He could not have imagined being any happier, no matter what was going on around him. It was beyond happiness.  Happiness rose and fell with the tide of time, slipped away in circumstances.  This was pure joy.

            One sunrise he sat in his favorite meditation spot in Eversong Woods, immersed in the sound of the nearby waterfall, and looked again at the secret letters from Avriella, the leader of the Felsworn. Drawing in the scent of her, he made a silent promise.  We will meet again… It is the will of the Light… You are not forgotten, you are not forsaken. You will know this peace, Mistress Avriella…

            Time had no meaning, days drifted into nights peacefully. Some seemed to sense this within him, this Light, this overflowing love, and were drawn to him.

            It must have been that.

            He waited for Linthice one evening in Silvermoon, on the stairs before the busy little tea shop, Fancy Cakes.  Zaraek cherished this café as a precious sign of the tenacity of his devastated people and admired from a distance its proprietor, Braedyn, who exemplified that spirit. There, Zaraek felt them, tugging curiously at his spirit, the lovely yet lonely. There was the mysterious warlock, Ayvari, whom he had spoken with briefly at Sunstrider Isle, and a paladin named Sonialar Brightshiner who had caught his gaze in the Rising Sun.  Even Kaileth made an appearance, and he found his heart flowed with forgiveness and begged hers, and though he was still faintly aware of her grasping need and her anger, it was all lost in the shine of the loving Light.

And then Linthice, twilight beauty, her heart still beating in synch with his, arrived.

 Ahmandil Balor, Commander of the Impending Dawn, with whom he was acquainted by previous visits to the cafe, passed by.  His eyes reflecting back the shine in Zaraek’s own, he grinned mischievously.  Zaraek barely caught his whisper, there on the busy steps, “You do know you have four ladies vying for your attention, don’t you?”

 It must have been that.  The joy.  The Light.  How else could such graceful, living beings be attracted to an undead creature, a dour down to his pain-stripped bone-white hair Death Knight such as he?

 I could not take any more than this, my heart would burst… Heaven could not be better…  So… perhaps… This IS Heaven.  Simple.  The Light is always here, around us and through us, seen and not seen, and yet shining in our eyes. Awareness of that… is Heaven.

 Zaraek Starstriker was in love.  With the Light.