Scarlet Sword

What is it, he asked, as she woke, gasping from a nightmare. She looked at him, eyes softening from fear to love. Had he been awake all night? Through the window, the sun was rising over Booty Bay harbour. A new day. Just a dream, don't worry, she said, smoothing back his hair. But I do need to get back before they miss me. She pulled away from his embrace and watched him tie back his ponytail. Try and get some sleep, and her feet stepped on the floor.

The gryphon flight to Stormwind took some time. She daydreamed, remembering that horrible day. The souds of battle, the moans of the undead as the crusaders hacked through rotten flesh and unnaturally strong bones. She had been drifting in and out of her senses, counting her limbs, one, two, three, four, then her eyes resting on the awful wound in her leg, bone gleaming through the torn skin and bloodied muscle. She had wondered why she could feel nothing, and eas grateful for the bleak numbness that carressed her consciousness. She refused to die. The army grew close now, the Scourge guarding the inn had rushed off, and not returned. The black air in the cellar was momentarily lluminated by a flash of green and purple light, she saw the sticky red pool in which she huddled, smelled the rotten stink which flowed with that flash, and she had known that a Lich had ben slain. Praise the light.

Nature, mercifully, has a way of protecting the mind from that which it cannot process, and so it had been with her. She remembered faces, uniforms, swords, scarlet and mercenary. She remembered the stiffness in her body when she had been untied. The remembered the looks on their faces, horror, shock, but the worst was pity. She did not remember much, but she remembered the bandages, stitches, and someone had carried her home on their horse.

Home. Sweet, soft familiar Stormwind, with its fragrant, candle-lit Cathedral, and the comfort of clean red robes.