On the next occasion that they met, the tension between them stemming from their last conversation appeared to have vanished. Thorn found both herself and Robas chatting similarly to how they had done on the previous day, with Robas initially keeping her up-to-date with the construction and then moving on to topics unrelated to their current work. Still, there was a new unspoken rule in their talk which the two of them simultaneously acknowledged and understood—no more inquiring about each other's past.
With each passing day, more and more of the sketch on the parchment was physically brought into existence as cement and other materials were integrated into the growing building. As the construction came to a close on the last day, the only remaining adjustments being the finishing touches here and there, the worgen commander could no longer fight the fatigue accumulated over the week. The extra reports and trips to Oribos had been more taxing than usual, plus midday was her break time anyway when she had worked in Stormwind. Agreeing with herself, Thorn retired into her tent, plopped herself down on the mattress, and, as her eye drifted closed, made a mental note to go check on the finished shelter when she awoke in the evening.
Today was not a good day.
Thanks to the help of adventurers in the area, the Burning Blade infiltrators had been fended off although without some losses. These included one of the garrison's goods—or an artifact to be more precise.
And one of the garrison's inhabitant who now resided in a wooden casket, a makeshift one for nobody had expected the object to be used at all, beside a dug up pit surrounded by the majority of the still-alive garrison's residents.
Grimness and solemnity loomed over the crowd which consisted of humans, dwarves, builders—every present person whose life had been touched in some way by the late chief architect Baros Alexston. Among them and standing the closest to the casket and the hole was a worgen lieutenant whose heart had been snatched away along with the stolen Heart of Gorgorek.
She would not cry. She would not be weak. Not weak like her human guise—slow, brittle, defenseless, and, after spending too much time in the human form, dampened her worgen guise's ability to sense the assassin that had almost taken her life if it was not for— No. She would never allow that useless form to hurt the people she loved and cared about anymore. She would never again revert from the guise that made her strong and able to protect others. Never.
The funeral commenced, the pallbearer-made workers picking up the casket and lowering it into its final resting place following a short rite performed by Seer Kazal who may or may not have foreseen Baros' passing. The silent atmosphere was slowly—carefully—broken when footsteps emerged as one mourner after another shifted from their place to approach the casket one last time. Some went with a flower, some went a handful of dirt, and one simply did not budge.
The worgen lieutenant fixated the container whose lid conceal the face of the man whom she had loved and who had loved her in return, watching it get lightly veiled by the flowers and dirt. She knew she should move, kneel down, bid him a goodbye, and let the common Azerothian rose in her hand fall into the pit to be caught by him. Except he would not have wanted it for the flower had been given to her—meant to be hers.
Her perception of time and her surroundings were momentarily lost as anguish and turmoil raged within her. The noise of soil being shoveled to bury the casket, the thump of the headstone being placed atop the covered grave, the faltering footsteps of the other garrison's inhabitants as they left—all of them eluded her as she remained still and motionless as though she was the tombstone itself or the lifeless body which rested beneath it.
She came out of her trance when stars started to fill the night sky of Draenor and the nocturnal insects started to chirp mournfully. For the first time this evening, she stirred, turning to look around and finding the outdoor area of Lunarfall to be bereft of its usual dwellers who, perhaps, wished to give her some privacy. Facing the grave once more, she approached the recently-disturbed ground. With each step becoming wobblier than the previous one, she knelt down where Baros' face would be beneath the ground and, with her unoccupied hand, reached out to caress the earth.
The emotions she had been holding back throughout the funeral broke forth. Her body convulsed, her shoulders heaved, and her limbs shook. Her fingers, except for the digits that held the rose precious to her, clenched, her claws digging into the soil and her palm. Try as she might, she could not stop the droplets of tear from forming in her eye. If she had to cry, then let the damn light know it would be the last time she ever did. She swore she would not be weak. She would not let harm come to her loved ones again. She swore, she swore, she swore—
Lieutenant Thorn wept.
The ever-warring Maldraxxi at last found their daily reprieve when the light that enveloped the realm in a virescent hue retreated into the In-Between. While this temporary standstill may not apply to some of the native souls which did not need rest, it would still hold true to the future-occupants of the newly-completed Maldraxxi-influenced bunker.
Apart from the hidden magical wards around the bunker's perimeter which would keep out unwanted visitors, the building was empty. It was not long after night fog appeared near the surface when footsteps—or pawsteps in this case—could be heard as their owner drew closer to the structure, ascended the stairs leading to the entrance, and proceeded to wander the interior dimly illuminated by the lantern in her hand.
The worgen commander's eye darted about the room as she navigated from one to another. From the archways, the walls, and the pillars, their layout was thoughtful and their design intricate, and the concrete was flawlessly polished. She could easily imagine the purpose of each room, the furniture that would adorn the place, and the members of the Alliance and the Horde that would soon find sojourn here.
Upon exiting the bunker, ready to head back to her tent to write a short report for Zog, the worgen came to a halt when she spotted a silhouette at the bottom of the stairs. While the light from her lantern did not shine far enough to reveal the shadowy outline, her enhanced eyesight and night vision granted by her worgen form allowed her to see the figure in detail nonetheless. Noticing the skeletal features and limbs and a familiar parchment pouch, she immediately knew who it was despite not seeing the unique pauldron badge from this angle. When she realized that he, perhaps too absorbed in his musings, had not acknowledged her presence, she continued walking and descended the steps. The sound of her moving toward him grabbed his attention.
"Commander," Robas began, whipping to face her properly as she stopped at two arms' length from him. "I hope the building meets your expectations."
"It does more than that, Robas," Thorn replied, readjusting her canine features to give him her best expression of a smile in her worgen form. "It's perfect."
Her compliment rendered the architect speechless for a moment.
"I… thank you, commander."
The Maldraxxi reached into his pouch and procured something.
"As we'll be parting ways now that the construction is finished, I want to give you this before you go." Robas showed her the object in his hand. "And don't worry, commander; its toxins have been cleansed by a necromancer."
It was a flower, more specifically a belladonna belonging to the Maldraxxi nightshade family. Thorn examined the flower briefly before picking it up by the stem so that she could better peruse it and also to signify her acceptance of the gift.
"Beautiful lady, as per the flower's name. I think it suits you, commander."
Thorn heard him, then had to do a double take to make sure she registered what he had said correctly. Her gaze softened as she locked hers with his. "Thank you, Robas."
Aside from the occasional night breezes of Maldraxxus air, several heartbeats passed between them in which no words were exchanged. It was the architect who broke the silence first, the glow in his eye sockets dropping to the ground as he did so.
"I… I shall be going now." Robas turned to face the direction of the Seat of the Primus. "Good bye."
One step, another step, three steps—the distance between them grew while Thorn looked at the leaving Maldraxxi whose back was visible to her.
She knew—or at least she thought she did—that this Maldraxxi architect was not who he actually was. That the name 'Robas' was nothing more than one part of a ruse. That she had met and known this skeleton before, fondly and deeply even more so. Since the first time she had heard him speak, the first time she saw his sketch, the first time he took interest in the rose-containing jar on her table, the first and only time he talked and lied about his past, her suspicion had been growing. Paired with the dreams she had experienced of late which could not be just a coincidence either, she had a feeling that she knew the person behind the façade she had been presented with.
The flower in her hand cemented her belief.
With every step he took, her heartstrings were tugged, and currently they were nearing their snapping point. While her features and body may have been relaxed moments earlier, they were now distorted and rigid. Her fingers grasping the lantern's handle clenched, and she tried her best to not crush the stem of the belladonna in the digits of her other hand. Gritting her fangs, she rasped out the sole name that crossed her mind in that instance.
"Baros."
He paused. That coward.
Steadily and with certainty, Thorn trod toward him. He hesitantly turned around when she stopped a stride away from where he stood.
"Did you think I wouldn't know it was you?" A low growl accompanied her grating voice despite her best attempt to remain composed. Her piercing stare, while both fiery and cold, held no hatred or malice. She wanted to be angry and lash out at him for deceiving her, but light be damned she could not.
"I didn't want you to know me like this." He averted his glowing orbs from her glare. "A skeleton, a dead soul, a remnant of what I used to be—a man that fell for you."
"Try again." She was unsatisfied with his answer to the unasked question. "Why?"
The silence that followed allowed him to think about—or muster the courage for—what he was going to utter. Slowly and finally, he raised his gaze to hers.
"I didn't want to break your heart all over again."
A twinge of pain manifested in her chest. His words did have some truth to them in that their reunion would inevitably be cut short; she would find herself back in Stormwind after the Azerothians' work here had been carried out while he was bound to stay in the Shadowlands. As much as she wanted to disagree, she had to concede to his point. Unless—
"Go live your life. Don't throw it away for me."
And to hell with him.
"Never ever say that again," she snapped. "Go live my life? You mean go drown myself in piles of fancy paper on a day-to-day basis and watch my life rot away. You're an idiot. What else is there? Settle down with some bloke who'd soon learn their wife hadn't moved on from another man—a dead one even—or go on some kind of a spiritual journey? Hogwash.
"And don't throw my life away. What a damn hypocrite you are! You took the blade for me, you threw your life away for me, and now you dare say I can't do the same for you. Why can't I abandon the Alliance, Azeroth, the living—everything—and just be here with you for the rest of my days? Why can't—why, you stupid, stupid man!"
Her surroundings turned into smudges of colors as strange yet familiar warm liquid flowed freely from her eyes, trickling down the fur on her left cheek and dampening the eyepatch on her right eye. She was seething, hurting, and… crying. Hah. It was not possible for her to cry; she was not supposed to. This could not be real. For sure, this had to be a dream, an occasion in which her mind played tricks on her. The skeleton before her could not be real—could not be Baros. Baros was dead, Baros was gone, Baros—
The feeling of something touching her brought her back. Gradually, she became aware of something stiff pressing against her torso and draping over her back. Her vision was also partly obscured by something—or someone—in front of her. It took a heartbeat or two for her to realize what was happening, and instinctively, she dropped the lantern in her hand, wrapped her arms around his sinewy rib cage, lowered her face into his shoulder girdle on the non-pauldron side, and sobbed.
Minutes or hours may have passed by while they stood there in each other's embrace. To them, time itself was frozen and the world around them did not exist for the moment. When the waves and the storms inside her had abated, she loosened her grip on him and carefully pulled back to avoid damaging the belladonna in her fingers. He did as well, but still not completely letting go of her as he continued to seek comfort in the closeness between them. Their gazes locked, this time with calmness and yearning in them.
"I never stopped thinking about you," Baros whispered, his rumbling Maldraxxi voice coming out as gently and quietly as it could.
"And I never stopped loving you," Thorn breathed. "I never moved on."
Baros smiled wistfully, or at least tried to with his bony features. He cautiously and idly ran his sharp fingers through the silky fur along her shoulders, causing her to hum softly. "I used to tell those adventurers back on Draenor how I'd daydream about your worgen form sometimes. Of course, I'd never tell you that."
Thorn frowned, then grinned and slapped his back lightly as she chuckled. "Whatever floats your boat, you twisted man," Thorn chided playfully, resting her head back on his shoulder blade before closing her eye and sighing. "What am I going to do with you, Baros?"
"Whatever floats your boat, lieutenant," the architect murmured.
Thorn smiled at his usage of her own words and her old title—a title that, despite being a reminder of that dreadful day, reminded her of the time in which their love for one another germinated and grew.
"Baros, Baros, oh Baros…"