I spent that winter in the haven of the Order, safe and secure, untouchable as Uther's ward. My father was arrested, and jailed, my mother sent to Lordaeron, and my lands put in trust to the Order. I grew stronger, more capable, and the pain vanished. I was where I belonged, with a father figure who cared, and a quasi brother who did as well. I no longer saw a joke in this, this was where I belonged… but things never stay calm. I've learned that well…

It was spring, but it had been a sharp, wet one, little comfort from the earlier winter. I had laid on muscle, coltishly lanky instead of pale and thin. I drilled with Arthas in the morning, but had graduated to drilling with Uther in the afternoon. It was morning; a cold haze slimed the grass and turned the mud to hard butter. Arthas and I were sparring, merely playing, the marshals still watching. None of them called it; it was nothing I did wrong. It was nothing Arthas did wrong. It wasn't the horse, his or mine. It was simply wretched luck. They say these things are slowed forever in your mind…it wasn't. One minute I was setting my horse to turn over his haunches and meet Arthas's attack, the next moment I was on the ground, the horse on top of me, screaming.

"HOLD!" The marshals, Arthas's own deep voice in theirs, calling a halt to all sparring.

There was pain. So much of it. I'd never, ever even conceived of this kind of agony. It was stunning, silencing…too much to even consider breathing, much less crying or screaming.

"Clair!" He was beside me, either time was flowing very oddly, or he had thrown himself from his horse to make it me.

My horse was churning, convulsing, and the slightest move it made amplified the agony. "Arthas." I managed, and he stared at me. "Make it stop moving. Please, just…"

He nodded sharply, rose to his feet, and brought his warhammer down between its eyes, one massive blow. It didn't completely stop moving, but it fell to twitching. "Uther!" He bellowed, his voice ragged and much deeper than I was accustomed to. "Damnit, Uther! To me, now!" It was the call of a Menethil, a ruler, at odds with his normal behavior towards Uther. "Clair. Uther is coming. It's going to be fine."

"What the hell happened, boy?" Uther's voice, sharp, breathless. He'd been running…

"Her horse fell on her. I think…it's bad."

"Aye. Clair, lass… we're going to move the horse now. These things happen all the time, you know that."

Yes, I knew that. We'd had one just last week, but then, they had both, horse and rider, bounced up like little balls… basically none the worse for wear. Had everything been like then, the horse would have been up before Arthas had made it back to me. He hadn't been getting up, he had been thrashing… Arthas hadn't blinked once before killing him.

I passed out when they moved the horse, for the Light does bless us. I woke up to dim light and muted sounds, all hazed and unfocused, like a disjointed dream that didn't want to flow together right. My left hand was freezing, my right one warm and clasped in another's grasp. I opened my eyes, into Arthas's gaze. His expression brightened immediately. "Clarimonde." He breathed. "You're awake, finally."

"I…" Couldn't speak. My lips were cracked, my tongue swollen, and nothing worked correctly.

"Shhhh. Don't try." He smoothed the air back from my forehead and pressed his lips there. He felt very warm, very alive, while I felt stunned, lost, cold….dead. "It's wonderful that you're awake… Uther…."

"Wha', boy?" Uther muttered sleepily, very close by.

"She's awake."

Uther picked up my cold hand, he was obviously on the other side of my bed, and held it. "Morning, Lass." He whispered gruffly. "Gave us all a scare, you did."

"What…happened?" I forced the words. The most concrete memory I had was of Arthas's words… "Her horse fell on her." That had to have been it. The footing was bad… When the shift over had happened, he must have slipped.

"Your horse slipped in the mud." Arthas sighed, as the one to have actually witnessed it. "His hindquarters went out from underneath him, and he broke a leg in the fall. He landed on top of you…"

"How bad is it?" It was, I knew it. I'd seen how the Order handled small injuries, and this was not it. Arthas had broken a wrist in drill, and was back on the line in less than an hour.

"You kept trying to die on us." Arthas's voice was light, but when I focused on his face, his eyes were anything but. "Took everything we had to get you in the building alive enough for the priests to take over."

"You've broken your back, Lass. But the priests believe they've pulled you through. You had the common good sense to do that here, not elsewhere." Stratholme, the home of the Order, had more than its fair share of the best healers in the land.

"Will I walk again?"

Arthas glanced away from me, his eyes meeting Uther's, and I knew. They didn't know. They hoped, they prayed, but they didn't know. "We don't know, Clair." Arthas finally admitted. "We really don't know." He rested his hand on my forehead. "All we can do is pray. And we are."

"I know."

"Is there anyone you want here?" Arthas asked, an edge to his voice. "Your mother? I can have her brought from Lordaeron. Your father? I can have him paroled, long enough for him to come. Name it, Clair. And it will be done."

"All I want is you and Uther." I said, and it was the truth. "My father can stay where his foolishness put him…and my mother, no." I was too sick to handle that. This was all the family I needed, right here.

"As you wish, Lass." Uther murmured, tucking the blankets around me. "We'll be here when you wake again. Sleep it off, and we'll see where we go later."

"Uther…what happens if I don't…?" I couldn't make the question come. What happened if even the Lightbringer's prayers weren't enough, and I never walked again? Arthas hissed, but the question was not sent to him, and he was respectful enough to remain silent.

"Walk again?" The question was blunt, but delivered gently.

"Yes."

"You are still my ward. You have done nothing to bring dishonor to any of us. Obviously paladin, no, but you have a fine mind Clarimonde. If you choose to remain with us, you would make a fine cleric, an archivist, something. But we pray for now."

I woke again, an indeterminable time later. Arthas was gone, but Uther was not, watching the world move beyond the infirmary's windows. He looked older, haggard, tired. "I'm sorry." I stated, and he spun.

"Sorry, Lass? 'Twas an accident. They happen." He said, sitting in the chair beside me.

"No, for all of this. You didn't ask for…" What, me? Uther was an honest man, charged with raising young who weren't even his. At least Arthas had come to him honestly; I had been foisted on him by grace of an importune comment.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I didn't ask for you, you mean? Clarimonde, you do not ask for half the blessings the Light decides to bestow upon you. And they are so much sweeter for the fact that you don't see them coming. Had I known, then certainly I would have asked for you."

"You look like hell."

"So do you." He sniped back quickly, but his eyes belied the retort. "But there is good news."

"Hmmm?"

"The priests are now fairly certain you will walk again. The more optimistic of them say your training can continue after you are given enough time to recover…if you choose to."

"If?" It looked to be a beautiful day through the window he watched. And here I was, flat on my back like a squashed bug…

"The accident was as bad as any we've ever had, Clair." He pondered the floor. "It would be no slight to you if you decided that was quite enough of this paladin idea. You've already made it so much farther than most. As has been noted before, your value to the Order falls beyond an ability to ride and fight. I would not want to see you leave us… Arthas was…" his brows bristled. I did not push, he would find his own words soon enough. "Arthas is quite fond of you. To have you so close to death has… taken the shine from him. He has had few friends, and none of them are here, until you arrived. Like it or not, complain as I might, Arthas is still the prince. Everyone here understands that. They cannot treat him as otherwise, and now I see he needs a peer… someone raised as he was, who understands. You are that companion."

I frowned, staring at the vaulted ceiling above me. Every choice I was asked to make pulled me further and further away from what I understood what I was here for. But the rules kept changing… My father was no longer that. He had bowed out of that, left that to Uther. I had made a statement in the darkness of pain and drugged sensibility that I needed to come to grips with. Uther and Arthas were my family now. It had seemed so clear in that moment when nothing else made sense. "I would never leave you. Never leave Arthas."

I know now that some promises should never be made. That…was one of them. Of course, I couldn't know that then. And the words settled Uther, rested his worries…if only for awhile. "Good, Lass." He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Festival is next week."

I knew that… although the weather was not cooperating, the Spring Festival was just around the corner. "Wondrous." I growled. Although I was recovering quickly, I had no doubts I would still be flat on my back, here, then.

"Jaina will be here for it."

And just where was he going with this? "Arthas will be pleased." It was the safest response I could come up with to answer him with.

"The boy blames himself for the accident."

"It was no fault of his." That, I was certain of. I had made the movement because Arthas had been too far away; therefore, he had not bumped or hindered my mount in any way.

Uther's eyes met mine, dark and solemn. "I've not talked to you about until I felt you were well enough to. Arthas is uncertain just what happened, and the marshals saw nothing until you fell. What did happen?"

"Arthas was out of reach. I asked the horse for a turn on his haunches to bring him over…" I closed my eyes… I had gathered him into the bit and shifted my weight. "I cued, and he…" had pulled up, exactly as he should have, crossing his front end over. "Lost his hind end. It slipped right out from beneath him." I remembered the fluidity; the horse had both front hooves in the air at that second. "He'd already started to come over, his hind legs were the only ones down. When he slipped on them…" There had been nothing to catch him. "That was it. Arthas was nowhere near me, Uther. He did nothing. There was nothing for the marshals to call, because we'd done nothing wrong. It was just dumb, stupid luck. What does this have to do with Jaina, anyway?"

"Arthas is blaming himself for it. He has made words to me that he would prefer if Jaina not come. That he means to stay with you for Festival, keep you company."

"Bah." I grumbled. "Sheer foolishness. He sees me every day… and sees her rarely."

"Truly."

"The last thing I need right now is a hang dog prince keeping me company because he feels blame for something he didn't do. That would…hurt." And it would, too. I didn't want Arthas here because he felt beholden to.

"Aye, lass. We'll do our best to at least have you sitting up by then. If you are, I'll carry you myself and settle you somewhere."

I eyed him narrowly. "Don't need a hang dog paladin keeping me company because he feels blame for something he didn't do." I stated, and Uther chuckled, obviously unfazed by the comment.

"World of difference between Arthas and me, lass." He breathed, smoothing my coverlet. "Arthas is the age where these are the wondrous memories to keep him going when the days are dark, and I would not take them from him. And for me, these are the days where I find nothing more appealing than to spend a day on the sidelines with my lovely young ward for company. I've been young, Clair. But I am that no longer."

"You're not old." He wasn't…physically. He wasn't really that much older than my father… They might even be about the same age. It was difficult to tell, my father had led a gentle life, and Uther had not.

"Old enough to appreciate a calm day, lass. And old enough to realize how close we came to losing you."

"Hmmph." I felt old and peevish, and unwilling to hear him muse on my very close call. "Tell me of Jaina. I imagine she's pretty."

"She is, aye." He looked at me oddly for a long moment. "Bit scattered for me, but pretty enough. Girl is always late."

"Blonde, I hear."

"Aye. She is. Fair and blonde. Tall, for a woman."

I only nodded. Of course she was. And I had few doubts she and Arthas made a wonderful couple. The half year I'd spent here had driven a couple of points home that did not fit with my father's view of life. He'd dismissed Jaina as an admiral's daughter, beneath me. I understood now that the royalty of Kul'Tiras merely decided to call themselves admirals and captains instead of kings and princes. Jaina's father was a king in all but name, which made her a princess, in all but name…

"Lass." Uther breathed. "There are plenty of other young men in the world. Better than…Arthas."

"Eh?" That was a new one. If it came from anywhere but Uther's lips, I'd call it manipulation. Politically, Jaina was the better choice for Arthas.

"I'd not want you involved in that, lass. Royalty tends to come to a bad end. You're mine, and better than that. I'd see you happy, with a fine strong man well before that. Arthas has no choice, he is the heir. Always has been. Always will be. Be his companion, his friend, even his advisor, for you have a level head… but not that." He frowned pensively. "Your father would have pushed you for marriage."

"Yes." I was tired of the games. "To Arthas."

"And what I am to you, now?" He stood, moved to the fireplace and stirred the coals, his forehead resting on his forearm.

"You are… my father now."

"Then my views should hold as much weight as his did?"

Put that way… "Yes."

He grunted assent. "Then… I tell you not to worry about marriage. You are nobility in your own rights, with lands and title. Be what you are meant to be, lass, whatever that is. But don't chase Arthas because it's what your father wanted. He's gone well away. You have great wisdom for one your age, use it. Aye, you could probably put up a fight for Arthas, but is that truly what you want?"

"I…don't know."

"Plainly said. Until you do, don't meddle."

"You make these things too simple, Uther." I sighed, and he tilted his head to regard me.

"I don't have to make things harder than they are, lass. Life is hard enough as it is without chasing after trouble. You have to make your life as simple as it can be, because everything else will conspire to make it otherwise."

"Uther?" I was feeling sleepy, awake for too long. That animal part of me was rising again, and I was slipping away with the suddenness that had come on the heels of the accident. He undoubtedly heard it, crossing back to the chair and sitting beside me. He took my hand, squeezing it.

"Aye, lass?"

"Why did you never marry? Why…" Had this man never had little ones of his own? He'd been a priest before the Hand's inception, but had come out of the Abbey to serve as a paladin. And the Order was not held from marriage, family… Not that he was too old, but he felt distant from the idea.

"The Order is all the family I need, Clair. It gives me a home. Companionship. And young ones to raise." He patted my hand. "And this young one needs her sleep."