Khaeris Dawndancer

Resurrections of Paranoia

It had felt a bit like a rebirth, coming back to this time. She had been gone for over six months. Vanished. Poof. As good as dead. It hadn't been hell, but her time away certainly hadn't been heaven. She had not been sure it was going to be a purgatory, even with the insistence everyone had tried to reassure her with in the months prior to her correction. But here she was, given the second chance to live in her second chance time.

Habitually, lost in thought, Khaeris ran a fingertip at a small imperfection on her upper arm. There was no scar--just a small injection and then it was done. But there was a slight rise in the subcutaneous tissues. The small tracker was there. Pollux had, apparently, been carrying it with him constantly, in easy reach, like a dose of adrenaline you took to the field. He had been planning for that moment. They had not talked about this. Thinking on it now, she thought he'd been so smooth, so practiced--he'd done this before.

The pad of her finger stopped over the swell; almost no one would notice it, unless they touched her. It felt a little like a grain of rice under her skin. It didn't light up, it didn't beep. It just sat there inert. Was it inert? Not that he would, and not that it would matter if he did, but Khaeris wondered if he could still track her. It made her frown slightly and she pulled her touch from her arm.

She had been resurrected in this time, but she felt like she was only mostly returned. Mostly alive. Mostly awake. Always, always she felt the specter of her correction in time behind her. What if it happened again? Azeroth was far from healed. The planet still bled and welled with clotted magic.

Maybe she shouldn't get too attached here. Maybe she should pull back. Maybe she didn't fit here, truly. She might be ripped away at any moment. It could come out of the blue. Maybe she wouldn't be able to come back again. Should she come back, if she got returned again? Khaeris shivered and forced her hands around her teacup. The soft blue glow of the arcane runes Helal had inked on the walls pulsed around her. She couldn't help think that the way they ebbed and flowed seemed to match a cosmic heartbeat. Azeroth herself maybe.

Khaeris carried two communication devices on her at nearly all times--one from each world. Bronze dragons and chronomancers were going to make her heart skip a beat for decades to come, if not more. She would avoid talk of futures. There was only the moment, tomorrow could be ripped from you in a heartbeat.

She pulled her fingers off her arm again.