The moonlight illuminated the entire clearing, allowing every individual tree to become visible in the background, along with the beaten path next to the boulder Cecilia had originally sat on. Her tower shield was still lying against it and her helmet, glaive, boots and shinguards were on the sand in front. It was a windless night in Gorgrond, and the canopy ringing the clearing held perfectly still. There were very few of the insects which were analogous to the crickets on Azeroth and there were no owls; the air was humid and fresh yet still and silent.

Ripples broke out across the surface of the well as Cecilia danced, slivers of moonlight bouncing off the top. Swirls of sand danced up from the bottom of the three-foot deep well, but the waters still remained clear.

Watching her swift, passionate movements, Khujand almost felt as though he were watching Elune herself grace him with a performance. Whereas her rhythm had been jerky and mechanical before like his own, it was now nothing short of what one would expect from a professional exotic dancer. It was an incredible solo performance, her legs pumping, back arching, head crooked back as she seemed to completely let go of all inhibitions. He remained slumped on the edge of the pool, right where he had fallen into a sitting position after she shoved him.

Was it unfair? The thought flashed through his head now. Lorthiras had negotiated his early release and given him a purpose; the people of Thunder Pass had given him meaningful interpersonal contact. Hell, even this group of mostly Alliance members he had happened upon seemed like decent, open-minded folk. The world was wide open for him. It was as though he had been offered something only to have it taken away; after having accepted the notion of being forgotten in prison and then dying in the wasteland of Desolace, he had finally thought he would get a second chance at life.

Yet deep down inside, he knew that he didn't really deserve it. He should have been executed along with Nokar, Bralag and Lorkus. He was only spared because of corruption in the courts, a highway robber that sort of (not really) resembled him physically and Lorthiras' amazing lawyering skills. Through some bizarre flaw in the judicial system, he was handpicked as somebody for early release to help the Horde on Draenor. The truth was that he was no hero; he was a war criminal who should have died at the gallows and didn't. And now, this woman who was likely one of his own former prisoners when he was the one locking people up would have the revenge he knew she probably deserved.

Rotating, spinning, shaking it like she just didn't care, Cecilia's body pulsated to some sort of natural hum within the core of the planet that could have spoken to anyone no matter what their language. It was incredible, flawless even, and it was his only form of solace in the tragically short moments he knew he would have to mentally and emotionally accept the fact that he was about to die.

She petered out, and with a final, sensuous spin, came to a halt facing right in front of him, her hands up in the air at both sides, her knees bent, her left foot forward and her right foot back on a single line. Slowly, she raised her head and opened her eyes, an almost villainous grin spreading across her face. She held the pose for a moment before she loosened up and approached the slumping troll sitting before her, his downcast eyes moving up to meet her own beaming orbs. As she smiled, her fangs poked out from under her upper lip again. She was clearly enjoying this quite a bit.

He could fight her, Khujand thought to himself. Both of them were a few yards away from their weapons. She was fast but he was strong, and he learned how to box and wrestle quite well in prison. Maybe he could hold her back and hex her into one of the crickets, squash it, and just tell the others that he hadn't seen her...

...no. He couldn't.

Who is he? He's a torturer, a worthless piece of trash who harmed people who couldn't fight back.

Who is she? She was part of an elite fighting force whose only desire was to protect their sacred homeland. He had no right.

Confidently, the victorious former sentinel wearing inauthentic armor strode over toward him, keeping her head up high as she gloated down at him and seemed to savor the moment. Putting both hands on her hips, she shifted her weight to her left leg in an almost childlike fashion as her long, feral eyebrows bounced with the movement.

"Did you like my dance?" she asked innocently.

Khujand's inner voice had abandoned him now, no subconscious there to coach him. For the first time since his release, his mind was clear and quiet. Despite having so little time to prepare, he was ready. He deserved this. She deserved this, whoever she was. If only he hadn't stupidly mentioned his crimes that morning...maybe the changes in his physical appearance would have fooled her.

Whatever. It happened. And now it's over.

As she reared her head back to laugh at his situation, she removed her left hand from her hip and placed it high on her chest. Her demeanor was completely casual, totally unafraid of the hypnotized man sitting before her. It must have been clear to her that he could not or would not (or both) fight back. When she had finished mocking his miserable condition, she peered down at him again as she traced the top rim of her chestpiece near her collar bone with her left thumb and index finger.

"I would be shocked to hear my real name too," she said matter-of-factly, "after so many years of running away. And your appearance has changed a lot more than mine. You must have thought yourself untouchable, unfindable. It's inevitable, though; I can tell you from experience." In front of the others, she was much more subdued and soft-spoken. Now, her features were so animated, her expressions flirty and energetic. She had been hiding this when anyone else was around.

"I have to admit, I was really upset when I heard the news that Garot'jin the Outcast had been executed in Orgrimmar," she continued with a sincerity that scared him. "There were rumors that he escaped, but I never expected to find you again." She cocked her head to the side but kept her eyes on him, as though she were examining him slyly as she spoke. "It makes sense, though. That if you had survived, and I had survived, we would both end up here. It's funny how fate brings people together...and I know you believe in fate."

Khujand continued to look up at her as though he really had been led to the gallows now. As much as he wanted to lunge at her to instigate the confrontation and get his death over with, he knew that it was her right - whoever she was, however he had hurt her - to revel in her catch as much as she wanted. He continued staring up, unable to do anything but wait for the inevitable.

"Well?" she asked as she shrugged expectantly.

For whatever reason, he chose to speak. It was the slow, overburdened tone of a beaten man. "If ya here...ta kill me..." he sighed heavily, not wanting to rush his last words. "...I won't raise a finger ta stop ya."

The next laugh was even deeper and louder than the last. He felt completely exposed in front of her, having spilled the beans to a stranger - to a night elf, no less - thinking he could have been safe. This was some sort of a sick joke to her.

"I'm - I'm not here to kill you, Grot - er, Khujand," she giggled, still not finished laughing it all out. "I'm not even angry at you. I couldn't be, considering the circumstances under which I left Mor'shan."

His heart rate couldn't have been higher and the dizzy feeling returned; everything was happening so fast that he couldn't even analyze what exactly he was feeling that would make his blood rush so fast. "Wha...what? Ya an idiot, then, whoever ya really are," he sighed again, the confusion apparent in his voice. "Ya have no common sense if ya don't hate every bone in my body."

"Hmm...what was it you quoted at the camp, Khujand?" She emphasized his new name as though it was funny to her. "Peace from understanding, and understanding from what?" She leaned her head down as she smirked at him. So...this means he isn't going to die?

"How?" he asked pointedly, his confusion compelling him despite his heart rate catching up with his brain's suspicion that he was going to live. "How can ya not be angry at me?" He was pointing at her with both fingers on both of his hands now, almost scolding her with his questions. "If ya really were a sentinel, how can ya not hate me? Why did ya say ya didn't earlier in front of Irien?"

She rose up again, her right hand still on her hip, her left raised as she stroked her small chin with her index finger. The conversation was slow and plodding, each of them considering what they said for sizeable amounts of time. He began to feel as though the passive aggressive tone he thought he heard earlier was a figment of his imagination. "Would you feel validated if I did?" she asked somewhat snidely. "Would it help you sleep better at night?"

Khujand shook his head. "Whether it does or not ain't important. Ya could only know me if I did somethin' very wrong ta ya, or ta ya friends."

Cecilia felt the side of her face with her left hand, resting in to it. "I was never really angry about what you did to my sister sentinels due to a combination of my personal beliefs - deeply personal beliefs - and the fact that I really don't have any room to judge or blame." Her smile had faded and was only faintly visible at the corners of her mouth, her dull eyes thoughtful and still burning into his. "It's complicated."

He stared back at her without inhibition now, a perplexed look on this face. It was like sitting at Lorthiras' office just over a month ago, too much information that didn't make sense flying his way, that cocktail of positive and negative emotions - mostly negative - swirling around inside with enough velocity to make him feel nauseous.

"You really don't recognize me, do you?" she pouted coquettishly. The animation in her face was as hypnotic to him as her stare.

"I...I'm sorry," Khujand uttered after taking some time to compose himself.

He gulped and licked his lips, searching for what to say. Cecilia seemed to want to talk to him and if she wanted information instead of revenge, he had no right to deny it to her. "I kept a mental register of ya all in my head. Not a night went by when I wouldn't remember one of ya. Remember how sorry I am. Remember how much I hate myself, and hate what I did. And I tried my best to remember ya faces, ya names, remember that ya were living beings like me who were wronged." He grimaced but didn't look away. He'd been stripped down in front of her; there was no need to hide his pain and fear anymore. "But I don't recognize ya. Ya must have changed."

She smiled a bit wider with narrow eyes, leaving him to agonize in silence for a while. If she had wanted to kill him, she should have just killed him. If she wanted to say something profound to him, she should just say it. This waiting game was torture.

Torture. Like what he did to people.

Finally, she leaned down further - almost bending over toward him - and placed her hands on her knees. Her head was almost level with his and there was only a foot or so of space between their faces.

"Come closer."

Following her lead, Khujand did as he was told and inspected her. Try as he might, it just wasn't clicking. Her skin was that deep tone of mauve that he had started to simply adore over the past day. Her hair was an azure color a shade darker than the complexion of his hide. Her roots he had noticed before while they were slow dancing - her natural hair color was a gradually greying indigo. Mauve skin, indigo hair. She was muscular but in a feminine way, still lithe and curvaceous like most women of her kind. Despite her size - taller than even most night elf men and about 300 pounds in weight without armor for sure, and he was quite skilled at guesstimating body weight - her facial features were still delicate. Her eyes were almond shaped and average-size for her kind; nothing was coming to his mind there. The bridge of her nose was not high and not pronounced, and it would have been difficult for him to describe it to someone else - it was not quite round, not quite aquiline. No dimples, no worry lines on her face to identify her by. A small, soft looking chin that seemed inappropriate for a warrior. Her lips were not thin but not excessively full. Aside from the small chin and the long, angular shape of her jaw, her facial features didn't seem particularly familiar to him.

"Do you see it?" she whispered as though it were a secret.

"Not yet, wait."

"Let me help you."

While still bending over to him, she removed her hands from her knees and raised them to her face, running her fingers slowly from her jaw up to her cheekbones. She splayed her index and middle fingers now, covering all but her slightly discolored facial tattoos. Despite the light trembling of her fingers, her cheeks were still easy to see. The tattoos were a violet-blue color, not too much darker than her skin. He remembered noticing that they were two halves of a broken shield, one half on each side of her face. But something was awry. The discoloration wasn't a mistake; part of the tattoo was much older than another part.

"Ya've been tattooed twice in ya life," he whispered back.

"Mm-hhmm."

"Two halves of a broken shield. That's tha recent design."

"Mm-hhmm."

"So tha original design..."

He saw it. Two dark crescent moons on both sides of her face, each one facing away from the other. His eyes grew wide and she knew he had seen them. Although she remained bending over in front of him, she slid her hands down from her face and placed them on her knees again to stabalize herself.

Through the pain, he saw her in the dark. A light shone as two dim eyes penetrated into his soul and he grimaced at the incoherent memory in his brain. There were at least three scenarios he could imagine for what he could recall and the fourth that flashed in front of his eyes terrified him. Her eyes peering at him were suddenly unwelcome and invasive.

"No..." he murmered.

"Yes." Her smile grew so wide that her fangs showed again.

"No..."

"Yes!"

"Ya...Isurith Swiftfoot!"

"Mm-hhmm."

"Prisoner number thirteen, legally listed as bein' from an unincorporated grove too small for a name that was later called Serenity."

"Go on." Her grin was ear to ear as she listened to Khujand talk about her.

"Twelve-thousand, one hundred and twenty three years old - well, twelve-thousand, one hundred and thirty years now I guess - veteran of tha War of tha Satyr, tha Third War and tha Battle of Mount Hyjal."

"Yes..." Yes, she was clearly enjoying this.

"Joined tha Silverwing Sentinels after increased hostilities with tha Warsong Outriders. Ya got a blood sister married ta a human guy and they live in Astranaar with their half-elf daughter and ya blood uncle who's a druid, ya got a father who failed druidic trainin guardin' a barrow den somewhere in Nightsong Woods, and a mother who died in tha War of tha Shiftin' Sands. Officially, ya disappeared from our jail."

Jerking her head back so fast that he flinched and raised his arms to protect himself, Cecilia clapped her hands in a wide circular motion and shuffled her feet back and forth as Kaldorei tended to do when applauding.

"You got it!" Her grin faded when she noticed that Khujand went from being shocked to looking like he was in physical pain.

"Oh...my God...ya're Isurith Swiftfoot," he mumbled before looking up at her with a devastated expression on his face. "I...oh no...I am so, so sorry."

Noticing that his chest was heaving, Cecilia sat down to his right on the ledge and put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to bristle from the physical contact which had seemed welcome during their dance. "It's okay, Grot - er, Khujand, I'm not angry at at you."

"No, it's not okay!" he shouted more at himself than at her. His hands were trembling as well. "It's not!"

"Shh! Listen!"

"I can't breathe!" Khujand hunched over and hugged his stomach.

"You can breathe."

"I can't breathe!"

"You never tortured me, Khujand."

"I dragged ya by tha hair inta ya cage!"

"Only once, and then you let me escape."

Total, utter shock filled every inch of Khujand's very being at the unreal suggestion. He was an unholy terror back then, a monster who chose to violate the very basic rights of his prisoners; he had no recollection at all of even walking them gently from the torture chamber back to their cells after performing his morally disgusting duty. He shook his head, the memory of how the elf once known as Isurith had snuck out of the jail still convoluted in his mind. The logic in him wanted to believe it happened the way she claimed it did, but the fear - irrational fear he could not explain - wanted him to believe that it was only a dream.

"That's NOT true," he answered with a little more control in his nonetheless unsure sounding voice.

Cecilia lowered her head in an attempt to establish eye contact again, the look on her face one of confusion. "It is."

"Ya escaped on ya own. Ya braver than me. I just got outta ya way."

She tilted her head to look at him, clearly perplexed yet so casual that she was acting as though they were actually friends. "Okay, I don't know of this is some humble act or if seven and a half years ago is too long for...Khujand, are you being serious now?" she asked with a measure of incredulity. She scooted over even closer to him, giving him such a sincere look of concern that he began to question his own perception.

"I know what happened with the troops - the women and even some of the men - who were shipped out, to Orgrimmar or other war camps. They were trafficked, treated as property and didn't survive long," she explained objectively.

"I didn't have nothin' ta do with that!" he exclaimed defensively, a look of shame on his face nonetheless.

"I know, Khujand; that's the point! Don't you remember what you claimed you saw on that shipment report that morning before I escaped?" she asked in a quiet tone that implied she was trying to remind him of something rather than requesting information she didn't already know herself. "Don't you remember the reason why you said you were helping me?"

Khujand closed his eyes as he tried some breathing exercises Kuma had taught him, slowly straightening himself up. He felt Cecilia rubbing the back of his shoulder, and when he opened his eyes again she was already staring him down. The blankness had left her stare; she almost looked concerned as she furrowed her brow.

"I didn't help anybody; I remember all of my victims. There is no excuse for what I did. Whatever ya think happened, it must've been different from how ya think ya remember. Even if I did help one person, I hurt so many others," he rambled on as his voice wavered, his own hairless brows twitching. She cocked her head back and still appeared unconvinced, but didn't argue with him. Despite his inner voice screaming something inaudible to him, he changed the subject from whatever happened almost eight years ago to why this former prisoner of his wasn't reaching for her glaive to run him through in the present. "How can ya not be mad at me?"

Still appearing incredulous, Cecilia obliged Khujand's push for the change in topic so fast that it aroused suspicion in him. She snorted and held in a small laugh before she started. "Ok, this will take a minute...but if we're going to work together for the next few nights, it's better that you know." His heart rate dropped as he finally accepted the fact that she wasn't hostile toward him. He rubbed his right hand with his left, searcing for the clawmarks from when she had scratched his hand at the end of their slow dance. There was nothing there; had he imagined it?

For a moment, she rubbed her little chin with her right hand as she looked for the words. Breaking eye contact herself now, she arched her head up and looked at the stars as she spoke. "I didn't recognize you at first," she started. "You were just a slightly scary guy who looked lost and pleaded for help. You're Horde, but obviously since we're working with a cartel that requires us to ship mail and parcels everywhere, we got over the whole Alliance-Horde thing a long time ago. You're a lot...erm...beefier than you were back then. Your war paint is gone, your peircings are gone, you have hair and a beard and they chopped your tusks.

"But you're still you. Your voice hasn't changed one bit, especially when you speak Zandali. And once you loosened up and so did we, your body language and mannerisms became the same. You were obviously drugged out back at Warsong, but you were so tired this morning that it was easy to see that look in your eyes. You have those same tired eyes, those sad eyes you showed me the last time we saw each other the moment I escaped, tired from life. It's the same combination of sadness and disappointment with yourself that you had back then, and that I had back then. I'd recognize it anywhere. Takes one to know one, you know?

"I'll be honest, if you had lied about being with Warsong, I would have known you were lying but I wouldn't have connected the dots regarding your identity. But I read people well, especially people like you and me. And I know that everything you said about regretting what you did, even hating the Outriders, is not only true; I've seen it before. It may have been eight years ago, but I saw the same regret, that same pain that we shared almost eight years ago.

"So...I was captured during war, which I can't complain about because I enlisted. The fact that I did worse things than you at Warsong Gulch really doesn't put me in a position to be angry at anybody else, anyway. And while I was there, I realized that the sentinels have committed just as many atrocities; I felt like our suffering wasn't totally undeserved. Then, after I had come to that realization...well, I guess you and I differ over the details."

Cecilia continued looking up at the sky for a moment before inhaling and exhaling deeply. Lowering her head to look Khujand in the eye again, the tension that had filled him was gone. Whether it was some moon magic or that her own comfort from releasing something pent up was simply contagious, the look she gave him helped him to calm down after having bordered on another nervous breakdown just a few moments ago.

"That's why I don't hate you," she said, leaning toward him as though to emphasize her point. "I'm not angry; I don't even dislike you. We're both war criminals guilty as hell, we're both living fake lives and now we have to help each other protect these people from crazy plant monsters for the next few days."

There was a long, drawn out silence, not so much uncomfortable as overwhelming. This was a lot of information to take in, likely for her just as much as for him. She beat him to the punch, throwing out a subject change of her own.

"If we'll be working together for the next few days," she quipped matter-of-factly, "then it would be fair for me to ask how you survived execution. How you ended up with a fake name. How you ended up here. It's nice to know there's somebody else doing the same thing, you know, having sought redemption from what both our sides were doing to the point of changing our appearances and using fraudulent identities. And...regardless of what you've convinced yourself, I actually am glad that you're still alive."

Despite still thinking she was delusional for feeling happy to see him, the fact that she wasn't hostile felt comforting. Confusing, but still comforting. Finally able to calm down enough to shift from panic mode to his normal state of self-loathing, Khujand chose his words carefully. "I'm an awful person who did awful things. Ain't no good ta come, no life lesson ta learn from my story. And ya ain't as bad as me, no way."

"Do you believe in peace?" Cecilia asked with an inquisitiveness he couldn't believe seemed so real.

"I know where ya goin' with this," he answered while shaking his head. "But some people don't deserve it."

"You're wrong." She sounded one-hundred percent sure of herself. "Everybody deserves peace if they are truly sorry for the evil they've done. And you and I have truly both done evil things."

"Ya're wrong," he said without realizing he was mimicking her. "Ya know tha things I did. How can ya sit there and say ya did things as evil as me?"

"Because that's the truth. And if you really are asking about what I did and how I can know I've committed worse acts than you, then that means you really have no idea what I've done, so don't claim otherwise based on ignorance. You don't know how I feel today, even though I know you'd be able to. You're the only type of person who could, just as I'm the only type of person that would understand how you must feel. We're from different sides, but the same breed of criminal."

The familiarity with which she spoke about him seemed out of place. As hazy as his mind was, he could recall observing her in jail, and perhaps doing a little more than just pretending not to notice on the night she disappeared. But surely, he tried to convince himself, she was just projecting her thoughts onto him. Khujand knew he was undeserving of any sort of empathy; nobody could possibly understand the darkness within him. He didn't believe it could be explained.

"Nobody gonna understand tha evil someone like me has done," he sighed as he shook his head at her again and tried to avoid her piercing gaze. "Ya don't really know me, even if ya think ya can. I'm sorry, but I can't believe what ya sayin'."

She grabbed his wrist and held firm; he tried to squirm away as a strange fire shot through his arm that didn't burn him, yet was more intense than how any woman had affected him before. "Then tell me how you feel. Help me understand. And I will help you understand that, no matter what you think, there is still redemption for the remorseful.

"Look, what are the chances that we'd cross paths again? You believe in fate. You said you don't but I know you lied. We're here for a reason. And look, I know, nobody understands war criminals except other war criminals. Even Irien. She listens and doesn't judge, but she will never, ever understand. I've started to move on, but I never had the opportunity to find someone else like us. I've never had the opportunity to truly share. I don't mean for someone to just listen, but also to share."

Khujand looked her over again, and he couldn't hide the sadness in his eyes as all the memories of his guilt and shame came rushing back onto him. As confident as she was, she looked almost as sad now despite having been teasing him only a few minutes ago. The roller coaster was familiar to him, as were her words. He was tired, mentally, and grateful that one of his former charges that had caught up to him wasn't going to kill him on sight even though, he felt, she reserved the right. He realized, then and there, that she was trying to pry his shell open again and he no longer had the energy to fight it, despite the entire conversation feeling futile.

"That don't...I don't know, Cecilia. Thank ya for, um, not killin' me. And I'm happy that ya ain't mad at me. I think ya kinda dumb for thankin' me, but...ah, forget anythin' I say." He scratched behind his ear as he tried to comprehend her insane-sounding request. "I understand maybe ya wanna share stories with someone ya once knew, but I don't see. I don't understand, maybe, how just listenin' ta someone talk is gonna change how ya feel about stuff ya did. It sounds too...I don't know. Maybe I'm just bein' dumb-"

"You said you would have let me kill you," Cecilia urged him as she tugged on his wrist again, stoking the fire as it moved all the way into his spine. "Well, I don't want to kill you, or even shame you for anything you did at Warsong. I want you to understand and share, so give that to me. Even if you don't understand how it can help quite yet, do it because I'm asking you to."

Raising his right hand again, Khujand realized he had just scratched a nonexistent itch and could only fidget so many times to avoid the closeness before he seemed rude. And as his brain fully processed what had transpired, he felt as though he had no right to be rude or even deny her the request. It seemed to be a stupid waste of time to him, but wasting his time and hers was much better than being decapitated with her glaive - which he had already prepared to accept anyway. He dropped his hand down again, though she left it alone this time.

"Alright," he sighed, not wanting to disappoint her. "I don't get it, but I'm gonna do whatever ya ask. Talkin' ain't as bad as gettin' stabbed."

Cecilia finally flashed a warm smile, seemingly happy that he would oblige her request. "Look, if there's anybody that will understand how we feel and why, it's people like us. People who not only committed atrocities but hate themselves for it, and can't stop thinking about their victims. I'm telling you that's what I want from you. I want you to understand. I've started to find my peace, but I want help with that too. And...maybe helping me with mine can help you find yours."

Maybe he would regret it later, but her words sounded so enticing, so reassuring, and so comforting that he did as she asked. No matter how much Khujand tried to deny it, he knew that the notion of someone else understanding what it felt to hate yourself - with logical justification for doing so - was something he might never have a chance for again.

And so, he told her everything. Told her about how he let Nokar and Bralag sucker him into believing he had assumed a noble position performing 'enhanced interrogation' for the Outriders. About how he had hated his job and hated his life every moment he was awake. And most of all, he hated himself for being too weak to walk away. He told her about his show trial, about his amazing attorney's negotiation to get him a new identity given that he served a sentence of slave labor at a secret prison. He told her about how the images of his screaming victims wouldn't leave his head, yet his daughter's appearance had been cruelly repressed by his memory. He told her of his giving up in prison, his depression, his acceptance of his fate, his nightmares, his fondness bordering on love for his victims when he hoped for their futures and wellbeing, and even of his attempted suicide. He told her of his shock at how rusty his skills had become when he fumbled through the initial assault on the Dark Portal and his amazement that he even survived the Tanaan Jungle. And lastly, he told her of his lingering fear that after the campaign on Draenor was over, the friends he had made would forget him and he would be lost back on Azeroth without a home and without a soul to care for him.

He felt dizzy again after it all, though her words had proven to be prophetic. There was no incredible epiphany, no sudden realization, but there was a serene feeling he hadn't felt since the day his daughter was born. Before he could even describe his feelings during each part of his story, she was already finishing his sentences for him, proving that she knew exactly how he felt about everything. It was difficult for him to say and for her to listen to at some points, yet he held absolutely nothing back and hung on her every word when she made comments.

There was no way of knowing exactly how long they had spoken for, but it was still night; they were to be out there for at least nine hours, so the rest of the camp was still sleeping for sure. All he knew is that they both talked so much that they both felt lightheaded by the time he finished his own story. Breaking almost every rule of personal space in his socially awkward mind, he not only didn't pull away when she patted him on the back at the end but even leaned in to her hand.

"Thank you for telling me," she said, finally breaking the comfortable silence. "I wondered, for many long years, what you would have done with your life after Mor'shan. And when rumors came and went about you escaping the gallows - I guess that wasn't really you, but I thought it was - I still thought sometimes, long after the world forgot about the torture scandal, that maybe you had tried to redeem yourself. Whether you understand it yet or not, seeing now that you have tried to do so, just like I'm trying, helps me feel less alone." Her voice always seemed low naturally, but he could tell that her tone was hushed for her, and for whatever incomprehensible reason, he had somehow warmed Cecilia's heart with his admission of guilt and sorrow. Though he felt shy to tell her, that warmed his heart as well.

She removed her hand from his back, and he felt strangely cold. That wasn't him, he thought; he didn't usually like being touched, yet he felt as though he changed around her. She turned to look him in the eye again, interrupting his train of thought. "Do you feel less hopeless now that you've said it out loud?"

Any awkwardness there had been due to eye contact before had disappeared. Khujand knew that it would most likely not be gone for other people, but at least with her, at least at that moment, he didn't even notice they were making it. "I guess it ain't so bad, now. At this point in time. I got a chance most other people in my situation would never get."

She looked concerned despite the quiet confidence in her voice now. "You're much better off than you thought, Khujand." There was another slight increase in his heart rate at the sound of her saying his name. "Fate has granted mercy on you in some way. I'd like to believe - I'm not really religious now, I left the organized rituals of Elune years ago, but I'm still spiritual - but I'd like to believe that your sorrow over what you did has something to do with that."

For the first time in what must have been hours, Khujand smiled, but there was something eating at him, itching in the back of his mind. As peaceful as the silence was, he couldn't hold back. There was a moment where he opened his mouth and hesitated; Cecilia leaned in quizzically as though to ask him what he wanted to say, only for him to close his mouth when the right words were lost on him. She was an incredible listener, to hear someone else talk about themselves so much and still press on.

"What is it?" Her voice was soft - he wasn't imagining it now. It was comforting just to listen to her speak.

He frowned before starting. "Ya just listened ta me ramblin' on forever. It had to have been borin' for ya."

"No," she said as she shook her head. "I asked you to speak because I wanted to listen. I wanted to hear from someone else who might feel the same. And hearing what you said now confirms that you can understand. That you know what it's like to hate yourself not out of some kneejerk, spoiled self-pity, but because you've done such horrible things. Even to hear that without talking, just to listen to it...I feel like I was right to think I'm not alone." He noticed her tendency to repeat herself with slightly different wording - an odd habit he thought was solely his. They actually did have more in common than he thought.

This time, it was Cecilia who opened her mouth and hesitated; she closed it and swallowed visibly and just stared back, waiting for his reaction. She didn't have to; he truly did want to know.

"If that helped ya..." he started at a snail's pace, "and ya really do think that we the same...then ya can help me, too. Ya say that ya feel better hearin' it, and that ya think I can understand ya. But ya didn't share. Yet. And if I don't ask now, I wouldn't stop thinkin' about it for the rest of my life."

A slight breeze came and went, ruffling their hair and ears before disappearing. Khujand waited for it before continuing. Despite the pained look in her eyes, she smiled at the question. Khujand was aware that the look of curiosity and befuddlement on his face must have been intense; somehow, he felt as though she felt it comforting. How he could explain such a feeling was another of many unexplainable yet undeniable notions that evening.

"Ask me anything."

"Why do ya keep callin' yaself a war criminal, too? I know ya people did wrong as well, but ya were just defendin' ya land." He pursed his lips for a moment before finishing the question. "How can ya claim ta hate yaself like I do? What happened?"

Cecilia broke eye contact and looked away for a moment, thinking about what she would say. What was she thinking, though? The question burned in his mind like it never had before. It was illogical, irrational, and it should feel wrong when it didn't. The more she seemed to ponder the universe, the more he wanted to know what conclusions she drew.

The crickets almost seemed to have quieted down as she waited, as though they had been told that something important was about to be shared. It felt like five minutes that Cecilia sat there, staring at the surface of the spring, trying to draw the inspiration from somewhere. Five minutes would have felt like such a short amount of time in any other context, but it was like an eternity as she merely sat and thought, seeming to prepare what she needed to say.

"Well, I guess it is my turn then," she whispered as she turned back to him mid-sentence. She had gone from giddy and flirtatious at the beginning of the evening to slightly saddened to almost shy now. She didn't avoid eye contact, she didn't furrow her brow as though she was worried about being judged; what was it, then?

"You shared...well, it seems like you shared yourself. It's scary to do that; even if I have a head start on you with the whole new identity thing, you now - as of tonight - have a short head start on actually telling someone else about what you did, and how much it hurts to remember."

She paused again just long enough to take a breath and look up at the stars as she spoke to him softly. "Sharing is what I wanted, so I guess I shouldn't hesitate like this.

"Let me tell you a story..."