Silvermoon City

We got to the house that was given to us by Grand Magister Telramar Dawnstrider as a base of operations.

"I know this place." Said Thalina.

"You do?" I asked.

"Yeah, my father owns it and uses it as a place to rest when he has to stay overnight at Silvermoon."

"And you would be correct with that." Said a voice.

On instinct, Elaria and I drew our bows and nocked arrows, facing it towards the area the voice came from. "Show yourself." Elaria demanded.

"Now now, don't shoot your employer." Out of the shadows walked a familiar face.

"Ann'da!?" Exclaimed Thalina, slowly stepping back in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Better yet, what are you doing here my child? Since when do you accompany yourselves with assassins?" He walked closer towards us.

I signalled Elaria to lower her bow. "She doesn't." I walked closer towards him and lowered my hood and mask.

"Athrodar? But... But you're dead?"

"Well, you're not completely wrong. The Athrodar you once knew is dead in a way, he's just a shadow of who I am now."

"And yet, she still manages to stay with you." He shook his head. "Does anyone else know?"

"No. And as far as I'm concerned it's best to keep it that way, no reason to explain this to those who won't understand."

"Your mother needs to know that you're alive. At least give her that."

I looked at him, studying his face carefully. He looked to be pleading at this request. "You can tell her what you wish I have no say in that, but be warned, you'll have to deal with how she reacts."

"You won't even go and see her, to show her yourself that you're alive!?" His tone changed dramatically from pleading to anger.

"Calm yourself Grand Magister, you may be Thal's father, but you're our employer first and the way we work with our employers is with equal ground. You would be wise to know this."

"Is that a threat?" He made his way towards me, making himself as big as possible.

"Ann'da, don't." Thalina stood in between us, "You've employed them to do a job, let them do it. Nothing good will come from the two of you fighting."

He glared at me before looking down at Thalina, "Fine, but you're staying with us."

"What?"

"You heard me, you're coming home to live with me and your mother."

"No! I'm staying here with them. They've been nothing but kind to me since I found them."

I spoke up, "He's right."

"What!?" She cried, turning to face me. "Athrodar, baby please don't do this... I just found you, don't send me away."

"Athrodar... Y-you can't." Clara spoke up this time.

I looked at her then at Elaria, nodding to a different room whilst doing so. Shortly afterwards Elaria took her to the room next door, away from what was about to happen.

I looked back at Thalina. "I'm sorry, but this was one of the reasons why we came here."

"No..." She broke into tears and sunk to her knees. "Please... Don't leave me again..." She clung on to one of my legs, holding it tightly so I couldn't move.

"I'll give you two some time to talk this through." With that, Telramar turned towards the door and walked out the room, leaving us two alone.

"Thal, this is how it was meant to be." I got down to my knees, equalling her height.

"No... We were meant to grow old t-together, not to leave each others side." She leaned in towards me and rest her forehead on my chest. "None of this was meant to h-happen."

I put my hand under her chin and lifted her head. "Thal, listen to me."

She looked into my eyes. "I love you, okay? I'll always love you. You've made me remember that much about my past that I know it's real." I gave her a longing kiss.

She returned the kiss. "I love you Athrodar, more than anything. But you can't expect me to let you leave me here, I want to stay by your side for as long as there is life in me, that's my only wish."

She rest her forehead on mine "Please grant me this wish." She whispered to me.

The next couple of sentences I was about to utter were eating me inside. It was something I didn't want to say. "I'm sorry." I put both my hands on her face and kissed her deeply. "I can't grant you this wish."

She broke down after that, uncontrollable cries and screams coming from her. I pulled her in close and hugged her tightly, a couple of tears breaking through my emotional barrier I tried to build up.

We were both on our knees, tightly wrapped around each other for what must have been hours. I knew what I was about to do to her, so I tried to calm her down best I can and if that meant staying here until she did, I was going to.

After she calmed down enough to hear reason, I got her to stand up and lay on the bed with me, she looked exhausted after what we had just been through.

I lay there with her until she fell asleep in my arms, which didn't take long. I slowly pulled away from her and went to the room that housed Clara, Elaria and Telramar.

"She's sleeping right now. When she wakes up be prepared for what might happen, as we won't be here when she does."

"Thank you for bringing her home Athrodar. I will try my best to keep her calm when she does wake up. Where will you be staying?"

"That's none of your concern at this moment Grand Magister, we will get in contact with you once the job is done."

"Very well," He shook my hand. "Thank you again."

With that, we left to go to the place we'll be staying in for the mission. Once we arrived, the bombardment of verbal abuse that I was sure would come my way, hit me on entrance to the room.

Clara was first, "What the fuck was that!?" She screamed at me, I could see a vein making its way out from her temple.

"Look I..." I tried to respond but I knew my excuses wouldn't win them over on my decision.

Elaria's turn, "Save it Athrodar. You just left a woman, who loves you ardently, behind in a house with a father who's only tie to her is that exactly, that he's her father."

"She's in good hands."

"Is she? From what she has told me about him, he doesn't come home as often as most fathers and he rarely saw her when she did live with her parents. How do you know that the second he leaves to go about his duties, that she won't come looking for you?"

"I don't."

"Exactly, you don't know. Frankly I'm not so sure you know yourself why you left her there."

"I know why I left her there, she'll be in danger if she stays with us. She's young and foolish, it was just mere luck that she found us to begin with."

"If anyone here is foolish, it's you." Clara spoke up again.

I turned to her. "How so?"

"She can handle herself, our trip here proved that, but that's not the real reason why you left her behind. Is it?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that the reason you left her behind isn't because she's young and foolish, or that she will get in the way. The reason you left her behind is because you love her and you don't want to see her hurt."

She was right, I did love Thalina and I didn't want her to get hurt. Is that so wrong?

"So what if that's my reasoning?"

"Then yes, you are the foolish one here."

"I don't have to explain myself to you." I moved away from the two of them and made my way to the room I was going to sleep in. As I sat on the bed, they followed me in and locked the door behind them.

"What are you doing?"

"Making you see reason." Elaria said.

"And how exactly are you going to do that?"

"We're not going to let you leave until you agree to go over to her and bring her back here."

"What of the mission Elaria? You're going to fail it because of a personal matter?"

"We won't fail the mission, because we're going to convince you to bring Thalina back to this house with you."

"And what? You'll torture me until I do? That's not a smart play and you know it."

I knew they wouldn't do that, but I had to make sure they knew they wouldn't torture me for something that was none of their concern. They couldn't do anything to me that would make me bring her back here and I think they knew that.

"No, that wouldn't. But we will keep you locked in here whilst we go about the mission. That much we can do."

"Clara's not an assassin, that wouldn't be wise."

"She's not, no. However she can keep you in here whilst I finish the mission."

"You're going to do it on your own?"

"Can't be that hard. The plan seems simple enough. Sneak in to his room whilst he sleeps, slit his throat and then slip back out without anyone knowing."

She made a good point, it was a pretty easy mission we were given. The whole plan for sneaking in, killing him and them sneaking out was one of the first missions we had to train for. So I had no doubt she could do it.

"Fine, just means I get time to rest. Have fun with the mission." I got up from the bed, moved to a nearby bookcase, took out a book and sat down in a chair.

Shortly after I sat down, Clara and Elaria left the room and made their way to their room, locking my door with a spell in the process.

The next week went by in the same way. I was being locked in my room whilst they went about the mission on their own. It felt like I was in a very friendly dungeon, only being given food and water to keep me alive whilst allowing me to read the books I had in the room.

"I could really get used to this." I told Clara as she came by to give me a plate with food.

She scoffed, "Enjoy it whilst it lasts, I won't be doing this again."

She walked out the room after handing me the plate, only to return with a worried looking Elaria.

"What is it?" I asked, looking at Elaria the whole time. The look on her face filled my stomach with despair.

"It's Thalina," She looked terrified when she said this, I knew it wasn't a trick to try and get me to bring her back. "She's missing."

I got up from the chair I was sitting in. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, she's not at her home with her parents. Telramar came to me whilst I was following the target, he told me she has been missing for four days now."

"Four days? Why didn't he come to you sooner?"

"He said he thought she was with us. She apparently left shortly after arriving home, presumably to find us, that's when I think she went missing."

"Is that all we know? She could be anywhere."

"Athrodar..."

"I know, you're going to tell me you told me so."

"No.. Well, yes.. But no, I was going to suggest that we keep her with us once we find her, so this doesn't happen again."

"That depends on the manner we find her in."

Clara gasped "You don't mean to suggest..."

"We won't know until we find her."

"Let's get going then." Said Elaria, handing me my daggers. "We'll need to split up to cover more ground."

I nodded, "You two search Silvermoon, I'll check the forests. Meet back here in five hours." I looked out the window only to see that it was night. "If we don't find anything, we'll check the Ghostlands. Let's hope she didn't go into there."

With that we left, splitting up and searching our allocated areas.