In the Shadows of the Temple

by Zarabethe

The mysterious brash rogue that showed up wounded on the doorstep of the secluded Temple to Elune left her life almost as quickly as he entered it, but for one reserved priestess of Elune, his memory would stay with her forever. Set 537 years before the first chapter of Scepter.

11. Bonus Chapter---Author Notes

I can see that a lot of you have more questions than you have answers at this point. And honestly, if so many of you are still confused...I did not do my job as well as I thought I did. So I am going to do something a little different: I am going to walk everyone through what happened, and try to answer all private/comment messages in this post. If you are still confused after that, feel free to leave me hate mail :).

1. First and Foremost: REYLORAN MANIPULATED ABILENE FROM THE START. There are a special breed of people out there who love nothing more than to twist the truth to confuse and get what they want. He is a master at this. Every word out of his mouth, every piece of body language that he projected to her: it was a deception. He was injured, and landed in a Temple full of women, one of which he thought was cute and more than that, completely unapproachable. He was interested in getting laid, and he was interested in breaking her heart. I do think that he did like her: but in the end, it had no bearing on what he did to her.

2. Names have power: mystery has power. Abilene clung to her secrecy and her mystery, and Reyloran strove to unravel that. Every single mystery that she revealed to him, was a gift that he did not deserve. Yes, he did give her his name first: but to a thief, his name has so much less power than hers. It was a gateway to get everything else. Which brings me to the next point:

3. How did Abilene fall for him so easily, if he was obviously being deceptive? Well, that's a question you'll have to ask yourselves, Readers...after all, my goal was to make Abilene fall in love with him, and somehow he took nearly every one of your hearts as well. Also, this is a very sparse, snapshot type of story: I think that in the background, there were other conversations, other instances, words spoken and compliments given at the right time, that all painted this picture to capture Abilene 100%. This is like her memory of the events though: it's imperfect, and she only remembers the most important parts.

4. What was the motivation for him to come back to that spot but not see her? The answer, my friends, is back in chapter six. Chapter Six is a very important chapter, and in hindsight, you can see just how far he goes: after very subtly insulting what Abilene is doing, he then makes amends by very deliberately calling her by her name. It is my belief that he says her name often, now that he has it, and each time makes it sound like that name is the most important word on Azeroth. His goal is to get her to show him the rest of the Temple, so he can scope out what might be valuable and portable. So that moment in the garden, when he hands her that flower and says those sweet words? You'll notice she spent the rest of the time focusing on that, and not how he was exploring the surrounding area, where he found the shrine of moonstones. He possibly, if he were more healed, would have been able to run off then, but he saw some things he wanted "liberated" at that point, and he wasn't quite done playing his game yet...

5. In conclusion to the above, he told her he would return to that very spot because he had already decided, before she came to him the night he left, that he was going to come back and steal that moonstone. That was why he took her there to be alone together and to finalize his ruse. I assume he spent at least a little time examining the stone to see if he could take it then, and realized he needed more tools, so he said, with all truthfulness, that he would return to that spot.

6. On that note; chapter 9? That conversation happened mid-coitus. There's a reason she's crying, and it's not because he's leaving. He's no longer interested in making her fall in love with him, he's taking what he wants. You can fill in the rest.

7. One final note: Reyloran, I am nearly positive, never outright lies to Abilene. He would be a poor manipulator and thief if he had to resort to lying. Instead he avoids questions, re-arranges answers, and in general says whatever he can to persuade her that even though she may suspect he is a bad person, she chooses to trust him anyway.

I hope that helps a little bit of the confusion. I will be happy to answer any other questions in PMs. This week is Easter, and after that I will post the next chapter of Outcast. Thank you for reading!