A/N: I do not own right to any of Blizzard's characters or plot. Apologies to Suzanne Collins/Taylor Swift for hijacking the lyrics to 'Safe and Sound' from her Hunger Games series.

The young Moon Guard's hand shook, like an oak leaf caught in the autumn wind, as he raised it weakly, searching blindly for the woman he knew to be standing by his bed.

"St-stormsinger?" His voice felt like anyone's but his own: too rough, too deep, like he hadn't had a drop of water in days, or like the demonic energies of Sargeras' 'gift' had finally reached his throat.

The gentle laugh that greeted his words was as soothing and welcome as a spring shower. "You know that is not my name." She said in return, the quel'dorei accent ringing clear and proud.

She could only have been one of the quel'dorei, after all. Here, in Lady Azhara's palace, tirelessly tending his wounds and comforting him as he changed, perhaps his body remaining the same, but the fel slowly burning away and replacing the arcane magic within him.

First, it had been his sight, the world suddenly shifting to gray, overlaid with the iridescent hues of magic. The brilliant indigo of arcane power that ebbed and flowed through almost every quel'dorei. The pale silvery-blue blessing of Elune that shone in her priestesses, the perfect emerald of his brother's druidic power, and the sickly yellow-green of the fel as it slowly consumed more and more of his surroundings.

Then...Then the pain had started. Unlike anything else he had ever known, as if his very body was at war with itself. That pain that had exiled him from the frontlines to the soft bed in a room that slowly smelled less and less of sharp healing herbs and tonics and more and more like the pungent, acrid stench of the fel.

But pain he could manage. His new magical sight was nothing short of a valuable asset. The worst, the part that made him question himself for the first time in his life, was the whispering in his mind, his thoughts suddenly, instantly, twisting to darkened and perverted versions of his intentions. Images of Malfurion, mocking him as reckless and incompetent, reminding him that he would only ever be in his twin's shadow. Tyrande throwing his devotion into his face, proclaiming him to be a 'Mistake of Elune'.

Lost in nightmares, he had wondered if this was really how it would all end: driven mad by the torments of the fel until he was no more than a broken, empty shell. The perfect tool of the Legion.

The scent of fresh rain reached his nose, clearing his mind as quickly as it had the first time he had caught her unique perfume. As he had every day from the first he had met her, he relaxed into her touch, breathing deeply as the storm raging in his mind calmed to the music of her voice.

"How can you be called anything else," He asked, voice breaking as he finally found himself explaining the nickname he had given her weeks ago."When only your voice can calm the torment in my mind?"

Her long sigh made him wish he could see more clearly, perhaps enough to wipe the tears starting form in the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. To see the color of her long hair wrapped in a tall ponytail, and to have the strength to put an arm around her slumped shoulders.

"Y-you'll have to learn to calm your mind for yourself." Her voice was heavy, mournful, and spoke of one parting with something they held more dear than their own life. Those eyes, piercing and unwavering from his, were already wrinkled at the corners from years of being held in hard lines constantly. She was too young to be so serious. She should be worrying about fashions, about patty intrigues, rather than watching her life ripped to shreds by the Legion. He should be worrying about his next promotion, about impressing his commander, about finding some woman who could replace the cavern Tyrande had left in his heart.

Rather than let those thoughts darken the moment further, he focused on her delicate fingers, calloused by centuries of training with a bow, trying to memorise the paths her light touch danced over the tattoos covering his chest, his arms, his hands.

"I cannot stay here, in Zin-Azshari. I have to go. I can't play this game any longer." He heard the tears in her voice, even as the first warm drops hit his still-tender wounds, the salt stinging as a reminder of all he had sacrificed, and all that he would lose before Legion was defeated.

"C-can you sing for me? One last time?" Dammit. He wished he wouldn't sound as if he were close to crying, but she had been the only thing he could even come close to calling a friend, a true ally, a kindred spirit walking the dangerous tightrope of feigned allegiance to Xavius and Azhara's twisted plots, since walking into this Elune-forsaken city.

I remember tears streaming down your face, when I said I'd never let you go.

Her voice was low, like distant thunder, as familiar as his brother's scowl, yet the words were new. Something special to remember this moment by, this final chance at hearing her voice.

When all those shadows almost killed your light. I remember you said 'Don't leave me here alone'...

She had never, in all these weeks, seen anything like the look on the Moon Guard's face as he pleaded her to sing for him. In that instant, he ceased to be the arrogant, reckless, and impulsive sorcerer favored by Azshara, and instead became a young man as desperately lost in this chaotic war as she was. Elune...please...give me the strength to sing this final song...

Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound.

She prepared to leave, but the iron grip on her wrist held her fast at his side as he dragged her ear close to his mouth.
"Promise me...promise me you will never make the mistake of tampering with the fel." His words were as earnest and desperate as her reply.
"I swear by Elune's grace." It was the second time today she had heard someone, broken by this cruel war, deliver those same words. But, unlike this morning, when she had barely managed a nod at her mother's pleas, she let her lips graze the man's forehead, just above the cloth bandage concealing his eyes.

Her final gesture of friendship, of caring, complete, it was all she could manage to stride gracefully from the room, collecting her bow and full quiver, head held proud and tall, as the picture of a loyal subject to her Queen.

The moment she was beyond the guard's piercing gaze, she felt her self-control crumble as quickly as her father's will had crumbled under the Fel and she obeyed the silent order that had been contained in her mother's eyes as quickly as her feet would carry her. She ran.