Staeb shifted his weight against the door frame slightly. It barely qualified as a marginal improvement in terms of comfort, but in the preceding weeks comfort had become an immaterial concept. He took one last glance over into the room before resting his own eyes. Chasrin slept peacefully, a content smile on her face after a day's hard work. Staeb knew it wouldn't last the night though. It never did.

Nightmares of that fateful day weren't a problem for him. His sleep was filled with a quiet darkness, elegant in its simplicity. The memories echoed through his head during his waking hours far too often to need to invade his dreams. Dwelling on those unpleasant visions was the worse alternative to the taxing task of following around an endlessly energetic girl with visions of being a hero.

Still, in those quiet moments between resting and journeying onwards, he could vividly recall how that day had unfolded, right from the very beginning.

The only hard part was remembering his parents. Every day that passed since he found out what they had done, his memories of them became blurrier and more disjointed, as if he had never even known them at all. He remembered the small hut they had lived in. He remembered being hungry, and the first time he had brought back a loaf of journeybread he had swiped from a traveler in the woods. His parents had said something to him about it, about doing what it took to survive. From there it had escalated. A traveler here and there, slipping through crowds in the market at the human settlement and taking what they needed.

It was just another trip back from the settlement when a snowflake landed on the tip of his nose. He kept walking. The gaps between the forest's mighty trees were darker than they had ever been before, and somehow seemed to be grasping out at him. Snow crunched beneath his feet. Every one of his senses felt like they were being wronged, like they couldn't trusted. He had to ignore them. It was the only way to proceed.

The shapes of the village's buildings danced in and out of view as the storm picked up. There were covered shapes on the ground. A body. Or was it a log? He didn't remember a log being there. A loud groan reverberated throughout the falling snow behind him. A crude facsimile of a hominid emerged from the blinding darkness, its skin a blueish white solid, scarred with cracks like shattered glass.

Staeb felt its icy hands wrap around his neck. Now it was real. Now he could believe and feel the cold. He prayed the shock would put him out of his misery, but it was just a dull agony. All he could do was look into the eyes of his killer, but there were just empty holes. Its face was not a mask of rage or demonic glee, just a stoic figure that could only express itself by choking the life out of him. Finally, Staeb's breath left him, and he closed his eyes.

“Wake up, boy.”

He felt as if he had heard that a few times before. He probably had. It seemed like something people had said to him a lot during the mischief he had gotten himself into over the years.

“I said, wake up.”

Staeb's eyes opened upon command and he focused on the blurred figure standing over him. Slowly he began to make out the figure's facial features. A large green beard, and an equally titanic pair of antlers. His eyes let out a piercing glow as Night Elves' tend to do, but within his unusually golden gaze Staeb saw more than just a simple Kaldorei. He saw a primal force that suppressed any reaction of panic or resistance he might have mounted.

“Do you understand what has happened here, boy?” The figure boomed at him.

Staeb had no clue where he was, let alone what had happened. In a brief moment of clarity he assumed the figure was just going to make his point anyway, and remained silent.

The figured stared into his eyes even deeper than before. “Your parents were heretics, followers of the Old Gods. Their infernal Twilight Hammer ritual has brought death and destruction to this entire village.”

Again Staeb was silent as he broke eye contact with the figure. Nothing about that accusation made any sense to him, but these seemed like the exact kind of circumstances to believe such an outrageous statement.

He felt the man still staring at him. It was his turn to talk. “I didn't... know anything.” He mumbled. Deja vu. He couldn't even count the number of times he had spoken those exact words as a lie and used them to get away from something he actually did. Now, the one time he spoke it in truth he wasn't being believed.

“Perhaps.” The man said. His voiced had dropped into a contemplative low tone. “But who is left to pay for their crimes?”

“That's not fair. I didn't do this.” Staeb muttered weakly. If that statement had been anything other than what he believed to be true, he wouldn't have dared said it.

“So you say. But it may be such that what you didn't do that allowed this to happen.” The figure replied, stroking his beard with his right hand.

The sinking feeling that he was in a no-win situation overcame Staeb. He didn't know. How was he supposed to find out? How was he supposed to know he was supposed to find out?

“Come.” The man said, beckoning to a door beaming with light behind him. Staeb rose and for the first time attempted to recognize his surroundings. It was a house in the village. Now he knew what the figure wanted to show him.

It wasn't a particularly horrifying sight to him, but it filled him with emptiness. A village devoid of people, but full of death. The layers of snow were obtuse in their wrongness, caving in a dozen houses and burying the dead in a single shimmering white coffin. Again it was cold, but this time the adrenaline pumped heat throughout Staeb's body.

“Now you see.” The man said, shielding his eyes slightly from the morning sun reflecting off the ivory masses.

Staeb was never going to argue with him to begin with. Now he was just trying to guilt him.

“You were one of the only survivors.” The man continued.

Staeb eyed him shiftily. He wanted to tell him it was sad, that it was a terrible tragedy and that he was sorry it happened, and that still, it wasn't his fault. “So what would you have me do?” Was all that came out of his mouth.

The man lead him around a bend. They stopped some distance from a girl who seemed disconcertingly in place amongst the snow. Her light hair, skin, and robe almost made her seem like a demure ghost of the ended village, except for several incongruous singes on the sleeves and bottom half of her robe. Staeb recognized her but didn't know her name. He had always lived on the fringe of his own race. Even as a child he hadn't played with the other children or learned the stories of their race they had.

The man stroked his beard again. “There is the last one left. Perhaps you can ensure she lives the life that the rest were denied.”

“...You want me to be her bodyguard?” Staeb asked incredulously.

“To you I say only one thing.” The man spoke, raising his voice a tad and placing one of his mammoth hands on Staeb's shoulder. “Until the debt you have received is repaid, you shall die before this girl.”

Staeb felt a knot in his stomach. “What... exactly are you telling me to do?”

“I am not ordering you to do anything.” The man replied solemnly. “I am simply telling you what must be made true.”

Gritting his teeth, Staeb asked what he knew he had to. “And if it is not true? I imagine there are several fates worse than death involved...”

The man's answer was unexpectedly simple. “Yes.”

Staeb suddenly remembered why he had chosen not to argue. Everything this man said somehow seemed true beyond a reasonable doubt.

“And... when will it be repaid?” Staeb asked cautiously.

The man turned and began walking away. “The shadows of the moon will inform you.”

A few seconds passed. Staeb got the vague sensation he and the girl were the only ones around for miles. He gulped and approached the girl, who seemed to be somehow distracted by nothing.

Staeb dropped to one knee. “Milady...” He began to spout nervously, “The... powers that be have commanded me to be your body guard until death. I am Staebnfaece, and I am in your service.”

The girl slowly turned her eyes to him, and flashed him an unexpectedly pretty smile. Staeb had the thought 'Hey, maybe this wont be so bad after all...'  for one of the few remaining times in his life.

“Great!” She started. “You can join me on my quest to rid the world of of all evil.”

Staeb made an expression consistent with the face one might make when trying to ignore that they had been shot in the gut with an arrow.

“I'm Chasrin.”