trans_9 | I need you to get back up. [open]

She really wished Stacy would have given her more of a warning, before filling her head full of memories she wasn't sure she was prepared for. She had to excuse herself from a council meeting, apologizing profusely in half-panicked signing.

Kinase was dead. She remembered that now. He wouldn't be waiting in the pods for her when this was all over, he wouldn't kiss her cheek or remind her that she was overreacting (even when she was sure she wasn't). She wouldn't hear his laugh, or roll her eyes when he wore some gaudy, bright-pink shirt, claiming to be the height of Draenic fashion. He had been an idiot who had, somehow, agreed to marry her - first as a joke, then seriously, as someone who loved her. It figured that a man who'd survived the Cataclysm of Azeroth, and the Exodus from Draenor would somehow be unable to survive the Ohm's rampant destruction of everything.

But now he was gone, and she remained. If she'd been able to, Nehaalista would've screamed her frustrations. Her hooves found her pointed to the sensoriums, and she conjured up the home on Azuremyst they'd built and then subsequently hid in when Vaals was born.

Vaals, her little, little Vaals. Vaals was safe. He had to be. He was little and sweet, and she refused to believe that his big eyes, soft hair, and even, gentle voice was taken from her, too. Nehaalista's hooves tore up the half-finished pathway to the house and she threw the door open. Her little boy played on a blanket before several lighting crystals, safe and sound thanks to the illusion of the sensoriums, and somewhere floating in a pile of mucus down in the pod caverns if she were lucky.

Nehaalista picked the little boy up, who protested slightly, and sank into Kinase's chair. She buried her face into Vaals' light-colored hair and breathed shallowly. Why couldn't anything have simple and clean resolutions?

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Nehaalista didn't immediately answer, picking up Vaals and walking down a hallway, presumably to put the little, drowsy youngling to sleep. When she came back, she signed slowly.

[He shouldn't have died. But he did. I think I'm allowed to mourn the one I was married to, Nokosi, don't you?] She didn't sign with her usual irritation when she thought he'd asked something silly, and she paused to wipe at her eyes. [And Vaals - I don't even know if Vaals is down there now.]

He simply stared at her blankly. There was obviously something she knew that he didn't. Either that or her extended stay on the ship had clearly loosened a few a few screws. Even that didn't make much sense, as well adjusted as she always was.

Nokosi looked down the hallway where she had disappeared to previously. And there was still the child to take in consideration.

"When did you get married?" He asked, finally speaking up. The fact that she'd somehow wed after complaining about not wanting to marry and didn't bother even mentioning it to him once, served to put him off. Just a little bit.

[What do you mean, 'when'? You were there, Nokosi. You were our witness.] Nehaalista leaned on the rounded entryway to the living room, and felt her skin heat up with uncertainty, turning her cheeks blue.

"Really?" He squinted as his mind worked, trying to conjure up memories of the things she spoke of.

There was the earthquakes and the Shattering. Then came Deathwing and the return of Malfurion. Wasn't there something about the elemental plane of Earth collapsing? He definitely remembered that. And then...nothing.

"I cannot recall that at all." Nokosi rubbed his hands against the side of his face as if that would somehow jumpstart the memories into pouring in. "No..." he said slowly. "Nothing."

Well, now it looked like she had the upper hand to their memories instead of Nokosi. [It wasn't that long ago, Nokosi.] A few years, maybe. Time was measured differently when you lived for approximately forever.[Maybe we're still not synchronized as our individual timelines go?]

"Hrm..." Nokosi palmed his face with a weathered hand, lips twisted in doubt. "I do not quite understand what it is you mean, Nehaalista. We are..." He glanced back down the hallway. "From different times in Azeroth's history?"

[Not out of the realm of possibility, if you don't even remember my wedding.] Nehaa smiled slightly, though it was still sad.

Nokosi only sighed. "I see...that is very disheartening to hear since I cannot recall it...but it is okay since future me was probably very excited at such news and events," he reasoned, managing a smile.

"And you now have a tiny...you! What is the name of your pint-sized Draenei?"

[Vaals.] Nehaalista closed those bright eyes of hers for a moment. [We bickered over the name for a while, Kinase and I. But we came to an agreement, eventually.] She sat down in Kinase's chair again and rested her head against its tall back. Her eyes traveled to the picture of the couple on the mantle place, beside a second picture of Nehaalista and Nokosi (and Fontaine). Nokosi was drawing a finger across a luminous piece of shoulder armor Nehaalista was wearing.

[He's so smart, Nokosi. So smart it makes me sad that I do not get to see him grow as Kinase did, because I was away often, training to ascend to Exarch. Now I regret it, because I do not know if he is in those pods, in lieu of Kinase.]

Nokosi followed her to the chair and crouched beside it, elbows on his knees, head cradled in the palms of his weathered hands. He listened intently though his gaze tended to stray off to the side, taking in the various furniture, colors and small knick-knacks placed here and there.

"Even if you spent every day with him as Kinase did, that would not change the knowledge you have concerning him and those pods. While you sit and regret the past that cannot be changed, you are constantly altering the present that you may not want to deal with because of the past." He paused and leveled his gaze on the woman before him.

"I like his name. It is very cute. I am not surprised that a child of yours would be smart. Is he as straight-forward as his mother as well?"

It was almost odd seeing her like this. Melancholy, plagued with regret and memories that were like brand new for her. Their relationship was generally a cheerful one filled with laughs, misadventures and well-deserved (maybe not always) smacks. And now? Well he was finding it very hard to keep up an optimistic attitude when it involved the pain of a friend you both couldn't relate to and had no recollection of the events that were causing said pain.

If anything, it just made him feel worse about the whole ordeal.

Nehaalista turned her head and looked down at Nokosi. [He is very calm and patient for his age.] Perhaps, in time, he would be a grand vindicator in the tradition of his parents.

She reached out and touched the top of Nokosi's head. [I miss Kinase, Nokosi.]

The corners of his lips almost rose in a smile at the contact. "I would think so; he is not someone who can be easily forgotten. You should take the time to mourn him and miss your child...to properly sort out your memories so that all of them will not only cause you heartache."

[That is a surprisingly wise observation.] Nehaalista sighed deeply and silently, then picked at a loose thread on her husband's chair. New, and already trying to fray. Figured.

[Still, I do not have time to grieve overlong; there is still the council's duties to deal with. And you know I dislike sitting on my hands, as it were.]

"And that is exactly the reason why, as sudden as it all was. Are there no others who could 'fill in' for you for a bit, Nehaa? Though with Matt being suddenly removed, that does leave you all in a strained place." Was that the sound of genuine concern? Why yes it was.

I need you to get back up. [open]

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