Blacktail Deer Plateau 'why' is a crooked letter and can't be made straight

boy...

didn't she know? he had grown from his boyhood, but it seemed as though she caught herself before that devolved into anything beyond what it was; a simple means of addressing him. illidan did not feel as though he needed to correct her. grezig was capable of knowing when things had changed. no, he was not a boy anymore, but the world had not yet tempered him into a man. there was still room for growth.

the flurry of words that fell from her mouth did not illicit a response from the rugged young man. his brow remained furrowed. his fur stood jaggedly along his neck and shoulders – like quills – but he did not seem to twitch in response to the things she admitted. the boy had inherited much of his father's gruff demeanor. he was a fierce young gargoyle.

he had also inherited the fire that had once burned within his father's breast.

“why?”

the burning growl had left him without much restraint. the wayfarer drew his crown upward and flattened his ears to his skull. there was defiance in the glint of his hawkish yellow gaze that seemed to latch to her without holding back. illidan was not pleased with what she had told him. he chose to cast aside the kindness of the message that was being relayed and focused instead on the idea that he had been correct. all good things left him, and he had damned himself for having gathered his hopes after they had been demolished with his father's death.

“i should have expected it. life has a funny way of showing you how quickly things can be taken away,” the dark-hooded youth spoke between his teeth.

was it all just a test of his will? was this a way to determine his strength in difficult times? illidan did not care much for the ways that life had turned his luck. he could not appreciate the hardship for what it was worth, because he lacked faith in a greater plan. the anger of an atheist's heart was all that fueled him. there was no greater being that could help to wash away the pain he had been faced with.

“i will not go with you.”

he could not... no matter how he felt about the pack, he did not know that it was right to abandon kavik and liri after all they had given him. had they not given grezig the same? weren't they both lost, at some point? perhaps he cared more than he thought he did. more than this, illidan felt as though he could not walk away from them without having managed his debts to the pair.