Epilogue

The drama came to an end, but Jorgen was still sitting in the audience seat, playing with a letter in his hand. The letter read:

Jorgen,

Mardias has reached the age to receive intelligence gathering and analysis education. I have always appreciated your ability in this regard and decided to make you his private tutor. Come back to Stormwind immediately. As for the work in Auberdine, I will arrange a successor. Do not disappoint me.

It was signed with a large red "S". This was the old man's personal letter. The wording was concise without official rhetoric, but full of an unquestionable sternness. Jorgen had already prepared for the journey and planned to take tonight's ship back to the Eastern Kingdom. But before that, he had one more thing to do.

He came to the backstage and found Katrina's private rest room.

"Katrina, are you in there? It's me."

"Ah, wait...come in."

Jorgen lifted the red curtain and entered the room. Katrina was sitting on a chair inside the room, looking somewhat haggard.

"I heard this is your last performance." Jorgen said.

"That's right. It's a bit sad, isn't it? We have to leave this place."

"Actually, so am I. The first ship tonight."

"It seems we are out of luck. We won't leave until the day after tomorrow. After all, there are so many things to prepare. Did you come to say goodbye as an old audience? It really makes me happy."

"That's only part of the reason." Jorgen said. "I have something else I want to give you. - No, it originally belonged to you."

Without waiting for Katrina to answer, Jorgen took out the string of ruby necklace. In the rather dark little house, it was emitting a faint light in an incredible way.

"This belonged to your daughter Helio Stryfe, right?"

"You..."

"Your husband - or rather your ex-husband's name was Dores Stryfe. You had a pair of children, your daughter Helio and your son Trope. And your theater troupe is called Coast Heliotrope."

Katrina lowered her head, pressed her forehead, and then turned her face away. Jorgen couldn't see her expression.

"How did you..."

"Your son Trope - alias Lemenito, told Senoni his sister's name in person. At that time, I didn't know his real name; but based on the age provided by Moshay, I found the birth records. Dores's official personal information had all been destroyed, but you were very poor at that time and had a rural doctor for delivery, so their names were fortunately preserved. So I knew you must be very sad...but this..."

Jorgen held the necklace in his hand and reached out. But Katrina still did not turn her head, only stretched out her right hand and made a gesture of refusal.

"Do not give it to me. I don't want to see it."

"Why..."

"Please take it back, do whatever you want with it."

Jorgen could only put the necklace back in his pocket. At this time, Katrina faced him, and he could see the tear marks at the corners of her eyes.

"Sometimes it's easier to live pretending you know nothing." Katrina said. "I'm just an ordinary person, Jorgen. What do you want from me?"

"Nothing. I just..." Jorgen didn't know how to respond to this clearly hostile remark.

"Moshay is dead. Jacobson was sent to prison by you. Dores, and my son... Please, Jorgen, don't take anything more from me."

"What are you talking about? I don't understand..."

"You don't understand? I thought you knew everything. Aren't you the rational and omnipotent investigator?"

"Moshay died of illness. Jacobson was imprisoned because he had crimes to pay for. I never knew they had anything to do with you."

"Do you really not know? Or is this a trick of your kind?"

"What I said is true, Katrina. Please don't..."

"Okay. Then I'll tell you what you don't know. Jacobson's full name is Jacobson Stryfe. Does this last name have no meaning to you?"

"It's a common last name in Auberdine."

"He was Dores's brother. That is, my son Trope's uncle."

Jorgen had never thought of that.

"He had always cared about me and loved his nephew and niece. He knew Dores had become a Twilight Cultist and kept beating me and the children, but he couldn't find a way to save us until Dores decided to attend that terrible rally. He told me his plan and urged me to escape first. The two children had long been hidden by Dores in an underground cellar of the Twilight Cultists and could not escape with me."

"At that time, the one who provided Moshay with inside information about the rally was..."

"It was Jacobson," Katrina said. "Not only that, he risked his life to disguise himself as a Twilight Cultist and sneaked in. He was going to find the two children at the rally and rescue them. Moshay and Jacobson were once comrades in arms, and they had always been familiar with each other. So Jacobson asked him to deliberately delay the action to give him time to save the children."

"Did Moshay delay the action deliberately to let the Twilight Cultists go in order to control the land price?"

"What are you talking about? No, it wasn't. He was to save my children..."

Jorgen suddenly felt dizzy. He recalled himself and Elin at Moshay's sickbed, speculating about land prices and making him cough blood.

"We knew there would be a child as a 'seed' at the ceremony, the first to be burned... And that 'seed' had to be an orphan. That's why Jacobson dared to start this plan, because he estimated that my two children would not be the first to be... But...Dores really went mad. To show his 'sincerity', he pulled my daughter up first..."

Jorgen recalled the interrogation of Gito. He had expressed that he was a "seed" but never said he was actually the first to be taken up the woodpile.

"My poor Helio was not saved, but Trope was finally found by Jacobson. He adopted him as a foster son and sent him to another city, far away from that vicious father. Jacobson never wanted him to come back, but when he heard the news that my theater troupe came to Auberdine, he had to come back. Of course, he didn't know it was his mother's theater troupe, but... In order to always remember the child, I named the theater troupe like this, which made him notice..."

"After he came back, didn't you recognize each other?"

"No. I didn't have the courage. After all, fifteen years ago, I can say I abandoned him and Helio first and escaped alone, leaving everything to Jacobson and Moshay to deal with... I felt I was not a mother... I founded the theater troupe and named them after them, as if to say they were my private love, my private sunflowers; but when I returned to Auberdine, I avoided it all again...Who could have expected him to develop such feelings for Senoni? Then plan to kill his own father?"

"Didn't you plan to do anything to Dores? After all, he did those things."

"For fifteen years, I have hated him and really thought about killing him... But after returning to Auberdine, Moshay and Jacobson both told me that Dores was changing and wanted to atone. I hesitated and didn't know what to do... I found I didn't have the courage to face myself like Dores. He came to the theater troupe to find me, but I avoided seeing him. I was really afraid... How could I imagine that the child Trope would be so stupid? ...Why did things turn out this way...?"

After leaving the theater, Jorgen stopped on an empty side street. He felt very tired, leaning against the wall and slowly sitting down. He put his hands in his own hair. He couldn't control the trembling of his fingers.

He realized that he had insulted Moshay and misunderstood Jacobson. His ruthless words had accelerated Moshay's death; and Jacobson's grief, holding Trope's body, he thought was just the performance of a black-hearted rich merchant losing his foothold of humanity and the best financial assistant. But in fact, Jacobson was crying not only for himself at that time. He was crying for the fifteen years that three people had devoted to the child in his arms.

"No, no." Jorgen knocked on his own head. Passersby passed by, looking at him, but he only looked at the dust under his feet.

That night, on the deck, he threw the ruby necklace into the sea, believing that neither the dusty archives nor his own side could hold the meaning carried by this necklace. The only way not to insult this necklace was to leave it at the bottom of the infinite deep sea.

In the following days, he had the same dream several times. He dreamed that all the people hurt in this case looked at him with pity in their eyes, trapped in the mud. It was not a good dream, but he did not blame it, because he understood: we can forget the past, but the past will not forget us.