Odd, Arialynn thought as she spied a great stone expanse in the distance. That such a protector would be allowed to simply wear away.

A wall stretched for miles, towering in height but crumbling in places. It was something proud - ancient, comprised of immense slabs of stone, but obviously worn and halfway toward being a miserable ruin. If a set of eyes focused only on one section of the wall, it appeared impenetrable, able to last the ages. But if the same set of eyes shifted to another section, it was weak, crumbling and ready  to fall at any moment.

As the lady knight approached on foot, the wall grew larger. Despite its disrepair, it still struck a lasting impressing within her. Looking past its cracks and crevices, she could see the brilliance of the design, and the grand vision of its originators. There was ambition and pride still in the mortar and stone - the outer stone crumbled, but inner veins still flowed, its pride endured. Just barely.

Walls, she thought silently. Not the first I have seen, not the last.

Her thoughts strayed as her feet slowly closed the gap between the highland and hills. She recalled a daily ritual, now decades old.

"Will we go and see Mama today?" Arialynn asked. It was the daily question she asked at breakfast, which her young self ardently considered the start of every new day.

"Not today, Arialynn," her father always answered, and he committed little else to any inquiry that followed.

After several unsuccessful attempts to convince her father otherwise that this day of all days was perfect to return home, Arialynn eventually ended her interrogations and began her studies. There was always tomorrow.

One morning, her usual question provoked a new response. She did not expect it, and nearly missed it had it not been for a chance glance.

"Will we go and see Mama today?" she asked.

Instead of his usual pat on the shoulder and stern reply, he said nothing. This stirred a new response from Arialynn, which was to look up from the table and frown.

"Papa?" her voice broke the room's silence.

"We cannot go and see your mother, Arialynn," his reply was quiet, low.

"Why?"

After a long pause, he replied, his words slow and picked carefully.

"They built a wall..." he began.

The lady knight recalled her initial difficulty to understand how a wall could so simply yet utterly block one life from another. There was a finality to her father's words, a finality that the wall he described somehow shared. Somehow, it felt that the wall and what it represented could not be changed.

At so young an age, she asked question after question, wondering why it was not possible to simply climb the wall, walk around, or dig beneath it. After all, each wall she encountered till then was so easily surmountable - it was silly to think this new wall was not. According to her young mind, walls were meant to be circumvented. Despite the supposed soundness her childish reasoning, Greymane Wall stood intact for decades to follow.

The memory dissipated, her feet continued onward.

Though the wall appeared close, its immense size created an illusion. It took several hours longer than the lady knight anticipated to reach its stone face. As she and the wall finally met, she did not resist the urge to run a hand over its eroded stone. The surface was rough, weathered by elements.

As she navigated the wall face, her thoughts strayed, recalling a conversation two months prior:

"This is what I encounter every day. I push and push, but you do not give. It's like beating my fists on a wall. You push me, you push until I finally give, and I finally tell you what's on my mind. But when I do the same to you, you're impenetrable. You are a wall, Arialynn."

Her answer was silence.

Closing her eyes, Arialynn returned to the present moment, and walked the length of the wall till she discovered a crumbling pile she could safely climb.

She choose to scale its shattered north end in lieu of simply walking through its gate. Despite the peace and tranquility of the Arathi countryside, she knew the calm to be false: the wall heralded the start of the most dangerous part of her journey, and the road through the gate was often patrolled. Whether the patrolling forces were friendly or hostile, it depended on the identity of the trespasser, and the latest tide of battle.

Careful with every step, mindful of every sharp rock and crevice, her hands and feet found purchase in the wall ruins, climbing ever upward.

"Aye, Taldrus. I know that I do. Why that is the case, I cannot say. It is... difficult to answer. I am not sure if I truly know the full reason."

The lady knight reached the top, and used her new vantage point to gauge her surroundings. Behind her was Arathi, an expanse of treeless, rolling green. Before her was Hillsbrad, aptly named: it was lush green with rolling hills, held together by spaced gatherings of various types of trees. It was a country nearly meant to be a forest, but the hills seemed to pull the trees too far apart for the description to apply.

In a careful ritual, she inspected her weapon, shield and armor. The hammer and shield were familiar, the armor was new. It was a simple make: covering only one shoulder, her chest, upper thighs and forearms. Her head remained bare, but shrouded in the thick hood from her cloak.

The lighter armor made it simpler to scale the wall, but it was ill-suited for the battlefield that Hillsbrad played host. Arialynn took care to note the landmarks of the countryside, and review what knowledge she possessed of where danger would lurk, and where it was still safe to tread.

"Be honest with me, Arialynn."

"I am, Taldrus."

"This will never work if you keep being that wall."

Her response was again silence.

Her eyes lowered to the crumbling half-ruin beneath her feet. Thoradin was so unlike Greymane, which was forced open by the violent trembling of earth. This wall shattered in slow motion, tumbling piece-by-piece over countless ages - but it was shattering nonetheless, simply at a different pace.

Every wall crumbles, she thought. It is only a matter of time.

She stood inert, allowing herself to simply think. In the west horizon, the sun slipped low and washed the countryside in a pale orange glow. The waning light cast a long shadow behind her like an elongated cloak, or banner twisted in the breeze. Several long moments passed, the west horizon light faded to the grey hues of dusk. Hillsbrad and its neighboring Arathi were cloaked in the hush of early evening.

Finally, she stirred. As she began her descent of the wall's opposite side, the final piece of recent memory returned.

"Why do you cut me off, Arialynn?"

Her initial response was silence, then her voice finally spoke. It was quiet, her words slow and picked carefully.

"The answer is fear..." she began.

Her feet touched ground.