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Ash
"Jaina..."
The voice was hoarse, exhausted, melancholy. It was a voice she loved, yet had Jaina not known its cadence so intimately, she would not have recognized it as his.
Turning, the mage saw him standing at a distance, a waiting darkness against the glow of the campfire. He seemed... ominous, yet almost insubstantial, his strong body slumped with fatigue, hands folded across the butt of his hammer's haft.
He, who had once burned so brightly, now seemed bereft—no longer a vessel of the Light.
Jaina took a hesitant step forward, reaching out to him. "Arthas?" she whispered uneasily. He was remote, as if a desolated stranger.
He inclined his head, "Why are you here?" he asked. The words were soft; there was no anger in his voice, no accusation—only that telling burden of weariness.
"For you," Jaina said uncertainly. It almost seemed a question—not at all what she had intended.
He shrugged, straightening, hefting Light's Vengeance in one hand, and in the wavering light she saw upon it the dark, dull signs of slaughter. A frisson of terror shivered through her. She could not see his face; he was all darkness. A stain upon the light.
Cold... instinct whispered. Dangerous.
He had committed horrific acts in the light of day—what more might compel him now, forsaken and eclipsed?
"Come to the fire," he said gently, "It is cold tonight." The sudden chill melted into shame at his words. Had not her moment of unreasonable dread been yet another betrayal of his trust? It would break his heart to know she feared him.
He glanced towards the blaze and Jaina saw the familiar, arresting features—a profile cut from shadow—clearly etched upon the lambent brightness. Turning away, he walked to the fire; and she followed him, treading the uneasy edge of a grim intuition that whispered in her mind.
He is no longer living... he died today, at Stratholme. What you chase now is but a ghost...
Jaina sank down beside him where he sat cross-legged before the fire. Tentatively, she touched him and he tensed, glancing at her askance. His pale green eyes, once kind and merry, were now anguished, red-rimmed with grief. He seemed so lost. She gasped softly, pressing her cheek to his hard bicep, urging him nearer; but he only looked away, as if mesmerized by the flames.
Much had burned to ash on this day, Jaina knew; and she could only wonder what he saw there, writhing in the fire's fleeting radiance. What were the images now seared into his memory? An abattoir of broken bodies, the plagued dead, rising... the suffering of innocents, their screams of horror indistinguishable from those of their murderous saviors—all frozen in time—specters shaped for haunting...
Uther had condemned him, she had, herself, denied him—but what other course of action had they offered? None. They had done nothing but abandon him. Was their sin not equal to, or even greater than his own? And in the brutal hell of terrible necessity, what had been the rational, compassionate decision?
Jaina knew him; it was his nature to be accountable. Whatever charge was leveled for his deeds, he would bear it—but in the end, it would be his own tormented heart and the dead of Stratholme who would judge him.
"Will you come with me?" Arthas asked, his voice wooden, already certain of her answer. Nothing in him blamed her. She had no choice but to turn away.
To the young mage, it was as if he thought it impolite to deny her the chance to denounce him once again. There was insulation—distance—in the words, a subtle shift from pain to composed indifference. She sensed the change in him, and in it was the tolling bell of an imminent, awful resolution.
"To Northrend?" Jaina whispered, tightening her fingers upon his arm, feeling the close heat of his body. He seemed feverish, caught and held in some inescapable flame—one that would consume him. Jaina felt a desperate certainty that if she released him, if she allowed him to walk away from her, he would not be warm for long. Cold awaited him, patient in the darkness. She could feel its power, its intentions—moving to engulf and steal him away forever.
"Don't leave me, Arthas," Jaina whispered, pressing closer, clinging to him with fearful, frantic ardor. "Please, don't leave me..."
There was no response; something precious had died in him. Innocence was blasted, all hope crushed—leaving only bloody vengeance; and even it was hollow. A shadow had fallen across his soul and rather than resist, he had turned to it, finding solace in its secrecy.
His eyes sought hers, lingered briefly and then flickered away. "I am already gone," he said, as if scarcely aware of her nearness.
"No..." she gasped, reaching for him, craving his warm embrace, his tender kiss, but he offered nothing of himself to her; all past generosity of spirit was lost, burned away, refined to... ice. Jaina shivered, chilled by this perception. What dark force had shaped this portent—sending it, malevolent, to inform her? Even now, it deepened the wounds dividing them. "Talk to me, Arthas... please..."
He looked at her, solemn, yet strangely restless, "There is nothing to say," he whispered with quiet resolve. And she reached for him, even as he slipped away, his thoughts moving past her to whatever awaited him in the frozen north.
"I love you," Jaina offered, peering up into his still face. Were her words meaningless to him? Had he even heard her? He seemed to be listening to another voice, distant now, but growing ever stronger. One only he could hear. "I failed you," she whispered, seeking the perfect word that would be heard—the one that might redeem and bring him back into the Light, dispelling the coming dark. "I deserted you when you needed me," she cried. "Oh gods, perhaps there was no other choice..."
"It's done," he replied, with the same unsettling calm—eerie in one who had always been so passionate. "Cannot be undone." Jaina nuzzled closer, a silent plea for his acceptance, for his forgiveness of her lapse. His eyes slid closed, their tawny lashes matted with blood and sweat; slowly, he shifted away. "I'm... filthy..." he murmured, "...not fit to touch..."
Groaning, Jaina drew him to her, pressing close to kiss his cheek, his ashen lips, tightening her arms around his neck; but he was cold, gore-spattered plate, impassive. "Hold me," she implored, "I need you, Arthas. Please say you still need me..."
He looked at her with grave, profound sadness, and she turned her face into his hair; the doubt in his eyes was unbearable, patient—ancient as despair. He smelled of blood and burning. He smelled of death, of hopeless loss. Slowly, his arms surrounded her, but there was no promise in his embrace, only emptiness.
He sighed, and there was a whisper of intolerance in the sound, as if love's confinement only rankled and imposed, bringing him no peace. She kissed him again, and yet again, hungry for his familiar, ardent response, her fingers moving to impassion him.
"You must forget me," he insisted, his voice faint; and even glowing with warm, reflected firelight, his eyes were cold, dismissive. She drew back to look at him, silent in her sorrow. "What calls to me..." he said, "you dare not heed..."
"I will not abandon you, Arthas... I cannot..."
"You already have..." he said quietly, and she knew it was the agonizing truth. "It's best," he murmured, "I must finish this, Jaina. At any cost."
She stroked his cheek, feeling the bristle of new beard against her palm. He looked at her again, now with such wounded earnest in his eyes; and when he leaned into her caress, for one brief moment, he was wholly hers again.
"Please understand..." he whispered. It was the last thing he would ever ask of her.
She knew then that on the morrow, he would be gone. All hope and its desire would pass away—as irretrievably lost as he. Her heart aching, she gave him one chaste kiss and whispered the binding words, "I do..." A promise she would keep, for closure's sake.
Wordless, they held each other until the dawn.