Here's a real chapter, to follow the little teaser from yesterday. Maybe I'll have another chapter out tomorrow, maybe not...We'll see. I've got a bad cold/sore throat thing right now, so I won't be going to school for most of tomorrow, but I might just sleep all day.

Let me apologize in advance for any errors in the depiction of the Temple of the Moon; I tried to get it as close to my memory as possible, but I might have missed some details.

Also, warning for gruesomeness.

The small body curled on the stone floor shivered once, and then lay still.

"Awaken."

The woman jerked again.

"Awaken."

Her eyes opened. The world was fuzzy, mist gathering at the edge of her vision. She pushed herself up a few inches. Her hands were in something wet. Uncomprehending, she lifted one to her face. The sticky dark blood was cold and full of clumps. She examined it closely, curiously, then lifted a red finger to her mouth. She sucked tentatively, then fell upon the rest of her hand with voracious hunger, licking and sucking the blood off her skin. She shuddered violently, and pain intruded upon her hazy brain. She looked down at herself.

The knife was lodged between two ribs. The handle was small and made of bone: a throwing knife. Memories slid into her awareness. The muscular female guards. The darkness of night and the light of the moon. Glowing pools. The usurper. Hatred.

She growled, a low, feral sound. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself upright in one, quick motion. Dizziness threatened to drag her unconscious once more, but she clutched at the wall and fought it. Agony had waves of nausea bubbling up from her stomach, but she fought that down as well. She was used to this, she was used to pain.

She stumbled forward. The chamber was nearly black, the only light filtering through cracks in the ceiling above. The floor was smooth and flat, but the walls and ceilings were rough and curved, carved into the mountain long ago. Her hands found the opposite wall, and she turned left and made her way along it until her booted feet found a depression. She pressed hard on the circular dent with her toes. Her legs trembled with the effort.

The wall shook under her fingertips. A blue light glowed in the circular trigger for a moment while the magic did its work. When the glow faded, so did the wall. She turned and stepped into the room, and the opening rumbled shut behind her.

She needed lights. Her fingers were slow and unresponsive, but she managed the spell after a minute. A bright orb of white light drifted up from her hand to hover above her head. This room was furnished, but sparingly. A bed with an iron frame sat in the far corner. To her right was a mirror and a sink, and nearby a chamber pot. Set along the back wall was a fearsome collection of weapons, mismatched and unorganized. The knives were stuck into a dark wooden board leaning against the wall, near the bed. They were arranged in the shape of a waving man with a tail. His smiling face was gouged into the wood within the circle of knives that made his head. Several longer daggers and a bastard sword were thrown uncaringly into a heap at the foot of the board, their sheaths thrown on top. Axes were laid on the floor in a circle, and arrows were placed around the shape, tips pointing outwards, as if they were rays from a sun. Bows were leaned up against the knife-board, some strung, some not. Various pieces of light armour were heaped in the far corner.

The woman turned toward the mirror and smiled. The look was ghastly; her mouth stretched too far, and her lips were white except in the centre where the blood she'd eaten had coloured them scarlet. Her eyes were wild and bright but shallow. They were human eyes, and the irises were a silvery brown. Shadows gathered beneath them as if in an attempt to give them back some of the depth they lacked, but it was to no avail.

She reached for a box on the sink's counter, and drew out a bottle, a pair of scissors, a needle and a spool of bright blue thread. She wrapped her hand around the knife hilt and pulled it out. Blood gushed out of the wound, and she pressed a hand to it. She scrabbled for a cloth lying on the right side of the countertop and sloshed clear liquid from the bottle onto it. Moving quickly, she tore off her shirt and threw it to the ground, then pressed the wet cloth onto her injury.

"Ah-ah." She gasped and her eyes squeezed shut as the alcohol did its cruel work upon the gash. Her free hand convulsed against the marble countertop. After a minute, she pulled the cloth away. She washed the wound with water, and then reached for the needle and thread. She threw her head back as she closed the incision stich by stich. Her smile was fierce and full of violence.

When the surgery was complete, she reached back into the box and pulled out a metal stamp in a shape like a feather. She held it in her left hand, and conjured a heating spell with her right. She heated the metal face until it glowed red. Then she went to the bed and eased her body down. The stamp was cooling slightly, the red receding from the design. Just as the last of the glow drained away, she put out her arm and pressed the stamp into her skin. Her back arched and she panted, but made no other noise. She let the stamp fall to the floor and she slumped back into the pillows.

"Sleep now, little Latasha."

Her eyes closed and her body relaxed. The brand on her arm was a bright and angry red. Beside it, on both arms, were a dozen more dark feather-shaped scars.

They were aligned in the shape of wings.

Tyrande Whisperwind sat on the edge of a balcony in the Temple of the Moon. Below her was the fountain, glowing ephemerally. Haidene, carved in white stone, held the overflowing bowl to the skies, as if entreating Elune Herself to dip down to drink. Tyrande wondered if she had.

Haidene had been the first High Priestess of the Moon, according to legend.

"And now that title falls to me." Tyrande curled her fingers around the cool stone and watched her feet stretch in the open air below her as if they belonged to someone else.

"High Priestess?" A woman put her hand on Tyrande's shoulder. Tyrande looked up into her face, startled; she had not realized she'd spoken aloud.

"Oh, it is nothing, A'moora." A'moora looked at her piercingly.

"If you need ears to listen, I am here." Tyrande nodded, then looked back towards the fountain. She heard A'moora's soft steps fade away behind her. Tyrande had no words for what was troubling her, not yet. It had come in a vision, but the vision was strange and warped. Dark mist had shrouded most, and the wind had howled about her, covering up all voices.

She had begun in a clearing, surrounded by twisting branches draped with moss and flowers. The visions always started this way. Life had pulsed palpably from the tree on which she stood. She knew it to be Nordrassil, as the World Tree had been during the long past times of peace. She had walked about the grass idly for a time, her bare feet tangling in the wildflowers.

Then she had felt the shift. Nothing changed about the scenery, but Tyrande suddenly perceived a sickening wrongness all around her. She pulled her feet from the flowers in disgust. She still felt the life beneath her, but now it seemed to be filtering through a screen. A screen that blocked all love and allowed only fury and bitterness to touch her.

Mist rose from the ground and fell from the branches. Visibly, it was the same white mist that hung near the shores of Teldrassil, but it cast a shadow over all it touched. She backed away, loathe to let its creeping tendrils reach her, but there was nowhere to go. It did not chill her as ordinary mist might have, but numbed her. She felt lightheaded and incorporeal. The mist began to swirl, picking up speed until it howled around her in a violent wind. And then the World Tree disappeared.

Shapes flashed by her and twisted together into the face of Varian Wrynn, the human King. He was laughing and talking with dozens of others, but they were indistinct and shrouded in mist. The spinning winds stilled for a moment, and she watched as an archer lit an arrow and fired it towards Varian. It missed, and the archer nocked another flaming arrow. She called out to warn Varian, but too late. The flaming missile hit him in the back, and his hair burst into flame even as water gushed from the wound. He turned to Tyrande and smiled kindly at her. He opened his mouth and said something to her, his eyes warm and happy even as his crown melted in the flames, but the wind had begun to howl again and she could not make out his voice. She tried to reach for him, but her arms were not there. The gold from his crown dripped down his face and over his neck, where they turned the colour of blood.

Then the scene had dissolved. It did not solidify again for many moments, and when it did it was only to show her scraps of images that quickly changed. First there was a great orc who slaughtered a rabid warg only to have the dead beast leap up again and latch its jaws around his throat. Then she saw warriors crawling like ants over a darkened landscape, meeting in the middle with a great clash of weaponry. Next there was an Ancient of the Forest, sleeping peacefully amid a pile of small pale corpses. More and more flashed by, each briefer than the last, and all depicting scenes of violence. She saw dwarves drunk on poisoned ale, and trolls riding raptors into the sea, and thousands of birds descending upon the Exodar and pulling it apart. She saw all, but could not move nor make a sound. She was incorporeal, inexistent, powerless...

Tyrande wrenched herself away from the memory. She was gripping the ledge so tightly her fingers were numb and her arms were shaking. Her hands tingled as she let go of the ledge and stood. She needed to speak to someone, Malfurion perhaps. The brush of stone beneath her feet steadied her as she walked down the steps to the ground floor. Her breathing was slower now, and she felt calmer with her decision to relate the strange vision. She should have done so at once, but she had been afraid. Speaking of it seemed to make it more threatening, as if it had taken a step father from the dream world and closer to reality, but it needed to be told or it could not be prevented.

Her head was full of plans. She needed to send Varian Wrynn a letter at once; that much was certain. And another ought to be carried to the Prophet Velen. Perhaps he had seen a vision as well.

Tyrande's white robes trailed behind her. Her footsteps were quick and sure as she marched briskly to the Temple entrance. Suddenly her toe met something wet. She paused, and pulled her foot up to look at the bottom of it. She rubbed at the dark liquid, and brought it up to her eyes.

Night Elven blood.

Tyrande spun to her left as the arrow whished past. She dropped behind a low stone wall and threw a spell towards the source of the arrow. Another clattered harmlessly against the stones near her head. This one came from an area more to the right of the last, as far as she could discern. Both had been fired from the upper deck. She darted up and ran to take cover behind a tree to her left, firing magic that cracked the stones of the balcony she had sat on minutes before. An arrow narrowly missed her head, the deadly point slicing off a few strands of her thick hair.

Where were the damn things coming from? There couldn't be more than one archer; even two would have been discovered before reaching such a sacred spot.

Even one should have been noticed. She was not afraid; battle did not frighten her, and she had lived to long to truly fear death anymore. No, Tyrande was furious. How dare a Horde assassin desecrate the Temple of the Moon. When she had caught the vermin she would–

Crack! Another arrow slammed into the edge of the tree trunk and the wood shattered. A sliver stuck in Tyrande's shoulder and she yanked it out, fury raging. She knew the archer's location now. He was on the opposite side of the chamber, upper floor, likely behind the pillar that stood there. She spun gracefully around the tree and took shelter behind the statue of Haidene.

Give me strength now, High Priestess, she thought, and directed all her power to the pillar. The stone cracked and the area around it blazed with a light so brilliant she had to look away, for fear of losing her sight. The ripple of power blew the hair back from her head, and her robes danced behind her. The ground trembled and the balcony collapsed under the strain.

When the rumbling stopped, all was silent.

Tyrande rose from her crouch, but stayed behind the statue. Her feet were immersed, and the edges of her garments were wet. Droplets had settled in her hair. All was still.

She reached out her awareness to the area of fallen stone, searching for another consciousness. Nothing was there; yet she could see no body. Something was wrong.

Perhaps she saw the small figure leap from the bowl in Haidene's arms, or perhaps the spirit of Haidene really was there to aide and alert Tyrande; whatever the reason, Tyrande moved in that instant, throwing herself towards the Temple doors. Thus, the long knife embedded itself in the right side of Tyrande's chest, not the left. The High Priestess gasped in surprise and fell to the floor, and the great Temple doors were thrown open with a great crash. The figure behind Tyrande yelped in alarm, and dashed away into the shadows as three mounted sentinels leaped over the threshold. Two darted off after the creature, while the third dismounted and ran to Tyrande. The High Priestess was panting, trying to heal the wound, but she had expended all but the last dregs of her power already.

Tyrande's vision was blurring, dark spots spreading across the world. Her lifeblood was pouring out of her, and exhaustion was entreating her to sleep, just sleep. The last thing she saw was Malfurion's face above hers, shouting something at her, but she could not make out the words.

Oh dear, what is going on?

Who am I kidding, you guys have probably figured out the whole plot by now. Important things happened in this chapter, though. Pay attention.

I'd love reviews or even random comments. I promise not to stab you with knives.