Twist Amberleaf dodged past a few braves and an oddly spastic forsaken mage toting a sheep with him as she stumbled to a stop in front of a tent she hadn't been to in ages. Ever since Whisper had headed to Orgrimmar, the two barely ever saw one another. Not to say they didn't keep in touch; the two constantly sent letters back and forth, though Whisper always seemed to avoid talking about her love life. Twist knew she was still hurting from the loss of her fiancé, Shadow Rain.

If true love had ever existed, it had been between those two. When they were all children, none of them older than ten, Shadow had told Whisper that he was going to marry her one day and that they'd live happily ever after. They probably would have, too, if he hadn't volunteered to go with a few other druids to investigate the Plaguelands.

Whisper had begged him to stay with her, but he felt he couldn't leave any part of the world to suffer through unnatural means. Ever true to the druid code.

Twist had thought Whisper might kill herself when she got word that he'd been slain. It had been a long, hellish few months waiting for Whisper to slowly come out of her shell. At first she refused to eat, would wake up sobbing...prior to those months, Twist had thought that being lovesick was just something made up by human poets.

However, after Whisper had moved to Orgrimmar, things had begun to change. She'd helped start a guild, a decent one from the sounds of it, and Twist suspected that her friend might have even found herself a steer. Twist's questions about any new romance in Whisper's life were always left unanswered.

Just as she ran her fingers through her mane to make it look like she hadn't leapt on the opportunity to see her old friend, the tent flap to the Windsong house flipped open, and Whisper stormed out.

She froze when she saw Twist. However, before Twist could snap out of her surprise to say hello, Whisper grabbed her hand and stormed off with her in tow. She didn't stop walking until they'd taken an elevator down and sat at the base of the bluffs.

Whisper cursed to herself quietly, and Twist waited for her friend to gather herself rather than prodding her with questions.

Whisper was frustrated with life. Everyone was telling her things she already knew. That bitch Leafless had cornered her in her own damn shop and told her that she shouldn't be leading Shadow on any longer when they all knew nothing could ever happen between the two of them. Then, just as she was getting over it and actually considering that the worthless creature might be right, she'd received word that her mother was ill.

Ill was one word for it. By the time Whisper got to Thunder Bluff—which hadn't taken long at all, considering she'd just left Sham in charge of her shop and hunted Genji down for a portal—her mother was feeling just dandy and was happy to introduce her to a handsome young brave who was what any eligible young lady would want.

And then she'd had the audacity to be angry with Whisper?

Whisper screamed and jerked tufts of grass up and threw them back at the ground. As the blades fluttered to the earth, she looked over at Twist. "Why does everyone have to tell me how to live my life?"

"Because they're too miserable in their own," Twist tried to joke.

However, Whisper seemed to take her seriously, frowning toward her hooves as her anger abruptly wavered to depression. "Do you know Sunless Plainstrider?"

Twist thought for a moment before shrugging. "I've heard the name Plainstrider before..." As she searched her memory, she ran her fingers through the tuft of hair at the end of her tail. "Oh! Redsky Plainstrider is the one I know. He's a druid—" Twist sucked in a sharp breath, unsure if Whisper would be alright to talk about druids when she was already as upset as she was.

Whisper didn't seem fazed by it, however. "Perhaps they're brothers. Mother sent word to Orgrimmar that she was sick just to get me to come home to meet Sunless."

"I'm sure she meant well," Twist offered, reaching out and patting one of Whisper's knees. "After all, you're her daughter. She just wants you to be happy."

"I am!" Whisper cried out and then abruptly snapped her mouth shut as tears beaded her eyelashes, threatening to mat the fur nearest her eyes. "Or...I thought I was."

"What happened?"

"Shadow came back," Whisper said, her voice so low it was nearly lost to the wind.

"What?" Twist nearly jerked to her feet. "That's wonderful!" She tugged on Whisper's hand. "We should tell your mother! She'll stop trying to play matchmaker if—"

"He's dead," Whisper muttered. As Twist gave her a confused look, Whisper heaved a sigh. "He's undead. A death knight."

~"~

Leafless walked past Whisper's Vials for the nth time. Still closed. Honestly, wasn't Whisper going a little overboard, sulking for almost an entire day? She'd come by to apologize for snapping at Whisper when the tauren normally opened shop. Then, she'd come by again about twenty minutes later, thinking perhaps Whisper was running late. Then again and again and...

Shouldn't someone else have at least come to open up by now?

In truth, Sham had been responsible for opening the shop that morning, but she'd seen Leafless, looking rather dark—the trees nearest her were literally withering from her anger—and she'd headed home. It wasn't that Sham was afraid of the death knight, but rather that she had seen how Leafless grilled some of their guild mates when buying her potions—"Does this have exactly the right blend of herbs in it? The color looks off..." or "Why are there so few of these stocked today? I need at least twenty and you don't even have four? Why would you run out of things you know we use…"

After the last fiasco with Timmons, Sham wasn't in the mood to put up with any annoyances because of the shop. To help, Whisper had left her a note detailing some of the more important potions and what to answer for standard questions, and Sham had hoped that that would be enough to sate Leafless' scrutiny. However, before she could locate the list, she'd received a rather distracting visit which had left any thoughts of the shop quite forgotten.

Leafless frowned and decided to go hunt down anyone who might know where Whisper was. Her first stop, of course, being Whisper's house. She didn't bother to ask why it was Lash who opened the door. Instead, she crossed her arms pointedly.

"I need to speak to Whisper."

The orc eyed her. Of all the guild members, Leafless was the most antisocial of them, and Lash only knew the vague rumors about relationship troubles among the tauren in her regards. He shrugged and yawned. "She's not here."

"Where is she?" Leafless snapped, her patience already spent.

Liila trotted up beside him and cocked her head. "You're looking for Whisper?" When the death knight snapped an affirmative, Liila shrugged apologetically. "She went back to Thunder Bluff to see her mother. Said it was urgent and she wouldn't be back for a while."

Leafless scowled. Since her unlife, she'd never once gone back to Thunder Bluff. She knew far too many people there, and she dreaded them seeing her as the abomination that she was. She considered her guild stone, but didn't want to settle things unless it was face to face. She'd been upset and had said things she didn't mean...well, things she didn't mean to say out loud.

It was true enough though, wasn't it? Whisper and Shadow would never be together, with Shadow having lost his heartbeat, and it was pointless for them to waste the rest of Whisper's life pining away. Shadow would live forever, quite possibly, so long after Whisper was gone, he'd be missing her. But maybe, just maybe, after enough time had passed...

Leafless had already decided that she could wait. She knew she would never be the one Shadow truly loved, but she was fine with that. So long as she could stay near him. It was just...she didn't hate Whisper. The shaman was wasting her life longing for her lost love. If she could move on, stop hurting, then Shadow could stop hurting, too. At least, that's what Leafless had thought. And that'd been was she was trying to get across to Whisper when the damnable tauren had jumped on her for trying to help.

She wanted to apologize and to get everything out in the open. Leafless was tired of conversations dying when she entered a room or people seeming to choose between whether they wanted to talk to her or Whisper. She doubted most of the guild knew that they did it, but they did.

And most all of them chose their fellow breather.

Liila reached out and touched Leafless' arm and the tauren jerked away from her. "If you see her, tell her I want to talk."

~"~

Shadow peered through the window of Whisper's Vials, hoping that maybe someone had just closed down temporarily so that they could work on a large order in the back. However, it didn't look as though anyone had been in there yet today. He leaned back as a few grunts wandered up, frowning to see the shop was closed. One of them eyed the death knight before coughing into his hand to get Shadow's attention.

"Not anymore trouble, I hope?"

"I'm sure Whisper's just sick or that someone forgot their shift," Shadow sighed, crossing his arms as he squinted through the window one last time. The grunts nodded warily—since the attack on Orgrimmar, Shadow had found that he and his fellow death knights were under scrutiny all over again. The grunts assured him that they would make sure to remember to check in on the shop later in the day, to make sure no one took advantage of the absence of whoever was supposed to tend the merchandise.

While it would take a fool to steal from Whisper's Vials, people still tried to every so often. Some rogues did a mock hazing of new members by telling them to try to bring them a certain vial from in the shop. Haa'aji always seemed to show up whenever the novices went to complete their initiation, however, and so far no one had managed to retrieve so much as a flask stopper from the store.

Shadow lumbered through the streets aimlessly. Neither Enlyhn nor Timmons had been in their usual haunts and with the shop closed, he didn't really know who was available and whose day he might be crashing by showing up.

It felt like, now that the threats of Outland had been dealt with, it was time to strike against Northrend, though Horde forces—and Alliance ones, from what he'd heard back at Acherus—were moving along at a sluggish pace in their preparations to enter the snowy hell. Sometimes Shadow felt the only way he'd actually move the Horde into action was if he raised the whole damn lot of them as ghouls and set them after Arthas.

He made sure not to voice such opinions to anyone, though he was sure Blood would have found the humor in it.

Thus, he considered himself lucky when he saw Cloudless riding down the street in his direction. However, as soon as he'd greeted his fellow tauren, he found that his good mood was not reciprocated. Even as Shadow tried to ask about the sheep riding in front of the druid on his kodo, Cloudless merely asked him if he'd buy him a drink in exchange for a sob story.

Once Shadow, Cloudless, and Fluffy had taken refuge at the nearest tavern, as close to a quiet corner as they could get, Cloudless slumped forward and let his head fall into his hands. Shadow's eyes widened. "What happened?"

"Skybow and I were together for almost ten years, you know?" Cloudless murmured into his palms before letting his hands drop back to the table and leaning back in his chair. "About a week ago, Mitchell came to see me—"

"In Thunder Bluff?" Shadow arched his eyebrows. The mage got squeamish on second story balconies, so he was surprised he'd even consider going to the tauren capital.

"Yes," Cloudless seemed irritated that Shadow was getting hung up on the details. "He wanted me to look after his pet, Fluffy. I thought he had good reasons, so I said I would, and he left."

Shadow eyed the sheep beside him, and debated whether he ought to poke it with his mace. Cloudless noticed and patted the little creature gently, even as one of its eyes twitched and looked like it gleamed red for a moment. "It's not polymorphed. That was what I thought at first, too. He's just a sheep, though."

Shadow started to ask why Mitchell had a real sheep and why he was having someone else look after it, when the waitress finally came by with their ales. Cloudless downed his in a single gulp, and Shadow pushed his toward the depressed druid. He downed that one just as quickly, and Shadow called for two more. It took a lot more than a few orcish brews to get a tauren inebriated. "So Mitchell asked you to keep the sheep, and you said yes."

"Right," Cloudless muttered, frowning at the patterns and slightly warped look of the wood in their table. "Skybow was so angry when I told him it wasn't a big deal to look after an animal, that we'd watched his sister's songbird for nearly a month before. Hell, we'd watched her children from time to time. A sheep didn't seem like that much work. And he hasn't been," Cloudless added, bitter.

Shadow nodded.

"Well, that wasn't the problem, apparently. I guess if it'd been some random stranger asking us to look after their farm animal, that would have been fine, but not a guild member. I tried to explain to him that a guild—well, our guild—is sort of like a second family, but he just scoffed. He said that my whole life revolved around Impervious. Impervious was my family, and he was just something I came home to when I wanted a good lay."

"Wow," Shadow whistled, trying not to fidget uncomfortably. He didn't have a problem with homosexuality, but he wasn't comfortable thinking about any of his guild mates having sex. Despite everything, he was a modest steer, and those were images that did not easily leave the mind. He hadn't been able to look at Enlyhn for a week after he'd walked in on the warlock once. In the guild hall, no less. Shortly after that, Gore and Gregor had passed a strict, no sex on guild grounds policy, to which most everyone was thankful.

"Skybow..." Cloudless trailed off to down his third and fourth drinks. "I told him that wasn't true, and he asked if I was seeing anyone else. I said no. He said that it didn't matter. I might as well be having an affair for all the time I spent with him. He said the last three years had been miserable, but that he kept telling himself that I was out saving the world and that someday I'd come home to stay." He slumped against the table again.

"I knew we were having problems, but things were getting better, I thought. I tried not to talk about the guild too much when I went home and to get back into the swing of things in Thunder Bluff, but it's so...slow paced there. I was restless. I was thinking about trekking out to see if any odd jobs needed to be done...have a bit of an adventure, but when I'd mentioned it to Skybow, he'd gotten so standoffish, like he assumed I thought he wasn't enough."

Cloudless slammed his fist against the table abruptly, and the wood splintered from the force. "Why the hell should I have to change my nature for him? Before I was in the guild, I'd go on trips to Moonglade for a month or two at a time, and he never seemed bothered by it."

Shadow tried to think of something comforting to say, but he found himself rather inexperienced in such matters. Most death knights sort of swept their regrets under the rug, and so it was hard to know whether it would be appropriate to tell Cloudless that his lover had been a total prick about it or to calmly point out that relationships required compromise. After all, the druid had spent the last year almost completely in Orgrimmar or Outland, so he could see why Skybow would have been lonely.

Cloudless shook his head. "Like I said, I thought we were getting better. He was laughing, like he used to. Smiling more. And then Mitchell came." He frowned. "Sky didn't like that I had guild mates doing house calls."

Shadow nodded. "To him, that was probably the one place we didn't have you. Home."

"I guess," Cloudless muttered. "That was the last straw, and he told me to get out."

"He kicked you out?" Shadow blinked, surprised. He only vaguely remembered having met Skybow once—briefly—when he was still living, years and years ago. Even so, he hadn't seemed like the kind of steer to jump to such measures. Things must have been a lot worse that Cloudless had realized.

"And you know what he said?" Cloudless snapped, angry again. "He said, 'I'm sure someone in your guild can give you a place to stay. They're family, right?'"

Cloudless fell into a miserable silence as he downed several more rounds for both himself and Shadow, still oblivious that he was the only one drinking. Shadow watched his guild mate carefully, waiting to speak until after he was sure Cloudless wasn't going to cry.

"Are you staying with anyone?"

"I just got into town," Cloudless muttered. "I could have taken a windrider over, but I wanted time to think. So I just rode here...with Fluffy."

Shadow eyed him. "But...have you looked into staying with anyone yet?"

"Honestly? No," Cloudless shrugged, dejected. "I was so mad...I just turned my stone off on my way over so that I could think. I...I guess I'll just stay tonight at an inn and then look into the housing market tomorrow."

"Why not stay in Thunder Bluff?"

"Everyone else is here, for the most part," the druid sighed. "And since Sky was the only real reason I stayed in Mulgore, there didn't seem like much point."

Shadow knew the feeling. Or at least a similar one. Life changed in such ways that none could predict and places that had held such meaning for so long would abruptly cease to be. While the physical shells of them would remain, the bonds, the ties, that kept one anchored to such a place would just...disappear. Thunder Bluff had gone from his world, to a foreign city in a land he could barely remember.

Return to me...

Shadow's senses snapped to awareness as he heard the whisper and felt a familiar tug in the back of his mind. He fought back a shudder and pushed aside his thoughts of losing what mattered to him. He knew better than to relax...than to act like he could afford such simple, wandering thoughts.

Cloudless hadn't noticed, and the death knight had to make a conscious effort not to draw attention to himself. He couldn't let them know...how would they be able to fight beside him, knowing that even now he heard the call of darkness, ever beckoning him home?

No. Not home. Orgrimmar and Acherus were home.

"We should do something to remedy your misery," Shadow offered, trying to keep his own from his voice. It seemed to work, for Cloudless perked up a little. "You're hurting, but think. Everything happens for a reason. Everything will work itself out in the end."

Cloudless almost asked what the reason for Shadow's corruption to a death knight had been and how he thought that would work itself out. However, the steer caught himself as he realized his friend had done nothing to warrant such an attack. Cloudless was just angry...at himself mostly, for letting himself lose the whole reason he fought to protect the world. At length, he simply sighed. "What did you have in mind?"

Pausing, Shadow drummed his fingers against the table. Were he still a druid, he would have said to go to Moonglade and commune with nature. While he supposed he still could, he had somewhat implied that he would be there for Cloudless and didn't want his guild mate to feel jilted.

"I suppose we could wander over to the trade district. Take a look at the query boards or see if Haa'aji's started a trade riot."

While neither option seemed overly appealing to the druid, he recognized that his friend was trying, and he nodded half-heartedly.

~"~

Blood leaned against the outer wall of the auction house, half hidden in shadows. He would have stepped back further, but the grunts were already eyeing him as it was. They weren't too keen on death knights being creepy.

He ignored the latest look from a guard as he watched three orcish children playing across the way. Two boys, one twelve, the other nine, and a girl, almost four. Every Thursday the oldest led the other two down to the market to help buy groceries and supplies for their mother. During these visits, the eldest always paused to inspect the query boards, as though wishing to just leave behind the life he knew and venture off into the great unknown.

Today was no exception and he was in the midst of such a daydream as Blood watched them. The younger boy was picking on the little orcess—he'd jerked one of her dog ears and sneered something that Blood hadn't been able to hear—but just as tears brimmed her eyes, the oldest boy snapped from his thoughts and turned to see what was going on. With a frown, he whacked the other boy on the back of the head.

Even as the younger one turned, rubbing his head, to yell at him, and the little girl darted forward to cling to her savior's knees, the oldest let out a long, tired sigh. Blood felt a pang of guilt run through him. The poor boy had had to become the man of the family far too young.

Blood's gaze abruptly snapped away as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Shadow was standing beside him, with Cloudless a few feet behind. His gaze flickered back toward the children for a moment before he gave up watching them. It wasn't like he could ever do more for them than send a few gold their way anonymously from time to time. After all, who wanted their children to know they were an abomination?

"Yes?"

"Hey," Shadow nodded to him, seeming to note the orc's displeasure with being interrupted in…what looked like stalking. Shadow didn't cast more than a glance toward the crowded street though, noting how Blood shifted his weight as he did, taking an almost protective stance, as though to keep Shadow away from someone. "We're trying to find something to do...something to help Cloudless here forget his worries for a while."

Blood turned his icy gaze toward the druid, though it softened—as much as a death knight's could—when he saw the matted clumps of hair beneath the tauren's eyes. He'd been crying for a good long while, from the looks of it. "And you think I know? I barely know what to do with myself lately. Waiting on the Horde to go to Icecrown is just about killing me." He let out a dry laugh.

"Where's Gobber?" Cloudless asked, trying to be friendly, despite his misery.

"Oh, I left him in the guild hall. Since the whole attack on Orgrimmar, people aren't too keen on seeing ghouls around. Even if Gobber knows better than to chew on civilians…most of the time."

Cloudless had spent enough time with Blood to know that he was joking, though he couldn't bring himself to enjoy the humor. "I see."

Feeling a depressing vibe from Blood in addition to Cloudless, Shadow looked around, desperately hoping to find something to provide a sense of comic relief. Where in the void was Haa'aji when you needed him? Or Mitchell or Liila? Well, Liila hadn't been much fun since the sin'dorei had joined, but she used to be right up there with Haa'aji, though she was considerably subtler around the guild leaders, leading them to still believe that Haa'aji had done half of her tricks.

While Haa'aji wasn't around, Shadow wondered if he could bribe someone in the crowded streets to start something, so that he and his friends would have something to laugh at. Even as he searched the crowd for any of Haa'aji's friends—that he knew about—a figure suddenly came into his sight, blocking his view of the crowd. Cloudless had fallen into telling his tale of misery to Blood, but even he grew quiet as he saw who it was. As Blood turned to look over his shoulder, he frowned.

She was a tauren, slenderer than most yet garbed in plate armor with a large axe hanging on her back—a warrior. Embry Sandsliver. Her tail swished back and forth as she caught her dark mane, a soft wind trying to blow strands into her eyes. She looked amused and condescending.

"What's the matter? You gentle beasts are lost without a fight?"

"There are plenty of fights ahead of us," Shadow muttered, almost instinctively.

"Yet you're bored now."

Cloudless rolled one of his shoulders slowly, frowning. "We're waiting to head to Northrend. It should be soon."

Embry laughed and trotted up to them, leaning on Blood and ignoring his threat to turn her into his next ghoul. "Yes, well, if you would get your heads out of the clouds and come down to Azeroth, you'd have plenty to do."

Shadow arched an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, are you recruiting us?"

"We're already in a guild," Cloudless muttered.

Blood nodded. "A damn good one, too."

Eyeing them, Embry shrugged and put a hand on her hip. "I don't have the authority to recruit. I'm just saying. The Alliance is a threat to the stability of the Horde. Convenient as your guild may be when creatures like the Scourge are running lose, you're useless when it comes to the more imminent threats. ...And as I recall, you weren't even here when the undead attacked Org. Besides, we have Anonymous to take care of problems like Illidan or the Lich King. "

"Well, if we stole all the glory, there'd be nothing for you to do," Shadow said. Though he smiled, his eyes were colder than usual.

Embry felt the chill in the air, but merely rolled her eyes. "Such arrogance. It's still a shame, though. If half of you joined Blood and Honor, we'd be able to take out Stormwind."

"Maybe that's why we don't join," Blood said, crossing his arms. "We like having cannon fodder for our fights."

"Claim to use the humans as toy soldiers all you want," Embry said, pausing and waving to someone across the way as they called her name, "but when there are no more villains to fight, you should consider what I'm saying. The Horde needs heroes, not idealists."

She didn't wait for a response before turning and trotting off. Blood considered spitting on the ground after her, but didn't. Instead, he merely waited until she was out of earshot before addressing the others. "Blood and Honor is either falling on desperate times or things are going too well for them."

"Hard to tell which," Cloudless murmured. He hated the thought of fighting creatures just over simple territory. The Scourge and the Burning Legion were one thing, but other living things who just wanted to be able to raise their families in a safe, quiet world?

"We should tell her guild leader she's trying to poach from other guilds," Blood muttered, still annoyed that she had bothered them. It was true enough, though, wasn't it? If Impervious were a war guild, they'd be out in the battlefield instead of meandering through Orgrimmar, twiddling their thumbs. If he didn't have so much respect for Gregor and Gore, Blood probably would have headed to the warfronts against the Alliance by now.

Shadow shook his head grimly. "While Gregor may be against faction conflict, Gore's even more so against inner fighting. Besides, she probably thinks she's being generous in offering us something to do with ourselves."

"Women," Cloudless practically spat the word. This was why he didn't speak with his sisters anymore. If they found out about his break up, they'd probably be all too willing to 'help'.

"Women fighters are the worst of them," Blood muttered. "Half the time they think they have to overcompensate just to get past their gender. That's where Embry's arrogance comes from, I bet."

"I know what you mean," Shadow laughed, half forgetting that Cloudless was there. "When Leafless and I went with the others to investigate the Scourge, she was always so intent on pointing out that she could keep going. She always wanted to go that extra mile, even when the rest of us were ready to call it a night."

Blood chuckled. "How'd that go?"

Abruptly snapped from his amusement, Shadow sighed and pointed at his glowing eyes. Blood's smile slipped, too. It was times like this, he could almost forget that he no longer had a beating heart. Times when he could laugh...and times when there wasn't any type of reflective object around. Unlike Shadow and Leafless, he'd been decomposing almost a week before he was risen.

However, even as he looked back at Shadow, to make a joke about not being able to live with women, he stopped when he saw the 'oh shit' look on his fellow death knight's face. He turned in time with Cloudless to see Leafless standing a few feet away, easily in earshot of their earlier comments.

She'd been so relieved to see them; they'd looked as lost in regards with what to do as she was and, honestly, she'd wanted to tell Shadow what had happened first, before Whisper could put her spin on the story. Now, however...

He blamed her for his death?

She'd never even considered that. Sure, she'd been the one who had wanted to push further into the Plaguelands to see the full extent of the damage done, but he'd willingly come with her. It wasn't like she'd forced him...or even asked him to come along.

"Leaf," Shadow said softly, already taking a few steps toward her.

She felt herself snap. In a second a death gate had replaced where she'd been standing, and she was gone. Shadow ran his fingers through his mane slowly, before sighing and stalking through the gate himself, after calling out a quick apology to Cloudless.

The druid stood with Blood, a sudden terror gripping him that even Blood would leave him alone with his memories. The orc, however, merely reached out and patted him on the shoulder and asked if he wanted to go get a drink.

~"~

Shadow easily caught up to Leafless in Acherus, though she kept stalking away from him and ignored his attempts to talk until he finally grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to a stop. For a moment she recoiled, surprised by the force he'd used, and she almost punched him defensively. Instead, she merely jerked free from him, cursing quietly as she did so.

"Leaf, we were just joking around. Embry had come by and she was being as bitchy and condescending as ever."

"So how did bitchy and condescending lead to a conversation about me?" Leafless hissed.

One of Shadow's eyes twitched. "I'm not saying you're either. I just...look, you know how conversations wander. We were just joking around—"

"So my wanting to prove myself to the Order was a joke to you?"

"You are bending my words," Shadow muttered, pinching the top of his muzzle between his eyes as he tried to keep his temper. "You were young and overzealous. Things happened. If you can't look back at the past and laugh, what can you do?"

"You hate me." Leafless' lip quivered.

"I don't hate you. I—"

"You think it's my fault that you're dead!"

"You know what? It is," Shadow snapped, slamming his fist into the wall and making Leafless jump as cracks flew across the surface. "It really is. If you had just agreed that the Plaguelands needed healing and gone back with us, we'd still be living happily in Thunder Bluff. I'd be married. By the nether, at this point I might even have had a child." Leafless opened her mouth to respond, but he ignored her. "But instead, you wanted to see the full force of the Scourge." He held his arms out, motioning to Acherus and catching the attention of several other death knights and guards. "Well? Is this enough for your report?"

Leafless stood silently, dumbstruck.

"It was my misfortune to be the last one leaving Mulgore. Your father had come out to say goodbye, and I was the one he caught. I was the one he made promise to bring you home safely. If I had just kept up with Meadowtread or Windtrail, it would have been someone else honor bound to keep you company when you refused to return home." He shook his head, taking a step away from her. "Instead it was me."

"Shadow..." Leafless began, though he just shook his head in disgust and turned away from her.

"I can't even...I can't deal with your drama right now."

He stalked off, deeper into the death knight's stronghold, and left Leafless by herself, struggling not to burst into dry, hiccupping sobs in front of her fellow knights.