I am a firm believer that we are all criminals. We've all committed trespasses, minor crimes, against others. We lie, we cheat, and we steal. It is ingrained within us, all tied to the stream of self preservation and selfishness deep in our souls. A precious few of us, and no, I am not truly one of those few, manage to rise beyond this, they shine in spite of their baser natures. Uther had been one, Baudoin is another, and my true blessing in existence has been that I am loved by both. That is how the Light shines in my life.
Truthfully, however, the rank and file criminal harms few, creates little wreck and carnage in their wake. My father was one, untrustworthy, base…given to violent outbursts and greed. But who had he harmed? My mother, certainly. Time and introspection…which I've had plenty of … showed that theirs was a truly loveless and embittered union. He'd harmed me, quick with harsh words and rough hands, worse with his view that I was a waste. So, two. Perhaps he'd harmed the King, by his embezzling, but I doubted that. So… perhaps three. Few, a truly minor offense. In a generation, it would all be forgotten, too petty to merit forgiveness.
And then there are the sinners. Their crimes transcend lying, cheating, mere thievery. Their crimes mar a people for years, generations, harm thousands, destroy entire countries. History marks them as monsters, removes them from their basic humanity, as if that makes them somehow not ours.
"Arthas…what have you done?" It was a phrase I'd heard used before, when it had fallen from Jaina's lips outside of Stratholme. I'd understood what Arthas had done then; I'd been a part of it…but this?
Baudoin glanced at me, a tight line forming between his brows. "Clair." He breathed, wrapping a forearm around my shoulders and resting his chin against my shoulder, trying to shelter me in his bulk. He failed miserably; I had rarely felt less sheltered, less protected…
"How far does it go, Baudoin?" I demanded, and I could feel him tense around me. I had known Lordaeron had fallen, unable to withstand the assault of the plague. I had even known Arthas had murdered his own father to secure her Throne. He'd killed the man I had been blessed to call my father when my own had failed me. He'd destroyed my brethren, the place I belonged. But this… I had spent the past six years either dead, or blindly secure in Icecrown. But now, I was surrounded by whispers that marked Arthas as the monster responsible for this and his followers the ones to put it into action. We had not brought the plague to Lordaeron…
"Shh…Clair. What's done is done." Baudoin murmured against the fine hairs escaping from my braid at the nape of my neck. "We pick up the pieces now…"
"How far." I repeated, and he sighed.
"From here, to the steps of Silvermoon." He finally stated, his voice dead. "Arthas carried it north, into Quel'thalas. From how I understand it, you had died already. But we will reclaim what is ours, Clair. All of what is ours."
All of what was ours… A great deal of what was mine could never be reclaimed. My life… I had not lived or breathed since I had died on the hills over Daggercap Bay. I existed. I walked, spoke, and passed as living…but I knew I was not. There would be no more children for the man who loved me and called me wife. I had lost six years of watching my sons grow and learn. I would never truly be their mother after that. I had lost Uther, lost the security and belonging that the Order had brought me. The Order struggled to rebirth, but Baudoin, once a proud young member, stood behind me too cautious to wear his tabard, his armor. He'd survived the purge, and had lived in hiding since. The Order would never be as bright, as shining, as it had been before. The stench of betrayal clung to it. And still… I loved Arthas.
"We will have Lordaeron back." Baudoin murmured. "A Menethil son on the Throne. We, the Order…will overcome this. You will have your estates back…"
I sighed, turning away from the road and back to the motley caravan we rode with. It was difficult to reconcile 'my estates' with the devastation I comprehended before me. The last time I'd seen them had been in the first few hours of the plague, they'd been whole then. The plague had been running from person to person, a simple illness. Not this… the leaves rotting on the trees, the animals themselves rotting, twisted. Death permeated everything before me… a terrifying, and yet appealing vista. I had hoped that time would fix certain things, time back in a place with life and growth, but it still smothered and pressed on me. That, before me, was calm and serene. Few things there would rise against me… I could go home, just as it was now. It would never be the home of my childhood, row after row of trees… raining petals of pink and white down wide corridors of grass, the buzz of bees a torrent of sound in their leaves. Never would they bow to the weight of great striped apples and golden pears like they had then. The skeps would not ooze honey and the presses ooze juice, the vats would never fill with mead, perry, cider, metheglin, again. The air would not be heady with the brewery smells, but heavy with death. It was beyond tempting, an idea held at bay by only one truth. Lordaeron was meant for my eldest, Anelas…but the estates were meant for my younger son, Baudoin's son Bayard. I would not cheat him of them. He had already been cheated of riding a fat pony down the hallway of trees as I had… I would give his children that back. My oaths held me to uphold Lordaeron, and this rotting blight was not Lordaeron. My oaths held me to uphold the Menethil family, its name disgraced by Arthas, but I was one who knew of the heir to come after him. My oaths held me to uphold the Order, its rebirth a much messier, darker event than its birth had been. Take back Lordaeron, rebuild it…not for myself but for my children. Would that atone for my sins? Lessen the pain of having been a part, however small, of this carnage? Perhaps, and that was the best answer I would ever get.
"You have not spoken of your family." I stated, and Baudoin's stubborn expression turned hunted.
"Why?" He demanded shortly, moving to his horse and making as if he was tending it. It snorted warily at him, a beast barely worthy of the name horse, but it fit with the low profile he had become so good at. His charger could be there at a moment, a bright, shining example of how high the Light held Baudoin Ironfist.
"Because…we're going there." I pointed out the obvious. With the Order coming back into its own, with the purge finally dying, it made no sense to leave the children hidden in Hillsbrad. I may never aspire to be their true mother after abandoning them for as long as I had, but they were still mine. Anelas was the crown heir, Bayard the heir to my family name if not my estates. Even if none of that came to fruition, they were mine, and they deserved better than they were getting. I held Baudoin blameless; his decision to leave them in his parents' care those first weeks after sanity had died had been the only one he could have made. The Order, his entire support structure, had been dying around him… I was gone, following Arthas to my death. My father had been incarcerated, my mother dead from the plague. There had been nowhere else for him to turn, left with the children.
But the Order was back, coming together under royal protection again… They might not be the Menethil family, the family who had ruled and led Lordaeron for generations, but they'd just have to do. Let the Wrynn family, and Stormwind, provide the stable grounds that the Order required to grow again… The Order, Lordaeron, and the Menethil family had stood for them when Stormwind had fallen and they'd come as refugees. Now it was time for repayment. And the reborn Order was where I wanted to see my sons raised into men…
"We will get the children and leave." He muttered, "The less said, the better."
"Eh." I said, neither an agreement nor a disagreement, just an acknowledgement that those words were all the ones I would pry from him. Baudoin could be ox stubborn when he set his mind to it.
I left him stewing, walking back to the campfire. It was foolish to travel this road alone, so said common knowledge. I did not fear the way, but traveling alone would draw attention, riding better mounts would draw attention, and all that left us moving slowly along with this caravan. Surviving the purge had left Baudoin cautious, and I wondered if he even remembered the great glory of pounding down a road at a charger's full speed…
"You should not wander, these lands are dark. Stay close, where we can watch over you." A voice came from the shadows between carts, and I fought a laugh. That line might work on the carter's daughter, who blushed under this one's attention, but it fell desperately short on me.
"I was with my husband." I noted aloud, reining back my first sarcastic response. This one, watch over me? He watched me with the same avidity that he watched everything in a skirt. The fact that I had a husband meant little. "If anyone is bound to watch over me, it should be him."
"A man is no man without a sword." He stepped from the shadows, and I gave him a dubious look, which was all he warranted from me. He did indeed wear a sword, if that was what that could be called…and he wore it with all the ease and ability as my father had on those occasions his manhood had been called to trial… which was to say, none at all. Baudoin had a sword; of course, he was a knight of the Order. Like the charger, it was hidden, because it screamed paladin's blade, hidden as mine was, far from prying eyes. Neither of the blades matched our outward masquerade of simple farmer and wife…
"I have faith in my husband." I stated, narrowing my eyes at him. He played at nobility, but there were only two nobles with this caravan, and he was neither. I was one, and the young man who stared into the wreck of Lordaeron beyond us with the same haunted, yearning eyes that I had was the other. This one, no. He had money, it was obvious, but had not been gently raised. He wore much better clothing than Baudoin, but it was just a tad wrong, too garish, too poorly tailored, and too cheap, to pull off what he tried to.
"Ah, yes… the worthy spouse." He glanced in Baudoin's direction, and I allowed the sneer I felt to cross my face, hidden in my shoulder and the fall of my braid. I'd had the best Lordaeron had to offer, Arthas and Baudoin. I had no intentions of downgrading to this. "Where did you say he was from, again?"
"Hillsbrad." I answered. Hillsbrad, still free of the plague, still growing and living… It had been the breadbasket of Lordaeron once, and was still farms now. It had been far enough from Lordaeron and her shining capital to serve as the area used to base the internment camps which had incarcerated the captured prisoners of the Horde invasion. That remoteness had saved it, so far….
"Ah. Yes. Hillsbrad." He turned the word into an indictment. Farms equaled farm boys grown into farm men, a fairly accurate view of my Baudoin. I grimaced at the words. Baudoin was the Ironfist, blunt, brutal, viciously strong, his namesake hands strengthened by years of farm toil, and then the training of the Order and the struggle thereafter. But they were the same hands which had cradled chicks, newborn lambs, my children, myself…
"Lay a hand on me and I'll kill you for it." I promised, tiring of this. "I've told you no…"
He laughed, his eyes still on Baudoin, and I felt rage stir in my soul. Who was he to laugh at me? I was….
My runeblade perked up at the trail of thoughts, following the intent if not the true meaning. If I raged far enough, it could feed… Baudoin moved around his horse, his chin inclined towards the cart, sensitive enough to feel it awaken. His eyes rose to mine, clear golden brandy, quizzical and wary. I jerked my head at the interloper, and Baudoin's gaze moved over, comprehension dawning on his face.
"The woman is married." He grumbled, his Hillsbrad accent deeper than it had ever been during the time we'd been together. Of course, these were the lands which had sheltered him… "To me. Go chase another."
I fought a chuckle. Baudoin couldn't have seemed less the educated paladin he was if he'd tried. He'd hidden for so long, for so well, he no longer needed to work at it. I, however, could not. He leant on his past, and I had no safe past to lean on. I had been raised as nobility, and nothing had taken it from me.
"If he annoys you, kill him. Let him take you away from the caravan and..."
I grimaced, damn sword. It was difficult enough to do this, to try and seem to be the things I was not, and none of the things I truly was, without its proddings. Just get the boys, and return to the Lodge at Stormwind…
The man looked between the pair of us, Baudoin's doggedly set and possessive stare, and my own unyielding expression, before shrugging and moving away. "Fool." Baudoin muttered, enveloping me in another grasp. "The sword is awake and it speaks…"
"It does." The longer he was with me again, the more perceptive he became. "Tells me to let the man take me far from the caravan, and then get rid of him when he tries what he would be bound to try."
He breathed an almost laugh and I knew what he thought. It would be amusing…but. "Fool." He repeated. "Too used to farm girls, he should know better." He sighed, and I could feel the frown. "When will you need to feed?" He finally gained the courage to ask, and I covered the hand he had resting on my shoulder with my own. He didn't like it, neither did the Order, but there was plenty out there that deserved to die, enough to keep me fed and still doing the work of the Order…
"Not soon." I answered, and it was truthful enough unless I was pushed. If I had to draw upon the power gifted to me, then I would need to feed soon. Of course, if I was forced to display those powers, I would have prey to feed upon.
"And sleep?" He pushed, and I turned my chin to regard him.
"I sleep after I feed." I stated honestly enough. That was the truth, but it hid a great deal. I was afraid to sleep, afraid to feed. Before, when I did, Uther had been there in my dreams, and I had slept peacefully. Now… the one time I had slept since leaving Arthas had been filled with disjointed and dark dreams… The Citadel at its worst, and I could feel Arthas's proximity even though I had not seen him. The point was obvious, I could flee him…but actually getting away from him might be a different matter altogether. He had made me, and I knew he still owned me. Why had he allowed me to leave? Why had he not punished me? The power still flowed, unfettered. I still wore his ring on my finger. I had betrayed him, and he waited…biding his time…for what?
Baudoin sighed, resting his chin on my shoulder and staring down the same road that I did, deep into the death of Lordaeron. "What worries you, my love?" He asked softly, and I turned to rest my cheek against his.
"Why has Arthas not come against me?" I asked, and he stilled. "For I have betrayed him…" And such was unforgivable. "Against us? You? Me?"
"Has anything changed from when you served him?" Baudoin asked, and drew his worn cloak around the pair of us when the death before us breathed cold down the rutted way we stood on. I did not feel it as cold, but I felt the darkness within it, and turned away.
I pondered the question, my shoulder turned into the wind. What was different from then? I still felt the power Arthas had gifted me with. I still felt… secure. The ring still gleamed on my finger, the last true gift I'd received from him before he had ceased to be the Arthas we had all loved. Things moved in the lands around me, things made by Arthas. He knew where I was. He knew I was within reach of them, even if I was not within his bodily grasp. I felt his attention, but it was not fixated. He was as aware of me as he'd always been in those moments that he was not watching me.
"I cannot see into him." I finally admitted. Before, I had been trusted enough to skim his thoughts, his wants, his needs. Now, it was as if he'd pulled a door shut between us... closed, but not slammed.
"That is it?" Baudoin demanded, insinuating his bulk between me and the rising chill which shifted the branches along the way.
"Yes."
"Ah." He murmured, his breath hanging visibly in the air. "So you feel no threat from him?"
"None. He knows I am here, he feels me, but I still feel no threat." Unlike his, my breath did not show. "The night grows bleak."
"It does." He agreed, his eyes moving to the caravan settling down for it. "Death walks close to Hillsbrad. Yet another reason to take the children away. I prefer to not tempt fate."
"I will watch." I promised, and he sighed.
"I wish you would sleep." His voice was hopeless, and I shuddered. "You feel exhausted. You look exhausted. What will it take?"
Safety, as I had felt at the foot of Arthas's bed, the security to allow myself to sleep like that. The liberty to feed until I was sated. The knowledge that sleep did not bring that disorientation and rebuke…
I felt Arthas's sudden, sharp attention on me and I froze in Baudoin's grasp. "Clair." There was no venom in his touch, only a grave intensity. "Do not sleep so close to my enemies and yours. Later, it will be safe to sleep. I promise. But here, now, no. You are within the reach of Sylvanas's subjects."
"What?" Baudoin was still, vibrating as he tried to find the obvious threat.
"Arthas warns me to not sleep here. Sylvanas is no friend of ours." I didn't need a deeper warning than that. There were few I'd rather butt heads with less than that one, especially with no support. I'd be happy to lead any of my brethren against her, either the Order in righteous indignation, or even those who shared undeath with me at Arthas's back. But virtually alone, no.
"True enough." Baudoin agreed slowly. "None of your loyalties would endear her to you or you to her. Perhaps it was not wise to bring you this close to her…."
I frowned. Leaving me at Stormwind might have been wiser, yes, but I would not stand for it. I wanted my sons, as soon possible. I spun away from the road, pulling from the safety of Baudoin's cloak and stalked back to the carts. He merely watched me for a long moment before following me. He sat on a rock beside the fire as darkness grew from the trees, his eyes flicking warily towards the shadows. I crawled beneath our wagon, wrapping up in my bedroll and gave into my usual nocturnal watch. There were things out there I could feel, and turn to my will… those felled by Arthas, and yet mindless. And there were things out there hidden from me, not living, yet not mindless. They were less than I was, but enough of them could tear me apart. The two of us were not nearly enough to stand against them.
I waited; half hoping and half dreading that Arthas would deign to speak to me again. He did not; again I could feel the door closed against me. Baudoin came to my side later, resting his forehead between my shoulder blades and slept a deep and undisturbed sleep. How I envied him for it.