The boys arrived home in time to smell the special dinner I was working on, giving me wide, expectant eyes. "Mama?" Bayard asked, as I removed the pie from the oven.

"We have a visitor." I stated, staring at the pie. It was perfect, my mother would have been proud. "She'll be staying the night with us. And you'll behave." I don't know why I added the last, they tended to be remarkably well behaved, but it sounded appropriately stern and maternal.

"A visitor?" Anelas asked, warily. He was not as quick to accept new people as his brother was, I understood his standoffishness much more than I comprehended his brother's congeniality.

"A friend." It was odd to consider her such, but she'd proven herself that more than once. "Lady Jaina, of the Kirin Tor."

"Something smells wonderful, Clair. These are the boys?" She appeared from the room I had put her in, and she had changed out of the robes that marked her as an archmage of the Kirin Tor. I expected her to stare at Anelas, and her gaze did linger on his face for a long moment, but Bayard held her interest longer. "Yes. So they are." She stated without waiting for any answer from me.

We ate, her eyes on me as I quizzed the children on their day's lessons and caught up on their day. Sadness clung to her features, until Bayard stared at her. "What?" He demanded abruptly, and I fought the urge to kick him under the table. He was just as Baudoin had been, graceless and straightforward. I'd have to work on that…

"Just thinking, little one." She replied and his frown deepened. Anelas's expression darkened and he sent his brother a warning stare.

"Whatever you're thinking is wrong." Bayard stated peevishly, and Jaina's brows arched.

"Oh?" she asked, and I recognized the calm. She bore the same air, the same expression, as she had when she'd first been faced with my Sight.

"Bay." Anelas hissed. "None of that. None of that here. You promised."

His younger brother stopped as abruptly as if he'd swallowed a toad, casting his gaze back to his plate. "'M sorry, Kier." He breathed, scolded to his core. I considered it, once this promise had been brought up, if he was anything like his father, then moving him from it would be difficult, if not impossible.

"Tell me of the dreams, Bayard." I finally stated. "Especially the waking ones. How is Lady Jaina wrong?"

"Melia told me they were just nothing…" He whispered. "She told me I was little. That I wanted my mama. That I made you up, when I told her what you looked like. She told me I was full of foolish… But I saw you. I saw you." His chin trembled, but his eyes blazed with fury.

Anelas sighed, his eyes skipping between me and Jaina. "He used to say he saw our mama." He breathed, pushing away his plate. "That she was very tall, with dark hair and my eyes. That she wore black armor, and lived in ice. That she was with a gray man with cat green eyes. That she was surrounded by giant things he couldn't describe, like spider people. Melia found them too fanciful, and he scared the little ones with it. But it's true, isn't it? I knew it when I saw you."

"It's true." I confirmed, my eyes on Jaina. She might not recognize the description of Arthas, but she knew a nerubian, and she had to know something of Icecrown.

"Fine." She said, "You're right, Clair. I'll speak to people here, and I'll make certain he receives training now. He's too young for the Citadel still, and I feel as strongly as I did before that you are the best one to raise him now. He needs his mother. His father. He is blessed to still have both of you, in spite of everything. So, little one…" She glanced at Bayard. "How am I wrong?"

He stared blankly at his plate for a long moment. "There will be another one." He stated, and my chest seized. That voice. I knew that voice. It wasn't his. "My sister is not here yet, but there will be another one."

"Bayard…" I breathed, and he raised steady eyes to me.

"You are dead. You can bear no more. That does not matter. There will be another, from the time of chaos that comes."

"And apples fall not far from their trees." Jaina murmured, sliding another helping of beef pie onto his plate. She touched the tip of his nose with her finger, startling him out of the fugue. "You. Eat. All of that."

It was an order he didn't need to hear twice, shoveling more into his mouth. After he and his brother were full, they fell to sleep in their beds, and I stared at them from the pale light of a candle. "He is." I stated, and I could feel Jaina's eyes on my back.

"You knew before I did." She agreed from the darkened dining room. "Easily as strong as you were. You were raised in luxury and safety, he was not. It may have woken it in him earlier because of that. There are people here in Stormwind capable of his training; I will speak to them in the morning."

"You think he is correct?" I turned from their room, shutting the door securely behind me. While so much seemed accurate and as much could be wagered on…such as chaos brewing, his other statement could be viewed with doubt.

"You lived in Icecrown, in the ice, with the Nerubians." She watched me. "When I saw you straight from there, you wore black armor. So. That much seems accurate. You knew a gray man there?"

"Arthas." She blinked, puzzled. Gray was never a word that could have been used to describe him before, and she had not seen him since. "Jaina, he has changed… physically as well as spiritually. His hair is white, his skin has grayed. He is no longer… beautiful, as he once was."

"I should have guessed. It's just difficult..." she shrugged. "Your eldest has his looks, though. He will be beautiful."

"They will both be."

"Of course they will both be." She tilted a brow, snorting an almost chuckle. "And perhaps, the other one will be lovely as well."

"That's not funny." I returned to the dining room, taking my seat again. "I am dead."

"There is more than one way to be a parent, Clair. You were loved by Uther, while you were not his by blood. But answer me this, which was more your father at the end, Uther or the man who sired you? You pine for Uther, mourn him, but I've never heard you mention your actual father."

"Uther was my father. He deserved that more than any have ever. My father paled in comparison to him. He was a small man." I shrugged. After leaving home, I'd been surrounded by large men. Large in hearts and souls, and I recall them in a moment. I could remember how Uther looked, smelled, sounded. Arthas, before he had fallen… also indelibly etched in my memories. Gavinrad. Baudoin. So many. Each had been great, so many were gone except in my memories. But I had to struggle to place my father, and so much of what I could recall was based in the memory that I resembled him greatly.

"Hhhmmm." She breathed. "I have another seer of the De Nemesio line warning me of a time of chaos coming."

I poured myself wine and snorted. "Of course chaos comes, Jaina. Doesn't it always? I don't need any gift or curse to see that." This was just a respite; my own words were bitter truth. I didn't need my lost abilities, or the nascent ones of my child to tell me so. "Enjoy now while you can." I muttered, and she met my eyes with dark, solemn ones.

"That is the certain truth, Clarimonde. Enjoy now, while we can." She raised her goblet to mine, and I met them rim to rim.

She stayed long enough to arrange a tutor for Bayard, and was gone well before most of Stormwind realized she'd been there. The request to come to Tirion's side came early the next morning, and I presented myself to him while he watched the initiates train from the list side. "Sir?" I asked, and he tilted his head slightly to bring me into view.

"I hear Lady Jaina was here, to speak to you…" he held up a swift hand before I could even get started, "And, of course, any discussion she may have with you can be held in the strictest of confidences. I just wanted to ask if there was anything I should know. I have put you in a place that could be considered sensitive…"

Even knowing exactly what I was, and what I wasn't. He didn't need to say that he deserved my honesty for it. "I needed her advice in regards to one of the children." I began, watching the list field that he studied so intently. "I was… gifted. Cursed, whichever you prefer, with the Sight when I was alive. By the time the Kirin Tor knew it, I was too old to be trained. I had already sworn to the Hand, and nothing would have taken me from Arthas, from Uther, from Stratholme, then. It has apparently bred true in Bayard, and I will see him trained to handle it as I was not. And no one better for that than Jaina."

"Ah." He nodded slowly, still staring at the field. "You've been back with the Order awhile now. Enough time to settle and consider where you are?"

"I am no paladin. No priest. The Light will never grant me those gifts, Highlord. Perhaps… I have no value to the Order."

He frowned instantly, his expression darkening. "Nonsense." He growled. "I will not judge you worthless just because you cannot channel the gifts that were rightfully yours once. You are handicapped because you chose to uphold your oaths when others did not. True, you cannot bring the glory of the Light forth, but you are still a member of the Order. I've spent these days watching you, Clarimonde, trying to place where you belong with us. Often we overlook our own gifts when we become enamored with what we believe are our only true gifts."

"Oh?" I couldn't wait to hear this one. What exactly did the Highlord of the Order consider my gift to be? My ability to heal had been stripped from me, replaced by its opposite. I moved in the darkness now.

"Uther never used you as a teacher, I would guess."

I blinked, fighting down my first visceral response to that. Teachers were staff, servants, paid to raise the younglings. But Uther had held them in the highest esteem… "He did." I stated, realizing that he had indeed. "When I settled with child the first time, Uther set me to teaching Baudoin etiquette. I thought then that it was just convenience. I had been injured in training, and then pregnant… He sent me to Northshire, away from Arthas. With Baudoin."

"Etiquette. Yes, you have the air of nobility about you, Lordaeron nobility from your accent." He shrugged. "And yes, our new young paladins will need polish if they are to be placed in court. You have a strong grasp of history, geography, strategy, and pass it along well. Your fighting style has changed from the rote you were taught in Stratholme. And you comprehend things that few other people in existence know. It is one thing for a paladin to teach a paladin. Another for a death knight to teach a paladin just what is outside of these walls. They hear glory stories, Clarimonde. You know the truth."

"You want me to teach here?" That was an idea I had never considered. I was no teacher…never had been. To me, the Order was paladins, supported by priests. But I had trained at Stratholme under the guidance of many who had not been either.

"I do. It is an honorable position. It keeps you here with your children. And you seem quite talented at it, an asset to the Order."

"I…see." I had no idea how to teach. I kept my puzzled stare on him, and he grinned suddenly, like the sun bursting out from the clouds.

"A great friend of mine told me once, young Clarimonde, that we never truly learn and grow in comfort. That we should always try worthy pursuits, to see if we are given to them…"

His face blurred as tears came to my eyes. "So he did." I murmured, and Tirion sighed, resting a hand on my shoulder. I could hear Uther say it again…

"We all miss him, Clarimonde." Tirion said, his eyes moving back to the field.

"Call me Clair. Arthas said that Clarimonde was too much of a mouthful to come with in a hurry. I've grown accustomed to just being called Clair." It fit me better than the pretentious name my father had given me, short and to the point.

"Clair, then. I didn't want to assume that I was allowed to use the name that your friends, your husband, use. I wanted to have you start with where our staffing lacks, in geography and history. I know it's short notice, but I'd like to start you with the new class in a week."

A week? I had no books, nothing… I gave Tirion a pained look, and he laughed in acknowledgement. "I know. Do your best. From what I hear, what you told your children as tales would be more of an education than many of these will have had. I'll see about trying to dig up some books, but the librarians here are not free with sharing."

I nodded. "Tomorrow is market day. I need to take the children for clothes anyway, I will see if there are any to be purchased."