Kalentha sat back against the trunk of the tree, resting on a strong branch overlooking the courtyard. The area was nearly pitch black, the only source of light a faint shimmer from the moon. The cold winter air nipped at her, her light clothing doing little to keep her warm. She had warmer clothes, but they were tucked away in the Cathedral, where she’d be staying indefinitely while she awaited trial. Priests had always been kind to her, but now she almost feared to go amongst them. Her best friend was a priest, and she’d tried to kill Kalentha when the treason charges came out. Would they really allow her to live amongst them for the next month untroubled?
Evading the law would’ve been easy for her, and she wouldn’t have cared if her name was dragged through the dirt. She would have been happy to live outside the city limits knowing that her friends were there to support her through it all. She made her choice to help Jacky, a man she thought deserved better than he had been dealt, and was resolute. He would be given his chance at redemption and the bureaucrats in Stormwind would look like fools for rejecting the notion so vehemently.
That all changed when Sarah came to find her in Northshire. She’d been trying to set up a meeting with a neutral organization to better negotiate with the officials, for herself and for Jack. Sarah knew the head of the organization and could potentially set up a meeting, so she’d called for her over the comm. Flip had told her to come meet with him urgently before she did anything else, but she didn’t listen; she could easily just go find him after she’d finished speaking with Sarah. Jack had warned her as well not to trust anyone, but she had it set in her mind that she could trust this friend no matter what.
She was wrong to think like that.
Minutes after Sarah arrived, she’d slipped her way into Kalentha’s mind and began to try and force a permanent sleep on her. That feeling you get when you’re really tired and you get comfortable, the feeling urging you to just shut your eyes and drift into a peaceful rest? It was that sort of thing. It didn’t feel malevolent at all, but it was foreign; and she’d learned her lesson well by now, never to trust anything in your head that doesn’t belong to you. She’d made that mistake in Dalaran. If she had of, she would have been dead.
After breaking the spell, she managed to convince Sarah to let her go. Today, she’d even managed to gain Sarah’s forgiveness for helping Jacky in the first place. Things looked like they might finally be fixed, but it didn’t comfort her at all. By giving up and trying to keep the friends she valued so much, she condemned Jacky to being on his own. She felt guilty, but she knew it couldn’t happen any differently. Her friend’s betrayal had driven her to the brink of suicide – she couldn’t take any more of it. The only option that was open to her was to rejoin the pack and forget about her ill-conceived notions of compassion and redemption.
It was harder than she thought it’d be.
Aside from the guilt she felt over Jack’s potential fate, how could things ever go back to the way they had been with Sarah? Forgiveness or not, that feeling urging her to drift off into a permanent sleep kept popping back up, reminding her of what she’d tried to do to her. She had reasons, sure, but they weren’t good reasons – she had a simplistic view of good and evil and was following a narrow path towards zealotry.
She grappled with her own thoughts for what seemed like hours before she heard footsteps approaching from below. She looked down to see an old man clothed in simple white robes. She looked up at her with a faint smile. “Come now, child. There’s no call for you to be out here on your own all night. Come inside and warm yourself up with a cup of tea.”
Kalentha went to hop down, but she hesitated. “But I’m –“she began, but got cut off.
“We’re all aware of what you’re accused of, but I wouldn’t wish this cold on my worst enemy. Now come inside and let’s talk, before I set that monkey of yours to drag you inside.”
