A/N: Sorry for my lack of productivity, but I've sort of hit a spell of writer's block (which is odd, because I know what I want with the rest of the story, it's just sitting down and actually writing it), but after a year of near-constant writing, I guess it's only to be expected xD Regardless, none of these stories on here do I plan on leaving incomplete, so if I'm gone for a while, just know that I will definitely return! I'm excited to finish this and get it printed into an actual book :D Happy reading!

Colin had fallen onto his back in a vain attempt at sleeping, though the cold wood beneath him made it just uncomfortable enough for such a thing. He thought that may have been the point of this specific choice in architecture, and if that were the case, it was the correct one. He managed a few minutes of a nap, which was enough to refresh him in an incredibly superficial sense.

Laying there, he tilted his head to the side, finding nothing of the two orbs that belonged to Syheath, and having heard nothing from her in quite some time, he figured she had fallen asleep. Though, the thought came to him that, perhaps, she was in the same situation as him.

He thought curiously on her- he'd spent so much time with the two Shadowmoon girls who'd been tempered in the throes of battle, he wondered how different Syheath might be, given her seemingly adverse attitude toward such things; she definitely appeared to despise authority in some sense, having come all the way out here to be her own person, he'd thought.

Figuring now to be as good of a time as any, Colin spoke up, quietly, so as to not wake her should she be asleep, "Hey."

For a moment there wasn't an answer, but within a minute or so, a low voice appeared, almost longingly, "What?"

Colin pushed himself up and against the wall, groaning to himself as his muscles ached from laying on the hard floor for such a time, "Can't sleep either, huh?"

"Did my reply just give it all away?"

Grinning at her brusqueness, Colin shook his head, "You could have fooled me. I assume all elves forget that their eyes give off light?"

He heard her body moving along the ground, probably as she was sitting up herself, a pair of soft lights suddenly showing through the darkness, "Do you forget that you have a nose?"

"I just don't think about it, but I see what you mean," Colin admitted, "I was just curious is all. Your sisters grew up in stealthy forms of combat; they just seem to be more aware of it than others. I guess I was just asking how rough you have it up here; will the creatures up here notice your eyes?"

"Some," she replied, annoyed, as if answering such a question was rather demeaning, "I'm usually quick enough when I need to be. Even if it tips them off, it's usually because I'm a few feet away from the kill anyway."

Colin nodded to himself, chuckling, "I know your other sister, Y'eanel, I asked her a similar question and she almost seemed as if she was being told for the first time that her eyes were so bright."

"You seem to have a rather sick fascination with such things," Shadowmoon noted, pithily, as though hearing of somebody's odder set of fetishes.

"No no," Colin replied, amusingly, "I don't know; it's just interesting, I think. I guess, in many ways, we humanoids are so similar, but your eyes are so different."

He thought quietly for a moment, "Kyra, when I stare into her eyes, you get that thing where, when you close your eyes, the lights of her eyes sort of become burned in your sight behind your eyelids, in your mind. It reminds me of your mortality; something so powerful that it transcends so much, even the physical realm, yet it always just fades away in enough time."

He smiled, "I mentioned this to Kyra once and she was rather disinterested, so I suppose I just had a lot of time to ponder over it."

Colin could feel Shadowmoon's eyes tilt toward him, staring, as she spoke up, quietly, "You seem to have a lot of ideas that you've pondered over."

"True," he admitted, easily, "I'm a traveler, though, so that gives me plenty of the world to see and wonder about. For most of my life, when I wasn't doing that, I lived alone, doing menial tasks for work; when everything gets so mundane, all you have, really, are your thoughts."

He grinned, "It's probably too exciting as a soldier, though; Kyra and Vylira, both, are quite grounded. It sort of balances out myself, though."

Leaving room for his prison mate to reply, Colin left the air quiet, although the silence wasn't so much awkward as it was still as Shadowmoon thought to herself, finally speaking up, "It's non-stop action up here, but I find time to think about stuff. Though, I can't say it's anything so trivial as my eyes."

"Probably for the best," Colin spoke, lightheartedly.

Shadowmoon shrugged, "I usually think about other people. Their motives, how they perceive me, what my standing is with them. My opinion of others is… I guess you could say 'cheap'- it takes an awful lot of work to earn my trust."

"Do you think about your family like that?"

She scoffed, "It's because of my family that I'm like this."

Colin eyed her curiously from across the hallway, watching her eyes dip low as her head fell forward, slowly, "I don't know, I… When Kyra came along, everybody was so busy with her illnesses, there wasn't any time for me. I guess because I was shortchanged in that way, it's difficult for me to accept much of anything at one's word. I've been traveling with my band of hunters for years now, I still have difficultly taking anything at their word. They're great people, but I can't bring myself to sit still and think, "Hmm, don't worry, they'll come through"."

She let loose a slightly chuckle through her closed mouth as she went on, "That's why I'm always the one so deep into checking on them getting stuff done. I'm sort of known as always having an eye out for them when they get into trouble, simply due to that."

"You seem to trust me," Colin shrugged, sincerely.

"This isn't trust," Shadowmoon reminded, glibly, "When that door opens, I won't see you again."

"I sort of figured that," he grinned, "I also figure you have no interest in returning to your family?"

"Let me put it this way," Shadowmoon spoke up, passionately, "I'd rather die up here than live a thousand more years down in Azeroth. My entire life has been up here for longer than I can count; there's nothing for me down there. And before you say "my family" or some shit like that, I don't bother them for help, so they shouldn't figure I need to visit; I ask for nothing from them, and they seem to ask nothing of me. I like it that way."

Colin lowered his head under the scorching gaze of Shadowmoon, "Well, for what it's worth, Kyra is my mate, and you're her sister. As far as I'm concerned, you're family to me."

"Oh, fuck off," Shadowmoon scowled, "I've never had a 'family' to begin with; I was always cast aside, forced to forge alone, by myself. I'm my own family- some of us don't have the luxury of being born to one and then just screwing their way into others whenever they like."

Though she was heated, she knew this man enough to know that he would retort, at most, in kind, though he'd more likely reply with some diffusing comment, though that never came. She stared in his direction, but her eyes softened with every moment that his silence grew, even her eyes started to dim as she came to the realization that she had said something she shouldn't have.

Slowly, achingly, Colin's voice awoke, "I'm not going to pretend to know you, or your life, but I do know what it's like to be truly alone and helpless."

He stared into the darkness toward those eyes, "I know what it's like to watch the only family you've known being slaughtered in front of you, their necks slashed, giving them just enough life left to exert it all on a vain attempt at crawling toward you to protect you."

"And to your second point," he continued, "Your sister is the sun and moon to me; I would appreciate if you didn't dilute that down to something so cheap. I've come to know Elune, but trust me, I've cursed in her face and defied her, nearly to my own demise, for your sister."

Shadowmoon watched him with a curious sort of defiance, herself, at his manner of speaking toward her goddess, "Then you truly don't even come close to-"

Her eyes shrunk, quickly, as another pair of lights suddenly shone across from her, faintly, another assortment of starlit grooves forming into the shape of a delicate-looking hand that was as pale-lit white as the moon. Her mind was in awe, but her eyes remained sharp, not wanting to give her astonishment away as Colin spoke up again, coolly.

"I lost two parents, but I gained two moons in their place, and I'm not, for a second, going to let anybody-"

*THUNK*

Suddenly, both their heads shot upward toward the ceiling at the massive bang that almost shook the room they were in. Colin felt himself returning to darkness as his cheek faded back into nothingness, though he barely even noticed in his fright. The two of them remained still, simply watching the wooden planks above them, but another crash tore down the walls so hard that even the ground shook.

*THUNK*

Accompanied, that time, by the cracking of wood, Colin thought the roof might collapse in. He turned to Shadowmoon, whose eyes scurried left and right as the sound of various objects being rustled implied she was collecting her things. He heard the whoosh of fabric as her eyes blinked like twilight as she tied her woolen cloak around her body, carefully approaching the far-end of the prison cell.

Colin did the same, slowly backing away from the giant noises, another *THUNK* ripping through the ceiling above. His eyes watched as another crash ripped through the wood above, a gigantic tree-like object tearing down the roof and stopping as it was hung in mid air, slowly pulling itself back up and through the new hole in the ceiling. Colin's panic turned to confusion as the tree trunk of an object seemed to have been carved with the image of some sort of animal.

Suddenly, as the cylindrical object finally disappeared, a blood elf appeared, squeezing through and falling to the ground, quickly rushing to his feet and running toward Syheath's prison. With the hole in the ceiling, light now made its way into the basement, giving Colin a confused look at the scene before home.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," the blood elf spoke up with a haughty air, almost chuckling as he did, "Boss man wouldn't sleep until we had a plan and everything in place."

Shadowmoon's voice was still even as she approached the bars, reaching out to help him pick the lock, "I just figured he owed me for all the times I saved his reckless ass."

"Only partly," came another voice as a human fell through the ceiling, grinning smugly from ear to ear as he dropped to his feet, "We just can't leave our star be; your talents would be wasted here!"

The human sauntered over toward the two, reaching down at Shadowmoon's belongings that she'd collected by the bars, walking quickly back to the hole and tossing everything above, "Kota and Rem are up there keeping an eye out. I'd like to say it was difficult, but I'm a bit surprised that Deegan basically let us waltz in. I'm not at all forgetting the chance of falling into a trap, of course."

The man turned to give a cursory glance at Colin, smiling gloomly, "Sorry buddy; this may the last train out of here, but we're short on seats."

Shadowmoon peeked over the blood elf's shoulder at him, faintly giving off a frown before returning to the lock, the man outside cursing under his breath in some unheard of dialect to Colin. Finally, with a soft crunch, the lock slipped free, allowing Shadowmoon to push her way out into the hallway.

"Aranal!" the blood elf exclaimed gleefully, jumping away as the door swung open at Shadowmoon's movement, her cloak covering most of her body.

The two rushed over toward the human, who gave a signal toward the two up top, the large wooden cylinder carefully lowering down so as to lift them back up. Shadowmoon watched the totem lower itself down, quickly turning her head back toward Colin, catching her first real glimpse at him. He hadn't drawn himself anywhere in his sketchbook, she'd noticed, so now, she finally saw him, though he only stared back with a sort of helpless curiosity.

She sighed, grabbing ahold of the human's shoulder, reluctantly, "He's coming with."

He turned to her, confused, before looking at Colin, "What? Why?"

"The fuck should I know," Shadowmoon groaned, pulling the man back, "Just- Trust me on this one."

The man's eyes critiqued her face for a moment, the blood elf staring up at the two, awaiting instruction, which came with the human snapping a finger, distastefully, "Parv, go get him."

The blood elf rushed back toward Colin's cell door, obviously annoyed, as the human stared seriously at Shadowmoon, evenly, "He's your responsibility then. We've got you once; if he keeps you, we're not coming for you again."

"Understood," Shadowmoon nodded cooly, rushing back toward the blood elf to help on the lock, though Colin had already taken the two pins and was almost done with the work.

Impressed, the blood elf simply watched as the lock churned open, Colin bending down quickly to wrap his satchel around his shoulder, earning a praise from the blood elf, "Wow."

Colin grinned, turning to the other human with a sort of measured cocksureness, "You'll find that I'm full of surprises."

Slightly upset at the newcomer, the man sighed unenthusiastically as he grasped onto the large totem, which then pulled him up to the next floor. Shadowmoon went next, Colin surmised, so as to not stoke any thoughts of the two having colluded on anything, leaving Colin with the blood elf for a moment.

"Parvaen," the elf introduced.

"Colin."

"That was some slick work back there," Parvaen nodded, admiringly, "If I may surmise, you're a thief?"

"Eh, just an adventurer," Colin corrected, amused, "Just one with a knack for getting into situations like this."

Parvaen nodded, his admiration having lessened somewhat, though he allowed Colin up next, so as to watch for anything suspicious. As he was lifted up, Colin was met with the massive body of a tauren, whose eyes watched him suspiciously, apparently already having been told of the inclusion. Colin did his best to show a disarmed smile, though it didn't seem to do much for the tauren's opinion.

As he stood on his own, the human immediately grabbed his wrist, nearly tearing it from the socket as he yanking Colin over, pulling his wrists together and tying them up behind his back with a low grumble, "I'm not exactly enthused at the idea of you tagging along, but my trust in her only goes so deep."

"Understood," Colin replied through seething teeth at the pain from being pulled over so forcefully.

He saw a draenei over by a door, kneeling down, working atop of some strange device with a delicate hand as Parvaen was lifted up into the room. In the corner was a desk, with the hand of the guard just barely resting atop the desk after his body had been catapulted into the wall beside it, leaving Colin with a sick sense in the pit of his stomach.

The device clicked and clacked as the draenei tinkered with it, finally exclaiming proudly as he stuffed it against the door, hurrying away before the handle of the door exploded, "Fire in the hole!"

The others had braced themselves and recovered, with the human grabbing Colin shoulders and directed him forward, "Sorry; if we get ambushed, I'd rather you die over one of my men."

Colin understood, but still sighed reluctantly as the man pushed him into the smoke, forcing him through the now-open doorway and into the next room, a rather large one in comparison to the last, but Colin immediately flinched as a sword swung toward him, as if, indeed, in ambush, one pair of hands grabbing him while another forced the other human away, a steel blade at his throat as Shadowmoon and the others froze in horror at the sight, weapons at the ready.

While Colin hated that prison below, at least he needn't fear for his life as he did, now, with a sword upon his throat, met in a stand off.