Bridge stirred into wakefulness slowly, curled into a tight ball against the chill. It was going to be brutal when she finally shifted, something she would put off as long as possible. She opened her eyes to the unimpressive view of a stained and cracking plaster wall. Not... her mind ran through the places she had been most recently. Not the barracks at New Avalon. Not her rooms in Acherus. A muffled flurry of noises from beneath her helped remind her of where she was, a bedroom in Valiance Keep.

Back in Northrend.

Of course, as if the chill wasn't a dead giveaway, only the worst winter days in Lordaeron had even approached this cold, and she knew this wasn't even cold...for Northrend. It seemed like she had been gone forever, but it had only been a handful of weeks. She sighed, finally giving in and stretching, hissing when she touched the cold bedding. Best thing was to just get it all over with as quickly as possible, she'd slept in a lot of her clothing and that would make this slightly easier. But only slightly. She was moving quickly the moment she committed and hit the floor, making the quick dash to the hearth and the rest of her clothing hanging from the chair in front of it. As hoped, the coals had banked down and still warmed the stones and the fabric. "Brrrh." She growled, throwing her garments on before turning her attention to the coals. A quick stir, a few handfuls of kindling and she had enough of a flame going to add small logs and get a decent fire going again. It didn't matter that she was going downstairs, her stomach growled and gurgled unpleasantly and the very idea of food only made it worse. Her appetite was returning with leaps and bounds, she'd started to gain back weight and vitality after the first shaky few weeks away from New Hearthglen, away from the role of the Onslaught's mad High General. It didn't matter that she'd spent that time surrounded by the undead, the Light which clawed its way out of the prison she'd been caged in seemed mostly unfazed by their proximity. Certainly, the beginning had been difficult, physically uncomfortable and spiritually challenging but she had hope again. She had faith again. She wasn't a lost cause, simply a work in progress.

There was an envelope on the floor next to the door, it had obviously been slid underneath sometime during the night and the idea made her bristle. She'd slept like...well, the dead. That was the last thing she was fighting against now. She'd been a tortuously light sleeper for years, haunted by nightmares and insomnia. Every slight sound had been guaranteed to jolt her awake, but slept the night through, undisturbed by the chill, by the keen of the winds, by the steps of the person who had slid something into her room and even the sounds of the living on the floor beneath her. She knew immediately that this had not come from Darion or any death knight. It felt rather mundane, untouched by anything that would stir up caution. She plucked it off of the dusty floor, turning it over in her mitted hands. Her new name was penned on the front, but the back seal was reason to pause.

"Fancy, fancy." She muttered under her breath, even that slight sound swallowed by her cowl. Not just any old seal of the Stormwind lion, quickly slapped on by a clerk somewhere, but a seal in perfect dark blue wax, imprinted by a deeply engraved signet ring. It lacked the flourish of ribbons and her name was written in a functional hand, no swirling calligraphy, no touch of gold paint applied to the wax to push it into the realm of originating from nobility. Bridge had seen enough of those to last her a lifetime or more...

"You are nobility now, Brigette. Perhaps it is time that you learned how to behave like it."

Her lips twisted at the memory and she fought the urge to spit. It had always been amazing just how her mother-in-law could turn her given name into an indictment, Bridge had hated the way it sounded on the woman's lips.

I am not nobility. I am a general, the only born child of a general. I am a paladin, the only born child of one of our first paladins.

Unfortunately, that was not entirely true and to embrace that...and only that...would be yet another lie told to herself. She was done with that. She could lie to others, hide what needed to be hidden, but she needed to be honest with herself, at least. She might have been born to that general, that paladin, but she had wedded a noble and had borne him children to carry on his noble blood and name...

Enough of that. She stared at her written name, running her fingers over it. She'd seen this hand before, seen this seal before, letters like this had crossed her desk before, captured from messengers taken from the Dragonblight.

Wyrmbane.

She suddenly felt like a fraud, like a spy...like a traitor, and she leaned against the wall next to the door.

No one said this was going to be easy.

No, but this was going to be damned hard. She'd dealt with Wyrmbane's people the same way she'd dealt with everything else she'd viewed as a threat and the memory chased away the healthy hunger she'd had only moments before, twisting her guts. And now, she held a letter from him, directly addressed to her. She sighed, breaking the seal and spreading the parchment open against the wall, skimming the words. Any doubts that she had correctly identified the sender were gone in an instant, this had been written by the same person who had written each of Wyrmbane's messages that her people had intercepted. There was a faint chance that he had an aide-de-camp, a clerk, but she doubted that this had been generated by one of those.

She reread it, slowly, lingering on certain parts. This was the first time she'd seen, in writing, what Darion had sold her as. General Sorrow, General-at-large representing the Ebon Blade, liaison to the Valiance Expedition.

Well, it did have a certain rather pretentious ring to it, but Darion had always had that streak. And if this was going to work, that's exactly how the others needed to see her as, and quickly. Things had already gone too far for her to sell herself the way that she would prefer to, by proving herself as a leader and commander on the field. That would have to come later, or perhaps sooner. This requested her presence at Wyrmbane's base to meet with him and 'others' to 'continue plans and coordination'.

My spies would have been beside themselves with joy if they'd intercepted this.

Yes, yes they would have. Or they might be. It would be folly to forget everything she knew because she was so desperate to leave it all behind her. She shook her head, staring at 'her' small travel chest sitting under the window. Hopefully, those who had packed it for her had more foresight than she had as to what role Darion had determined she would play here and had included writing supplies so that she could be that liaison her new title claimed her to be.

Unsurprisingly, they did. There was a box with a full writing set inside, including a signet for the Ebon Blade and a supply of dark purple wax. She sat with it, staring at a fresh sheet of parchment for a long time before she uncapped an ink bottle and began to write, accepting Wyrmbane's invitation in a hand she hadn't used in years. While it would help maintain the masquerade, she knew that just as she recognized Wyrmbane's writing, he stood a good chance of recognizing hers...at least, what it had become later. When she'd been a young paladin, and a young wife to a noble house, she'd had fine penmanship. It had fallen like so many things that had once been a part of her, she'd considered it too graceful, too feminine, not strong enough. But now it was something she fully intended to claim again. She signed her new name at the bottom with a flourish, sanded the ink dry, folded it and sealed it carefully, writing his name on the front of the envelope.

It was time to get this started.