Chaszmyre woke, gasping and sweaty with small hands shaking her shoulder. She shuddered, scrambling to sit up and push sticky curls out of her face. "Mama you were dreaming!" Ly'rana whispered urgently and both the small hands that had been shaking her moved to squeeze one of Chaszmyre's inked ones.

Slowly the shapes of the room came into focus, familiar and normal. Letting her daughter keep hold of one hand, she laid back, stretching her free hand toward the window to push it open. The thin shaft of moonlight and cool breeze helped to bring Chaszmyre further into the waking world.

"It was a bad dream wasn't it?" Ly'rana didn't mince words or bother waiting for a reply before climbing into bed with her mother, still holding her hand. Once she was settled, one hand reached for the mug of water she'd brought with her.

"I brought you my water," Ly'rana explained and pushed the cup into her mother's hands. Chaszmyre took the mug in both of her hands and drank greedily from the room temperature water.

"Thank you," she finally replied and set the mug in the window sill, reaching to wrap Ly'rana up in her arms. "It was a bad dream," Chaszmyre agreed and buried her face in the girl's dark hair.

"What was it about? The Bad Man?" Ly'rana didn't push for eye contact while asking her question, letting her mother snuggle into her hair. She knew about the Bad Man from previous nights woken by Chaszmyre's cries. It was the simple explanation she'd been given about the man with the mysterious nightmare drug that had left a permanent mark on her mothers psyche.

"No," the woman breathed out and took another deep breath in of the comforting scent of Ly'rana's hair. She paused there, realizing it was strange that the figures in her dream had not dissolved into the image of Xelyr burned into her memory.

"It was about your dad," she settled on as an answer. It was uncomfortable as well but easier to explain, easier to play down. "From when he died."

The answer made Ly'rana sit up straighter and she finally turned to look at her mother. As she shifted, so did Chaszmyre until they both sat cross-legged on the bed. Her gold-flecked eyes were wide, searching her mother's face as if trying to measure how far she could go with what she wanted to say next.

"You don't talk about him very much," she ventured warily but couldn't resist pushing into bolder territory. "But you miss him."

Chaszmyre nodded, eyeing her daughter with the same apprehension. The young girl looked so much like him- his sharper cheekbones, all of Ly'rana's features seemed more defined as she grew into them. Her eyes were the only part that Chaszmyre truly felt she saw herself reflected back in. That and the messy, curly hair. She ran her fingers through the girl's hair and finally forced smile.

"I do. Very much," she admitted and Ly'rana let out a small breath it seemed she'd been holding.

"I wish I met him. I want to know what he's like. Was, like?"

Taking another sip of water to stall, Chaszmyre let out a sigh as she set the cup back in the window.

"Your dad was really funny," she began and couldn't stop a smile from creeping into her face in spite of the hard truth of his absence. "He always had a joke or an idea to make a moment seem not so heavy, to make life more fun."

"So like uncle Kel," Ly'rana said and leaned past Chaszmyre to collect her mug of water and finished the contents. Fortunately unable to see her mother's expression at that question. She recovered from the cringe by the time they made eye contact again in the dim light.

"Yes well he was really good friends with your dad so they were a lot alike!" She managed to say without giving away too much in her words or face.

If Ly'rana realized something was up, she didn't comment on it and instead pressed the original topic again. "Tell me more about dad," she insisted.

"Well, even though he always seemed so lighthearted, it took him a long time to really open up to people. You know how you talk with Tyri and Torunn is different than with the kids in your dance class?"

"Because I'm closer to them?" Ly'rana clarified.

"Yes, exactly. It took your dad a long time to be close, with anyone. Even me," she admitted with a smirk. Chaszmyre thought back briefly to her early interactions with Anynduil and sighed softly.

"Sometimes," she continued, looking to her daughter more seriously. "It would upset me. Because your dad wasn't as friendly or close with people I cared about like Nemeore. I was very social and had friends, and I wanted him to be a part of that. But it took a long time for him to warm up to people, so he stayed back a lot of the time."

Ly'rana nodded at this and scooted closer to lean into her mother's side, head on her shoulder. "Is it weird that I miss him even if I never met him?" She asked quietly, looking straight ahead at a bookshelf but likely not really seeing it.

"No," Chaszmyre answered, wrapping an arm around her. "Even though you never met him, he's part of you. He's in your nose, he's in these beautiful cheekbones," she added and gave a soft squeeze at Ly'rana's cheek.

"He's in your books," Ly'rana added and peeked up at her mother's face with an expression that suggested she'd snooped deeper than the portraits Chaszmyre had shared with her.

"That's true, he's in a lot of my books. Some of the drawings aren't for little eyes that should be careful what they go looking at," she chided and squeezed the child's shoulders in a half hug.

Ly'rana grinned sheepishly and nodded. "Maybe we can look at more of your drawings together?"

Chaszmyre nodded and kissed the top of her head, once again taking in the comforting scent of the child's hair. The fresh baby smell had long since dissipated, but she found something about the Ly'rana's unique scent always calmed her, no matter how much she'd grown.

"We can look tomorrow and I can tell you a little bit about what was happening at the time, how does that sound?"

A wide smile took over Ly'rana's face and she looked even more like her father than ever. She nodded and squirmed excitedly. "Yes!"

"Alright, lets try to rest up more until then, go on." Chaszmyre patted her back and Ly'rana reluctantly slipped off the bed.

As years fly by it seems like there are more and more people to think of on the day we reflect on our dead loved ones. I missed and longed for my parents from the first day I spent in Silvermoon and it only got worse when we received news of their death. Though I’d been estranged from my aunt for a handful of years by the time Arthas marched on Quel’thalas, it was still painful to hear of her being among the fallen. She’d wanted only the best for me, we just couldn’t agree on what that was. 

Llenne was perhaps a strange addition to my ‘festive’ musings. We were never close, not as we trained among the Farstriders and certainly not when we found each other again. Between Adokul, the Sunshield-Menethren tensions and when we were on opposite sides of the rebellion it almost made no sense to mourn her. But I think we always saw something of ourselves in each other.

Of course Anynduil is what brought me to observe the holiday with any effort. Lighting all the candles and staring through their flames reminded me of seeing him during Midsummer. The start of our second try. It didn’t take much though, for me to think of the flames of the last time I’d seen him, flames I set. The pyre I built.

“Passion. Motivation. Commitment. You want me to swear that I’ll always be by your side? I can gladly do that. I’ll slice my arm, cut off a limb, whatever it would take to prove to you that I care. You want me to show emotion, signs that I care about what happens in this war, my motivation for fighting. I just…I don’t know. I need some fresh air. Don’t worry. I won’t prove your lordling right by running away.”

I’ve never been good with words but I remember the last thing he said to me, our fight. The reason. Remembering what I’d said before that was even more painful. There was no taking it back, nothing I could do that would ever change the last thing I said to him. It doesn’t matter, how I’d reached out over the glyph, anything I’d tried to apologize with. Just the thought, that I’d been speaking to the void, that he’d already been dead, when I called to him, had sent me into a days-long fits of misery. 

I never want to feel that again, that hurt, that regret. There was no shame to admit, quietly to myself and Warmonger, that I never wanted to lose another person to war. It isn’t something that can really be helped, but I can at least make sure my last words to someone are ones I can live with. 

I didn’t invite him over to test my cooking, or to move Riedra’s furniture.

"Why are we bothering to talk about anything else?"

The small talk and how fucking happy he seemed were more than I could take. I invited him back, to try and win him back.

"I wanted sex. You provided. No big deal, Chasz. I’m sorry for using you, but it’s what I do. I’m not really a relationship kind of guy, after all."

That’s what he’d said the last time he stood in this kitchen. And I believed him. I believed every word and felt stupid for thinking we were more. Stupid for thinking maybe I really cared about him. Maybe I-

"I can see it was a mistake coming here. I’m just making things worse."

Light he was. Just looking at him. Seeing that smile. Those hands, as they nervously rolled that worn coin down the knuckles. Those are my hands. Those are my lips, telling me it was a mistake to come here.

I let him leave. I dumped the attempted breakfast into the sink and poured myself several drinks. I cursed myself for letting him walk out. Again.

~

Something in the conversation since Braeden woke and joined us at the table seemed to have upset Commander Steeldawn. Though not enough that he left without finishing his eggs. As he yanked his helm back into place, he fixed his unreadable gaze on me at the door.

"I don’t know why everyone says you’re such a bad cook."