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Dancing flames performed in the center of a clearing with five large trees surrounding the small space, warmth casting over blades of grass and a lone figure sitting upon a log. Casting the bright orange over a woman draped in comfortable leathers although stopping along the midsection; illuminating the smooth abdomen covered in a myriad of black ink runic tattoos; a golden chain glinting along the naval connected to a gemstone that rose up to two different chains that dipped beneath the tube-top. Silver threads flowing along her shoulders and back, fierce green gaze focused upon the pillar of energy; then within a second the color turned into a powerful emerald; steps crunching small and brittle twigs settled behind the woman. The shadow cast from the woman's presence shrouding the figure; although soon enough lovely hands came to greet her, winding along the exposed and smooth mocha arms and linking around the collarbone. Fel green gaze glowing above; although the visage shrouded in mystery; a soothing and delicious voice following from the woman's captor. "I thought I smelled a cinnamon roll. Although it doesn't seem to be prepared quite yet, needs to be fluffier with a bit of glaze." A silent chuckle came from the entangled woman, leaning back into the shadow's embrace as the emerald flames illuminated her further; a gentle murmur escaping her lips. "Perhaps you wouldn't mind applying the finishing touches?" An amused and otherworldy hum came from the being above; the flames snuffing out in an instant as darkness took hold; a sultry whisper filling the sweet air. "Of course...but just one bite..."

" Woe to the hornéd guides of this poor mangled flock, That doth both hurt and maim the same with arméd head, While on their horns they bear each one of them a lock. And do not feed their sheep but with their sheep are fed. " The dials clicked as practiced hands scoured over their surfaces, turning luminators and indicators to just the right adjustment, finely tuned with the desired view in focus. The behoofed being behind the device blinked and stared. The two moons of Azeroth hung close in the sky above- his face dark and stained with the blue and white of the celestial bodies that stared back. The man silently realised that he could not remember what the moons of his homeworld looked like. He could remember the sounds, the smells, the native ambiance that had once filled his ears when he lay amidst the grass. The paradise of the oceanside where he lived, he recall, too. The closeness he shared with another, the warmth of their love. But, he could not remember the moon, though he tried, and tried. The strange, arrythmic chirruping was one thing he could remember, just as much as he remembered the smooth pathways and meandering stream that cut through the gift of nature that his favourite park had leant to the city. Those birds, the ones that refused to give him peace as they had spoken; Chittering as noisesome eavesdroppers on a private conversation. Such annoyances were hard to forget, but... Was it the birds or the construct? "And here we are, three years later, just as you said." she had chided against him in her playing, teasing way, as they sat amongst the park benches. Her focus drifted from the open-bellied crab-like construct in her lap, and his gaze avoided hers, fleeing out to the twinkling brook that gurgled as it always did. It gurgled ominously, in Eurymus' mind, and Hiricia nudged him with her hoof to break him from his reverie. She always spoke as if she was daring his reply to prove her wrong, but her tone was different, now. This time, she sounded more demanding than playing. "You always mock my impatience, but for as many years it was, I think I have a right to be impatient. Now, I will ask you the same question I asked then; What's wrong with the idea of the two of us having children?" Eurymus shook his head in return. "I just cannot imagine the two of us raising a child. What if we still are not ready? What if he-" "Or she." He simply frowned as she interrupted him, looking not far unlike a stubborn bull. "Is it too much to expect a child who will not only excel, but embrace the same profession as ourselves?" He returned, finally, his own eyes far from hers. "Expect? Yes. Perhaps you should stick with hoping. Excel? Don't pretend like you're not so proud of your own intelligence." "And what if..." He said, pausing. "They... decide that our path is not thier path? What if they decide to walk brazenly into what darkness we avoid?" "Ohh, what 'darkness' do you speak of, my gallant knight? A grim alleyway full of the rougher sort or perhaps a sporting field with nary a spelltome in sight?" She pushed his shoulder, and nearly laughed his suspicion away. The lilting sound of her teasing melted his adamant shell like thin ice. Hiricia wound a finger around one of the curled ends of his beard, drawing the curtain for a smile as it pierced through Eurymus' grumpy visage. "We will encourage them to follow the path that is theirs, of course. That is part of having a child, you know. Teaching them of the perils, but allowing them to make their own mistakes. To pave their own path in life. They are not machines, nor your constructs, they are..." She paused, deliberately, beckoning him to complete her sentence as she closed the drone's delicate access panel. "Living beings, yes. Yes, I know... You have said as much before, no matter how much I insist to you that I understand that. You don't need to treat me like a senile." His forehead creased as he regarded her once more: Her austere beauty, her chipped left horn and perilously deep eyes. "When did you become the professional on children and infants? It is not that I view them as machines to be manipulated, they are just receptive to certain stimuli and you know the responsibility is grand just as much as I do... and..." Eurymus paused, the unspoken words running over into his own thoughs, huffing out a weary sigh as his surrender came in sight. "You are right, once again. I am looking at it in a selfish way. How it effects me." "No more selfish nor stubborn than the usual, my beleaguered beloved." "But, you are right. It has been a long time since you first mentioned this." He admitted, drumming his fingers over the smooth rail of that same stonewrought bench. A solemn, apologetic smile betrayed his salubrity as he turned. His cerulean gaze swerved to meet hers, two eyes that returned azure moonlight amongst the twinkling tones of dawn. "Three years." "More than three years." He ignored the construct as it moved across the scape of their bodies, towards his. "Since then, Tulo had twins... And you've seen Tulo, his arrogance, yet his two sons are already inspiring me with what they do. They are seven years old and already I can hardly believe how clever they are." She sweetly smiled at him and his doubts, smiled at his comparisons, and as Hiricia bumped her horns against his, she kissed his cheek and smiled. He grinned, too, squeezing the hand entwined with his own soon enough to send the small construct askitter back. "Maybe it will be alright. Maybe they will be even better than you or I at what ever it is they choose to do." The hours passed like seconds from there, they kissed, they walked home, and attended the ceremonies and festivals only a week later. The days after that had melted into solid weeks of research, reconstruction and study, with only a bit of that punctuation-mark called sleep defined where each day had ended. A few evenings shared over scattered papers and a number of tables that would never sit quite right on their legs. Workbenches weren't exactly made to be sat upon, but one worked with the resources they had available. Eurymus had never thought that that evening would've lead to his retirement. And yet he wondered, if that was that truly what happened. How many lifetimes ago was it that he stood on Mac'Aree with his beloved. He could barely trust his own mind. The star charts before him still looked so alien as he tried to divine where he stood. Gifted though he was, he could not make heads nor tails of astronomy. Stavros had leaned over from the nearby canvas chair to peer at the star charts in his father's grasp, tapping at one corner with a stick of chalk. "Not very familiar, is it? I can't imagine how it compares to the skies over Argus." Neither can I, Eurymus silently thought to himself. He mindlessly sketched out what he saw in the stars before he responded: "They are as two worlds. One familiar and another alien, though we call both 'home'. Despite that we have rested on this new world for years, I still find no sense or familiarity in the stars here. The broad moon, the foliage and fauna. Where is home, I ask myself, how far is it? But, truly, I know it does not matter." It was certainly not the majesty of Teluuna Observatory, but Eurymus had designed and assembled the array of mercury mirrors with only his son at his side. A project for the whole family, if only for unknowing of where his daughter was, now. Stavros threw a sparkle of magic at his father's forehead and Eurymus winced away the memory he dare not recall. "Trapped in your memories again?" He asked. "We still have work to do, you know. Why don't you take another look at that chart? Those last two constellations don't look quite right." He looked at the chart. And then looked back up into the centre of the mirrors. "...Ah." He held the page, now, in his other hand. Constellations of Draenor- constellations that would never matter to any man who would peer into those tainted skies. Draenor was no longer 'home', and just like Argus, it was a world that had been destroyed. ... That was more physically than metaphorically, though, he grimly considered. Still, Eurmus smiled as he held the portraiture in his hand before setting it down. Stavros had been an excellent astronomer, far beyond even him, and only so young. A bright, cunning boy with wisdom, bravery, and a touch of his own stubborn nature. He lowered his eyes, down to the star charts, down to the signature in the corner before he neatly rolled them to the way they had been stored. Gently looped with the purple silk ribbon around it. It was a tragedy his life ended as it did, now burnt and cold like a flashfire dead and gone. A man never wishes to outlive his only son- a man never wishes to outlive any of his loved ones; Not to see him live beyond his wife, his daughter, sons, cousins. But life did not much care of a person's wants or desires. Life is a cruel, wicked thing; A test to all comers, and any thing that bravely came to join us. And life, most of all, was not a toy to be spun about on the table and watched to fall. The portrait stood as it did, on the dresser, like a grim effigy, changing places with another. The one in his grasp, dappled with beads of moisture that ran over the panes of glass that protected the precious piece within. Life, is fleeting. Fleeting. Just like the flame of a candle. Or an old man's memories.