#xonen

He raised a brow and turned his attention fully on her as she stopped by his table. She was tall and wiry, her fur nearly black and her eyes brown. She wore a dress of soft, light leather in shades of dark green and indigo, intricately embroidered. “Might I sit?” She asked, voice gruff in this animalistic shape, but still with a recognizable Gilnean accent. He nodded, curious, and gestured to the other chair.

She took a moment, glancing back at her companions, who were trying quite hard to not look like they were watching closely. The white-furred male’s lips raised slightly in a suppressed snarl when the doctor glanced his way. The one-eyed fellow in gaudy purple attire flicked his gaze between his companion and Hempstead, and was much harder to read as he leaned back, arms crossed. Hempstead returned his attention to the female who sat, clawed hands clasped on the table, and studied him.

“I’m—“

“I know,” she interrupted. It was hard to read her tone through the wolfish features and gravelly vocals. “You’re looking for Vember Harnvall. But she isn’t here.”

Hempstead frowned. “Except I have it on good authority that she does live here now, is part of the school. It seems everyone wants to keep her hidden.” He peered at the worgen. “Unless you happen to know where to find her…?”

She shook her head. “She is not here, because she no longer exists. You’re asking the wrong questions, about the wrong person.”

He shook his head. “I know enough to know she’s alive after all, and here under an assumed name…”

“Her family’s name,” the worgen said quietly. “Taken on when she left your care.”

He studied the worgen woman. “That family said she’d committed suicide, after leaving my care.”

She started a bit at that, and then laughed low, brushing one paw back over her face. “Explains a lot.” She looked at him.

“Vember…” he murmured.

The worgen shape melted away; in a blink, Vember sat across from him. Slim, dark eyed, tucking a sleek strand of black hair behind her ear. The short sleeves of her dress showed part of the bite mark on her right bicep. She smiled, though her expression remained guarded. “Hello, doctor.”

“I’m quite happy to see you looking so well, my dear.”

“I’m sure,” she answered dryly. “I don’t know who told you I was dead, but I’m not. I’m not delusional or deranged, either.”

“Now, my dear—“

“Stop,” she hissed. “You’re willing to believe what anyone else tells you, but not what’s right in front of you. I don’t know what stake you had in getting me to admit to something I know I did not do, could never do—though you had me convinced, for a while.”

“You seemed quite certain, after our breakthrough--”

“My breakdown, you mean. After two years in that place, told every day I was insane? Who wouldn’t say anything to try to make the hurting stop?” She didn’t quite suppress a shiver. “I still hear Maisy Ellis screaming, constantly, in my nightmares.”

“The poor woman never did stop,” He said, with genuine regret. Mrs. Ellis was one of his great failures. “And what did you do, upon leaving us?”

She was quiet for a long moment, a nail tapping the tabletop. “I lived. I breathed open air, ate good food, was encouraged and nursed by people who loved me, rather than those who had a difficult job. I learned the Old Ways, and they grounded me in a way I’d been missing.” Vember looked at him, tilting her head slightly, reminding him of a bird. “And what have you done, since leaving that place?”

He arched a brow. “Well, I retired, mainly; bit old to be rebuilding a practice, though I consult here and there. I have a nice little cottage grown from the Oak’s roots, there in Darnassus. Fascinating place, you know.”

“I’ve been there. It’s lovely.”

“But you don’t come to the Gilnean quarter,” he noted. “Only the Cenarion enclave, and that pandaren’s tea house.”

She frowned. “Since when is stalking an accepted psychological practice?”

Hempstead harrumphed and shifted in his chair. “I beg your pardon, I do not--”

“Someone did,” she interrupted him again, voice tight. “Bragh said there was a photo, and someone had to have told you those things, once you heard about me.”

He frowned and lifted his glass, recalling belatedly it was empty. This woman was not the frightened, easily confused girl that he remembered. “Only what was needed to find you here…” He shook his head. “I understand you teach now, at the Academy, as well as help tend to the farm animals. Rewarding work, I take it?”

Her dark eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “I put my druidic skills to use helping others here. And I’m finding teaching quite rewarding.”

“I imagine so; nothing quite like shaping young minds, showing them the backbone of your craft and how to further their knowledge,” he agreed. “What is it like, to be around those children? Some of the older students’ ages would be quite close now to--”

“Don’t,” she said, a slight snarl roughening her words. “That is entirely irrelevant.”

“Is it?” Hempstead asked. “You suffered a profound loss, at your own hands or not. It colors your life, overtly or subtly. Tell me, my dear,” he leaned forward, his own chubby hands clasped on the tabletop in mimicry of her pose. “Have you tried to bear other children?”

Vember drew in a harsh breath as she sat back, straight and stiff. She watched him sharply, and he had the sudden, uncomfortable realization she was holding back not grief as he’d expected, but a feral rage as she glared, until he was forced to look away. Then she answered, as he watched her companions across the room settle back into their own chairs. “No.”

“Why?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s exactly my business, my dear, and the central point to your troubles.”

She made a disgusted noise and rolled her eyes, glancing back at the other worgen, before returning her uncomfortably steady gaze to Hempstead. “Scant opportunity, and the possible need for another healer’s intervention; it was not an easy birth.”

“Yes, I remember. I merely wondered, given those...gentlemen, over there, seem quite invested in this conversation, and it seems one of them might--”

“Stop,” she interrupted. “That’s none of your concern. They’re my present and future. You’re the past. I didn’t know any better back then, but now, after years of study and the right kind of help, I’ve realized something rather important, doctor.”

He frowned back at her. “What?” he asked, troubled by the clear intensity in those brown eyes.

“You’re really bad at this job. You’re irrelevant, and inflexible. Maybe you were worn down by your patients and the asylum itself back then, but now, you’re just an old man who should have retired years ago.”

He gaped. She took a deep breath and pushed her chair back. “You’re going to leave. Go back to Darnassus, to whatever it is you’re doing, and enjoy the rest of your life—and leave me alone to mine. I don’t need you. I never did. You hurt me far more than you ever helped.” She stood.

“Wait, just one moment,” he finally said, reaching for her wrist. She pulled away, a low warning growl emanating from her throat. Across the room, the two worgen tensed again. “I stayed this long because of your aunt—to give her something. She also thinks you’re dead.”

Vember paused, frowning. “I haven’t spoken to her since…Not in sixteen years, at least. Perhaps better for her to keep thinking so.”

“I may be old and irrelevant,” Hempstead said dryly. “But you’re the only family she has left, you know.”

“No, I don’t,” Vember said. She closed her eyes, taking a few moments. “My father…?”

Hempstead suppressed his smirk, at getting her to ask. “He passed, not long after—well, after word of your supposed suicide was released.” He tried to sound mournful and sympathetic.

She gripped the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. “Then D—then he got everything.” She looked at Hempstead. “What happened to Dietrick?” She seemed to force the name out of her mouth, as if saying a vulgar word.

“I don’t know,” he answered, quickly.

“You’re lying,” she said, narrowing her eyes, nails sharpening and digging into the chair’s back.

“You said we were finished,” he replied, leaning back in his own chair, which creaked as his bulk shifted. “I shall be leaving in the morning, to grant you your wish. Shall I tell your aunt of your continued existence, or do I leave her believing you took your own life?”

“I’ll think on it. I’ll make my own decision about her, thank you.”

“Mrs. Harn—er, Ms. Marlon, I do think—“

“Good-bye, Doctor Hempstead,” Vember said, cold and decisive. She spun on her heel and stalked back across the room, claws springing from her furry fingers as she fought against her change. The two worgen males focused their attention on her, the white-furred one instantly getting to his feet, shifting into the form of a 40-something year old man. He put an arm around her slender frame as they left, one final warning glower thrown Hempstead’s way. The one in that horrid purple outfit lingered, deliberately counting out coin for the waitstaff, keeping his single eye on the doctor.

Hempstead frowned as he replayed the encounter in his mind. It had not gone at all as he’d expected; she was not at all what he’d expected. It was, perhaps, best to leave Miss Whitesteel out of this for now, after all.

Dietrick Harnvall, however, would have to be told. He owed his old friend’s son that much.