She remembered him well, the first day that she met him. It was her first assignment with the Vanguard - a nervous Dark Iron woman, unsure what to make of them, stood on the steps of Lion's Landing. She said nothing as their Commander addressed them, the others offered only polite nods of greeting. She stayed silent.
 Perhaps she was not the hero they had in mind. She stayed silent until they landed at the Wetlands; Commander Hartford turned to her, apparently not even noticing she had only joined that day. "First day on the job, Lass?" He said to her. She turned, before flinching slightly - a Wildhammer man, barely wearing anything, a skull atop his head. She nodded, silently. "Names Tharnir Firefoe! Pleasure ta meet you."
He smiled, warmly.
"Yorla Candleheart. A pleasure to meet you". She smiled back at him. She remembered the Forsaken that ambushed them in the crypt as they searched for the bars of gold, the heavy Dwarven safe he punched through, even his reaction as both Jill and Bharnum hurtled back to the Harbour.

She remembered his screams as well. A few weeks later in the Summit of Kun-Lai,
 as his arm decayed before her eyes. She remembered her helplessness as her purification had no effect, how it felt to have guilt gnaw at her insides as she watched him train, frustrated that he simply could not fight the way he used to. She remembered the faint smile as he forgave her.

She remembered all too well the burning corpse of Tharnir Firefoe. Kebeset incinerated him in an instant, the Dwarf clutching at her unfeeling stone body as his flesh was consumed; burnt flesh and hair, scorched bone was all that remained of him. She closed her eyes; trying to escape it. She saw him again,
 his final expression that of pure, unmitigated agony.
She remembered the way she screamed his name, as though that would save him. The promises she made to the Elements, as though that would save him. The stories she'd told her daughter, who pleaded every time she saw her mother, that she wanted to meet him, as though it would save him.
She stared at the metal bars of the tram, numb. She was too shocked to grieve him. She knew the tears would come later. The tram ride to Ironforge seemed to last an eternity, her thoughts shifting, restlessly. As she left the tunnel, her thoughts turned to home - not the cosy living she had in Ironforge. The home she left more than five years ago to follow her Queen. With a frustrated sigh, she walked through the stone halls of Ironforge, a deep breath of cold mountain air a welcome relief after weeks in the desert heat. With a brief plea, Nimbus - the Rain Cloud that served as her mount, materialised beneath her. She stepped onto it, glad for the freezing weather of the Dwarven mountains, for a change.
A few hours of flight passed, she dropped gently, with characteristic grace, onto the black stone floors of Blackrock. She paced through the stone halls, a distorted parody of the ones she'd learned to call home now. Hours passed. She found what she was looking for - a spacious Dwarven home, carved out of the rock. It was empty inside - it had long since been looted, stripped of whatever valuables it still had long ago. Dust covered tables, cobwebs held ancient tomes together, the walls cracked, paint peeling, fireplace long cold.
"[i]Surely, Yorla, you're better than this?[/i]" Chided a voice inside of her. She'd said the same thing to her daughter, countless times, when Zoe broke something in a childish rage. Yorla said nothing. Still too shocked for tears, she raise her hand, the stone bending to her will - in all these years, Earth was an element that spoke in stern, tenacious tones. Unmovable, unbreakable, it was always a voice of reason. Now, it seemed to understand. With a furious swing of her arm, the roof caved in. Another, the walls. A third, the stone furniture warped and distorted, shifting from molten, to solid, before finally being smashed to shards on the granite floor of the place she used to call home. With a single, shameful motion, she restored the stone to where it was.
And broke it a second later.
With an enormous sound like the gnashing of enormous teeth, stone furniture was ground to dust.
After a while, there was simply nothing more to break, and Yorla sank to her knees. She felt the tears, for the first time, well up in her eyes; she squeezed them shut, as though it would help.
She saw her sister, pleading with her; she wasn't strong enough to leave Blackrock on her own.
She saw Jill Sawblaster; her broken form nearly cleaved in two, her final words lost to her.
She saw Tharnir Firefoe; his charred remains all that was left of him.
She saw the people she'd failed.
She choked back a sob - not like the dignified tears she'd shed in the past.
 A wracking, primal sob that shook her whole body, as she lay on the floor of the place she once called home.