Lost so deeply in sleep, Colin's mind fell into the depths of his dreams, the fragments of his memories collecting and coalescing right into momentary amalgamations of hazy whispers behind his eyes. Points from his time in Northrend would intersect with old memories from Theramore or Echo Isles or wherever, creating rather odd moments of fake time in his dreams. Oftentimes they felt so real; real enough that, when he awoke, he had thought they were legitimate memories of his, sometimes even resulting in a cold sweat.
Tonight, however, his mind was lost in a beautiful collection of Teldrassil, though its massive boughs were rendered invisible, leaving the lush landscape open to the light of the moon above. He was walking the paths from one settlement to another, hand in hand with his beloved, sharing glances with this dream woman, who just happened to truly be his dream woman. It reminded him, even in this dreamscape, of the same escape he sought in his sleep upon returning home from his first trip to Teldrassil, the murderous painting of dead orcs plastering his mind until the look of Kyra Shadowmoon soothed him with a mere thought.
Slowly, Kyra's visage faded away, along with the rest of his dream, as his body lulled back into a period of light sleep, his mind once again going blank as his mind churned. In this darkness, however, his eyelids twitched, subconsciously reacting to a light that just entered the two's bedroom on this dark night of the new moon. A still, voyeuring pair of eyes remained just at the frame of the door, almost peeking in on the two bodies that slept at one another's side.
Colin's eyelids fluttered again, his body slowly rousing awake from the foreign sensation at his eyes, gradually opening to the view of the wooden planks of the roof, wondering why he had awoke, still this late into the night. As his eyes adjusted, he suddenly became aware of the soft light coming from the door, and his head quickly shot up, his face turning in shock as he came eye to eye with those two bright orbs staring right back at him.
His arms slowly pulled out from underneath the blankets as his hands slid silently along as well, ready to defend himself if need be, so full of a mounting fright that he'd forgotten the Silverwing sleeping right beside him. Still, as his face drained toward a more serious expression, the two eyes pulled up in amusement, tilting to the side as Colin just barely made out the shape of the person's figure slanting against the frame of the door.
Colin's face slowly spun in confusion as his eyes shrunk, peering through the darkness at the figure before quietly muttering aloud, "Vylira..?"
The body suddenly pushed off from the frame, the eyes quickly falling forward before disappearing as the very shape of Vylira took a bow, quietly returning to her standing position as she replied, nearly in a light whisper, "The one and only."
Now slightly upset by her sudden intrusion, Colin groaned, rubbing his face, "With a friend like you, I must not be in need of enemies. What are you doing here?"
"Watching my little sister sleeping," she answered, simply.
Colin continued, pithily, "No, what are you doing sneaking into our home in the middle of the night giving me a heart attack?"
Vylira grinned lightly, shrugging as she crossed her arms, her shoulder leaning back against the frame of the door, "I just wanted to watch my little sister sleep."
Unable to ignore the sweetly sentimental tone in her voice, Colin's perturbed attitude slowly melted away, his brow instead rising curiously as Vylira's head tilted to the side, rested against the door above her shoulder as she looked, almost sadly. Colin still couldn't see much of anything beyond her eyes or the faintest outline of her body, but he could still tell that she had something on her mind, if only by how the light of her eyes had been shaped by turned eyelids.
"I used to do this all the time when she was growing up. Watch her sleep, I mean," Vylira explained, softly, "I would often wonder whether or not she'd ever leave that bed back home. It was some fel magic or something; she was always I'll with something, often to the point where she couldn't stand up at all. I spent hours, worried. Worried that she would miss out on so much in life."
She released a slight sigh before going on, "Now she's living here in Stonetalon, sleeping, curled up to her mate, with some roughshod garden out front."
Colin's lips turned sour, "I mean, we tried…"
Vylira chuckled lightly, tilting her head toward a shrugging shoulder in indifference, "Whatever. In any case, I wanted to make sure I saw her again. Quite poetic, I suppose, to see her life this, taking me back so many years."
Slowly, Colin's eyes lowered curiously as he stared across the room, "…did something happen?"
The faint light of her eyes lowered along with her head, dread filling her voice, "I checked in with my Sisters up north about that pain that surrounded my neck. Turns out I didn't exactly return from Northrend unscathed."
A chill ran down the back of Colin's scalp, fleeing along his spine as a cold sweat nearly broke out along his forehead. He watched the dark outline of Vylira in horror, only imagining what she might have been referring to. He slowly pushed himself back to where he was sitting against the headboard, feeling Kyra's sleep-filled hand curl back into herself as he pulled away, staring pensively toward her sister. He brought a hand up, his palm gradually radiating with heat until a small ball of fire appeared, illuminating his hand and the bed surrounding him.
He lifted his hand so that his palm turned toward Vylira, the fireball slowly floating across the room, lighting up a circular pattern along the bed, and soon enough, the floor as it hovered closer toward the door. Vylira remained unmoved as the flame approached her, its licks and bursts of fire remaining mostly still, matching the serious expression along Colin's face, which Vylira could no longer see, the top of the bed being obscured by the soft light before her. Suddenly, as her body came into illumination, the flame began to flicker wildly in time with Colin's speeding heartbeat and his breath, which took a quiet gasp upon seeing the condition that this Silverwing was in.
She was staring back at him with a plain look on her face, which appeared just as normal as ever; her lavender skin nearly hidden behind snow white tufts of hair that fell before it. Then, as Colin had immediately noticed, came her neck, which had turned an almost jet black, the color wrapping around her in a sickly band that swirled around there, tapering off and running down in a thin line down her chest, as far as Colin could see before running into her shirt.
"It's not terribly bad," Vylira noted, rather easily, reaching up and pulling at her collar to stare down her body, "I mean, it looks worse when it gets down there, but you only wish you could-"
"What happened?" Colin interrupted, not at all amused by her joking.
She sighed, "That whole ordeal up in Northrend with that satyr-demon. I told you, it had me coiled in something; it seems to have left a mark after all- it just appeared a few days ago."
Shrugging, she reached out her hand to wave away the flame, Colin snuffing it out with a clenched hand as darkness immediately consumed the room once again, "It doesn't hurt or anything, just- The Sisters told me to go back to Darnassus. See what the Priestesses say about it. Given the circumstances though…"
Colin was still slightly laboring under his heavy breaths from his surprise, slowly reaching over toward Kyra, though Vylira was quick to stop him, "No. Don't wake her. Trust me, the last thing I want is for her to see me like this… I just wanted to come see her before going back. In case I don't get a chance again anytime soon."
He pulled away his hand, respecting her wishes as he turned his head down reverently, listening intently as Vylira went on, "More than anything, fighting for her mattered more to me than anything else. More than our people, even; they never needed my help. They always had others. But Kyra, you know… She truly needed a loving sister. Needed me."
She grew silent in thought, simply staring off into the darkness at the spot in the bed where Kyra's head just barely poked out, her forehead curling up sadly, or perhaps simply in nostalgia. She sighed, pulling her crossed arms apart as she stood up straight, adjusting her sleeves before turning her head out the door.
"I guess I should go now."
Colin quickly spoke up, "Before you go. Go look in the bathroom cabinet, should be the one on the left. It should complete your set. Bring it back and say a proper goodbye for once, alright?"
Vylira had turned back toward him and simply gave a nod, her eyes suddenly moving as such in the darkness before they disappeared, her light footsteps just barely ringing out back to Colin's ears. She made her way across the hall and into the meager bathroom the two had managed to build, doing her best to make her way deeper into the room through the pitch-blackness.
She silently opened the cabinet door, immediately noticing a purple, towel-like item sitting there. Curiously, her head tilted to the side as she reached in to grab it, gently pulling it along before it flopped downward in the air, her other hand slowly reaching up to push it up so that she could examine the square-shaped item, folded up for storage. Sure enough, it was indeed a bathrobe, dyed an orchid color with the unmistakable embroidery of a large, white 'V' at its chest, in heavily stylized print.
Vylira's lips pulled inward as the drop of a tear appeared at the edge of her eye, suddenly falling along her cheek before falling to the ground with a twinkle of starlight before both of her eyes were soon filled with a multitude of tears, which was matter that Vylira was far too unfamiliar with by now. She quickly pulled the robe into her face as her body fell back into the wall, covering her silent crying with the gift that was far more meaningful to her than any other word or deed. She was truly wanted here.
Colin sat there in bed for a few moments before a sudden tug at his heart appeared, his eyes curiously turning up toward the door, still finding that spot vacant. He bit his lip, wondering what might have been taking her, and becoming slightly worried, he spun his body to the edge of the bed, pushing himself to his feet as a particularly lovely sigh escaped from Kyra, who'd woken up from his movement and had taken to stretching out her whole body across the entire length of the bed.
"Mmmmwhat's up?" she asked, still slightly delirious as Colin smiled down at her, reaching over to take her hand into his as she stretched it out toward him.
"Nothing," he clarified, "I'll be back; I just need something to drink."
Kyra groaned sleepily as his hand escaped her, leaving Kyra to stretch once again before curling up beneath her pillow as she squeezed it against her head, "After dealing with me like last night, I'm sure you do."
Now slightly afraid that Vylira had heard such words, Colin walked quickly toward the hallway, swinging his arms heavily as if he was trying to rush only quietly until he reached the threshold of the door, finding the entryway to the bathroom to have been empty as well. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he walked across the hallway and into the bathroom, his shoulders dropping as he found it vacant as well, with only the open cabinet as evidence that Vylira had even been there.
He sighed, shaking his head drolly as he made his way further into the bathroom, reaching up to close the door before approaching it, stopping in his tracks as his eyes locked on to the robe sitting there, obviously eschew from how it had been left by him. His arm dropped to the side, his eyes watching the robe for a moment as if he couldn't be sure whether or not it was even there. He slowly, reverently, reached up to grab at it, slowly pulling it out to view it, his brow gradually falling as he saw the dark stains along its front.
Colin quickly looked up toward the door, as if expecting Vylira to be there, though all he saw was the length of the hallway leading down the house. His lips tugged to the side, sadly, before he placed the folded up robe back in the cabinet, crossing his arms as he thought of that Silverwing and what could have possibly brought her to tears. That must have been why she hadn't returned to say goodbye, he thought.
She truly was something when it came to exits.