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Leaning back into a worn, wooden chair the Engineer’s head hangs over the back, as if to lock eyes with the door; yet, all he can stare up at is the ceiling. Ears twitch, awaiting another round of knocks. One moment. Then two. Then three. Nothing. Brows furrow, and he sits back up right, calloused fingers wrapped around the cold metal of a small wrench, and again, placing the end against the bolt he was attempting to twirl into place. 

Then the sound comes again, two knocks, and nothing more. Lips part with the exhale of a wheezing sigh, the tool in hand dropped down as hands replace themselves atop his work desk. 

“Okay! Okay, I’m coming.” 

The legs of his chair drag across the floor, and soon the bottom of feet are doing the same; shuffling across the small room to plant himself at the rounded door. Eyes are closed when the creaking of the old wood sounds in his ears, and his mouth opens before his vision does. 

“I know it’s polite ‘n all, but you kind’a live here too, so, you can just walk in--”

“Erengyl.”

A silence flutters, and Eren finds himself glued to the spot, a pair of dulling green eyes locked upon that of lich-fire blue, a coloring that he’s become all too used to glancing toward; yet, this pair was different. Wrong. It was wrong. What--...were they saying? Pale lips are moving, yet the boy can’t seem to catch a word. Instead he stands, stunned, staring wide-eyed at the image of seeming imagination. 

“Erengyl, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t just show up like this. This is your home, I should have waited until you came to visit, but this felt right.”

Tanrel stares right back, voice rushed as she takes in the new image of her young--...tattered, scarred, broken. Eight years had been far longer than she could even wrap her mind around. The silence is almost sickening, and the look of disbelief she is returned with even more so.

“Erengyl? Gale...?”

For once, the boy of unending thoughts is speechless, nothing sounding in his mind but the pulsing in his ears and the sudden flurry of doubt gripping his core. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. First the City, now his home--...A sudden, shuddering breath wracks his frame, bringing his thoughts back down to Azeroth. Head shakes, and feet are tumbling back into the small home, a buckling of his knee sending him off-kilter to grab out for his desk chair to steady himself.

 It’s not real. Calm down. Just breathe.

“Y-you’re not here--!”

“I know what this might seem like--”

“Stop. Stop talking to me. You’re not real.”

His gaze locks down upon the figure, an almost mirror of himself looking back--cropped reddish hair, pale skin, a dusting of freckles scattered along the Death Knight’s features. And that VOICE, he knows that voice. Why does it sound so clear? It’s never this clear--

“You’re--...you’re supposed to be dead.”

The Engineer breathes out, and before he can further spill his speech the Knight had already drawn in through the threshold, her fragile frame cautiously traveling up to the now, trembling form of her child. The chill surrounding the room is unbearable, cracks of ice coating around each heavy plated boot; yet neither seem to notice that little detail.

“I know, and I was. You laid your Father and I to rest eight years ago, Erengyl. I’m so sorry, we never wanted to put you through that.”

Her tone lilts with a sorrow, a guilt, a bitten back shame for never returning--for losing on that field of battle without so much as a goodbye to their only offspring. Another step forward, chilled fingertips reached out with a rising caution before gently patting down against a shoulder, though she doesn’t move further, fearful she’d only spook the boy even worse. 

Eren doesn’t make a move nor a sound, he barely even breathes to the touch of a hand. It was real. That was real. It’s never been tangible before, only voices, forms blurry before his vision, yet he can FEEL this, the frigid chill it sends down his arm and the shock it jumps in his heart. A faltering breath is all he can catch before chest heaves with the struggle, with the soft pitting of hiccuping sobs filling the silence of his voice. Ears wilt back slow as blue and green again meet, and the moment lights upon how young the Engineer really is despite being into young adulthood; how to Tanrel she still sees the child she had raised, perhaps taller, more athletic, and coated in visible scarring--...but not much else but his physical attributes alone had changed in these years.

“M--Mom...?”

While he knows this not to be a fantasy, not another trick of his mind, he can’t shake the doubt that something was WRONG. That this wasn’t right--she wasn’t supposed to be here. She was dead. They were both dead. He SAW them again, but not on the right plain of existence...

How did this happen? 

Before lips can even part to raise his questions he can feel his body being pulled in, the swell of an embrace enveloping his form; and while it lacked the warmth he’d known, it doesn’t seem to much matter as it only proves to coax further cries forth. Arms raise and fingers curl back against hard plate, the softened shushes by the woman fluttering by like a whisper. 

“Shhh--...my dear, do not cry. It’s okay, I’m here.”