The wind.

It was only the wind, howling its way into her bedroom and her mind, shaping her dreams into a confusing mess of memories and bad omens. Whispers and spine-chilling moans slithered into the inn through every crack in the wooden walls they could find. The wind was cold and brought heavy black clouds to cover the night sky and shroud the White Lady and her Blue Child. The two moons couldn't show their light that night, and a storm was coming.

Aiwyn woke up because of the cold, far away from that comfortable and luxurious room that was, more or less, hers. It's been a couple of weeks since she left that warm place, fit for an elf and suitable for a night of storytelling. Now the cold seeped into her body and made her curl into a fetal position to remain warm, the bed sheets pulled close to her. There was no way to get warmer when the window was open, and eventually her consciousness emerged just enough to realize that. The elf sat up, shivering and rubbing her eyes as she tried to understand the bad feeling that tried to scream from the back of her mind to tell her something was wrong. Her mind still swayed between the vague and blurred realm of dreams and the crude and blunt reality, trying to take a grasp of that premonitory itch. It was a distant feeling, a bad omen so curious that it took her a second to name it...

A man. She'd lain with a man and woke up alone - of course, her bed wasn't supposed to be so cold, and the window wasn't supposed to be open. Sliding off of her bed and covering herself with a large male linen shirt, she walked up to the window and took a look outside. She squeezed her eyes against the chilly wind that sent her hair lashing at her back and shrugged. It appeared that every living being went looking for cover to prepare for the storm to come, and not even the rats wandered outside. A leafless tree just outside the inn bent to the will of the wind and its ghostly and naked branches tapped against the window of another patron's room. She wondered how they could sleep when the creaking of the tree hurt her ears from where she was, and hoped the innkeeper had given the patron a good price.

As she was about to shut the window and ponder over the idea of returning to bed, she heard a nervous horse at the stables. She waited a minute to check if the horse would keep on neighing nervously, but it didn't. It might be the animal simply reacting to the static of the storm to come, it might be nothing since horses can fear their own shadows, but that bad feeling didn't leave her still, so she grabbed her staff and stepped out of her room.

Perhaps he had just gone out for some fresh air but... who was she trying to fool? She was worried.

Not a single soul roamed through the night but her, it seemed. Aiwyn regretted almost instantly her simple linen shirt. She should have put on something that could protect and cover her body a little more, but now she was halfway to the stables and the darkness was so deep she had to make the top of her staff glow and let its light guide her like a candle. She heard the horse again, this time closer.

The stables were not as calm as she would expect. Her staff showered the place with its soft light and revealed the outline of the different bays, a few of them occupied. The nervous neigh of the horse was not the only noise that filled the place, the only one that could be heard above the howling of the wind. A war direwolf also sniffed the air and growled at the darkness, and she carefully approached to try to figure out what was wrong. She was barely through the door of the stables when a strong hand pulled her by the neck. A strong, rough, sailor's hand.

A smothered gasp got stuck in her throat as she felt herself roughly pressed against the wall, her staff falling to the ground. Another strong hand grabbed her wrist when she tried to slap him, and when she felt her neck released, both of her hands were held against the wall, struggling vainly.

All of her strength was like a summer breeze trying to break a mountain, his hands made of stone. Stone that was covered in something sticky and warm.

"What do you think you're doing?! Lan, let go!" she hissed at him. She knew it was him long before she took a good look at her aggressor. And now, before his blazing red eyes, she knew there was something wrong with him.

"No," he answered, a smug smile slipping through his lips.

That simple act of defiance enraged her, but her fiery wrath turned quickly to fear: her eyes went down his face, and she saw the rune necklace around his neck fading. Some runes were completely gone, while others shone their final light before her eyes.

She felt her guts freezing. Those runes were all that kept him docile and loyal to her will - and he was dispelling the spell, resisting it, waving it away like it was a mild nuisance.

To be honest, she'd been waiting for that day when he would break his chains, but she didn't expect it to happen in that fashion.

"It's so kind of you to come and say goodbye," he started in that soft voice. "I didn't want to wake you, you know."

"You...! How dare you!" her rage shaped the most creative insults in her head at that moment, but she tried to keep them there, in her head. It was not an empty threat that froze her in place, not a rough foreplay. There was nothing standing between his hands and her neck. She felt something sliding down her wrists, and only then realized his hands were covered in blood. "What... what have you done? Where did you get that?" she said as her eyes caught the shape of a sheathed sword attached to his belt, something she'd never seen in his possession. There were so many things wrong with that picture.

"I took it," he answered with that mocking smile. "I should take you as well. Make you regret this, this petty binding spell," he chuckled softly.

"Why don't you? Is that what you want? Or is that what the voices in your head want?" the elf challenged him, and immediately squeezed herself against the wall, trying to get away from him as he latched onto her, letting out a thundering animal growl. She thought he would attack her neck with sharp teeth until her head detached from her shoulders, but he stopped.

He stopped, for one reason or other, his hot breath on her skin. She needed to choose her words carefully, for he seemed to be resisting the urge to snap her neck. She could feel his rage radiating from him in waves that drove the cold off her body; she felt the prey of a bloodthirsty beast. Even the animals in the stables could feel it, and they cowered and cried out softly again as they sensed his murderous wrath. Her heart raced uncontrollably, and Aiwyn swallowed hard.

"This... this is not your style," she began. "I know you. So vain, so full of yourself," she felt his hands tightening around her wrists. "Slipping through the window in the middle of the night? That's not like you. You have dramatic flair... you'd need to make a big deal out of this. Like by shapeshifting in the middle of a city. Something happened. Something changed you."

The man remained silent for a moment. His presence disturbed the silence of the stables, as the horse and even the fierce direwolf felt restless before him. Afraid, even. Aiwyn's body still shivered, tense, still, trying not to move an inch. The wind kept on howling outside, unaware of their argument.

"You knew this would happen," he finally said. "You knew your spell wouldn't be enough to keep me chained for long, and yet you acted like it would. Why?"

Aiwyn hesitated before answering. The way he could switch from what it felt like an irrational, hungry beast and a reasonably sane man left her apprehensive. To say the least.

"You kept my mind busy," she said. "Worrying about you meant I didn't have to worry about other things."

"Other things? Like your fiancé?" he stepped back to look at her and snorted at the surprised face she made. "Oh, for fucks sake, don't give me that look. Did you think I didn't know? You tremble at the idea of finding and facing him now, at the Sunwell Plateau."

There was something in his voice that she never heard before, and that she would certainly never expect from him. She knew that variation in tone too well to let it go unnoticed. And that, more than anything that could come from him, surprised her.

"You care," she finally said in disbelief. That idea was so wild, so strange to her ears she didn't seem to believe it herself. "You're jealous."

One of his hands found her neck again, and even if there was hatred and threat to that gesture, there was nearly no strength to that squeeze - no real will of inflicting pain.

"I'm not as foolish as you mortals," he answered, yet she thought he was wishing to believe more than wishing to make her believe.

"Really? Then why did you stay so long?"

"You may call it a whim," he answered. "You're rather amusing... for a mortal."

Still she felt there was something odd about the way he hesitated to hurt her, or the way he delayed his departure. But despite that, he'd crossed a line that night - he actually broke the spell she had on him - and they couldn't go back to their former status quo.

"You've lied better before," she said. "You were listening, is that it? Truly listening. You know every single word I said is true. You mock mortals so much... Yet you are watching, first hand, as mortals stand together before the Burning Legion. And succeeding so far."

His laugh felt like a roar, louder than the howling wind. Suddenly she was afraid that he would awake someone inside the inn, when his hands - and hers - were covered in blood. Some part of her wanted to address that problem - did he kill someone? Why? - but now didn't seem the right time for that.

"The Burning Legion will fail," he said with a grin. "But the Old Gods are part of Azeroth, and will never be gone. Not when something as ancient and powerful as the Black Dragonflight is by their side."

"Yet I know a mere mortal who defeated a black dragon and put a leash on his neck," she teased him. "I know that you're starting to realize you're nothing more than a puppet. Do you think you will be spared when the Hour of the Twilight finally come? Do you think you will be rewarded? What are the Old Gods whispering in your head? What rewards are them promising you? Do they want me dead? Go ahead then - prove me wrong."

It might have seemed an insane leap of faith to trust him, to toy with issues as distrustful as his sanity or pride and vanity. But her insight on these matters would help her then and after, when she would realize that was a big lesson to be learned: Insanity must never be ignored, but acknowledged. Used, manipulated.

His hand remained on her neck, and apart from a soft squeeze, there was no real intent there. The elf could almost picture what was going on inside his head, the words he was trying to put in line to overthrow her reasoning. Yet he'd seen enough to doubt his own reasons, and whether they were truly his. Now was the time for her to act and add noise to his head.

"You will never go back to your former blessed state of ignorance, Laniryon. You've seen what will happen should the Hour of the Twilight come, and there is nothing left of the world for you to rule but its ashes," she kept on talking before he could answer. She surprised him a bit more by leaning in to whisper in his ear, and he did nothing to stop her. "What is it that your own voice is telling you right now? What's the feeling in your gut? If you think the voices in your head are not trustworthy, add mine to them so you can doubt them, argue with them. And then come to me, when you're ready."

With his mind so busy trying to take a good grip of her words, he also let his guard down completely. When he realized she was gathering power to shape a spell, it was already too late. Her power radiated out from her in a wave that pushed him away; a simple and unrefined use of magic that almost couldn't be considered a spell, but that was still effective. Laniryon was pushed away and hit a wooden pillar; the pillar cracked and the horses finally started to frantically freak out while the wolf howled at the man, but the man looked unharmed and even took his hand to the hilt of the sword, before realizing Aiwyn was already gone.

The innkeeper almost caught her on his way to the stables, fearing a thug or thief, since he had a club in his hands. Horses neighing could be ignored throughout the night, but not everything else. The entire inn would be up in no time, so she had to be quick. She hastily made her way back to her room, already hearing shuffling behind a few doors, where some patrons were waking up due to the night's agitation. Luckily her apprentice, the human boy Nathan, was already standing before the door of her room, his brain trying to communicate with his sleepy self about the reasons to be there. Explosions were so commonplace around his Master that the connection of the noises at the stables being of her doing was spontaneous.

"Nathan, we're leaving. Now," she said, and his eyes widened at the command. He wasn't given time to ponder or even question, when her urgency was strengthened by a roar as loud as a thunder, shaking the inn's wooden walls and make her elven ears ring. Following that, she heard the flapping of gigantic, leathery wings. Nathan understood immediately and ran to his room to gather their stuff.

The little village was shaken by the sudden appearance of the dragon, more felt than seen. His scales merged with the dark night sky; the wind his wings created as he took flight only added to the storm to come. And no one, not even the bravest of heroes, would be foolish enough to follow him through storm clouds filled with lightning.

Aiwyn didn't like to leave the place like that, sneaking out the back door while the sight of the dragon took the night entirely. It made her feel she was guilty, but she had no choice. Laniryon left too many questions (and a dead body) behind for it to be safe to stay - she couldn't even start to investigate his reasons before being questioned for the blood in her hands, both metaphorically and literally.

And even as she turned to face the storm, far from the inn and into the night, cold and wet to the core of her bones, she had a satisfied smirk playing across her lips that left her apprentice dumbfounded. Despite the seemingly catastrophic events that played during the last hours, she knew she'd shaken his mind's foundations.

She'd seen it before: the hesitation, that look on his face that betrayed him and showed the surface of the tempest that was raging inside his head. There was no other reason he would be there, arguing with her instead of simply running. He also had doubts.