Yagyu slowly rode under the gates of Stonard, passing a granite-eyed guard who kept a steady watch on the outlying swamps for any intruders. Riding up to the Inn where he had made his bunk, he slowly dismounted from Grimfang. The journey had been long but it was worth it. So much had happened since he had been gone. Despite his happiness at returning to his clan, it had still been difficult to see the tombs of his friends. It was good of Shadiel and Bellmont to have accompanied him to their final resting places but the hollowness at actually seeing the graves was a hard thing to deal with. He had paid his respects in orcish manner. Saluting their graves he had shared a final drink with the Chieftan and the Warlord.
Both Bellmont and Shadiel had tried to make him understand the necessity of moving the Grin into a new era. He shouldn’t fault Arkonn, they had pleaded. Arkonn had been a Bhurka, did Yag truly believe he would so easily throw away his loyalties without a reason? Perhaps it was the staff, Shadiel had mused. This obscure staff that Yag had known nothing about before and less now, may have been the cause of all three of his friends going insane.
The orc unconsciously rubbed his head as he tried to make sense of it all. He was no druid like Faquarl who could travel into the Emerald Dream to understand the problems of this world. He was no mage like Shadiel. He could not bend the arcane elements to his will and delve into the bottomless secrets of the Nether. His was a feral spirituality. He believed in the ghosts of his ancestors, whoever they might be. He believed in the power of the warriors that had gone before him and they would give him strength. He believed that even now, Gorfrunch and Faquarl looked upon him and he felt their strength even as he struggled to return to battle readiness in the snows of Kharanos. The instinctual beliefs of ancestral honor still held a tight grip on his inner soul and Yag knew that he must do his best to prove worthy of their trust.
He passed into the Inn with his bag over his shoulder looking for his bunk. As he passed the hearth, the saw Felora sitting quietly, staring into the fire. He stopped for a moment as he considered speaking. It had been a happy occasion to see her again. Finding her and Yalim and Grimnir alive after the disaster of Ironforge was a true reward. But when asked, she could not even bring herself to speak of Faquarl. Idiot orc! He chastised himself. What made you so dense as to not realize the pain his death must have caused her. As much as he mourned his friend and former Warlord, it must have been infinitely worse for Felora. He would not make that mistake again. Continuing on quietly he passed her by, leaving her to her thoughts.
Felora watched as the fire danced in the hearth, slowly withdrawing into itself. Soon it would be little more than embers. She wryly wished that she could do the same.
At Yagyu's return, she'd felt more joy in one night than she had for months. There were moments when she had nearly remembered herself. But she could still feel the gaping hole in her life that her Warlord had once filled, and it would take more than a brief stint through the dwarven lands to rescind that pain.
She scoffed suddenly, bitter thoughts welling up from beneath her careful dignity. Faquarl would not have spared nearly as many of his thoughts on her, had she been the one to give herself up to the spirit world. It was not his way. Yet there had been times, brief moments, when she had nearly found herself thinking that he cared. Perhaps it had been wishful thinking. She didn't quite know when he had come to mean so much to her, but it was doing her no good to dwell on that which she could not change.
A tingling sensation came to the back of her head as she felt Yagyu's eyes on her, although he said nothing. She allowed herself a small smile; now that her friend had returned, things could only get better. Part of her rather wondered what would happen when the orc confronted Ashenrock; Yagyu had been fiercely loyal to Gorfrunch, and it would take him some time to accept the leadership of a stranger.
Felora sighed. One day at a time, she thought.
The wards were set and Shadiel could feel no disturbances in the arcane around the place they now called home, Stonard. He attempts at a sleep that never comes and instead rises from his bed, takes his staff from the wall, and then proceeds outside. He is unseen, his ability at stealth isn't nearly as accomplished as a rogue but Mages have their limited ways.
Yagyu had come back home to the Grin. With so much loss it was a strange sensation to finally feel as they had won one. This was a new dawn for the Grin and what lay ahead was unknown to even his ability to look towards the future. Shadiel finds an isolated place and rests his back against the Inn's walls and looks to the east for the new day to begin. Eventually his eyes close and he sleeps.
Bellmont shrugged, and in doing so silently noted another one of humanities qualities slipping from him.
He just didn't care. It wasn't that he would not miss Gorfrunch or Faquarl, or venerate their memories, but to mourn? That was something lost long ago, perhaps worn down from to much use, perhaps made meaningless after seeing so many come back to only die again.
Death was an inevitability, and one he lived in.
He spoke aloud more to himself then anyone else, understandable but just barely.
"We mortals are well aware of our doom, we know of the end yet not the hour. In that I am cursed, as I am the hour for many." muttered Bellmont, sipping the ale he held in his hand.
A night of celebration and mourning, yet he could find himself to do neither. Suddenly without warning Bellmont stood, whipping the ale to the ground, the foamy liquid seeping into the grass-covered mud of the Swamp of Sorrows.
Ignoring the few who noticed he marched off into the darkness. He was growing tired of this unending neutrality amongst the natural paths of life. He would live in it's true sense, or he would die in it's true sense. Either seemed preferable at this point.