Coma

[Niethan]

Nissi hummed as she entered the Rest Inn Peace tavern, smiling to a few familiar faces before blinking herself up into the rafters. The high beams of wood were a surprisingly comfortable place to be, and a wonderful canvas for the myraid of memories she had, over time, scorched into the wood. The rafters were the perfect balance of solitude and camraderie.

But today, she found with a gasp, she was not alone.

Huddled on a beam near her was a massive ball of soaking fur, which uncoiled at her presence to reveal a very wet and miserable Sigrun. The moonstalker's fur was plastered to her skin and her green-yellow eyes were as full of despair and worry as a feline face could manage. In her jaws was a large square of torn cloth; red, with a white border. The water dripping from it was tainted pink.

Nissi pressed her lips together until the bloodless flesh paled further. Sigrun was here, but Niethan was nowhere in sight.

[Niethan]

Witness walked beside himself. His skin was moving independently of him, loping through the snowbanks and vaulting ice-cracked rocks. They were steadily moving south, he knew, despite Witness knowing niether of them had ever seen this place before. He would have remembered doing so. Winterspring is hard to forget.

Winterspring. The place where night never fell, where the sun shone white on a white sky and the stars blazed on the moon and snow. Winterspring, the high cold silence of the world.

Witness shivered, rubbing his transparent hands over his equally nonexistant arms. He wasn't cold, but if his flesh wasn't going to worry about frostbite, then Witness would just have to do it for him. He glanced over at himself, nervously looking for signs of his skin breaking off, either from the cold or...

Witness really, really didn't want to think about his body rotting under the Plague, but even he had to admit it was a possibility. He'd gotten a glimpse of the moon on their wild flight from the Moonglade, and though he couldn't for certain tell how long he'd been held in the keep, he would bet his best bow that it hadn't been near dawn when the guards had come for his suddenly lifeless body.

It was a wonderful Hunter trick, slowing the heart and stilling the lungs until even a wolf's nose or a cat's hearing would attest to the presence of a corpse instead of a living body. The trainers had been very clear on its limitations, however; the brain can only be starved of air for four minutes, six tops, before the brain itself began to die.

Witness was quite sure the druids had kept his body for longer than six minutes. From the face of the moon, he guessed it to be closer to six hours. More than enough time for his brain to die a slow death. By the time the druid that was going to bury him had-

(don't think about it don't thinkitdon't)

-his body had to be dead. Troll regeneration went a long way, but Witness was uneasily sure that it couldn't bring you back from the dead. And there had been no Spirit Healer to coax him back to conciousness. Which left a very small handful of options. Witness ran through them again in his head, frustrated and scared beyond measure at trying to understand this impossible situation.

Maybe he hadn't been dead just yet? Unlikely. At the very least, even if his regeneration kept him not-quite-dead in the flesh, the brain was too fragile. The trainers had stressed that point, and Witness saw no reason to doubt them.

The innate life magic of the Moonglade had a hand in it? Almost certainly not. He wasn't a druid, and he'd killed druids besides. He doubted that any force connected to the Cenarion Circle would be very fond of him at this point.

The plague had caught him? Hopefully not. The Moonglade was close to Felwood, so Witness grudgingly admitted that he might have stepped in the wrong puddle. Or something. Witness wasn't entirely sure how the plague was spread. He chanced another look at his animated body. No, no bones showing through. Skin was still blue, not white. Or grey. Or green. Wow, Forsaken do come in an awful lot of colors. He'd seen bluish ones, and greyish ones, and some that were kind of yellowed...

Witness shook himself out of his thoughts. This was no time to be distracted!

Perhaps he was a zombie? This was the one explanation Witness was sure wasn't true. Sure, he was convinced that zombies were, for the most part, mindless- and that certainly fit his body's situation, it would seem- but a zombie wouldn't have grabbed the throwing knives, and a zombie wouldn't have dealt with the frostsabres like Moment had.

Hell, Witness didn't know if he would have been able to deal with the sabres. He padded invisibly over to Moment's other side, remembering.

[Niethan]

Moment was stretched out on a snowy embankment, hiding between a rock and the shadow of a brittle tree. Witness fidgeted nearby, shifting from one foot to the other as his gaze shifted from the still form of his body to the long-eared panther prowling on the drifts below them. The cat-druid sniffed the air, scenting for troll. Witness held his breath- this was it, they were going to find him/them and take them back-

The panther passed on, growling and pacing.

Witness let out his breath in an unheard whoosh, disbelieving. He wasn't sure why, but it seemed there would be no more bloodshed. He knew there was a rather rediculous grin crossing his face at the moment, but he could have cared less. It wasn't like anyone would see it anyway. He heard a slight shifting behind him, and, smiling, he turned to face Moment.

Moment bared his teeth in a silent, breathless snarl, then pounced. The druid, still trying to track humanoids, saw it too late. Moment gripped the stolen throwing knives like a set of claws, their sharp edges more than a match for the slow claws of the panther. Witness turned away, feeling sick. Of course the druid hadn't sensed him. The druid was looking for people, and Moment had forgotten himself. He was filled with the primal haze of a hunter Aspect, but without his own conciousness there to remind him of his name...

Witness swallowed, then forgot his sickness. Standing not two feet away were a pair of massive feral cats, one a shining glacier blue and the other a lion with a mane of powdered snow. Somewhere behind the panic, Witness could hear Vitu telling her stories, one about a pair of great cats that ruled the northern wastes. They were the monarchs of the most firece and lethal beasts in the world.

In short, Niethan-both of him- were screwed. Royally, no less.

And then, just as he was accepting death, fate laughed at him again. Moment, crouched low near the steaming corpse, abruptly put away his knives and prostrated himself, scraping his belly into the snow. He bowed his head as far as the tusks would allow. Witness, feeling silly but unreasonably paranoid that the cats could see him, kneeled as though to a lord and lady.

The male paced past Moment without a second glance, grabbing the body of the druid in his enormous maw and dragging it away. The glacier-queen stared down at Moment, then moved closer, growling- and in the most absurd moment of Witness' life, he watched in openmouthed shock as the Queen bent her head and licked Moment's ear.

Moment, of course, took it in stride and eased himself up making a somewhat-friendly sounding noise in his throat. When the Queen turned and began walking towards a large overhanging rock in the distance, Moment followed. Witness picked his jaw up off the ground and trailed behind.

[Niethan]

The frostsabres escorted Moment and the incorporeal Witness to the edge of their lands. Witness spent much of the walk trying to comprehend what in the world was going on. He tried asking Moment, but the feral troll seemed incapable of noticing him, much less speaking. At least he was walking upright, Witness mused. After a hour's worth of mental debate, Witness finally decided that Sigrun's smell must still be covering his body. Maybe the great cats thought him a foreign dignitary or something.

The thought of himself, feral or not, in any position of diplomatic immunity was an amusing one. Witness allowed himself to be distracted as he entertained the notion. Moment walked on.

Eventually, night fell. The moon rose huge and somber in the sky. Witness followed Moment over the dunes, unceasing. Occasionally Moment would lift his head and scent the air, presumably searching for danger but really, Witness didn't know for sure. The link between the two was irrevocably severed. Witness couldn't feel his body's pain, or his mind's exhaustion, or even predict what he would say or do.

He was walking beside a stranger. Witness shivered and hugged himself for want of touch. Abruptly, Witness felt his chest heave and his throat tighten. He covered his mough with one hand, sobbing and wanting tears and hating that there were none, and might never be. He might be split like this until they died, for all he knew. He might never leave this horrid, waking dream.

He might never have entered it. He might be a ghost, haunting his own shell.

Witness screamed out at the sky, trying to release through noise the terror and lonliness that tears had failed. And clinging to the heartbeat's tail was an answering screech. Witness spun around to face his skin.

Moment had his hands pressed to his skull, eyes squeezed shut against some inner pain. He was making a hissing screeching noise, an awful keening wail. Witness, hesitant, stepped forward and placed one ghostly palm on Moment's shoulder.

The wail gurgled off into hitching breathing. Witness thought that he might have even seen Moment lean his head slightly to the side, seeking the comfort given. Witness didn't dare to breathe. He folded his arms around his self. Moment stood silently, tremors slowing into nothing. When he was composed, Witness stepped back, then resumed his place by Moment's side.

They kept walking. Moment's body was tireless and Witness had no body to tire. The moon crested the zenith and began its fall.

[Niethan]

How there came to be a massive ice bridge in southern Winterspring, Witness was sure he'd never know. He did know that he almost, almost prefered the yetis and chimeras to the disaster at hand.

Moment was currently crouched low with a notched and rusting throwing knife in each hand. Opposite him, staff moved protectively in front was one of the druidic trackers, this one a nightelf. His tauren partner had already been pushed off the bridge when Moment ambushed him, leaping out from behind a chunk of rock and embedding one of his last stolen knives in the druid's large back. Witness hadn't heard the crunching landing, but an ominous rumbling had started up from beneath the snowblind.

The druid feinted, then struck, the staff arcing out and smacking a too-slow Moment in the jaw. He reeled back, snarling. Now angry, Moment abandoned any pretense of civility in combat. He lunged at the elf, catching him off guard and bearing him down to the frost. Moment's tusks embedded themselves into the ice, his teeth snapping close to the viens in the neck but not conecting; the druid had manged to save his own life by shoving his staff up against Moment's collarbone. Moment growled and shifted his weight to lean on the staff. The terrified elf started praying when it cracked.

The druid was still alive when Moment started to eat him. The screaming subsided into gurgling wheezes when Moment chewed through his lungs. When he'd eaten his fill, Moment tossed the remains over the side to the rumbling below.

Witness forced himself to watch in silence while Moment cleaned himself up. He couldn't allow himself to ignore the ragged fall of hair draping Moment's back, however. Roughly haf of Niethan's braid had been ripped or cut over the past few days, and now it was a scarggly unbound mess. Witness took a breath he didn't need, then turned the full force of his attention onto Moment.

Moving slowly, he moved his hand as though to grasp a fallen piece of leather binding from the cracked staff. A breath later, Moment copied his movements, his eyes blank and uninterested. Witness drew his hand back and moved it through where his hair would be, pulling the imaginary strands back and fastening them. Moment moved slower, a physical echo. When Moment had the dark strands more or less secured, he dropped his gaze and let Moment resume his activity. He waited until Moment stood and resumed walking, then reclaimed his place near and behind his skin.

The bridge arced up and away, out of winter and into fall.

[Niethan]

Niethan had once told Sulajin that Azshara was the prettiest pace in the world, despite it crawling with naga and restless spirits. Witness wasn't sure what he had seen in the place. Maybe it was just less impressive by night. All the golds were muted into dusty brass, the reds dried brown and the blues and purples made musty and dark. Still... Witness glanced about, trailing in Moment's wake. He supposed it must have brought some comfort to Niethan. There wasn't a speck of green in sight.

Speaking of Niethan, Witness was beginning to wonder where he was. He wasn't Moment, though the mute feral had Niethan's body, and he was beginning to suspect and dread that he wasn't Witness, either.

In the past, the only time Witness really remembered being -there- was while Niethan was dreaming. He remembered what Niethan did, but he also remembered watching Niethan at the same time. Logicly, you couldn't have two of yourself in the same place, which meant that Witness was at least a little removed from himself, Niethan. But if Witness wasn't Niethan, and Moment wasn't Niethan either, then he was missing.

Witness huffed, irritation clouding his thoughts. This was getting rediculously confusing. He decided he needed to have a few words with Sulajin when he/they got back to Horde territory. Oh, sure, let's dump mana into our not-trained-for-high-magic friend! It'll be fun!

"...na trained f-for high m-magic frien' it'll be fun."

Witness stared at Moment in shocked silence, then startled and hurried to catch up with him. He hadn't realized that Moment could copy his words, too... no. That wasn't right. Witness frowned, studying his estranged body. Moment couldn't speak, he lacked the capacity for it. He wasn't even sure Moment could understand spoken word. Empathy, fine, but this was more than he was willing to credit. Which meant-

Witness felt grim determination rise up. It meant that Niethan was still there. Or here. Or maybe split between. Moment couldn't use words, and Witness couldn't make sounds. Niethan had to be somewhere in between.

Ignoring the part of his mind that was telling him that the logic in that sentence wasn't sound, Witness took two quick steps forward and plowed right into Moment, his nonexistant self overlapping then merging with the autonomous skin.

He'd stepped into a war zone. The inside of Niethan's head was a torn and shifting landscape. Witness found himself standing on a burnt plain, with whole sections of the "land" spontaneously becomming something else- as Witness watched, a section of land burst upwards in a volcano before collapsing upon itself, forming a black pit. A look upwards showed a red sky, the occasional green comet trailing through it. Clouds of anger, sorrow, hatred, and a hundred other indescribable sensations drifted past. Some of the clouds were screaming.

Witness hated it.

He hated the mess. He hated the chaos. He hated the hurt raining down from the now purple sky. It was Niethan and he hated it and he wanted it gone.

Witness grabbed hold of his hatred and shoved it forward. The landscape slowed to a stop before becomming a featureless white void. The landmarks became neatly labled structures bound together by cords of solid light. The emotions, too stubborn to be changed, drifted down and settled as multicolored fog. Witness peered around at the mindscape. Yes, that was much better. Everything was still broken, of course- tangled and snapped cords littered the ground thick as grass- but without what remained of Niethan's interpretation of it, it would be much easier to work with.

Witness spent a few minutes exploring the broken city, making a note of where things were and how badly they were damaged. He noticed the entire section for Instinct, Motor Control, Balance, and most of the area for bodily control and function was darkened, the cords running black and the walls shadowed. When he put out a hand towards it, Witness heard and recognized Moment's warning growl. He drew his hand back, then spoke.

"Very well. Just take us to the Tavern. Niethan would want to be there, it might help him."

Moment gave no reply, but a few steps away a lit panel displaying Destination shifted, then put a glowing red dot on a section of map. Witness saw the label (Rest Inn Peace tavern, est. arrival 6hrs21min47sec) and turned away, satisfied. He strode quickly back to his starting point, at the hub of the wreck. He passed by a section devoted to People (divided into Friends/Aquaintences/Enemies/Other) and a large area full of Memory- Witness paused for a moment to assess the damage, as there were more cords here traveling to almost every part of the city, and several of the structures seemed to be half-buried into the "ground." After his study, he passed it by.

Witness found the center and halted his steps, turning in a full circle. This place was Niethan (or, at least, Witness' interpretation of him) and it was broken. Which meant there was only one thing Witness could do.

With a soft sigh, Witness picked up two pieces of matching severed cord and began rebraiding them together.





End.