The temperature in The Shadow Vault was dropping rapidly as the day drew to an end. The cold seeped in through my chainmail leggings from the stone floor beneath me. Not like I could expect much else from the weather in Icecrown. I was stuck here over night, waiting for my wounds to heal enough to return to Dalarn, to safety. I sat in the vault's entrance watching the Knights of the Ebon Blade pass by, shouting orders and planning attacks. Near me my fel bear Mayhem laid next to Stable Master Imhadria's own bear Rotclaw. I guess being undead meant you never felt the cold. Lucky them. I heard hooves clopping past me and I raised my head, wincing as a put a bit of pressure on my broken ribs. It was him. The last person I wanted to see. The reason I couldn't wait to be able to fly Even if it was to the Horde's nearby airship. Anything would be better than sitting here watching him. Seeing what he had become broke my heart. What was worse, was that he didn't even know who I was any more. The Lich King had stolen him from me. His subordinates called him Baron Sliver, though that wasn't always his name. When I knew him it was Solarian. He had been my best friend my whole life. When I grew older I had fallen in love with him.

Then the unthinkable had happened. Arthas and the scourge came. He had been a Blood Knight of SIlvermoon and he had been called to duty. The only person I had ever loved left to fight on the battlefront without me. I had just begun my hunter training practicing my skills in Eversong Woods without a care in the world, but him being sent away to the Northrend front had gave me a goal. To grow strong enough to join him, to fight by his side for what we believed in. To save the world we all cherished. I had been so close too.

I remember the day I got the news. I had been flying over grassy plains of Nagrand landing in Garadar to talk to the traders when I received a letter. I had been so excited to see it had been sent from Northrend. I ripped it open eagar to see his writing, it was my only attachment to him when he had been gone for so long, but it wasn't his writing. It was from a general I had never heard of. The parchment slipped from between my fingers and everything had gone black. I awoke days later on a bed roll in the village. Everything had come rushing back to me, his entire platoon had been killed by the Lich King. That day I left for Silvermoon.

For so long I hid in my home city. I traded enough to keep a small place in The Court of the Sun. I don't know how long I stayed there for. Months maybe, the days meant nothing if he was gone. He had been all I had. One day I left my home heading for The Bazaar to purchase stones to cut, when I heard a familiar voice call out nearby. It was different though, colder and seemed to rattle like the wind through dead branches. I desperately looked around and saw him. He had been dressed head to toe in black plate armor. There was a large two handed axe slung across his back. His skin had become a deathly blue pallor, but I knew it was him. He had been a friend of Solarian, a fellow Blood Knight. They had gone on to fight in the same platoon. He was supposed to have died in the same battle that had killed my lover. I couldn't help it. I ran to him as fast as I could calling his name, but he didn't look my way. I had reached out for him, my fingers wrapping around the cold plate bracers he had been wearing. His cold eyes had turned to me with no recognition.

"Onidhre, do you not remember me?" He had turned to face me completely.

"Do I know you trader?" His eyebrow arched as his eyes had taken in my appearance, I wore no armor nor did I have a dragonhawk Chaos with me.

"Actually, I am a hunter, I was with your friend Solarian." His cold eyes had bored into me sending chills down my spine as I waited for him to say something, anything.

"I have no friends, Death Knights have no need or them."

"Death Knights?"

"Former servants to The Lich King." I had been so out of touch then, I had never heard of the Ebon Hold and its knights.

"But surely you must remember Solarian, you two served on the battlefront in Northrend together, I thought you were dead," The emptiness of losing my love washed over me again, as fresh as the day I heard he was dead. "How is it you live, but he is lost forever."

"If he lost his life to the Lich King, he may not be truly dead yet. If you seek a Death Knight ask at the Ebon Hold in Eastern Plaguelands." And I had. I traveled all day and night to reach the floating citadel, but to no avail. No one there had heard of my former lover, and once more I had lost hope. Until one Knight saw me sitting with one leg slung over the railing looking out over the plagued lands below me. My legs had been swing back and forth in a child like manner as I thought of where I should go next.

"Do you have a purpose here?" There was a human who was dressed like the others, with the same dead blue glowing eyes so I had assumed he was just another Death Knight.

"I was looking for someone, but he's not here." The Knight had crossed his arms over his chest.

"Who is it you are looking for?" I had looked up at him, to be honest he had looked more annoyed than friendly, I think he may have just wanted me out of his way.

"A former paladin named Solarian, he was lost fighting on the Northrend front. No body found."

"If that is the case, you should try looking on the Northrend front. If that is where he fell that is where he is most likely to be. Now be gone with you blood elf."

After that I had worked myself to exhaustion to get to the Northrend front. Anything to try and find him once more. I had fought with so many creatures to get here. I had given everything I had to trying to find him, and I did. I had been given the task to find a Knight pretending to be in favor with the Lich King. I hadn't expected it to be him. I hadn't expected the man I loved to be standing before me as an undead monster. Deep in my heart I had hoped he would have survived the battle, but his cold dead, lifeless eyes told me he had not been spared in the slightest. To shatter what was left of my broken heart he didn't know me. He had just given me orders and went on his way. That night was the first time I had cried for him.

Now I sit no more than ten yards from the man I love and yet I cannot touch him, I cannot have him, I cannot love him, for there is nothing there to love. I picked at the hem of my tabard of the Ebon Blade as he approached me. My heart froze as I gazed up at where he sat upon his Deathcharger. His once green eyes now blue, his tan skin faded in death, his hair stained with shades of death, and yet it still looked like the man I had once lived with.

"Teariny is it?" He asked as he looked down at my huddled frame on the cold stone floor.

"Yes, sir." I responded like a good little soldier. Curt and respectful. It was all I could manage with him so close.

"It is not the best idea for you to be flying so soon, but if you stay here much longer we'll have another corpse on our hands. You should go before night truly falls and the frigid temperature gets to you. Are numbers are too few as it is. Ask Morlia to send to elsewhere Tear." I winced as he called me Tear, he never called me that. He had hated it, he used to say my name was full of such sadness as it was, that he did not have to make it worse by calling me Tear. He turned to leave, as if he knew I'd obey my superiors. Though I knew he would not remember that I always had. I pulled out a gold piece and paid the flight master to take me away from this little piece of personal hell. Even if it was just for a few days while I was tended to, I needed to be away from the man who could not even remember the woman he use to love.