Braelyn did not remember much of her journey from Silvermoon to Stormwind. She did remember walking to Sunfury Spire feeling angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. Halduron was surprised by her appearance, and attempted to speak to her, but she fobbed him off with a simple, "Don't."

Lor'themar looked at her with sympathy, but, considering the Argent Crusaders were already there, it was obvious he had been expecting her. Perhaps Rommath had even sent word before she woke up that morning.

That thought made Braelyn even angrier.

She didn't speak to the Crusaders, even though one of them was Anders. They couldn't port directly to Stormwind, so they went to a second city first. It was probably Shattrath, but Braelyn wasn't paying attention. She was too busy stewing in her own fury.

The crusaders were able to port directly into Stormwind Keep, rather than the mage tower. This was a good thing. The less time Braelyn spent around mages, the better. Dealing with her mother was going to be hard enough.

As soon as arrived in Stormwind, she found herself swept up in the cyclone that was her parents. They threw their arms around her, and hugged her as if she'd been gone ten years.

She hadn't even been gone ten months.

"Oh, Braelyn," Ellysan Hawke said. "How worried we've been."

"You look angry, though," Jasper Hawke added. "Which means you're okay. If you weren't angry, then I'd be concerned. My girls can survive anything on the strength of their fury," he joked.

Oh, Dad, if only you knew, Braelyn thought. This anger is all that's keeping me alive, I swear it.

"I'm fine, Dad," Braelyn said aloud. "Just tired," she lied, because how could she tell them the truth?

By the way everyone, I fell in love with the Grand Magister of Silvermoon, but he broke my heart...

"Well, when we get home you can rest as long as you like," her mother said, brushing her hair. She hadn't fussed this much since Braelyn was five, and had almost drowned in Mirror Lake.

"Can we go now?" Braelyn asked, horrified by the desperate tone of her voice.

"I'm afraid not, pumpkin," Jasper Hawke said, and she couldn't even be bothered yelling at him for using that nickname in front of a roomful of strangers. "The King wishes to speak to you, first."

Braelyn didn't want to go, but the look on her parents' faces told her she did not have a choice. She was led to the King's office by the same judgmental advisor she'd met on her first visit to the keep. He wasn't so judgemental now. He actually seemed to be admiring her.

King Varian and King Genn were sitting comfortably, but stood when Braelyn entered. They looked at each other awkwardly for a few minutes, before Braelyn dropped into a curtsy. Genn Greymane bowed in return, but Varian Wrynn came up and took her hand in his.

"Miss Hawke, welcome home," he said, bending to place a kiss on her cheek. "I'm relieved to see you alive and in one piece."

"Thank you, your highness," she murmured, letting the king lead her to a chair.

"Will you tell us what happened?" King Varian asked, curious. He looked at Braelyn critically; she seemed angry, but the anger was fragile, as if it were just a bandage for her real emotions.

Braelyn didn't want to talk to the Kings about what had happened to her, not when there was so much she wouldn't be able to say. But the King would brook no refusal, so she began her story by telling them about the disastrous battle at Warsong Gulch.

"It all began in Ashenvale..."

While Braelyn was telling her story to the Alliance kings, Rommath was contemplating burning down his house. It was already torture being in it without Braelyn, and she'd only been gone a few hours. The was no warmth, no light, no joy. It was as if her absence robbed the building of some vital essence.

What would it be like tomorrow, next month, next year?

"What did you do?" Lorelai asked from the doorway. Her eyes were accusatory, and she was furious, but Rommath was beyond feeling guilty. He was beyond feeling anything but regret.

"I saved her life," was all he said, sitting on Braelyn's favourite couch. He could still see her sitting here, still smell her perfume. He suspected he always would.

"By breaking her heart?"

"She'll forget me in time, find a man more worthy of her love than I ever was." By the Light, that thought hurt, but he knew it was the price he had to pay to keep her safe. As long as she was happy and well in the long-term, he could deal with his own sense of loss. It was his punishment for causing her so much pain, even though the hurt was for her own good.

"You poor fool, you really believe that, don't you?" Lorelai asked with sympathy, and Rommath hated that most of all. He didn't want her sympathy, didn't need it. "Can I do anything for you?"

"Leave me," he replied, and when the priest went to protest, he snapped, "Just go, Lorelai!"

Without another word, the priest did as he asked. He let out a shaky breath when he heard the front door shut behind her.

He had fired Auriel that afternoon, sending him to Aethas. He had assigned his apprentices new mentors. He was alone now... No, not completely alone. He would always have the ghost of her memory to keep him company as he did his duty for Quel'Thalas.

A blessing, and a curse.

It was so quiet.

"Braelyn! By the Light, you're home!" Odariah cried as she grabbed her cousin in a hug. It was the morning after her return to Stormwind and she was 'resting' in her childhood bedroom. Her stay in the city had been shorter than expected due to a sudden outburst at the king.

After hearing her tale, King Varian had told her that "now she should realise why the Horde needed to stopped." Braelyn responded without thinking, saying that everyone needed to be stopped. For good measure, she gave a very long and impressive rant about the cycle of racism, petty grudge-holding, and short-sighted vindictiveness.

King Varian was impressed with Braelyn's boldness, but not so happy with everything else. Only the timely intervention of King Greymane prevented Braelyn being carted of to the dungeons. He asked Varian to remember that the 'poor girl' had just been through a terrible trauma, and that she was obviously not thinking clearly.

The King of Stormwind accepted that reasoning, but Braelyn was sent on her way regardless. She didn't even have time to look for that annoying guard. King Greymane escorted her and her parents to the city gates, and, well out of Ellysan and Jasper's earshot, told her not to think too poorly of Varian. The man had a son, but no daughters, which meant he couldn't recognise the look of a heartbroken young woman when he saw one.

Braelyn was startled by that, but then relieved. It felt... nice that her pain was recognised for what it really was, without her even having to talk about it. She resolved to thank the kindly Gilnean by sending him a gift once her life had settled down some.

She smiled up at Odariah, probably her first sincere smile since her arrival in Stormwind. "Thanks, 'Riah," she said, giving the shadow priest a squeeze. "It's good to be back." She couldn't say that she was home; no, home would always be that magnificent house in Silvermoon City.

Braelyn looked around. "Where's Andorien?"

"Here," the elf in question said, walking into the room carrying a tray loaded with breakfast foods.

"Dear gods, dad must think there's an army in here!" Braelyn exclaimed.

"Not an army, just a daughter kept hostage for months on end, so obviously starved and mistreated." Andorien's words were lighthearted, but they conjured up the memory of Rommath and Braelyn sharing their first breakfast together.

"Cousin, what is it?" Odariah asked, noticing the pained expression that crossed Braelyn's face. She exchanged a worried look with Andorien when a tear slid down the hunter's cheek.

"I... I... need to tell you something," Braelyn began, "but you have to promise me something first."

"Of course, Braelyn," Andorien said, "you know that you can tell us anything."

Braelyn chewed on her bottom lip. "First, you must promise me that whatever I tell you here today stays with us. My parents, especially, cannot find out." She waited until her friends nodded before continuing. "Secondly, please promise you won't hate me."

"As if we could ever hate you!" Odariah exclaimed.

"You say that now," Braelyn said, "but just wait until I finish..."

By the time Braelyn finished speaking, she was a little hoarse, and her friends had run through every emotion possible, and probably created a few new ones. Odariah was shocked and angry at the beginning, but was now sympathetic towards Braelyn. Andorien, meanwhile, was not angry exactly, but very uneasy. Given the hostile relationship between the Night Elves and the Sin'dorei, that was probably the best reaction Braelyn could expect from the Druid.

"Braelyn... you never do things by halves, do you?" Andorien asked with a shake of his head.

"I didn't plan this," she replied, breaking into tears. "I wish... "

"Wish what?" Odariah asked.

"That I hadn't yelled at him before I left," Braelyn sobbed. "I wish our goodbye hadn't been so angry. I wish I knew how he really felt about me. I wish he hadn't pushed me away."

"Braelyn, can't you see?" Andorien asked.

"See what?"

"Rommath loves you, too," Odariah answered. "Pushing you away was the only way he knew how to protect you. He sacrificed his own happiness to try to ensure your own."

That statement did little to improve her spirits, but the knowledge that her friends stood by her was enough to give her some comfort, and the strength to face life without Rommath.

Ellysan Hawke was a mother, a wife, a sister, an aunt, and one kick ass mage. She was many things; but a fool wasn't one of them. So when her daughter began to recover and re-engage with the world outside her bedroom, acting like her ordeal was no big deal, Ellysan called bullshit.

She recognised grief when she saw it, even when it was buried beneath an angry, then happy, façade. She herself had once sported a look like it, and thought she was fooling the world.

Ellysan knew that whatever had happened to her daughter involved more than the loss of her friend, and the trauma of her abduction by that death knight. Something terrible had happened to her baby in Silvermoon, and she needed to find out what. She was beginning to fear that Braelyn had been assaulted.

She had confronted Odariah and Andorien about it, knowing that Braelyn would have confided in them at least, but they refused to say anything. Her niece looked like she wanted to tell Ellysan, but her loyalty to her cousin won out in the end.

Ellysan had no choice but to do what she was about to do. Sitting down at the desk in her study, the mage reached for some parchment, a bottle of ink, and her quill. She hesitated for the briefest of moments, then began writing.

Dear Aethas,

I know I have no right to ask you for favours, but I need to know what's going on with Braelyn. What in the Light's name have you people done to my daughter?!

"I'm glad she got a nice funeral," Braelyn said, taking a sip of her Dwarven ale. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"The Night Elves let us bury her at the Grove of the Ancients," Odariah said. "Your parents came, too, said that Bitsie was one of the family." She sniffled, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"We're sorry we couldn't save Growly," Andorien said softly, grasping Braelyn's hand. "But the damage to his face was too severe. He would never have been able to hunt or even eat again."

"I... suspected as much," Braelyn replied, wiping away her own tears. "Thank you for showing him mercy."

A fortnight had passed since her return, and the interest surrounding Braelyn had started to die down. Free from people's curious questioning, she had begun to take part in, and enjoy, the limited activities a small town like Goldshire offered.

Tonight, she and her friends were spending their afternoon at the inn, drinking, honouring their fallen loved one, and half-heartedly planning their next adventure.

As Braelyn wanted to leave the Eastern Kingdoms for a while, Odariah had suggested a trip to Silithus in Bitisie's honour. The little rogue had loved it out there, for Light know's what reason. Odariah didn't mind it, but Braelyn hated it because those silithids really creeped her out, even though she'd heard they made great pets. Andorien didn't like it either, but because of the heavy Cenarion Circle presence. They tended to try to recruit every druid they came across, and were very persistent.

But the hunter and the druid felt they could put their dislike aside for a few days for Bitisie's sake.

"Did you guys know about the raid on Silvermoon?" Braelyn asked.

"Yes, your mother and father told us all about it," Andorien said. "We wanted to go, but..."

"But what?"

"My parents put their feet down," Odariah said with a shrug. "They thought it was a crazy idea, that it would just get you and the raiders killed. Dad said that if Aunt Ellysan wanted to risk her own daughter's life, that was fine, but that he'd join the Horde before he risked his own child."

"Ouch," Braelyn said. "How bad did Mum maul him?"

"Jackson ended up spending a week at the Cathedral of Light, healing," Andorien said, with a low chuckle. "Your mother is very intimidating."

"I really want to know what happened to the raiders that helped me escape," Braelyn said. "They got me out of the city, then abandoned me in the middle of the night."

"Well, we heard some rumours, but they were so crazy, we didn't believe them," Odariah said, nibbling on some venison jerky.

"Go on then," Braelyn prompted impatiently.

"Okay, so the first we heard was from a group who said that you had definitely gotten out of Silvermoon," Odariah said. "The raid leader said he saw you leave with their hunter, and that he was positive a Dwarf paladin and a human mage escaped in the same direction. He and the rest of his party had to flee in other directions, and had been forced to go directly to the Plaguelands to wait for you, or a message that you'd portalled home."

"Only you and the others never turned up, and no message came," Andorien said. "We thought you'd died out in the Ghostlands."

"But then the strangest thing happened," Odariah said. "The missing raiders began showing up in the strangest of places."

"The mage appeared first," Andorien revealed. "In Shattrath. She portalled right into the middle of the Upper City and promptly collapsed. She was out cold for a week, completely mana-dry. No one could understand why she chose to go there, especially since a mage of her experience should have know how dangerous it was to teleport when so badly injured."

"The paladin was next," the priest continued. "He turned up in Ironforge, waltzing into his sister's house like nothing had happened. He seemed to have forgotten all about the raid until his nephew asked him about it."

"The hunter was the last to turn up," the night elf said. "He traveled all the way to the Halfhill Market in Pandaria. Apparently, he was in the middle of buying some supplies, when all of a sudden he started swearing and going on about someone he'd left behind."

"The weirdest thing, though," Odariah said, excited by the mystery of it all, "is that when they were confronted by Aunt Ellysan and Lady Proudmoore, they all said the exact same thing. They said that they'd gotten you out of the city and safely to the meeting point, where they decided to wait overnight for the mage to heal a bit. They went to bed fully intending to take you to the Plaguelands, but at some point during the night they'd been told to leave you, that they'd been..."

"Mind controlled by a Stormwind city guard?" Braelyn interrupted. Odariah and Andorien both looked surprised.

"Yes!" her cousin exclaimed "But how did you..."

"Bastard!" Braelyn swore loudly. "That interfering, smug, know-it-all bastard! I want to find him and kick him right in his stupid, stupid face!"

Her outburst had drawn the attention of the rest of the inn's occupants, but they assumed she was ranting about one of her blood elf 'tormentors', so they merely raised their glasses and offered up a few "hear, hear, darlin', you give 'im what for!"s.

"Braelyn?" Andorien asked. "You believe what they said?"

"Of course I do!" she replied. "Remember the day I delivered that letter to the King, and got roped into helping him?"

"Yeah," Odariah said, "but what's that got to do with... oh. You said you'd been mind controlled."

"By a guard," Andorien continued.

"Exactly," Braelyn said. "And I've seen him twice since then. Once, in a dream, and then again in the Ghostlands, where he told me I definitely wasn't going home, because I 'needed to be in Silvermoon'."

"What?!" Odariah exclaimed.

"At first, I refused to believe him, but then the others just up and vanished on me, and..." her voice trailed off as she thought of Rommath, and remembered the epiphany she'd had about working to combat racism.

It all seemed so foolish now.

Recognising what he and Odariah called Braelyn's 'Rommath face', Andorien reached over and clasped the hunter's hand, squeezing it tightly.

"Remember the good times, Braelyn," he counselled. "Don't dwell on the bad."

Braelyn nodded, but before she could say anything, a strange sound vibrated through the inn. It sounded like people, or animals, running across the building's roof. Then there was sound of guards yelling outside, and a female orc laughing and barking out orders.

Braelyn and her friends grabbed their weapons, heading outside as they instructed the inn's patrons to either prepare to fight, or to seek shelter in the basement.

As she stepped outside, Braelyn was hit with an overwhelming sense of fear. It was almost enough to cripple her, but instead of cowering in place, she took off running towards the Jasperlode Mine. Even in the grip of such terror, she was able to make out what was happening.

The Horde were raiding Goldshire.

Again.

AN - I don't know why, but I find these 'filler' chapters the slowest to write. I think in this chapter's case, it was because it involved tying up a few loose ends, and referring to things that happened a while ago. There is probably only going to be another two chapters in this story, along with a short epilogue. But don't worry, I have a sequel planned, at least one one-shot featuring Lethallan and Mangle, and a what-if story. Go me. The what-if story is going to be a bit outlandish, but should be fun.

Next Chapter: During the heat of battle, Braelyn runs into a familiar face. She also makes an important decision about her future.

PS - I have never raided Goldshire, nor do I hang out there. I have better things to do, like hover over the Shrine of Seven Stars.