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In the aftermath of everything that happened – the Fel, the deaths, the king's funeral – Khadgar takes a moment to reflect on all that has happened. He sighs contently, pleased to simply be alive. He rolls an apple between his hands as he stares out of the window of his rented room, gazing at the blue rooftops and bustling people. His life has changed dramatically since he ran away, bringing terrible dishonor and shame to his family. He hopes he has regained some of that honor, as he is now invited to stay within Stormwind Keep. In fact, the queen herself requests his presence there.
Khadgar turns away from the window and resumes packing. He doesn't have much to his name, and what he does have is mainly spell components, potions, and of course, a few books and scrolls. He only has one set of clothing, which has gotten terribly scuffed and dirty over the last few hectic days.
His hand goes to his throat, an old habit he picked up as a child. Khadgar's brow furrows when his fingers close over nothing but the collar of his shirt. His blue cloak, an item his mother made for him from his favorite blanket, has kept him comforted over the years. The pin was a gift from his father, a simple thing that was passed down from his great grandfather. The cloak, and its gold pin, are the only items he has left from home. His clothes he outgrew, and his handmade stuffed murloc with the button eyes was ripped apart and tossed over the edge of the city by a bully. But he still has his cloak and pin. Where did he put it last?
He wears that cloak and pin everywhere, but for the life of him, he's having trouble remembering where he last saw it. He glances around his room, but even before he does he knows it's not here. He even takes a quick look under the bed, just to be sure. No cloak.
Ok, well, Khadgar is a logical man. He can think back and remember where he put it. He had it in the Stormwind barracks, that's for sure. And for his first gryphon flight; the cloak kept him warm even high in the air. He had it during the fight in the forest. And he had it when he saw the Dark Portal, and again during the fight at Blackrock Pass. He remembers the rather crowded gryphon flight with Garona and Medivh. That's right, the air was so cold, he gave it to Garona to put around Medivh mid-flight, wanting to keep the older mage warm. Then when Garona put Medivh in the font....
Did he not pick up the cloak after he ran back outside? Panic tightens his chest. No, that gryphon ride to Dalaran was not a cold one, but only because at the moment he was too focused at the task at hand to think about literally anything else. He had to crawl back and convince the old mages to help him; they were his only hope to help Medvih. Adrenaline and dread kept Khadgar from thinking about anything else. He must have left it by the font.
Well, it shouldn't be a problem then, he tells himself with a deep, steadying breath. It's fine; his cloak and its gold pin are back at Karazhan. A simple little port over and he will retrieve his precious items.
Trying to control his breathing, Khadgar grabs some charcoal from the hearth and quickly sketches out a teleportation circle on the wooden floor of his room. Guilt tugs at him for defacing the inn's floor, but he tells himself it will wash off. And, besides, this is really important.
Soon after Khadgar finds himself in the ruins of Karazhan. It is exactly how he left it before. No one has yet come to lay Medivh to rest, and Khadgar gingerly steps around the font, trying not to look at the last guardian as he walks to the place he knows he left his cloak. Panic rises in his throat again. It's not there. No, no, calm yourself, Khadgar, he quickly thinks to himself. Think logically. Moroes must have put it away somewhere. He wasn't the type to leave things lying about. It's probably somewhere nearby; the old man wouldn't have time to put it all the way down in the laundry room while tending to a sick Medivh.
Khadgar starts to raise his hand to his throat again in that old comforting gesture, but stops short of completing the movement. Instead he nervously wrings his hands together while he glaces around the room. His blast, while doing a fantastic job of removing all the fel in the area, took a terrible toll on everything else. Medivh's furnishings were smashed to pieces as Khadgar's spell wrecked everything except Lothar, who stood safe in a protective bubble.
Khadgar rushes to check the nearest pile of broken wood. He toes at the ruined pile, then kneels down to move some larger pieces aside. When his fingers touch cloth, Khadgar's heart jumps in excitement. A few quick tugs and it's loose from the wood, and--
No, it's just one of Medivh's blankets. This must be the daybed Medivh used to rest on, Khadgar muses. He doubts Moroes would put someone else's cloak on Medivh's bed, so Khadgar turns to another pile, which turns out to be a desk, at least if the parchments and spilled ink wells were any indication. Khadgar recognizes the third pile to be the leftover scaffolding from the golem, and skips over it without checking it. He knows from his last trip here that there is no cloak hiding there.
The last pile is across the room, and Khadgar hurries over to it, again trying to ignore the pale face poking out from under the pile of black rocks in the center of the room. Khadgar feels very odd about poking around the guardian's room while Medivh isn't here. Well, he's here, but not really.... Khadgar struggles to abandon that train of thought as guilt and grief and other horrible feelings threaten to take over. No, Khadgar just wants his cloak, and then he will leave Medivh. For now, anyway; even with his magic there's no way he could move that much rock off his body alone. Khadgar makes a mental note to ask Lothar about what they should do for the guardian.
Khadgar sees a broken plate near the last pile of wreckage, and his hopes rise a bit. This was the table, then, and a very promising spot to place a forgotten cloak until its owner returns. Khadgar kneels down on his heels and quickly shuffles through the pile, pushing aside broken cups, a pitcher, crumbled bits of food, and other unidentifiable items. Then he touches it. His fingers know the feel of the cloak the instant they close on it. Sighing with relief, Khadgar gives it a quick tug, feeling flush with victory as it comes loose--
No. No. Nononononononono. The cloth pulls free way too easily and what Khadgar holds now is just a scrap, a torn shred of what was once the most important item of his life. In sudden terror, Khadgar throws caution to the wind and digs frantically at the broken items. Surely this is just a torn sliver of cloth, and the rest of the cloak will reveal itself. Khadgar throws things around with abandon, paying no heed to the sharp edges of broken glass or splinters of wood. Tears blur his vision, and he wipes his eyes impatiently on his shoulder. Khadgar tastes iron in his mouth as his heart pounds like it hasn't since the last time he was here.
His suddenly falls back to his rear, heart traveling from the back of his throat to the depths of his gut so fast he feels dizzy. There on the ground, is the twisted remains of his cloak pin. The gold is barely recognizable, twisted and mangled. Even the color is off, tarnished and blackened by the blast. Khadgar slowly reaches over and picks it up, a scrap of blue cloth still dangling from the metal.
For the moment, he sits there and holds in his hands the last shreds of his family. Khadgar slowly stands and creates another teleportation circle. It's alright, really. It wasn't that great a cloak, made from an old blanket. And the pin wasn't anything that special. The swirling designs were familiar, but nothing fancy. Khadgar is sure he can get much nicer things, now that he is to live at the Keep.
One spell later and Khadgar is standing back in his room at the inn. The only difference now is that he clutches his ruined heirlooms in his bleeding hands. He stares blankly at his hands, wondering if he should care that he's getting blood on what's left of his cloak. Oddly empty, he turns and sits heavily on the edge of his bed.
The door opens with a mighty crash, and even if Khadgar does not have the energy to look up and greet the person intruding on his space, he knows who it is.
“Bookworm!” Lothar greets, stepping towards the seated mage. He walks over the teleportation circle without even glancing at it, likely dismissing it as silly arcane nonsense. “What is taking you so long? We expected you at the Keep ages ago.” Lothar tilts his head as he gazes at his friend. His friend who still will not look up from the scraps of cloth and metal in his hands. Now concerned, Lothar kneels down in front of Khadgar, gazing up into his face to try to figure out what's going on.
Khadgar glances at Lothar, rubs a sleeve across his eyes, and tries to speak lightly, “Oh, hey, Lothar. I'll be there in just a minute.” Khadgar even manages a shaky smile, but Lothar does not look convinced.
The warrior furrows his brow when he notices the blood on the other's hands. “Hey, what did you do to yourself?” He reaches out to touch his friend's hands, but Khadgar jerks away possessively, keeping those ruined scraps away from Lothar's fingers.
“It's nothing. I just cut myself a little, that's all.”
“That's more than a cut. It looks like you have some splinters, too. Here, let me help you.” Lothar moves to sit beside the mage, and pulls one of his hands into his lap. Though Lothar's hands are big and the fingers thick, they are far from clumsy. The largest splinters are easy enough to remove with fingernails. For the smaller ones the man uses the fine tip of his dagger, deftly cutting the tiny shards of wood out of the skin with almost no pain. Not that Khadgar really cares at the moment, anyway.
For a while, Lothar works in silence. Then without looking up, he asks “What's with the teleportation circle?”
Khadgar jerks a little, surprised. Of course Lothar has seen quite a few of them up close and personal, yet he didn't think the man paid that much attention to anything arcane or magical in nature.
“Oh, ah, I had to hop back to Karazhan for a moment. I forgot something there.”
Lothar eyes Khadgar's other hand, still clutching blue cloth and tarnished metal. “Something like a ragged cloak?” Lothar asks, still focused on the task at hand. When the younger man stiffens, though, Lothar glances up at his face, and stills at what he sees. Khadgar's eyes shine bright with unspilled tears, his face blushing and twisting as he struggles to control himself.
“Khadgar,” Lothar says, surprised. “What's wrong?”
His only answer is a wail of pain as Khadgar yanks his wounded hands up to his face and presses both his fingers and the destroyed cloak into his eyes, turning away from Lothar in a feeble attempt to hide the tears from his friend. Lothar stares a moment at the hunched back and shaking shoulders of his friend, shocked into inaction at the young mage's almost violent outburst of pain.
With a soft sigh, Lothar takes Khadgar's shoulders in his hands and turns the man towards him, bringing him into the warrior's strong arms. Khadgar does not resist, and buries his face in Lothar's shoulder, heaving as his cries intensify. The older man is terribly confused, but the mage who Lothar trusts with is life is obviously very upset about something, and Lothar will do what he can to soothe him. Perhaps, he muses, it is the shock of everything that's happened lately. He's seen even the most hardened soldiers break down after battle and death, and knows that sometimes people just have to cry it out.
Lothar mumbles softly to the young man, rubbing one hand over his back while the other one squeezes Khadgar tightly into the embrace. “There, there. It's alright, I'm here. I got you.” Lothar's not even sure what he's saying, but his soft voice seems to calm Khadgar down a little.
After a few minutes of this, Khadgar pulls back, turning away from Lothar again to wipe his eyes and try to regain his composure. Lothar leans back, settling one elbow on the footboard of the bed while giving Khadgar some time to put himself back together. After a moment, though, he has to ask, “What was so important about the cloak? I assume that's what you're upset about?”
Khadgar sighs softly, and with a last sniffle, he turns to face Lothar again. “It was the last thing I had of home. Of my family. That cloak – that pin – may have been old and plain, but they were very important to me.”
Lothar smiles kindly, and reaches out to pat the younger man on the shoulder, gripping him near where his shoulder meets his neck. “I'm sorry to hear that you lost them. It seems all we're doing these days is losing things, and even the simplest things can cause the most pain.”
Khadgar ducks his head, suddenly ashamed. Lothar has lost so much more than he has. His best friend, who was the king Lothar was undyingly loyal to. His son, the last glow of Cally and gone at such a young age. And his estranged, yet still dear, guardian, lost to the fel and killed partly by Lothar's own hand. Khadgar is yet to see Lothar's bright blue eyes tear over; the man is impossibly strong in the face of such loss. Yet here Khadgar is, crying over a silly cloak.
“I'm sorry,” Khadgar says, the blush returning to his face.
“Don't be. Don't worry about it,” Lothar says, giving him one last pat before standing and moving towards the door. “Are you done here? I'll walk you to your new rooms.”
Khadgar stands, picking the forgotten apple back up as he glaces around his old room one last time. He nods to Lothar, “Yeah, I think I'm ready to move on.”
Days pass, and Khadgar is true to his word. He moves on, throwing himself into his studies and learning everything he can, specifically about war strategy. He sees how adept Lothar is at planning battles and wants to add his own mind to the war room brainstorming, rather than sitting in the corner and simply watching. Khadgar is settled in his room for the night, sitting at his desk while reading a history book. As he goes over the battle strategy, he keeps track of everything by drawing a map and sketching the troop movements on it.
Once more, his door crashes open, and again Khadgar does not have to look to know who it is. Lothar is the only person who refuses to knock on his door, no matter how many times Khadgar tries to get him to. Khadgar sets down his quill and sits back, rubbing his eyes. His brain is throbbing with the work of keeping up with the dense text, and it's quite late in the night. Khadgar glances over to see Lothar already standing next to him, hands behind his back as he leans his hip on the desk.
Lothar nods at the book. “Learning anything?”
Khadgar sighs. “I don't even know anymore. It's getting all jumbled up in my head.”
“Then take a break.” With strength that surprises Khadgar no matter how many times he witnesses it, Lothar uses one hand to tilt back Khadgar's chair slightly and turn it towards him, chair legs squealing in protest as they scrape along the ground. Khadgar jumps a little at the manipulation, but honestly he's starting to get used to it. Lothar shapes the world around him as he sees fit, even when that includes other people's bodies.
“I've got something for you,” Lothar says, eyes bright and a small smirk squinting one eye slightly.
Khadgar crosses his arms. He can't even begin to guess what Lothar would get him, and immediately suspects a prank of some sort. He wrinkles his brow suspiciously at the warrior. Lothar brings his other hand from behind his back, and in it is a box. Lothar plops it onto Khadgar's lap, then retreats back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it with his hands on his knees, leaning forward in anticipation.
Lothar's retreat and eager eyes just makes Khadgar more suspicious. What is it, loaded with confetti that will fly out in his face? Maybe there's a stink bomb made of last week's fish in it? Or perhaps just a large spider, shaken about until it's ready to leap out the moment the box is opened? Khadgar holds the thing out at arm's length; it's pretty heavy for a prank gift. Lothar laughs at him as he slowly edges the lid open, bracing for whatever dastardly thing to go off.
Khadgar stills as he sees a very familiar shade of blue inside the box. With a glance at Lothar, he brings the box back into his lap, suddenly convinced there is nothing evil lurking within. He slowly pulls the lid off, setting it on the desk. Before him is a folded cloak in the very same fabric and color as his old one. He runs a hand over it carefully, unbelieving. And there, in the flickering candle light, a gold pin that looks exactly like the one he lost shines in the cloth. Hands shaking, Khadgar lifts the gift into his hands. It even has the same comforting weight of his old cloak. He looks at Lothar, eyes wide with shock.
“How....?”
“I looked all over Trade District for a suitable replacement, but nothing even came close. So I had it made. I hope I got it right. I had to order it all from memory. I know it's not the same things your parents gave you, but maybe it's close enough that it will remind you of their love,” Lothar says with a small shrug.
Tears fall again from Khadgar's eyes as he stares at the cloak.
Lothar frowns. “I'm sorry. You don't like it. I must have gotten it wrong. You don't have to keep it if you don't--” Lothar is cut off from his apology as Khadgar lunges across the space between them, knocking over his chair in his enthusiasm. He wraps his arms around Lothar in the tightest hug he can manage.
“It's perfect,” Khadgar sobs softly into Lothar's neck. “Absolutely perfect. Because it's still a gift from my family.”
Lothar simply smiles as he hugs the man back. They've all lost too much recently. And if Lothar can do something to restore some comfort back into Khadgar's life, he's more than willing to do so.