Once Vindra quieted down, none of the trio even bothered challenging Gwynneth directly or trying to reason with her as she and her right hand woman rode away. There was no reason to; the decision to kill them all had already been made before the confrontation had even taken place. Knowing Gwynneth, the entire showdown had merely been a ruse to impress the potential guild recruits below, a motley crew of mostly younger night elves who appeared as if they'd been whipped up into a zealous frenzy with talk about blasphemy, the law and other concepts that even Amandil would have been swayed by just over six weeks ago. There had never been any possibility of surrender or negotiation; this was all about one ambitious guild leader on a power trip so obsessive that she could easily sentence her own former shield sisters to death.

One of the four sentinels below waved around a barbed crescent in a threatening display. "Open the door and accept your fate, and we'll make it fast and easy," she hissed, giving the daughter and father a crazed look as if she was preparing to defend Kalimdor from Kil'jaeden himself.

"I hope they don't open the door," snickered another sentinel while rubbing her palms together like the villainess in children's plays.

At first, Amandil prepared to nudge her father to speak, but then she realized the reason for his silence. Seeing as how he may as well have been the Dark Titan incarnate for these people, the druidess tried to reason with them.

"I swear to you that we'll pack up and leave," she announced to them while holding her empty palms out in a peaceful gesture. "We'll sail across the ocean and never come back, and the Kaldorei will never have to see us again if you just let us go-"

"Enough of your trickery and deceit!" bellowed one of the two bear druids.

Out of the corner of her eye, Amandil noticed Lilith squirming away inch by inch, degraded to the point of wiggling through the grass. By that point survival took precedent over dignity, and all Amandil could do was try to keep their interlocutors distracted - she didn't believe for one second that they'd follow Gwynneth's order to leave Lilith alive at the end.

"My brother, there is no trickery here...had we harbored ill will for our fellow children of the stars-"

The same bear druid's face twisted in disgust. "Don't you dare call yourselves by the blessed name of-"

"Aaaaaiiiiieeee!" Vindra screamed from the back of the room, giving Amandil a jolt before she could even realize that her mother had left downstairs in the first place.

Possessing a speed that seemed impossible for her, Vindra hurled a bucket of something downward at the group, not giving them the time to realize what she'd done until the boiling hot coffee already splashed the bear druid all over the face and one of the sentinels on her glaive arm.

"Aaarrgggh!" both aggressors yelled, though the bear druid was obviously in much more pain.

The sentinel frantically removed her bracer, panicking due to the scalding hot coffee that seeped into her leathers. The druid, however, rolled on to the ground, steam escaping from in between his fingers as he covered his face. Although his colleague cast a rejuvenation spell onto his face, Amandil knew enough from her healing class that the man would be permanently disfigured. Her mother's coffee was hot.

"Mom...seriously?" she asked her nearly hyperventilating mother, unsure of whether to wag her finger for the stoking of hostilities or to high five Vindra for having nailed the fanatic when he was in mid sentence. Really, by that point, there was no negotiation anyway; hostilities were increasing exponentially second by second, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

The second bear druid wove another spell onto the sentinel's arm and tried to help his groaning colleague into a standing position. The initial, wild eyed sentinel who'd accosted them stepped forward, snapping her fingers at the nightsabres. "Kill!" she commanded all four mounts as the dark furred cats began snarling and pawing at the door. The sentinel then notched an arrow in her bow, prompting Faraldor to shut the heavy oak shudder of the window, which he also locked shut with iron bolts.

Several arrows pierced the shudder, poking a few inches through and forcing all three family members to take a step back. Amandil reeled, too many thoughts flying through her mind at once. They'd been having breakfast, they'd been enjoying their newfound family life, they'd been making plans; they'd been happy.

Seething in anger, she turned toward her father. "Dad...Lilith can't fight. Mom can't either - no offense. Can we sneak out and rout them?"

His ancient mind calculating every possible outcome, the ancient demon hunter shook his head. "The only way out is the back window, and that leads straight down - we'd have to climb back up. They'd kill your cousin first, and then surround us when we climbed back up."

Feeling the heat rise in her temples, she grit her teeth, her anger unraveling. "The front window - we can drop right onto them!"

"We'll be in the middle of nine uninjured opponents. Even if I knew how to metamorphosize, we can't beat them all."

"My - my hearthstone! We can warp back to Moonglade now! We..." Amandil's voice caught in her throat, due to some stupid spec of saliva or something like that, and she ignored the lump it caused. "Lilith would...she would understand," she said while her heart rate jumped through the roof, causing her to feel mildly nauseous.

"I'm a heretic wanted for murdering a druid...I'll be killed on sight and you and your mom would be arrested. And Lilith would still be killed as well."

Wood shook as the entire building vibrated, causing Vindra to jump. The roar of a bear rang out as the sentinels cheered the shifted druid on, and Amandil started to panic as much as her mother had when she realized that the bear druid was slamming his entire weight against the door in order to break it down. These people were driven by fanaticism, just like Amandil had been, and believed they'd ascend to some higher level in their lives by ending those of the newfound family members. Acid reflux jumped into Amandil's throat in reaction to the injustice, stinging her with her own breakfast as she clenched her molar teeth tightly enough for her to hear it.

Vindra stood silently next to them, her hands folded over each other as the very civilian night elf for wed solemnly. Desperate to salvage what she'd try to build, Amandil found her thoughts becoming jumbled in her mind.

"We can...dad, we can let them come in and fight them all the way upstairs-"

"Breathe."

"-wait, wait, this will work, we can fight them backward. I mean, we can back up as we fight them frontward, in the front. When they're in front of us, and we back up-"

"Breathe."

"-listen to me, you have to listen to me! We'll jump out the back window after taking a few of them out, they won't even surround us! I mean, we can run straight back toward the ramp stairsup, and then-"

"Mandy."

Her mother's soft, frighteningly calm plea gave her pause just as the bear druid roared again. Claws dug into the soil as he got a running start, slamming his body into the door again while the sentinels whistled and ululated below. The heavy door creaked, and Amandil could have sworn that she heard the sound of an iron rod breaking through wood. Despite his injury, the other bear druid roared and charged at the door as well, earning a round of excited snarls from the nightsabres when the door started to give way.

Vindra took Amandil by the wrist, far too gently for such a crisis. Her mother's watery visage looked entirely devoid of any nervousness, which only served to increase Amandil's.

"Mandy...for so very, very long, your father and I have lived with broken hearts. Everything we wanted for ourselves, we gave up...because we wanted you to have a better life. We don't regret it, neither of us; not for one fraction of a second across all these centuries. No matter how bad the ache grew, no matter how unloved we felt, no matter how bad the pain was knowing that we could never be together...I can speak for both him and myself when I say: we would do it all over again."

"You, you don't have to! Mom, we can run away, we can try to escape we can try to fight them-"

The house shook a fourth time, and a groan rang out as one of the shifted druids slammed into the door so hard that one of the iron rods broke out from the doorframe and skidded across the floor on the first story. More arrows pierced the window shudder, and the sound of moon glaives slicing against the door frame followed thereafter.

Paralyzed, Amandil struggled lightly when her father took her by the other wrist, finding that all of her strength was drained as they pulled her toward the back window. Both of their faces were a bit sad but mostly determined, confronting her with the sort of stern authority figures she'd never dealt with in her entire life given her mother's usually mousy nature.

But this time, her mother wouldn't budge.

"Please, Mandy, if you respect our wishes, and if you recognize what we gave up for you...let us do this. Don't throw away all the suffering we went through so you could live a normal life, without our baggage. If we can ask for one thing of you in our selfishness, then it's to let us do our jobs. They're not going to stop, Mandy...these people aren't going to stop. You have to warp back to Moonglade...Gwynn won't be able to hurt you there, ever. There are no witnesses here other than her. Take Lilith, go back, and lie...Caledith won't ever let any harm come to you-"

"No!" Amandil whined, finding her voice however weak it was, twisting and turning in a failed attempt to wiggle out of her parents' grasp. The other bear druid pushed the door partially open, allowing the growls and hisses of the nightsabres as well as the sentinels to echo up the ramp. "I...I tried so hard to make this work...we can't let these people take it from us so soon!"

"We took a risk, Mandy; we were observed. We were caught. I'd rather to have spent this time as a family together than to have lived out the end not knowing...it's not fair, but life isn't fair."

They continued pulling her, and she relented, cold, hard logic pounding away at her psyche. "I can't just leave you either way...if these people kill you, they'll come after me anyway! Why can't I just let my end be here? As a family?!"

"I'll overcharge my immolation spell and demolish the building from the inside," Faraldor said while handling Amandil a bit more roughly, a more traditional sort of Kaldorei parent that she wasn't quite used to. She bristled, unfamiliar with the idea of her parents forcing her to do something she didn't want to instead of her just browbeating her mother until she got her way, but her father's grip was too strong. "There won't be any witnesses, and you and Lilith can go straight to Moonglade. Even if this Gwynn person can threaten you out here, she'll never be able to touch you there."

A measure of sadness worked its way into his powerful voice in the most noticeable way since she'd been reunited with him. "May the goddess grant you children to carry on the family line...and when that time comes, you'll understand why we have to do this," he said while lifting her up to the back windowsill without a moment of hesitation. "We've given everything we had so you can be free from people like this...we will not let them or anybody else take that freedom away."

Her sinuses suddenly clogged, Amandil failed to speak, just shaking her head like her mother as her parents hugged her one last time. The door downstairs gave way, ending their goodbye before it had even truly begun. Cursing herself for her cowardice, Amandil allowed her parents to push her out the window, merely saving herself and no one else as she braced for impact on the steep incline and tumbled down the plateau below. The almost sheer drop was covered in fallen leaves, scattered rocks and numerous trees growing out of the side, though the bruises she suffered on the way down were nothing compared to the survivor's guilt tearing her soul in two. Digging her fingers into the hard packed soil, Amandil stopped her descent just before she rolled into the runoff stream at the base of that level of the plateau, her ears ringing from the explosion of an overcharged immolation spell above.

She turned, finding herself almost blinded by the light of the demonic fire. Huge chunks of the treehouse sailed past her, impacting the ground at a high enough velocity to make her lose her balance. Stumbling and dodging burning chunks of wood that fell like pieces of her shattered family, Amandil shapeshifted into panther form and bounded up the incline, leaping among the boughs of the trees growing out of the side just like her father had taught her. Tears dripped onto the purple fur of her cheeks and collected on her whiskers as an inkling of moronic, pitiful hope tugged at her heart strings once more. Praying for a miracle she knew wouldn't come, she dragged herself back over the edge, dodging a stream of fire that shot out and then retracted.

The heat was unbearable. Several times, she tried to walk among the flames, only to flee when the temperature started to hurt her eyes. Aside from the base of the house, nothing was recognizable aside from a few lumps in the pile, even the iron cauldron in her father's kitchen having melted within seconds. Too devastated to even wail or whine anymore, the panther just sank, her mind buzzing as she struggled against falling into cognitive dissonance and believing that it had all been a dream, that her parents were still at home, and this was an entirely different place where she'd imagined bad things had happened.

Hacking and coughing alerted her to the sole survivor, breathing raggedly in the bushes behind her. Remembering her only family member left alive on the face of the planet, Amandil stalked over to the bushes and took Lilith's belt in her mouth, dragging the battered woman by that since too much of the jumpy archer's clothing had been ripped by Gwynneth to form a decent handle. Once her cousin was a decent ways away from the fire, she shifted back into elven form, kneeling as she checked Lilith for further injuries. The blue haired woman's skin was covered in cigarette burns that had long since cooled down, her bruises were dark but no longer fresh, and the horrendous cut on the remaining half of her left ear had been cauterized previously. On her head, however, was a fresher bruise that Amandil assumed that was the result of the blast, and was the cause of Lilith's semi consciousness.

Even though Amandil had only met her long lost cousin a single time, she began to panic. Lilith was the only connection to her family that she still had, and as she tried to summon her natural magic, her hands began to shake like her mother's when nervous. Every mental image and muscle memory of healing vegetables in class was at the forefront of her mind as she tried to focus her hands, searching for physical injury rather than illness. Anger and frustration caused her lip to quiver, and Amandil found herself reaching into her mana pool despite her lack of experience with healing people.

The fire burned on the charred remains of the house, gradually lighting up the night sky less and less. The temperatures had been so high that there wasn't even the stench of burnt flesh, bones themselves having disintegrated from the hear of the overcharged spell. Amandil fought hard, so very hard, to push the sight out of her mind and ignore what had just happened. But as her repeated attempts to heal her cousin failed, the image of her parents wouldn't leave her, as if reminding her that she was the one whose efforts had caused all of...this.

"I...have...failed...my test," she whimpered as she held Lilith's limp form in her arms.

Self hatred boiled up in reaction to her own impotence. The fire from her father's immolation spell burned out without smoke, the demonic nature of it simply consuming matter directly into energy without any material loss. The final piece of the ramp that had remained standing simply crumbled in midair, most of the ashes blowing away before they could even drift to the ground. Black flakes covered what minimal amount of charred roots remained, leaving absolutely no possibility of either her family or her foes surviving.

For the longest time, Amandil sat on her knees with Lilith splayed across her lap. The fires dissipated, leaving her only with the silence of a cruel, unforgiving world that would mock her with the possibility of a normal family life only to rip it away in a matter of days. During a brief moment of weakness, she almost considered just...staying there. Right where her father had been, condemning himself to a life with nothing but corrupted treants for company.

The breeze picked up, as if the wind was making a failed attempt to uplift her mood by tickling her ears. Shaking her head to nobody, Amandil remained where she was, wincing at the pain in her chest and her left shoulder blade every time she inhaled. Why...why couldn't it have been her? If her parents had given up so much, wasn't it her turn? Why couldn't they let themselves be happy, to just be together finally?

Cinders swirled around in the breeze, somehow still warm even after the fires had cooled down. It felt like a cruel joke, like the ashes themselves were trying to remind her of her failure. Sparkling and silvery blue, they danced around in front of her, as if trying their hardest to remind her of what she'd lost...

...ashes are not silvery blue.

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Amandil wondered just how delusional she'd become in those few minutes, wiping her eyes and looking up at the dance. The lights almost hurt her eyes at first, bright like miniature starts until her vision adjusted. They floated around each other in a circle, slowing down once she began to inspect them more closely. There were no flakes inside of them, their light somehow existed on its own without a visible source. Amandil's ears twitched, and she felt her core clench when she realized that there wasn't actually any breeze blowing that night.

The two lights hovered closer and closer, illuminating the dirt and ash smeared on her robes and Lilith's skin. Warmth heated up Amandil's chilled fingers, reducing the tingling numbness caused by repeatedly casting a spell that was beyond her grasp. Their hovering slowed down until they both moved next to each other, hanging right below her eye level.

Her mouth opened silently and she sucked in air, sniffling as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Her hand reached out, just barely sweeping over the top of both lights, as if testing to see if they were real. They moved closer to her, her vision finally adjusting to the point where the details within became clear.

The orbs in the center of the sourceless lights became less cloudy, allowing her to discern the difference between lighter and almost dark. Features took shape in the form of elven faces, as she'd observed many times within the wisps that her people relied upon so much. She gasped as realization dawned upon her, the face of Vindra relaxed and almost stoic, though very slightly amused by her reaction. Next to Vindra was another face, formerly serious but now just as relaxed, it's head bereft of the demonic horns which had once crowned it. Most striking was toward the top, where Faraldor looked back at her with in tact, undamaged eyes.

So many words floated around in her mind, but all of them failed to reach her lips. The very faint smiles tugging at both of her parents' mouths was sufficient, even in the most agonizing moment of her life. No tears fell even as her lip quivered again, and she almost found herself laughing at the situation. It really was them...her parents were gone. Murdered. But they were together again. She could tell by the serene expressions they both shared.

A certain warmth filled her hand as she held it over top of them, causing her trembling to cease as a second wind uplifted her. She moved her other hand toward them as well, absorbing the warmth in both hands as she felt a brief yet strong surge of power. She barely even moved them before the green swirls began to jump out of her palms and toward Lilith. Too awestruck to think, Amandil moved her hands lower, watching as the magic jumped out and rotated around Lilith's wounds. They weren't healed completely, and a light afterburn was left on Amandil's hands after casting a spell she'd never formally practiced, but it was enough; the swelling around her cousin's eyes and finger joints reduced, and Lilith's unconscious breathing became a little more even.

Realizing what was happening, Amandil snapped her head up quickly, looking her parents - including her father - in the eyes one last time. His normal, healthy eyes glowed with the same pride as her mother's, telling her more than they could have through words anyway.

Her anger at the injustice was present, though diminished as she realized that they'd only done what they felt they had to. Thoughts of retaliation melted away for the moment, replaced by her acceptance that, at least this way, they'd never be apart from each other again.

Twinkling at her one last time, the two wisps whirled around slowly, waving to her in the only way they could. This time Amandil didn't hesitate, waving back and letting out one more shuttering breath before she smiled. Their job had been completed...for better or for worse, they knew that their efforts hadn't been in vain. The two wisps twirled around, floating high above the hole in the canopy left in the treehouse's wake. On that windless night, they floated northbound, joining the rest of the risen to forever watch over the forests they'd held so sacred.

Stirring beneath her signaled Lilith's consciousness, and Amandil looked down to find her cousin following the two wisps with her eyes. Sniffling herself, Lilith held a battered hand over her heart, obviously having seen the display as well. A measure of guilt welled up in her watery eyes, only to be brushed away by Amandil.

"It's not your fault," Amandil whispered, immediately moving Lilith to tears.

The two of them sat there for a good long while, watching the last of the ashes settle into the ground and the sky where her parents had disappeared as little dots over the horizon. Only when they were sure that the reunited couple had moved on to something better did the two of them stir again, saying goodbye to the fateful little clearing one last time.