Colin peeked back over his shoulder, seeing the mighty fortress of Wintergarde below, nearly evaporating into the distance. He caught the image of Kyra from its corner, her being behind him in the line of bodies that was headed by Tandkota, whose mighty tauren frame was well-suited for traversing the thick snow of a mountain. Remnaar normally would have challenged his friend's role as leader of this mission, but the presence of three tied-up bodies still guilted him greatly. He had thought that the silence would have been a topic of discussion for Ulric, but even he didn't say much, and as Wyrmrest Temple began to materialize out in the distance, he continued staring at the golden tower with a distant expression.

As Tandkota trudged through the snow, his breath growing shallow from the thinning air, he began to slow his pace, to the point that even Ulric seemed to notice, the man reaching up to pull at the massive coat that the tauren wore, "Hold up. We're going to take a break. Then I want Rem to take the lead and see how he does."

Tandkota paused, giving a challenging glance over his shoulder as Remnaar grinned, "I'll try not to outshine you too much, dear friend!"

Snorting a gigantic breath through his snout, Tandkota acquiesced as he turned toward the group, taking a seat atop the snow as he pulled his duffel bag from his shoulder, "Coming from the man who has barely even been acquainted with climate."

Remnaar chuckled lightly as he followed the others to the ground, "Don't you worry; I know enough to show you up."

Ulric interrupted their childish argument with a quick, "There will be nothing until after we rest."

He eyed the three captives, lowering his head as he opened up a pouch of food to eat from, "You would find it more appealing in our company if you were more accepting of our generosity, you know."

Colin gave him a droll expression, muttering sarcastically, "Yes; thank you for all the hospitality you've shown us indeed."

Ulric shook his head, as if annoyed, "I have no problem leaving you up here, bound, if you'd prefer the hospitality of this mountain."

"Go ahead," Colin rolled his eyes plainly, "I know you're using me; you won't allow me to die."

The thick beard of Ulric contrasted so heavily with the white snow beneath it as he turned his head toward the captives, "Good thing you have companions then."

Colin grew pale in a second as he turned toward Kyra, who was looking worse for wear. She was in need of rest after the assault of the trolls, and given all that had happened the night before, this mighty trek was beginning to weigh her down. She still stared at Ulric defiantly, however, with the Shadowmoon zeal that Colin also expected Vylira to be demonstrating at that moment.

Unable to sit themselves without the use of their hands, the three of them looked on as Ulric's crew all took to sitting, as well as eating, all of them taking just glancing looks up at the three of them, mostly with regret in their eyes. Parvaen seemed to be taking it the hardest, as he'd hardly eaten, and kept rubbing his face as if lost in whether or not to speak.

Having noticed this, Ulric finally spoke up, rousingly, as if to quell any questioning of his authority, "Parv! If you've got something to say, then say it! God damn, man!"

Parvaen quickly shot a stare up toward his leader, though at the conclusion of his heated breaths, the blood elf turned toward Colin, "What does it mean exactly?"

Ulric, along with everybody else, gave Colin an inquisitive look, leaving him wide-eyed as he nervously made his rounds returning the stares of the others, "W-What?"

"Wehnehjo fus'obeah, dim cyaa T'ief" Parvaen repeated from the night before, "I know what you said, just- What does it mean?"

Colin cast his eyes down on the blood elf, seriously, though he couldn't be sure if the context he was replying to. He quickly checked on Ulric, who simply stared back with a quiet curiosity, before trying to form an explanation.

"Trolls are a very tribal society. So, oftentimes, they make sure to find relationships within the tribe. There's nothing wrong with seeking friendship outside the group, 'wehnejo', but if you were to bring a stranger I to the tribe, that's a very complicated thing," Colin spoke, looking away as he continued, slightly embarrassed, "Just by that sentence, I know that you were wehnehjo, and you had gone to the tribe of, if my conjugation is correct, a man that you must have loved?"

Parvaen's hand reached up to his face as his eyes screwed upward, in a sort of anguished awe, his palm covering his mouth as he quietly mumbled, as if to himself, "Zaakjin.."

Colin nodded, "Zaakjin, okay. I wouldn't know the specifics, but he must have unintentionally broken a rule of integration- quite an easy thing to do anyway. In those cases, they often kill wehnehjo as reparation for the troll's misdeed. Zaakjin seems to have offered up himself to be killed, so that you could live."

Tears had already begun to fall from Parvaen's eyes as he desperately reached for the craggy rock beneath him, as if he were afraid of collapsing into his own legs. As he sat down, he covered his face with a single hand, just a fraction of his mind able to realizing how embarrassed he should have been.

Colin quietly consoled, "If it counts for anything-"

"Stop," Ulric muttered, venomously, under his breath as he rubbed his ankle, "No more talk."

Remnaar turned to his leader, "Ulric, the man just-"

"I don't care," the human grumbled, "I'm not keen on any of you getting too close to any of them."

Colin's shifted toward Shadowmoon, who turned away from his glance, as if knowing what he was thinking and was silently attempting to let known to him her resistance. Remnaar shook his head slowly is dismay, shifting over toward Parvaen to offer a comforting arm around his friend, though the blood elf continued to weep as if he hadn't even noticed.

Colin eyed Ulric as he began to stand up, clearly tired of this stop by now, and preparing to leave. He realized that, were he to act, now would be the time- that both Kyra and Vylira would both agree that freedom would trump captivity, even on this frigid mountaintop. He took a few side-steps over, putting himself about halfway between his companions and Syheath, her eyes suddenly showing a darker light as she scowled up at him.

"Don't you dare-"

"How close would sisters be?" Colin suddenly asked, stopping Ulric in his tracks.

The human, who'd been rummaging through his rucksack, paused, peering deep into his bag as he heard Colin's words, his head slowly turning upward toward him with an accursed expression, "…what?"

Colin tilted his head toward Shadowmoon, "You wanna know her name? It's Syheath. She's the sister of my companions here."

Ulric shot a glance at Shadowmoon, who immediately shrugged, "The human must be fuckin' delusional, or desperate. Probably both."

He turned to Colin, who pointed at Shadowmoon, "Look at her shoulder. She's got a triangular scar from a piece of shrapnel that hit her when this one beat the shit out of their brother."

He'd pointed at Vylira, who merely shoved her hands into her pockets, staring back, fiercely, toward Ulric, still unsure of what exactly Colin was doing. In his sudden paranoia, Ulric turned to Shadowmoon, who sighed dramatically, shaking her head.

"You don't actually believe-"

"Show me your shoulder."

She recoiled, shooting back heatedly, "The fuck I am!"

"If you don't," Ulric pointed out, warily, "I'm going to assume you've something to hide from me."

Now angered by her leader's insistence, Shadowmoon breathed heatedly as she rose to her feet, grabbing at her collar and yanking it down her shoulder in one decisive motion, sure enough, revealing the two scars that formed something of a triangle, Shadowmoon smearing back at the man who had become a stranger.

"So? 's that what you wanted to see?" she muttered, fiercely, "They are my sisters; the fuck's that to you?"

Ulric suddenly turned to the two foreign elves to the group, the two of them quietly recoiling as they were both still bound, their wrists strapped up before them. However, just outside all three of their visions, Colin's feet dug in as his heart began to speed up, eying Ulric with a fearless determination. In one flash of motion, Ulric leapt toward the two of them, his fingers making like claws as he snarled loudly.

"You traitorous-!" he roared aloud, suddenly interrupted by a massive force ejecting itself into his side.

Colin had rushed to tackle him just before he made it to his targets, his arms bursting into flames to free himself from his ropes in a blazing incineration, though was shocked to realize the speed on the man. By the time he'd crashed into Ulric's fearsome body, the man had just clutched a fistful of Kyra's shirt, sending the both of them teetering to the mountains edge, right toward a nearby cliff. Their three bodies went falling right off the snowy peak, though as Colin's sense of gravity immediately betrayed him, he quickly reached out to grab at whatever he could, finding something just as his momentum was suddenly ceased, sending tremors through his body at the halting motion.

However, he remained hanging, feeling his body swaying back and forth as his arms suddenly seated with pain at the weight of holding himself up. His head jerked upward, finding himself cluching onto Ulric's leg, who, in turn, was single-handedly hanging onto Kyra, her tied wrists just barely latched onto the jutting recess of rock. Colin's heart raced, noticing her pained face, just barely making out her clutching teeth as she did all she could hold onto two men. He felt small sparkles of tears on his face as her body revolted against her will, trying anything to escape her pain.

Suddenly, Vylira slid down to Kyra, followed immediately by Tandkota, with Remnaar behind him, clutching onto his belt, with Vylira taking commend as she lowered a foot down toward Kyra, "Colin! Can you climb up?! Hang on, Kyra!"

Kyra could barely breathe, much less reply, as her hands tried their best to clutch onto the rock, hoping for any sort of relief. Vylira, whose hands were still bound, forfeited her place as Tandkota moved quickly, trying his best to not miss his footing. Vylira peered down over the edge to eye Colin, who was still swinging quite violently as he tried his best to work his way up Ulric's body, though he found it difficult without his cooperation.

"Give me your hand," Colin groaned, having nothing to pull himself on.

Ulric peered down toward him, his free hand reaching down in offering as Colin set himself in preparation to reach on up. He watched his arm strain as it coiled around Ulric's legs, finally content in his status, before reaching on up, his eyes following suit as his head turned up toward-

His eyes blew wide as Ulric's hand had, indeed, reached down, but had only reached into his pocket, whipping out a pocket knife before switching it open, turning it upside down as his muscles tensed, clearly preparing to strike up at Kyra. Colin stared up in shock, Kyra's tears still falling atop his face as a sense of terror washed over him. Vylira had noticed, and had even fallen to her knees to jump at the man, though she froze, knowing that doing so would have killed them all anyway. Her glowing eyes shifted just barely as Colin bared his teeth, his now-free hand opened up like a bear's paw about to claw its enemy.

Vylira felt her lungs collapse as Colin swung a mighty blow up at Ulric, almost lodging his nails into his skin from the sound of Ulric's sudden cry as he instinctively let go of Kyra, sending the two men straight down the mountainside, disappearing suddenly into the foggy clouds that trailed around the craggy surface. Vylira's eyes drew wide in horror, unable to move as she peered down into the abyss, every one of her senses failing her other than her sight. She heard nothing, and the biting cold failed to affect her now. She only felt the shaking horror reverberating throughout her body.

Slowly, she heard a distant crying, drawing closer and closer as the world around her grew nearer around her. Kyra remained hanging by her bonds, having ascertained what had happened simply by the sudden, horrible feeling of relief that had torn across her body. What pain that had consumed her body now tore through her heart.

"W-What..?" Vylira managed, just now realizing the sudden shock that now appeared on Remnaar and Tandkota's faces, the two of them both frozen all the same.

Vylira slowly made her way down to Kyra, bending down to offer her own bound arms against the rock as she leaned down, closer to Kyra's head, her youngest sister's tears bringing back memories of equally terrifying times, "Kyra…"

She didn't reply as she remained weeping, hanging there, forcing Vylira to continue through her own tears with a weak voice, "Kyra, please. I can't lose you too."

Kyra didn't reply, though her clenched hands slowly opened up, allowing Vylira to clutch her hand with her own, klutzily lifting her up off the rock and back up onto the smooth face of the rock. Kyra immediately fell to her knees, covering her head with her arms as she lost herself, leaving Vylira to watch her, sadly. The elder sister's face fell sadly, looking up toward the small rest area from just moments earlier, her eyes dimming at the sight.

"Please," she quietly pleaded, shaking her head at Remnaar, who had a gun pointed at the two of them with a frightened expression, "Please domt do this."

"We should have never let him come," the draenei spoke, lowly, "To think you three would lead to this…"

"You saw him," Vylira's voice shook between shaking nerves, "He was about to kill my-"

"Only because he sent him off this mountain," Remnaar clarified, his voice wavering, clearly unsure of assuming this role as an authority.

He turned to check on Parvaen and Shadowmoon, who'd both taken to their feet in the action, and back to Vylira, speaking to the group, "What do we do with them?"

Nobody answered. All that broke the air was the howling wind and Kyra's crying. Growing more nervous, Remnaar turned to Tandkota, the tauren watching Vylira suspiciously, as if attempting to see through her very soul, though this was interrupted by Shadowmoon, who quickly through a hand toward Remnaar, angrily scowling.

"You, stand down," she ordered, turning toward Vylira with the same heated expression, "You… Both of you. I want you two gone. You come all the way out here, you kill the man whose been…whose been a teacher and a leader, whose been more like a father to me than anybody on that fucking tree you two call home. If not for our ties by blood, I wouldn't mind Rem, here, shooting you both, dead."

"Syheath, I-"

"Don't you dare," Shadowmoon interrupted, nearly boiling over as she did before returning to her previous state, "Get out of here."

Kyra's head appeared as she shed her arms, no longer hiding her blood-red, stained cheeks, "We're doing no such thing. We're finishing what we came here to do."

Shadowmoon watched her with restrained surprise as Kyra shook her head, "Those dragons made a promise, and I intend to make them honor it."

Remnaar looked at Shadowmoon with a hint of worry, suddenly raising his gun into the air as he held up his hands, "Hey now; I didn't sign on to deal with any Aspects, here. Even I understand what those beings are capable of!"

All but ignoring him, Shadowmoon snapped back at Kyra, "Why won't you fucking listen to me and get out of here?! You've taken enough from me even before you showed up!"

Kyra shook her head once again, "Any other day, Syheath, and I would-"

In a single moment, Shadowmoon grappled ahold of Remnaar's gun, charging up to Kyra and shoving the flared end of the gun up beneath Kyra's chin, her finger straddling the trigger as furious tears rolled down her face, "I'm Shadowmoon! Stop stealing my name, too!"

Her face shook tearfully as Kyra's eyes watched her, sadly. The end of the gun slowly fell away from her sister's head as she dropped her arms to the side, hiding her face as she surrendered herself to her emotions. She'd lost so much to her younger sister: her family's attention at her young age, the respect of those upon Teldrassil who so much more respected Kyra's tenacity as a Sentinel than Syheath's more-adventurous tendencies. Now, she'd lost a man who'd meant so much to her.

Syheath jumped in surprise as a Kyra's body suddenly pressed up against hers, affectionately, as if into a hug had her arms been free, leaving Syheath to tremble from the shock. The two remained there, both teary-eyed, as the rest of the group looked on, though Vylira revealed something of a saddened smile at the sight.

"Look, I'd be an idiot to think those two have ceased to exist," Kyra muttered quietly, "I've seen too wild of events these last two years. So how's about we get down there and figure out what's going on, okay?"

Syheath didn't reply, nor did she return with a hug, leaving Kyra to sigh apologetically as she affectionately moved her head over to rest on Syheath's shoulder, "I never wanted to take anything from you."

Her older sister grumbled as her eyes turned toward her three companions, frowning at the idea of this all playing out in front of them all, lowly reaching up to grasp ahold of Kyra's shoulders, pushing her away, "How about we just put this aside for now."

"Agreed," Vylira answered for Kyra, turning toward Tandkota, "You lead this group now, I gather?"

Tandkota's eyes flashed in surprise, quickly shaking his head, "Oh, no. I would have thought Remnaar would be- he's been with Ulrich the longest."

The draenei shivered, "W-What? I have no such experience with such things! Shadowmoon was always his favorite; we all know it!"

Syheath turned to hide a blush as Remnaar turned inquisitively toward Parvaen, "Well?"

The blood elf crossed his arms, "As long as it's in their plan to go find Ulric and that other human, I'd follow anybody. That human has given me more peace of mind than anything these last few hundred years. I figure its my duty to repay that to him. As far as Ulric…"

Remnaar and Tandkota shared curious glances at one another as the draenei spoke up, "We…know he's been acting weird. Something I've not seen before. I'm quite curious as to the reason for it. So…"

He turned a hand over toward Syheath, "My lady. What would you have us do?"

She watched them, shocked, before softening her face into a knowing grin, turning toward Kyra, "How do you like me now?"

Kyra's eyes rolled, but Vylira quickly approached the two from behind, reaching her head in between them with a bright smile, "Now this is what I'm talking about! The three wild Shadowmoon girls finally together in the wide world at last! Were the circumstances not so dire, I'd have a drink!"

Parvaen pulled his rucksack up over his shoulder, "I've some gnomish brandy in here. I'll wait until this is all over to pour any out, though."

"Deal!" Vylira happily shot back at him, turning back to Syheath, "We're without our leader as well, so I suppose we are in your service as well."

Syheath looked at Kyra, skeptically, though her younger sister smiled with little enthusiasm, "I suppose I've taken enough from you, unintentionally or otherwise. It's time I give back, I guess, so…you have my sword, and my loyalty."

Skeptically, Syheath kept an eye on Kyra as she began, "Okay, were going to get down there to the Blight and see what has become of those two; I'm not about to risk anybody else by scaling down from here. Kota, can you keep up dredging the snow before us?"

The tauren nodded, "As long as Remnaar doesn't mind carrying my totem the rest of the way."

Remnaar groaned defeatedly, "Just when I thought I was demonstrate my prowess …"

"Everyone else," Syheath ordered, "Let's get these bags up and get a move-on."

She turned toward her two sisters, lightly, as she whipped out a knife, quietly reaching over toward the two of them, "I guess it's time we all were frees of what keeps us bound."

Vylira was the first to have her ropes severed, expressing happily as she immediately gave her sister a hug, gently holding her head against her shoulder, "Thanks, Sy-"

"Please. Stop," she muttered, mutely, "You're ruining your sister's shot at being freed as well."

From behind them came the large, upset voice of Remnaar, "Dammit!"

Parvaen chuckled, "Better get it picked back up before you get caught left behind."

"Ugh," Remnaar mused, quietly, "Ulric'll be pissed to find his bag just torn asunder."

Syheath clapped loudly, gaining everybody's attention, "Okay, we're heading out! We're gonna be- Rem!"

The draenei groaned mightily, "I'm picking it up!"

Grinning, Syheath playfully slapped his shoulder, "Hurry up; you and Kota are taking turns clearing the snow if you ever get back with the group."

Remnaar roared excitedly as he fell to his knees, packing in all of Ulric's wares, along with a healthy helping of snow in his enthusiasm, a wide smirk reaching over his face. His arm began to ache as he neared the end, thankful as he reached over for the last bits of equipment that had fallen out, though his eyes turned sharp as he grasped at the handle of a dagger that lay half-buried, the draenei pausing to think of where he had seen it before. It bore a serpentine design, with a flat, coiling edge that worked its way into a point where the snakes head might have been.

He shook his head, curiously, as he shoved it back into its home, jumping to his feet and rushing to join the rest of the party, his hooves leaving large paths in the sand where the rest had already trailed.