AN: You know who shouldn't be writing when a new expansion is out? Me! Sorry for the delay. I got lost in World of WorldQuests!

The below is a little saucy… but it's been 5 years! I think we deserve a little sauce. Enjoy! I'll be back after this Mythic.

"We're going to see everything, Tri! You've dreamed of this, haven't you? Dreamed of becoming a Priestess!? Well, now we're going to do it for real. No more dressing up, no more endless wishing. We're going to be important, Tria. We're going to change the world!"

For a moment, the woman could almost believe it. Hours had passed since the chapel had emptied, the casket bearing her friend's body gone away to be placed upon a pyre that Hana had requested. Her eyes had not lifted from the parchment pamphlet in her hand, from the gilded words that spelled out the birth and death of someone so dear to her.

Hana had always been the happiest of them, perhaps even more happy than Kalthor. Their names pierced the cold that sheltered her heart, and she flinched just so while fingers curled and rumpled the soft parchment. The Light was cruel to take such a precious woman from the world so soon…

… but Triadae had long since ceased believing in the Light, hadn't she? Certainly, her faith had been crushed so firmly that no glimmers of it yet remained within her breast, and to think on it was to bring nothing more than bitterness and pain. Kalthor and Hana had not deserved to die so young, not when so much still remained to be done.

It was growing harder to remember their voices, strange as that felt. It seemed only yesterday that she had sat beside the woman's bed and held her hand as Hana had laughed. Even in her sickness, the flush on her cheeks that spoke of fever was somehow so close to that of health. Hana had not let her worry, not let her fuss. Instead, the pair had recounted happier days and set to looking through a book that Hana had kept, filled with little notes and trinkets that reminded her of the life that they had shared.

Happy as Hana had been, she had also been the weakest of them. In their youth, when sickness ravaged the city, she and Hana had fallen ill at the same time. Kalthor, too, though his had been from sneaking in to the quarantined rooms to bring gifts to the girls of goodies so they had more than mere broth and bland bread. Though both she and Kalthor had recovered quickly, it had taken months more for Hana to recover.

It was no surprise to either of them that as sickness spread as people returned from warfronts and strange shores that Hana would take ill… but perhaps they had all hoped, even to the end, that she would make it through. For all that Triadae was growing to despise Silvermoon and the death that it was growing to represent, for all that she felt she spurned the Light, she was glad that Hana's faith had kept her alive long enough for the pair to see one another again, and to speak the final words that all should be allowed to speak.

That, at least, she would give credit for.

"Tria?"

Tiroth's voice is soft, his touch gentle on her shoulder. She's aware of the leather of his gloves, can feel the graze of the soft silks of his shirt as he settles in beside her on the bench, and she knows that he's watching her with the same concern that he always has.

Oh, she hates it.

"She's really gone, isn't she?"

There's no answer, because there doesn't need to be one. He stood beside her in all his finery and tried hard not to look at her in her own – not the forged plate that all could identify her in, but in a dress of pale yellow. In all the field of colors, of reds and blacks and deeply saturated colors of mourning, she had stood out in her color of innocence, and he knew the reason, even if others merely commented that it was just one more thing that the woman needed to cope.

"She is." His voice was heavy with sorrow, his bond with Hana herself unmistakable. Perhaps once there had been opportunity for passion between them, but time had tempered lust and made both realize that they could not act on something that was not true. In a way, both loved Triadae far too much to ever risk things.

Hana had always said that Triadae was never so beautiful as she was when she wore yellow. Red was too harsh, it blended with her hair and left her featureless. Blue was too generic, but yellow? Oh, Hana had loved to dress her friend in yellow, like Hana's hair. Pale. Soft. A striking contrast to the woman herself.

"It never stops, does it? The dying? You'd think that I was used to it, but now… now I am uncertain." Her eyes left the page at last and she tipped her head back, gentle curls shifting along her collarbone and shoulders. "I'm retiring after this war is finished, Tiroth."

Surprise kept him silent, his brows rising so much that they may as well have vanished into his hair. He turned to her, a hand reaching to grip beneath her chin, and he was struck to find that tears had pooled, threatening to fall. Gently, his gloved thumb swept the apple of her cheeks, and he bent his head to touch his forehead to her own.

The gesture brought a sob from her, familiar as it was. The wall she had erected so very carefully began to crack, and even if she could not bring herself to believe in the Light, she could bring herself to lean into the light and warmth that he brought her. One that she had continued to dismiss countless times out of pride and fear, and none of that mattered anymore.

Somewhere between a sniffle and a breath, she felt warmth on her lips, and responded to it. Not in pulling away, but in finally just giving in. She felt him stiffen as her lips pressed to his, felt the shock that was his own uncertainty moments before his hands sweep up her arms and past, gathering her close.

There is nothing soft about the kiss. It is hungry and needy, intimate only in how they share breath. They meld exactly as they used to, and for the first time in a very long time, Triadae is reminded of exactly why she loved the man that she had pushed away for so long. He completed her in ways that no one else ever could, from the way they fit together physically, to how he knew when to withdraw, just as he did then.

Soft as she tried to keep her breath, she was panting while his hands lifted to cup her face, ghosting his lips along her own, feathering along her cheek and her brow. There were no words while both tried to puzzle out what had just happened, but it was her who brought his lips back to her own and loosed a moan that had him breathing one back beneath a curse as his hands gripped at her hips and brought her into his lap.

Fabric tore. They both heard it, her fingers pressed to his lips so roughly that he had no choice but to part them, nipping at the rough pads of the digits that were softly scented from lotion in her desperate attempt to fulfill Hana's wishes…

… and just like that, Tria seemed to remember where they were. She felt Tiroth clutch at her rear as she tried to push away from him, and saw the desperate want that had lit his eyes. Beneath it all, she saw the wounded hurt and the plea for her not to go. Not again.

"I can't," she whispered, and found herself again dipping to kiss him while trembling fingers coaxed through his hair. "It isn't right…"

"Then we find a better place," he growled, and she squealed as he moved and scooped her up. His stride from the chapel was quick, a hand sheltering her burning face from those who gawked while he whispered for her to simply rest. Whatever ruse that she might have needed in that moment, whatever it was that she might have wanted to hide, he was willing to say anything at all for the chance to finally be let past the walls that had held him at bay for so long.

So she shut her eyes tight and buried her face against his neck, and let all of Silvermoon think that in that moment, the mighty woman who they knew as one who never let weakness show, was at last no more a hero than they. In that moment, she was willing to let them think whatever they liked, so long as it let her breathe in the familiar and comforting scent that was so very him.

Only when the surroundings closed in, when she knew they were safe, did she dare look up. How fierce he seemed, in that moment. How determined. For the time, she was something precious to be guarded, his eyes looking away from the front only when someone appeared and seemed to ask a question, soon rendered silent by the look they all knew well. Business, and nothing else.

She was hardly business, not when she was at last let down in his chambers in one of the spires, left to step away on feet that had refused to gather feeling again after simply being swept up and he was busy doing… oh, she didn't know. Her hand pressed to her chest and felt her heart hammering beneath the cloth of her gown.

He was there again, and while his hands gripped at her shoulders, she let herself fall back against him. She let herself yield, another moan of trepidation leaving when cloth bunched beneath his hands and the coarse pads of his own fingers dragged over her skin as the detached sleeves of the gown were slid off.

"Have you…"

"Yes." It came without thought, the lie. Perhaps she, too, had reached the point where she would have said anything to stop the flood of heat that was quickly filling her belly. To stop the ache that had begun. "A soldier, it was…"

"I don't need to know." His voice roughened, and she yelped as teeth met the skin of her shoulder, struggling briefly against the hand that planted against her stomach while he bore down to the point that she was sure that skin would break, and then the pressure was gone and only a stinging sensation was left – that, and her ragged panting and her frantic grip back into his pants to keep herself up.

She was willing to let him take the lead, letting herself be half-pushed and half-coaxed to his bed as he undid the delicate ties along her back. The fabric loosened and fell, a silken waterfall along her legs that he chased as he dipped, calloused fingertips running a path along her skin that was left scorching for no other reason than to imprint itself in her mind.

He helped her from her shoes, heeled slippers that she had hated so much but accepted out of love and respect for her friend, the gentleness of his actions stark against the rising fire that threatened to consume them both. He was trying, she realized, to make something between them special. Their first time, the first time they had been robbed of for so many years.

All for her own stupidity. Her pride. Her shame. Triadae whimpered, felt herself closing off from the pleasure that was racing through her form, and tried to cover herself as he stood and turned her to face him.

"Stop thinking," was all that he growled, his hands encircling her wrists and pulling her hands from her as he captured her mouth again with his own, tipping himself enough into her body that Tria felt herself fall back against the soft bedsheets and pillows of his bed, and then somehow further. When he released her, her hands found his shoulders, pulling and pushing frantically at the cloth that separated their skin.

His teeth came again, nipping along her collar and lower, catching on the soft lace of her bra to be ignored as he chased further down and left searing kisses and hungry bites along the toned flesh of her stomach and hip. How gentle he was, skating over the scars that had dug themselves so harshly into her skin, his lips grazing paths over the marks that had not been present when last they'd been together.

A moan tore from her, hot and harsh, as his mouth closed on the most intimate part of her, the heat of his breath mingling with that of her body, and her eyes shut as pleasure built and her body shivered. Natural instinct took hold, fingers weaving into dark hair while her hips rolled up against him, and she murmured his name just as she had used to…

… only to have it all come to a cold finish as a small voice rang out and Tiroth withdrew from her quickly, cursing beneath his breath while pulling sheets over her. Shame bloomed over the Knight as she spotted the child, but had barely a moment to consider before Miralai had thrown herself into the bed and clung to her.

"I'm sorry… she would not -…" The words quieted as Tiroth left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Tria to awkwardly coddle the child that would not detach from her. In time, Miralai fell asleep, enabling her to move the child just a bit away. Enough to make herself more comfortable, and soon drift to sleep as well.

It was much later when Tiroth returned, sliding in behind her to sleep himself that Tria woke even enough to see that Miralai had curled tight against her once more. Safe and warm, Tria drifted to sleep again amidst thoughts that perhaps… just perhaps… it really could be this easy.