A/N - Warcraft is Blizzards baby, not mine.

This takes place, obviously, after Insufferable Friendships.


Fandral shivered involuntarily, glancing quickly to his left to make sure the Priestess had not seen. If she had, she gave no sign, her eyes still focused intently on the messenger before them. It was not pleasant news. It never was. Especially when the news came from the shattered excuse for a planet on the other side of the dark portal. In truth, Fandral almost felt bad for the woman sometimes. Still, she was obstinate and the looks she sometimes gave him were enough to make him want to throw her off one of Teledrassil's boughs. Cooperation between them was impossible, she was so stubborn sometimes in her defense of the most invalid points – the orcs, the little blond human girl who seemed to have difficulty choosing a side between her own kind and the greenskins, the marrowgrain research, the tauren, her husband and brother in law....

Tyrande drew a sharp breath, barely perceptible, but it was enough to snap Fandral out of his mental rant. Out of the corner of her eye, he saw her brown crease and her bottom lip quiver slightly. Women, honestly, sometime he wished he could-

"Are you certain?" her voice was harsh, but he couldn't help but notice a slight waver.

"I am, Priestess. The huntress said to give you this, as proof," the courier was pulling something out of his pack now. A leather wrapped package that reeked of blood and magic. He handed it to her and she hastily unwrapped one corner with shaky hands. Fandral nearly cursed himself, cursed the woman for bringing such distracting, infuriating thoughts to his mind that he had not been paying attention to the messengers words.

Tyrande hardly seemed to glance inside the leather before steeling herself.

"You may go," she said, rather uncharacteristically curt. "And tell the huntress she was right not to deliver this news herself, and that I will not welcome an audience with her."

The courier gave a flustered bow and left.

Tyrande turned and gently set the package on a work table.

"You're not going to leave whatever that is here, are you?" Fandral couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice.

"I will remove it later. Right now, I need air," she snapped as she strode to the balcony.

Grunting with distaste, Fandral turned his attention to the package. Now that he was closer, he could more clearly see that the leather was not as dark as he had thought, rather that the blood was violet.

Violet...Kal'dorei blood was...

He reached out a hand and brushed aside the undone corner, revealing the runed edge of a glaive, a bloodstained strip of fabric loosely wrapped around it. Something else was tucked into the fabric; he could see the edge of a petal shaped stone. He went to push aside the fabric to see the trinket, but a soft noise behind him made him freeze.

"She finally got her revenge...and my 'great mistake' as you so lovingly call it has been corrected," Tyrande voice cracked with the words.

Fandral pulled back, afraid to meet the womans gaze.

"I..."

She crossed, pulling out the trinket – an Iris made of amber on a thin leather cord – and stared at it for a long time.

"I had always hoped..." she shook her head and took Fandral's hand, pressing the pendant into it. "I never want to see it again. I don't care what is done with the rest. I just...I don't want to think about either of them right now."

He gazed at the amber flower for a minute before following her back to the balcony.

"I'm sorry...I know how hard loss can be and..."

"You were right. I really didn't know what it was like until just now," she wiped her tears on the back of her hand. "I always thought there was hope that they would both come back to me, that things would be the way they were. Well, maybe not exactly as they were, obviously, but they had reconciled and Illidan and I had come to an understanding and...it's not going to happen now. Malfurion isn't going to wake up, and Illidan didn't get away this time."

"You don't know that Mal-"

"I've lost them both. I know I have, any minute now, another courier is going to come running through that door and say-"

"I highly doubt that. It's alright to be depressed, but now you're just being ridiculous."

"This from the man who nearly killed himself trying to bring his son back."

"And obviously you're well enough to still spit salt at my wounds," he noted her fists tightening on the banister and inwardly cringed. "Malfruion will wake up. He's got himself in a mess, but he's not so foolish as you, nor as mad as his brother. When the courier comes it will be to tell you he is awake, and that he's wondering why his mate is doing such a terrible job running things with her stubborn head and overbearing emotions."

She whirled on him and he felt for a moment that he had gone to far. He had said far worse, of course, and the line that wasn't meant to be crossed was far behind them both at this point, but nonetheless, he had typically avoided such comments when she could easily push him off a balcony. Before he could correct himself, however, she gave a small smile and he realxed.

"More likely he'll be yelling at you, wondering why there is a giant tree in the middle of the ocean and the circle meets without and Archdruid. I can't imagine what he would say about the mounds of dirt everywhere.."

"He'd be alright with them, I'm sure. Unless we have switched to talking about the other Stormrage."

She punched him in the chest, still smiling, but a little too hard to be merely playful, and walked back inside, picking up the leather bound glaive.

He followed her, holding up the pendant. She shook her head and headed towards the door.

"I believe that before we were interrupted, you were telling me that you were going to do something immensely stupid. Amber is lucky, you could need it."

He frowned. "Research can hardly be considered stupid. Besides, it's an Iris. Such flowers are reserved for friendship."

She paused at the door and gave him a wry smile and merely shrugged. "You still need the luck."

She was gone before he could protest further.