Blacktail Deer Plateau open your heart to it

the call had grasped his attention without even a second of pause. the young wildling turned his crown toward where it had sounded and cupped his ears forward with interest. after their last conversation, he hadn't expected her to have returned to the edges of their territory so soon. still, there was urgency in her voice, and he was not willing to allow her to wait longer than need be. on youthful limbs, he turned to where he had heard her and made his way; each stride released a puff of steam through his nostrils and into the air.

once he had closed some of the space, illidan noted the scent of kavik and wondered if the dark man had moved to intercept grezig before anyone else could. his eyes darted toward where he could make out the faint shape of the man who led them, and what he imagined to be grezig's figure just beyond that. prowling forward, the young man pressed himself through the brush and onto the other side with a ghostly smile in the direction of the woman. he still felt disappointment for her having left, but there was a hopeful piece inside of him that thought she might have returned.

it was then that he saw the other figure – the wretched and spindly sea witch – who's hawkish yellow gaze matched his own without any difference. illidan stiffened and drew his crown upward, hackles rising along his neck and shoulder out of shock and fear. surely, it could not have been real; he must have been dreaming. after all that time, the boy had never anticipated that he would see his mother again. illidan had accepted that she too had died in the same dreadful way as his father.

the glint of his yellow gaze darted toward grezig; she had fulfilled her promise that had been made months before. while she had not found his brother, she had found his family... after all that time. his nostrils flared wildly as he took a step forward and breathed the air between them. she smelled brackish and cold – she smelled of a home he had forgotten.

“where have you been... all this time?”

the young man's voice demanded it of her. he was no longer a child that could be hushed with the quick snap of his parent's fangs, or the sharp look of their gaze. while it seemed daring of him to speak to her in such a manner, it was all he could do to keep himself from turning and fleeing the scene he had abandoned in his imagination when he had been much younger. strong as he had grown, illidan did not know that he was capable enough to stand before the three figures in that way.

the dark man who had acted as a father, the gruff woman who had pulled him under her wing... and the wild witch who had lost him when he had been only a pup.

i thought you were dead, he wanted to say to her, but his voice hitched against the back of his throat and did not move forward. it was likely that she had thought the very same of him. it was far less likely that he would have survived that long on his own than that she had perished. still, the boy was revisited by the mangled image of his father's body on the shore of the lake. illidan had never imagined that he would need to tell his mother of that day, but there she was... and she would surely like to know what had happened to her mate after all those months.