportunity for sharing distraction arose, raining chaos through Southshore, Menethil, Theramore seemed like filling a simple need.

Nymare seemed to need it, too, the distraction, but she wouldn't say why exactly. He didn't need to know why. He didn't care. It was enough to fight the fight, even if she was laughing somewhat more frequently and occasionally babbling incoherently.

When the breathless destruction paused for a moment on top of North Point Tower and she stepped towards the pile of crates where he stood grinning while he obliterated the quel'dorei soldiers stupid enough to try and guard the place, he expected only the usual commentary from her, a quip, a question, an insistence, or perhaps that she might push him off the tower. None of those things would have surprised him.

When the glow of her eyes went out, leaving them white and soulless, and a voice not her own offered, "Shigana Barov... says... hello..." he tripped backwards off the crates in his desperation for immediate distance.

He flattened his back against the turret wall, brows coming together in confusion and panic. "Excuse me?"

She blinked at him, eyes green again. "Hmm?"

Distance. Distance. Distance! Qabian's mind screamed at him to run, backed into a corner as he was atop the tower.

He knew what Shigana could do. Memories of setting some rogue he could care less about on fire because of words she could speak directly into his mind flashed before his eyes. He'd managed that situation on his own, but the possibility of her using Nymare had never occurred to him before this. If anyone knew too much, it was Nymare. All the possibilities Shigana could manipulate using Nymare stacked terrors into his imagination, the danger to the Grim, more importantly the danger to himself, his weaknesses and strengths that Nymare had managed to decipher over the months. He had never trusted Nymare, but at least he felt he had a fairly reliable idea of what she seemed to want at any given moment. Shigana, though, was something else entirely.

If he turned and ran, she might follow. Hunters were trained trackers. Portals. Innocent portals. Used them so frequently. Wouldn't be suspicious. There was distance, all the distance he would need.

He glared at Nymare.

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Do you want a portal?"

"To where?"

"...I don't care."

"What...? What happened? Why are you...?"

"Yes or no."

"Qabian!"

He frowned at her, waiting for her answer in angry silence. Just get in a portal. Make this all easier. I can get away. Figure out what I need to do about this somewhere else. Choose a damn portal.

"Why won't you tell me what happened?" Her very real confusion was obvious.

He stared at her. All this time she had been hiding from him, not giving him any details. He had hid from her as well, but shared suspicion that there was more to what had driven them out of their usual habits than they were telling had seemed perfectly valid until now. Now the paranoia rushing through his body and mind was making him twitch. "I could ask you the same thing. But I think I might know now."

They danced around each other in words, only making each other more angry and more confused, both refusing to tell the other the truth, and both insisting that the other give up the whole story.

"I don't know what just happened! You do! All I get to do is guess until you feel like saying something more useful than what you have been!" Nymare's voice raised as her throat tightened around the words.

His top lip moved, but he managed to hold back a full on snarl. "You do know what happened. You just won't make the connections for yourself," he hissed, his voice low.

"Why won't I?"

"Good fucking question!"

"But you're still --"

"What. Happened. To. You?" He enunciated each word. He was an equivocator by nature when it came to complexities, subtleties, betrayal. Being direct never seemed to suit these situations, but things were becoming desperate.

"What always happens to me? I was attacked," she offered.

"Do you know who it was?"

"Not at the time."

"But you do now."

"Yes," she snapped.

He pointed his finger at her accusingly. "That's who said hello."

She looked suspicious. "...is it?"

He asked the direct question again. "Who attacked you?"

She frowned and muttered, "Must have been whoever said hello."

He rolled his eyes at her. Back to the games of withholding the truth already?

"Shigana Barov," she said.

"Correct. Now you'll at least have the decency to get in a portal and stay the hell away from me?"

She looked at him a while, her expression unreadable. He waited for the name of a city to cross her lips, but instead she turned and stepped off the tower.

He stayed with his back pinned up against the wall of the turret for several minutes. Fuck. Without the portal, he couldn't have distance with any certainty. He didn't know if Shigana would be able to come back and track him down, break down the magic he'd painstakingly setup and destroy him right there, or just toy with him as long as she wanted, or simply bring the nightmares to life that Nymare would be perfectly capable of revealing.

Eventually, he dropped off the opposite side of the tower, summoned his talbuk, and rode north as quickly as he could whip the beast to go, refusing to allow it to pause or slow while its flanks ran white with sweat.

He sat with Azshara on Bloodmyst while the sun rose, but the Light of Lights had no answers for him this time, and the horizon only seemed to be laughing at his predicament. He ultimately returned to the city, moving continuously yet aimlessly through Eversong as he'd done earlier in the day, what seemed a lifetime past already. The Elrendar was a momentary temptation again, but he wouldn't break his word to himself, not yet, though maybe soon. He paused to curse at the statue of the Huntress of the Sun in the ruins of the old city. If she'd just been taken down by the Scourge with the rest, he wouldn't be caught in this problem without any idea of how to repair it.

He picked up his mail in Falconwing. A package from Nymare. She'd sent him her tabard.

Qabian let out a string of curses the likes of which he hadn't used within his memory. The guards eyed him strangely, but an angry mage wasn't particularly something they had any desire to deal with at this early hour of the morning. He somehow managed to avoid tearing the offending cloth to shreds with his bare hands.

He sat down in the inn and tried to craft his response, reducing a considerable stack of paper to ashes before attaching the note to the tabard and returning it back the way it had come.


I'm not taking this. I'm not responsible for it. If you're going to send it to anyone, send it to your witch. Let her know she's won. That you will just give up and forsake those you pretend matter at the very moment things become difficult.

[Qabian]

Qabian sat with his head in his hands in the inn in Falconwing for what seemed like hours. There was only one way he knew of to fix this situation, something that had worked well enough for him, but he had never had the time to really test its limits, and he could not think of how to apply it outside of the self. The magic was so restrictive and...

He sighed. They had fought with words repeatedly at a distance. He didn't really care if she hated him. It would be annoying at this point, yes, but something he could deal with. Removing the tabard, however, was not acceptable. It made sense. With the way he had reacted, she would not want to endanger others with a possible internal Alliance connection, but that didn't make it acceptable. He couldn't tell her anything, give her any advice, describe what he himself had done to get out from the warlock's stranglehold because of the risk that the witch was still listening and could turn it against him.

When it finally occured to him that the entire basis of what he had done was interference with the Bronze, he rolled his eyes at himself. "Damn it," he muttered.

"I think I have an idea," he sent Nymare. "Come to Tanaris."

"Not scared?"

"If I'm wrong, we're both dead. Or worse."

"All right."

==

Sitting across from each other upstairs in Southshore's inn of the past, their appearances modified by the Bronze into forms that were clearly not natural, Qabian took a deep breath and started his explanation.

"So what I'm hoping is that if she can see through your eyes, she can't do it when we're not in the same timeline, or when we're not ourselves." He made a face, human as it was for the moment. He hated the place almost more than he was capable of expressing. "I don't know what she did exactly, but she was able to... control my actions to a degree at times. I went to Medivh in a way. Combined what I found in his tower with some things I... already knew. I don't think I could teach you how to do it yourself, but I could attempt to do it for you in a sense."

"What is it?" Nymare asked.

"It's a wall of sorts. Like the bubble in Dalaran, except on a far smaller scale and incorporating a sort of disconnection with the timeline. That's part of the reason why I feel I can speak here. It keeps out the voices that shouldn't be there. Had a similar problem with Ninorra, so I needed a solution. This seems to have worked for me at least."

"And if you fail?"

"Succeeding might be more of a concern. I don't know how much if any access it will give me instead. If I fail, you find another way. Or we both lose our minds."

"All right."

He blinked at her.

She grinned. "Surprised?"

He swallowed almost nervously. "Yes, surprised."

"Why surprised?"

"You'd rather I could see your thoughts instead of an Alliance witch?"

"You don't want to."

He narrowed his eyes at her a moment. "No. I don't."

"So I'd prefer it."

"Right then. We'll need the tower itself. And once we leave here, I don't intend to explain much more until it's finished."

"Fine."

He stared at her a moment longer. This was not optimal, but it was better than her leaving the Grim entirely. They would have to find something more permanent and less invasive later, but for now... He opened up a portal to Stonard.

==

Inside the tower, empty for the moment of its memories and ghosts, Qabian rushed back and forth about the library, collecting the books he'd used so many months ago. His arms piled high with tomes, he managed to maneuver his way up to the Celestial Watch. With open access to the Nether and the recent defeat of the dragon there, combined with the crystal focus he had used the last time he had made this attempt, everything was where he needed it to be.

He walked up to one of the tables cluttered with paraphernalia and with one sweep of his arm across the top, knocked everything to the ground. He set up the tomes as he needed them, opened to certain pages, others marked with folded corners to easily find the words, sequences, symbols, runes, patterns, gestures, the few artifacts he needed, some books simply being used to hold others in view, available in case something should go wrong, not that he had the luxury of making mistakes.

Nymare came up behind him as he was arranging and studying from the books. She stared down at the fallen statuette of a cat he had pushed from the table. At first he didn't notice her there, and in turning to reach for another book was a little surprised by her presence at his shoulder. He grunted and pointed over at the glowing orb on its own pedestal near a chair. "Sit there."

"...All right." She did as she was told, but then came the unnecessary questions about the details of his work. It was never enough just to believe, just to trust. He explained what he could without offering her several decades of magical training.

"The tower itself holds magic, held magic long before Medivh decided to make it his pet workshop. I doubt the Wretched would be in quite the predicament they are if they could make it to this place, at least not all of them. Of course, they might be even worse off if they could. And I can get easier access here than anywhere else."

"Access to what?"

"The Nether."

"Why?"

"There's strength to it. What I'm doing is... highly unorthodox. Without considerably more clarity than can be found elsewhere, there wouldn't even be a point to trying."

"Think Kael'thas considered this place or went straight to his Lightships?"

Qabian raised an eyebrow. Why bring up the Prince at a time like this? "He wanted more than this even. And he made the mistake of helping a friend."

Nymare shivered, an effect of the thistle, and grinned bitterly where she sat next to the glowing crystal. "May I have thistle or...?"

He nodded. "That shouldn't make a difference."

"I do not know what you need from me."

"I don't need anything. I'm getting enough from you." Just your mind in close proximity to a powerful magic focus, and my own between you and the Nether. The rest is what I bring, he thought to himself, deliberately choosing not to elaborate out loud. "Just stay there," he said, shaking his head. "Let's get this over with."

He took with him a single book and moved to a place directly under the dome and knelt down on the floor at its center, the book in front of him. A handful of precisely selected artifacts hidden on his person, he opened himself to the Nether and the timelines as he had done once before. The words in the book before him were purported to be Nozdormu's own. Qabian himself had no way to prove such a thing, except in the evidence that he had remained free from direct physical control by warlocks since he'd last attempted the procedure. Curses and fear were something else, but curses and fear were not the problem at hand this time or the time before.

Qabian incanted the words from the book, drawing the rune figures in the air before him, fingertips trailing the bright bluish-white of the pure arcane, occasionally sparking something coppery metallic that faded as quickly as it could be seen. The ley power of the geography itself flickered as his words continued, flashing strangely lit scenes almost visible from the corners of his eyes. He didn't dare to look, but he knew what they would show him: history lost, recorded, and as yet to happen. If Nymare could see or sense anything that he was doing at this distance from her, she made no movement or attempt to interrupt.

He reached out to the focus, his own mana draining more quickly than he had expected as he did, but he found it and anchored it. Just one more step, but he needed to pause and draw more mana. The tower provided him with more than enough power to do what he needed, but his own resources were finite. He gritted his teeth, forcing the focus in line with his mind, and braced himself for the evocation.

The risk he took of breaking the incantation paid off. As he reattuned the focus, mana charged, the leap along the ley web he was manipulating between it and Nymare's mind was simple enough. Then without need for further words, through the extension of his own mind and the magnification of the focus, he forced her mind out of the usual sequence of moments and in line with his own.

The runes in the air around him faded. Qabian slammed the book before him closed and got to his feet, heading back towards Nymare. She didn't seem to have even noticed anything. When he had done it himself, he had been treated to a series of flashbacks of his own. He supposed part of what he may have been ignoring around him while he focused on the spell were her flashbacks. He didn't want to see them. He didn't want to know her. He knew enough. He knew where she thought she was weak, where she thought she was invulnerable, which tendencies of hers he could abuse and which kept her dangerous. He didn't need to know the cast of characters from her past and possible futures, who would push her in which directions.

Her voice was there, soft and unintrusive, but there nonetheless, continuously locked into the same space of time that he had dedicated to himself for the past several months. If she could learn to increase her volume, he could find himself in a desperate situation, but he doubted she would attempt that any more than he would try to decipher the murmurs of her mind. He flicked a leaf of thistle out from the pouch at his belt and hooked it under his tongue and let it sit a moment. The mental drone that enhanced the power at his fingers ever so slightly was more than enough to drown out her quiet sounds in his head.

"She may come here, but I'm not going to watch the tower at all hours," he announced curtly without explanation as he approached.

Nymare arched one long brow as she watched him.

"I will tell you that Alphaeus helped me fix what she broke. I doubt she knew that. And if she goes after him in any way, we'll know this failed," he said with a sly smirk.

She laughed. "Not before he fixes my neck, hmm?"

He blinked as the thought he'd been starting was interrupted when what she had said struck him. "The other -- what?"

"She bit me."

He stared at her. "That's when... this started?"

"Yes."

"Is it different?"

She flicked her eyes a moment towards the glowing orb still beside them. "Is what different?"

"Than when we first lost the well."

"Not... no. It was never a problem."

"So it is different."

"Or... I can't remember. This is... horrifying."

He frowned at her.

The subsequent discussion went long into the early hours of the morning, as she explained what had happened, devolving into the nature of felhounds, the use of bloodthistle, pain and secrets, mages and chains, warlocks and souls...

"Why are we here?" she asked, bringing them back to the present.

"I'm done."

"What?"

He grinned. She hadn't been able to act as a witness with the full expanse of the observatory between him and where he had left her by the focus. "We find out if it worked if she does anything with what I said, or if she gives another message." He became more serious as the magnitude of what he had just done began to weigh on him. "This... worked for me, but... I can't be sure without testing... You're not a mage..."

"What am I?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, but if you were I... wouldn't need to be here."

"No? I would know how to do this all myself?"

"You would know where to look."

She reached toward the energy emanating from the crystal globe. "You knew?"

"I knew enough to send me here the first time. And you would know how to cope, or you would already be dead."

"Then obviously I know how to cope."

"You're not a mage," he repeated. "And you will keep your tabard."

She narrowed her eyes at him a moment, then nodded.

"Good. Then I have some letters to write."

[Tillna]

The fragment, a tiny piece of what was left, floated above her finger, spinning as dark energies focused on it. She had given the larger part of the shard to Fynne, leaving her with only enough of a link to maybe tease the huntress. Or lay a suggestion into her dreams.

"I wonder..."

She pulled her hands around the shard, shadows seeping from the room, dousing the lights. It would be a simple test. Tell Nymare, in dreams, to try and seduce the mage, be all thankful for his help and not killing her. A smile crept along her face.

"This most likely won't work...but...heh..I'm bored and feel like interfering."