OH SNAP I'M BACK

enjoy.

Memento Vita

The group sped towards Nighthaven, their vision obscured by the thick, red mist.

"Why here?" Linnaris said. "That's what I don't understand."

"There are many brains here," Eulalia reasoned. "Zombies like brains."

"If I had eyeballs, they'd be rolling," Cian said.

The din of fighting reached their ears, a cacophony of shouted spells and clanging weapons. Corpses clogged the path into town, and many of the lamps lay broken on the street, smashed into so many glittering bits. Cian's horse was unperturbed, but the giant cats rode by Eulalia and Linnaris bared their teeth and dug their claws into the wet earth. Ingomar's ram began to turn anxiously in circles, stomping its hooves.

"We're close enough," Ingomar said. "Best leave'em here."

Their animals dismissed, the four of them proceeded on foot, their steps light and wary. Cian and Linnaris took to the shadows before they hit the tide of fighting. The city of Nighthaven had transformed into a battlefield, a writhing mass of bodies all in conflict with each other. Towering above the violence was Remulos, threatened by a contingent of Forsaken who seemed interested mainly in freezing the demi-god's limbs. He threw them off with wide swipes of his gnarled, root-twined hand, knocking them onto the roofs of houses or lobbing them at Lake Elune'ara. The display was impressive, but the Forsaken had achieved their goal—Remulos was so preoccupied with his attackers that he couldn't help the druids fighting at his feet.

A short distance from the battle, Cian was attacked.

"Die, foul undead!" a druid in cat form hissed, as he raked his claws down Cian's back. Cian kicked the cat's underbelly, and it howled in pain, rolling around dramatically in the street, paws flailing.

"Damn you, interloper! I'll rip apart every last one of your kind!"

"Save the theatrics," Cian said. "I'm not your enemy." Under his breath, he said, "Though I'd like to be."

The cat shifted to the form of a male night elf, who glowered at Cian with deep mistrust.

"I won't let you ravage these fine women," he declared.

"Seriously," said Linnaris. "Are my giant, poison-slicked daggers invisible? Do I appear to have marshmallows for legs?"

"My lady, I'm concerned with your well-being—"

"I can handle my well-being!" she snapped. "And we're not worried about him, anyway! He's traveling with us."

"Oh," said the druid. "Then … it's you! You're the ones we're looking for! Come on!" He hollered into the mist. "Kieromaris!"

The druid became a cheetah, and raced off down the road. The others hurried after him, halting at the edge of the massive battle.

"Kieromaris!" the druid shouted again, and soon a woman emerged from the violent throng, throwing healing spells and calling down the moon as she went.

"Kiero!" Eulalia cried joyously, and then choked, having swallowed a mouthful of the bleeding mist.

"Praise Elune," Kiero said. "I've been squirming through these ranks trying to find you people."

"We been up near th' barrow dens," Ingomar said. "After this'un." She nodded to Cian, who stood well away from the group, in order to avoid another painful case of mistaken identity.

"Oh, well," Kieromaris said. "Good of you to join us!" She marched over to Cian and thrust a worn journal against his chest. "Take this and run."

"Run!" Ingomar said. "I'm no coward, lassie. We're here tae help!" To illustrate her point, she slammed her mace into the delicate torso of an undead who had shambled from the writhing mass, lurching uncertainly at Cian and the book.

"You can help by getting out of here," Kiero said. "That book is our only chance of resolving this mess, and you're the only semi-trustworthy person available to read it!"

A serious-looking druid staggered forward, bleeding heavily, green hair matted to his head, armor torn to shreds. "Kiero," he gasped. "We need you."

"Oh, Shadian!" Kiero said, pressing her palms to Shadian's cheeks. A warm, green glow engulfed him, causing many of his wounds to close.

"Lojac's in some trouble, also," Shadian said, pointing to where a giant bear had barreled into a group of undead and roared.

"Damn him," Kiero growled. "What's he trying to prove?!" To the others, she said, "Why are you still here? Go, before they all notice you!"

"But—" Eulalia said, obviously eager to start shooting.

"Now!" Kiero shouted, her eyes flaring.

Thus, against all will and reason, they ran.

--

Cian's memory was imperfect. He had come to in Deathknell with nothing but his name, but that was only temporary: after a month of undeath, he had recovered the majority of his experiences, both in life and unlife. But even a living memory was fragmented, muddled, painted over and patched by the brain. Cian's brain had endured so much that he worried he couldn't trust even the simplest recollections, which was the impetus for his initial kidnap of Eulalia. He had remembered her almost immediately, but not why they had left each other—or rather, as he came to conclude, why she had abandoned him. But a few days before that fateful Gulch match, Cian's memory had revealed a series of moments to him, clear enough to be crystallized in amber.

A few weeks before she departed, they were in Stranglethorn, carrying out a number of missions versus a group of rogue jungle fighters. Cian struggled with their objectives, which were quite simple: massacre the human camps. He crept up behind a medicine man and did not see the fevered, zealous taint that infected his target's eyes, his stolid grimace, or the grass at his feet, stained ochre from those he had killed. Cian saw only a thin man in a tattered robe, a balding man, a small man.

Cian raised his daggers, but was too slow to bring them down, and the medicine man sensed him. He called to his brothers, and soon four men were attacking Cian, bashing his head in with their shields, tearing into his flimsy armor, dazing him with an onslaught of blows. But the beating ended almost as soon as it had begun, and when Cian opened his eyes and dropped his hands, he was surrounded by corpses stuck with arrows. Eulalia stood some distance away, her expression inscrutable.

After three days of this, she suggested they take a break. She brought him to the raptor grounds, pointed out their nests and their giant, speckled eggs.

"The raptor egg omelet is surprisingly tasty," Eulalia said. "Not that I know how to cook it."

"Uh, I do," Cian said. He hadn't confronted any raptors in his short lifetime (he was barely eighteen then), but he remembered helping with the cooking in the Stormwind chapel. He watched his mother prepare food for not only her own family, but countless others. She taught him how to roast a boar, spice an egg, fry buzzard meat. Nervously, he asked her (as he mixed a bowl of flour and shiny yolks, wearing a ruffled apron, seven years old with hair so thick he could hardly see the spoon) if this was a good thing to learn, because none of the other boys knew much about cooking. His mother had told him that preparing food was about survival—necessary to live—but that it was also about caring for the people around you. Something that she felt was similarly necessary to live.

Eulalia asked Cian to stay hidden in the trees. She raised her bow, aimed carefully, and struck down a lone raptor with two shots. He waited while she collected the meat. She grabbed an egg from the nest the raptor was guarding, and they went back to their camp.

Eulalia spread the meat onto the grass before them, and then lifted the egg over a rock to smash it open. Cian realized that she meant to consume her spoils raw, and he snatched the egg from her.

"Let me fix it," he said. "It'll be good, I promise."

He built a fire and borrowed seasonings from a man in the rebels' camp, the group who had hired them to kill the jungle fighters.

The meat he skewered with a fallen branch, which he then held over the fire, though not for long, as Eulalia said she wanted her dinner as rare as possible ("I like to feel'em struggle on the way down"). Next, he broke the huge egg into a special pan (also provided by the rebels, who ate raptor eggs frequently) and cooked it sunny side up, then poured the bubbling yolk on top of the seasoned meat. He sprinkled pepper, salt, and a soothing spice over the meal, then presented it to Eulalia with a flourish. The spice gave the food a warm, comforting aroma, mixed invitingly with the salty scent of just cooked meat.

She devoured it lustily, with her bare hands, and then shouted "AMAZING!" with such gusto that it disturbed the birds resting in the jungle canopy.

She lay down, smiled at him sleepily, and repeated, "You're amazing."

He blushed. "Thank you."

She murmured as her eyes closed, "Maybe I should learn to cook …"

"I can teach you," he said, but she was asleep.

Cian stoked the fire, came close to burning himself. He was distracted by the play of shadows across Eulalia's face, which looked soft and graceful in sleep. He stared for a minute, felt guilty, and looked away. He unrolled his mat.

But there was no help for it. Instead of lying down, he leaned over Eulalia, who slept like a child—lips parted, arms akimbo, legs stretched out. Cian was the opposite—upon waking, he was usually in the fetal position, his soft underbelly protected by the hard shell of his back. Eulalia slept like she had nothing to fear. Cian wasn't sure if this was bravery or arrogance.

He traced the outline of the tattoos across her eyes and down her cheeks, two maroon lightning bolts that contrasted sharply with her bright lavender skin. He touched her lips, leaned in close. Her breathing was regular, even, deep.

And then, Cian kissed her.

He was gentle and quick, and his body burned as he forced himself to stop, feeling wrong and ashamed. He crawled to the other side of the fire and hid under his blankets, every nerve singing, plucked like a harp. What had he done?

He feared she would wake, but Eulalia slept on, unperturbed. At length, Cian gave in to sleep, too.

In the morning, he would say nothing. Their expedition would proceed as normal.

His rest was fitful, and he woke long before dawn met the sky. In the early mist, a figure moved, swallowed quickly by twinkling, dewy fog. Cian glanced over at the smoldering campfire, and then the empty grass nearby.

"Eulalia?" he said groggily, rising. With strength and clarity, he shouted into the mist, "Eulalia!" He tried to run after her, but she was gone. She had left nothing behind but a lump of neatly packaged raptor meat.

Cian sat by the ruins of the fire and tried to figure out what he had done wrong. At the time, he concluded that it was because of the kiss, though now he wasn't sure. Eulalia hadn't mentioned it, but her explanation hadn't included many specifics.

For weeks, he searched for her, in Stormwind, Ironforge, and Darnassus, but she had evaporated. But for the pangs in his heart, it was like they had never met at all.

Those days seemed absurd now, after what he had been through. Death made all feelings absurd. But Cian's heart still beat, wherever it was.

--

They had escaped Moonglade, although none of them were too pleased about it.

"We should be back there," Ingomar said, frowning into the mouth of the Timbermaw Hold, shivering in the bitter wind of Winterspring. "Fightin'. Takin' names. An' so forth."

"I'm sure Kieromaris had good reason for sending us away," Linnaris said, but she followed Ingomar's gaze wistfully.

"She wanted you to protect me," Cian said. "For which I thank you."

"You are not really leaving, are you?" Eulalia said.

"I think it would be best," he said. Cian faced the vast, snowy expanse of Winterspring, clutching the book Kiero had shoved into his hands. He couldn't stay. He couldn't put them in danger anymore. Even now, a dark voice prickled at the edges of his consciousness, like something buried under ice, something scratching its way free. He shook his head.

"I won't let you," Eulalia said. She seized him by the shoulders, and he forced his muscles to relax, resisting the impulse to unsheathe his daggers. His claws dug holes into the leather scabbards.

"What happened to the choose your own path attitude?" Cian said.

"I changed my mind!"

He shrugged her off. "Well I haven't."

Stricken, Eulalia withdrew. "Have I really done a wrong thing?"

"You know, that's what I kept asking myself when you left," he said. "Maybe I'll just leave you wondering."

"But I said …"

He raised his hand, waved. "Goodbye." A handful of flash powder later and he was gone.

"Bollocks," Ingomar said.

Eulalia sent up a flare immediately, but Cian evaded its radius. He sprinted across the snow, confident in his invisibility.

Unfortunately, he forgot about the footprints.

Eulalia dashed after him, grinning maniacally. In the distance, Cian saw the steam rising from the hot springs. If he could reach them, he could hide in the water, but Eulalia ran with unnatural speed, and his sprint was done.

Suddenly, she leapt and slammed into him, knocking him flat on his back. Her force broke his stealth, and he cried out in surprised pain.

"You're not going anywhere, Cian McCulloch," Eulalia said. She pressed her forehead to his, her breath hot on his skin. He was suddenly aware of her fierce, sharp teeth.

"You do not seem to understand this situation. We're here to protect you. Not the other way around."

"But—"

"I have made a promise. And I will track you to the edges, the nooks, the crannies, the heights and depths of this world—or any other—to keep it."

Stunned, Cian looked at Linnaris and Ingomar, who were nodding. They would pursue him too, he realized, if not for his sake, then Eulalia's. As cold as he was, Cian shivered.

"If I let you up," Eulalia said. "Will you run?"

"No," he said, and she rolled off of him. Then, she offered her hand and helped him up. "I'm not happy about this."

"If that were true," Linnaris said, "You'd be running."

"Let's head tae Everlook and have a look at tha' pretty journal ye've got," Ingomar said. "An' a pint, 'o course."

--

Once at the inn, they gathered around the long wooden table and Cian opened the book. Gutterspeak scratches covered page after page.

"Y'know, this language isn't that much different from Common," Cian said, skimming the copious notes.

"Right, but what does it say?" Ingomar asked. A goblin gave her an overflowing mug of beer, and she slurped it noisily, almost drowning out the guttural scratch of Cian's voice.

"The first part of it is mostly potions ingredients," he said. Jaw twitching, Cian flipped through another set of pages. Every inch of the tissue-thin paper was marked with notes in multiple styles of handwriting, and in many cases the letters were too close together or smudged to decipher. Irritation mounting, Cian shut the book.

"It's gibberish," he said. "And it would take a week to untangle."

"So take a week, laddie!" Ingomar said. "This is all we've got tae go on!"

"Please, Cian!" Eulalia said. "I know we can do this! Just focus your brain meats!"

"Such as they are," Linnaris said.

He looked at their imploring, expectant faces. Hours earlier, he had been determined to forget these people, to go lonely into the dark night. He hadn't forgotten about his heart, or the woman who held it captive. But Eulalia's breath still tingled on his skin.

"I still don't understand why this matters to you so much," Cian said. He nodded to Ing and Linn. "Especially you two."

"Don't you want to be cured?" Linnaris said.

"Of course. I just don't think it's going to be that easy. Or even possible."

"I know that," Eulalia said. She took a sip of her milk. "I wouldn't wanna do it if it were easy."

"Don' be worryin' about our reasons," Ingomar said. "Maybe ye should consider why ye quit strugglin' so fast."

Cian exhaled, the air whistling through his ragged lungs. "All right, one more go."

Reasoning that the later research would be near the end of the journal, he opened it from the back and read. The top of the page listed ingredients with required quantities noted, followed by a lengthy set of instructions.

"A recipe," he said. "For the Pharmakon Elixir."

"Funny word," Ingomar said.

"It's old Darnassian," Linnaris said.

"And?" Cian said. "What does it mean?"

"Poison," Linnaris said. "Or cure. Depends on the situation."

"Fantastic," Cian said.

"Well, what do the instructions say?"

"I don't know … a lot of boiling and mixing … keep your mixtures separated for twenty minutes before combining … serve chilled?"

"Certain types of plants are used in certain types of potions," Eulalia said, happy to draw on her single pool of expertise (aside from shooting arrows into spines). "What are some of the things the recipe wants?"

"Uh … living essence, deathrose, gromsblood, sungrass, essence of undeath, liferoot …" he studied the list, perplexed by the contradictory ingredients. "Wait, this one's unusual—it asks for a flask of water from the Golakka Hot Springs."

"Those are in Un'Goro," Linnaris said. "Soo it must be a good elixir! Un'Goro is the cradle of life, doncha know."

"Maybe you're right," Cian said.

"Okay! Let's brew it up!" Eulalia said.

"It'll take a while to gather all this," Cian said. "I'm not even sure what some of these things are."

"Guess you'll be getting' yer wish, then," Ingomar said. She unrolled a blank piece of parchment and set a quill across it. "We'll split up fer a while and go scroungin'."

"I'm good at stabbing things that have essences," Linnaris said.

"An' I can suss out anythin' mineral," Ingomar said.

"I pick flowers," Eulalia said.

Cian translated a section of ingredients for each of them (taking care to draw little pictures for Eulalia instead of words) and then tore the parchment into thirds. "I'll go to Un'Goro."

"Let's meet in Tanaris in three days," Linnaris said.

Eulalia stretched and flailed over the table, struggling to hug everyone at once. "I'll miss you!" She looked at Cian seriously. "Don't try to run away, okay? I got ways, mister! WAYS!"

"Don't worry," he mumbled. "Reckon I'm in this for the long haul."

Out there in the snow had been his last chance to walk away, and he had chosen to keep still, pinned under Eulalia's weight, enthralled by the moons shining in her eyes. He couldn't leave to spite her. Leaving would only spite himself.

Ingomar yawned. "I'm off tae bed. Don' ye be pressin' on 'til dawn, either. Lots tae do in the next coupla days, aye?"

"Right-o," Linnaris said. She stood up from the table. "Ing, shall I order you a nightcap?"

"Bring me three," Ingomar said. She left, and when the bartender brought Linn's drinks, the night elf followed her friend.

Eulalia chugged her flagon of milk. "Mmm! This'll give me the sweet sleeps."

"Euls," Cian said. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, but my facts knowledge is kinda thin!"

"Not that kind of question," he said. He waited for her to put the flagon down before he spoke again, so that he could fix his eyes to hers. Eulalia swallowed the gulp of milk in her throat and stared back at him. Her long, bushy eyebrows rose, and the silvery glow of her eyes cast shadows on her cheeks. The woman lived on her own plane of existence, but she was nothing if not aware.

The space between them unfurled and twisted and Cian's next footfall felt treacherous, as though it would land him at the bottom of a canyon.

He went ahead anyway.

"That night before you left," he said. "I kissed you, while you were sleeping. Were you aware of that? Is that the real reason you disappeared?"

She didn't break the lock of their gazes. "I had a dream that night. You were lost in a thicket of nettles. I kept trying to hack through'em but I could never get to where you were. I tracked you by the trail of your blood as you tried to move forward."

"You're not answering me."

"I suddenly felt like I wasn't breathing," Eulalia went on. "For a tiger's blink, I woke up, and there you were."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have."

"That's not why I had to go," Eulalia said. "Do you remember the start of that day? When we were fighting the jungle men?"

"Yes, but …"

"Your body trembled. You had the heart rate of a hummingbird, you were sweating so much you almost dropped your dagger. You hesitated before every attack. You were suffering, and I couldn't stand it."

She shredded a napkin into strips, then tore the strips into confetti. Guilt and shame darkened her features.

"When I woke up, my lips felt warm," she said. "I liked it."

She arranged the napkin confetti into imaginary shapes. "But I could not stay, because I could not see you in that much pain any more."

"That's awfully presumptuous," Cian said.

"I don't know what that word means. But I couldn't let go of what I saw."

"You could have talked to me about it."

"If I had, you would've made me stay. I did what I thought was best at the time. I am not able to put it across any nicer than that."

He knew that she was sincere, that her thought process on the decision was probably less complicated than he imagined.

"I'm sorry," she said, and then stood up. "I have no power over the past. But now that I have set down this new road with you, I will not stop. You will have to kill me if you want me to stop."

"I'm not who I was," Cian said. "And lately I can't guarantee being even that."

"Your soul is wounded," she acknowledged. "But it is still there."

"How do you know?" he whispered.

She kissed him on top of his unkempt, choked-blue hair. "What kind of hunter would I be if I couldn't tell a small thing like that?"

"Ach, ye two are killin' me," Ingomar said, having wandered in for a fourth nightcap. "Get yer arses tae bed. But not together. Separately. Different beds." She shuddered. "Oh, I've given meself nightmares."

"Thanks for ruining the moment, Ing," Cian said.

She raised a frothy mug and said, "Jus' doin' me duty! An' for the record, I don' doubt that ye have a soul. I jus' think it's stained worse than my family's rug on the mornin' after Brewfest." She went back to her room, chuckling.

Eulalia's arms snaked around Cian's waist, and he looked up at her in surprise and more than a little discomfort, as his chin stopped where her chest began. She held him against her like a magnet holding a metal filament, her hard muscles trapping his slight body in a vice grip. Sometimes Cian forgot her strength, forgot that behind her warm, open smile was a woman who could shatter his spine with her bare hands.

Eulalia pressed her cheek to his hair, and he was sure he heard a few vertebrae crack.

"Remember," she whispered. "Wherever you are, I can find you. And I will."

He swallowed. "I'm having some deja-vu."

"I wanted to make the point very clear." She let him go. "Goodnight, Cian McCulloch."

Once she left his field of vision, Cian stumbled against the table, every bone aching, and for once was glad he had no breath to take.