#lhysandra

Up she stands, setting the bloodied, gritty gauze strips aside, reaching into the medical kit with both hands.  She pulls free a pair of vials, one in blue and the other in a pale yellow, and a glass dish.  The vials are given a shake before their contents are poured into the dish, then set aside.  The chemical reaction that begins is subtle, changing the two liquid components into an off-white colloid, from which fingerlets of frost can be seen spreading across the tabletop.

"Here's what we'll need to do, Laevra.  It looks like we were able to get most of the grit and so forth out of the scrapes here.  You're probably going to want to soak the rest off."  Once again she reaches for the little lady's cheeks.  "Can you open your mouth for me?  I'd like to avoid stitches if at all possible inside there, but we don't want it to scar."  

Ears perk and pierced brows lift as she peers.  “Once you’ve soaked, I’ll apply some cool compresses to your ankle and foot to bring that swelling down.”  

There is indeed no apparent head trauma despite her claims of having fallen, her eyes only slightly dilated from fear and readily lessening as she grows a little more safe.  She trembles as if cold, although it is more lingering horror and creeping effects of shock that guide her down that path.  “I can’t imagine it was simple,” she agrees quietly, her voice wispy as if only partially paying attention.  Distracted by the throb of pain and the knowledge that more extensive care might be needed, she appears to be fighting to focus on the conversation as means of putting off what may be inevitable.  Pain was not something the little lady enjoyed.  

“I... I know the basics,” she admits after a few moments, then continues to clarify.  “Of alchemy.  I wouldn’t mind knowing more.”  At least it might be something to study while she decided what to do.  She was merely lucky her father had a home here.  

Laevra draws a shaking breath, closing her eyes as Lhysandra soothes some of the cuts.  Thankfully most of them appear to be shallow enough, and although her gown is torn in places, there is no sign of invasive injury no matter what roughness she had suffered from her attackers.  

As another form of distraction, the girl watches Lhysandra and the mixture she creates, not daring to ask what it might be.  Her father trusts this woman, and despite how frightening she had been before, Laevra was certain it would be all right to do the same.  It takes a moment as the lissome woman begins to speak for the young mage to look up at her again, ears tilting back slightly.  Soaking?  Oh, a bath.  “What about my ankle?”  She blinks, only now seeming to notice the throb and ache of the injury as she glances down at the bruised, swollen area.  Her brow knits slightly, and then she looks back up at Lhysandra and, belatedly, opens her mouth when she can feel the cool fingers against her cheeks.

"I'd be happy to share some of my research with you.  I'd gather a librarian would appreciate alchemical appendices and experimental codices.  You can make the most fascinating compounds with a few plants, some volatiles and organics, and plenty of time."  A distraction is in order--something to pull her interest and focus away from her traumatic departure. There will be questions aplenty for when she has had time to process.

Perhaps the young lady doesn't notice the investigative sniff at close proximity. The bruises that Lhysandra spies do not seem to travel above Laevra's knees, even in spite of the tatters of her dress.  No musky scents of sebum or seed meet her nostrils, no emmenic tang of blood mingled with ruined womanhood, despite the fear-sweat and road grime inherent in such rapid flight.

This is something of a relief. The girl has been violated enough; had her apparent attacker dared rape her, there would be hell to pay for the travesty.

The trickle of fingertips to cheeks precedes a gentle downward push against the swelling plush of Laevra's lower lip.  Keen eyes regard the cut, assessing its depth with a minute curl of a thumb pad against the girl's chin.

"Well then, that's some good news," she offers, pleased that she had overestimated the damage--hard to say with facial injuries. "Looked worse than it really is, it seems.  I can mix up a mouth rinse to help seal it and take out some of the sting.  It's surface, won't need stitches."

She pauses, then steps back some, tilting her head.  “Would you like to get cleaned up now, or would you like a little more to eat?”  

Laevra gives a slight nod in appreciation to Lhysandra’s offer of sharing; where she lacked her father’s bulk and strength, she made up for it in eagerness of learning, the ever-continuing quest for knowledge.  Even if it not within immediate interest, it is an offer for her to keep her thoughts elsewhere, away from the still recent and terrible sensation of falling, the strike of armored hand across her cheek, the absolute helplessness.  It was no wonder her father trained as hard as he did, the knowledge that one is unable to do anything at all in their own defense is a terror she does not find easy to face.

“I have only studied the beginnings, most of my time is spent with literature a-and tomes, I...”  All of her books.  Would her apartment be ransacked?  She hadn’t the time to get all of her materials out of there, gifts given her by her father and others, the stately dresses she had splurged on when paychecks were pleasant.  Her books would be gone, if she’d ever even be allowed back into the city at all.  What had she done?  She wasn’t even a Sunreaver.

So distracted by her foul thoughts, Laevra indeed does not catch the questing sniff from the woman tending to her, and probably for the better.  What could possibly explain away the awkwardness of such an experience, especially from a woman she barely knows and was recently all-too terrified of?

Laevra stays as still as she might manage with pressure against her split lip, a shallow wince to the discomfort of electric pain jolting through her nerves.  Still, it is dulled as much of it is; the better that someone was here to see the girl distracted for now instead of allowing adrenaline to fade and set her into shock.  The threat still lingers there should she be on her own for too long.The cracking of innocence is a hard thing to bear, especially when old enough to truly understand it.

Wide, bright eyes slide up to meet Lhysandra’s own at the announcement, and a touch of relief flickers on Laevra’s youthful features.  No stitches?  Good.  Very good, especially with the location the injury was in.  A delicate, trembling hand extends to curl loosely around one of the woman’s wrists, and she squeezes her eyes closed with a quiet, quavering whisper of thanks.

Lhysandra cannot be given to the rumination on losing a home, even in commiseration for a different sort of displacement; there is no room for the ache.  Laevra needs her undivided attention and the fullest extent of possible distraction.  Nevertheless, there is a flicker of fellowship.  The red-haired woman may not have many places she calls home, but she does understand more intimately than she may ever give voice.  

At the grasp of wrist, Lhy inclines her head somewhat, dropping her hands minutely.  Both overturn palm-up, digits curling come-hither, the better to guide the young lady's fingers against her own.  A soft clucking sound and a quiet hum are answer to the thanks, acknowledgement as gentle as her movement is insistent, as her smile is crooked. She means to assist the tender tatterdemalion up from the seat if she may, take a stance beneath her slender shoulder, the better to guide her hence.  The ginger may be shorter, but she is certainly sturdier.  

“Come on, then.  Let’s get you clean and comfortable, then we can figure out what you’re hungry for.”  The bath has long since stopped running and should be appropriately warm by her reckoning, not too hot, awaiting and beckoning.  

"I have a couple of lovely sets of bath oils and lotions you might enjoy," she muses aloud.  Perhaps it's strange to hear from a woman who was until scarcely an hour ago covered in blood, who is still redolent with the musk of sweat, the tang of copper, the lingering heady fragrances of her preferred oils - a trigger all its own for the girl’s father.

"Gardenia, neroli and cardamom for one - or hedione jasmine and cherry blossom, or peony and sandalwood if you prefer, mm?”  

Nevertheless, a little bit of luxury might play a balm.  Not all is lost.  Encouraging Laevra to talk seems the most prudent course of action to prevent shock, given most of the injury is hardly physical.  “You can pick which one you like best and keep it, or if you’d like you can sniff through my oil collection and I can blend you your own.”  

Of course, she shall offer Laevra appropriate privacy to get situated if she does not need assistance with the tatters of her dress.  “Do you have any favorites?  Of food or of fragrance?”  

Perhaps some time in the near future, the girl will be less excitable, more calm, but for the moment there is only the looming knowledge of what has happened and what she has likely lost.  Home is here now, for now, but even so without his father’s presence it feels less so.  Lhysandra named herself a friend taking care of the house while Tethrien was gone.  Surely she understood the empty feeling here without the graceless rustle and clank of the big man’s presence?

It takes a moment for the beckoning gesture to resonate, but thankfully Lhysandra is already helping her to her feet.  Shaky, especially on the injured ankle she can feel much more keenly now, she grasps at the shorter woman’s shoulder with an arm around her back.  Up the ramp.  That’s all she needed to do for the moment, up the ramp.  A bath sounded rather lovely for the time, the enveloping heat of warmed water like a hug, like the furnace heat her father gave off as he would pull her close and safe.

She glances toward Lhysandra as they begin their trek upstairs, listening to the words without making any scent-association with them not for lack of experience but a disconnection for the moment.  Who might blame her?  Up the ramp they go, Laevra unsteady.  A foot slips once o the way up, but the other woman is there to brace her, and the prospect of tripping does not at all seem foreign to the waifish girl.  The questions are met with silence, but at the last she closes her eyes partially and merely shakes her head in response.  

Surely she had favorites, but for the moment she could not drum them up from the depths of her memory.

Lhysandra may never confirm just how keenly she feels Tethrien's absence in this place. His months-faded echo is a ghost all its own, a dull void that has settled twofold, somewhere in the back of her mind and in the pit of her stomach. She cannot deny him his drive, cannot fault him his fight for purpose, cannot decry his desire to be needed; as he cannot tame the wild, she cannot lay claim to the bulwark, much as they indulge, complement, support one another.

Unobtrusive brushes against his mind from afar, while assuring that he was not lost to the quiet, often served only to broaden the sense of yawning distance.  Perhaps it is she who is obsolete.  To give voice to the feeling of abandonment, stability lost, companionship forsaken, might acknowledge things she is too proud, too terrified to admit.  She had come to expect the sting from Dathonlan, after all.

Iron-strong and silken supple, Lhysandra guides Laevra up the ramp and into the bathroom, bracing the girl's lighter weight with her arm and shoulder. A brief test of the water with her free hand sees her nodding her approbation.

"Nice and warm.  Let's get you settled."

There is no awkwardness in her stance or in her eye contact, every bit a medic for her patient.  She'll help the girl with her tattered clothing and aid her step into the tub.  “Would you like some privacy, or do you want me to stay?”

She has certainly not heard the woman’s name nor too much detail about her from the few times she has spent time with her father in recent months, but at least she has been assured that her father is not alone.  That, to her, seems a comfort in and of itself; she knows well enough from watching him that the house is a cold place for him to spend alone.  It had hurt her to leave him knowing that, but she had to leave for her own health.  The young woman couldn’t be here with him the way he was, but perhaps Lhysandra’s presence meant he wasn’t always alone.  Maybe it was better?

Laevra does not know of her father’s downfall, is not aware of the sudden and violent changes to his life that left him lacking in purpose and needing to find a new one.  She is young and perhaps naive enough to not truly understand the depth of what he needs or the crushing feeling his sudden unimportance caused.  Perhaps it is both of them that are obsolete, left behind by those they had learned to lean on.  

Although not awkward that Lhysandra shown no hesitance in assisting her disrobe--as she had already established herself as a medic--the girl is still a touch embarrassed at baring skin in front of anyone, especially a stranger.  Unclothed, she is more obviously of that fragile appearance, although there is no gaunt protrusion of bone or unhealthy pallor.  She does carry a touch of her father’s paleness, although she is not so bleached-white as he.  Healthy if slender, she at least has not been starving.  

Quietly, she climbs into the tub with Lhysandra’s help, testing the water carefully as she eases down into it.  It is like a hug, although not as sturdy as the ones she wanted from her father, not quite the same warmth, not the same sense of safety.  The girl slowly draws her legs to her chest, although it does not entirely seem to be out of desire for propriety.  Chin on top of her knees, she exhales a quiet, careful sigh.  Both prospects are weighted, both have their own attractiveness.  Her fingers curl loosely around one of her calves, and she drops her gaze to the water.  “I don’t... I don’t really want to be alone,” she admits softly.

Dirty, tattered clothing is gathered and tucked aside, either for disposal or for mending; she hasn't had opportunity to really look at them to be sure.  She makes certain to maintain the medic's professional poise in spite of the sweaty leathers she wears.  A cursory look assesses for injury and makes note of further bruising and abrasions, but she does not stare, waiting nearby in case Laevra needs further assistance.

When the young lady settles into the tub and makes her decision, Lhysandra nods just once, betraying nothing of just how much she commiserates.  Being alone in such a situation can be a boon, of course; hiding the torn, frayed edges of one’s semblance of sense and sanity is a sort of armour. But likewise, when alone, time slips away with rumination and guilt.  A quick round of the room sees her depositing the clothes in a hamper near the window.  She then appropriates a pair of thick towels, a washcloth, a scrubbing loofah, and some lightly scented cleansers, shampoo and oils.

Announcing her presence by standing alongside the tub,  Lhy sets the items down within easy reach.  She places the washcloth over the edge of the tub, sets the loofah in such a fashion that it’s easy to grab and use if she desires a good scrub, and then is on the move.  A few heartbeats later, she is slipping back behind where the girl has curled.  Deft hands lift and extend, seeking to gently begin gathering Laevra's locks from her neck and shoulders.  Her movements are easy; the young lady may escape them if it pleases her.

Clean hair is cathartic, after all.

The professionalism is certainly appreciated to make her feel less a victim, but Lhysandra does not have a cold disconnection; that, as well, assists in making the young woman feel a little less uncomfortable.  Beneath tattered clothing she bears bruising and scrapes indicative of trips and falls, the twin circles of bruising around wrist and forearm beneath her elbow likely from a firm grip too tight.  She is thin and delicate as her countenance suggests, but she does not bear the appearance of one unhealthy save injury recently suffered.  

Although shyness demands she be alone in her bathing, especially when in the presence of a woman she does not know, she is comforted by the fact that it is a woman at her side despite their rough beginning.  The girl does not have the bulk of pride by which to feel slighted or embarrassed at her situation, it is fear and confusion that color her actions, the way she pulls her legs to her chest and hunches into the water.  She watches Lhysandra sidelong, how comfortable she is in the house, how well she seems to know where everything is.  Looking after the house while he’s away?

Laevra tilts her head to slide her gaze to the surface of the water, ears tilted slightly.  Either Tethrien has been out of the house for quite the long while--which isn’t difficult to imagine considering his scent is nearly gone--or she has been here before that.  Was he hiding something?  Was he in a relationship?  What hadn’t he told her the last time they’d seen each other in Dalaran?  Her fingers loop together loosely, eyes falling to a half-lid as Lhysandra sets to placing cleaning supplies nearby.  Again at the first touch, she tenses before those strong, agile fingers so recently familiar gather up her hair to begin washing.  It’s a strange sensation, really, one she hasn’t experienced outside of a salon for quite awhile.  “How long have you known him?” she asks finally, quietly as she studies the patterns of movement in the water.

When the young miss relaxes from her defensive, instinctual tense, Lhysandra continues brushing the pale locks back and away from her face.  The filter of fingers serves to detangle, to pluck twigs and debris snagged in the fine-spun strands.  

For a few moments, she remains quiet in answer to Laevra's question, cupping water in her palms to thoroughly soak the hair without dripping it into her eyes.  When the initial flood washes clean, she reaches for the cleanser, repeating the process of cupped palms and guarded hair line.  She would be remiss to ignore the girl's tone.

How long has it been?  Consideration of that time frame forms a knit in the smooth space between her brows.  She could likely number the days, all too brief but marked like growth and tragedy in the rings of a tree.   As she settles into the rhythm of gentle scalp scrubbing and massaging, strong nails brought to bear, she finally responds, "Over a year now.  Little closer to two."

When she is certain that no span of scalp has gone unscrubbed, she begins rinsing it anew.

"I'm sorry for frightening you.  Been a bit on edge after coming back from a hunt to find some would-be burglars trying the bolt on the smithy door."

Although there seems to be little debris in her pale hair, the fine golden waves are dirty and limp, cleverly in the process of being detangled with Lhysandra’s deft touch.  She exhales softly, her eyes half-lidded as she inquires about her father.  The next best thing since he wasn’t there was talking about him, right?  Although it sort of helped as a mild balm, it made the ache stronger at the same time.  

She doesn’t seem to mind that it takes a little for the other woman to answer.  Even if she chose to not answer, Laevra didn’t seem about to argue if she chose that route.  Depending on how close Lhysandra and her father were, it could be considered something personal.  Her head tips back a little when the woman starts to rinse the lather away, although she finds it a little difficult to bring herself to uncurl much beyond that.  She listens carefully as Lhy explains, a faint smile touching her lips.  “Good... he’s been lonely for a long time.” She sighs quietly, tipping her head to the side, pressing her unbruised cheek against a knee.  “Even sometimes with Alerin, he was lonely.”  

The distraction only lasts so long however, and she shivers slightly.  Burglars?  Like the ones that broke into the library, although they hadn’t come to take the books away.  Ears tuck back slowly, and she exhales a shaking breath as she closes her eyes again, almost like she was trying to shrink.  “They’re t-throwing everyone out,” she whispers in a trembling voice.  “Killing people and throwing them out and...”

Her arms tighten around her legs, pressing her mouth against her knee.  It effectively muffles the rest of what she says, although whether or not that is intentional is up for debate.

Trauma of this sort is intimately familiar, from this perspective its signs as rote as breathing, as a heartbeat beneath a haggard and greying surface.  Lhysandra has seen so many broken like this, knows well the despair.

But she is of Tethrien's blood. She is made of sturdier stuff than she appears. It speaks to the girl's resilience that she still has the will to continue.  When the laws of society are placed at the mercy of brutal force, panic and resolution both arise, as in devastating natural cataclysms.  Her youth is a blessing and a curse indeed, freshness exposed to horrors, blemished and tempered by fear's crucible.

Mention of Alerin sets her brows raising.  Full lips purse somewhat.  The soft sound of affirmation she makes is neither here nor there.  She knows of Alerin, but she has not pressed for details beyond what the pallid soldier had deemed fit to share--and beyond what was written in his journal.

Lhysandra's hands settle atop Laevra's shoulders once the blonde hair is cleansed and rinsed. Smooth in spite of their deft strength, thanks in no small part to conditioning and to the removal of calluses, her fingers curve to knead at some of the tension between the young lady's bare shoulders.   “Who is?” the medic inquires quietly, gently.  “You don’t have to tell me, but I’m listening, Laevra.”  

Trauma of whatever sort is indeed what the young lady has suffered, an emotional weight more than physical injury has befallen her.  It was only right she would retreat to a place where she believed she could find comfort and safety.  Although their beginning was strained, Laevra does not seem to still hold that terror of the lissome woman.  That her father apparently trusts her is enough for the little lady; she doesn’t seem to consider that Lhysandra’s explanations might be false.  Her emotional responses were enough of a confirmation for the slender blonde.

What other horrors had she seen that she might retain her innocence and frailty so?  What has the world and her father kept her ignorant of?  Her innocence was a blessing as much as it was a curse, a promise that there was hope yet for the world.  How much would these events peel back her veil of ignorance?

She makes no more mention of Alerin.  It is not her story to tell, and while she had been present, she does not entirely know all of the intricacies of her father’s and Alerin’s relationship or just how much he even wants said on the matter.  She knew very well that Tethrien was a private man.  But these lines of thought do not last long in the face of other, more pressing things.  The relative silence has provided her with enough time to let her mind wander to less pleasant things.

“Lady Proudmoore.  S-she’s... k-killing Sunreavers and elves just b-because they’re Sin’dorei.  The Covenant, the Alliance, t-they’re all there, she w-was... walking the streets just catching people on fire.”  She draws a shaky, trembling breath, ducking her head and closing her eyes tightly.  “T-throwing people off the edge of the city, p-porting them...”  

She fell, after all.  The young lady’s fingers curl at her legs, squeezing firmly enough that her knuckles whiten.

Pieces coalesce, the empty spaces of question mapped out by the shapes around them.  As Lhysandra assists in cleansing the grime of travel away, soothing in some small part the physical injury, she also steps into the role of confidant. She does not interrupt the cascade of emotion thundering down on Laevra; she can no more shield her from that than she could protect her from her fall.

They didn’t listen, despite sourced information on stirring disaster.  They did not listen or she was not heard, with all the distance of miles and months.  Dalaran was an abattoir for the rune-mistress’ kind.  Perhaps she should have braved it without using the ship of fools as an adjunct.  The confluence of failure is staggering.

Carefully, she restrains the prickle of impotent fury, the bile rising to burn at the back of her throat. It is fortunate that the girl cannot see the erudite's face at this juncture, for she wears a most fearsome snarl.  Heterochromic eyes narrow, glaring at nothing; her jaw clenches, sharp teeth bared.  She makes not a sound of rage, though, not a growl in spite.

She knows all too keenly the sting of betrayal and the hollowness of abandonment.  The looming sense of uncertain future follows on the heels of trauma and tragedy.

"You're safe here," she murmurs quietly when she has control over her expression.  Lean, strong arms seek to coil gently around the young lady's shoulders from behind. It isn't exactly the bear-crush of her absent father, but it is no less protective: I'll tear them apart if they come here after you.

“You’re safe and you’re not alone, Laevra.”

It is a difficult thing for the young woman to face, certainly.  Skin soft and unblemished but for the injury bestowed upon her of recent times, she is unblemished by hardship and scar.  It is the overwhelming emotional onslaught of an experience outside of her immediate realm of understanding, a situation she struggles to grasp just as she had struggled to cope with the disappearance and subsequent violence of her father upon recovery.  

Laevra’s attention is focused downward the brief time that her eyes are left open, only to be squeezed closed as feeling surges with her stammered, frightened retelling.  So many dead.  So many that didn’t have the chance or the mind to save themselves as they tumbled from Dalaran’s edge.  So many that had no chance when they broke into their homes and stole them from their innocent designs.  She had been a loyal member of the Kirin Tor and them alone no matter her race.  She and others had struggled to prove themselves to the Kirin Tor that they were not ruled by the addictions that plagued their people.  They had proven that they were useful even after the Horde began to pull out of Northrend and the necessity for abject neutrality began to wane.  

The Kirin Tor had been a place of safety and of success for her and others like her.  A place of belonging, an overarching understanding.  They were something more than Sin’dorei, they were something more than the stereotypes of the Horde races.  They were good.

Perhaps it was another proof of her ignorance in her innocence.

“They killed her, and she didn’t do anything.”  She tucks close to the embrace from the other woman, soaking in her warmth and her presence.  She doesn’t have to have seen Lhysandra at work to know, to feel it in her--she was strong, just as those her father usually associated with were.

It surprises Lhysandra naught that an organization could be so easily and readily swayed in a time of high emotion. Garrosh's assault on Theramore has provided the perfect opportunity for propaganda, the perfect cover for terror and travesty to stride hand in hand.

All thought that her information had potentially led to or assisted with this ham-fisted, graceless debacle has long since been swept away. She isn't fool enough to believe that the idiot Warchief cares for the kidnapped and enslaved; they must have been too weak to defend themselves and are thus unfit for his vision of the Horde. Cause and effect ripple, a temblor building.

It is fortunate that Laevra cannot see the steely expression the rune mistress wears, the baleful fire in her eyes.  It might cause more panic--or indeed it might be a comfort to know that Lhysandra and Tethrien are as similar in their seething anger as in their grey morality.

Strong, runed arms tighten their hold around the young girl's shoulders.  As Laevra quakes with horror, the sanguine-haired sybarite is a firm, solid presence.  She rests the point of her chin against the pale-haired crown, jaw tight.  

After a time, she tips her cheek, drawing in slow, audible breaths, exhaling just as calmly, as if to play upon unconscious mimicry.  She hopes to spare the girl the effects of hyperventilating, after all.  Otherwise she lapses quiet--surely that is not unfamiliar, given her parentage. It is not simple reticence, however, but a shrewdness borne of planning.  If she is to inform Tethrien, it must be face to face.

Whether it be panic or a lack of experience, Laevra apparently had previously found no reason to believe the Kirin Tor--especially when she thought they were a neutral entity--would turn on those who claimed no loyalty to those who had caused issue.  That mere association of race was enough to condemn them seemed a foreign concept to her even despite the constant war of Alliance and Horde.  Some of the people that had turned on her and those like her had been friends once, familiar faces.  It was difficult to grasp for one inexperienced, for one naive to the evils those called friend may do.  Betrayal was a hard thing to manage, especially when so young, especially when so trusting.  It was a lesson they all had to learn in this world, although some were faced with it far earlier than others.  

She does not sob, her grief and horror is a relatively quiet thing despite the quiver in her frame and shaking drawn breaths.  In time she will process, as she has done times before, and hopefully she will learn that not all are to be trusted to implicitly.  She is too sweet a girl for this world, just as Tethrien’s journals had stated.  One hand rises to curl delicate fingers at Lhysandra’s arms, not at all drawing away from the comforting embrace.  It is good that she did not come back to an empty house, even though the embrace is not the one she had hoped for, even though their initial meeting was fraught with terror all its own.

While she cries, she does not cling and grow into hysterics.  Shock is too substantial for that, although the lissome woman behind her provides a balm for the worst of it.  She knew her father.  She knew he was all right.  

The spoken, whispered thanks is trembling and quiet but true, earnest regardless of their first meeting.  “I am glad that you are here with me.”

Lhysandra remains still and firm behind Laevra.  Her tattooed arms are lean and muscled, feminine but strong, an unflinching loop about the girl's shoulders.  Not a word is said to the weeping, to the tears she can smell streaming hot and saline down bruised cheeks.  The silence is likely more familiar than condolence.  Sentiment right now may be clouded by the tightness in her throat or the clench of her jaw.  There is no need to further instill doubt in a young woman so stricken by fear.

She is not Tethrien.  She is not his broad, encompassing warmth, his craggy affection edged with soot, frayed and worn like a comfortable flannel.  She is not the rough and gruff simplicity veiling a bottomless well of desires unspoken.  

She is not Tethrien, and though she realizes that her comfort is woefully inadequate in comparison to the love of a father, it will have to do.

He isn't here, after all.  

So it is that she walls off the firestorm of doubt and hurt, sealing it with her typical steely will. Later.  She will address it then.  There are more immediate things to deal with now, such as ensuring Laevra's health.

"At least someone is," she offers gently, curling her fingers against the tops of the girl's shoulders.

"Would you like to rest?  I won't be far."

It is strange how the onslaught of emotion can be so exhausting, and this is a thing she struggles with in the moment.  That she is here in a familiar place with a woman she trusts to know her father as she says, she is allowed to begin to relax.  Fear has begun to settle into a dull throb still lingering in her worry, although it has dimmed to less than terror.  She is an innocent marred by deeds not of her own, and she struggles with that knowledge.  It will take time for her to recover, but this is not the first loss she has experienced.  One day, loss will come again, and she will stand firm and tall again beneath the weight of grief.  Despite how different they were, she was still her father’s daughter, after all.

Lhysandra’s presence is more comforting than she perhaps realizes, that a girl may trust her father’s judgement so implicitly that knowing a woman he too calls friend is enough to allow her to relax.  She is woefully inexperienced and trusting, but perhaps it is an easy thing to see why he may be so protective of her even beyond their familial relations.  She embodies something he--and many others--lost so long ago, and he as protector would not be far-fetched to wish to keep that innocence alive as long as was feasible.  Jaded though he is, there is still a sense of hope.

Innocence has its place, just as he and those like him did.

Laevra’s head ducks slightly as Lhysandra speaks and as the tears slow, even if they still yet glimmer in his eyes.  “We have only just met and already I would be sleeping,” she comments in apology, shaking her head.  If only they had been able to meet first under better circumstances, but her discomfort with the ghosts in the house and the changes in her father had been too much to bear.  The young lady lifts her head to look toward Lhy over her shoulder, and she gives a hesitant little nod.  “If I can sleep... I suppose that might be best.”

With the current climate of change and the crushing sense of being accessory and unnecessary to all but a few, the idea of one so young and vital finding comfort in her presence is alien.  Perhaps it is a mutual balm. The bitterness borne of betrayal is soothed by unspoken commiseration.

Lhysandra allows Laevra her tears. She has every right to shed them both for loss and for suffering. She simply remains there, waiting until the girl musters the ability to reply, providing shelter and stewardship both. The ginger is not Tethrien, is not his encompassing warmth or imposing physical barrier, but she is in this case a willing and demonstrably capable defender.

"It's quite alright," she murmurs from above and behind, humor warming her voice, "I'm not offended in the slightest. After all, ours has thus far been an unconventional acquaintance."  

Her hands settle atop the young lady's shoulders as she withdraws just somewhat. "I'll make some tea while you finish up in here. Valerian and chamomile should help you get some rest."  With that she rises, glancing to the door with a wan little smile.  "Your father's room is made if you'd like to settle.  I'll bring it up to you."

Laevra is, of course, unaware of current situations of unrest for Lhysandra, the overwhelming sense of being discarded.  She is a strong woman, she is trusted enough to stay in the girl’s father’s house, she has agreed to help the young lady herself:  surely this means that she is useful and valuable and loved?  It does not linger in her mind, the possibility that Lhysandra suffers the same sort of crushing weight even if it is not so sudden and heavy.  Her words are quiet, hesitant not for the topic but the struggle to keep herself steady as she can manage. Lhysandra stands sturdy, warm enough to provide comfort no matter how foreign the sensation may be for the older woman.  Near violence, fright brought upon by misunderstanding and youth are forgiven because Lhy was only protecting what she deemed worthy of it.  She had not known.  It was not her fault.

Weariness does weigh on the young lady for her ordeal, now that adrenaline has begun to fade in the wake of calming horror.  Still, the idea of sleeping so soon after coming into contact with the ginger-haired woman is appalling, even if she is certain that her company would not be the most hospitable or friendly as it could be.  But who would be the guest, in this case?  Laevra no longer finds her home here, no longer lives in this house despite the way her father has kept her room as she left it.  Lhysandra stays, Lhysandra has kept her father company while the young lady has fled for her inability to cope with the changes in her father and the emptiness left in the building for Alerin’s absence.  

When Lhysandra stands, she turns slightly in the water to look at the other lady, large, bright eyes watching her for a moment.  It would make sense that this woman could comfort Tethrien in a way his young daughter could not, just as while there was no doubt that he offered Alerin love, there was something lacking in their bond--perhaps he found it here.  Rather than speaking, Laevra offers a touch of a nod to the other woman and waits for her to leave before returning her attention to the water. What has not been cleaned is and carefully, and tiredly her eyes linger over scraped and bruised flesh only a few shades darker than her father’s.  She does not linger long, however.

The young lady brushes open the door to her old room, slipping inside and taking a moment to survey what has been left.  All is as it was when she left, and within the chest at the foot of her bed she finds a simple and loose gown of a dark turquoise that she pulls over herself and haphazardly pins her curls off her neck to keep from seeping dampness into the soft cloth.  Although initial intention leads her to her room, she finds herself drifting back to her father’s chambers where dim evening light streams through the circular window to skitter across the floor.  Predictably, the most of it is the same as she remembered save the scattered items here or there that mark another’s presence. Carefully, she does not choose the side that holds a few items notably not belonging to her father, but instead perches against a pillow on the side she knows Tethrien sleeps upon when he is home.  

Contemplation can only keep her awake for so long in this place when tiredness settles upon her shoulders. Beneath an old and well-worn blanket she knows the warrior often keeps she draws up her knees to her chest and leans back against the headboard, fingers grasping loosely at the fabric and poking the tip of a digit partially through a small hole in the cloth with a weary smile.

Apart from a few small additions and some missing flannel shirts, Tethrien's room remains thoroughly his.  The immaculately crisp folds of his spare sheets, the footlocker and closet filled with memories and other belongings, even the broad divots where his weight normally came to rest upon the mattress remain.  They are their own ghosts, the soldier's presence felt even in his absence.

While over time scent has faded, its trace lingers in the pillows and cases left unused. Memory can always be found if you know where to look.

It is perhaps for the better that Lhysandra leaves certain things unspoken.  Burdens need not be verbalized to be shared; abandonment need not be named to be understood.  Tethrien’s beloved daughter certainly needs feel no guilt for coming home, even if it is no longer the home she once craved.  

Some time passes while Laevra is allowed opportunity to dress and gather her wits. Meanwhile, the rune mistress attends to other chores: bringing in the meat she had butchered, washing up, setting out the ingredients for the first shared meal in weeks, and setting water on to boil.

As promised, Lhysandra eventually returns. In one hand, a steaming mug of tea sends its sweet floral-herbal fragrance into the air.  In the other, a cool compress has been prepared to balm at least some of the aches brought by strife.

Playing the role of guest even as she simultaneously acts a steward, the red-haired woman pauses to listen, the better to avoid disturbing. She knocks before entering to announce her otherwise silent presence, then stalks bedside to place the tea in Laevra's reach on the end table, and the compress in a drape over her bruised ankle.

"I'll have something flavorful made for when you wake," comes the calm offer with a crooked smile.  

Regardless of whether or not her father is there, the house is still a comfort.  It is a familiar place, and although it does not smell the same, now that she has calmed some there are firm enough signs that this is Tethrien’s house still.  Not hers, not anyone’s but his own, even if he was allowing others to spend their time in it.  The room she tucked herself into was nearly the same as she had last seen it, as she remembered it merely with a few acceptable changes made to it for others gone and staying.

There is quiet from the room as Laevra settles with her own thoughts, studying the familiar worn patterns in the blanket, feeling the softness of the mattress beneath her in certain places she knew her father to sleep.  He might not be here currently, but he is here in his own way, in memories and subtle reminders like this.  

When Lhysandra enters, Laevra lifts her gaze to meet her, then to the tea and the compress.  She had almost forgotten.  The young lady quietly thanks her for them, only straightening her leg out before Lhy places the compress in its correct drape.  The smile she offers Lhy is sad and weary, and she takes a moment to sip at the tea a couple of times before leaning back against the headboard and the pillows she has piled up behind her.  “Can you tell me,” she murmurs quietly, “of how you met my father?”  Although her interest seems sincere, there is a weariness to her.  Regardless of whether or not Lhy decides to inform her in the moment, surely she will sleep within a very brief time.

Keeping true to her promise, Lhysandra remains nearby when so requested, nodding once. Every individual copes with stress and trauma differently.  Some seek solace in solitude where others require and desire another presence with which to share the unspoken onus.  The rune-mistress appropriates a seat beside the bed rather than on it.

At the very least, the worn and sturdy old chair does not see another death watch this day.

Laevra's question, asked in earnest, strikes an unexpected chord. She should have foreseen it, but inquiries of such a nature into her affairs are uncommon indeed; rarer still are those she cares to answer straightforwardly.  Lhysandra offers a soft sound of consideration, taking a moment to reminisce.

How had she come to meet Tethrien?  The tips of her pierced ears and the bridge of her nose flush minutely, freckles made prominent by sun and wind now underscored with pink.

She clears her throat, glancing sidelong and then back to the young lady. While largely successful in schooling her expression, Lhysandra's lopsided smile imparts a certain warmth to her tone that she feels no obligation to veil.

"A festival in Durotar.  Brewfest.  A mutual acquaintance of ours couldn't hold his alcohol, had to be hauled out of trouble."  Despite her control, there is still a candid fondness, something otherwise unsaid - something that need not be labeled to exist - lurking in undertone. "Conversation takes interesting turns.  I found out then about his condition, that I was in a position to help."

The young lady’s attempt might be valiant, her determination for staying awake to listen to Lhysandra’s explanation.  Her interest is true, even if she appears to be losing the battle against weariness.  Surrounded by familiarity, warmth of her father’s room and the comfort of his things around her, her overwhelming sense of fear has calmed to leave her utterly emotionally and physically exhausted.  Rest will do her injuries well as much as it will do the same for her mind.  Perhaps conversation of Dalaran and the goings on shall come easier once she has awoken and fed on the food Lhysandra intends on preparing.  

Regardless of how different he was, Laevra loved him all the same.  His moods were sharp and heated, his empathy dulled to the blunted tip of a worn spear.  He would stare for hours out the window in his bedroom in cold silence, as if waiting for the creeping fingers of control to overtake him once again.

She loved him all the same, and that was why she left.

Her apartment in Dalaran had been an elegant, chic thing of her own decoration, filled with books and novelties of the sort of life she had hoped to build with another man that escaped from her life.  She had thrown herself into her studies, into the Kirin Tor’s library where she had graciously risen to some very mild notoriety for her excitement--and her horrible balance.  Happy to be little more than a librarian for those of magical prowess, the youthful girl was certain her life had been settled.

But then the whispers began of Sunreavers being imprisoned or killed, and slowly Sin’dorei even claiming neutrality began to slip away.  It had frightened her, and one of the other girls of whom she called friend convinced her to begin packing her things in preparation for escape.  Dark whispers echoed in the streets of Dalaran.

Her escape was made too late, and as the guards had dragged her from the library, she caught sight of the slender form crumpled down the hall, sable hair glimmering crimson in the pool upon the tiled flooring.  She had screamed her innocence, her neutrality, she had cried for the passing of her friend, but Proudmoore heard none in her rage and flung her off the side of Dalaran alongside others innocent of the crimes they were accused of.

Two crates of books and clothing were all that she had managed to send to Silvermoon before they came for her.  She hadn’t bothered to stop by the city after safely landing in the forest and allowing the featherlight spell to fade.  Shaking, it took three tries to summon the correct portal to Shattrath, and as she stumbled through, she fell to her knees in terrified weeping until the gentle hand of a light-skinned Draenei priestess helped her to her feet.  Laevra dared not speak of her experience, too terrified of what might get back.  What had she done?  Frantic, she had stumbled away from the startled woman and began to make her way to the one place she knew she could call safe.

The front door was locked when she arrived, but the kitchen’s back entrance still hid the key in its hidden panel, and she barely had the sense to close the way behind her as she stumbled within.  The house was cool and quiet, silent save the trembling harshness of her breath.  Formerly fine silken robe of cerulean and gold hung tattered off the waifish girl’s frame, styled blonde curls hanging limply around her face.  She was young, fair skin turned paler for her horror and smudged with dirt and blood where the human soldier had struck her across the face to quiet her crying.  

The slender woman made girlish by her lack of curvaceous frame ducks low behind the counters in the kitchen as the clop of talbuk hooves dragging a wagon sounds outside, her breath a sharp, high noise.  Scrambling, tripping over the hem of her torn gown, the bedraggled young woman stumbles her way toward the main room and toward the lacquered rampway leading upstairs.  Knees bruised from her tripping, she grasps at the railing for support with a quiet sob, trembling fingers gripping as tightly as they can.  Despite the prior finery of her clothing, she may as well have been living in them for a week for all of the streaks of dirt across the delicate cloth.  She slumps briefly halfway up the ramp, gripping onto the railing and sinking onto her butt, drawing her legs to her chest.

This house didn’t even smell like her father any more, but for now she was safe.

Timely and well-informed warnings went disregarded by those antipathetic to action, indisposed to intelligence.  The black fox knew before she, did not require her to say or to see, and assisted his own without interference, daring to deem it too great a risk.  That decision was unjustly denied her.

'Unwanted, Unneeded' beat the clamant mantra, swift and steady as the drums of war.  Unreasonable, unacceptable, unwelcome, all mounded up against unwavering and unrepentant, and so unwilling and unbending, unbroken but hardly unworthy, she withdrew without goodbyes, unmourned.

Lhysandra had taken all she wanted from the ill-fated ship and fool's crew, enriched by those who stood apart.  She determined not to try that small thread of hope leading to the estate in Eversong, leading too to the stately Farstrider harborage.  They had their own trials well in hand: betrayal, healing, recompense.

Wandering was old and familiar, weaving the pattern of warp and weft through writing and research and rambling hither and yon.  In this time of distance, however, the void became ever more apparent, something she had not wished to acknowledge.  Satyr was gone, her companion of two decades, hammered home with her arranging of his chalky bones on an arid, abandoned Azshara knoll.

Motivation, intrinsic or otherwise, can only carry one so far when all that has been built and cultivated with a new life seems suddenly to vanish.

Borne with a sense of departure most uncommon, she arrived in solitude and silence weeks hence.  Diffidence from the mainland, doubt from the new world, both dug deep.

The house was as empty as she had expected.  There was a certain sort of hollowness, harrowing and yawning, a brooding breath held bated while its peripatetic occupant occupied herself.

No word came until Mezaku's arrival.  Even the nether drake was sullen, set aside by Senogar.  The warlock found him unfit.  

Common ground.

Fleeting company broke the days and nights of constant restless writing and rumination, pieces of the past parsed together for lack of external activity.

She could not stay in one place for long.  It might drive her mad.

Madder still.

-=-

On this day that Laevra returns in a riotous rush, Lhysandra is outside in one of the sheds, butchering a large talbuk doe hanging from its hocks, split and skinned - this one not partially tenderized, felled instead by her hand.

It is messy work, but meticulous, painstaking, mindless, separating muscle groups to plan for meals.  The excess would be made into jerky or delivered anonymously to the Mag'har, wrapped in the animal's hide.  Nothing wasted, not even blood, simmered with rice and spice and stuffed into intestine casing.

A clamor catches her attention, the shaky slam of door following.

Mezaku doesn't use doors.

The predator's instincts prickle and tighten, spurring her into action.  

Surely she looks a fright, tattooed body clad in naught but training leathers and a harness, freckled skin splattered and smudged with blood and fluid like war paint.  Her hair is bound up in a leather thong, shockingly red and copper in comparison. A large, curved butcher's blade glints in the muted light as she, silent, opens the front and enters.

It no longer smells of Tethrien, save in small places his and his alone.  But still, she cannot scent anything over the musk of sweat and beast, so she listens.

Sobbing.

"Identify yourself," she demands from the base of the ramp, eyes like ice and voice harsh from parch and from force.  

Oh respite.  This place does not smell of her father, but she has glimpsed items that are his alone.  He is here.  Was here.  He still resides even if curiously this place does not have the same warmth that she remembers.  The hollowness of the house is nigh unbearable; how much she wished top find the door open and fall to her father’s arms and be warm and safe again.  He was always a shield, always there with a ruffle of her hair and a tight embrace.

Except now.

When the door opens, Laevra’s head lifts from where she has tucked her chin against her knees, but she freezes.  Those footsteps are too soft to be her father’s.  Frantically, the waifish girl draws in a sharp, shaking breath and yanks her hand from the railing, long ears tilting back.  Did they know?  Were they so desperate to be rid of the Sunreavers and the non-Alliance races in the Kirin Tor that they would follow her here?  She had portaled.

They followed the signature.

Heartbeat racing, breath hitching and harsh, Laevra rocks from her flop on the ramp and clutches her fingers around the delicate sapphire pendant dangling from her neck.  The whispered words are quick and surprisingly even for her panic, a short incantation.  Trembling fingers lift a millimeter above her left shoulder as she stumbles to her feet, grasping at air.  She pulls then, as if drawing a cloak over her shoulders, and the brief glimpse possibly seen shimmers and disappears behind a charm of invisibility.  

The waifish girl turns sharply on her heel and begins to stumble her way up the ramp, focused sharply on just putting one foot solidly before the other.  Tripping would be horrible in this moment.  Instead, she aims to move toward the open door of her father’s bedroom with all intentions of scrambling around to the far side and ducking behind it.

Drops of blood to a starving shark, the wounded throe of deer to a famished tiger, the bloom and wreath of arcana in the air engenders Lhysandra with a look most feral, most hungry.  

Rune-light flares to life in a ripple from toe to fingertip, threads pulsing half-visible in channels of her choosing beneath the skin.  Its harmony intensifies, agitating and flaking the dried gore from her forearms, hands and bare abdomen with its resonance.  The reddish-brown debris falls and drifts like ash to the floor.  Its memory is a smudge on her cheek, spatters on her leathers, and the scent of iron mingling with Lhysandra's signature--all underlaid with the ozone of a ferocious impending storm.

Terrifying in her silent alacrity she stalks upstairs, hyperalert, hyperaware.  The knife blade has been turned in her grasp, wickedly curved flaying edge poised and prepared.  

Invisibility does not necessarily entail soundlessness.

Late afternoon sun lay warm, redolent and amber within Tethrien's quarters, the only open door, amidst a swirl of dust motes that glitter like magic on the still air.  

"You have one more chance," Lhysandra thrums from the doorway, branded knuckles tightening and relaxing in her grip about the knife handle.  Her tone has smoothed to its customary contralto, velvet over cold steel.  “Identify yourself.”

Laevra takes no time to look once the spell is cast; she does not recognize the woman’s voice, she merely has to get away.  Her father’s bedroom has a wide, circular window, if she could merely push it open, she could leap from it and escape elsewhere.  Somewhere.  Surely Silvermoon was providing protection for the Sunreavers and those ousted from Dalaran?  Surely the Lord Regent wouldn’t merely leave them there to die in their cells or cast from the city?  Not all of them were mages, she had caught glimpses of those unable to slow their falls, smashed upon the forest floor.  

Ducked behind the large frame of her father’s bed, she claps both hands over her mouth as if that will quiet her breathing.  She does not see the flare of runework or the strange way it flicks the dried blood from the other elf’s skin.  She hadn’t seen her eyes to know that she was Sin’dorei.  It could be an illusion anyhow.  Laevra squeezes her eyes closed at the footsteps upon the ramp, praying that the woman will look into the other bedroom first.  Its door remains closed as it had been upon her arrival.

Delicate, shaking fingers press against the side of the mattress, and with the charm still active, she peeks over the edge of the bed.  Please please please.

Laevra freezes at the sight of the woman in the doorway regardless that she could not be seen, her wild eyes and bloodied clothes, the ease with which she carries her blade.  Maybe Silvermoon wasn’t providing protection.  Maybe the Regent lord wasn’t trying to save them because of rumored strife with the Warchief.  Had they been abandoned?

One more chance was right.

Offensive magic was learned but not entirely the young girl’s forte.  She doesn’t seek to burn or freeze the woman across the room from her, no, but gathered at her fingertips is a familiar and--to her--reliable spell of polymorphing.  The invisibility fades as she conjures the spell, dirty, limp curls fluttering softly as the arcane gathers.  If she can successfully turn the other woman into a housecat, surely she can gain herself enough time to escape through the window!

Laevra's aim is true, the heliotrope shade and bittersweet tang of her spell flung through the cool air at an approaching, searching Lhysandra.  It strikes as she intends in her time of desperate flight, a conjuration as intimately familiar as breathing.  

Perhaps it has unintentional consequences, given the snarl of affront and agony that echoes across the room, her silent step becoming a lurch.  The knife clatters to the floor.

The red of a house cat's fur spreads up her arms, pupils slitting in their luminous irises and sclera.  Pawlettes form on finger-pads, nails lengthening into claws with the grate of rearranging tendon.  

No, no, no, no.  

An answering surge of rune energy begins disintegrating the transformation, autonomic response as rapid as chemical reaction, shredding the fabric of illusion like moist tissue, like liver.  It leaves in its wake that eldritch arcane hum, as vital and raw as Laevra is terrified.

Still her forward momentum is relentless, around, around, body between the bed and the window, the only egress up and over both ways.  Trapped, an intruder of skill would not allow herself to become so entrapped.  Lhysandra pops her jaw, flexes her pale fingers and hairless forearms. She does not need a knife to be monstrous, does not need a feline’s talons to be predatory.

"If I wanted to hurt you," she purrs, voice low and dangerous and feral for the pain that resolves itself into endorphins, "you'd be dead already, little bird."  With a certain sense of finality, she looms.  For all her short stature, she may as well be ten thousand feet tall with firebrands for eyes.

"What.  Is.  Your.  Name?"

At first, success seems on her side, and the bedraggled young mage appears to have made for herself a chance to escape.  Rather than truly harm the woman, she has assumed it best merely to briefly incapacitate her; battle-mage Laevra was not.  The little lady begins to make her move for the window with a sense of familiarity and quickness, but there is no denying the sudden heightening of energy in the room and the resonant hum, and she once again freezes in her step, staring at the woman as the spell fades away.

Laevra has had her troubles with her casting, but to have it merely shrugged off as such?  The young woman swallows thickly, eyes wide in prey-fear.  

Although taller than the woman across from her, the mage does not seem to find that a comfort.  Soldier she is not, battle hardened she is not, but even prey can recognize when the one facing them is dangerous.  It echoes the darkness of the Row’s alleyway, the slip of a blade against her back.  A trembling hand flutters for a moment near her mouth before her fingers curl against her chest, and the blonde woman takes a step back.  She was saying something.  This frightening woman was saying something.

But what?

Fear pumped blood like a roaring storm in her ears, and all she could hear was the mantra racing through her mind.  She was going to die.  They’d never found out why the man had found her specifically.  She’d never told her father.  He had too much to worry about.  Perhaps she was here, just like him.

Unable to help the breathy sob that rises, she squeezes her eyes closed for a moment, finely manicured nails now torn and dirty clawing at the front of her dress and gathering the cloth.  Another spell does not rise from her, there is no defensive gathering of arcane.  “Please... please I didn’t do anything, I’m just a librarian, I--”  Her breath hitches as she stammers, as if somehow her plea will somehow make this frightening woman leave.

Why was she in her father’s house?

It no longer smelled like him; had something happened to him?  Was this no longer his home?  The words are choked when they come, a quavering whimper:  “I thought he would be here...”

Such exquisite fear rolls off of the fragile girl in waves. There she is, tucked and crumpled and wet like a hatchling fallen from the nest into the maw of a predator that enjoys toying with its meal.  How many high and mighty casters had Lhysandra reduced to gibbering wrecks before dispatching them?  The disruption of commonly understood patterns and established reality is unsettling indeed, leaving little wonder as to why their kind were hunted as aberrant.  

Surely there was a thrill to be had in terrorizing those who had in turn terrified innocents.  But lo, this is not some enemy.  She's shattered.

The hitched sobbing is met with roaring silence from the blood-spattered woman, who neither approaches nor retreats.  Something she has said strikes a chord within the red-haired lady, however, a pang that buries itself with a hollow chill in her gut.  

After a long pause, Lhysandra crouches down, settling on her knees, hands atop her thighs.  The girl is far too beleaguered to be one searching to add insult to injury and grind the commission loss into the old soldier's back.

"You're looking for Tethrien," she says, less a question and more a statement, voice calm and quiet and even.  There on the floor, perhaps she is less threatening.  

Laevra is certainly no woman of apparent threat.  There is no dangerous venom lingering in the back of her gaze, no smarmy comeback, no gathering of spells.  She is, perhaps, still trying to collect herself after seeing her cast shrugged off.  It is a terrifying prospect.  She is a young woman who does not bear herself with the arrogance of power and station, and rather than lash out in violence at the woman before her, she sought only to disable her long enough to escape.

She is a frightened girl, cornered for some circumstance, trembling and dirtied.  Her breath heaves, eyes wide in terror not only because of the terrifying woman she faces.  It is when Lhy starts to move that she flinches as if expecting a strike even though Lhysandra has done nothing but kneel.  Confusion mixes with fear in her pretty features, breath sharp.  Her fingers flex in their grip of cloth.  She wears no weapons, and if she had borne any satchels, they were long torn from her limply hanging belt.

The woman’s words strike her deeply, and she draws in another hard breath to hold.  Did this mean she would be safe?  But there is something different about the words.  Sorrow?  She can’t be certain.  The girl takes no steps forward, but she tenses, staring at the woman just a split-second before opening her mouth.  “Yes, yes, he’s... he’s my father, I thought he would be here, he usually is, I... where is he?  W-what has happened to him?”

Were Lady Proudmoore and her Kirin Tor cronies looking for families of the mages they were ousting, as well?

Especially after the events before the Cataclysm, her father had become something of an invulnerable statue, a pillar she could always depend on in the end.  And yet, not even he would be able to stand against the Kirin Tor alone should they come.

The truth of Laevra's statements is written not only in the staggered fear on her features, but also in certain aspects of her appearance.  While no story worth telling can be completely known at once, Lhysandra is intimately familiar with the pallid soldier in ways unspoken, in ways he may not even fathom, as a medic and beyond.  One catches details and nuances from those who are important, from those who matter, from those clutched close to heart in spite of every clamoring instinct to silence such things.  

Through sight and touch, she is well-acquainted with the soldier’s ears, even beyond the tatters and tears.  The uniqueness of their fold is mirrored in Laevra's own--a shape in the cartilage that resembles the flow of a blade-rune.  It cannot be coincidental.

For a brief moment, the redhead wears an expression akin to the deep-set pain of clutching a wound. Fingers curl and tighten against the tops of her thighs, biting into the rugged leather.  Her jaw tenses, too, a clench visible preceding a swallow and a pin of ears.  The intensity of her stare lingers, boring into the young lady as if she might burn her to memory in spite of the pell-mell torrent of emotion crashing down.  

Contain it, now.  You are not the only one abandoned.  

"You're more grown than he's described you," Lhysandra whispers after another period of silence, her focus falling to the floor, the tension in her shoulders lingering even if the angle of her ears twitches and wilts.  

She had very nearly injured a young woman for doing nothing more than coming home, seeking the loving embrace of her father.  The gravity of it settles in the pit of her stomach, awakening in distant reverb old hurts, things better left buried.

"He's off on some business," she manages with a small smile, not looking away from the shape of wood grain on the floor. “I’m Lhysandra.  A... friend.  Been keeping the place while he’s away.”    

On the whole, the slender woman does not carry too much resemblance to her father in appearance.  Although taller than Lhysandra herself, she is no overgrown thing, and muchly counter to Tethrien there is little shape of her thin frame.  Lacking are the drawn brows and silvered hair; she is delicate and pretty, untouched by much save recent events’ splash of dirt and blood and fear.  Pale as she is, she does not carry her father’s near lack of color, but the angle of her eyes is similar, the curve of her ears, the broadness of her mouth even though her lips are far more plush.

Laevra’s reaction to the woman’s pain is a tightening of abdomen beneath the drape of her gown and the knit of her brow.  The woman’s breath comes heavy still, hitched and quivering as the silence draws longer.  Something has happened, then?  It must be so what with Lhysandra’s silence.  she makes a quiet, choked noise as she swallows, large eyes appearing to be right on the verge of misting.  Something had happened to her father.  “He...”  How to answer?  Her father did treat her with kid gloves, perhaps in attempts to keep her delicate and innocent.

For as much as she praised him, Laevra was well-acquainted with some of the people associated with her father, and not all of them were light of manner.  This woman was certainly one of them, she could see that now.  Little does she focus on that, however.  It seems as though the entire event has been too much for the waifish woman, and her legs give out as she slumps to her knees.  She could only pray ‘some business’ meant he was safe.  Narrow shoulders slump forward, and she lifts her shaking hands to her face with ineffectually stifle a sob that rises.  Safe.

Did that too mean she was safe?

“N-no, no, they’ll... maybe they know, I don’t know if they’ll take it that far, b-but... I shouldn’t have come here, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

Now is not the time to dwell on dark ruminations.  The girl is returning home to a prosaic place violated by a stranger, a place once filled with a tentative and companionable warmth.  Violence has torn away Laevra's security and Lhysandra's wicked pursuit has apparently taken the rest.  

The rune mistress had almost mauled Tethrien's own blood in her defense of this sanctuary--a place to which she now has even less right.

Nevertheless, she draws in a breath and shoves that bleak, brooding gloom down.  The fire and confidence are not gone.  They shall not leave her completely.  

Blinking once, hard enough to speckle her view with bright pinpoints of light, she pushes her spectacles up along the bridge of her nose.  A smooth roll of thighs shifts her from her knees to a troll-like poise on her toes.  While the mage finally sinks, Lhysandra offers both hands, free of knife, palm up, heedless of her state of comparative undress.

I mean you no harm.

"Laevra, is it?  I need you to breathe," Lhysandra speaks calmly, coolly, her expression smoothed and baring nothing of the turmoil she has laid to rest.  "In through the nose, count to three, out through the mouth.  Slowly now.  You're safe here."  

After a few moments of observational quiet, she nods toward the ramp down and out.  "Let's get you taken care of.  I've been your father's medic for a while now. My bandages and solutions are downstairs.  You can tell me all about it there, mm?"   Surgeon’s fingers curl slightly as she stands, slow and cautious.  “Come with me?”

Laevra was not a young woman used to dealing with trauma, that much was obvious from her shaken appearance and the struggle to regain herself.  The house is a stranger to her, but it has been ever since Tethrien returned from the Twilights.  The man that came back wasn’t the father she knew before.

But he was still hers.

The girl’s first answer is a hiccup to the extended hands, her own still shaking where they clutch her dress.  It is as if they are stuck there, frozen in stiffness  where they claw, although not hard enough to rend delicate fabric further.  Lhysandra.  She couldn’t recall her father mentioning her, but even when he would visit Dalaran to see her, he would press her for questions and leave no room to prod into his own life.  He deflected any inquiries with the same:  work, war.  He never mentioned her.  The slender woman does not have the heart to question, however.  

She knew Tethrien’s name, that much was enough, wasn’t it?

Trusting, she finally manages to uncurl her hands from her dress, watching the other woman as she rises, far less predator than before.  Laevra swallows air as best she can, but distress is harsh, and she doesn’t have the emotional control that her father does.  The only thing terribly slow is the way she manages to rise, unsteady.  “H-his medic?”  That sounded awful, but then again, Alerin had been his medic as well.  He needed one, that was for certain.  Her hesitation is not born out of fear of the woman, perhaps obvious enough in the way her gaze slides over the contents of the room, sparse and near and clean just like he would have left it.

“Is he all right?”  Her question is whisper-soft and hitched still, and she takes a careful step toward Lhysandra, only then seeming to notice that somewhere in her escape, she seemed to have lose a slipper.

The red-haired lady inclines her head minutely in confirmation to Laevra's quavering question.  It is probably for the better that Lhysandra does not entirely know the implications of such a role.  Medic suits. Fire reawakens fire, feeding flames of vitality and youth and confidence, building something indescribable - better that way.  It needed no qualification, no quantification.  It simply was.  Simply is.  And given how confidential they tend to be, she isn't surprised or affronted at being unknown.

Nevertheless, Laevra will surely note a few small things that are not Tethrien's on the nightstand, and the rumple of a little circle in the upper-right corner of the bed.  

"He's in his element," Lhy confirms.  It isn't a lie - it is about as positive a projection as she can muster.

Their privacy extends in ways that might make others uncomfortable, but neither own one another, and that trust is there.  Of late, Lhysandra's contacts have been subtle, testing the link with the tentative touch of a spider on its web.    Occasionally, she will linger if she catches the harmony of the black, dreamless sleep of exhaustion, taking comfort in knowing the soldier's heart still beats.  Sometimes it's good to know someone is out there who cares enough to check in.  

She takes a step forward, gently folding her hands around one of the taller, slimmer woman's.  Light, but Lhysandra appears zaftig beside Laevra, likely two stone heavier in spite of her shorter stature.  It's no wonder why the girl is so winded, given the delicate structure of her bones, slender and almost attenuated.  

A calm, careful stride seeks to place her side against the young woman's as she urges downstairs.  “Come on then.  When was the last time you ate?”

There are things here, feminine things that she knows very well are not her father’s.  The bed’s state is noted, as well as the lingering scent alien to her.  Lhysandra’s.  She was a friend of her father’s?  A friend.  She didn’t spend much time in contemplation of it, not entirely, not yet.  There would be time while she figured out what to even do now that she couldn’t return to Dalaran.  The woman’s answer draws a quiet sigh from the diminutive blonde.  In his element was enough of an explanation for her understanding.

Out fighting, just like he always was.  She’d heard Tethrien telling Alerin that it was when he felt most alive, sometimes alive at all.  War was all he ever seemed to know.

He said it was because he wanted to protect everyone else from having to fight it.

Beyond the injuries, beyond the limp way her gown hangs and the shrunken way she trembles, she is healthy enough even if she is slender.  The pale coloration is from fright, hue made more stark for mess upon her smooth skin.  She does not smell of illness and if she did not tremble from what she has faced, there is no indication that she is weak.  Full indeed Lhysandra seems in comparison to the tall, fragile elegance of the girl she leads.  There is little to no fat on her frame, no robust curvature, but her features despite their youthfulness are not the ones of a child.

Her breaths do not entirely calm, even as they move toward the door of the room, her already uneasy balance made moreso by the trembles she cannot seem to stop.  Tears have made tracks in the streaks of filth on porcelain skin.  The drape of her dress’s sleeves obscure the ring of bruising around her wrist where she was gripped too tightly, yanked in spite of her protests.  One hand grips the railing of the ramp even with Lhysandra’s assistance, her footing unsure.  The question goes unanswered as her misty eyes seek out a window to stare outside.  

How long had it been?  What time was it?

“I d-don’t know...”

Given that Laevra is of Tethrien's blood, there would be little surprise to find an uncommon strength in spite of a classically willowy appearance.  She already knows well not to discount or discredit others simply by their bearing.  

Hence Lhysandra leads, solid steadiness in comparison, a rock against which to lean, an iron will upon which to brace.  Tethrien may not be home, but those who matter to him fall too under the rune mistress' ferociously protective wing.  It is the least she can do.  As indurated as the soldier is to the world, the look in his eye and the wan echo of a smile on his face for mention of his little girl are enough to illustrate his adoration.

The knife is scooped up and tucked in a belt loop surreptitiously - no need to frighten Laevra more.  It's summarily deposited in the sink when they reach the kitchen, once Lhy has directed the young lady to take a seat.  The only change to the warrior's spartan dining area is the addition of stock.  His pantries and cupboards are full, and a large metal cold-box limned in frost runes sits where empty base-board once lay.  Much as this strange woman makes her mark, she does not wish to change what is so enthralling.  

Quickly and efficiently she washes her hands, scrubbing thoroughly up to the shoulders, and once she dries off with an already rusty colored terry towel, she's on the move.  

In short order, and with a little bit of finesse, she produces a small plate of food: two thick slices of fresh, hearty grain bread, still warm, placed alongside a shallow dish of honey-butter.  With that is a large mug etched in runes similar to those on the cold-box, filled with clear, cool water.   “Eat, drink,” encourages Lhysandra softly but firmly.

She seeks to gently buff the majority of the soil from Laevra's hands with the damp towel before retreating for her medical supplies.

Now that she knows Lhysandra means her no harm, there is still a sort of comfort in knowing that she is there.  Although Laevra returned to this place in hopes of finding her father, that she does not have to stay in this house of ghosts and memories alone is still a way to ease.  She does not know this woman, and she has not seen Tethrien around her, but it is in the young girl’s nature to trust; Lhysandra has made herself at home here, even if her mark is small.  

More fondness from the big warrior may spring from the fact that she looks little like him and reminds him of a life lost and loved.  He has shown a penchant for those smaller than him, after all.  There are still some to protect, there is still some fight to wage, some home to defend, people to cherish.  He has not spoken of the past Laevra and he share, the long years not knowing the other was alive until fate and chance brought them across one another.  

Once sitting, the young woman is able to pull her legs to her chest and stare at the subtle changes in the house.  Food not of a trail-like tastelessness, clean still but well-used even without the presence of his old lover.  Slowly, she begins to calm, although the tremble does not so easily abate.

Beneath the dirt and grime of struggle, there are places where the girl’s nails have torn or chipped where she grasped in desperation and was denied hold.  Scrapes slash across her knuckles and as the drum of fear’s adrenaline fades, she can feel the sting in her fingers as she hesitantly takes the bread.  She does not wish to eat, but like a mouse she does not protest.  Slowly she tastes the warm bread, the first eaten plain for lack of desire.  The second she carefully spreads butter atop after the knife slips from her fingers to clatter onto the table once.  She is too shaken to feel shame over her inability.  Water too is taken as her stomach reminds her that is has been the most of a day, travel done on foot or by magic, exhaustion bearing down on her.  Weary though she might be, she does not feel tired--too much has happened.

As Lhysandra slips from the room, Laevra curls her robed legs to her meager chest, one arm curled around them as she nurses the cool water down a throat much drier than she had realized, and the touch of the mug to her lip draws another sting of pain where teeth caught and cut.  Bruising forms along her slender jaw beneath the smears of dirt and flaking blood.

But she is alive and will recover.

Lhysandra is as silent as she is swift, as Laevra has discovered in moments of fear.  Clean clothing set out -- one of her own long, flowing silk night gowns can be adjusted comfortably for the taller woman -- along with a robe and thick towels.  Running water resounds upstairs as a bath is drawn, a timed rush of hottest setting that will have ample time to cool to a more comfortable temperature.  Epsom salts, lavender oil and chamomile essence disperse better in the high steam.  

Like the engineered timer pump, little improvements here and there do not change the character of the place, but improve its efficiency.  Such is the red-haired lady's mark: strengthening, not destroying what is good in those for whom she cares.  

After giving the girl a few minutes to eat and to tremble (with the very clear understanding that she is not alone), Lhysandra returns to the downstairs, ducks into the study room, and bears her full medical kit hence.  Up onto the table it is placed, the elegantly crafted box opened, its eaves and containers unfolded in tidy array.

Once more she sanitizes her hands, her fingers and nails clean and strong in spite of the dirty work of butchery.

Gauze is prepped, thick pads of cotton moistened with mint-water set aside for cleansing.  Laevra's face looks like it's most uncomfortable, so Lhysandra opts to start there, provided she has permission.  Soft, firm, she asks,  “Can you show me any cuts you might have, Laevra?”  

It is still fear that lingers at the silent movement about the house, that just recently those too-quiet steps stalked her up to her father’s bedroom.  Laevra has not the mind to hold grudge for it.  They did not know one another, and they did not know that each other would be there.  Lhysandra was protecting from a stranger, regardless of who it ended up being.  There are other things to be frightened of for the time being, but she dares to hope they will not reach her here.

Legs curled to her chest, Laevra lifts her gaze upward when she hears movement and the running water.  Yes... a bath would be good.  For now she cannot bring herself to move, too pulled in by lingering memories.  He would sit where she was now and watch her as she moved about the kitchen.  Sometimes he would even see her, speak to her.  It seemed like he was rarely home within his mind these days.  The young woman’s gaze strays to Lhysandra when the woman returns, and she can only wonder.

Has he grown more like himself in her company?  It is a wonder if he has allowed himself to be happy, even for a short time.

Lhysandra’s voice draws her from her contemplation, and the slender girl swallows thickly and takes another drink of water before answering.  “I don’t know,” she answers in a quavering voice, although her words grow stronger steadily as she speaks.  The girl’s fingers have begun to dully throb as she curls them, and she tests her bottom lip until she can taste a touch of copper.  “I ff-fell.  Maybe.”  The young woman closes her eyes firmly, taking a deep breath and setting the mug down in order to rest her hands palms-down on the surface of the table.  They rest for a moment before her touch flutters, gingerly pressing against her lip and unable to stop the little wince.  Laevra looks toward the woman, and there is a brief flicker of apology in her features.  She is too rattled to process it all as well as she might.

Softly she clicks her tongue against the backs of her teeth, piercings a gentle rattle.  She shakes her head just once at the look of apology, a small smile dawning across her features.  The ghosts of dimples appear in earnest.  "Aaah there it is," Lhy murmurs  as she approaches with bare, cool hands, setting aside gauze and cleanser.  Will the young lady allow her to cup those delicate features?   The temperature of her palms and fingers is apt for soothing hot, broken, bruised flesh.

Starkly heterochromic eyes narrow upon the sight of a cut on the girl's inner lip.  Given the pressure welts indicative of knuckle impact, she wagers that the soft skin was sliced with her own incisors, hardly from a fall.  A certain darkness crosses the tattooed lady's features at the signs of abuse.

Unacceptable.

Provided Laevra doesn't flinch away, Lhysandra leans in closer, pressing and strumming fluidly for signs of looseness to molars and any potential damage to jaw.  "We'll get you something to ease the soreness momentarily, mm?"  Keep talking, little bird, don't slip into shock now. "I'm not a healer, alas, but I am at times in the business of patching people up."  As opposed to tearing them apart.

"Might need to apply one or two stitches on the inside of your lip there so it won't keep catching on your teeth."  She draws a brief breath and pushes her tongue against the backs of her spider bite labrets.  This while retreating some, plucking at a vial from one of the side compartments of her tool kit.  "As you might imagine, I ah... I commiserate there.  'Least you didn't have any of these to worry about, huh?"

Laevra watches Lhysandra quietly as the woman moves about, and although there is a wariness about her, she does not seem particular afraid of her specifically.  It is merely the after-effect of a rabbit escaping from beneath the lion’s paw.  The smile offered to her is recognized and, after a few moments, returned with a trembling, faint one of her own.  It does not last long, but the expression is there regardless.  

At first as she is reached for, the young lady cannot help the slight wince backward, although she does not actually stop Lhysandra.  A little jerk is all just before she lowers her gaze to the curve of the other woman’s elbow.  Bruising and the cut of her lip are indeed indicative of a strike rather than some other sort of injury, just as the lissome woman suspects.  Thankfully the strike itself was not hard enough to dislodge any teeth, but there is a slight wince when she feels pressure along the line of her jaw, and beneath the dirt, small gouges where the back of a gauntlet bit into tender skin

There isn’t much talking by the young lady for a time, just a quiet stare at the far side of the kitchen.  A medic but not a healer, and dangerous; so different she is from the company her father kept before.  There is little doubt in her that Lhysandra is not the sort to curl up and weep in the face of her father’s anger.  Perhaps it is what he needs.  Challenge.  She was certainly of a different sort, that much was for certain.

The idea of stitches is daunting and uncomfortable to the slight woman, and she offers no complaint or confirmation that she even heard the words--the better to ignore the need for care a little bit longer.  “Are you the one that helped him smell things again?”

Lhysandra does not opprobriate Laevra's apprehension.  After such an ordeal, it is something of a wonder that the girl is able to remain upright.  It is a certain sort of unexpected resilience borne of tragedy, in spite of a soft and simple genteel.    The redhead's movements are slow and easy, unhurried, nothing sudden, no need to startle Laevra more than she has already suffered.  So like her father in moments of fuss over injuries far smaller than ones past, the young mage doesn't answer the call for reinforcing stitches to inner lip.  

Continuing her assessment, she hovers her hands over the lanky lady's arms, almost as though she senses the heat from swelling bruises.  Sharp eyes flit down to knees and feet, investigating the contusions and lacerations commensurate with impact.  Falls or otherwise.  She marks the discoloration of one of the girl's ankles with a click of tongue, instead deciding it better to begin cleansing the scrapes with cooling salve and gentle circular motion.

It is the inquiry that comes about senses that gives her pause, in the middle of working some grit free with a gauze pad soaked in topical anaesthetic.  Camphor is tingly and cooling to hot and angry.

A little crook of a smile is open, honest and warm, lending itself to her multitudinous freckles.   “I am, yes.”

Surely when the adrenaline fully fades, the little lady will be thoroughly exhausted, so fully was her fear enacted.  It has been a trying time not quite befitting of the gentle demeanor she carries, but war rarely spares those of light mannerism or anyone else.  Although she is soft where her father is firm, slender where he is burly, there is more alike in them than perhaps either realizes.  The telling silence, the quiet words, the tilt of her eyes is more like his when she turns studious.  She is what he may have been one day had he not been buried time and time again with unspoken of loss.  There is a gentleness in his touch echoed in the careful gestures of her own.  She, however, does not suffer the pain of injury in silence like the soldier Lhysandra is more well-acquainted with.

There are yet scrapes on the pale skin of her feet, more yet on the left where she appears to have lost her slipper in her retreat, indication enough that it was not lost in the house for the dirtiness of her sole.  The thought of stitches frighten her, especially on a place like the inside of her mouth.  She wasn’t used to injury even at the worst of times, and here she was to have stitches on the inside of her bottom lip?  As better as it would be in the long run, the idea is still uncomfortable.

Most of the girl’s injuries appear superficial, although her ankle throbs in his swollen, bruised state in a light sprain.  She makes a quiet noise, almost a trembled whimper, and closes her eyes for a moment.  Up her legs, her knees, her feet all bear scrapes of a relatively minor degree.  Her right palm bears a skid where the first layer of flesh had been rubbed raw, knuckles scraped and fingernails chipped and in places pulled back.  The inside of her left wrist bears a circle of bruises where gripped too hard by someone, another up around her arm just above the elbow.  

Startled awake from his sleep with a throaty cry, Tethrien jerked aright from his lounge in the well-worn recliner in his study, nearly tipping the furniture over with the sudden shift of his heavy weight.  Heart racing, he could feel the layer of chilled sweat matting silver hair to his skin.  Breath came sharp through parted lips, and very suddenly he became aware of the pervasive scents of pine, cleaners and baking bread. 

Running a thick hand through his untamed mane, the large soldier rose on shaky legs and fumbled about for the metallic device that served as his communication.  He could hear no movement in the house--Laevra had gone to Garadar with Gunnar to pick up herbs from the Mag'hari traders, and Lhysandra... she had been kneading dough when he had returned to the room he had fallen to sleep in.  Had she heard him, she would have appeared in her usual feline grace to insure he was, in fact, safe. 

Alone he rose, moving toward the ramp and up to the open door of the washroom.  A hand strayed to the closed surface of his flannel shirt, pressing palm against the flesh he knew still lay marked with the scar from a time akin to his dream.  Beneath his fingertips, the skin burned hot, a pain searing in his chest.  Frantic gestures tore the worn cloth open, buttons skipping across the tiled floor to clink against the rim of his tub.  As fingertips pressed against the jagged surgical scar across his chest, the pale digits came away slick with blood.  Old healed skin had torn, crimson streaking pallid flesh in a river that left him dizzy.  The wound burned like hot coals, a searing pain that hammered his heart and made his breath short.  As he stared in the mirror, hands braced on the counter the burning grew worse.  Pale flesh wiggled like something squirming beneath the surface, his head swimming as he watched in a sense of horror.  Pinpoint lines of paperthin gashes formed along the length of his torso, widening and widening as pressure increased. 

The voice that screamed was his own.

In a viscous spray that splattered the mirror and wall with scarlet, flesh shredded before the stretch of ribs, cage unfolding, tearing open like wings.  He was going to die.

There within his chest, beat his heart, noted by the vibrant amethyst glow just beneath the surface of the left atrium.  He could feel the presence in amongst the pain, the laughter, the screams of a thousand victims drowning in his ears.

With a sharp gasp, Tethrien blinked his eyes open, staring at his visage in the mirror.  Already pale features carried an unhealthy pallor, yellow and ghostly white.  His eyes looked sunken, made moreso for their barely noticable glow.  With hesitation, fingers reached to press softly against the rosy scar over his heart, but this time no blood followed. 

It was the first time in ages that he recalled the thick and choking vomit rising in his throat, and it was all he could do to stumble from the sink and into the hallway.  He didn't make it down the ramp and outside before he emptied his stomach on the carefully sealed wooden planks.  He retched until breath was short and tears burned in his eyes for the effort, choking on dry heaves.  It was half an hour before he could right himself enough to dutifully clean the mess, to erase all that he could of the evidence.

Panic flared for a moment as he dressed in cleaner clothes, worn denims shoved into high boots and a short-sleeved work shirt yanked over his head.  He couldn't stay here, not at the moment.  Were they safe?  Lhysandra would have alerted him if something had happened, but what if he had been trapped within that nightmare? 

He was not there when they returned.  Laevra carried Gunnar in her arms, the leash attached to his harness wound loosely around one slender arm.  Beside her stalked the shorter vixen clad in an array of fitted leathers and corseted busk, a bag of herbs and vegetables draped over her shoulder.  The young lady released the armadillo from his halter, setting it aside on the silver hook nearby the door before gently taking the bag of their findings from Lhysandra before scampering into the kitchen where their fresh bread sat cooling.

It did not take long for the ginger-haired lady to realize something was amiss.  The stench of bile beneath the smell of cleaners invaded her senses as she took the ramp.  The hamper in his room--their shared quarters--lay open with trousers and flannel tossed within haphazardly.  There across the way on the floor lay a pair of tiny buttons like black eyes glimmering, staring back at her.

Gaze locked on the buttons, she reached out across the link most personal, ghostly fingers reaching for the warm, sturdy frame on the other side.  He was there, he was shaken but alive and unharmed.