Archmage Hytharion of the Kirin Tor sat in his home, enjoying a day off as he studied a book of spells. He was a young blood elf at only twenty-six years old. He had a laid-back personality and was sometimes a little immature, but he could be serious when needed, especially when it came to his work. He was cautious, sensitive, and introverted and considered himself more of a pacifist than anything, preferring to study magic rather than using it to fight. It was not through study alone that he had been granted his title though and he was perfectly capable of defending himself. He was tall and fairly thin with short, dark blond hair and a small patch of hair on his chin. A few small, silver hoops hung from the tops of both pointed ears. His bright, azure eyes always surveyed his surroundings carefully and curiously. Two faded scars, gained long ago, ran across his right eye. His right hand, lost long ago when he was younger, was replaced by a prosthetic that he had made himself and enchanted so he could move it with his thoughts. The majority of his left leg was replaced by a prosthetic as well, though that terrible loss was much more recent.
During the third invasion of the Burning Legion, a brutal war the world had won at great cost not so long ago, he had been captured and brutally tortured by demons for many days in an effort to extract information from him. After a very close escape attempt, they took his leg as punishment. He had passed out from the pain and very nearly bled out, but luckily, he was found by a search party and was brought back to Dalaran, though he was told he was unconscious for three days and that his fate hadn't been certain until he woke up. It still hurt to walk, but every day, it got easier, and the healers were satisfied with the progress. His other wounds were mere scars now and while broken bones were not able to be fully healed by magic either, they too were nearly mended. The only thing that didn't seem to be making much progress was his mind. He still found it frequently wandering back to those terrible days and he considered it a good night when he managed to get a few hours of sleep without a nightmare. He was not supposed to return to his duties for several weeks. Nobody expected him to after what he had been through, and the healers were adamant that he rest. Ignoring both their advice and his wife's concern, however, he buried himself in study and work as soon as he regained enough strength to stand and use crutches. It distracted him from the memories that crept into his mind whenever his focus wasn't somewhere else.
His wife, Delania, helped him whenever she could, doing her best to help calm him after a nightmare, supporting him as he got used to his leg and helping him out when he got tired or sore, and he was grateful he had her. She was also a mage and had joined the Kirin Tor not long after him. She was a human from Lordaeron with beautiful green eyes and long, silky, red hair, who lived a simple, peaceful life until, like his own, it was shattered by the Scourge, and she barely managed to escape when her family turned. They bonded over their trauma and loss, but also their similarities. They had laughed with each other, cried with each other, shared their deepest and darkest thoughts and secrets, and when he finally got the courage to propose to her, she didn't hesitate to say yes. They studied together, fought together, and even started a family.
Loud crying suddenly caught his attention. He had vaguely heard their footsteps and giggling in the back of his mind, but he had been too involved in his book to notice that his children had been chasing each other around the house. "Papa, Max fell!" He set the book down and adjusted his glasses as he followed his six-year-old daughter's pointing finger to where her three-year-old little brother sat crying on the floor, though the only actual injury he could see was a slight scratch on his knee.
"Come on, Maxian, there's no need to cry," he said gently. "It's just a tiny booboo." Maxian, who had inherited his father's elven features much more than his sister had, looked at him with bright, glowing blue eyes, his lip quivering and his mop of black hair draping his face. "Hey, don't look at me like that," he chuckled. "Come on." He snapped his fingers, and Maxian was suddenly in his arms. The boy looked at him in amazement, looking back and forth from him to the spot he'd just been. Hytharion smiled. That trick always worked.
"Kalira, what have we told you about running in the house?" Delania called as she glided down the stairs that led up to everyone's bedrooms.
"No running unless there's an emergency," Kalira muttered as she looked down at the floor, having been lectured many times.
"That's right." Delania headed into the kitchen and began levitating ingredients from the cupboard. "I'm making lunch, you guys," she sang. "Who wants a maaagic saaandwich?"
"Me! Me! Hungry!" Maxian shouted, eagerly jumping off his father's lap, his wound seemingly forgotten.
Kalira, her long, reddish-brown hair covering one slightly glowing hazel eye, looked at her father. "Can I?"
"Of course, Firebug, just because you got into a bit of trouble doesn't mean you can't eat," he told her. She grinned and started towards the kitchen. "You have to pay the price first, though!" he called after her. With a snap of his fingers, he teleported her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
She squealed and giggled as she tried to free herself. "It feels funny when you poof me!"
"That's what makes it fun," he laughed.
"Love you, Papa!"
"I love you too," he replied, smiling, as he let her go. "Now you can go eat." She leapt off the couch and rushed to the kitchen to watch her mother make lunch.
"'Hythe? You hungry?" Delania called.
"No, I'm good. Thank you, though."
He could see them from his spot on the couch, and he watched as they poked at each other and argued over who got the first sandwich while Delania tried to assure them it didn't matter. He couldn't help it as his smile faded. Their constant bickering and many of their mannerisms reminded him so much of his siblings when they were younger. While he did miss his sister, who he had only seen a few times since the start of the war with the Legion, what saddened him the most though was that Maxian looked more and more like his late uncle every day.
When the Scourge invaded Quel'thalas many years ago, his family was out fighting back against the undead. Too young to join the fight, he was ordered to stay in the safety of the city and thus was spared from seeing both the horrors of the Scourge and the deaths of his parents. His siblings were not so fortunate. As a priest, his brother and oldest sibling, Baladir, was out healing his parents as they fought back the undead. When the Scourge began to overwhelm them, they tried to retreat, but it was too late, and he watched helplessly as they were torn to shreds. He was badly wounded as well and just barely escaped with his life.
His sister, only a year younger than Baladir, was a lieutenant in the Farstriders. She was at the front lines that day, and he would never forget the absolute dread he felt when word got back to the city that the leader of the Farstriders, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, had fallen. He wanted so badly to go and look for Falaria, but by the time the news had come, the Scourge was upon the city and he and Baladir were forced to scramble to find a hiding place. When relief finally came days later and the survivors began gathering in the ruins, he and his brother joined them. He desperately begged for them to help him find his sister, but no one believed it possible that she could be alive. Frustrated, he had snuck out to look by himself. After searching for many hours, he miraculously found her, delirious and with a badly broken leg, though efforts were very nearly in vain. He was attacked by a ghoul that would have killed him if Baladir had not noticed him missing and followed him.
Falaria's wounds were not merely physical. She rarely moved and barely even acknowledged them. She refused to tell them what happened. To this day, Hytharion had only ever gotten bits and pieces of what she had gone through. She ate little, drank even less, and only got rest when she passed out from exhaustion, though even that was frequently interrupted by terrible nightmares that made her wake up screaming. Baladir was instrumental in getting her to take the first steps to recovery, getting her to take small bites of food and tiny sips of water, and comforting her when she had nightmares. They were baby steps, but steps nonetheless. With her broken mind, she was oblivious to Baladir's pain, but Hytharion could see that he wasn't taking care of himself as much as he was them. When he asked him about it, Baladir said that he felt his suffering necessary to atone for "letting his parents die." He tried to convince him there was nothing he could have done, but nothing he said had helped. It was only a few weeks later when Baladir told them he wished to leave Quel'thalas. He wanted to find whatever was left of the human paladins in Lordaeron, convinced that he could have saved their parents if he had been more than a priest. Initially, he was adamant about his choice, but when Falaria frantically pleaded with him to stay, more desperate and distraught than either brother had ever seen her, he reluctantly assured her he would, and when she made him promise her, he did.
Hytharion had thought the promise genuine... until he was gone two days later.
Falaria was devastated, and her barely healed mind shattered all over again. She gave up on life, and with no other family that had survived the Scourge, Hytharion had to work hard to take care of her. Keeping her alive was a full-time job, and he was rarely able to have a life of his own until her mind was haphazardly bandaged back together by the reappearance of Sylvanas Windrunner several years later. She had formed somewhat of an unhealthy attachment to the Banshee Queen. She listened to her every command and had done things that he was sure would make any rational person question their orders, but he was unable to convince her that Sylvanas was no good. Sometimes he wondered why he even cared as long as she didn't mentally check out again. He was bitter that she never thanked him or even really acknowledged his efforts, but he had kept that bottled up. Her mind still wasn't the same, not really.
He was also bitter when Baladir never returned. Bitter and hurt. He had hoped that perhaps when he became a paladin, he would come back. That was what he said his intentions were, after all. He had searched possible factions Baladir could have joined, but he had had no luck and had come to the sad conclusion that he was most likely dead. He often wondered if Baladir had succeeded in his quest. Had he accomplished his mission and died in battle? Or had he even found them? He wondered how things might have gone if he had never left...
"Hythe? Are you okay, Love?"
His attention was snapped back to the present as Delania sat down on the couch beside him. "Hm? Oh, y-yes, yes, I-I'm fine." He silently cursed himself for his nervous stuttering and was glad for the distraction when Kalira bolted out of the kitchen with a sandwich and attempted to run upstairs. With a snap of his fingers, he teleported her to them. She was stunned for a second before letting out an annoyed groan. "No food outside the kitchen," he reminded her.
"You and Mama bring food out here!" she argued, gesturing to her mother's sandwich.
"We've explained this, sweetheart. You leave crumbs everywhere," Delania said.
"But I promise I won't this time!" She turned and attempted to run upstairs again, but Delania teleported her back.
"We can do this all day, Kally."
She frowned at them and stomped her foot. "That's not fair that you can do that!"
"But it's fun," Hytharion replied, giving her a smile and a wink. "And maybe one day you'll be able to annoy your own children with it. Now go eat at the table." She stuck her tongue out at him and flicked her finger towards him. The tiniest of embers shot from her fingertip, though it was extinguished by the time it landed on his glasses. She snickered and ran back to the kitchen. "Firebug, what did we say about doing magic in the house?" he called after her. He took his glasses off and attempted to wipe the ash off the lens but frowned as he only managed to smudge it.
He heard an exasperated sigh that brought his smile back. "You do magic in the house! You're a hi... hy... ha... uhh... harpycat!" He bit back a laugh, and Delania looked shocked at him.
"You're just going to let her call you that? You know the word she was looking for."
"Heh, I find it amusing. My parents weren't very strict. Look how I turned out," he chuckled as he attempted to clean off the spot with his shirt.
"Ha! I don't know about you, but I want children that get up at a decent time, practice spells they've never cast in a safe area, and occasionally brush their hair," she laughed, playing with his messy locks.
"What, you don't think the spare bedroom is a safe place to practice?"
"Believe it or not, no, I don't, especially not for a certain little girl who inherited her father's gift for fire."
"That's me!" came a food-muffled voice from the kitchen.
"Indeed it is dear, but remember what we said about talking with your mouth full?" They both smiled as they heard grumbling. She looked back at him as he rubbed vigorously at the spot on his glasses, his tongue stuck out partway. "You know there is a cloth specifically to clean those, right?"
"Yes, well, I get my stubbornness from Mom," he muttered. He touched the lens with the tip of his finger, and the glass frosted over. He then wiped it again with his shirt, and the spot came away. "Huzzah!"
"Did the tongue help?"
He chuckled as he put them back on. "Maybe."
He picked up his book again and she was silent for a long time as she took a few bites of her sandwich. "Are you really not going to tell me what's bothering you?"
He closed his eyes as he set his book down. He didn't really want to talk about it, but he hated to keep things from her. Besides, it usually helped him feel better, even if it was just a little. "It's just... it's Baladir," he sighed. "Maxian..." he said, keeping his voice low. "You have no idea how much he looks like him. Every day, I see him more and more..."
"You miss him?" She sounded slightly surprised. He didn't blame her. He didn't completely understand it either.
"I... Yes... and no. I was angry for a long time. Angry... That word doesn't even begin to describe it... but now, yeah, I-I miss him." He took his glasses off again and tried to wipe away the building tears, but they came right back. "What we went through after he left... W-What I went through..." Old memories he thought buried bubbled to the surface, and his own young, still slightly squeaky voice echoed in his mind
I-I-I don't know what happened, I wasn't gone for very long! P-Please, you have to save her!
We will do what we can but your sister has lost a lot of blood. I make no promises...
Delania squeezed his shoulder, bringing his focus back once again. "I-I'll never forgive him for what we went through, but... he was still my brother. I still love him."
"I'm so sorry," she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him. She was silent as he rested his head on her shoulder and quietly let his tears flow.
After a minute, he lifted his head and wiped his eyes. "Thank you."
"Of course." She looked as if thinking for a few moments. "Would making a grave for him help? It helped me after my family... It doesn't take away the pain, not completely, but it helps bring closure."
"Hmm." He cocked his head, thinking. He remembered when he and his sister made graves for their parents. They couldn't find their bodies, so, like many others had done, they buried tributes, precious items that their parents had given to them, the ones that hurt the most to look at. What could he bury for Baladir, though? "Maybe... Falaria and I put our parents to rest back home. I know he would want to be beside them. Not today, though. I would have to bury something of his, and I don't know if I actually kept anything. Besides, I know Falaria hates his guts, but it would probably be rude of me not to ask her to join me. When I go - if I go - would you come with me?"
"I would be glad to, but I don't think I'd be welcome in Silvermoon."
"You'll be fine as long as you stay by me."
"Then of course I will, Love. Whenever you're ready."
"Thank you, Beloved."