Chapter 13

The next morning found me awake indecently early, working by candle light to work on my plans, and when Sylvanas came in to take me to my work for the day, I had it almost completely done.

"How much parchment did you use?" She looked at the somewhat ridiculously sized plan in my hand, but I wanted to get down every detail and idea, and I was bouncing up and down on my bare feet, legs now in pants.

"Let me see those while you eat-oh lovely, a materials list...this is seven inches of materials!"

I ducked past her, grinning as she grumbled, and saw the low rug covered with a low table, and a spread of food. My mouth watered as the rasher of bacon caught my attention, and I inhaled it, the water, and the green leaves that accompanied everything I ate here.

She still hadn't finished her rant by the time I was ready, "-Why do you need Northrendian silk. Not just silk, no-."

I followed her as she stomped out of the room, biting my lip to keep from laughing as she continued to rant through most of the city, only pausing to hand me my plan back in the elevator.

I had no guards.

"Morris and Brak are waiting at the site for you. I'll have to send an army of couriers to get your list-," she fell back into grumbling, and it amused me.

We reached the surface, and I kept my eyes straight ahead, not daring a glance at that throne, and we were out in the light.

It was a cool morning, and the grass squished beneath my feet as we reached my plot of land, and I set up my plan on a currently unused block, holding it there with small stones, before I got to work.

"Go to the city with my crest. Start getting some of this stuff on the way," She was talking to the guards as I got the ladder set up, tossing in the small shovel, a few of the sturdier blocks, and taking up the pestle and materials to make the paste. I was to make some of the floor today.

I used the shovel-the large one and small one-to dig out a bit more, for the blocks to lay evenly, and once they were in position I got comfy and started to mix the material in the mortar bowl, grinding it quickly with the pestle until it seemed sort of pasty.

I tried to lay it between two of the blocks, and it fell away like powder all the way to the bottom.

I glared, and I heard a chuckle from above.

"You forgot the pasting agent,"

I looked up and saw Sylvanas holding-oh.

"Damn, knew I was missing something."

I grabbed it from her, and she sat the edge, legs dangling over as I mixed in the paste, and my result multiplied ten fold-causing her to bust out laughing as it got everywhere, and I yelped curses as I frantically tried to lay it.

"You've got a filthy mouth there," She said, and I grinned up at her, getting a third block et with the paste.

She seemed to be keeping watch in place of the guards, who had gone off to Brill with my supply list, and I continued to work on the floor, asking for her opinion every now and then.

The sun was beating directly down on me as noon came around, and I had some of the smaller bricks laid to form a decorative section in the floor-the pinker bricks looked nice in the light.

I finished off the larger than planned floor, and bounced up and down on it to check. Perfect.

"A foundation to build from. Well done, Teir." Sylvanas said, and I smiled at her.

It felt...good, to be doing this. Not like a punishment, but like a task to complete before I could continue.

It felt right.

I began to work on the base, squawking indignantly as a giant clump of dirt got in my hair and mouth, and I spat it at Sylvanas when she snorted.

"I have a question."

I looked up, pausing in my work, brick in hand, eyebrow raised.

"On your list...there was one peculiar item."

Ah, the bodies.

I requested that someone be sent-me, someone else, it didn't matter-to Northrend to collect the bodies of those I knew I killed-I knew the locations of the villages, and there were probably thousands of dead within the citadel, killed by Alliance and Horde alike.

I knew which were mine though-a sick addiction had been to carve a T into their calves. I hadn't known why I enjoyed it.

Now I knew. I was branding them as mine.

My face had fallen, and she had seen, because she suddenly was right next to me, setting down the brick and helping me to sit.

"Do you really want to do this?"

"They don't...they don't have to bring the bodies, if they can't..." If they can't find all of the pieces, "But, maybe a piece of armor. An identifying paper. Any piece of them that can be found."

"And they're all...marked? Those that you killed?"

I nodded, "The only ones who weren't were ghouls and other scourge I killed in rage."

She sat for a moment, in deep thought, before nodding, "I will send a small team to go and collect them. You're not ready to return to Northrend. Not yet."

I looked at her, an intense emotion flaring in my chest, "Thank you, Sylvanas."

She nodded, "You wanted to pay your respects to them, and if that means we have to look at every calf in Northrend, well, we can manage it."

I nodded, before she climbed back up the ladder, and I returned to my work with a renewed vigor. The sun was just beginning to descend when I got about a foot and a half of wall done on three sides, and Sylvanas called me up.

"But it's early! I worked until the torches burnt out last night!" I sounded petulant, but I liked working on the mausoleum, it was calming.

"We have other tasks tonight. Come on," she helped me out of the pit, and I looked down-it did look like a fancy hole in the ground.

She led me back to the city, but didn't take me towards our common when we reached the trade district-instead she turned right.

"Where are we going?" I asked, ducking under a pillar and dodging a cart, aware of my bare feet and filthy attire.

"You said I had a year to work though you. Now we're getting started."

I had absolutely no idea what she meant, but I did my best to keep up, until we reached a wide, empty room that mirrored the throne room above, but this throne was obsidian, not gold.

"You have a throne room?" I looked around, almost disturbed by how well done the enchantments were-the windows were an almost exact likeness, showing the outsides of the palace above ground.

They can show anywhere I wish, and with help from the mages, they can be made into portals."

Wicked!

"I am going to find your memory triggers, and we're using these to do it."

Not so wicked.

She threw the ebony curtains, ropes coming alive at the motion and holding the curtains back, and pressed patterns into the windows.

The scene rippled like a rock in the water, and showed the silvery woods from the common windows.

I studied them, "Where is this?" I asked, an odd sense of knowing filling my core.

"This is the Eversong Wood...what hasn't been destroyed by the Scourge."

I hacked, my eyes rolling back in my head-

Racing through the trees, the silvery moonlight shining down. Falling at the river. A-

"Troll!" I gasped, falling to my knees and clutching my head, pain and panic racing through me as the screaming faded.

I realised that Sylvanas was bracing me, keeping me from knocking myself out on the window, "Something in that sentence did it. Troll, you said?"

I nodded, sitting down fully and massaging my skull.

I heard the scratching of parchment, and turned to see her writing the word down, "We can assemble it. Like a puzzle."

"There were trees," I gasped, eyes on the windows, "Like those. I was...it was like I was wind, racing through them, in and out..." My head hurt so bad.

"You were the fasted tree climber I had ever seen." She said, the scratching of quill on parchment accompanying her words, and it made me think-

"When I first woke up, I was in a forest. Do you think...do you think he had a hand in that?"

She paused, her face contorted, before it closed off, "Possibly."

My head felt heavy, my eyes lidded, and I laid against the cool floor, luxuriating in the cool against my head.

"I visited a gate." I said, after a long period of silence, "To the north. It was magical. People like us...but with green eyes said I was looking at the entrance to the blood elf realm."

She sighed, "After...to be blunt. After you died, much changed."

She wouldn't elaborate, and I was almost thankful for that.

We were done for the night, she had decided, and she took me through a back passage to the common, and sent me off to bathe and go to sleep.

I felt exhausted, barely thinking as I bathed, barely noticing that now I had a blood red blouse and black pants, and only noticing how nice the bed looked.

I was shuffling over to fall into it when I heard shouting in the common.

It was an unfamiliar...and living voice.

I was suddenly awake, and I creeped to my door, pressing my ear against her.

"-I know she's here! I can feel her soul in this bloody crock pot of plague!"

"She is none of your concern." Sylvanas answered smoothly.

I heard clacking, like...beads? "I don't give a damn what you think, I will see her."

That voice-

Head lolling back, coughing up blood. Woman. Paints. Dead. Mist.

I screamed.

The door was open and Sylvanas was holding my head, blocking the mysterious visitor from view, "You need to leave!"

I felt that presence, that same presence, "I-I-," the screaming was choking me.

"She is not well, Sylvanas. She isn't well!"

I curled my head into the carpet, "Why do I remember you?!"

All was silent for a moment, except for the screaming, which grew louder in the voices' absence.

But they didn't want me to kill.

Run. Flee. Get away.

I couldn't move, it was like fear and rage and screaming had me in paralysis.

"Let me see her, Windrunner."

The voice sounded...powerful. I almost wanted to crawl to her. In fact, I found myself crawling closer, attacking the carpet with my nails. Hands yanked me backwards.

"Hold yourself in check, child, or I will do it for you!"

My eyes strained to open, but Sylvanas whispered for me to not look, don't look little lynx...

Who do I listen to? This...this power? Sylvanas?

It hurt.

I cried out, the pain tearing at me, and Sylvanas got mean to the stranger.

"Leave my domain before the rest of my guard comes at your call, armed to kill."

"You shouldn't hide your dead Sylvanas. I will return."

There was a ripping sound, and then it was gone. The pull, the painful yank on my heart was gone, and I sagged into the carpet.

"I am sorry, Teir. So, so sorry." She scooped me up and kept my head elevated, and I mumbled incoherently.

"I will pay a visit to that Mist Speaker-."

Mist. Purple paint. White eyes. "She is mine!"

I vomited all over Sylvanas.

She stopped moving, and I felt horrified embarrassment barrel through me.

"So you got triggered by the Lady of the Dead. That's good to know.

"She changed out of her over armor, leaving her in a black shirt that was torn and old, and carried me into the bathing chamber, where she got me out of the now soiled shirt and sent for a new one, before getting me out of the rest of my clothes and into newly warmed water. She scrubbed at my skin even as my eyes burned from embarrassment.

"Sorry,"

"Your mind was already taxed. That child had no right to barge in here like that. I will ensure it doesn't happen again."

I was redressed and tucked into bed, and she sat at the edge of it again, her fingers returning to my hair like they had the night before.

"Are you able to tell me what you remembered?"

"I...I remember a woman. Not that one. But similar...white eyes...same paint...she claimed I was her. I saw her upside down and I was bleeding." I said quietly, and Sylvanas' hand stilled abruptly, and she took in an intake of breath.

"Put it from your mind, little lynx. We've all had our meeting with the Mist Lord of our time, thanks to him. Sleep now."

I felt her leave the room, but I also felt another presence enter the common-not the scary one, but someone.

"My lady, you called? You are distressed."

It's the ranger from my cell, who was watching when I first woke up here.

"What do you remember about your death L-ranger."

She avoided the name like it was a plague.

"I...It was quiet at first, Milady. I had nearly passed on completely until...until she came in and screamed, and that monster-."

"I know these details. Did the Mist Speaker show?"

"Oh..." the woman laughed darkly, "That woman was in a rage. She had come to collect me and came to find that monster had my baby skewered on that stupid blade-."

I gave up sleeping, listening intently.

"What did she say?" Sylvanas was digging for something, and needed that woman to find it.

"Oh she was furious. My sweet one promised my soul to that monster without realising, because she wanted to say goodbye. Why, I nearly cried. And-he did things to her, right in front of my body. I wanted to rip him to shreds-."

"The Woman, Ranger, the woman."

"Oh. Oh yes," the woman sounded like she was calming down, "She was angry at him for manipulating souls unnaturally, and claimed that we both belonged with her-my sweet one especially-she screamed something about 'she is mine' and then-."

"That's all I need, thank you. Dismissed."

The presence disappeared, and I flattened into the pillows, pretending to sleep as Sylvanas returned to the room.

She returned to her spot at the edge of the bed, and I felt her eyes on me.

"Oh sweet lynx. How I wish I could...not yet, but soon, little one. Soon."

I don't know what she was talking about, but I fell asleep, dreaming of white eyes, silver trees, and Mist.