Grim Views

Time to awaken, my dear...

With a creak and a groan, the old grandfather bell of Lordaeron swung into motion once more, its iron tongue barely licking the inside of the gaping mouth before dangling again and striking the opposite side with a throaty, rolling moan.

The young man across from her stared at her uncertainly, as if he expected her to drop his hands and flee from the church at any moment...

A second toll was brought screaming forth to drop like a dead weight upon the overgrown cobblestones, hesitating for a fraction of a breath before snaking swiftly off, leaving no corner silent and no blade of grass unshaken.

"Father!" Jana raced to his side and dropped to her knees, cradling his head in her hands and calling back over her shoulder. "Get help!"

Thrice now had the great bell called out, the third tone squeezing between the tiny gap in the heavy oaken doors and ringing through the courtyard that still echoed with the cheers of the people of Lordaeron who had gathered to welcome their prince home.

She hunched over on the ground on hands and knees, sickened after waking for the fifth day in a row, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as Simon tried to hand her a damp cloth. "Oh Light..." she thought, touching her belly, "my life is over."

The fourth melancholy peal rolled through the great circular room, moaning past the empty throne, dragging through the lonely motes of dust that slept on the carved stone.

Slowly, with leaden fingers, Jana stripped off her white gown and folded it inside the carved chest he had made for her - his wedding gift to his new bride.

Not even pausing to observe, the fifth echoed into the solemn chamber and out once more. "May the Father lie blameless for the deeds of the son. May the bloodied crown stay lost and forgotten."

She hit the ground on her right side, a pain lancing up and down her arm and knifing through her abdomen at the same time. She heard the hoofbeats galloping away as she rolled onto her back, dazed and disoriented.

The elevator was unguarded and still. The sixth was a yawn, a gaping, sighing note that ricocheted off the walls of the shaft and down into the hidden city.

The doctor gently folded the stillborn child into a blanket and handed it to the stricken farmer. Unable to speak past the stone in his throat, Simon nodded, cradling the bundle delicately in his arms. On the bed, Jana lay exhausted and shaking, jaw clenched, staring up at the roof, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

The seventh exploded with a shout into the Trade Quarter, but there was no one there to heed its voice. There were no tradesmen hawking their wares, no bankers to take goods and money. It was a tomb.

The girl hesitantly stretched out a hand, looking up at the robed figure with uncertainty. The woman smiled warmly. "It's all right, he will not harm you." Slowly, the tiny hand reached through green Fel-fire that did not burn, and stroked the head of the surly imp with a gentle finger before the stern voice of her father snapped her hand back for her. "Jana!"

In four directions the eighth toll split, rolling across the bridges and circling the empty ring before joining once again and swifting through a deserted corridor.

"May I hold him?" Her mother smiled and placed the newborn babe into the girl's waiting arms. She fidgeted excitedly as she looked down at her new baby brother. She was only seven, but she had a responsibility now.

The river of green ichor had stilled to a stagnant lake. It no longer bubbled or flowed, but sat unmoving, frozen, quiet. The surface shuddered as the ninth peal sobbed over it, and was still again.

"It's that farmer again!" Martha's voice was a hushed whisper as the two girls giggled behind their hands and hurried past the cart and the man unloading it. He threw a sack of grain thrown over his shoulder and followed them with his eyes, blinking at the bright, shining hair of the tailor's daughter.

Deeper and deeper the tolling echoed, rattling the empty vials in the deserted herbalist's shop and sending a cascade of dust and rubble over bolts of fabric at Josef's. The bell called out a tenth time.

Jana stared through the rain into the eyes of her husband. He looked back at her, not speaking, and she wanted to slap that stupid, gaping look off his face.

The eleventh came swiftly, inexorably, shrieking through the depths of the deserted city, rolling, rolling, rolling. Far on the edges of its sight sat a decrepit wagon wedged into a corner.

She tried to run, but it was no use. In seconds, the creature was on her, and she fell as the pain shot through her guts once again. Clawed hands scrabbled at her back, scraping bloody furrows into her flesh before she was able to roll onto her back. She struck at its face with her tiny fists, tried with all her strength to push it away, but it was too big, too strong. The monster bent its head, and Jana's screams of pain echoed through the woods as the hellish beast sank its teeth into her and ravenously began to tear her flesh from her bones...

Diving through the air, the twelfth toll arrowed itself directly into her prone body as she lay on her back behind the wagon, sheeting over her skin like ice and echoing into her heart. The sound set the still organ to fluttering, filled the lungs with the stale air, sluiced the blood through her veins once more.

Time to awaken, my dear...

The woman's blue eyes opened.

The echo was assaulting her ears before she realized she had screamed, and the young woman sat bolt upright in a blind panic. She clawed at her arms, her legs, her stomach, scrambling backward, trying to fight off...what? Nothing. No thing. It was gone.

She had backed herself up into a corner of a little triangular alcove formed by an old, rotting wagon that had been abandoned in a corner. Trying to slow the frantic beating of her heart and her panting breaths, she looked around at the gray stone walls that surrounded her and strained her ears for any noise. Where am I? She could hear nothing. Within seconds, she became aware of a stench, worse than a thousand rotting carcasses, and she began to choke on the putrid reek, retching and heaving, vomiting onto the cold floor. Her stomach emptied, she continued to gag, tears of shame pricking at her eyes as she hunched over on her hands and knees. She began to tremble as she forced the clenching in her stomach to stop and managed to tear her eyes away from the mess in front of her.

Shakily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, the woman climbed to her feet. Staring down at herself, she found she was clad in a long blue skirt and a shirt made from the same fabric. This isn't mine. How did she get there? Someone had placed her there, changed her clothes and then...what? Left her? She glanced around the alcove again and noticed a number of scratches in the stone floor, arranged in groups. Puzzled, she skirted the mess on the floor, edging between the wagon and the wall and emerging into a curved tunnel. She was freezing cold. She looked up and down, but saw no movement, no life at all. Taking a few tentative steps out into the open space, she called out.

"Is anybody there?" The echo took a long while to die, and she guessed that whatever hidden place she was in, it was massive. "Hello?" she called louder. "Hello!" There was no answer, only her own voice calling back to her, bouncing off the endless walls of gray stone. She spied what looked like a signpost and hesitantly walked toward it, her bare feet growing numb as they trod on the chilly floor. She hugged herself with her arms and looked back over her shoulder at the wagon as she approached the sign. Upon reaching it, she found that the lettering was in a language unfamiliar to her. The woman stared up at the strange words, puzzled. Looked left, then right. Where am I? She started walking again, following the curve of the tunnel.

Fifteen minutes later, she arrived back at the wagon. She had circled around through the echoing corridor, calling out for her husband, for anyone who could hear, avoiding the walkways she found that would lead her off and no doubt get her lost. There was no one - no living creature in that stony, cold, empty place. With the sleeve of the blue shirt, she blotted the tears of frustration that were trickling down her cheeks. Her panic began to rise again - would she be stuck here forever, wandering these lost and haunted halls? She hugged herself tightly, her ache for her husband knotting her stomach and beating her heart in a painful rhythm... Simon...

It was faint when she first heard it. It came winging down the halls - she thought she was imagining it at first. But there it was again, unmistakable - the weak cry of a child... a baby... her baby... her daughter! She took a step towards the sound but hunched over in agony as her guts twisted in on themselves and she felt a wet warmth slithering down her thighs. She remembered now...how she had forgotten didn't matter. Gritting her teeth against the churning in her abdomen, she tried to continue, but the next sharp pain doubled her over on her hands and knees before she could take another step. Her legs were sticky, and she looked back over her shoulder to see a mass of blood glistening on the floor, the dark smudges she had tracked on the stones as she tried to walk and failed...and in front of her, the bloody marks where they hadn't been just a moment ago, continuing on, on, as far as her eyes could see. It appeared as though something had been dragged...but no, she could discern handprints among the mess. Her breath caught in her throat. These marks - impossibly - were hers. She tried to rise to her feet, but the pain forced her down once again even as her need to find her child forced her on. The skirt tangled and twisted around her legs and her hands and knees scraped on the rough stone, but she began crawling, driving herself forward against the agony in her body and the fear and dread in her mind.

As she reached the signpost, the agonizing pain in her abdomen mysteriously subsided. Breathing heavily, she waited there for long moments, trying to steady herself, terrified that it would return. Clutching the metal with hands that were scraped and raw, she hauled herself to her feet. She could still hear the crying, stronger now, as she began to run through one of the arching side corridors out away from the center of the circling tunnel. She paused, looked left, right, before heading towards a bridge across a river of stagnant green fluid - no doubt the source of the choking reek that was still invading her nostrils. Her lungs burned as she raced up the stairs, stumbled, scraped her hands again on the stone and bruised her knees against the steps. Cursing, she kicked her legs free of the long skirt and crossed over, descending the stairs on the opposite side and following the crying towards a high arch, entering beneath it into the gaping mouth of stone.

She could see a faint light coming from up ahead and ran towards it, through a long, curving hall that emerged into a great yawning chamber. The crying was coming from atop a circular dais in the center of the room, and she raced around to the stairs. When she reached the top, though, she gaped in shock, panting. There was nothing there.

She could still hear it, though, and she turned in a circle trying to place the sound. She was crying again, from exhaustion and loneliness and frustration, from terror and phantom pains and helplessness. "Where are you?" she screamed, though she felt foolish doing so. The crying ceased and it was only her own voice came back to her, bouncing off the high ceiling, and she collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

Suddenly, she was seized by her hair, a clawed hand painfully tangling itself in the dark mass and yanking her to her knees. She cried out in alarm and fear, and found herself face to face with a sneering, haughty visage, beautiful and terrible. It opened its mouth, and in a voice that sent chills racing through her body, it spoke.

"Time to awaken, my dear." The figure released her and straightened, and she could see that it was a woman...no, not quite a woman...the pointed ears stirred up memories from...when? No woman, this, but an elf. One of the Highborne. How do I know this? She tried to scramble to her feet, but her limbs felt heavy and weighted down. The elf looked down at her sprawled on the floor and intoned, "You too shall serve."

She heard a cooing from behind the towering figure and looked to see three figures huddled around something on the floor. One of them picked it up in its arms and rose, the other two crowding around a wrapped bundle cradled in the figure's arms. She saw it move, and heard the crying once more. Frantically, she tried to lunge towards the figures, tried to take her daughter back, but found herself being hauled to her feet by her right arm, and then she was dangling in midair. The iron grip tightened around her wrist and twisted her around to bring her inches away from the grinning face a demon.

Varimathras chuckled low in his throat, a forbidding sound. "Do not fear for your babe, human. She is in good hands." She struggled in his grip, kicking and flailing, clawing at the hand around her wrist and twisting her head back to see over her shoulder. She glimpsed a flash of glowing yellow eyes, grinning teeth behind lips that were rotten and decayed...the figure holding her child regarded her solemnly. "We will take care of her, Acherontia," the Mistress said. The two others said nothing but continued to coo over the babe. Bevial bent her head to nibble gently on the tiny toes, and the woman shrieked aloud and tried to wrest her arm from the demon's grip, reaching out towards her child, sobbing, straining every muscle in her body to reach her but being unable to move. Anaie grinned at her wickedly.

The dreadlord turned away from the dais and dangled her effortlessly over the chamber. There were more figures down there, reaching up to her, trying to touch her feet, grasping at her ankles... Frantically she kicked at their clawed hands, and Varimathras chuckled again. "No, my dear, you are for them." With a careless wave of the hand that gripped her wrist, he used her body to indicate the clutching figures below, and she screamed again as she swung precariously over their heads. They were looking up at her, those same glowing eyes, those same decaying faces. The deep voice sent tremors through her body. "You too shall serve."

And he tossed her out into the middle of the room.

She landed heavily on the other side of the grasping mob, cracking her head against the stone floor. She lay there for a brief moment, dazed, trying desperately to remember where she was and how she got there. Groaning, she dropped her head to one side and caught a final glimpse of the grinning face of Varimathras before the shadowy mob closed in about her. At the first touch of their clawed hands, she jolted back to herself, striking out with hands and feet as they seized her flailing limbs, "NO!" She was caught up with her back pinned against a skeletal chest, one bony arm wrapped around her stomach, the other crossing up over her ribcage. Her breath came in frightened gasps as she clawed frantically at the arms that gripped her. Her fingernails tore through the monster's shirt and peeled necrotic flesh from its bones, but she was only clutched tighter in its iron grasp. Horrified, she gaped at the faces surrounding her and saw them rotting, moldy, all with glowing eyes and slavering grins. "NO!!!" she shrieked again, their decayed forms lending new fervor to her struggles, but the one holding her had a grip that would not fail no matter how hard she tried to escape. It seemed they were all waiting, waiting... An outstretched hand over her head was holding them all at bay, raised in an impassive gesture, and its owner crouched beside her, bending to whisper in her ear.

"Welcome, Sister Warlock." The Dread Mage's breath was cold and hot at the same time, and she felt a sudden, sharp pain as he took her earlobe between his teeth and bit down, hard. She screamed, more from terror than pain...no, not again, please, please, please, don't, not again...felt a gush of hot blood, saw him straighten, watched him savor the bit of flesh in his mouth and lick the red fluid from his lips. She shook her head frantically at him, pleading with tear-filled eyes as he towered over her.

"Please...not again." A sadistic grin crossed his face, and she sobbed in dread. "Not again...please...please, not again..." Her voice was weak, and Lupen seemed to savor her fear as he gestured with his upraised hand and the rest of the Forsaken fell upon her with a ravenous hunger. They bent to her, ripping away her garments and tearing mouthfuls of flesh from her trembling body. Tiamat had seized her left arm and was gnawing fervently, his eyes alight with ravenous hunger as blood dribbled messily down his chin. The fleshy muscle of her calf was being devoured by Weavers, and Pincus knelt at her side, taking his time as he fed slowly, hungrily on her thigh. The soft gnawing sounds they made as they fed were all but drowned by her agonizing screams, yet she still heard them, the sloppy chewing, the low growls of satisfaction, the noisy gulps as mouthful after mouthful of her was swallowed into them, feeding them, maddening them, but they wouldn't stop, no, and now Lupen had raised her other arm to his lips and was delicately tearing the flesh from her fingers one at a time. "Not yet!!!" she shrieked at him, but the Dread Mage paid her no heed as he licked the blood from her mangled hand.

A voice hissed in her ear, "My dear, did you make that beautiful outfit to wear tonight? What a shame it was ruined." and she recognized Melchisedech's melodic growl. Her breath caught in her throat. Time slowed, stopped, she was caught in the eye of a hurricane with him as he clutched her to his chest, her head thrown back over his shoulder, turned away from him even as her mind grasped at him, her refuge, her constant savior. "No," she whispered, her eyes wide and wet with darkness. He chuckled. "No, you didn't, did you? When did you make it?" She closed her eyes, trying to remember, vaguely aware of her body being devoured as she was held immobile in the Forsaken's grasp. "The fair," she breathed. "The Darkmoon Fair."

He pressed his face into her neck, inhaling the warmth from her skin, though it was slowly leaving her as her life was being drained away. "That's right. You made it to wear that night, didn't you?" She did not answer. "Why?"

At her silence, he chuckled again, a rich dry sound. "You were starting to forget him even then, weren't you? You wanted to look beautiful that night." She shook her head frantically, but he chuckled again. "Yes, my dear," he continued, "you did. You were forgetting. You will forget him. All that you were..." She whimpered as he gripped her tighter, shaking her body like a rag doll. "All of it," he whispered fiercely. "And then you will belong to us. One of us, my dear." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his glowing eyes moving over her tear-stained face, her partially eaten body, naked and covered with blood...he buried his face in her hair and whispered to her, at once more soothing than a mother, more intimate than a lover, more frightening than a god. "You too shall serve." As he spoke the final words, he dragged a rotting tongue up the side of her face and she shuddered in disgust, screaming aloud again and coming out of her calm into madness. She felt a dead sensation where his saliva was dripping from her face, felt it begin to spread down the side of her neck, circling to the other side, crawling down her back, rotting her even as she was alive. She saw Abric as he bent over her, reaching clawed fingers towards her face. "You do not need these," he said, and he cupped the back of her head as she tried to shrink away from him, caressing her gently with his other hand for a moment before inserting his fingers into her skull and prying her left eye from its socket. She clenched her eyelids shut, screaming, but her right was forced open and she caught a final glance of his face as he regarded her steadily before her other eye was plucked from her skull and all vision was lost to her. She felt a hand rest itself tenderly over her heart, pressing against flesh that turned clammy and decayed as she rotted underneath its touch. Slipping its fingers effortlessly through skin and rotten muscle, the hand snaked between her ribs and clutched around her heart. The Dread Mage bent once again to whisper in her ear.

"And you do not need this." He squeezed her heart tighter, piercing it with his clawed fingernails, and she felt it beat frantically in his grasp. "NO!!!" she shrieked, even as the devouring continued, even as the rot continued to spread over her skin, eating into her flesh, even as Melchisedech whispered into her ear, "Shshshsh..." He rocked her gently in his arms as the Dread Mage clenched his hand around the pulsing organ that was beginning to falter. "Shshsh, my dear. Just let go." Her breath grew more frantic as she felt herself beginning to fade...she was like a frightened animal, trembling in the Forsaken's arms, and he rocked her, slowly, inexorably, towards her fate. She was fading...fading...the priest pressed his lips to her ear. "Acherontia," he whispered. "Wake up." She was trembling, dying, fading...they released her arms now, moving towards her torso, opening her with their mouths and their clawed hands, exposing the quivering mass of insides and feeding, feeding... She reached trembling hands toward her face, probing at the empty holes in her skull with fingers that had been stripped of their flesh. She was numbed to all pain, now, and lay limp in Melchisedech's arms and scratched and clawed at her face as her heart slowed...slowed... "Wake up," the priest said more firmly. "Acherontia. Wake up!"

"Acherontia! You have to wake up!"

Melchisedech sat with his back against the cold stone wall of the Undercity, Acherontia curled in his arms. He had tried to hold her arms, but she was filled with the strength of terror. When he could no longer keep her hands from clawing bloody tracks down her face, he instead wrapped an arm around her stomach and the other up between her breasts, holding her tightly back against himself.

"Wake up. Acherontia, wake up!"

Nothing. She was wild, wailing and screaming and thrashing, clawing at herself and at anything nearby. Melchisedech could not wake her by speaking or shaking, but that was not what truly worried him. It was when she began to calm, slowly fading away, that he began to fear. It seemed almost as though her vital life forces were being sapped from her, as though she were dying.

Again.

The priest gritted his teeth. No. He would not let this happen to her. He remembered, vividly, the moment he had found her on the steps of Lordaeron, wounded and abandoned by her Scourge brethren. He remembered carrying her, by himself, into the cavernous halls of the city, laying her beside the other wounded. He remembered the cold cloths, the linen bandages, the water poured gently down her throat. He remembered not knowing, when she woke, if he would see Forsaken or Scourge.

He remembered being afraid to lose her.

He felt that again, now. He had been researching her eyes, trying to find a way to free her from the curse that had been placed upon her by Kel'Thuzad and his necromancers. The fear that this was somehow an attack on her from afar sprang to the fore of his mind. He would not let her go.

Melchisedech closed his eyes and stretched out his mind, letting his consciousness expand beyond the confines of his fleshy skull. First, he let himself see through her eyes, but, as ever, he could make no sense of her fel vision. So be it. As an astral being, Melchisedech did not breathe, but if he could have, he would have taken a deep breath. The priest plunged deeper into the warlock's mind.

Chaos. He was in the Undercity, he was in Andorhal before the Scourge, he was climbing the walls of Lordaeron. Glimpses, memories... he was barraged by the havoc in her mind, buffeted from all sides by images and feelings and sensations. Like a supernova, he collapsed in on himself, becoming nothingness, becoming a void. In that entropy, he found his thoughts once more, found... no, CREATED... the structure he needed to withstand her mind. When he was secure behind walls of discipline, he began moving through her mind once more.

Her thoughts were like a castle of glass, some shattered, others frosted or filthy, yet others crystalline and clear. He moved through the corridors, glimpsing thoughts through the walls, through other thoughts, memories, and sensations. From somewhere, far away, he could hear her screaming fading, and he hurried.

He turned a corner and found himself in a field, holding a shovel, watching a young woman move through the crops. If he had possessed a face, it would have twisted in distaste. He was playing the role of Simon, he guessed, and the woman was Acherontia. She looked... healthy. For an instant, he saw her as Simon saw her, or rather, as she perceived how Simon saw her. Memories, tinged with perceptions, colored by time and changes in personality... the least reliable of all forms of evidence. Melchisedech abandoned the memory and returned to the glass halls.

This time, he heard her weeping, moved through a door into the Undercity. He recognized everything instantly. He heard sobbing and crying, so faint as to almost be ghostly. It came from the Royal Quarter. Here, he was not hindered by his unenlightened meat. He was in the Royal Quarter almost before he realized he wanted to be, and he saw her cradled by the mob of Forsaken... cradled by himself.

He stretched out his mind, froze the scene in place. Incorporeal, invisible, he floated around the panorama, peering at the gathered Grim. He saw each of them as she saw them, saw himself as she saw him. Monstrous, corrupting, restraining. He felt a pang of anger and sorrow, but he pushed them both away. He could afford neither, here.

He slipped into her view of himself, smelling her flesh and blood against his lips, feeling her hair against his face, her body beneath his arms. For an instant, the persona threatened to consume him, to control him, and the scene began moving once more, his tongue lapping at the corruption on her face. With a supreme effort, he controlled himself.

"Acherontia, wake up!" He whispered fiercely, shaking her. She was beyond hearing. She was lost in the dream scenario, utterly captured by the reality her mind had created. Melchisedech snarled.

He would not let her go.

He flew from the dream, abandoning the scenario, now nearly at its grisly end. He did not have time to be subtle. Dreams as vivid as this, while rare, could kill. She could so thoroughly accept the reality of the scenario that she faded away, that her heart slowly stopped beating altogether. The priest would not allow that.

Unfortunately, he did not have time to find his way through her mind. He flew through the walls, leaving them mostly untouched by his spectral passage, but some were more resistant, and he had to force his way through, smashing the glass barriers with his will. Swiftly, he found her, laying on a stone bier, torches all around. All was silent, and her eyes were closed. This was the core of her, her perception of herself.

Melchisedech forced his way into her, controlling her body. With a scream of effort, he lifted her limbs, opened her eyes, stood her from the bier.

"WAKE UP!"

Then he knew only shadow and the blessed sleep of unconsciousness.

She was a puppet.

No, she was a ghost.

No, she had been evicted from her own body.

No, worse than all those was the sensation of her broken and devoured shell being crammed to the brim, exploding with the presence of another. It pressed against her, inside her, enfolded her within a shadowy embrace and flattened her spirit against the meager container of skin and muscle and bone. She would suffocate, she would be crushed. It lifted her arms even as she felt her flesh prison dragging the otherness down, it flicked her eyes open and she saw her alcove, no, she saw from behind her, through her. She was being lifted out of their arms, the grip around her heart relaxed, Melchisedech's arms fell away from her and there was a great rushing of air like the beating of the wings of a great bird - no, it was Varimathras as he leapt from the dais and swooped towards her...

She could not breathe.

She would be crushed.

There was a sudden give and Acherontia felt as though a dam had broken and all the water of the world was streaming through her. She heard a whisper in her mind as the other fought to detach itself from her body. More brutal and invasive than any rape, yet more intimate and joyful than any lovemaking...how dared it? And how could it possibly leave her now?

She relaxed against the priest's body, emptied, slamming the barriers back into place with a mind that fought against a loneliness deeper than any sorrow. She recognized the familiar shadows of her alcove and knew she was home, as much as she could call this corner "home". Already her mind was tripping over the fragments of the memories the Forsaken had destroyed in his frantic push to reach her...there was a final lunge and it reached the doorway through which her horrible nightmare could be revisited. She saw, briefly, her own body clasped in the priest's arms as the mob of Forsaken fed on her before the door was slammed shut. Her thoughts twisted and turned through new pathways and it was ages before she was able to find his name in her mind.

Melchisedech drew a great, trembling breath and she felt his muscles tense as she remained still, her back against his chest. She knew she must move and move soon, lest he awaken and find her still there - but her limbs were as lead. She could not move even if she wanted to. The priest groaned as he shuddered awake, and Acherontia tensed against him - but still, she could not move.

"I cannot move," she blurted out. Deal with the now, everything else can wait. "I am sorry, Melchisedech." The name felt strange on her lips. Had she ever spoken it before? She thought so. He was her friend, a shadow priest. She remembered him.

Melchisedech felt her tiny body as she leaned against him. Now and then she was wracked with small tremors that coursed through her body. Slowly - for he did not want to alarm her - the priest lifted his arms and wrapped them around her once again, holding her gently. Acherontia frowned slightly and stiffened, but did not - no, could not - pull away. Sighing softly, he turned his head towards her and rested his brow against her temple.

"Do not worry, my dear. I am here."