Ilendre used dream of many things.

Granted, some of those dreams were outright impossible: becoming the princess of Silvermoon, for instance, wasn't ever going to happen to the daughter of a merchant family she was. Some others might have been possible but still fairly unlikely, such as getting five new dresses, a career as an Arch Mage or a personal knight to save her from all troubles. Still, they were such nice dreams that Ilendre just couldn't help herself. She liked dreaming. It took her away from the dull daily life.

Nevertheless, it seemed that life – or fate, if such a notion could be believed to exist – loved playing cruel on those most sensitive and most imaginative. No matter what Ilendre dreamt of, it never seemed to come true; not even the time she had dreamt of awakening to the sunlight. No. The following day, it had of course had to rain – in Quel'thalas, where the sun was always shining.

Ilendre hadn't got five new dresses because her parents couldn't afford more than just one. She hadn't become an Arch Mage because aptitude tests had proven she had little Arcane talent at all. She hadn't found a personal knight to save her because each knight she met just looked her up their noses. Even her dream of a baby sister ended up becoming wishful thinking, because her parents weren't able to conceive another child, no matter how much they apparently tried. She would have wanted so much a cute little sister to play with, but it all was in vain. In the end, she quietly put away all her pictures of two elven girls frolicking on a sunny meadow and spent her savings on makeup instead of baby clothing and toys.

Ilendre hadn't ever been a person to give up, though: she had always worked hard for her dreams. When they had gone to visit some family friends and seen their two sons sparring, her mind had been set on the instant she had seen the younger one with a sword in his hand. The little girl had walked to the younger boy, dragged him off from wrist and made him promise to become her knight and to eventually marry her.

None of this had come true: the knight-in-training had put away his sword and entered the Magisterium, failed to finish his studies and finally disappeared for months until he had re-emerged from somewhere in a half-Wretched state. The boy had still been as considerate as the day Ilendre had met him, but the hand holding his teacup had trembled, and the smile had been careful and hesitant. He was not what she had had in her mind when she had been dreaming of her knight anymore.

So, little by little, Ilendre learned how to focus on things she could truly see in front of her and let her previous aspirations fade away. She took up inscription to help her parents' business. She studied minor cantrips and enchanting in place of real Arcane schooling. She even entered priest training when her parents, together with a local preacher, thought that she could display similar skill in healing as she had done with first aid during the Third War. The chastity vow, exercises in patience and strict discipline she had nothing against to, but she lacked faith for everything and anything. Light had betrayed her kin during the Third War, spirits and loas belonged to the primitive old Horde and Sunwell was only a construct of power, not something to revere and pray to. It made her feel like a bad priest: after all, a priest can't be really called a priest if they don't believe in what they worship.

It was not that Ilendre would have been completely unhappy with her life. She loved her parents, who had surely done their best to support her and love her. She liked working as a scribe, too, despite the fact that her fingers tended to get dirty with ink stains. She had even managed to get a job from the Magisterium: she copied books, wrote down letters that were dictated to her; filled out forms and reports when the magisters were feeling lazy or busy or a Blood Knight wanted to have a permission to arrest someone right here right now. Most of the time, the magisters seemed to ignore her plain-looking and compliant existence, only occasionally reminding her or themselves of it with an 'excellent work, miss En'delas, it seems you are worth those ten silver coins we pay per day'. In a way, Ilendre was even proud of her work and post within the Magisterium, but pride without satisfaction is like wine without an aftertaste: it fills the niche it is supposed to, but you know you're missing something out.

Every day, she woke up at the dawn and went to the priests' quarters in the Sunfury Spire first. Then, after some studying and a sermon, she switched to the other wing of the Spire and sat several hours behind her desk in the Magisterium's office. In the evening, she returned home, maybe took a small walk inside the city, frowned at the young rascals and weird folk which seemed to appear only by night in Silvermoon, and eventually went to bed.

It was a dull life. She wrote to her diary every day as well, but that was all that was left of her previous dreamy creativity. Countless of poems had been filling her papers spread all over her room when she had been a teenager; now, they had been all stashed into a locker, one she had lost the key to. It felt somewhat bemusing when Ilendre realised that she had become used to what she had been trying to escape for so many years.

Sometimes, when a rare whim led her to the streets or past the inns while she was strolling in Silvermoon, her ears registered stories of faraway travellers, hushed words of unsatisfied citizens or unnerving rumours of local merchants. Something big was going on; Deathwing threatened the world, yet the Sin'dorei had enough troubles with trying to decide on a proper form of government. Ilendre knew she played no part in any of it: her participation in the previous wars had been limited to offering first-aid to those wounded in the defence of their beautiful city, and she was an Adept and a scribe, nothing more. She wasn't filled with burning desire to battle, conquer and subjugate in the name of the Sin'dorei. She had no need to find anything worth fighting for or dying for.

Still, occasionally she found herself lost in the curls and lines of her writing and her gaze forgotten onto the shining armour or blade of a soldier, a wanderer or a champion. She found herself pondering if there was something more to life than this. If there still was something to find beyond the gates of the Thalassian Pass, something more important enough to write down than the things she scribbled onto the parchments of the Magisterium; someone to take her hand, answer her smile and walk by her side, as she had once wished.

She still sometimes wondered if there was still something in the world worth dreaming of.