A/N: This is my answer to all 'What if'-questions. Part one of.. two, I think! Enjoy.

'Press on,' Eir barked, sweat dripping down her brow as she cut a way through the thick forest with an axe. 'We're close now.'

'You've said that at least five times in the last eighty-seven minutes. I'm starting to, once again, doubt your leading abilities.' Zojja chirped, walking in the Norn's footsteps, small enough to dodge most of the foliage hanging down and growing around them. Eir merely grunted in response, not looking to pick a fight now that Destiny's Edge slowly started bonding again. The heat around them was sweltering and humid, mosquitoes the size of rodents buzzing around their heads.

'Perhaps we could rest for a little while,' Logan muttered. His armor was drenched in sweat, the once white flags on it smudged with green and dirt. Rytlock scoffed as he halted his step.

'Still a weak human after all. Can't stand a little heat?'

'I didn't know you had heat-resistant fur.' Logan retorted, without even glancing up. 'You'd do good by a fireplace. As a rug, that is.'

'That's the wittiest retort I've heard in ages,' Rytlock grunted sarcastically.

'Enough!' Eir said, louder than the both of them, and it was enough to shut them up for a little while. 'We'll take a break,' she decided, throwing down her axe and slumping against a large tree. It made a wet, slicking sound when her back touched the bark, whether from sweat or slimy moss she couldn't tell, and it really didn't matter anymore. Garm sat down next to her, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Even Rytlock seemed relieved they had a minute to catch their breaths.

'Can't we just burn this thrice-damned jungle down? Dragons and all?' Logan asked, leaning his elbow on his hammer. 'We have been walking for days. There's no end to it!'

'Would you rather be home, sipping tea with the Queen, then? Honestly, there's nothing stopping you from going back. Nothing ever has.' Zojja remarked, sneeringly, and Eir nudged her, hissing 'Will you cut it out?'

'The heat is getting to all of us. Don't let it cloud your mind.' Caithe said softly, appearing from shadow. She plopped down next to Eir, shoulders just not touching.

'Easy for you to say. You're as much a tree as this godforsaken jungle. Have any water left?' Rytlock grunted. Caithe shook her head solemnly. Logan rummaged through his pockets and found a bottle, and upon the swishing sound of water inside a smile appeared on his face.

'There we go –oh,' he started, then faltered as he looked at the Charr next to him. Scowling, he handed him the bottle. 'Leave some for me.'

'See? They can make friends,' Eir grumpily looked at Zojja, as if to ask, Why can't you?

'Well, they are-' Zojja started, but was silenced when Garm suddenly perked his ears up, and Rytlock immediately after.

'Hush. You hear that?' They all sat completely still, focusing on the sounds around them. It was far from silent, there was creaking and moaning of the trees and the sounds of animals fighting and screeching in the distance, wind going through the leaves and the low rumble of a storm coming on.

Moments passed and Eir relaxed her tensed shoulders. 'It's nothing, Rytlock, that's the jungle.' She swatted at another massive mosquito. The storm brewed in the distance, growling low.

Caithe sat up and turned, moving her head to try locate the source of the sound. She touched Eir's arm lightly and placed a finger of her other hand on her lips to indicate that Eir should stop talking. They waited, looking for either Rytlock or Caithe to give a sign. After a couple of seconds, they almost simultaneously pointed in the same direction.

'There.' Rytlock said, lowering his arm. Almost as soon as he had said it, a low, groaning sound could be heard, so loud that the ferns around them trembled with the vibrations. Then the jungle tore open and a creature crawled out, taller than a house, on four massive, rotten tree trunks that served as its legs. The bark that had once covered the thing was ripping and falling off, revealing big black crevices and rotting tumors in the body of the beast. There were thorns sticking out of it, and it dragged itself forth on its darkened, disfigured feet, letting out another of those tormented cries, that mostly resembled the sound of a giant rock breaking off from a mountain and forming a landslide.

'What is that?' Logan ground out. Caithe stood up slowly to get a better look.

'An Oakheart, I think. But I have never seen them like this.' Behind her, Eir raised an eyebrow at Zojja, who defyingly shrugged.

'Okay, so we are getting closer.' The Asura said. It was endlessly tempting to add 'whatever', but she somehow composed herself. 'Come on, you. We have a Champion to kill.'

.

The Maguuma Jungle was harsh and unforgiving, but even more so when the storm came. It had turned dark in a matter of minutes, and before any of them knew it, the rain was pouring down and streams of mud were forming around their feet. The mosquitos had now en masse awakened from their slumber and multiplied by the dozens, not leaving any of them alone for a second.

Logan swatted around him, vaguely tempted to use his hammer against the insects, as he was the most assaulted. After him Eir seemed to be the best target, but she had decided not to swat them unless they were actually biting her, but it had resulted in a few rather large, bruise-like marks already.

'This is insane!' Logan complained. 'How can any of you stand these bugs?'

'They don't seem to bother me as much,' Caithe said apologetically, as if that would help his mood instead of worsen it. She heard Zojja sigh dramatically, and didn't need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes.

'You don't have blood. Of course they don't bother you as much.'

'Wish I didn't have blood,' Eir muttered just loud enough for them to hear. It was so macabre that none of them really wanted to reply, until Rytlock broke the silence.

'I'm drenched because of the rain, and yet it's not even getting any colder.' He said, as Logan nodded in agreement. 'I'm starting to feel strangely nostalgic thinking of Jormag's Champion.'

'Hold on, you squabbling old ladies,' Zojja suddenly said, stopping dead in her tracks. She tilted her head and looked around. 'It almost feels like there is a force field around here. I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't seem to be electric.' She trailed off, readying to dig out one of her devices from her backpack. Logan lifted his hand and moved it back and forth, looking at the disturbance in the air.

'It's not a force field, this is magic. Mesmer magic.' He narrowed his eyes. 'There might be some kind of illusion nearby.'

'I don't think it's nearby. It would seem impossible, but it looks like these are the fraying edges of an immense magical field. We're lucky I even noticed.' Zojja held up a tracker in her right hand, and it beeped softly every time she broke through the barrier. If she was gloating, she wasn't that obvious about it. Rytlock grumbled low in his throat. 'Ugh, illusions. I despise illusions.'

'Can one creature even conjure up a field this big?' Caithe asked. She stared into the jungle, a troubled look on her face. Zojja looked at the device again.

'Quite plausible. We are hunting a Dragon's Champion, after all.'

.

As soon as they stepped through the force field, it was as if the jungle was silenced. The rain hadn't stopped, but it didn't seem to break through the dome shaped barrier above them. The mosquitoes had also vanished, the only thing left was the sweltering heat. Eir peered into the distance.

'Whatever this magical barrier is, it's huge.' She hacked away at the surrounding foliage. 'Let's get to the center of this thing.'

'I don't like this, not one bit,' Rytlock grunted. 'It feels like we're being wachted.'

'We probably are,' Caithe added. Her hand hovered over her dagger, ready to strike. She tried to breathe shallowly, the sweet scent of the jungle overpowering her senses. The forest seemed to move, more than before, toxic and living, growing, squirming within the boundaries of its own body. Eir hacked at the vines and ferns extending their leaves at them, toxic needles pulsing. Had the things had fangs, they would be bearing them in their venomous aggression. 'We're not welcome.'

'The quicker we clean this mess up, the better. Let's go.' Logan said. For the first time, he sounded reassured and confident, his team at his side again. They all felt the anticipation, coming closer to their target, slowly overcoming their fears and doubt about each other.

As the group advanced onward toward the estimated middle of the dome, Caithe began to notice her surroundings changing. The trees were further between, their bark turning darker as they went along. The foliage on the ground died down to nothing but a mushy, black, rotting mess. Thorned vines still snuck up to ensnare them, they now made up most of the knee-high greens they waded through.

Eir saw Caithe appear next to her from the corner of her eye. She hacked away at an overhanging vine, drowning out the sound of the Sylvari's voice.

'What was that?' Eir asked, not slowing down.

'I said, maybe we should turn back.' Caithe hissed, keeping her distance from Logan, Rytlock and Zojja. 'I have a very bad feeling about this.'

Eir's eyes could not have been wider. She slowed down a little, gaining a moment to look at her friend in surprise. Caithe averted her gaze. It was not unlike her to have secrets, but the Norn would be damned if she were to be blamed for another failed mission because of her team not working together. 'There's something you're not telling me.' Something in Eir's tone made it hard to defy her.

'Eir, it's more complicated than you think-' Caithe started, but the other would have none of her excuses.

'Just spit it out, Caithe. If you have any idea what we're up against, or why we shouldn't fight, I'd rather hear it now than after we lose someone else.' She was aggravated, and maybe would have had more patience had it not been for the last couple of most trying days, but on the other hand Eir was their leader, and she needed to act the part. Caithe bit her lip, and shook her head slowly, falling into step next to Garm, behind Eir.

'It's nothing. Never mind.' Caithe sighed. Eir threw her a worried glance.

'Can you fight?' she asked, as if asking Are you okay?

'Yes.' Caithe answered, clenching her hands into fists. 'I will fight, if I need to.'

.

Caithe couldn't keep her thoughts focused on the task at hand. Ever so often so thought she recognized these thorned trees, or the rotten, vast expanses of land stretched before them, scattered with a few lonesome bushes. It was growing more silent as they tracked on, their feet growing numb and mouths going dry. Caithe shook her head, trying to keep the visions from entering her mind.

A small patch of green grass. Caithe wanted to sit down there, to rest, and imagine she was not here, right now. She vaguely wished things would go back to the way they were. As she heard her name being called, Caithe looked up to see where the sound was coming from. A slender Sylvari sat not too far away from her, extending her hand, a smile on her face. Caithe's heart stopped when she recognized that face - though without thorns, without malice, without sorrow it was, she remembered it. She opened her mouth to stammer her name, but Faolain beckoned her again, that smile still on her face.

Suddenly, Caithe sat next to her, their fingers entwined. She looked at her once partner, and noticed how she looked younger, so much more vivid, less worn down than before. So much more like she used to be. Caithe lifted her hand to stroke her cheek, only to go right through her.

'How much further?' Logan asked, his voice raw. Caithe snapped back to reality, for a moment utterly confused. They had exited the forest, and now were on dry, dead plains. There wasn't even any rot, no thorns, absolutely nothing. Their feet made crunching sounds on the gray sand.

Caithe let out a shivering breath. She could blame the illusion for catching her off guard, but there was so much more. For a moment, she had wished it was real. She had wished she was still carefree and in love. She had wished she didn't know where she was going. Eir stopped walking, and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

'I don't know,' she said, after a moment. 'There's nothing here.'

But as soon as she said it, the ground began to shake. They tried to keep their footing as the quakes began to increase in severity, and fault lines began to form at their feet. Eir yelled a command to fall back that barely overcame the sound of the earthquake. Then the vines appeared - thicker than a tree, higher than a Charr - they grew out of the ground, covering the surface of the wastes. They rapidly increased in the numbers, crawling over one another, knitting and sliding together, forming a massive mountain of plant matter on the once-empty land.

Zojja's eyes shot over her various devices, calculating and measuring the energy around her. When suddenly her mouth twisted into a smile, they knew they had found their target.

'Dragon energy readings are more than clear. Whatever it is, it's somewhere in there.'

'We'll have to be careful. That maze may collapse on us just as quickly as it formed.' Eir nodded, hand on her axe. Garm had his ears laid back, and growled low at the massive plants in front of him. Rytlock scoffed, then stepped forward and slashed through the vines with Sohothin, the flaming sword, ignoring Logan's sour face and burning a hole in the vines immediately. With just a few long movements, he had burned through the first vine. The inside of the vine web was less dense than the outside surface, and they could walk in a couple of metres before the paths split in two different directions. Rytlock decided to eliminate the decision by burning down another path right through the middle, and no one questioned his judgement. Caithe let the others walk out in front of her. The vines pulsed with magic, magic that she knew so, so well. It was like strings tugged at her heart and made her stomach turn to ice. She had hoped for so many nights that it wouldn't be true, that Zojja had found tracks of another Champion, any other Champion than this one. She had never spoken a word. She never would.

'I can't believe you went back there,' Caithe snarled at her lover. 'I told you not to- I told you it was dangerous! When will you start listening to me?'

'When you come back to me, my love. This is all just to prove what you are missing out on. We could be the most powerful beings in the world - with this power that was granted us.'

'I can't believe you're now associating with that which I have sworn to kill!'

'You've killed your Dragon, haven't you? And for you to be vowing murder, the Nightmare truly is in your mind already.'

'You are on my mind. Only you are always on my mind.'

'You won't tell anyone, will you?' Faolain asked. She was so close, Caithe could almost imagine her being normal again. She wanted to scream, to yell, to hit her, to vent all her frustrations, to end them all, but she didn't. She couldn't, when those lips pressed against her own and those long fingers tangled in her hair. She sighed.

'I won't. If possible, I will protect you, my love.'

'Keep up, Caithe!' Eir called as the group came to a halt. Rytlock stepped forward again, his sword slashing through the vines. Every time a vine went down, the fortress rumbled, closing out a little more daylight. Caithe realized she'd been lost in thought and took a few quick steps. She wanted to focus, but memories of days she'd never get back kept clouding her mind.

'What's up with you?' Zojja gave Caithe a sideways look. 'I'd say I'd rather lose you if you're going to space out but since the disastrous consequences of the last time we lost a useless teammate, I'd rather not take any chances.'

'Zojja's right,' Rytlock agreed. 'Focus, or turn back. I'm not saving your hide if you fail to do your task.'

'Enough,' Logan interrupted. 'I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but we're a team. No one gets left behind.' Zojja stuck her nose in the air as she explicitly ignored Logan and Rytlock snorted, but did not reply. Caithe stayed close to Logan, for now, trying to keep her legs from shaking. What would she do, when the time came to face their foe? Would she watch as Sohothin came down on Faolain? As Eir's arrows pierced her skin? Would she fight? Would she be able to?

'Caithe, I want you to be honest with me now.' Soft fingers on her shoulders, she felt warm breath in her neck. She pressed against the figure in front of her, finding some comfort in her warmth. Caithe hummed in response to her question.

'Are you even listening?'

'Yes, Faolain,' Caithe laughed. The other smiled back at her, amber eyes gleaming, but then bit her lip and hesitated. Caithe's eyes sparkled with curiosity. 'Well?' she asked, softly.

'Will you be mine forever?' Faolain asked breathlessly. Caithe smiled, then pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

'If it is within my power, then yes.'

'Do you promise?'

'I do.' Sohothin burned another path, the smoke struggling to find its way out to the sky through the thick network of vines. Rytlock kicked away the remains of the plant before treading deeper into the maze.

'What is real?' Caithe murmured, placing a hand on her forehead and trying to control her breathing. The world spun as she tried to keep up the pace, visions from her past fading in and out the corners of her eyes.

'Where have you been, Caithe? I have been looking for you!'

'Faolain - I didn't know, I was with Trahearne, I didn't -' she stammered, but the other was furious.

'Do you even realize how worried I was?' Faolain cried. She tipped a chair over as she said it, almost growling from pure frustration. 'Don't you know how long I've waited?'

'Faolain, I'm sorry! I keep telling you I didn't mean for this to happen, please just calm down!'

'Tell me how long I've waited, Caithe!'

'A couple of days?' Caithe stammered, backing up slowly. Magic sparked between Faolain's fingertips as she narrowed her eyes and dropped her voice dangerously low.

'Twenty years, Caithe. Twenty long years I have waited for you. Twenty cursed years since you abandoned me. '

'I- What? That was not when this happened,' Caithe suddenly realized. This was a fight they'd had long ago, before the Nightmare had even truly existed. She looked around, trying to gather her bearings. The vine maze was nowhere to be seen, only a smoky darkness that seemed to extend into eternity. 'Eir? Logan?' She called out, extending her hands in the darkness around her, hoping for someone to respond.

'Caithe? Caithe! I'm here, it's okay,' Eir's voice was soothing, and she felt her strong arms lift her up and Garm nip at her feet, but she could not see her. She floated through the endless darkness that filled her mind.

'Eir, she's in my head. She's in my head.' Caithe tried to put her arms around Eir's neck, trembling all over. Eir hushed her, and she felt she was being set down, half leaning against something.

'Here, try to calm down.' Logan said, putting a hand on her forehead softly. Slowly, the darkness waned, and Eir's worried expression came into focus. Caithe almost cried of happiness upon seeing her friends.

'I don't know if I can go on,' she ground out, willing her body to stop shaking. As she looked up at her teammates, she slowly registered their faces. Eir wore a face of absolute horror, Garm bore his fangs in a growl. Rytlock narrowed his eyes and reached for his sword, as Logan reached for his hammer. Zojja's eyes went wide, but she had her magic ready. An ice cold fear spread through Caithe's chest. Then thin fingers slid down Caithe's face and neck, and she felt soft warmth against her back.

'You don't have to go on any more, my love. You're finally here.'