AN: ... Nyah. Back to Brin we go! Still working on building the characters little by little. Here we learn of a fear that our little worgen harbors. And if someone's been paying special attention, they might notice something in this chapter that is similar to something in a past one. But I won't say what. I'm wicked like that. I'm also reeeeally buzzed on coffee and Monster. Just ignore me.
"I noticed you favor your right leg." Brinella was brought from her day dreams by the soft voice of Sura, the kaldorei meeting her gaze with one that was tinged by slight worry. "Is that why you do not join the others when they run and play?" The woman's hand flicked idly to the three who rolled and tussled in the fallen leaves.
The worgen watched the three who were playing, her head tilted slightly as if she were thinking. In reality, all she was doing was watching. Lydros and Winnie had taken up residence as companions to the young woman, but it seemed that no matter how hard they tried to bring her out of her shell, she never really cared to play. Ninya had no more success than they, but she had stopped trying so hard.
In truth, it was the animal companions who she trusted the most in these fragile moments. Shade seemed all too happy to play, and in that play, teach. Lydros' own mentor was a rugged man who looked as much the picture of the wilds as his own companion was. A massive and shaggy dire bear by the name of Grimfur, the animal would lie about during the day, but at night, he and Shade would both play with the druid and teach her in ways the others simply couldn't.
Laird and Sura Fallenwind were one of many who had settled outside the traditional city and towns. The little home was quaint by Brinella's own standards, but comparing the housing of one city that could barely consider itself to be existing and one that had been part of an ancient race, was almost an insult to the people that lived in both of them. There may not have been many rooms or much in the way of privacy, but a small place to seek shelter was better than enduring a storm outside.
Now, while the others did as they pleased, Brinella had once again found herself seated on one of the massive branches that spread outward from the great tree, her left knee tucked up beneath her chin while the other leg was hanging freely over the branch. As Sura made to sit beside the isolated girl, her attention went away from the others and to the leg that now waved above a frightening abyss.
"I don't notice it anymore, really." Her fingers ran over the leather-covered skin, pressing her palm down against the knee and rubbing slightly. "When I was young, I was playing in one of the stables on our farm. I had always been warned not to go in there alone, or even play in that particular one, but I did anyway. Like most children did." She managed a wan smile at the kaldorei woman, who returned it with an amused chuckle. "My brother had chores to do with the horses, so I was playing up in the rafters. I ended up caught in some of the rope up there; I tripped, or something else. I'm still not sure. The beam was an old one, and when I fell from it, the rope I had encountered coiled around my leg."
Brinella pulled up the loose leather, turning just enough to show the very slight marks that tangled around her calf. "The weight of me dropping had already pulled the leg from the knee, but insult was added to injury, and the beam collapsed too. It splintered and fell," she turned more, showing the wound in the joint of her knee, "and my leg was skewered. It took a long time, and I was really very lucky to not have had more damage, but I eventually recovered. I suppose I'll always favor the leg."
Sura nodded, her fingers reaching out to brush along the old wound. "Your healer was good, but not complete." The woman's silver eyes flicked back up to Brinella's. "I would offer, but a wound this old cannot be mended without inflicting damage once again, and even then it is not a sure thing."
The worgen chuckled, and shook her head while drawing the pant leg back down. "No, he wasn't complete. He was incredibly rushed, as it was short notice and he had far more important things to do. My brother could only find him, and wanted me healed before our parents returned from market." Brinella smiled feebly, looking back out over the horizon. "It took a little bit to learn to walk with that bit of pain, and he was in a big sort of trouble when it was explained to my parents what had happened... but I could at least walk, and I barely notice the pain anymore. All that I'm left with is a fear of falling."
"Yet you sit out here, with nothing beneath you but a branch and an endless expanse of open air free to plummet through." Sura chuckled. "You are a brave girl. I cannot name many who would do the same, no matter how far in their past their fear may have begun. That is not what I have come to talk with you about, however. While the others play, I wish to give you this." From beneath the overcoat she wore, Sura produced a rolled parchment, and made to place it between them.
Brinella scooted quickly, her head tilted. With a motion from Sura, she moved to straddle the branch, her hands pinning the parchment to the bark of the tree. "This here is the map I carried with me in my travels." Delicate fingers moved over the faint lines, and they darkened until a clear map of Teldrassil was before them, tiny markings made, with notes for each that scrolled in the borders in such a fine hand that Brinella was forced to look quite close in order to read any of it. "This particular version is quite rare. There was a high elven sorcerer who fought in the battle for Hyjal. Our friendship could hardly be called that, but he enjoyed his cartography when he had the time. When the battle was over, I received one of these before we parted." Sura's fingers moved, and the lines faded and retraced themselves, becoming maps of places Brinella had never heard of, let alone seen. She drank it in, unaware that Sura was watching her with a look that seemed part jealousy, and part adoration.
As the images passed by, notes and diagrams scrolled through borders and away from her vision once more, the young worgen found herself entranced. Her words were filled with a child-like wonder when she finally spoke. "This... it's just one piece of parchment, but the maps are endless!" Her fingers dove between parchment and tree, determined to find the mechanism that made such possible, and found nothing. "These would fill books upon books... but you have it all here." Brinella looked up at Sura, her head tilted. "But... why show me these things?"
"This is a very special map. I never did ask him how it worked, but I never really cared to, either. Our love for the high elves is … not very large. They are our brethren, yes... but we don't have to like them." Sura's fingers brushed along the ever coiling pictures and landmarks, and they stopped, forming only the outline of an area. "In the years that have passed, I have seen and done many things. I have been places that would make your head spin with how fantastic they are, and places that would run your blood cold for the horrors that linger there. Yet... I have not been everywhere." The kaldorei sighed, looking over her shoulder to the broad-shouldered form of her mate.
"My place is here with Laird, now. While wanderlust still takes hold of me tightly sometimes, I will not go without him, and he refuses. The world is a changed place, and here I am, caged to my love and my people." Her smile was weak. "We've tried so long to bring a child to this plane, and now that I am finally carrying, I know he won't let me wander as I please. I am happy that we will know this joy, but..."
"But you don't want to feel trapped." Brinella finished, for once showing a mixture of agreement with someone other than herself. "I know the feeling. A child is a very important thing, Sura." She stumbled, still not entirely comfortable with calling the woman by her name in such an informal manner. "When the world changes again, you will be able to travel with them."
"Perhaps, but that is for later, and not for now. You have a roaming heart, and so we are much the same and I feel comfortable confessing my... unhappiness, to you. 'Nella, what do you plan to do?" When Brinella gave her only a confused look, the priestess gestured around her. "You are not behind a wall anymore. You have a world to explore, and things to learn. Where will you go?"
For a long time, the worgen had no answer. There were countless things she wanted to do and see, but none seemed so important as one. "I want to find Cor, and my brother. That is the most important thing to me right now. Everything else that I enjoy will come with it, I hope." Gently, she picked the map up and looked over it, as if memorizing the outline that was there.
"I had hoped you might say that. Take this with you, then. I've no need of it now, and I would dearly love for it to be completed. Do not worry about needing ink for it." Sura reached for the parchment, rolling it back up and giving it a final loving stroke before handing it back. "Finish it. While you travel, and while you find what you need to. Let it help you look back on the good and the bad in equal measure." There was a moment of silence, and when she spoke again, her voice was uncertain. "What if you don't find them? If you find that your entire search has been for nothing?"
Brinella chuckled, shrugging her shoulders. "I've thought about it. If I find that they are dead, then at least I know. If I find them and they are different than before, and there can be no way to live with them as I once did? I'll... accept it. It will hurt if it comes to that, but I will do it. Should I never find them? Then I will search until the day my last breath escapes me."
Sura smiled, her eyes going out over the sea below them, barely visible beneath the mist that had begun to creep in as the sun set, throwing golds and reds haphazardly against blues and greens of lush woods. "Very brave, indeed..."
Night had fallen hours ago, and now only the stars and full moon kept the two who were entwined together company. The large tree they had found was thick with branches that held a person comfortably, and were good for privacy when it was needed. Lydros lay with one leg thrown over the outside of the branch, dangling freely while the lithe form of Ninya rested next to him, her leg thrown over his own and her head on his chest. His head was supported by an arm, the other wrapped around the rogue's shoulders to allow his fingers to trail feather-light along one of her lengthy ears.
"You're quiet." The woman smirked, opening her eyes at last to follow the trail of her fingers along his stomach, before bracing on the opposite side of his body to let her loom over him. "More so than usual. Which means you're thinking again, and your thoughts are always ones to be shared."
"The girl is planning to leave." His own eyes left the sky above them, flicking to hers and then back to the starry expanse. "I wonder if it would be best for me to accompany her. On the one hand, we learn best by doing on our own. On the other, I wonder if she is blind to what is important. She seeks a man who ran from her, and another who has left nothing. Reports have been flooding in that the lands we knew have changed, some of them drastically..."
"You treat her like a child, Lydros. You watch her like a hawk, correct her when she steps out of line, but withdraw the moment it looks like she might open up. She stays away from all of us because the mixed messages that we all send are confusing to her." Ninya sighed, brushing his hair from his eyes in a tender motion. "She's not a child. She's just barely a woman, but certainly not a child. You would break her now, and leave her weakened for what may eventually come, on a hunch?"
"I know what it is like to hold out hope." With a growl, the male sat up, barely registering that his bedmate had slipped behind him, leaning against his back. "I held on to hope with Irial for two years after Hyjal. If I did it all again, I'd have actually listened to those who said she was dead and gone, instead of holding out hope that she'd walk through that door. It's a miserable existence, Ninya. Not one I'd wish on anyone." He sighed, pressing one palm to his forehead. "I feel like it would be better for someone to be there when she has her inevitable disappointment."
"Why can't you just believe that she isn't wrong? That what she's looking for is out there, perhaps waiting for her?" Ninya smiled sadly, nipping his ear lightly. "Just because you'd never leave someone you loved doesn't means others wouldn't do it to get something that needs to be done, done." She sighed, drawing away to let her fingers slip along his back before swinging her legs over the branch. "The downside of you being quiet is that I know it's a sign for me to get lost. Goodnight, Lydros."
She was gone before he could say anything, leaving him with his mouth open in slight protest. Another thick growl stirred deep in his chest, and after breathless moments of waiting for her to return, as if she could possibly read his mind and know what he was thinking only to have her impish smile not return, the hunter released a sigh and let himself fall back to lay beneath the stars, silently damning them for their aloofness in his moment of need.