It's the rain falling on his face that wakes Ilarion. The rain is cold, and the ground is soft, and humidity moistens his nostrils when he breathes.
Stratholme is perpetually hot. The wind tastes of ash and rot. The air is dry, the fire licking every last drop of wetness until it feels like you're breathing flame itself. Walking out of Stratholme -- which few do -- leaves you coated in a greasy layer of soot that resists washing. Going deeper is the sense of contamination, which is even harder to scrub out.
Above him there are trees and a darkened sky. The trees move, swaying. They look healthy. It's hard to remember sometimes that places like this still exist, that the Scourge has not covered the entirety of their world, that there are pieces of purity left. But here he is. And:
there she is, sitting just inside the flaps of a tent that is taller than it is broad. It must have been conjured: the fabric moves counter to the wind's direction, and only seems half-there to begin with. Its color is a deep, rich blue that borders on purple, the edges trimmed in gold and the fabric itself worked through with gold thread not in arcane symbols but images of the stars from a sky he's never seen before. Inside the tent there are plush rugs and cushions, scattered books, jars of wine and bowls of fruit, platters of salmon. It looks warm and dry in there.
Dunamis is no longer in the robes he found her wearing in Stratholme. These clothes are simpler, and less protective; simple black pants, a fine white blouse with careful embroidery on the collar and breast. Her hair is still tied severely up and back, though, intensifying the sharpness of her face and the ferocity of her eyes.
She munches an apple there in her warm tent, lounging on a pile of crimson and azure cushions,
while he lays out in the rain. Also: mud.
IlarionThe air tastes clean. This is the first thing the paladin is aware of: the air. Moist and green and cool. No soot. No ash. Nothing that stings the rims of one's eyes, the inside of one's nose.
Then: I'm alive. And with that thought his hand jerks up; gauntleted fingers collide against his breastplate. He is reassured by the presence of his armor, though it weights him down and constricts the swelling ache in his chest. That's the third awareness: he's in pain, a throbbing deep pounding that goes from his skin straight down to the bone. His eyes open. Trees sway overhead. The sky is a blue one shade away from black. It's nearly nighttime.
He sits up. He discovers he has been laid out on his shield and left largely intact. His armor grates softly against itself. A steady grey rain is pinging off his helm, off his spaulders. He looks around. There isn't a single undead to be seen. Not one shambler, not one ghoul. A tent, though. Diaphanous, all but breathing with magic: so familiar and so rarely seen in this bitter northern lands that homesickness spears Ilarion right through. He can't remember the last time he had time or cause to return to the shattered kingdom of Quel'thalas; to the flame-colored trees and still pools of Eversong Woods and the gleaming gold-chased spires of Silvermoon.
The tent is occupied. His supposed charge, or perhaps his quarry -- though both terms seem ludicrous considering how effortlessly she dispatched him -- is enjoying a crisp apple while he lies out in the rain and the mud. It looks warm where she is, and dry, and luxurious. He can't remember the last time he ate anything didn't come off a fishhook or fall beneath a hammer to the head, either. His stomach growls and he growls back at it, a low sound in his throat. Then he lifts a sore arm and pries at the catches and latches and clasps and locks of his armor until his breastplate comes free.
It thuds heavily to the grass. His gauntlets follow. And the bracers, and the spaulders, and the cuisses, and the greaves, and the sabatons, and lastly his helm lifted off his head and set amongst the rest of his armor. In his quilted armor padding now, the paladin unbuttons the top and peels it off. He gets his first look at the distinct, fern-like arcane burns seared into and through his skin. Not pretty, he decides, but hardly fatal. Not worth tapping his meager mana to heal. There are paladins -- Confessors -- with a knowledge of the holy and healing arts to rival any priest, but he is not one of them.
He finds his packs nearby and drags them over. Truthfully, he can't imagine how she managed to haul him and all his gear out of that place; but then, she was a mage. She has her ways, he's sure. He digs around until he finds his healing poultices and his bandages, and then, with efficient, practiced turns, he wraps them around and around his ribs until the burn is wholly bound.
The paladin pulls his under-armor back on. With all this accomplished, he gets up, damp by now from the rain, and limps over to the tent. In the gathering dark, his eyes burn faintly green as he looks in at the mage.
"Thank you for bringing me out of Stratholme," he says. The gratitude is not false, but it is a trifle stiff. "I cannot condone what you've done to the Chapel, but nor can I overlook that you likely saved my life."
DunamisThe air tastes alive and what little light there is makes everything look green. Everything, that is, but the uncanny, unreal space of her tent, which merely gives off the illusion of color and sumptuousness without ever seeming stable or solid. Or comforting. Yet: he can smell cooked salmon, smell the sliced citrus fruits behind her. She looks to be at the peak of good health, thanks to his healing, but she's a mage, not a priest: getting him out of Stratholme was already at the limit of her capacity.
A thin eyebrow lifts as he unhooks his breastplate. So far she hasn't said a word to him. Not since victory. Not since she took the energy he restored to her and used it to throw him against a stone pillar. She sees her handiwork on his flesh, burns on skin, and no flicker of shame or guilt goes through her searing, gleaming eyes. She merely lifts her chin, observing. Studying.
Ilarion is smearing glop across his skin and wrapping bandages around himself when she tosses the apple core in the air. A flick of her fingers and it ignites in midair, consuming itself in a burst of gold and red flame. A faint smattering of ash, nothing more, flutters to rest on her knee. She delicately brushes it off of her pants with one hand, licking the apple's juice from her other.
A shadow falls over her. She looks up at him, eyes narrowing, and again she raises that eyebrow. It looks almost annoyed.
But she neither accepts his gratitude nor acknowledges his chastisement. "The last time I saw you undress," she says instead, while the rain soaks through his hair, and his bandages, and what clothing he has left on, "it did not take nearly so long."
IlarionThe last time I saw you undress, she says, and instantly the paladin stiffens, equal parts affront and discomfort. He has a memory of that. It flares hot and forbidden, and so he stills his mind to it.
But then a different memory: the last time he saw her at all. There in the Walk of Elders where the commonfolk had gathered to watch Prince Kael'thas and his glittering procession of his very best and brightest depart the city gates. They were bound for the Dark Portal and, Kael'thas promised, the salvation and vengeance of their people. Banners snapped in the wind. Conjured fireworks exploded overhead. The atmosphere was festive and there was music, children laughing in the streets; but then so few of the smallfolk understood what was really happening.
He'd caught her just before the great golden gates of Silvermoon. Pulled her out of the procession by the hand, tugged her into the veiled archways flanking the Walk, pushed her into the shadows and told her yet again, the tenth time or the fiftieth time he'd said it,
that she couldn't do this. It wasn't right. She can't follow Kael'thas through the Portal; they can't possibly hope to harness demonic power for long. Look at the warlocks. Look at Illidan, the wretch. Look --
she pulled herself out of his grasp. She flung scathing words at him, or perhaps she'd said nothing at all. She slipped back into the procession as though she'd never left it at all, and he swore and turned and stormed away. Much later, when all communication with Kael'thas was abruptly severed, he'd regretted not following her to the gates, or even to the Portal. He never regretted not following her through it, though.
"That was a very long time ago," the paladin says. "Forgotten."
And he inhales, and something about the angle of his jaw changes, becomes stoic. Rain is beginning to drip from his eyebrows, his nose, the tips of his fingers. "I've been tasked with returning you safe to Dalaran. The Council of Seven wishes to speak to you. We should leave at daybreak."
DunamisShe was smiling that day.
Even then, her smiles were rare things. She smirked at him when he finished, sweaty and overcome, looking between their bodies with that mix of shame and renewed lust and a sort of awed curiosity. She smirked at him when they argued and she won, which was unfuriating and tasted bitter. Smiles were exceedingly rare, sometimes imagined. But Dunamis smiled that day, casting her own bursts of color and fire into the air,
until Ilarion grabbed her hand and pulled her out. Her nails scored his cheek when she slapped him, because she curled her fingers like claws. How dare he, her eyes said, though she did not spit a single word at him through her teeth. Their last meeting, he poured words out, argued, reasoned, and she said nothing at all to him. Not even goodbye. Not even an insult.
A long time ago, he says, and she rolls her eyes. Forgotten, he says, and she gives him one of those smirks.
"You'll have to give them my regrets," she tells him, in a sigh, lolling backward and draping herself over her cushions. "And your apologies, I suppose."
IlarionEven then, her smirks infuriated the paladin. When they argued and she won, because when he was training in the dirt and the mud with lead-cored wooden swords and shields, and later with live steel; when he was knocked sprawling over and over by Lordaeron's master of arms; when he was pent up in some tiny confessional with some droning priest; when he stood vigil and prayed and worshiped and believed until the mysteries of the Light were in some small measured revealed to him --
while he was doing all this, she was sharpening her mind. Forging the link between will and word. Learning to conjure something from nothing, and to turn her very thoughts into weapons. So of course: the paladin and the mage argued, and the mage won. And then she would smirk, which left him feeling insulted as well as injured; though that, in truth, was nothing compared to how he felt when he finished
and she smirked
and he was left furious and ashamed and aroused all at once, the voices of his Silver Hand masters ringing in his ears as the pounding of his pulse subsided: the spirit cannot be pure if the body is not chaste.
The Blood Knights hardly subscribe to such dogma. It's said that Lady Liadrin has quite the stable of cheerfully unchaste lovers. The proverbial damage has been done, though; the very sight of that smirk makes a muscle flicker in the paladin's jaw, makes him uncomfortable and stiff. His eyes cast down over her body as his supposed charge lays herself out over her silken cushions in that absurd tent. He turns away.
"I am authorized," the paladin says softly, "and perhaps even compelled to use force if necessary. And even should you subdue me again, the Council will simply send others. Mage-hunters, perhaps." His eyes return to her, frowning. "Return the relic. I'll say nothing of what you attempted to do. Face the Council of your own free will. The longer you draw out the hunt, the worse it will be for you when they finally catch you."
DunamisThat was a long time ago. She can see by his eyes that he hasn't forgotten. And it's worth it to her, apparently, to have played her hand and shown him that she hasn't forgotten, either. That she knows who he is, though she isn't calling him by name. It's worth it to see that tightening of his jaw, and the way he turns physically from her.
Behind his back, Dunamis's slim lips twist again into a wry, vengeful curve. He talks, and when he turns back to her she's still. Smirking. And he's still standing in the rain, his flesh still red from burns, his body soaking wet. It's like he'll never feel the sun again. Not in places he gets sent like Northrend, like Stratholme. Like this strange, summery place she brought him that he knows -- for a fact -- is very, very far from where he found her.
"I think it's very sweet that you would lie to your masters for me," she tells him, crossing her black-clad legs. "As for the relic, it was doing no one any good where it was."
IlarionHis eyes shut in frustration. "And what good," he grinds out, "could it possibly do you? It was a relic of the Light and a beacon of light in a very dark time. Every paladin, every squire, every apprentice knows of the Chapel of Alonsus. Even in the heart of Stratholme, the Light endures." It sounds like a quote, a recitation. "That meant something. It meant there was still hope. That's what you extinguished, Dunamis, and I cannot begin to fathom why."
A beat.
"You know after we lost contact with Kael'thas, and after the first reports began to come back that he had been corrupted by the very demons he'd tried to master -- people started to talk. They started to say all those that followed him were turned. That you'd all forgotten who you were and where you came from, that you wanted only power now, at any cost.
"Not you, I said. Not Dunamis. She wouldn't, never. Was I wrong?"
DunamisShe stares at him. Dunamis isn't smirking anymore. Nor is she inviting him into her nice, dry tent. She sweeps to her feet with the sinuous grace that unnerves so many humans when faced with her kind.
Their kind.
In two steps she's crossed to face him. "Hope," she says sharply, her fine white teeth bared after the syllable leaves her lips, "is a dead god. Keep it on an altar or in a shrine and keep praying to it if you must; it will not save you. Or any of us. But do not doom the world for the sake of giving your prayers the illusion of meaning. I did not extinguish hope, Ilarion --"
she remembers his name, and uses it, where others still call him paladin or brother and nothing more,
"-- I set it free."
IlarionHe looks so affronted. Every word out of her mouth compounds it, and then he's insulted, and then he's shocked, and then --
his eyelids flicker with his name. He never had eyes so fiercely, lambently green as hers; never delved so deep into magic, never let it suffuse him so utterly that it lit him from within. Once upon a time, when they met, his eyes were clear gray. But that is the past.
"What are you going to do?" he asks her. The edges of his words are hard, but his voice is hushed. "What do you think you could possibly do, alone, hunted as you are?"
DunamisSometimes when she moves her head, there is a faint trail of phosphorescent green in the air from the way her eyes burn. But it's nothing like the way she used to lie there, staring upward, glutted on magic and starved for more all the same, moving her hand in the air to stroke over a mana wyrm above her
before clenching her fist inches from its face, making it let out ethereal shrieks of pain. Power would leech out of it then, silver and tainted with death-throes, as it drifted down to her and she breathed it in.
There were her smirks. And there was also that.
"I'm going to wipe them out," she whispers, and turns away from him then, picking up the long-necked jar of wine with a finger through its blue-glass handle. She pours it into a glass made of crystal so fine it looks like it's barely there, and drinks. There's something strange about the wine, and it makes the edges of her skin blur for a moment. She exhales a sigh, as though relieved.
And then the crystal, and the blue glass,
and the salmon and the fruit,
and the cushions and the rugs and the tent above her head all shimmer, all fade. They were nothing more than conjurations, taking as much focus as her arrows of fire and lances of frost, but more sustained. The rain begins to fall on Dunamis, too.
IlarionHe sighs. "You say that like you believe it. Like it's possible."
The paladin's eyes flick upward as the tent and all its luxury dissolves into mist, and then into memory. It exasperates him. He can't imagine why she would bother with the show and charade, only to dispel it all again. The dry grass beneath the tent begins to get wet. So does the mage.
He turns his back and he walks away from her. He goes to his gear and for a moment she might think him about to put all his armor and arms on again. Attempt to duel her; something idiotic like that. He doesn't, though. He begins to lash his armor together, wiping off the blood and the rot, compacting the pieces into a more manageable, albeit brutally heavy bundle.
That done, the paladin straightens, searches the treeline, and whistles sharply. He has some small magic of his own. Though he might be miles, dozens of miles, hundreds of miles from Stratholme, they can hear a distant, approaching thunder of hooves. They can hear the jingle of chainmail and the clank of plate. The paladin's charger trots out of darkness, its mane and tail and armor shimmering with a faint auroric glow. It rears, pawing the air, and the paladin's steady hand on the bridle brings it back down.
He begins to load his gear onto its back. He does this the same way he shed his armor and bound his wounds earlier: methodically, patiently, ignoring the mage's presence until he is finished. Then, reins in hand, a moment from mounting, he turns to look at her.
"Should I return to Dalaran, then? Tell the Council you escaped?" A pause. "Or should I come with you?"
DunamisThey've never understood each other. He's never understood the emphasis on enigma, the secrecy, the lust for power. She's never understood the chastity, the confessions, the mud and the self-denigration. He wonders why she bothered to begin with; she wonders why he doesn't just heal himself.
Quickly drenched, Dunamis looks up suddenly when they hear the thudding of hooves. A beast that is inherently, deeply physical and yet part spirit and part magic itself appears, heavy-hooved and heavily armored.
She stares at the horse. And then she hisses at it, catlike. Her blouse clings to her form. Her fingertips and lips glow faintly with the memory of her castings and her conjurations.
Ilarion speaks, and Dunamis glares at him, crossing her arms over her chest. There's a long pause. Then, very flatly: "What?"
IlarionThe paladin shoots her an irritated glance when she hisses at his horse, and in it is a flicker of the boy he had been. The one that wasn't quite so humble, and self-chastising, and tightly controlled. The one she met on that overcast spring day in the courtyard of Lordaeron Castle, when he'd seen her and her fellow apprentices in their simple, matching caster's robes: a half-dozen or so in all, special, hand-picked, the best of the best even then. Brought on a special diplomatic mission, they were nominally the pages and handmaidens of the elf prince Kael'thas Sunstrider, heir to the crown. In truth, they were a boast. See the bloom of Quel'thalas. See how they outshine anything Lordaeron could offer.
He stared at her then. He stared at all of them, but her in particular, and then he was knocked sprawling by a human boy older than he was, bigger than he was, stronger than he was... but not faster than he was. Not when he came up out of the mud in a sudden and frothing rage, whipping his shield aside and gripping his wooden sword with both hands, raining blows from every direction with his teeth bared until his opponent dropped his weapon and shielded his head and cried out for mercy, mercy, Sir Egren tell him to stop.
He threw his sword down, then, the boy who was not yet a paladin. And deaf to the shouts of his teacher his armsmaster, he followed after her, the girl who was not yet a mage. His chest was bare and he was more scrawn than brawn; his face was flecked with mud and his back was smeared with mud and his shoes were huge with mud and he came skidding to a stop beside her and just
looked at her, tongue-tied suddenly, until her master looked back and noticed and shooed him away. Get back to your stick-fights and leave the true Sin'dorei be, her master said, and all the other apprentices laughed, and so the boy launched himself at the nearest with his fists clenched,
and her master rooted the boy to the ground with a snap of his fingers and a freezing glare. You won't receive another warning, he said, and ushered his contingent away.
There's some of that fire in the paladin's eyes when he looks at the mage. He grasps the horn of the saddle and swings himself effortlessly astride, aching ribs notwithstanding.
"Shall I return to Dalaran emptyhanded," he repeats, "or shall desert and I follow you? Tell me, and quickly, before I regain my sanity and drag you back to the Council in chains."
DunamisIf he'd hoped to strike up a conversation all those years ago -- most a human lifetime ago -- he'd failed. Had he not been covered in mud and had he been wearing silks or at very least the colors of their people and had he not just acted like the sort of blockheaded, useless grunt they'd all just witnessed him becoming,
maybe she might have smirked at him even then, and that would have been something. As it was, she stared at him like he was an orc wearing spring-pink tulles and ribbons: a mixture of confusion, wariness, and disdain. One of the others beside her had laughed, and their master had turned, and after everything, he had been punished and she had been lectured.
If they hadn't lectured her, she may never have looked at him again.
Her eyes track upward a moment after he gets astride his charger, trailing a burning afterimage of gold-green fire. She pauses, and then gives him an answer without giving him the satisfaction of words. There's no cumbersome climbing or hauling or grunting. Dunamis reaches into one of four fist-sized bags hanging from her belt. Each one has a gold drawstring, and each one shimmers with star-flecked lavender. They're quite pretty, and the one she reaches into releases a sigh of greenish energy when she opens it.
Out comes a long night-blue cloak bordered thickly with silver spikes and whorls meant to represent wings of ice. She twirls it about herself, clasps it at her throat, and flicks the hood over her face. With a small hop she jumps onto the air, floating several inches above the ground as though the wind itself has become solid underneath her boots. She does not grab a hold of him or the horse for balance but simply steps over the back of his horse, settling herself in the saddle behind him. Very close to him. Once she's seated, her hands take hold of him on either side, gribbing his belt rather than his midsection.
Over his shoulder, her face is hidden by the shadow of her cloak, but her eyes still burn.
"They ate my mount in Stratholme," she mutters, with irritation. Nods forward. "Go north." She smirks at him. "You haven't even asked where we are."
IlarionHe doesn't explain why he's offered to escort her. She doesn't explain why she's accepted. They speak as little about it all as possible, in fact, as she mounts up behind him.
Even in this, there's concept of overkill or waste in the mage. Instead of climbing onto the back of a horse like a normal creature, she insists on floating first. The paladin watches her, bemused, withdrawing the hand he'd extended to help her as she helps herself. She settles behind him, very close, and he shifts forward slightly to put a little more distance between.
They ate her mount. He can't help his smirk, though it's not charitable and not noble and not honorable in the least. "They would have eaten you next," he retorts. And then a concession: "And I as well. Though now," with a nod to her bag of tricks, "I know how you managed to drag me out of there."
She points out that he doesn't know where they are. He looks about; looks up, eyes narrowed against the rain. "There are only a few virgin forests left close to Stratholme. Silverpine. The Hinterlands. Parts of Alterac. I assumed it was one of those."
He clicks his tongue, and the charger starts forward, a heavy-hoofed walk that the paladin urges into a trot. Northward. A beat later he asks after all:
"Where are we?"
Dunamis"North and a bit west," she murmurs, as they pass through forests that are not of pine, and skies that do not show him mountains. But northward he sees two enormous plateaus, their sides as green as everything else.
"Feralas," Dunamis says, and he can hear the smirk in her voice even without turning to look at her. She has nothing to say of being eaten, or of his own death. Perhaps death does not frighten her. She showed no fear when the abomination was bearing down, only a raw defiance.
But this is more interesting: "I got you out of there with a portal," she informs him. Educating lesser minds is her duty, though not one she often enjoys. It helps ease the boredom of it, a little, to at least be boastful. "And from Thunderbluff I strapped you to a windrider and flew you to Mojache. I set up tent when I grew tired of maintaining the feather-light enchantment on you and all your ridiculous armor."
IlarionFeralas. The paladin snorts faintly, self-deprecatingly. "Of course," he says. "Distance means nothing to a mage. I should have remembered."
He clicks his tongue at the Thalassian again. Horses, the elves called their steeds, but in truth a Thalassian measured to horses as elves did to humans. Which is to say, of course: immeasurably superior in intelligence, in tenacity, in ability. The charger's ears move to its master's signal, and then the great beast turns a little westward.
"But don't protest the weight of my armor. It's your place to destroy by fire and frost. It's mine to keep you alive long enough to do so. You may as well have left that tent up, though. We'll have to stop for the night soon anyway."
DunamisDistance means nothing. Sometimes even bonds mean nothing. Hadn't she looked exhilirated, hadn't she looked thrilled with herself, her skin almost translucent and her eyes gleaming with arcane power, her hair askew, when she blinked from one place to another for the first time on her own, without her master being there to pull her back out of nothingness if she got lost,
and she appeared in a place she had no reason or right to be? He knows. He knows because he saw her clap her hands over her mouth in shock and delight, a raw and carnal elation in her expression.
And he had kissed her that night. And she blinked again, even as her mouth was opening to his, sighing with what could never have been surrender. She wasn't the sort to surrender. Not even to herself.
"I wasn not protesting the weight," she corrects him. "Do you like your pretty ribbons, Ilarion? Do they make you feel like you're actually one of us? As for the night, we'll sleep in Feathermoon. It's mostly deserted and few have reason to go there. We should be reasonably safe."
Forgotten, he called those memories, but of course she knew he was lying. He always was a terrible liar. Good thing he became a paladin; he would have been useless at anything else. Terrible liar. Terrible concealer-of-truths. Terrible at hiding what was in his heart, which is why, of course, she knew the instant she blinked like that and appeared behind him and he whipped around startled and saw the look on her face, saw the sharp awareness and elation there -- he wanted to kiss her. She knew long before he began to lean in that he was going to try,
and she let him anyway,
for a second or two before she flicked right out of existence again. Right through the walls of the library they had secluded themselves in. By the time he got the heavy oaken door open and dashed out into the stone halls, she was nowhere to be found. The next time he saw her, she was with two of the other apprentices, skirting the courtyard where the squires trained. Her friends said something to her that made her smirk, but she lingered a while after they left. Sparring with the other squires, he wanted very much to impress her. He still tried, then.
"Those are not pretty ribbons," the paladin snaps, ruffled. "They are spells woven into the fabric, designed to ward off dark magic. A mage should understand their utility better than any. And, Dunamis, insulting my heritage is beneath you. If magic alone could beat back the Scourge, Silvermoon wouldn't be split into two."
His hands are tight on the reins, tugging harshly enough that the charger tosses its head and strains. With an effort, the paladin gives his mount its head again, nudging it onward through the gathering dark. He rubs his face for a moment, then adds:
"Feathermoon is a night elf stronghold. Our druidic cousins aren't fond of us, but I suppose in these dark days they'll put up with us if we pay well."
DunamisNot quite so eager to impress and so lingering in his stares now. She's noticed the change. She wonders if he can see the difference, too, between that day when he last saw her and... this. What they've become. What they've had to do.
He should never have kissed her. Maybe when he grabbed her from the procession and tried to halt the inevitable, she would have listened to him.
"They are spells woven into the fabric," she mimics him, even feigning his ruffled tone, even while he's still speaking. He mentions Silvermoon. Dunamis goes silent. She keeps her fingers hooked in his belt, and she turns her head to watch the rainforest lope by them as the mount they share takes them towards the ferry that will take them to Feathermoon.
IlarionShe goes silent. That was a low blow, and he knows it; the one bruise she can defend with her smirks and her mockery. He does know her, even if they've changed, even if they've become strangers. She doesn't answer, and so he doesn't speak again. They find the path through the jungle -- cobblestones edged in moss, tufted by grass. It winds up as they follow it west, and then north. Before they reach the Twin Colossals, they peel off the main road, following a side-path that winds down to the tiny harbor.
The rain has cleared for the moment. An enormous moon silvers the beach as they clear the treeline. There's a tent by the pier, but it's deserted, its occupant absent or moved on. The moonlight casts their shadows deep and black onto the wet strand; glimmers off the western sea. The scent of salt is in the air.
The paladin's charger steps onto the pier. Its hooves clop all the way down to the end, where the paladin reins it in. He shifts in the saddle, flexing his legs to stand a moment in the stirrups. Then he sits again, leaning on the saddlehorn, waiting for the ferry.
After some time, he speaks.
"I apologize. I was out of line. I believe my chosen path has as much worth as yours, or anyone else's. It does not make me any less of a Sin'dorei, and your insinuation otherwise angered me. But it wasn't fair for me to use the wounds of our people against you." She can't see his face; he doesn't turn to look at her. It's difficult, anyway, sitting tandem as they are. But his voice softens a touch: "I know what Quel'thalas meant to you. And I know it grieved deeply you to see Silvermoon sacked."
DunamisThere is little answer to that.
Her hand moves from his belt to rest on his midsection. Her thumb intersects with a bandage.
"I do not regret injuring you," she murmurs, in a voice meant more for an apology than for her endless, endless defiance. "But I have a potion I will give you when we make camp. It will make you sleep, but it will also restore you. It is a minor thing, and you are nothing to me if you are wincing at your own armor."
IlarionThere's a catch in his breath as her hand goes unexpected to his abdomen. Beneath her fingers, beneath the bandage, his flesh tautens, pulls in on an inhale. His back straightens. For a moment it seems he'll scoot away from her again, like some adolescent virgin training for priesthood.
Then his hand covers hers. The paladin doesn't look at her now, either. Perhaps he doesn't dare. He stares ahead, at the shadow of the ferry and its night-elf sailors cutting silently across the waters. His palm is warm over her knuckles, and lingers for just a moment before he takes up the reins again.
"I should be fine by morning," he says, "and I would have healed myself if I felt my capabilities were seriously compromised." A pause; then he shifts a little, looking over his shoulder at her at last. "But if you've a potion to spare," he adds, quieter, "I would be grateful."
The ferry pulls to a stop, its captain calling down in a language the blood elves faintly recognize but cannot understand. A deckhand tosses a rope lariat around the dock pile, securing the ship temporarily. The paladin urges his mount forward with a squeeze of his knees. They are met with wary and faintly suspicious regards from their distant cousins, but their lack of armor and arms is noted. They are watched, but they are not barred from the ferry.
Once, all elves were one, but the passing millennia have separated the races indelibly. The Kal'dorei are towering, robust, savage. Their eyes glow in the darkness, a faint phosphorescent gold, and their complexions seem oddly dusky. The men wear thick beards; the women are almost all tattooed. Most pad about on bare, silent feet, and their clawed hands seem huge on the ropes. As they set sail across the narrow strait to Feathermoon, the sea wind whips their thick hair into utter unruliness.
The paladin dismounts. He leaves his mount on the maindeck and goes to the foredeck, leaning slightly on the rail. Patiently, he watches the prow cut through the waves, leaving a white wake behind. The journey is not long. Soon enough they bank for the shore, and the night elves call to each other in their strange tongue.
DunamisClose as they are, and attentive as she is, it's impossible for Dunamis to miss that intake of breath. She doesn't pull back suddenly, wary of causing him harm, you poor thing. Nor does she remove her hand slowly, wary of arousing him, tempting him, renewing that strange old flame. Forgotten, he said. And perhaps it very well is.
Her hand twitches when he covers it. And she slips her hand away almost instantly. It's cold to the touch, from rain and perhaps simply from the frost magic that springs so readily to her fingertips. Her own back straightens a touch; she watches the ferry coming toward them, listens to the rain hitting the surface of the water.
"If you will be restored by morning, then you can let sleep be your healer," she says, caustic. She is looking past his turned jaw at the night elves, narrowing her eyes.
Ilarion's charger walks obediently forward, the way that Dunamis imagines Ilarion himself does when ordered to. They are quite high, on this horse. The elves do not quite tower over them, so long as they remain mounted. Dunamis keeps her face mostly hidden by her hood. She could be armored in a moment, armed an eyeblink later. In truth, she is always armed; her weapon is her will. Yet even bared to the waist, Ilarion can take more damage than she can. A blow that might merely knock him backwards could kill her.
She is not envious. She is not self-pitying. She commands the sky itself to unleash meteors of ice upon her enemies. She turns the ground to molten rock. These Kal'dorei are mere ferrymen; as she passes them, she knows that a straightening of her back, a lifting of her arms, and a three-word incantation
and they would all fall before her.
Animals, she thinks, looking at their hands and feet, their clothes of deer-leather and fabric woven from tree bark and greenery.
Ilarion dismounts. Dunamis slides from the horse as well, but takes the reins in hand without thinking. She watches him from the side of his own charger, stares at him, her hand idly patting the side of the true animal's neck. She doesn't even seem to notice herself doing it. She does not speak to her sudden traveling companion. She does not thank him, though on some level she knows what he is doing, what he is giving up,
even if she does not know why.
Minutes later, the ferry nudges against the island of Feathermoon. Through the trees they can just barely make out the shadow of the inn's rooftop. One of the largest of the night elves approaches Dunamis, twice her width and nearly twice her height. She tenses, but he holds out his enormous hand, palm up.
With a sneer, Dunamis reaches into one of her belt-pouches and withdraws a few coins for him, all copper and dull, dropping them into his hand. She cinches the pouch again, still wary.
IlarionAt the prow of the ship, the paladin does not turn to watch over his self-appointed charge. He is aware of her, though, and aware of her wariness. The night elves are large. They seem almost feral. Like animals: sharp of tooth and claw, wearing clothing made of material barely processed from their original, natural form. He thinks perhaps the mage feels a trifle threatened in their midst. And so she denigrates the night elves in her mind -- overlooks the simple artistry of their craftsmanship, the elegant, unadorned slopes and curves of even a thing so humble and utilitarian as a ferry, an inn.
Perhaps she could be forgiven her thoughts. The highborne amongst the night elves left that druidic society a very, very long time ago; evolved into daydwellers, sun-lovers, high elves. Yet for millennia, the night elves and high elves were still nominally allies. The final breach came much later -- well within the span of their long elfin lives. When Arthas sacked Silvermoon City and pillaged the kingdom of Quel'thalas, sundered the Sunwell, the humans of Lordaeron were too embroiled in their own devastation to help. Silvermoon called to Darnassus for aid against the Scourge -- and was met only by silence.
And so, in the wake of that bitter war, their people withdrew from Darnassus and the Alliance for good. They withdrew from their former titles and names and ties. They became blood elves, and now,
when they sail on the ships of their distant cousins, the mage is coiled with wariness and tension, full of disdain. The paladin pretends not to notice; tries to remain impartial, neutral, aloof. He goes far from the others, stands alone at the bow, and speaks to neither his sudden companion nor the ferrymen.
The deckhands lash the ferry to the pier on their arrival. The captain unhooks a small horn from her hip and blows a long note into the night. It's full dark now, and the average Kal'dorei's day is just hitting its stride. Feathermoon is out-of-the-way, far from Darnassus and its holdings, but there are two or three night elves waiting for the ferry. They look at the blood elves with surprise.
On the maindeck, one of the night elves, brawny, his moustache dropping past his chin, approaches the mage. She tenses. And suddenly the paladin is beside her, quiet, reserved, watchful. He barely comes to the night elf's shoulder, but there's something calm and steadfast about his posture, his presence. Nothing about him suggests aggression. Nothing suggests surrender, either.
But it turns out all the night elf wants is the toll for the passage, which the mage pays. The ferryman looks at the coppers, unimpressed, and the paladin adds a silver to the sum. Then he bows to the ferryman, courteously, and salutes the captain up at the wheel. He takes his mount by the reins, following the mage onto the dock.
The passengers waiting there make room for them. They are stared at, murmured about, but no one bars their way. Down the pier, a night elf Sentinel eyes them as they pass. Even she stands taller than the paladin. She shifts her weight to the balls of her feet as they approach, relaxing again as they pass. They feel her eyes on their backs all the way to the proper shoreline, where the dock adjoins the entrance ramp to the inn.
The inn, like all night elf architecture, is open and airy. The Kal'dorei are fond of temperate climes. They like the rain, they like the sea. Though a contingent has made their home in icy Winterspring, by and large they are not a people fond of the cold. Milder climates allow for their unwalled buildings much better, and the lack of constant freeze-thaw keeps the wood they prefer from cracking and splitting so quickly.
The innkeeper gives them the first smile they've seen since boarding the ferry. She greets them. "I don't suppose you speak Darnassian?" the paladin murmurs to the mage, and then he begins pantomiming to the innkeeper. He holds up one finger. He steeples his hands, mimicking a roof, a room. Then he holds up two fingers, and pantomimes beds.
DunamisShe rolls her eyes at the silver. Wasteful. It was a ferry ride.
They walk onto shore this time, rather than riding. She keeps her cloak around herself, but every inch of it reveals what she is, even if the sense of strangeness does not. She is the opposite of natural. She does not look to the stars and call them down, she does not run with beasts, she does not commune with eternal elementals. She focuses, and then she destroys.
Her boots sink into the mud as the steady rain rolls down her cloak. It keeps her dry mostly because the threads she used to make it were enchanted, and it's the least a cloak should be able to do. Her purses do not jangle with coins, though she lifted coppers out as easily as though they were full of nothing else. That must be where her staff is, her helm, her gems. She was adorned when he first saw her, and glorious; she crackled with lightning. Now she is just... one of his kind. Impossible to tell the difference between the girl she was when she first began studying magic and the master she is now, at least to the eyes of the short-lived races. To another elf, she shows the faint signs of age and experience.
Like the fact that she never smiles.
Creatures who were cousins once to their kind stare as they pass. Dunamis has no appreciation for their architecture, for their ways. She does not see the beauty in it, or the worth. It is a place to sleep. She can bear the lack of walls for a night; she has slept in worse places. She has woken to find things crawling on her. She has woken to screams and to fire and the sound of things being chewed. Dunamis keeps her eyes forward, and when they are under the shelter of the innkeeper's counter, she reaches up and nudges her hood back. He pantomimes; she rolls her eyes and looks around.
Lifting her hands, Dunamis makes a gesture in midair. A sigil appears, glowing brilliant blue, in front of her open mouth. There is a brief, low incantation, a vibratory sound that shakes out of her lips and makes the sigil shudder as the words pass through. For a moment, Ilarion can hear two languages, then ten, all superimposed over one another. When the sigil fades into nothingness and her hands fall to her sides again, their own tongue begins to stand out brighter and clearer against the chatter.
"--able to understand me. You seem to comprehend. Good. We need one room, or tier, whatever it is you have here, with two beds. I will give you gold for the room and for a hot meal. If we awake safely in the morning, another piece of gold. Am I understood?"
The night elf must hear what Ilarion hears, only... not in the language of the Sin'dorei.
IlarionWell; that takes care of the first smile they've seen tonight. The Kal'dorei may be savages compared to the refined elegance of their kind, but even savages can understand the implications there. The innkeeper steps out from behind her counter, stiffly polite, and beckons them to follow.
"I'm going to find a stable," the paladin says to his companion, low. "I'll join you after."
Like the blood elves, the night elves prefer ramps over stairs. A smooth, curving ramp -- rather like half of a bridge over water -- takes the mage to a small landing adorned by a couch, a small table, a view of the water. A second ramp takes her to the second floor proper. It is, in fact, a tier: wall-less, communal, a little crowded with four or five beds. Two of them are likely occupied: traveling bags and muddy boots are piled beneath them, though their occupants are currently up and about.
The innkeeper raises her eyebrows at the mage as though to ask if this will do. And no. It will not.
So they climb another ramp. And by now the innkeeper is evidently annoyed, her long ears laid back flat, mouth tight. On the third floor, which is so high that the slant of the roof itself forms the walls, the mage is offered a room more in accordance with her requests. It's smaller. It's relatively private, though: two beds that would be considered small by a Kal'dorei, though still ample for a blood elf. A bookshelf. A small table and two chairs.
Meanwhile, the paladin finds a stable not far from the inn. Hunters are held in high regard amongst the night elves; their animals are treated likewise well. His Thalassian is housed in a stall between a riding nightsaber and some hunter's boar. The paladin spends some time unstrapping the armor and the barding from his mount. He rubs the Thalassian down and brushes out its tail and mane, polishes its horn before leaving it with a bag of oats and some fresh hay.
There's a bulletin board outside the inn. Quests and rewards, public announcements, the odd anonymous lovenote. The paladin takes a moment to browse.
Presently, his traveling companion can hear him coming up to their shared ... tier. He has his packs and his armor and his weapon with him, all of it clanking and thunking and thumping as he climbs up to the third floor. He's huffing a bit by the time he arrives, his gear thudding heavily to the ground at the foot of his bed. He grunts as he drops onto his bed, pulling his boots off.
"No hot meal yet, I see," he comments. "You might have been a little more polite with the innkeep. The gratuitous show of power likely didn't help either. These people aren't fond of arcane, frost and fire."
DunamisShe waves a hand at Ilarion when he speaks. It's dismissive. Do what you like.
As she follows the innkeeper up the rounded, arching ramp toward their room, she keeps her cloak wrapped around her. When they get to the tier they'll be staying in, she looks around and then merely lifts an eyebrow back at him. What. Is he thinking. So they go on. Another ramp, another tier, a new level. The innkeeper is annoyed; Dunamis is paying gold. It's hardly what she would find in the cheapest room at Silvermoon, but she gives a tight nod and drops a gold piece into the innkeeper's palm.
Some time later, he finds Dunamis in their room. She's no longer dressed in muddied boots, a magic cloak, a white traveling shirt and black slacks. Her feet are bare now, and she wears a long robe of red and black trimmed with gold. Her hair is down, falling in waves around her shoulders and framing her cheeks. It looks odd, and less severe, and that makes it even more strange. A little unsettling, actually, like she doesn't quite resemble herself. The sleeves form subtle bells over her wrists, covering her until her knuckles.
That, in itself, is armor; when you cannot see her hands or hear her incantations, it's hard to tell what spell she is preparing to cast. It is hard to defend against the unknown. She counts on that. It has saved her life. And this, though it keeps her safe, is what she wears to sleep.
In a strange land, far from true allies. If she has any.
The hem of the robe brushes the ground as she walks. She heard him coming and does not bother to look up when he enters; she is lighting candles with small touches of her fingertip to wicks. She lights one in a lantern with one reflective side, casting greater light around them. Otherwise, it is dark; what illumination they have flickers.
He gets to the gratuitous show of power before she turns on him, one arm extended. The flame coiling in her palm grows, the look on her face hateful,
then she closes her fist on the fire, smoke curling out from between her fingers, and lowers her arm.
"I am not your squire," she snaps at him. "Mock me, insult me, leave me behind in the mud to do my work alone if you like, but do not presume to lecture me. You haven't the faintest idea how I have survived until now. You know only that I have.
IlarionShe's changed her outfit yet again. The paladin has yet to change even once -- what he wears now, he wore under his armor, and will evidently wear to bed. And why not? The quilted under-armor is sturdy, durable, warm on a cool night and breathable on a warm day. It's woven of light, cushioning fibers that wick away sweat after exertion, divert all but the heaviest downpour from the skin, and dry easily after rain. He would be quite all right wearing this, and only this, for the rest of his life. Nevermind that it is plain and undyed, an unremarkable shade of greyish-brown.
The boots he wore after he removed his sabatons are heavy leather, with a wide rolled cuff that could cover him to the thigh if he unfolded it. They rest on the ground now, along with his footwraps. And now he's barefoot, humbly dressed, well-muscled, plain-spoken. It's like he's hardly Sin'dorei at all, more akin to one of those beastly night elves downstairs or one of those crude humans he trained and fought beside all those years; and yet --
-- yet he has the audacity to question her.
So she rounds on him. And snaps at him. And nearly unleashes a spell on him. The paladin is genuinely taken aback, startled by her sudden ferocity. His brow furrows. He's quiet for a moment after she finishes.
"You're right," he says finally. "Your ways have evidently worked for you all these years, and I haven't the right to try and change you.
"It's my opinion that a little kindness and deference to local culture might not hurt -- particularly when you seem to worry these night elves will harm you at their first opportunity. But accept my counsel or reject it as you like. It was not meant as a 'lecture', and if that's how it came across, then I am sorry."
He stands; looks about. Finding a washbasin in the corner, he pours a little water into it from a nearby pitcher and begins to wash road-dust from his face and hands.
Dunamis"Of course I'm right," she snaps at him, while he's still talking. Who cares if he's still talking? She flicks the door of the lantern shut, and with no breeze coursing over the flame, it steadies the light they're dealing with a bit more.
When he's done, she sneers. Started sneering, to tell the truth, while he was still speaking. She shakes her head. "I am not worried about them. I do not trust them. That is not the same thing."
Dunamis has no looking-glass in which to compose herself. She looks irritated by that. There is a shuffling noise, intentional though it may be, because the night-elves can move in the darkness like shadows. Even the youngest, stupidest, weakest of them can do that. She turns as the innkeeper's colleague enters, carrying a tray of steamed mandu, ricecakes, peaches, and bowl-like cupes of moonberry juice. Dunamis sighs and nods at a table. Leave it to Ilarion to thank them if he wishes. She waits until the night elf has left, then begins to pace the room, lifting small handfuls of white sand from one of her purses. She sprinkles it as she circles the room, chanting lowly.
The scent of their meal begins to fill the room, and she closes the circle. The white sand suddenly flares upward, a vivid white light that almost seems to cry out in chorus. It vanishes almost instantly, like wisps of smoke. There is no more sand on the wood.
"So," she says, without further ado, as she lifts a peach from the bowl, "why have you forsaken your vows and turned your back on your masters?" She bites.
IlarionFor an instant, a stark white light etches the paladin's shadow onto the wall; casts him into monotones of light and dark. Then it's gone. He straightens from the basin, face dripping, water running down his neck to disappear into the collar of his under-armor. He lifts a towel from beside the basin and wipes his hands and his face, then slings it over his shoulder as he browses the dinner offerings.
He takes a cup of moonberry juice. And two steamed mandus. Sitting on his bed again -- the long side this time, facing the mage -- he stares at her. And frowns.
A moment passes.
"I have no master," he says then, abruptly. "I have not sworn allegiance to the Order of the Silver Hand since the razing of Silvermoon. I have never sworn allegiance to the Blood Knight Order. And I am not bound to the Council of Seven, nor the Kirin Tor, by any lasting vow. I act on behalf of Dalaran because, by and large, we serve the same goals. But I am not one of their spellbreakers, nor one of their templars. Despite what you think of me, Dunamis, I am no man's attack dog.
"It is true that I was entrusted with the task of finding and retrieving you," he admits. "And it is true that I have accepted and failed this task. But as for my vows -- I believe I am keeping the only ones that matter. Uphold justice. Protect the servants of the Light. Crush the forces of the Dark.
"That is what you aim to do, is it not? Without compromise, without ulterior motive, without clandestine rituals and rites that never served any purpose beyond impressing the masses."
There's more to it. There's always more to it, but this is what the paladin offers. He picks up his mandu, breaks it in half to expose the savory filling, and bites into it.
DunamisThat damned eyebrow of hers lifts again. "And as you could have upheld those vows just as truly by attempting to drag me to Dalaran,"
says the woman who once used magic to escape a kiss that she enjoyed too much.
"I return again to the question: why fail the task? Why follow me, not even knowing where I go?"
IlarionThe faint huff emitting from the paladin is, one supposes, a form of sardonic laughter. "You still ask so many questions," he says. "Very well. If it's the truth you want, it's the truth you'll get.
"We both know my chances of actually dragging you back to Dalaran were slim to none. Even if I bested you, you'd find a way to escape. You escaped from the Violet Hold, for the sake of the Light."
He takes another bite of mandu. It's not exquisite blood elven cuisine, to be sure -- it's not even the brutishly satisfying meat-and-more-meat of orcish cuisine -- but the paladin decides there's a certain appeal to this sort of food. Simple, light-flavored; the fare of a people that lives close to the land and sea.
"So," he continues, "with that possibility all but eliminated, I had only two. I could leave you be -- and in doing so, leave you to do with the Relic of Alonsus as you wish. Whether you used it for good or ill, likely no one would ever know what became of it.
"Or, I could follow you. If you do, in fact, aim to wipe out the Scourge as you say, then I could help you. I could be your templar; your guardian and your shield-wall. I could keep the enemy from reaching you while you do what you need to. And if, instead, you mean to use the Relic for your own selfish or dark purposes, then I could stop you. Or at the least die trying."
A sip of moonberry juice. The paladin's eyes are dimly phosphorescent in the candlelight. His regard is steady, but there's a silence before he speaks again.
"And if I'm honest with myself, and with you," he adds, "I want to believe you'll use the Relic to crush the Scourge. I want to believe you have a way. And -- I want to help you. Because a very long time ago, I failed you when I let you follow Kael'thas Sunstrider through the Dark Portal."
DunamisThis may be one of the only times she's done so, but Dunamis does not interrupt him as he speaks. She eats her peach, remaining standing in the middle of the room, one slender arm crossed over a just-as-slender waist. He eats his mandu, his dumplings, his broth. She does not sit, as though she is crackling with energy. Verily, even her eyes seem to spark and shudder in their faint glow.
"You would die trying," she murmurs, somewhere in there, a slight emphasis on the second word. But it isn't a threat. Her tone is quiet, and it is more musing than disgusted. She doesn't say this because he's a paladin, because he serves the Light, because they would all just throw themselves off a cliff if it seemed the honorable thing to do. She says it because it's him. It's Ilarion. And she may not know him, but she does remember him.
He finishes speaking, and she finishes her peach. Its stony heart meets the same fate as the apple-core, earlier: a quick death in a handful of flame, though this fire burns a softer orange than the livid red it had in the rain of Feralas. Dunamis rubs her fingers over her palm, shaking off a speck or two of ash, a remainder of juice. She watches him, lowering her hand to her side with a grace much more delicate, much more like water, than the animalistic prowling motions of the night-elves.
"You never let me do anything, Ilarion," she says softly, though it is hard to find anything like 'gentleness' or 'kindness' in her voice. It's so cold. She uses flame as readily as arcane, but it seems that her heart is more frosted than anything else about her. It cools her hands, her words, and the way she looks at him. She turns toward the tray, her sly footsteps bringing her a little closer to the bed he's sitting on. She looks at the mandu thoughtfully. "Though you could have come with us." She isn't looking at him. She is speaking quietly. But:
nothing gentle or kind about that, either, nothing warm, not when she follows it with: "And you did fail me in that."
IlarionThe paladin watches her as she moves. All blood elves are graceful, but this one stands apart from the rest. Graceful as water. Smooth as ice. His eyes track her, trailing ghostfire; touch on her fingers as they rub ash from her palm. Raise to her face again.
He shakes his head. "I couldn't have," he says. And this is not an argument, no more than her words had been a threat. It's spoken the same: a fact, a truth. "I could not have possibly trafficked with demons and supped on fel magic like the rest of Sunstrider's army. I would have followed you anywhere else when we were young, Dunamis. I chose the path of the templar so I could follow you; did you know that? But I could not have followed you there.
"If that is failure, then I accept it."
DunamisHer thin eyebrows, black as her hair, tug together. It is not so much a frown as scowl, terrible as her power.
She stands. He sits.
"Why?" she asks, as she always asks. But she does not want to know why he accepts what he does, or why he couldn't have followed.
IlarionHe casts an incredulous look at her. "You can't possibly not know," he replies, "how infatuated I was with you. But that's in the past. There's no point discussing it now."
An exhale. The paladin strips his top off, tossing it over the bedpost. He turns down the sheets -- not silk, these, but sturdy cotton. There are faint stains on his bandages from his weeping wounds, but they look dry now, the flesh beneath knitting itself, regenerating itself. He slides his feet into the covers and leans against the headboard.
"Any other interrogations for me?"
Dunamishow infatuated
She reaches for him and touches the underside of his chin. That's all. When he's reaching for his top, when he's showing the bloody bandages around his middle, the chill of her fingertips against his jaw. Her gaze is imperious. It always is. Always was. But she stays him, because she knows she can, and because she wants to look at him.
Look at him as she did not when he came for her in Stratholme, as she did not when he was unconscious, as she did not when he woke or when they rode together or even when he looked at the water as they crossed on the ferry.
"That is not a reason to follow anyone," she says, which is not an interrogation but is, like nearly everything else she says, a judgement on him. A critique, sharp as a knife.
There seems like there should be more. There is not. She withdraws her hand and turns away from him, walking over to the second bed. It is just a couple of feet from his own, the two of them laid side by side. Dunamis does not lie down to rest but sits with her legs crossed, tucked into her robe, her arms outstretched and wrists resting on her knees. She closes her eyes, and slowly, one by one, the lights from the candles lift from their wicks. Tiny flames drift toward her until she is surrounded. And then, one by one, just as slowly, they extinguish themselves, and she breathes in the smoke as she meditates.
Perhaps it's true, then, what they say of certain archmagi: they do not need to sleep. They do not even need food, after a while. Magic, knowledge -- these things sustain them.
And make them that much less like the rest of the living.
IlarionStayed, the paladin halts where he is. His feet are under the covers. His hand grips the edge. His head turns and he faces her. Her gaze is imperious. His is naked, clear, fearless. There's something to be said for a man who genuinely does not fear the truth. Likely he fears nothing at all.
They look at each other a moment. Then she turns away. And he exhales a breath he's found he's held. "No," he agrees softly, "it wasn't."
She draws into herself. The flames lift, drawn to her like planets to their parent sun. They burn without fuel, without wick or wax, and the paladin watches a moment before sliding under the covers, drawing them up. He turns his back to her. One by one the lights go out, and the ocean's distant boom fills the darkness. They can smell salt in the air. They can feel the wind, fresh and cool and wet, breathing freely through their room. Her warding circle does not keep these things from them. He is as comforted by them as he is unnerved by her presence, her nearness, her sleepless stillness.
He does not bid her goodnight. He closes his eyes; he sleeps.
