Kalthor closed his eyes against the breeze that hit him the moment he appeared above deck. His hand gripped the railing, bracing him as his hair and robes whipped about him. The zepplin was quiet, nearly empty. Not many traveled on these to where they were headed, and those who did preferred to take the balloon in the early morning or afternoon. Now, they had set out in the middle of the night, where the air was cool and clean. Only two others had caught the flight with them, and both were fast asleep. Which was perfect for what he desired.

"Easy. The wind can be rough up here for the first few moments." He turned his gaze back, his free hand gripping the wrist of the worgen woman. "It's alright." Kalthor hated the look she watched him with, hated the way her eyes held fear she never should have been feeling. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him, and wondered if it was the same he saw when he looked in the mirror. "The open air will help settle your stomach. I'll keep a good hold on you, and if you start feeling frightened, you can grab me as tightly as you need."

He squeezed her wrist, intending it to be a reassuring motion, but he wasn't sure if that's what it came off as completely. Brinella was watching him, and yet watching past him, her eyes following the flow of his hair in the wind. Something told him that simply letting her from the room was dangerous, but he didn't have the heart to keep her locked away as he had been warned would be best. Freed from most of her restraints, all she wore now was the collar that suppressed her magic. It hung loose, meant to fit around her neck when she was completely worgen.

He felt her move under his hand before he actually saw her take a step. The bunching of her muscles in her arm made him frown, and he wondered what it was that made her tense so much. Her free hand gripped the railing as hard as she could, and when she finally came into the wind, she did so with a cry of fright that tore at him and made him take her into his arms. Kalthor was glad that those who staffed the zepplin weren't prone to nosing into others business.

"Hush. Come over here, Brinella. There's a bench you can sit on if you'd like." He almost laughed when she clung to him tighter, as if afraid they might both blow away. Laughing seemed cruel, though. So he all but carried her himself, setting her down on the bench and taking a seat beside her. "Are you hungry?"

Brinella shook her head, and he frowned. "You haven't eaten anything. Are you certain you won't have even a little something to help you? Perhaps that would ease your stomach more than just fresh air." Again she shook her head, and he sighed. "Alright. Let me know, though. We can't have our gladiator starving herself before her battles, can we?" There was no response, her blank stare lost on the floor beneath her feet.

Gladiator. That was how they had gotten her through Orgrimmar and onto the zepplin without too much trouble. Chained and blindfolded, Brinella had been led under armed 'guard' through the city. Mixie had even managed the illusion of a brand on her skin. Had Kalthor and Triadae not been as well known as they were, problems would have arisen in amounts greater than either could have handled.

Mixie had not been joking when she had said they might not like what her idea was. The only one who did not make some noise of dissent when her plan was explained was Nireesa. Winnie and Lydros were against it completely, for separate reasons. Triadae and Kalthor were no happier about it, though their arguments were quickly invalidated. More than once, it was argued that Brinella could make it to Stormwind by boat by both parties, only to have it shot down. They proposed taking her through a portal, only to have both Mixie and Rylien scoff at the idea. "How many portals has the girl been through?" Mixie had asked. None could answer. "How many have you passed through, sane of mind, and not wondered how we mages could do that every day?"

"I never said it was the greatest idea, but it's the quickest. People take their gladiators to Gurabashi all the time for the arena games, nevermind the trade down in Booty Bay. You can get her to Stranglethorn quickly, which isn't that far from Stormwind. Sure, it's not like showing up right at the docks..." Mixie had shrugged. "Besides. If she should have problems, there's none who wouldn't be afraid to put her in her place."

There had been a roar of anger from Winnie, and a scuffle broke out that ended with the dwarf burned from the campfire and nursing broken fingers while Kalthor held Mixie back. "Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me that you wouldn't hesitate to harm her if she was diving for your throat – put me down!" The green woman had smoothed her robes once Kalthor did as she asked, her eyes shining bright in the firelight. "The bruisers are used to dealing with those who try to rebel when they think their masters are weak. They are good at putting down a threat without doing severe damage, without making things damaged goods."

"Brinella wouldna hurt either o' us." Winnie had tried to reason with others, but she had felt the futility of it as well. Mixie was right – neither of them would hurt Brinella if they could not help it, but there was no guarantee that she would give them the same in her current condition. It was with a great deal of sadness that the two parted from the others that very night, speeding towards the nearest place they could take to the skies. Nireesa had stayed with them, soothing the frightened worgen while Mixie and Triadae ventured to a nearby outpost for supplies.

Rylien took time to explain what she could to Kalthor. It was a reluctant instruction, with much of it spent with Kalthor requesting clarification on something simply glossed over. In time, he realized that this was less because the savagekin was loath to speak to him, and more because explaining what she knew was akin to reliving a nightmare. The great white druid that accompanied her refused to leave her side during this, though the smaller had frequently vanished to spy on the surrounding forest.

"Those who cut themselves from the natural balance lose the ability to call on nature. It is another reason why I am unable to cure the child of her infliction. In return for this severance, they instead gain the powers under the call of others. Some who work among magic have names for the groups of magicks. They call these groups domains. Typically, those who have turned themselves to the Nightmare use the most destructive of the domains.

The one that the worgen was touched by must have had access to the spells generally taken by those who dabble in madness. Nightmare druids are capable of many things; warping what they've come into contact with is almost a specialty of theirs. They can kill natural animals and plants, warp the flesh of a human being, and warp the mind of a person with a single touch. One who couples this already destructive power with the magicks that play with the sanity of a person is a formidable opponent."

Rylien's frown had deepened, her fingers idly running through the white pelt of the male druid she leaned against. "This domain of madness is frequently seen among nihilistic cults and crazed priests. The power itself is said to be entwined with the old gods. Thus, it is a horrible thing. Those who take it up are skilled at working even closer to the mind than the average person. They are capable of inflicting paranoia, mild or rash fear, throwing their victims into crushing despair, and even bringing them into a waking nightmare. The most powerful of these people who tamper in madness are even capable of inflicting permanent insanity at a touch, and can split the very soul and mind of a person to create a reflection of the victim within their mind. A split soul, if you would, capable of the very worst a person could be capable of."

Her attention had flicked towards Brinella, the faint green that lingered within the silver of her eyes swirling opaque and then fading away. "I do not believe that she has had such drastic things happen to her, not directly. I cannot imagine that the warping of the flesh was comfortable, and it is not uncommon for someone to experience a..." she had paused in thought, struggling with the word, "trauma that has unhinged them. Since the child was touched enough for the taint to settle in her, it will spread. It could strangle her own touch with nature at the same time that it inflicts pain enough to sever her mind." Rylien had shrugged. "It may move slowly, or it may feed on her despair and fear. Of that, I don't know."

Despite all of the warnings, Brinella had been nearly docile through the journey. Though Triadae had tried to be supportive in some manner to the woman's pain, there was something of a wall between them. Her patience was thin already, angered that Kalthor wouldn't even look at her without her demanding it, and Brinella's reluctance to eat the food Triadae brought her or even converse when spoken to only splintered the bare amount of control that she could manage.

So Kalthor cared for the worgen, and wondered what it was that kept her from sleeping even with the dragon-scale pendant Nireesa had gifted her, telling her that the remnants of the dragon's powers would guard her as it always had guarded the Dragonsworn. It was that necklace he focused on, reaching a hand to brush fingers over the surface of it, and noting how Brinella flinched away from his hand as if he might have been making to strike her.

"I don't like to sleep, either." Unable to stand the silence anymore, he reached for anything that would have made the worgen feel as if she had a friend with her. "When I close my eyes, I see what I could have done to her. I hear her screams if I let my guard down. There are even moments where I see and hear it all when she speaks. I am afraid of what I could have done to her then, all for the sake of a scrap of power."

His hand pulled back, folding with the other for his chin to prop upon while he watched clouds pass by them. "I try to tell myself that it's all just an illusion, a bad dream that I can just shake off. It doesn't work, because everything is so real. If I had ignored her pleas then... I saw what I would have done to her. They forget to tell you that you lose those things dearest to you when you gain power. Now I feel her pulling away from me, because I'm too afraid to stand up to what my mind keeps trying to feed me."

Kalthor laughed, a very dry laugh. "I love her, but now I can't stand being near her. I've followed her everywhere, been her friend when she needed one the most, and now I've been put right into her shoes." He flicked his eyes back to Brinella, noting that she was listening to him. Her eyes still stared anywhere but at him, but her body language proved otherwise. "Now I understand why she distanced herself from everything, and I wonder if I shouldn't be doing the same to spare her the way she was trying to spare me."

"You think that walking away might be the better thing to do?" She was quiet, her voice muffled against her arm with how curled up she was, but he could hear her anyway.

"I don't know. I wish that I could just push everything I saw in that grove out of my mind. What happened in the past was horrible, and it could have been worse. I believe that is why it hurts so much... because it wasn't just something pulled out of no where. It was something that was just on the other side of a closed door that I didn't open. So it hurts and scares me just that much more."

"I should have known better." There was sadness in her voice that stung him. "I dreamed of a time where none of this happened. Where the land didn't split beneath my feet and my best friend had a child of her own, instead of being buried alone. Where the man I love was with me, instead of hiding and making me question if he is even still alive. Where I had a child, and was bearing two more. Where this curse had never been brought down on me." Tears filled her eyes, and he could tell she was fighting to keep her voice from going into a hysterical pitch.

"I should have known better, but I was so content to live in that time that I was so willing to give up all of this. I just want to be normal. I want all that I had back, and I hate that I have to fight my own heart and break it into a thousand pieces for the sake of my sanity..." Her face disappeared into the crook of her arm, her shoulders shuddering.

Kalthor could say nothing to her pain. He couldn't even begin to believe he understood any of it, and he was loathe to try and make a joke of what was so very real to all of them. The world had changed, and they simply had to struggle onward as they had done previously. Some, he knew, would have to struggle harder. Everything he wanted to say simply seemed as if it just was not enough to comfort either of them. "What do you hate the most of all of it?"

She didn't speak for a long time, long enough that he thought she might have fallen asleep at last. "Not knowing." Her eyes finally left the bench and looked to him, almost pleading. "Not knowing anything."

"We'll get you to the shaman. You can know that, at least. You can know that we will part ways at that point, and you will continue to do good things and you may do some bad things. You'll find the ones you are looking for, I know. They are looking for you, as well." Kalthor smiled slightly, like a father looking at his offspring in pain and not knowing the words to say that might make it all go away. He could only hope the ones he used were the right ones. "One day, you'll look back on everything that has happened and will share it with your children."

"I don't want children."

Again she was curled in that ball, and he bit his tongue. Wrong words. "Then you will share them with your friends."

"How do you know?"

He shrugged, moving so that he could brush his fingers through her hair. "I don't, but you will. Eventually, you will know everything you need to know." It was a long time before he spoke again. "Are you cold?"

"...Yes."

Kalthor wrapped an arm around her, tugging her closer to his own warmth. For the first time since she had been touched, she did not try to wriggle free. He propped his chin on the top of her head, and was surprised when he felt her breathing even and turn to sleep.

Triadae waited until she was certain that neither would hear her retreat back down the hallway to their cabin, a palm lifting to rub at her eyes, where the faint prickle of tears was making itself known...

… and so the zepplin continued on.