My husband Arachos arrived for the meeting, to the surprise of us all. After months of absence, here he was again, like a tempest blowing in out of the bluffs.

I was surprised to feel that his presence inspired both terror and joy within me. My husband is not a voluntary inclusion in my life. He was, for all intents and purposes, a means to an end and he represents a political paradigm of dominance and subjugation that I have struggled against ever since we Draenei fled Argus. I needn’t go into detail about that here. Suffice to say, when he left after a particularly virulent argument a few months ago, there was no love lost between us.

That is where I now find my surprise; that, after such bitterness has touched our lips, I could feel a pang of joy at all in seeing his face.

Perhaps I am far too unkind. He may have made me a prisoner within a marriage of convenience, but he is just as much a prisoner in his own right. He gained no superb advantage being married to an accused heretic, a Lorekeeper, a troublemaker. He has acquired no wealth, property, or title by his affiliation to me. It was not by his design that we encountered this fate. As a good faith gesture to my accusers, I agreed to wed. Perhaps it pained him to marry me, but he did it with little to no protest.

I’ve no doubt in my mind that a small corner of my heart has been carved out, inadvertently, to care beyond an ordinary standard for this man’s wellbeing. Why that is so, given the circumstances of our sad arrangement, I yet have no idea.

Naaru guide me, and give me the emotional wherewithal to understand him.