Planetfurry BBS

[Aslaug]

Well, I'm going to post them here, and people can decide for themselves if they want to read this stuff or not. Many of the characters mentioned in these stories are mine.

The primary storyteller...the 'I'-character, is Vidayi...a Draenei shaman. Draenei, to those who don't know them, are sometimes referred to as space-goats. It's a somewhat unfair term, but comes from the fact that the females have pronounced horns and they all have digigrade legs and hooves. Vidayi has seen way too much suffering to remain unaffected...

Her sister, Melanchta (which I looked up somewhere as I wanted a word meaning 'black flower') is a hunter. She's considerably more lighthearted than her older sister.

Leafy...or Littleleaf...is a gnomish mage, who never got to learn the proud, Gnomish tradition of engineering because her father wholly disapproved of her tendency to blow stuff up even when it WASN'T supposed to happen. Instead, Leafy got taught by Goblins...which has resulted in some seriously demented inventions.

Rubicante is a gnome I invented for the story (I don't play her) who happens to sleep in the top bunk of the bed that Vidayi sleeps in at the Theramore Barracks. They're good friends, but Rubicante has this unfortunate tendency to bring work to bed with her, and she works in the bullets-and-explosives-department...

'The Lunatic', otherwise known as Reeth, is a Night Elf warrior with a predeliction for large axes (no comparison otherwise to Aslaug). She is stark, raving mad...for reasons to be explained in this story.

HER sister, Eanna, is a rogue and a self-professed 'professional backstabber, murderess and fly in the tomato soup of reality'. She is even more embittered than Vidayi. Vidayi's bitterness comes from witnessing horror...Eanna's comes from suffering gross injustice.

Valaina is played by...well...Valaina from this board, who is also one of my proofreaders. She's a Night Elf priestess.

Heomer is an online friend, and someone Vidayi has chosen (without asking him first) to make her rallying point in life.

The Talbuk...whom Vidayi often refers to...is her riding mount. It looks like a mix between a mountain goat and an antelope. She's never named it...it doesn't come when she calls it anyway, so why bother?

Various other named characters are also online aquintances. The undead and the Blood Elf referred to in the story called 'The Decent Dead' are also both played by me...

Well...here goes...

[Aslaug]

The first story to be posted is part of my application to the raid community I joined last year. Fairly short, really...nothing much...

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"Vidayi…will you get out of there already and come back to life?" a voice said. It was outside. It was a cold, rainy night and the owner didn't sound particularly pleased about the situation. The owner was obviously female, and from the accent, a Draenei. Nonetheless, the words were spoken in Common.

"Alar asj, mishun tichar!" the voice inside the cave said. It too was female and it sounded extremely irritable.

A smaller shape moved in the darkness, looking up at the first speaker. It seemed rather baffled at something. "Whazzat?" it asked. This too was female, but a thinner voice, sounding completely confused.

"Nevermind, Leafy…"

"No, common, Melanchta, tell me what she said?"

The first speaker, now identified as Melanchta sighed. "She said 'Piss off, little sister!" since you insist," she explained and rubbed rainwater off her face and horns. "LOOK…Vida, get out already. Everyone else is wondering why you're hiding in there."

"X'no melamagas parn lok amanare," the voice grumbled from inside the cave. It didn't sound quite as firm as before.

The smaller form seemed baffled yet again. "What's she on about now, Mel?"

"She said she's communing with the spirits."

"Ohhh…cool! What spirits? Can I make something to catch them with? I think I have this design for a phantasmitronomic spiritomati…"

"I'm sure you do, Leafy…I'm sure you do," Melanchta said in a hurry. "It's not that kind of spirit. She's talking about the spirits of the land. AREN'T YOU SIS!"

"Lok amanare il rikk maze tichar," the voice said from inside the cave.

"I got some of that. Tichar means sister, and lok amanare must be 'the spirits'…right?" the gnome next to Melanchta asked.

The Draenei grinned and nodded. "Clever gnome…"

"I AM a mage, you know…" was the answer. Not without a certain amount of pride. "What did she say anyway?"

Melanchta coughed and fidgeted. "Erhm…she said she was communing with the spirits that live in my backside…" she said, clearly a bit embarrassed.

The form identified as Leafy was about to answer when a female shape walked out of the cave mouth. It walked with long, purposeful strides. It was tall and slender, but muscled and clearly in good shape. It was armoured, head to toe, in some of the nicest looking mail gear 'Leafy' had ever seen. All shiny. Possibly a bit underendowed in engineering enhancements for the gnome's tastes, but still…it was a nice suit of armor.

"At least translate me correctly, Sister. I said I was communing with the spirits of your arse!" the newcomer growled. Then she stopped and looked up and down her sister for a moment. "You're coming along nicely. That's a big damned gun you have strapped to your back."

"Thank you! I try," Melanchta said cheerfully and with a big smile.

Vidayi shook her head and walked past the two waiting females without another word. She didn't look particularly impressed. The gnome wrung some water out of one of her pigtails and sighed. She was about to say something terribly despondent when Vidayi stopped moving and turned her head to look over her shoulder.

"Oh and little sister?" she said, grinning crookedly.

Melanchta nodded, looking slightly confused.

"Erhh…yeah?"

"I still have nicer horns than you."

"Why you…" the younger Draenei burst out, looking grossly offended. "Well…alright…but my hooves are sharper!"

"We can discuss that later," Vidayi said, still with that crooked smile on her otherwise hard features. "I've got to go find these Vanguard types…I hear they're looking for someone who isn't going to keel over at the sight of blood, innards and dead friends…"

She walked away, leaving Melanchta and Leafy standing in the rain. The gnome sighed and wrung water out of her other pigtail.

"She sure has a way of saying things…" she chuckled.

Melanchta just nodded as they started walking towards someplace dry. "I hear they serve a decent moonshine down in Darkshire…" she said.

"Oooh, I can probably make another experimental BoomBottle Deluxe Explodomatic Mark 3.4 then!"

"What happened to the versions leading up to from 1.0 to 3.3, Leafy?"

"You really…really…really don't want to know, Mel…just take my word for it, okay? Even Reeth twitches when I tell her what those versions do to flesh…"

The Draenei nodded. If the most dreaded nutcase in the Keepers organization twitched at the description, ignorance definitely was bliss in this case.

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[Heomer posted the following response]

Heomer was taking a look at some sketches of the Tempest Keep, when it still was a Naaru fortress, when Klebur announced, swearing and sweating,...an 'alien'.

"Klebur, I believe you took too many radiations in Gnomeregan."
"Let him pass" said the knight hastily.

"Him??!" said the gnome confusedly.

"I might be an 'alien' but for sure I'm far away from being a him".
An armoured draenei figure made her way and approached his desk resolutely while the knight peered around slightly perplexed.

"Miss, you're safe here...there is no need to..." the knight was interrupted

"I've heard you need a medic. And specifically even a spirit communicator. I should have enough references for your ranks. Ask around, I'm Vidayi"

Just like she entered in the barracks she went away.

Heomer strokes his beard now, but a grin appeared on his face.

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[I then posted the following]

Vidayi spat casually on the ground outside the commander's office. She'd need to find some place to bunk down if she was going to stick around. Looking at the courtyard, she tried to distinguish the various buildings.

The one over there, resounding of hammers against metal had to be the smithy. She'd go there later to have a few kinks in her armor taken care of. Besides, the axe she had picked off a dead troll on an opera stage in Karazhan needed sharpening.

There was another building...a smaller one...behind the smithy. The excited sounds of chittering voices and the occasional explosion told her not to get too close to that place. She wasn't an engineer and would probably never understand their...art.

Apparently, the troops were quartered in the main keep. It made sense, really, since they'd be on hand in case of a surprise attack, and she headed that way, to find a bunk. It wasn't too difficult. Several spots were clearly unoccupied and she unrolled her bed-cover onto one of them.

Then she opened a scroll-case she'd kept in her belt, and unrolled two pieces of parchment. Using her warhammer for a more mundane purpose, she put one of them up on the wall next to where her head would be when sleeping. Next she hammered the other piece firmly into place on top of the chest, standing next to the bed.

"What do those say?" a voice asked behind her. It sounded like a little girl. Probably one of the many non-military types running around any encampment.

Since the scrolls were written in the archaic and highly stylized Draenei script, Vidayi wasn't surprised that the kid didn't understand a word of it.

"That one..." the shaman said and pointed to the one she'd fall asleep looking at, "...says 'Always heed the spirits. They are wiser than you'. As a Shaman, it's something one should never forget."

"Oooh. Cool! You're a shaman then? I've seen Draenei around, though not too many of them. I think one of them is a shaman too but I've never really had a chance to talk to her," the girl said behind her. "What does the other one mean then?"

Vidayi chuckled. "That one says 'Don't eat the gnomes. It's uncivilized and we don't do that anymore'. I'm keeping my eating bowl and spoon in there...I figured it'd be the best place to put the reminder."

"Errh...you eat gnomes?" the voice behind her said, suddenly sounding terribly worried.

Someone lit a torch in Vidayi's head and she shook it, turning around. "No," she said and smiled crookedly, looking at a female gnome, who in turn looked like she'd held on to a lightning rod. Her hair stuck out in every conceivable direction.

"You're sure? I'm not really in the mood to be breakfast."

"Well, I'm told the best recipes are for main courses...no, no stop...don't run away. I'm just kidding. I don't eat gnomes. My ancestors did...and sadly, from time to time, I have these flash backs to former lives and existences. It's part of being a shaman. I do not eat gnomes, I promise. It's rude and uncivilized and it gives 'I'd love to have you for dinner' a decidedly morbid meaning that I don't approve of."

"Me neither," the gnome said and looked only marginally less nervous. "Aaanyway...I'm your bunkmate. I sleep in the top bunk there. So if I wake up one morning and you've eaten me, I'll be really upset and give you indigestion, you hear?"

"I don't eat gnomes. I promise you."

Looking a bit less nervous, the gnome nodded. "Alright. Then I promise I won't bring work to bed with me."

Vidayi had an awful premonition. "Work...to bed with you? What exactly do you do around here?"

"I'm the resident munitions expert. I make bombs and bullets. For the hunters mostly, but...you know how it goes..."

"Not really...but I appreciate you not bringing bombs to bed with you. If I wake up one morning, and you've blown me up, I'll be really upset and douse your wickets in blood!"

"ICK! That's kinda gross, you know..."

"Well, I'm a demon, didn't you know?"

For a moment, the gnome looked like she was going to run away in horror. Then she extended a small hand upwards and finally, carefully, broke into a smile. "I like you. I'm sure we'll get along just fine."

Vidayi crouched, shaking hands with the small figure. "I'm sure we will. Some of my best friends so far have been gnomes. And no, I haven't even nibbled on them..."

The gnome broke into an even wider smile. "REALLY? You mean you actually LIKE gnomers? Most other tall folk tend to think we're annoying, noisy and that we tend to blow things up. I guess one in three isn't bad, but...you really have other gnomish friends?"

"Oh I do," Vidayi said and grinned wider still, showing the sharp incisors common to her race. "One of them in particular said something very wise to me once."

The gnome let go of Vidayi's much-shaken hand and nodded. "Go on? What's that then?"

"She told me that tall folk, like me, tend not to have our heads screwed on straight, and that we had problems keeping our feet...or in my case hooves...on the ground. That we got too big ideas for our own good. And that it was probably due to the thin air up this high..." Vidayi explained.

The gnome nodded, sagely. "That sounds like good, solid, gnomish thinking. I agree completely. Except of course I sometimes end up higher in the air than you tall folk, when something blows up...but in principle, that's absolutely right."

"She also told me something that gave me profound respect for the gnomish race...or rather, she asked me a question," Vidayi went on, still crouching.

The gnome's eyes lit up like a Winter's Veil tree and she clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh this gets better and better! Profound respect? I'll have to tell all the others about this. What did she ask you?"

"She asked me...and a lot of other tall folk, mostly elves...why they were so high and mighty? And then she asked us what we'd guess she saw when she looked at us."

"This is gonna be good...!"

Vidayi chuckled and nodded. "Well, I said I didn't think I was particularly high and mighty. But I couldn't figure out what she saw whenever she looked at us so I asked her."

"What was her answer?"

"Nostrils."

The gnome burst out in giggles. "That's true! That's so true! It's what we all see when we look up at you tall types!"

Vidayi smiled and rose back up again, deliberately tilting her head down so she looked directly at the gnome. "Well, any time I get an overblown sense of self or ego, all I have to do is think of what gnomes see when they look at me, and it tends to deflate me. Anyway...can you tell me where the mess hall is? I'm starving..."

For a moment, the gnome looked slightly nervous again. Then she relaxed. "Sure...it's actually at the inn. They make some really delicious turtle-egg omelets. Their turtle soup and their turtle steaks are good too."

"Lots of turtles around these parts, eh?"

"Have you ever tried going for a swim on the beach north of here? If you haven't, let my advice be don't. Either you'll run into an angry turtle, an oversized shark or murlocs. The sharks taste like fishliver oil and rubber, mixed with gunpowder. And everyone hates the murlocs so bad that once they're done hitting them there's nothing left to eat anyway. I think it's got to do with their language sounding like someone is drowning. It drives everyone up the walls..."

Vidayi grinned and nodded. "Turtles it is then..." she said and patted the gnome gently on the head on the way out, to go get something to eat.

[Aslaug]

Then came the first real shortstory...which I called 'From within a Draenei mind'.

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"You can't heal everyone, Vida. You can't even heal everything."

The words felt like a slap in my face. I hated the speaker instinctively at that moment, even though I knew I shouldn't. It was wrong of me to do so, since the words hadn't been spoken to belittle or patronize me.

They were spoken in support.

To remind me that no one person...race notwithstanding...could singlehandedly keep everyone alive and that consequently, the blame was not mine.

At least...not mine alone.

I should have listened. I should have understood but I did not. At a mere couple of centuries of age, I am still, to my own great dismay and shame, prone to childish bouts of self-loathing. Especially when I fail.

Or when I think I fail.

And so the circle continues, unending, never complete, like an Ouroboros, biting its own tail for all time.

So I can't heal everyone...or everything. And I've blamed myself for it, every time a friend fell. I've tried to put on a staunch, hard face but lately it's been nearly impossible. My time with the band of adventurers known as Maiev ended badly. Bitterly, even, though I did leave friends behind.

It doesn't make the feeling of guilt any less. That there were still people there whom I liked. That there were still those I wished to help keep safe through dangerous times. Yet every time I strapped on my armor and grasped my hammer to go into some stinking, awful pit of horror and despair...that despair gripped me a little tighter. I knew before even going in that I would inevitably fail. That someone would fall, because I wasn't attentive enough. That if only...

If only...

If only......

And so I continued to wear myself down, like drops of water, slowly and meticulously grinding away a mountain. The mountain looks huge, invincible...fiercely unconquerable...

...and any Shaman will tell you that between the drop of water and the mountain, all the strength lies with the former.

It came to a head lately. The leaders of aforementioned band of adventurers wanted to send us into yet more dangerous places, with far greater regularity...and I couldn't. Spiritually, I was wasted after every single trip, towards the end. I had no strength left...in fact more than once, I could barely drag myself back out.

More than once, I contemplated purposefully dropping behind as the others, bloodied and battered, made their way back to the light of day. And then I would simply sit down...and wait for whatever came by, to finish me off.

I never did. I can't. I have responsibilities, but it steadily became harder and harder to remind myself of that fact. I looked at my own reflection and saw the hard edge I had put on as an act, take permanent hold. Like scar-tissue, forming over a dreadful wound.

Ugly. Hard. Inflexible.

I tried asking the spirits for guidance, but this was my battle to fight. My own struggle to face. They made that much clear to me. Painfully clear.

So I kept trying. Hoping against hope that I would find the ability to keep everyone alive. Safe. Sound. Whole.

And all the while, my smile went the way of the High Elves.

Into nigh-extinction and oblivion. A rare guest seen at the most unlikely of times. A refugee from my own face.

What had I become? Was I not worse than the Wreckt and the Broken that I had so wholly pitied? I recalled going to a meeting in Zangarmarsh, while disguised as an Arrakoa, and the broken refused to talk to a Draenei. We had turned our backs on them. We could go to the Twisting Nether for all they cared.

They would make their own way. Their own fortune. Find their own inner strength.

And there I was...Draenei, not cast down from the light. Even a Shaman, trying so hard to understand the ways that these Wreckt and Broken wretches had discovered while in exile.

Now that I have mastered their ways, I understand how perilously close I came to losing the one thing they at least still have intact.

Their soul.

My soul.

I used to laugh a lot...while the Exodar was built. Not to make fun of it, but in honest hope for the future. I used to dance. I told jokes and I made merry.

Yet I had sunk so low that even sweet little black flower...my sister Melanchta...recoiled from me before I clawed my way back to the light.

The terrible insight came to me that this is how the Eredar must have felt. That where they fell...I chose to return. Or was able to, at least. But to understand the emotions involved in the devastation of my race was enough to make my knees buckle.

It was enough to give me new purpose, too. And so at last, I knew my way. I had no choice but to go on. Others depended on me. Not just my sister, not just the ones I had to occasionally patch up...but others.

Suddenly it did not seem so difficult to face those who had been dismembered. It did not seem so hard to reattach chopped off limbs, to close wounds through which hot life's blood was running as if water over a waterfall. Sticking my hands into the insides of an ally, to close burst arteries or to reassemble a shattered organ no longer made me want to swap places with them.

After all, in most cases, they could not have patched up those wounds if I had been the one on the ground.

Besides, I found an interesting subject to study. Thank the spirits for small blessings, but after hearing my fellow Keepers...with one or two notable exceptions...tremble at the mere mention of a certain name since I joined them, I finally met the lunatic.

I will have to tell more of that meeting later. My bunkmate forgot a stick of EZ-Thro in her pocket when she came back from work, and as she changed clothing, she tossed her pants on her bunk. The predictable result is that I now need to find the carpenter.

Or maybe a blacksmith. Possibly a metal bed would have better survival-chances against the ingenuity of a gnome.

How my ancestors could ever eat these creatures is beyond me.

Watching a single gnome is like watching an intelligent ant-farm. Completely chaotic, but with method to the madness. In my dealings with the lunatic, I hope to be able to make use of what I learn from studying gnomes, but that is a different story altogether...

Naturally, observing a group of gnomes is even more elucidating. But it should not be done except by those willing to risk grivious bodily harm, or those who can heal.

Gnomes...in my experience...personify the term 'explosive exuberance'.

How can one not love them?
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I mentioned the Lunatic. I suppose I owe it to myself and to others to clarify what I meant by that.

The Lunatic is a night elf. A night elf who has so lost her mind that only a select few friends are not afraid of her. Someone who frightens even those visibly...obviously...stronger than her, simply by her mannerisms.

A lost soul.

Like me, she has a younger sister. Like me, she lost her way.

Unlike me, she did not find her way back.

Now it may be too late to ever reverse the damage done. I don't know. But as a subject of study, she is fascinating, if terrifying. My first meeting with her was not long ago. I had been with the Keepers for almost a year. After the crash of the Exodar, I had made my way towards elven lands, but she had long since abandoned those. She does not like other night elves...by and large. Truth be told, she doesn't like most creatures much. The point is, that while I was accepted into the Keepers, and while I heard the name mentioned often, and usually in a sort of hushed whisper apparently meant not to attract her attention, I never saw her myself.

I saw her sister a few times. A bitter, hateful creature, but with an intact mind. Their story is a tragic one, and I know the spirits lament the injustice done to them both. But I may get to that later...

Perhaps.

The younger sister makes her way through life over the corpses of others. She claims to lack physical strength, though I saw wiry muscles move with each lithe step she took. She carries long, serated knives, usually coated in the most vile of poisons, and she uses these weapons with considerable skill.

Usually...by her own admission...from behind, while her target is looking the other way. She strikes down those already wounded as readily as those who are fresh. Laying no claim to honor of any kind, she simply kills...because killing is what life had marked her out to be good at. She distrusts the world. Deeply and from the core of her soul, whatever remains of it.

All because of a misunderstanding.

Well, perhaps I had best tell that part of the story, as she related it to me, then. She and her sister grew up on the outskirts of present day Darnassus. Right by where the gate is now, in fact, where their parents had a small house. Their childhood was happy and largely carefree. They were loved and well taught, and their parents, while not rich, were respected members of the community. The younger sister, being frail and weak of body, took up the art of alchemy. From an early age, she'd spend long hours in the vast gardens of Darnassus, learning the uses of every plant there. Which ones were restorative...which ones were deadly poison.

She certainly makes use of this knowledge these days.

The older sister...well...she was physically strong. She was courageous from a young age, and highly protective of her sister.

She was, perhaps, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but she had a big heart, by her sister's account.

Then the older sister met someone. A male...a hunter of great skill and fame in Darnassus. She tried to pronounce his name but sadly, I would fracture my tongue trying to emulate the language of the Night Elves, and she was kind enough to supply me with a translation.

Dragonhawk.

His name...which has become such a curse when used by either of these sisters.

Dragonhawk courted the elder sister. Wooed her and flattered her, brought presents to her parents...won everyone's hearts and minds.

But there was rot in him. A rot no one but a Shaman could have noticed, for it was of a spiritual nature, and at the center of his being. His soul undoubtedly remained relatively untainted, but in spirit, he was as corrupt as an furbolg in Felwood.

He craved.

He lusted.

He demanded.

What he didn't do...was love. He wanted the older sister as a prize. To show that he had won a bride so strong that no other male dared show interest. But he played his part well. Terrifyingly well, in fact, and he convinced everyone of his sincerity.

All the while his eyes kept getting drawn to someone else.

So one day, not long before the wedding, the younger sister returned home from the gardens, arms full of plant-stalks and leaves from young trees, intent on studying each...and he was there. Her parents were not home, nor was her sister, but she bid him welcome and told him that they would be back soon.

But he was not interested in them. He had seen her pale skin and her ebony hair. He'd seen the frail beauty that she possessed. Her then unmarked face, the swell of her bossom and the elegance of her steps all lured him to her.

If you had heard her curse her physical beauty as a youth, you would have wept.

I did.

Dragonhawk took her. Or at least...he tried to take her. She resisted, but he was a strong male...in his prime and renowned for his physique. He slammed her into a table...just as her parents came home to see what was going on.

But the madness had taken him. He would not be stopped.

He killed them, in cold blood...in front of the younger sister's eyes. Butchered them...telling her calmly that he would do the same to her...and to her sister...if she did not aquiesce to his demands.

To his lust.

As he returned, she kicked against him as hard as she could and rolled off the table. It only made him pause for the briefest of moments, but it was enough.

When he came back at her, she lunged...in terror and anguish...she struck him with the small dagger with which she used to cut the stalks of flowers and the leaves from young trees...

He fell...the dagger having pierced his heart, by the luckiest of strokes.

And at that moment, the older sister returned home. To see her parents dismembered on the floor...the love of her life still warm, but dead with his heart pierced...and her sister, covered in gore, standing over him with a dagger in her hands.

What was she to believe?

The shock was too much. Her hair, as dark as that of her sister went white in an instant. Her mind shattered...and she fled.

The younger sister was taken to one of the largest trees outside Darnassus, and there, the druids placed a terrible spell upon her. The tree enveloped her. Kept her alive...nourished her...for years. Untold years. She has no idea how many...but many indeed...

But she could not move. Speak. Scream out. She had protested. Insisted on her innocense. She had told the truth and no one had believed her. Dragonhawk was a famous huntsman...liked, respected and swooned over by half the women of the night elf nation...

Everyone thought she had killed him out of jealousy. Her parents out of spite and anger.

And no one knew where the older sister had gone.

To this day, no one knew where she went. When she came back to the world...she looked not a day older than when she had fled. No one knew how. She was armored...in primitive scraps that she seemed to have taken off dead enemies.

She wielded an axe. A large, two handed axe.

The madness was upon her. She believed her parents to still be alive. She spoke to them, went to visit them despite the house long since being gone. Darnassus had been built in the meantime. The gate was placed where their house had been. She spoke to her axe as well.

Whispers abounded that she had...a most unnatural relationship with her weapon and none would go near her anymore. She became a pariah. She who had once been admired for her strength and her beauty as a child, had marred her face with a tattoo looking...at first glance...like a stylized butterfly. But up closer, it could be seen to be a ribcage.

She had lost all sense and reason. Anger came easily to her.

And then her sister was...spat out, for lack of a better word. The tree let her go. No one knew why, but the druids could not put her back in. The trees would not accept her being imprisoned again.

She too had her face marked. In the manner of her sister. Perhaps a show of penitence? Perhaps trying to show her insane sister that she was not alone?

No one knew. And the younger sister would not tell me when I asked her.

But there was no forgiveness to be had. The older sister, in her madness, still believed that the younger one had killed Dragonhawk. They parted ways, with the younger sister keeping just out of reach, and hidden in the shadows...trying to keep her sister safe from a distance. Out of love and pity.

The older sister's madness worsened. It was getting to the point where the night elves, despite their loathing of doing such a thing, were contemplating killing one of their own. For the safety of all. Instead, Tyrande in her mercy, decided to let the older sister find her death nobly...in battle. She was sent on a mission with no hope of success.

But she went nonetheless, happy that someone had work for her.

Despite all the odds, she came back. The elves recoiled from her in horror as they realized her soul had been torn apart. I do not know exactly how...but the older sister returned from her mission, bloodied, but successful...and with only half a soul.

Her madness no longer grew worse...but it did not improve either.

No night elf in Darnassus would go near her anymore. She was relegated to living outside their settlements and she went to Stormwind to find company instead.

She was followed by her sister. At a distance. Still hidden. Still determined to help.

And so she went to human lands.

There...against all the odds...she met an elf who took pity on her. Who tried to be what no one in Darnassus would be. Unselfish...and unafraid.

Her name was Valaina. Young enough not to know what had happened all those years before. Old enough to know she had a duty to Elune, to help this broken creature.

She did so in the only way she could. She befriended the older sister. And she became her conscience.

The older sister's reaction was fierce and terrifying to most. Now she had a conscience again. She would protect it.

Like a wounded mother bear would protect her cubs.

Those attempting to hurt Valaina would usually hear a snarl...and then hear nothing more.

Ever.

The older sister...the Lunatic...had a purpose.

And the younger sister slipped into the darkness...finally free to look for some kind of life for herself again.

They would later come together again. Later.

And even later than that...I would meet the Lunatic myself. But I'll have to tell that story some other time...

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I did promise I'd tell the story of how I came to meet the Lunatic, myself. And why she fascinates me so.

Most of us have seen madness in some form or other. Raw recruits who lose their sanity when they come under fire the first time. Traitors to the Alliance, paying for their wickedness with their sanity.

The Eredar.

Few races know insanity as well as the Draenei. We are a minority within our own people. Driven into near extinction in times past, so few of us survived that today, the Eredar...the fallen...the mad...outnumber us.

Did I think the Lunatic would go the way of the Eredar?

No. From the first time I heard of her, I never thought that was an option. There was something about the way those around me spoke of her that told me that while they feared her...often greatly so...they also liked her. Even if some of them were reluctant to admit it.

I know at least a few admired her, for her singleminded dedication to a cause.

Yet the stories were confused. Time seemed to be the primary problem. No one knew exactly when she had lost her mind. Her family's death wasn't recorded anywhere. Likely the reason for that has to be found in the tragedy of the wars and the planting of the new world tree.

Possibly. I don't presume to have all the answers. Not even near all the answers. At least not yet. Maybe in time, I will have these answers.

Anyway, I met her recently. She's not exactly elusive, but my paths have simply never crossed hers before. As mentioned, she has a special kind of relationship with Valaina. From what I've gathered, she believes Valaina to be more than simply a night elf. She quite literally treats the priestess as her disembodied conscience. Her guide through life. Her anchor.

What I did not realize was that Valaina was what the Lunatic had been using to keep herself from devolving further.

Remember I told you how she had come back from a mission where she was intended to die? Her soul shattered and broken, but her mind no longer unravelling further?

I believe she has her entire soul back. I know Valaina and a few others know what happened to the missing half of that soul, but I don't know yet, myself. And I have reason to believe it's been restored to the Lunatic, recently.

When I met her, Valaina had been missing for days. It was a sorry sight to meet this wretched creature, lost and completely without guidance. I tried...Spirits are my witnesses, I tried as hard as I could to be a guide to her, but I do not know how to reach her. Maybe I will find out in time. Maybe not.

When I met her, she was standing amidst a host of corpses. Freshly killed blood elves. She was confused. Frightened. Not by what she had done. Oh no...blood and gore does not frighten her. In fact, she seems comfortable only when surrounded by such things.

What frightened her...or so she said...was that the voice in her head was gone. At first I had no idea who I was facing. I was going towards Zul'Aman, after learning that the doors had opened. On my way there, though, I saw the flash of steel and I heard the roar of magic. I decided to investigate. The Ghostlands are unfriendly, let's face it, but for a fully trained shaman, it holds little to be frightened of, outside Zul'Aman.

For a fully trained shaman...and for rage incarnate both.

I suppose the Lunatic is best described as a warrior. She wears heavy armor, and she uses large axes. Her mind being as damaged as it is, magic is firmly and permanently beyond her grasp, in any form. She has no concept of stealth, and shooting things from a distance seems to be only a means of getting its attention in her case.

To pull it close enough to meet the one undeniable love of her life.

The keen edges of her axe.

I've been told she's changed axes many times, but that does not change the way she treats it. Apparently, she treats it as if her weapon has had a change of clothing. The essence remains the same, throughout.

In any case, I turned my Talbuk towards the sounds. I don't know why, except to say it was the guidance of the spirits which led me to do so. Why would I assist a blood elf? They, who so willingly tried to slaughter my kind, even as the survivors of the crash of the Exodar crawled out from the ruined sleeping chambers? Why would I do anything except detest and loathe these creatures? Why would I change directions to help one?

But something told me I had to go.

What I saw was...awesome.

It was like watching a nightmare, with my eyes wide open.

It was terrifying...and glorious...and fascinating...all at once.

At the end of the butchery, one form remained standing. I didn't count the corpses around her. It wouldn't have been easy. Arms and legs were, by and large, not attached to their respective torsos anymore anyway. A few pitiful moans escaped some survivors. They did not live long.

Even if I wanted to, I could have done nothing to save them. The amount of damage inflicted was dreadful. And in front of me...I saw this apparition. It was covered from head to toe in blood and innards. Dessicated lumps of flesh from her victims stuck to spiked parts of her armor, and she clearly did not register this.

I admit I lost my lunch from the sight...and the smell. I dare anyone to look at that kind of slaughter and not throw up. Even with all I've seen, this was something else.

Perhaps mostly because of the look in the apparition's eyes as it turned towards me.

Eyes that begged me to explain what she was doing. Where she was. WHO she was.

I was about to ride away in disgust when I realized that underneath the surcoat of fresh blood, this creature...this tall, elven creature...was wearing the same tabbard as my comrades in the Keepers.

A white compass rose on a black background, with white borders. It was barely visible.

That was when I realized who I was facing. My reaction was immediate. I dismounted, tying my Talbuk to the nearest fence-post as I slowly approached the bloodied creature.

It barely looked as if the blood elves had landed a blow. The massacre was complete, but this...fury...that I was looking at, had not left the ill equipped, badly trained militia any chance whatsoever.

To my relief, I saw no children amongst the dead. I may hold a special hatred in reserve for the blood elves, but I would not harm a child. Those dead were all adults. They were all armed...such as their weapons were. And they were all wearing some measure of armor, although of generally inferior quality.

They had bought the escape of every civilian at the settlement, with their lives.

Leaving themselves to be killed in turn. I had not expected such...gallantry and self sacrifice...from a race as evil and twisted as the blood elves. I reminded myself, right then and there, not to let prejudice get in the way of fact.

The creature took a step towards me and raised the axe as if to strike me down. At that moment, I could have cursed up a storm for the fact that I happened to be wearing a Sha'tar Skyguard tabbard. I had earned it only recently and I was wearing it mostly for show. She couldn't see I was a friend.

I did the only thing I could think of. I backed away...at the same pace as she advanced, while casting a protective earth-shield around myself. Somehow, it seemed a pitiful protection against the axe that she wielded. It shone. Clearly magical...powerfully so, and despite the general appearance of the wielder, it was kept in perfect condition. Not a notch on the edge to be seen.

Then I told her I knew Valaina. That I was a friend of hers. I hoped...I prayed...that it would give this creature pause.

It did. For a brief moment, I saw hope flash through those tortured, maddened eyes as she asked me if I knew where 'Vala' was.

It was all the confirmation I needed. The female Keepers usually refer to her as Val, with a few exceptions...most notably the two Night Elf sisters. I asked her...by name...if she was who I thought she was. Clearly, the question caused her some difficulty, but eventually, she confirmed her identity. It wasn't that she didn't want to.

She didn't remember.

She couldn't even remember her own name.

I immediately got out the water I had bought to refresh myself in Zul'Aman, and I started washing her face.

It nearly broke my heart to do so. She must have been so beautiful once. She must have been worthy of the adulation the stories told me that she had received. I had seen her sister, and I had seen for myself the loveliness that even her cold, bitter hatred couldn't completely extinguish. But this face...

Oh spirits, this face...

She could have melted all the ice covering old Ironforge with but a smile, once. I have no doubt of it. And now...old wounds had left minute scars on her face. Most of them were impossible to see except up completely close like I was. A testament to Valaina's healing prowess. The tattoo had healed nicely too. She would still have been so painfully beautiful...if it had not been for her eyes.

It was like...looking into a whirlpool. A maelstrom of insanity. One eye might radiate joy and happiness, all the while the other would threaten you with doom and gloom. At the same time. One emotion would flicker out and be replaced by another so fast one could not distinguish them.

More than that...there was that sheen...that glint...which cannot be properly described in any language I know of. The glint of absolute, irrevocable insanity.

I wanted to weep. I probably did. I admit I can't remember it clearly. I wanted to hug her, tell her that it'd all be okay again. That Valaina wouldn't stay missing. That we'd find her and that everything would be alright. I wanted...more than anything...to make things right.

The words came back to me.

"You can't heal everyone, Vida. You can't even heal everthing."

I still tried. Using all my abilities, wearing myself out beyond exhaustion, beyond reason or rhyme, I spent every ounce of magic I had in me. I pleaded with the spirits, I used the gifts the Naaru had granted all Draenei, I called upon totems and spells alike...all to try to ease the madness I could see, flare like a lighthouse in those haunted eyes.

All for naught.

Then she laughed. Suddenly. She laughed this sparkling, clear laughter as if someone had told her the most wonderful joke. I was about to join in. It was infectuous.

And then I saw the hatred in her eyes.

Amidst the laughter.

Yes, I was frightened. For a moment I thought she would attack me again, but she wasn't even talking to me when she spoke. It was as if she was repeating a conversation she had recently had.

Someone had sent her north on purpose. Someone...within the Keepers had directed her towards the Ghostlands, in search of Valaina. I looked at the corpses around me. These were lives taken because of that misdirection.

Then she said something...that chilled me to the bone.

"I'll have your guts for garters, elfling!"

Her smile faded. Her laughter turned into a sneer so hateful it made me take a step backwards. But she didn't even see me. It was as if I wasn't even there...and like she was somewhere else.

She laughed again, but this time her laughter was chilling rather than mirthful. Then...she kissed her axe.

Don't get me wrong. I've seen many warriors place a kiss on the flat of their blade, be it an axe or a sword, for good luck or in gratitude over a hard fought victory.

She didn't kiss the flat of the blade. She kissed the edge of her axe so furiously that blood sprang from cut up lips and I felt my breath catch in my throat as she started walking away. I was so stunned...I barely remembered to cast a healing spell towards her back. I wanted to run after her...to stop her.

I didn't manage, before she had whistled, sharply. A large, bluish nightsaber came out between the trees and she mounted it, speeding away through the decrepit woods.

And just like that...my first meeting with the Lunatic was over.

I was no use in Zul'Aman that day. I could not tear my mind from those maddened eyes. From the kiss of those lips against the razor edge of that horrible weapon. The complete disregard for pain and the self-inflicted damage.

I knew I had to find out what was going on...

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[Valaina added the following]

Valaina's mind swam. There was no telling if it was day or night, no telling how long she had been gone for, no telling where she was, other than on the water. The salty spray of whatever sea she floated on misted her face almost constantly, that part not bound or covered. She could barely move any longer, so cold, so stiff, tied tight enough to be immobile, her body rocking with the waves slapping against whatever sea-going craft she was in.

She'd realised tears and pleading were both pointless by now, and even had she not been blindfolded and gagged, she doubted she remembered how to use her voice, or even if she wanted to. Her voice, therefore, turned inwards, and she mourned the loss of freedom, the loss of spirit, bitter, black thoughts welling up to almost choke her with their vileness.

If only her protectors were there, she mused. The two elves in all the realms she could trust. no matter what the situation. Truth be told, she dual-wielded them like the most proficient rogue, parrying an attack with one, taking an aggressive stab with the other. A shame the two seemed to loathe one another.

She made a vow, then and there, a soft whimper of assent escaping around the wadded cloth in her mouth, that somehow, some way, she would escape... and explain to them both why she needed them... Reeth, the main hand, the one she used to attack, and Teeishai, her off-hand, kept closer, to defend when all else failed.

The aimless drifting of the boat soon lulled Valaina's thoughts into a similar aimless drift, with only the stars and the waves bearing witness to their wandering, matching journeys. No destination, no crew to guide the helm, and no sign of reaching land.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[back to my own stuff again]

I barely remember dragging my digigrade legs out of Zul'Aman after we were done in there. I remember failure, screams of pain and the dismembered forms of friends. I remember coming out, my ankh-pouch considerably lighter than when I went in.

I remember needing to spend a considerable sum getting artificers to repair my armor without ruining the magic within it.

None of that seemed to matter much. I had seen a woman, deliberately split her face in two from chin to nose, and she hadn't seemed to even realized what she had done to herself.

I confess, I thought of some of the horrors of the Undercity at that moment, but the Lunatic wasn't dead. She tended to make a lot of things around her dead, admittedly, but she was quite vibrant with life, herself.

Truth be told, that day in Zul'Aman laid the groundworks for the split I suffered with my old comrades.

The world seemed so fluid and unreal after that, and I felt thinly stretched. Like the finest Knothide calf-leather parchment, scraped until you can see clean through it.

Why did I feel this way? I have spent the last year, since the crash of the Exodar, fighting alongside the Keepers and in all that time, I didn't know the Lunatic, except from what others said of her. To be frank and honest, I didn't believe half of it. Then with one brief meeting, face to face, I suddenly came to understand the truth of the matter. The whole truth, nothing but the truth...so help me every spirit out there.

I probably knew more about the depth of insanity suffered by that unfortunate creature than any other Keeper, except the younger sister...and Valaina. But the problem, of course, was precisely that.

Valaina had gone missing.

No one knew where. Teeishai, bless him, was a wreck from nerves. He loves the priestess fiercely and furiously, and for some reason, most of the Keepers seem to think he is the cause of Valaina's disappearance. As far as I understand it, the reason for that is a conversation between him and the Lunatic, where she misconstrued more or less everything he said as an admission of guilt.

As I rode south, through the plaguelands where I admit I only performed a perfunctory service to the Argent Dawn, I barely saw the horrors that leapt out at me. I fought like an automaton, blasting the undead with powerful elemental spells, augmented by the armor I wear when needed as a healer. It did not improve the condition of my already worn gear.

By the time I rode past the gates of the castle beneath which the Undercity lurks in all its ghastly horror, I had recovered my senses to a reasonable extent, and I was resolved to a new course of action.

I would figure out what had happened to Valaina! She was the only one who had the answers I needed. And the answers I needed were simple.

At least to a Shaman they would be simple. Spirits hold unfathomable power, and when called upon by Shamen, they usually only release a small amount of it at a time. But if I could strike a deal...

If I could persuade a spirit...a water spirit...

Then maybe I could heal the fractured mind. Maybe I could cure the Lunatic, or at least ease her suffering.

The problem was to find Valaina, who was so badly missing that even an accomplished hunter like Teeish...

But that was it...wasn't it?

Therein lay the entire answer to the Lunatic's irrational hatred of him.

Teeishai the hunter.

White haired...bloody armored Teeishai.

I finally understood.

Driving the back of my hooves into the side of my faithful Talbuk, I pressed on. I had to reach Ironforge. I had to get to the tram.

I needed the libraries of Stormwind Keep, and I needed them right now.

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Getting to Ironforge took most of the day, and the journey was not always pleasant. I would've caught a gryphon from the Plaguelands, but the gryphon master was on strike, demanding better hours.

While I could sympathize with someone who's literally on duty around the clock, I must admit that at that time, with the urgency of my mission, it annoyed me.

Riding through the Arathi Highlands was peaceful enough. Apart from a single, starved raptor trying to make dinner of me or my mount, nothing much happened. The problems did not arise until the dwarven tunnels leading away from the wetlands.

Let it be said immediately. I like dwarves well enough. I've found them to be excellent warriors, solid priests and skilled hunters. Most of the time, they are immensely good company too, if a bit on the stubborn side. But just once in a while, I'll run into a reactionary so vile, it makes my horns curl. That day was just such a time.

"We dinnae let demons pass!"

It seemed to be a mantra. The guard was impossible to argue with. The smug, self-satisfied look on his face told me that here was one of life's small entities, given a sliver of responsibility...and he intended to make the most of it, come Scourge or High Tide. I can only guess at what manner of harrasment that dwarf has subjected other travellers to, before and since.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I had to resort to threats of physical violence to get him to back down. I placed four totems around me, quickly called the spirits of the wind into my weapon and while my trusty fire elemental rose menacingly out of his totemic sleeping place, I informed the guard of just how I thought roast dwarf might taste and how I'd find out unless he let me pass that very instant.

His comrade suddenly remembered that many other Draenei had passed and that we were in fact not demons.

I was loathed to do something like that, and frankly I would rather have someone bash my brains in than actually eat roast dwarf, but I had no time to waste. Something told me that this was a matter of extreme urgency, as I stroked the neck of my Talbuk, pressing him to run the fastest he had ever run, towards the great gates of Ironforge.

He was steaming from his chest and flanks by the time I got inside, and I promised him time to rest as I raced down the hallways towards the Tram-station.

My Talbuk does not like the tram. It doesn't sit well with his stomach and he glared at me in a manner that told me exactly how many carrots I owed him to make up for the indignity and hard work. Truth be told, I did find a stable as soon as I arrived in Stormwind, where I paid the stablehands to pamper him silly while I used the libraries.

I ran by the bank to get my spare set of armor and after a quick change in the inn outside, I hauled the sack of my damaged gear over my shoulder, before running to the Dwarven District. The finest artificers in the alliance are to be found there...but despite this, the repair costs were exorbitant.

No matter. I could afford it, at least, and I rushed back towards Stormwind Keep.

I recall my first visit there, and the shock to learn that the King of the humans is no more than a boy. But there was no time for that sort of reflection and contemplation now. Instead, I turned up the slope leading to the atrium and the libraries. This might require that the librarians found works from the restricted section, where visitors can't simply come and go, but I would just have to deal with that if the situation arose.

As a matter of fact, it didn't.

At first, the librarians were confused to find a Shaman so interested in books. Generally speaking, books are more for the likes of mages, priestst and paladins. Shamen tend to take a more hands-on approach to magic. I'm not saying one method is better than another. I'm simply saying it's different, and that if you go looking for a book on the basics of Shamanistic magic, you'd better be patient and ready for a very thorough search.

Once I managed to communicate to the man, that I was not looking for a book on magic, but a book on history, things went more smoothly. Apparently, he had problems understanding my common...but eventually I got through to him. He showed me the historical section but there was nothing I could use.

I explained...painstakingly...that what I was looking for were books on the history of the Night Elves. I told him that I had come to Stormwind because it was my understanding that this was the greatest library in the entire Alliance, and while he seemed proud at the praise, he told me that the Night Elves, like the Draenei, were comparative newcomers. That the Dwarves, Gnomes and Humans had stood shoulder to shoulder through several wars and that the existence of the Night Elves had been unknown until the last war broke out. Consequently, most information on their race and history had not been translated into common, let alone copied.

In fact, the libriarian claimed that the Night Elf nation was largely an oral literary culture. That while they no doubt wrote many books, a lot of lore and history was kept alive through song and verse, tales and dances.

Frankly, that did not seem like an illogical claim. The Night Elves are graceful and extremely artistic, and I could see how they might preserve knowledge in such a way, although I was certain there had to be extensive libraries as well. It didn't matter, though. Information could be found either in the written word or in the tales told or sungs sung in Darnassus or Auberdine. Or some other Elven settlement. The point was that if I needed that information, I would have no choice but to journey there.

The vile glare that my Talbuk had shot me came back to memory. There was no way he'd accept going back on the tram, and riding all the way to Stranglethorn to sail across to that shanty-town Ratchet, did not necessarily seem a wise plan either. I don't get along too well with Goblins and the flight master in Ratchet probably still hasn't forgiven me for when...

Erhm...

That's a different story.

The problem was I needed transportation and I needed it fast. I could've bought a fresh horse from the humans...I'm easily on good enough terms with them to do so...but that would probably have meant I could spend the next month trying to make it up to my temperamental and jealous Talbuk.

"Oh yeah? So I'm not good enough for you anymore, am I?"

I can just see it. He's like a lovesick wife that way. I alone may ride him...but woe betide me if I dare to look at another mount in appreciation.

I was fast running out of good ideas, until I remembered where I was. Hoping against hope to finally have a little luck on my side, I ran back to the Dwarven District.

Finding my target wasn't difficult. Asking around quickly pointed me towards where Littleleaf was currently bunking down. As a mage, she would normally be entitled to a sleeping place at the mage's academy, but the tutors don't like things that explode unless it's caused by magic. Grenades sit badly with them, and Littleleaf sure loves her explosives.

Anyway, I located the pink-haired gnome behind a table far too big for her, busily working on some fluidum that I really would prefer to spare you the details of. My nostrils screamed in terror, clamped down, waved a little white flag and formed an orderly picket line in protest of the stench in the room, but there was nothing for it. I approached Littleleaf to find her sooty and giggling as usual when working on something.

"Spirits blessings on you, little one," I said, trying to sound all formal.

Littleleaf, as I expected, didn't even look up. "Oy! You gotta come back when I'm done with this. Very delicate work, this. Forcing the explosive power of an Arcane Explosion into a Can'o Megatastic Whoopass Mk. 2 takes a steady hand!" was the answer.

Dreading to think what a 'Can'o Megatastic Whoopass Mk. 2' would do to me, I dropped the formal act.

"Leafy, I need your help. It's urgent. It's about Valaina...and Reeth."

I rarely use the Lunatic's name. Not because I don't want to but because I'd rather not point fingers at her, giving people a name to avoid.

It did the trick though. Steady hand or not, Littleleaf dropped the container she was working at, in surprise...and promptly threw herself flat on the floor, covering her head.

Fortunately, it didn't go off and she rose a moment later while I came out from behind the thick, oaken door to the room.

"No primer in there yet...but you never know with these things," the gnome said, smiling crookedly. "So what can I do?"

"Can you make me a portal? I need to get to Darnassus with extreme alactrity."

"Nope. I wish I could, but I'm out of runes and the store can't get a new supply because the shipment of special stone from the quarries outside Ironforge got waylaid by troggs. If you can wait until tomorrow, they should have fixed the situation."

My shoulders sagged. Waiting a day meant giving Reeth another day to find Teeishai and I really did not want to be responsible for what happened if she found him.

I was about to apologize to Littleleaf for the disturbance and leave, when she smiled widely. "But I can get you to Darnassus anyway!"

I listened in rapt fascination as she described her latest gadget. She scrambled around in a closet for it and pulled out something that looked mostly like the guns my little sister insists on using for hunting. Large, cumbersome and with a barrel pointing right at me.

"THIS..." Littleleaf said triumphantly, "...is a Demoleculizer W.I.T."

"Erhh...What does W.I.T. stand for?"

"With Inbuilt Translocator, of course."

"It doesn't have a number like...2000 or Mk. 4?"

Littleleaf looked at me like I was asking whether dwarves smelled of beer. "Stop being silly, Vida," she admonished. "This is an experimental prototype. Goblin Engineering applied to Gnomish thinking. Anyway, I don't assign numbers until they're all done."

Nodding, I felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole situation. Why was this slightly deranged gnome pointing this thing at me?

"What does it do, exactly?" I asked, against better judgment.

Sighing heavily, Littleleaf clearly felt that non-engineers were too dense to understand simple things.

"It's a transportation-device," she said, clearly slightly dejected at having to use such simple terms. "I push this button, point it at you, and you end up in Darnassus...presumably..."

"Presumably?"

"Well, I believe there's a small chance that you end up in the Twisting Nether instead...but it's an insignificant percentile chance..."

"How big a chance?"

"Very small."

"LEAFY!!"

"Oh, just about fifteen percent, I think..."

I was about to tell her to point that infernal gadget at someone else when she, completely confident in her own engineering abilities and with a big smile on her face, pushed the button...

The last thing I heard as I was hurtled, head over hooves, through what felt like a tunnel made from whipped cream and boiled salad, was an enormous explosion.

No doubt Littleleaf had to find new lodgings again. It happened all the time.

As I landed, I realized I was in water. I wasn't quite aware where I was...until I heard a melodic voice speak to me in Darnassian...

Dazed, I stood up and answered in Common. Which clearly caused some confusion. I had trouble keeping my balance. It wasn't until then that I realized I had feet!

And the skin-tone of a Night Elf. And the ears of one.

MY HORNS WERE GONE!!

Close to a panic attack, I looked at my legs. They were no longer digigrade.

The priestess who approached me switched to common, asking me if I was okay. I told her, truthfully, that the fall had been painful.

That was when I realized I was in Darnassus...

Looking like a Night Elf...

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[Valaina added the following]

The small boat bumped up against the shore, scraping against the sand, coming to a quick halt. The unconscious figure in the bottom of the craft stirred, groaning softly and blinking as she realised she was no longer moving.

Blinking. In a dream-like state of amazement, Valaina slowly brushed her fingertips against her face. She had barely registered that her blindfold was gone when a fresh wave of stunned amazement hit her. She was no longer bound, no longer gagged.

"You're awake, then?"

That voice... so familiar... but with a hard edge to it she'd never heard before that sent her mind spinning.

"I...I..."

Her normally soft voice sounded cracked and harsh in her own ears, and Valaina quickly clamped her lips shut around the sound, as grating as a crow's caw.

"Good. We have to go now. Can you walk?"

Valaina peered up mutely, trying to locate the speaker, identify that familiar, yet changed voice, when a pair of hands hauled her unceremoniously to her feet, supporting her when she seemed to stagger. A nudge at one of her ankles sent her walking forwards, half stumbling on legs that felt like noodles, the hands keeping her steady, upright, and guiding her where they wished to go.

Given Valaina's weakened and deeply confused state, they seemed to walk for hours, traversing hills and valleys which seemed like steep mountains and deep gorges to the priestess, until finally, they came to a halt.

"Here. I brought you fresh clothes, and you can bathe in the pool there. It isn't ideal, but it's all we have at the moment. Can you ride?"

Valaina turned to look for the source of the voice, but her legs refused to co-operate with such a difficult request, shaking as they were from long confinement and long journey both, and she crashed inelegantly to her knees in front of the speaker and began to sob.

"You're safe now... here, let me help you..." the voice said, a tone of tenderness softening the hard edge.

Valaina felt hands gently remove the ordeal-stained clothing from her body, and help her stumble down to the water. She did nothing more than float there, semi-sleeping in her weariness, until the hands half guided, half lifted her out and led her back to the dry ground.

"You always did love to swim... but... we have no time now. Later, maybe."

Valaina closed her eyes, submitting to the hands, which now moved to dry her and wrap a fresh robe around her. The material felt soft, luxurious against her skin, and she sighed with something close to contentment as the hands lifted her and placed her gently into the saddle of a riding cat.

"We have a long way to go, and we can't risk using gryphons, looking at you... I'm so sorry, but for safety's sakes... until we get there..."

The unfinished explanation hung in the air, and Valaina frowned, wondering, then let out a small, frightened squeal as the hands moved to tie her into the saddle.

"Only until we get there, and only so you don't fall off and injure yourself. I promise. You -are- safe"

Valaina began to cry, the tears wrung from somewhere deep within her soul. A lost, despairing sound of one who's mind was all but broken by life's events. The voice and hands didn't notice. Nor did the cat, which loped away, seeming to know the destination Valaina's "helper" had in mind.
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I was thoroughly confused by the time I came to understand what had happened. Bless Littleleaf and Goblin engineering in the hands of an over-inventive gnome, but this time it seemed her trick had turned me into something I wasn't supposed to be.

I could only hope the process was reversible. Don't get me wrong, I like Night Elves well enough...quite well in fact...but this was highly unnatural.

Frankly, everything coming out of engineering workshops tend to be unnatural, but I already missed my horns and feet start to stink if you don't wash them. Hooves need polishing, but bone doesn't stink!

"You must have hit your head pretty badly in that fall," the priestess said, still speaking in common. "Where are you from? I haven't seen you here before."

Her voice was very calm and kind. She was clearly trying to becalm me. I appreciated the effort and was about to answer her when some kind of pollen crawled up my new, long, left nostril.

"AAhh...Aashj..." I began, trying to hold back the most dreadful sneeze.

"Aszhara??" the priestess asked. "That's quite a long way away. I hope you're okay? Did you fall from the walkway above?"

So many questions. So now I was officially a Night Elf from Azshara. I do not like to lie, but I had no time to explain everything in detail, and besides, being a Night Elf might help me get some information I would otherwise not have been privy to.

I decided to chance it. If all else failed, I'd simply have to do some more leg-work around Darnassus on my own.

"I need answers..." I said, nearly stumbling. It was acting by now. I was firm on my feet but the more dazed I looked, the more likely I was to illicit sympathy from the priestess, and I was in a terrible hurry.

She nodded and gently put her hands on my shoulders to steady me, guiding me to a surprisingly comfortable stone bench. "Please, sit down and tell me what I can help you with?" she said, still smiling.

It's rare I get to see elves up this close. She was very pretty in that strangely feral way that some female night elves can be. Their males...I have to admit...I don't care much for. There's a distinct lack of tentacles there, and that whole 'let's sneer angrily at the whole world'-thing they've got going is frankly rather childish.

If you sneer at the world, in my experience, it will sneer back...and the world is bigger'n you.

"Dragon...hawk..." I said and rubbed my face. It was an entirely alien sensation. The skin beneath my fingers felt like silk. I shuddered in surprise...which helped the illusion.

The priestess quietly whispered a prayer next to me. I realised she was trying to heal me and I played along for the moment.

"Dragonhawks? They are strange beasts but ever since the road to the Ghostlands and the Black Portal was reopened, we've seen a few here in Darnassus. Usually skilled adventurers bring them here as pets. Tiny hatchlings sometimes...and sometimes bigger, fiercer versions, fighting as trained attack-pets for a hunter."

I shook my head slowly. "No...no not the animal. I am looking for Dragonhawk...or rather, information on him."

"Him? Oh...a person called Dragonhawk? I d..." the priestess began. She stopped, her words incomplete and her eyes went wide. "Oh my goodness...you don't mean the hunter? Lhûg-Thoron?"

I had to chance this. I nodded again, while still trying to make it clear that my memory was 'damaged' when it came to Darnassian. "Yes. I've come across the name," I said. "I heard his life was a terrible tragedy..."

The priestess nodded, sadly. "I am not the expert on this story, but I do know a bit. Actually, Lhûg-Thoron died many years ago. It was before the founding of Darnassus..."

I rubbed my face again. Even though I wasn't nearly as shook up as I tried to make the priestess believe I was still finding it difficult to cope with my new physical form. I mean...you try to imagine how you'd feel one day, blinking and when your eyes open, you have hooves and horns and then you're well on your way to imagining what I felt like!

Nonetheless, I looked at the priestess and tried to smile. "Please, tell me what you know of his name and his death? Are there any tales describing his appearance in any detail, by any chance?"

The priestess looked awfully ashamed. "It was the most horrible story. It seems most of the druids and the priesthood were ensnared by him. I admit I don't know exactly how but...apparently he was an exceptionally charming and well spoken fellow. You know...tall, well muscled, elegant in his movements, snappy dresser all in blood red armor, long white hair. A bit of a dandy, but able to charm most people with a smile. He had everyone wrapped around his fingers back then. I believe he was engaged to be married...when the whole tragedy unfolded..."

I nodded. I just nodded to let the priestess know she could continue if she wanted to.

For a moment, it looked as if she'd shut up and walk away. Then she hung her head. "He'd fallen for the elder of two sisters, from a small but quite respectable family who used to live around here...before Great Teldrasil was planted. Her name was...well...it wasn't stricken from the records but...but she fell to the madness afterwards and we wrongly accused her younger sister of killing Esteeiain..."

The name...that name...

It felt like someone had walked up to me and hit me in the face with one of the axes of Melchazzar himself!

Esteeiain...

Spirits bless and preserve my poor, wretched self...let it not be true...

"Was that his real name?" I whispered, hoarsely. "Please, I must know..."

The priestess looked at me in an odd way. As if she wondered what my interest was in this whole sordid story. Yet, she nodded. "Indeed. Lhûg-Thoron was simply a name he had given himself. A self-imposed nickname you might say. From what I'm told, everyone else took to using that name for him too. He'd...get offended if anyone didn't. I mean, Esteeiain of course means 'the resting place of the holy'...but he seemed to like Lhûg-Thoron far better."

"The resting place of the holy?? As in a graveyard??" I asked, momentarily thrown off my stride. "Why'd he be named for such a place."

"No, you don't understand. His family had traveled as far as Winterspring. They lived in a settlement there for generations. He was named for an altar there. An altar presumably dedicated to Elune. It fell out of use many, many generations before I was born..."

Knowing Elves and their excessive lifespans...matched only by those of my own race...I knew that likely meant hundreds if not thousands of years.

"How many years ago did this whole tragedy take place?" I asked, silently dreading the answer.

The priestess looked thoughtful. "Let me see," she said, clearly contemplating that question. "It would be two hundred and thirty one lunar years since th..."

I nearly swooned and she stopped speaking, quickly reaching out to grab me. She didn't know, but that was the year I was born. How could this be? How could my life be entwined with this Night Elf...the Lunatic...Reeth...and her younger sister Eanna, across time and space, across the Black Portal, at that time not even a gleam in dread Medivh's grandfather's most twisted fantasies?

HOW??

"What day...let me guess...the eleventh day of the eleventh month, yes? That was when this happened...wasn't it?"

The priestess nodded, slowly, clearly surprised that I had known this. "Are you...sure you're okay?" she asked. "You're very pale."

My birthday.

My blasted birthday.

"I'm okay," I lied. No way this could be a coincidence. I was born on the day Dragonhawk...Lhûg-Thoron...Esteeiain...was killed.

"His...girlfriend. His betrothed..." I whispered.

The priestess sighed deeply. "She's still alive...if you can call it that. She's been incurably insane since that day. She rarely if ever sets foot in Darnassus anymore. I believe she gets along better with the dwarves. They have the same...predeliction...for large axes as she's developed."

There could be no more doubt. We were both referring to Reeth. I nodded, leaning forward to catch my breath. "It is all true then...it is all true...it all fits..."

The priestess reached out to the side and grabbed a goblet, filling it with water and letting me drink from it. It was highly refreshing. Invigorating even. The water of Elune's Temple is endowed with extraordinary properties. Right now, I needed that as clearly as if I had fallen off the ledge above, and hit my head.

"What is true?" the priestess asked. "I don't...understand all this. You seem terribly affected by this long-past tragedy. Family-connection, maybe?"

"I wish I knew for sure what the connection is..." I whispered and tried to swallow another drink of water. It was not easy. It did not want to go down my throat but I forced it.

I couldn't even swallow water.

"You said he was offended if someone used a different name for him than...Lhûg-Thoron?" I asked.

The priestess nodded again. "He did. I think he allowed his betrothed to use a short form of his name..."

Someone cut the bottom out of my world and I felt like I was swimming in an ocean made up of Stonetalon oozes as I stumbled back upright. "Teei..." I whispered, shaking my head desperately.

"I think that was it, yes..." the priestess said.

Putting my head in my hands, I tried desperately to bend my head around this. How could the world work in such circular ways? I had to get to someplace safe and secluded. Some place where I could speak to the spirits but not yet. Not yet.

There was no time.

"Can you tell me about another hunter?" I asked, wearily.

"Who...?" the priestess asked, obviously realizing this was a harrowing experience for me.

"Teeishai?"

She got to her feet, very suddenly and sharply, grimacing in anger. "We do not speak of him! His name is banned in Darnassus for his actions and his actions alone!"

"I apologize...I didn't kno..." I tried, but it was no use. She strode away from me, angrily.

"If you want to know more, you can go look for your answers in his ancestral home at Eldre'Thalas."

I had heard that name before...

Dire Maul...

Spirits pissing on my breakfast...this was not the kind of news I needed!

I never got to hear if she said anything else as I rushed from the temple. My talbuk was stabled in Stormwind. It'd be furious at this, but I had no choice but to go via Auberdine to the Exodar, where my trusty old Elekk was stabled. From there, I'd go back to Auberdine and ride as fast as those old stumpy elekk legs would take me to the Maul...

To Eldre'Thalas...

I could not believe my own stupidity...

The answers I wanted...

All there...in the library. All along. There was no more time to waste. I ran to the banking tree at the center of Darnassus and withdrew some gear I had stored there, just in case. Strapping on my armor and hefting an axe I knew I had to keep out of sight of the Lunatic, lest she grew envious and tried to take it as her own...I ran towards the ships berth.

As I passed through the red light of the portal leading out of Darnassus, I felt the familiar click-click of my hooves hitting cobles. Littleleaf's engineering misfire had corrected itself.

I reminded myself to buy the gnome twenty khorium ingots in thanks when I saw her next...

But for now, I had to get to the Exodar...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Aslaug]

Frankly, I think I looked a little perplexed when I got to the Elekk stables outside the Exodar. It was a long time since I'd been there, I have to be honest. I mean...bizarre as it may be, I spend most of my time beyond the dark portal.

Weird, really, considering why the Exodar was built in the first place.

Anyway, I was back at the Exodar, and talking to the young male left in charge of the stables that day. It wasn't hard for him to remember my elekk...in fact, I got the distinct feeling he knew exactly which mount I was referring to.

He did look a little embarrassed too as he took me to find my trusty old friend.

Well...perhaps not as old as I had thought. My good old Elekk recognized me instantly and came bounding across the large pens towards me, trunk swinging wildly in excitement.

Truth be told, I was happy to see him again. He'd carried me for many adventures, and there was just something incredibly solid about him. Something rock steady and stable. I always felt safe on him. I always felt like I could go to sleep on his back and he'd still get me safely where I wanted to go.

Right now, he was clearly happy to see me. I picked out a few tero-nuts...a little something I've been carrying around for him since my last trip to the Alerian Stronghold. Once terocones mature, they seem to be treats for Elekks. I usually had a damnable time keeping him from running off and munching on these underneath every second tree at least.

He always did eat too much.

Although...he looked remarkably fit as he stood there, chewing happily on his treat. I swear, elekks can grin! With those horns of theirs perked up and a look of 'I know something you don't' in their eyes, they can look positively mischievious...damned them.

I wish I spoke Elekk sometimes.

Sadly, I don't. I can make a passable attempt in wolf, but that requires a transportation-spell that usually involves huge amounts of spiritual fleas biting me everywhere. I don't like the spirit wolf spell...trust me. It's more trouble than it's good. Besides, it gives me this damnable urge to bite something and I'm already consciously keeping my gnome-eating tendencies under tight control.

At most I smile toothily at them, these days!

Just kidding of course.

Anyway, the reason why my Elekk looked so smug was walking around behind him. A cute little two-and-a-half-tonne number of a female elekk and two small baby-elekks, still without their horns.

I sighed.

What in the name of Onyxia's make-up table did I do now?

I could hardly bring myself to split up a happy little family like that. What kind of a git would that make me?

Marginally better than an eredar, for all I cared. Patting my old friend's trunk I complimented him heartily on his choice of mate and tried to think of something else I could do.

I could swear my Elekk was grinning at me again.

As I walked inside the Exodar, I was contemplating my next move. I could hope the Gryphon masters were back off their strike, but apparently, what I had originally thought to be a localized, Plaguelands-oriented thing was a world-wide strike with formal demands from all the flight masters. Damned them and their reasonable demands...

I needed a bloody gryphon, not a speech about working hours, pay and the texture of gryphon poo!

I JUST NEEDED TO GET TO FERALAS!

There are times where a Draenei must resort to desperate measures but at the moment, these measures eluded me. As I sat down at one of the small taverns inside the Exodar, ordering a drink and a bowl of Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat (if you don't know what it is, do yourself a favor and don't ask), I tried to think of a solution to my current conundrum.

I could get on a boat back to Auberdine. My funds were low, so getting myself a replacement mount wasn't much of an option and besides, the sabres of the Night Elves bounce!

I've seen them run. I'd get seasick and have an accident all over its head-armor halfway through Ashenvale, if not sooner.

Point was, I needed to get from Auberdine...to Ashenvale, and then through the tunnel by the lake, to the Stonetalon Mountains. From there, I'd have to cross the Scarred Vale into Desolace...arguably the most depressing place in all of Kalimdor...and then I'd reach Feralas.

Bugs.

Heat.

Unnaturally large monkeys trying to panelbeat me into the shape of your average water-puddle...

Sighing, I ate my Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat. At least it was as good as my mother made it. They even did the spleens just right.

I told you not to ask!!!

The problem was how to get that far, without the benefit of a fast, solid Elekk, without my Talbuk (who was going to eat the back out of my pants in anger when I got back to Stormwind...but there wasn't much I could do about that at the moment), and without the use of a gryphon...

Why...oh why...spirits answer me this simple question, haven't the air-lanes above Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms been cleared for civilian gryphon-traffic yet??

It's a bloody nuisance in situations like this...

Anyway, I knew I could get to Dire Maul by walking and running if I had to, but it'd take forever and then some...and time was not exactly a commoddity I had too much of as it was. The longer I sat at this table, in fact, enjoying my piping hot Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat...even with the deliciously roasted Murloc eyeballs (a replacement ingredient, since some of the things that originally went into a proper bowl of Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat are not available on this side of the Dark Portal)...

Good grief, you did have to ask, didn't you?

Ah well, even while enjoying my Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat, time was passing, and that meant the Lunatic would steadily get closer and closer to Teeishai. I could not risk her actually finding him. Teeishai's gear is excellent. He's an extraordinarily skilled hunter...and he's genuinely terrified of Reeth. I fear his joints would fill with ice water and his spine would turn the consistency of Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat...

Okay, enough about the Zchrrl'ob'hrtkat already, or I'll forget the story. I could use a bowl right about now anyway!

Alright...okay...I had no choice as it was. I hated the options left open to me, but they were very limited indeed.

As I headed out of the Exodar, I went past the pet-trainers for the hunters and procured an anti-flea powder. I couldn't guarantee it'd work on the fleas I'd be contracting...but what choice did I have?

'Hello, I'd like an anti-spirit-flea-powder, please?'

Yeah right, they'd look as me as if I just fell off my gryphon...which I'm not allowed to fly around here anyway...

Dammit, this was all turning into a really rotten job. And I still didn't know what the connection between the elven sisters and myself really was. The knowledge that Lhûg-Thoron died on the day I was born still haunted me. It could be a coincidence, but I don't really believe in such things.

I could only hope I'd find my answers in Dire Maul.

After which, I'd personally devote a significant amount of time to making life as absolutely, abjectly, totally miserable as I could for every single Gryphon Master I came across for the rest of my life!

As I said, damned them and their reasonable demands...

Sighing, I left payment for my...food...and headed back out of the Exodar. The smells...the lights and the colors...the sounds of hooves hitting the sheer floors eveywhere and the voices of my people all around me felt strangely alluring...and alien...at the same time.

I had been gone for so terribly long. But in a way, the Exodar would always be 'home'. I just wasn't sure if I really belonged at home anymore.

Maybe I could find out some other time. Right now, I had a long run ahead of me.

Closing my eyes, I spread my arms out wide and concentrated, calling upon the feral within me and the spirits of the beasts to bear witness and assist. I don't know how many of them arrived. I couldn't see.

I hadn't used this spell in absolute ages, but the sensation was familiar as my face elongated, my legs curled and my spine changed its alignment to my hips.

As I fell to all fours, the sheen of spiritual life came over me.

The blasted itching began instantly and I ran like there was no tomorrow...

Why didn't someone invent spiritual lakes in which I could drown my spiritual fleas when running around as a spiritual wolf?

I'd have to make a formal complaint later...

For now, all I could do was run...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I reached Dire Maul, it seemed less imposing than the last time I was there. I had grown a lot since then, in skill if not in stature, and I was ready to fight my way through any amount of brutish ogres that stood in my way.

The problem, however, was precisely the amount. I was alone and I knew this place to be crawling with the large, lumbering simpletons. While I could fight one or two...or even three at a time, I wondered what would happen if more turned up. Or if a Chieftain should decide to claim my gear as trophies.

There was no time for second thoughts. I bolted ahead, outrunning two ogre guards who had sat down by a big bowl of stew. I could only hope that the contents had been made up of some of the wildlife from Feralas, rather than the latest adventurers, trying to plunder the secrets of this ancient, elven stronghold.

I might not like the spirit-fleas but I do admit the turn of speed in my ghostly, canine form was helpful in this case.

The central maul was a huge, empty hole in the ground. I knew the ogres liked to watch more or less hapless adventurers fight against horrible abominations. Usually with a predictable result followed by a barbeque a'la ogre.

A sickening thought, really.

I had no time to argue cuisine with the inhabitants of this place, though, and I continued straight ahead, bracing myself as I approached the right door. I had a whole tail of hungry ogres running after me, waving cleavers, meathooks and large forks in the air.

Closing my eyes, I threw myself forward through the air, concentrating. I felt my body change in mid-leap, as I resumed my normal form. As expected, the ogres behind me started sounding very confused as their wolf-dinner vanished, only to be replaced by a Draenei-ditto.

They weren't confused for long enough but it didn't matter. I crashed into the gates full force, letting go with an earth-shock moments before I hit it. The combined force sent it flying open and I hurtled inside. I fully expected to have to come up fighting, but the ogres outside turned back. Apparently, they didn't want to tangle with those living inside Eldre'Thalas itself.

I brushed myself off as I rose, hefting my axe firmly in both hands as I walked forwards. The first sentry I saw glared hungrily at me, before he saw the sheen surrounding my helmet and my hands, and he wisely chose to back down. Apparently he seemed to realize that alone, he'd stand no chance at all.

Sadly, the next ogre I saw had a lot of friends within easy reach. Moreover, he was a big, armored brute, wielding an axe even larger than mine.

"You taste guud!" he burped and pointed at me.

Narrowing my eyes, I shook my head slowly. "You'll find me a tough meal, Ogre. Stand aside and let me pass, or your friends will dine on you tonight."

"HAH! Bludguts big. Bludguts STRONG! You puny demon taste guud!" the ogre laughed, spittle and phlegm flying from behind his broken teeth, past his bulpous lips as his voluminous girth wobbled.

Snarling, I took one step forward. "Call me a demon again, ogre. Come on...I dare you."

Sadly, Bludguts had not risen to prominence in his small band by force of intellect. Instead of backing down, he hefted his giant axe and roared hungrily.

"DEMON MAKE GUUD EATINK!"

Then he charged.

Directly.

Fiercely.

Foolishly.

Drawing on the icy contempt I felt for his entire misbegotten band of dimwits, I brought forth a spell of pure cold. I saw it hit him and I heard the crackling as his skin froze. He looked surprised and for a moment, there was fear in his eyes as he continued his forward momentum.

His right leg remained behind, frozen solid on the ground.

Bludguts roared again, in agony. I did not give him time to lament his loss as I swung around my whole axis, letting my axe come out in a wide but controlled swing. His other leg was severed at the hip and the ogre came crashing to the ground, dying...but still alive.

I kicked his axe out of his reach and stepped on his face with a sickening crunch, moving over him to look upon his fellows.

"Anyone else want to try their luck?" I hissed.

Bludguts twitched a few times, before the massive shock and trauma of losing both legs in short order reached his miniscule brain and killed him.

To their credit, three of the ogres wetted themselves collectively and ran away in fear. The others were too stupid to know what they were getting into and attacked.

It probably had something to do with the bottles and clay jugs laying around the fireplaces. These ogres weren't simply stupid brutes.

They were drunk stupid brutes.

None of them were armored like Bludguts had been. But they had strength in numbers. I had little time to call upon more spells, but I quickly drove four totems into the ground, calling my trusty Earth Elemental to my side to crush these simpletons with his massive fists. He did an admirable job at keeping two of them busy while I sliced a third one's belly open from left to right.

As he fell, grunting in agony as he tried to keep his innards inside him, his friends trampled him to get to me. One of them got a good hit in on the side of my helmet and I reeled, momentarily dazed. It didn't last long, though, and soon I brought my left hand up again, blasting his head clean off his shoulders with a lightning bolt, made swift by the fury I felt and the sense of expediency I could not push aside.

He still kept swinging his club though, coming at me...headless.

Damned these idiotic creatures. Too stupid to die...that must be a new record.

I sidestepped the flailing corpse and watched it tumble down the slope towards the doors I knew I had to reach. The next ogre tried to crush me using two large femurs, presumably from some massive animal he had devoured at some point.

As he brought these barbaric weapons down on me, I backed away and stepped to the left, chopping down with an overhead blow, made stronger with the bellow of rage I let loose, and the invokation of the spirits of earth that I channeled into the axe-blade itself.

Both the ogres hands fell to the ground. The creature wailed in horror and agony, looking at the stumps before running away. He'd be dead within minutes from the bleeding. I didn't care. I had no TIME to care. I had told them to step aside, and they had chosen to fight. Not my problem.

My Earth Elemental ally had one of the two ogres he'd been fighting down on the ground, busily crushing every bone in the creature's body with his large, stone fists, but he was looking a bit worse for wear himself.

Sending a hateful glance at the final ogre, I summoned the spirits of the earth again and mended my mute, stony friend's injuries.

The final ogre, who clearly saw his chance of victory evaporate, threw himself down on the ground in a gesture of surrender, genuflecting before me.

"Open the gates, and I'll let you live!" I hissed.

The ogre nodded hurriedly, muttering for mercy as he crawled to Bludguts' still form. He grabbed a key, showing it to me, to make sure I understood he wasn't trying to get a weapon, then hurried down to the large gates.

"You go in. Buuks an' ickle elfies in 'ere..." he simpered.

I didn't listen. I knew that already. "Piss off!" I growled. "Don't ever let me see your ugly mush again or I'll cut it off."

No more pleasantries. No more nicities. I was fed up with this. I was covered in blood and my head was ringing from the blow I had received. If I hadn't worn a helmet, my skull would've been pulverized.

I could deal with that later. I had not come this far, risking Littleleaf's infernal W.I.T. and incurring the wrath of the most temperamental and jealous Talbuk ever to be spawned in Nagrand, just to fall over now.

I got to the last door. It was closed but I cared not, pushing it open with a murderous growl and a look to match it in my eyes.

"IF ANY MORE OGRES OR ELVES GET IN MY WAY..." I roared, looking at the librarians and lorekeepers, "...I WILL NOT ANSWER FOR THE CONSEQUENCES!"

A few of the Night Elves backed away from me. I was covered from head to hoof in ogre blood and intestines and I must have looked like something taken out of their worst nightmare.

I heard one of them whisper that the demons had finally come to Eldre'Thalas and I grabbed him by the scruff of his robe. Enough already with the demon-talk. Enough with everything except my mission.

"I WANT INFORMATION!" I bellowed, too agitated to lower my voice. Besides, I needed all the librarians to hear this. "I WANT THE BOOKS ON THE NIGHT ELF TEEISHAI. I WANT ALL THE INFORMATION YOU HAVE AVAILABLE ON HIM, DO YOU UNDERSTAND??"

There were a few sporadic nods, and a more vigorous one from the elf I had grabbed. I was holding him up against the wall, his feet off the floor. He looked afraid.

I couldn't really blame him. I was willing to hurt someone to get the answers I needed by now.

"O...over there," he whispered hoarsely and pointed in the direction of a group of book-shelves. "Answers..."

A few of the other lorekeepers looked disapprovingly at me, as if I was some kind of uncivilized barbarian who had broken into their sanctum uninvited.

Well...I had, really. But I was sick of waiting for the answers I needed.

Teeishai's life was on the line here, and Reeth's already slender grip on sanity was vanishing faster than good ale at a dwarven stag-party...

I really did not have time for this elekkshit!

Dropping the elf I had pinned against the wall, I strode across the library. A haughty looking Night Elf male stood in front of me, barring my way to the bookshelf I was headed for.

"Restricted," he said. "Ruling Family books. Restricted to outsiders! Demons must not rea..."

He never got to finish that sentence. I had punched his lights out before then. A mailed fist in the mouth tends to stop most talking.

"DO I LOOK LIKE I READ DARNASSIAN, YOU IMBECILE?" I shouted into his face. He didn't hear me. He was already unconscious. A demon, eh? They thought I was a demon? Well I'll damned well give them reason to think so if they didn't soon start to cooperate.

There was a ramp next to the downed loremaster. I couldn't read anything on this floor, anyway, so I decided to go up there to look. If I had to, I'd have to use force to get them to translate for me. I was perfectly willing to do this by now.

I admit I was getting desperate.

Furthermore, I hadn't slept in days, and every time I even tried, I saw Reeth's split face leering at me, laughing maniacally amidst sprays of blood and the screams of dying blood elves.

Sleep did not seem like much of an option, really.

I walked up the slope...but I admit by now I was exhausted. Emotionally and physically, I was utterly drained. The slope must have been twenty five meters long or so...and it felt like I was walking a mile up a steep mountain, before I reached the top.

More books in Darnassian...

I could have killed someone.

I mean, naturally the books would be in Darnassian. What else would they be in? But right at that moment, I really, really wished they weren't.

"What can we do for you, Vidayi?" a voice asked behind me.

I froze in my tracks. I knew that voice. And the owner obviously knew me by name.

It just...couldn't be.

It couldn't.

I turned around. Slowly. I wanted to believe my ears, and at the same time...if I was right...everything would be...so wrong.

"Valaina..." I said, nodding as the familiar face of the Night Elf priestess met my gaze.

She looked like she had when she vanished. And then again, she looked different. There was a different air around her. A different hard edge to the way her lips were drawn.

Oh, and she was surrounded by shadows.

It is not for me to judge and shadows are no more evil than any of the elements. The only evil lies in how they are used. Valaina is not an evil person, though some would argue she might indeed benefit from toughening a little. This change I was seeing might in fact be a good thing.

"You look different," I said, despite my own thoughts. I felt like hitting myself for stating the obvious. It was the weariness speaking, more than anything else.

Valaina nodded. "I am, you might say. It is of no consequence."

"I am not judging you. What you do is your choice..." I said, and I meant every word. This was Valaina's choice. She had a right to do what she was doing, if this was her wish.

I was so tired. It felt like these past days without sleep were finally catching up with me. I might not even need to find the information I needed. I might in fact not need that anymore.

Hadn't she said 'what can we do for you, Vidayi?'

As if she belonged here. Like she was in fact not missing...so much as hiding.

"My life was in danger," she said, almost as if she'd read my mind. The shadows retreated from around her. She was wearing red. I couldn't remember seeing her wearing that color before. "I had to hide for a while," she continued with a shrug.

Nodding, I tried to find a way to explain everything I needed to explain. I just wasn't sure how to go about it, at that moment. Valaina had vanished...or so we all thought. All the Keepers had been very worried and many had been looking for her since then.

Most of all Reeth...who clearly not only felt lost...but was lost...without her 'guiding voice'.

"The Keepers are worried sick, Vala," I said, probably sounding as tired as I was. "Half of them have been asking around. The other half has been out looking from Stranglethorn in the south...to..."

I couldn't bring myself to say it and I hung my head, trying to gather my thoughts a bit.

"What is she doing here?" another voice asked. Another known voice, that is.

Sighing, I looked up and nodded at Teeishai. He hadn't made a sound, coming towards us.

Valaina turned to look at him as if there was nothing to be worried about. Like he had known all along that she was here. Reeth's accusation that the hunter had been behind Valaina's abduction came back to me. Was there really that much reason to the Lunatic's madness? Had she guessed correctly?

"I guess she was right then..." I said, still weary. "Be that as it may...that's not why I'm here."

"Who's right?" Teeishai asked.

I shrugged. "Reeth. She said you had abducted Valaina all along."

"He didn't abduct me..." Valaina started, meaning to defend the hunter, but I shook my head and cut her off.

It didn't matter, and I said as much. "It's not my place to judge. I am simply saying that this disappearance of yours has led to some really horrible things. And Reeth is out there right now, looking for Teeishai. And I would rather not go into too many details about what she's likely to do to him if she finds him."

Valaina's face went stony for a moment. "I know Reeth. You don't need to."

I felt grateful for that.

Teeishai sighed and shook his head, putting his arms akimbo. "You met her then?" he asked.

Nodding, I looked between the two elves. "I did. In the Ghostlands. She was a right mess, too. She killed an entire village of Blood Elf civilians because Teeishai here told her they knew where you were hidden, Valaina."

Teeishai shrugged. "It was the only way to get her off my back..."

For a moment, I felt like punching the hunter. That kind of callousness and indifference to the suffering of innocents was frankly revolting in my book. As I said, I do not like Blood Elves...but I do not want to see innocents butchered needlessly. I kept my tongue behind my teeth though.

"Is she hurt?" Valaina asked.

I shrugged and rubbed my face. "She kissed the edge of her axe, Valaina. Split her face wide open from chin to nose, and she didn't look like it bothered her whatsoever. Then she walked away. I barely got a bit of curative magic off to fix her face. I don't think she noticed that either, to be honest..."

Valaina blinked, then looked at Teeishai with a firm look on her face as shadows started to roll back up over her arms again. "I need to return to the world, my love," she said. There was no arguing with her tone of voice. No debating the issue.

Teeishai, wisely, chose not to push his luck. "If you wish," he said. "As long as you're sure."

"There's more," I said. It wasn't that I didn't want Valaina to go back out there...in fact, I thought she should, and I even think it might have been a good idea for her to let Reeth know she was safe all along, considering the damage the seperation had done to the Lunatic's mind, but I did not want her to rush out of Dire Maul, without knowing what was really behind all this.

"That won't stop Reeth. When you vanished, she lost her guidance, her rudder...her 'guiding voice', Valaina. Simply getting it back won't stop her by now. She's determined to get Teeishai. She's blaming him for all of this. If she catches him, she'll remove his internal organs one at a time, while he watches, and then start to hurt him. Do you understand?" I explained. I hated this. I felt like a rat. I don't hold any kind of ill will towards Reeth. In fact, I feel very sorry for her plight. But I really didn't want her to find Teeishai and cut him into bite-sized chunks.

The hunter grimaced and looked uncomfortable at the description. I didn't want to get any gorier than that, but I needed their attention. Their full and complete attention!

It looked like I had it.

"Then what more do you have to explain?" Valaina asked. She sounded uncommonly irritable and more than a little impatient. I couldn't blame her for that, really.

I was just so tired.

Sighing, I tried once again to get my thoughts straightened out. "Do you know the story of how she lost her mind? The priestess at the Temple of Elune who told it to me made it sound like it was fairly common knowledge with the priesthood."

Valaina nodded. "I know some of it, yes."

"Do you know about Reeth's former love-interest? The one who got killed? Dragonhawk, his name was."

"Lhûg-Thoron? I know of him. Reeth's younger sister, Eanna, told me about him. Why?"

"That wasn't his real name..."

Now I had Teeishai's attention as well. Lhûg-Thoron had been a legend, from the way the priestess had spoken of him.

Valaina sighed deeply. "What was his real name then?" she asked, still somewhat impatient.

"Lhûg-Thoron was a self-imposed, self-aggrandizing name that he came up with. He got upset if anyone called him by his given name. Anyone except Reeth, that is. The priestess told me as much. His real name, however, was..."

I tried to remember but sleepiness made it so hard to remember all these foreign, Elven names.

Both Teeishai and Valaina looked at me expectantly, wanting me to tell them this.

"I would be massacring your language by trying to pronounce it. It means 'The Rest of the Holy', I believe it was..."

Valaina's face lost all color in an instant. "That was his name? 'The Rest of the Holy'?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Esteeiain," she said and looked at Teeishai, who, for a brief moment seemed confused. Then comprehension dawned on his face too.

I nodded. "That's it! Reeth used a shorter version of that name as a term of endearment for him. You get one guess at what it was..."

"Teei..." Valaina said without blinking. "She called him Teei."

Teeishai shook his head. "So she thinks I'm him?" he asked, sounding like the world had just turned into a decidedly un-Teeishai-friendly place.

Again, I nodded. What else could I do? "I think she thinks you are the same as him, yes. According to the priestess, he dressed in red armor, his hair was long and pristine white like yours. He had a hard sneer to his lips like you do when you think no one is noticing, and he had the same winning mannerisms...the same charming personality..."

The mention of the sneer seemed to make Teeishai slightly uneasy. Frankly, I was past caring. This wasn't a time for being diplomatic about things. I was only speaking the truth anyway.

"So...she thinks that I'm him. Because I look like him and...because of my name."

"She's already lost her family to 'Teei' once. Now, in her world, you've taken Valaina from her. She'll tear you limb from limb if she finds you, Teeishai," I said. I wished there was something I could do to stop it.

Valaina's face momentarily softened and she looked almost at the verge of tears. "If you know Reeth, that makes perfect sense..." she said, hoarsely. "Teeishai, I have to get back out there..."

I hung my head. I was so tired I couldn't stand up any longer and I sat down, hard...right there on the floor. "You can't heal everyone, Vidayi. You can't even heal everything," I whispered.

I couldn't fix this. I couldn't heal this situation.

"Even I can't heal Reeth," Valaina said, sadly.

"Is there nothing that can be done at all?" I asked. I wanted to hit my head against a wall. I'd come all this way for nothing?

Teeishai shook his head. "There's one thing I could do..." he said, his voice growing firm.

The shadows instantly came up and engulfed Valaina again and she spun to look at Teeishai, directly. "You will not touch Reeth. Not now, not ever!"

"I didn't mean to," Teeishai started.

"Don't try. I KNOW you!" Valaina retorted.

Teeishai shook his head disarmingly. "No, I'm serious, my love. There's something else I could do."

Valaina let the shadows retreat again. "What would that be then?" she asked, warily.

Teeishai smiled crookedly. "I could give her what she really wants..."

Valaina looked at me for a moment. "Vidayi, we both thank you for bringing this to our attention. But right now, you look like you desperately need sleep. One of the benches behind that bookcase is made up as a bed. I've slept there myself since I arrived. Please, go sleep. You look dreadful."

I nodded. I wasn't going to argue against the obvious. Instead I picked myself off the floor with the greatest difficulty and hauled my sorry self towards the bed.

Behind my I heard Valaina's voice again. "What is it she really wants then?" she asked incredulously.

As I fell over on the bed behind the bookcase, darkness closed in around me and I felt sleep come rushing on like a wild Clefthoof. The last thing I heard before drifting off was Teeishai's answer.

"To kill me."

Then I heard no more.

I just slept.

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That's the first one...

[Nicolai Borovskaya]

Heh! Good reading, Aslaug. A bit choppier than I'm used to, but I can also understand why.

I look forward to more, this was enjoyable.

Nicolai

[Teric]

Oooooo this is fun stuff! Very nice, deep, involved character development. I especially loved the line about your nostrils going on strike and forming a neat little picket line. Made me laugh!

I too got some of my writing starts by putting WoW experiences to paper. Blizzard has always been full of excellent story tellers, creating a rich world in which to live and create your own story.

My 70 Night Elf Hunter had quite a few scrapes himself until I retired from the game a couple of months ago.

[Kristie_Kitty]

Wheee!!! Very Fun reading and great detail in the characters and stories... But, this is coming from a crazy Bloodelf Pally that loves to charge head 1st into a big moshpit of mob's.

And its funny that they can tickle me to death as a protect pally...

[Aslaug]

The next one I wrote was called 'Dreams to die for'...

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I could not remember the last time I'd been in that much pain.

I had died, and by the grace of the Spirits and the magic of allies and friends been brought back...but it did not compare to what I was experiencing.

It felt as if someone had forced my mouth open with barbed blades, before forcing my soul out through my throat, ripping every connection of my spiritual self to my physical ditto apart...one...at...a...time...

Someone had filled my spine with molten lead, and torn out my kneecaps with their bare hands. My arms felt like boiled Gh'tassah...

And I wasn't even awake.

I tried to open my eyes. Again and again, I tried to force my eyes open. I was conscious of my pain. I was aware that I was asleep and that I needed to wake...but I couldn't. Something held me to my dream.

For some time, I have had insights. Visions, some would probably call them, but I don't believe that is what they are. I dream at night, and I hear voices speaking to me, but rather than these being the voices of the Spirits, these are voices from the past. Speaking to each other, unaware of my presence...of my attendance at their conference, so to say.

Some of these occasions have been pleasant. Like when I heard my father declare his love for my mother for the first time, and the happy, giggling tone of voice in which she reciprocated.

Some have been funny, like the time I heard a young tauren on his first kodo-hunt, managing to catch himself in his own trap three times in a row.

I don't even speak Tauren...but I understood him, somehow. Oh, and for the record...he did catch his prey at the end. Apparently, he was the Great Grandfather of Cairne...

Quite a likeable sort, really, but then again I have held the Tauren race in the highest regard since I first encountered them. Strange that so bestial folk can embody all the best virtues in life so fully.

Once or twice, the fragments of speech I have caught have made no sense at all. Like the ramblings of the insane or the babblings of the terminally inebriated.

And then there have been the dreams.

Not fragments or broken pieces of conversations, but lengthy, complete experiences. Almost like narratives on history, spoken by those who were there and who experienced it. It is as if I am an eyewitness to it all, unable to speak or interact.

It is often quite enlightening.

I must confess, after setting things on a reasonably solid footing with Valaina, Teeishai and the broken-minded Reeth, I felt a dire need for some genuine rest and relaxation. By the end of that affair, my nerves had been worn thin, my world image badly distorted and my physical endurance nearly stretched beyond bursting point. I needed some peace and quiet. For a while, I got it. The Vanguard was responsible for that. Their lighthearted and including attitudes to life made me lower my guards for a precious few moments. Fortunately so. I found myself smiling again as a result. I couldn't remember when I had smiled last. According to my sister, it had literally been years.

She sounded shocked when she saw it.

So did Rubicante, my gnomish bunk-mate. So shocked, in fact, that she accidentally forgot that she was holding on to an electrically charged piece of machinery. It took me about half an hour to get her to stop fizzing...

It was painful to realize that I'd been so dour for so long, but I believe I've had good reason for it at least.

Besides, it wasn't until I started making a few half-hearted and probably terribly untalented attempts at humour that people really got scared and started wondering what had happened to me.

Then came the dreams.

So lucid and vivid that I knew they were more than that. That they were messages or perhaps omens. At least they were something I had to take seriously.

The dream tonight was worse than awful. I had experienced emotional pain as a result of these experiences before, but this was different.

And the voice...that soft, lilting voice, speaking to no one and yet to me. I didn't really know. It sounded as if the owner was speaking to herself...

Herself...

But I was certain the speaker was male. I just wasn't sure what was going on. Not...until I realized that while I understood the language, it was not my language.

The speaker was a Sin'dorei.

A blood elf...

I wanted to scream. I had to escape. These creatures were the diametrical opposites of the Tauren. Fair of form but corrupt to the absolute bottom of their decrepit, twisted souls. To think that they had once been the noblest of the noble. The most virtuous of the virtuous. The beacon of light and hope for a whole world...

Look at them now. Look at how low they have fallen!

They shame their creator, their ancestor, the spirits, the very world they walk upon...by their mere existence...

And here I was, at the apparent mercy such a being.

The Tauren, as already mentioned, I have nothing but the deepest, most profound respect for.

Orcs are savage, but they have a strong sense of honor and duty. Thrall is the prime example that Orcs can be nobler and more valorous than most of the leaders of the Alliance.

Trolls are underestimated, for are they not the race who built the great civilizations of the Zuls? Vast cities of magnificent stonework and majestic nature? Their diatery habits notwithstanding (a topic where the Draenei have no right whatsoever to lecture others), are they not worthy of respect for the accomplishments of their history, and for their prowess in battle?

I can even find pity for the forsaken, who are not to blame for their own decrepit misfortune. For all my insistence that these creatures must be laid permanently to rest, whether they want it or not, they are, by and large, not the architects of their own fates.

Arthas has much to answer for indeed...

But the Sin'dorei...

Who fell from grace, and not only accepted their own depravation and but who revel in it...

They must be put down. Made to suffer for their crimes against common decency and dignity. Their cities toppled, their names erased from memory and record, their arrogance will eventually be their undoing.

The arrogance of a people who, when mauled and bloodied, did not have the dignity, the will or the common sense to turn to their allies for help. A people who would rather be perverted and twisted beyond recall or salvation than turn to a 'lesser' race for aid.

Those few High Elves that still survive, mostly survivors from the expedition that got lost on Draenor, must see their lost kith and kin with the same horror as we, the Draenei, perceieve the Eredar. And therefore I can sympathize...

I know that kind of hatred.

And yet, here I was, caught in a dream by one of these wretched abominations, as he spoke softly to himself...

Unaware of my presence...

Why was I there, if not to hear him speak?

Quietly, I beseeched the spirits to grant me a few moments without pain...and I concentrated.

I listened...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I listened, indeed.

As always, my dreams did not involve sight. I had no idea where I were, or why. I had no idea who my...captor...was, and what he wanted to do with me. In fact, I had no idea if he even knew I was there.

But sounds came to me, apart from his sing-song voice. In the background, I heard the faint sounds of feet, walking. Not running, simply walking. There was more than one individual walking, and they were walking in perfect step. It was difficult to hear, but elves have such light footfalls that I knew they could be walking back and forth only a few meters away from me.

There was a slight metalic clang to their steps, too. They were armored. Ready for war.

The Sin'dorei make quality armor. That much I know. Hard plate and sturdy leather offer them outstanding protection in war. Perhaps their armor is less heavy than that of dwarves, but not by much. But there were more sounds coming to me.

More impressions caught up in this dream. I was learning...learning how to concentrate, simply by trial and error. If I concentrated on one sound, I could, to some extent, blot out everything else. But I was worried that if I did so, I'd miss something important that my captor was going to say.

Nonetheless, in the background I heard a sound like pistons falling. I have heard such things in Ironforge in particular. Dwarves make such amazing machinery, and gnomes the most ingineous contraptions...

...when they don't blow up, of course...

But this was somehow different. These pistons were not perfectly regular, nor did they stay in the same place.

No, they weren't pistons.

What I heard was another creature walking around. A massive one, with long, heavy legs.

And there was a strange humming in the background. Once again, I tried to focus on the elf I had heard first of all, amidst the agony...but he was gone.

Cursing to myself for letting my concentration be pulled elsewhere, I realized the pain was returning and stronger than before.

Much...much stronger.

Someone...something...was slicing away at my flesh. Like a thousand tiny knives, cutting tiny pieces out of me all at once, all over my body. I tried to scream, but no sound would come out, and I realized that something had punctured my lungs. I could feel everything.

Every impression of horrible, terrible pain...

So I screamed...without sound. I felt blood in my mouth, more than I tasted it. I didn't need to test to know that something had just ripped out my tongue, halfway down my throat. My eyes were bleeding. I didn't want to try to open them anymore, for fear of not being able to see. Fingernails...my hooves...my tail...all was being sliced away from my body, milimeter by milimeter...

"VIDAYI WAKE UP!!!!"

Through the pain, the shouting of Rubicante reached me, but it made no sense to me.

Was I alive or dead? Asleep or awake? Wounded or uninjured?

The world made no sense at all.

"WAKE UP...PLEASE...PLEASE WAKE UP!"

I sat up straight in my bunk. I was heaving for breath. I was clutching the covers between my fingers and there was blood everywhere. I knew already that it was mine. But I could see. My eyes weren't ruined. Quickly, I looked at my hands and my fingers. They seemed alright. There were no wounds to be seen at least.

I flexed them...slowly...not daring to hope that everything was alright. What about all the blood then?

Rubicante stood next to the bunk, looking horrified beyond words. She was holding a slightly dented sword and looked for all appearances like she was ready to fight off whatever had made me bleed.

"You were screaming...and...and bleeding!" she said and looked like she could kick herself for stating the obvious.

I nodded. I didn't know if my tongue was there. My mouth felt numb. Terrified of the possibility that it was gone, I tried to open my mouth. I was fully ready for the cascade of blood I immediately coughed up. It was horrible to see, but...I could feel my tongue in my mouth again at least.

I tried to stand up but only managed to stumble out of my bunk and onto the cold floor. I couldn't support myself. I tried to use my arms to push myself off the floor but failed, managing only to flop back to the floor.

"Enough of this! I'm getting Borin or Heomer or someone else who can heal people!" Rubicante whimpered and dashed for the door.

I reached out for her, trying to get her to stop. Neither Borin nor Heomer would have understood a word of what I had just seen or gone through. Possibly a druid would have been able to relate. Their experiences with the emerald dream might have been comparable, but I doubted it. Somehow, the spirits were trying to tell me something. But what spirits, and why? And what exactly did they want me to know?

Coughing up more blood, I felt my legs again and slowly and very carefully I pushed myself out of the bloody mess I had left on the floor.

"No...wait..." I wheezed.

Rubicante stopped in the doorway. "Nuh uh! You're sick and you need medicine! A healing potion injector, maybe!! I'm gonna go find one RIGHT NOW!"

With that she was gone. But I wasn't ready to be prodded and poked by medics just yet. There was no time for that. I still didn't have an answer. A spirit vision like this was important. Very important! I had to find out the truth behind it. But clearly, I was in the wrong place for this.

There would only be two places where I could go to get the whole picture. One was the place where the events had originally played out...and I didn't know where that was yet. The other was a shamanistic circle very rarely used these days.

I grabbed my gear and managed to get dressed. Don't ask me how. I have no idea. Then I stumbled outside, locating my sleepy talbuk in the mounts pen.

He wasn't happy about being woken up in the middle of the night but there was no time to explain it to him. I threw the saddle onto him and quickly put his briddle in his mouth. Behind me I could hear Rubicante heading back to the barracks, apparently at the head of a large contingent of medical personel. She wasn't being quiet about it, either.

Damned her loyalty and kindheartedness. In this case, it would make it hard for me to get out of here. No doubt the gate-guards would be alerted by the noise already.

There was nothing for it. I got onto my trusty mount and put my hoofs in his side.

"Ride like there's no tomorrow," I whispered in his ear and he exploded out of the pen, jumping over the gate with me on his back.

I could see the gate guards. They were awake and they were closing the gates. Prudent, perhaps, if they'd just been told that a member of the Vanguard had just been found bloodied in her bunk. But there was no time to wait, and I did not want to waste time explaining this to them.

I ducked low and sighed. There was no way I'd get through that gate before it closed on me. Patting my talbuk's neck, I guided him up the stairs to the ramparts, and nudged his flanks again with my hooves. A couple of patrolling guards saw me but apparently didn't realize who I was. A crossbow bolt flew low over my head and another slammed through my shoulder-guard and stuck in my clavicle. I gasped in agony, but I would have to wait until I was safely away to fix that.

"Come on old boy...it's time to learn how to fly..." I whispered through gritted teeth, patting my talbuk's neck again as I spurred him into a full blown gallop.

Then he jumped...

The world slowed down for just a few split seconds, and I heard the prolonged, frightened whimper he made as another bolt hit him in his left hind leg.

Some guard was going to pay dearly for that once I got back.

Then we hit the water...and started sinking...

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[Aslaug]

I sank. The water was icy and full of algae, and frankly my day was already ruined...and the sun hadn't even come up yet.

It was salt water too and it stung terribly in my shoulder-wound, too.

My talbuk was panicking. He tried to swim but the wound in his hind leg made it impossible. Blood was filling the water around us, on top of things, making it nearly impossible to see.

Besides, I knew some fairly nasty sharks lived in the water around Theramore, and no doubt they were already alerted to my presense. Quickly, I checked my pouches and pulled out a few fish scales in a hurry, clapping them onto my neck and onto the neck of my mount.

I inhaled some sea-water in the process of casting the spell and it made my lungs burn, but what could I do?

I could breathe.

If I got back above sea level I risked getting hit by more crossbow bolts and I was in no mood for that. This way, I could get to the bottom...both of the dream and of the coastal waters, and literally walk to a safe distance. But not until I faced down the shark that I could see coming towards me.

Sharks are vicious creatures, I'm sure we can all agree on that, but today, I learned something new and interesting.

Casting a lightning-bolt at anything underwater is extremely efficient.

I had no idea before I saw the spell powering towards the shark...hit it...and promptly turn it into so much Jov'rrktoo...

If you're Draenei, you'll know what I mean. If you're not, don't ask. Please.

It was quite a sight though. The damned creature nearly exploded. But it died, and that's what mattered. The sheer amount of blood in the water must have helped convince whatever guards were still watching the surface that nothing was coming back up. No doubt they assumed it was a shark attack. They were right, of course. Anyway, I led my talbuk to safety almost two miles from the fortress, before pulling him back ashore.

"GRGGGLGLGLGGLLLGLGGLLRRGLLLGLGGLL!!!"

I sighed and reached up to my shoulder, completely ignoring the hysterical murloc, in who's back yard I had apparently emerged from the water.

My Talbuk was in no mood to argue with a fish-person, from the looks of things and I had to defuse the situation somehow.

The crossbow bolt was deeply imbedded in my flesh and bone, but I bit down hard and yanked it out. I immediately, through gasps of pain and with black spots dancing in front of my eyes, implored the Spirit of the water we had just emerged from to heal my wound.

It did. I proceeded to do the same for my Talbuk.

The angry murloc, by this time, had pulled out a rusty looking sword and was trying to cut me to ribbons. He wasn't even denting my armor and I was mostly in the mood to simply ignore him, but then...it seemed to realize that my mount was unarmored.

I had no choice, may the spirits forgive me...

Little enough was left of the murloc after I sent the raw force of the Earthmother at him, that I sincerely doubt his next of kin would have recognized him.

I don't know if murlocs even have a concept of next of kin.

I stuck the two crossbow bolts in my belt and mounted my talbuk with a pat on his neck.

"Let's go, old friend...we've got a long ride ahead of us and we have to get there before nightfall tomorrow," I said and eased him along with my hooves.

He didn't need to be told twice. Happy to be out of the water and happy to have no more pain in his leg, he bolted out onto the road and sprinted along the fetid, slime-covered cobblestones towards the distant rockface that showed the border of the swamp.

Why Theramore was built in such an unsavory place I shall probably never know.

I hate the stench of stale swamp water. It probably offends the sensibilities of any Draenei, but it really makes me want to retch. Nonetheless, I had no time to go back, get medically examined, explain to everyone why I had to leave urgently, get on a gryphon and hope I wouldn't fall off halfway to my destination. There just was no time for that kind of shenanigans, and I tried to remember to draw breath through my mouth instead of my nose.

I only did so until the first swamp-bug had flown down my throat, nearly choking me.

Sighing, I just had to deal with the stench. At least my talbuk is fast and I would be out of the swamp relatively fast.

I passed the watch-towers and made it to the outlying guard-encampments. I knew some of them. I'd helped them out once or twice against some particularly nasty piece of wildlife, and they waved as I rode past. I didn't want to upset them so I waved back.

Damned Rubicante and her decency and kindness. She's such a wonderful little worrywart, and in most cases I'd have been very grateful for her concern and her insistence on helping me, but for once, it was misplaced.

Shaking my head I rode on. It must've taken me at least another hour of solid galoping to get to the burnt out inn. I didn't know if anyone was looking for me, but again, there was no time to explain this to anyone. As I reached the remnants of the inn, I made a brief break though, for my mount to catch his breath. He seemed grateful enough for that, and I dismounted, letting him relax a little.

I sat down. Pulled out my water-flask and emptied it onto the ground. I didn't want to risk drinking sea-water, having seeped in while we were underwater. I had to refill it at the clean first stream I passed, but at least that wasn't going to be a problem since I'd be going through the barrens. Despite the name, it's quite a lush piece of grass-lands after all, with plenty of small watering holes. I tossed my provisions too. They'd taste of salt water as well by now.

Rubbing my face, I checked my shoulder guard. It would need some repairs once I got back to Theramore. Putting it back on, I allowed myself to drift for a little while. I had a very long ride ahead of me, and I needed to be relaxed and able to work the moment I arrived. It wasn't much of a sleep, but at least it was dream-free, and after what must have been an hour at most, huddled down between the burnt out remains of the inn, I got back up and found my Talbuk grazing on the slopes of the Barrens, a hundred metres away.

Within minutes, we were riding again. Not quite as hard as before but only marginally less so. Yet again, my disagreement with the Gryphon-master in Ratchet came back to haunt me. It'd have been so much easier to go there and fly down to my destination, but unless I wanted to spend at least two hours making contrition before a goblin, I had to ride down there the old-fashioned way.

Fortunately, the wildlife of the Barrens leaves me well enough alone. Very few creatures there are suicidal enough to try anything with me. It usually ends very quickly and very messily.

I hate having to resort to violence. It is necessary from time to time, but it is not in my nature to do so. There are few exceptions to this. I will kill the undead, but strictly speaking that is a mercy...and not really killing them per se since they are already, technically, dead. And I will gladly kill the Sin'dorei for their evil ways, but not civilians. However depraved they are, I will not lift my hand in anger against those who are unarmed and helpless.

If I did so, I'd be no better than they. I'd be just as vile and corrupt as the Sin'dorei themselves. I did not disagree with Reeth butchering them...but I did disagree with her targets having been harmless civilians. However, I know that I cannot blame her for her insanity. She does not act out of rationality, and in that particular instance, she was fooled by someone to do as she did.

If anything, it makes me pity her all the more.

Such were my thoughts as I rode through the grasslands, down the long road. I passed a patrol of Alliance warriors on the way, but didn't have time to stop and chat. Instead, I waved at them as I raced by in the opposite direction, towards the great lift. I had been underway for most of the day when I finally saw it coming up in the distance. It was late afternoon by the position of the sun in the sky, and I still had a long way to go. I'd have to make some kind of stop to get some rest, before arriving though. There was no choice in that. If I got there and I was too tired, I risked all kinds of hazzards by using the stone circle to enter the dream more fully.

For one thing, those thousands of little cuts I had felt the first time, but which hadn't turned out to be real...despite all the blood...might very well be real the next time.

I pulled my mount to a stop and looked ahead. On one side of the road, I could see the path down to Razorfen Kraul, and to the other side the downs. And up ahead, I saw two burly Tauren...bulls from the look of it at this distance. They were guarding the great lift.

As usual, one might add.

Thing is, mages can just ride over the cliffs, cast a spell and float down, but I have no such ability in my repetoire, and there was only one way ahead. Either down...very rapidly and terminally...or via the lift. But I'd really rather avoid killing those tauren if I could.

Slowly...very slowly...I eased my hooves against the flanks of my talbuk and rode closer. Very carefully trying to appear harmless and non-hostile. Rather silly really...someone with horns and hooves rarely appear harmless or non-hostile. Tauren, however, should know that better than most.

I had to hope that, anyway.

I held up a hand, trying to signal to them that I meant no harm. What I wouldn't give to speak their language...in general but at that moment in particular.

They both stopped and drew long, razor sharp swords, wielding them two handed. They looked like capable enough warriors but...I had no doubts that their blades would not stand up to my ensorcelled armour, and that their leather jerkins and partial scale mail would crumble under my spells with frightening speed. But again, I didn't want to fight them.

"Friend," I said, slowly. I deliberately didn't smile. Most Draenei have learned that smiling to seem harmless and friendly is an exceptionally bad idea. Our long, sharp incisors tend to scare people half to death.

The oldest looking tauren looked slightly confused and he turned to his comrade and growled a question. Their bodylanguage is remarkably similar to most other humanoids and they were clearly not sure what was going on.

I dismounted, approaching with my hands held out to the side, palms towards them to show them I had no hidden weapons. The younger one brandished his sword at me, looking a bit concerned. Clearly he recognized the superiority of my gear to his own and he wasn't in any particular hurry to get killed. Still, he made an effort and a gesture to show me that I wasn't supposed to be there.

Admirable courage, if nothing else. I nodded in acknowledgment and slowly pointed towards the elevator, bowing my head ever so slightly. The older Tauren shook his head vigorously.

He said something that sounded rather definitive, but I know that is usually only a starting, negotiating stance. Few things are non-negotiable here in life. Especially if you want to negotiate despite being in a clear position of strength, as I was. The Tauren had everything to gain and nothing to lose by letting me use that elevator of theirs.

The younger one seemed to realize that and he made some very telling gestures with his hands, including grabbing his own throat and lolling his tongue, rolling his eyes back in his head, then pointing at my weaponry, then his own skull.

I tried very hard not to smirk.

The older tauren made a ponderous sound, then looked at me...then at his comrade...then at the elevator. Then he narrowed his eyes, looked at me, made a series of guttural noises and turned around, suddenly launching into a very spirited conversation with his friend. From their gestures, they were apparently talking about those trained kodos that their race are fond of riding.

The point was they both had their backs very deliberately and very definitely turned towards me.

I didn't wait. I smiled, dropping a few pieces of gold into a coin-purse and leaving them on the ground by a small totem of theirs, before running out to the elevator just as it arrived.

Moments later, I was on my way down.

I don't like heights much...I'm much more of a hooves-on-ground type...but I have to admit the view was spectacular as I descended to the canyon floor in Thousand Needles. One day I would love to fly over that area on my drake...just soaring above the tall spires of rock, worn away through untold thousands of thousands of years, by wind and weather. Each of those pins of stone had a story to tell of its own. The spirits were strong in this place. I could almost hear them whisper to me, even at this distance.

It felt...comfortable. Homey, in a way...

I pulled out the dagger I had long ago picked off an Eredar in Karazhan, and carved a long gash on my right palm, before smearing the blood onto a weatherbeaten, ancient totem at the canyon floor, just beside the landing where the elevator stopped. Then I let some of my blood drip onto the ground and I smiled inwardly, feeling how right it was to make this simple offering of myself to the spirits of this ancient, powerful place.

There was a brief gust of wind afterwards. It hit me in the face and I smiled again as I got back on my mount and sped off towards west...towards Feralas.

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I reached Feralas quickly enough. The trouble, of course, was that in order to cross Feralas, I had three options.

Either I could fight off practically every wild beast, gnoll and ogre imaginable...or I could go through Eldre'thelas.

Neither option seemed pleasant or desirable to me.

Or I could go through the horde camp straddling the only servicable road in the entire region.

Of course, normally I could've just gotten on a gryphon from the small outpost on the borders between Feralas and Thousand Needles where I caught a couple of hours of much-needed sleep, but with my usual lack of good gryphon-fortune, the beast was down with a case of the runs.

I did NOT feel like chancing a ride on a diarrhetic gryphon while flying over a horde encampment.

Somehow, it seemed about as wise as playing with fire in a gnomish workshop. I know from bitter experience that both orcs, trolls and tauren can be extremely precise shots with both bow and rifle, and I'm sure they'd be exceptionally persistent if my aerial mount had an...accident...on one of them from a hundred and fifty feet up.

The term 'bombs away' comes to mind...in a particularly disgusting fashion.

I am sure there's a dwarf or gnome out there who thinks that's hilarious but frankly the thought...which refused to leave me as I tried to sleep...revolted me thoroughly.

It was only just past midnight when I got up. I knew if my plan was to work, riding at nighttime was my best chance. I woke up my talbuk, who looked at me with absolute loathing. Clearly, he hadn't slept enough but I would have to give him a double ration of oats to make up for it, when I got home. There was nothing for it. I grabbed some heavy sack-cloth laying around and mounted up, riding along the road at a reasonable speed.

Feralas at night is both breathtakingly beautiful and horrifying beyond words.

The way the moonlight reflects in the streams and waterfalls as it comes down through the heavy overhang makes the whole forest look like a dreamy landscape out of someone's imagination.

The yellow dots, showing where animals or gnolls are glaring at you from can be absolutely frightening. Not that feralasian gnolls frighten me, but the image of something looking hungrily at you from the darkness can be unnerving. It didn't really affect me, since I'd been there before and because frankly I know I'm considerably more lethal than anything hiding in those woods, but my talbuk clearly didn't like it much. He was quite skittish and I had to spend some time calming him down. Clever though he is, he's still a tamed beast and no herbivore likes being stared at by hungry eyes. They all have inbuilt reactions to such things, along the lines of 'run away, run away'.

I could see faint lights up ahead. Not many. It was night, but sadly the moon was full and it made it difficult to hide. All I could hope was that most of the inhabitants of the encampment up ahead were asleep. They'd better be, or it'd all end up a real mess, really fast.

I hated the thought already and I tried to bite back my worries as I stopped my talbuk and dismounted. Quietly cutting up the sackcloth, I then tied the pieces around his hooves to muffle the sound of his movement. He didn't seem to mind too badly, and I mounted again. I could see a couple of tauren guards up ahead. They were clearly wide awake, and I could not get past them without getting noticed. I had to get off the road, just a little bit, and then sneak into the camp between some of the tents. It wasn't easy, but I did manage to locate a slope leading down to the camp, between two large tents. I had no doubt that one of them belonged to the chieftain of this particular group of Tauren. I could see a few figures moving around but they were all guards assigned to the safekeeping of the perimeter, and obviously, no one thought anyone could sneak down the slope without making too much noise to remain hidden. I had no real alternative, though. I had to try it. Otherwise, I'd get within range of the Eldre'thelas ogres and I knew for a fact that they were not happy with me after my last visit there. Apparently Bludguts had been the son, brother or drinking buddy...the ogre word for all three things is apparently the same...of a high ranking warboss.

Sighing, I patted my talbuk's neck and pulled out a musty old scroll from my bags, casting the spell inscribed upon it on my mount. It was meant to make him more agile. I could only hope it worked properly.

Apparently it did. I managed to get down to the center of the mostly sleeping camp and, ducking low over my talbuk's neck, we rode on...quietly...very quietly.

I almost made it through. Almost. Then I had no choice but to pass the large inn, and sadly, just as I rode past the entrance, a troll and an orc...both male and both extremely inebriated and in excessively high spirits, came out. They were singing...

I hope for your sake you never have to listen to orcs singing. It is horrid. And while I am willing to concede that trolls are, without comparison, the single Azerothian race with the most rhythm in their soul, their singing voices are utterly terrifying.

I believe the term for troll 'muisek' is R'gagae...

The 'gag' part of it fits.

Anyway...these two proud members of the horde stopped, dumbstruck at the sight in front of them, and I felt like a talbuk caught in the headlights of a whole company of low flying gnomish flying machines...

I think I waved at them and tried to smile, but I can't really remember.

Remember what I told you about Draenei smiles? The troll threw up his long, gangly arms and started shouting at the top of his lungs. The orc reached for a couple of wicked looking long daggers.

I knew the design of those things. This particular orc was no mere rabble. He was someone who'd braved the dangers of outland. Those daggers were of old Draenic design, glowing with an inner light and dripping with poison, and I had exactly no time or inclination to test his ability to use them.

Kicking my hooves into the flanks of my mount, I ducked out of the way just as one of those daggers came flying at where my head had been a split second earlier. It would've stuck in my temple from the looks of it, if I hadn't gotten out of the way. I growled at my horrible luck as I could see the gate guardians coming down the road.

I whispered a few things to my talbuk and closed my eyes, praying he understood me...and it seems he did. I could feel the sensation as he lifted off the ground, and I heard the swoosh of axes narrowing missing their mark as he leapt over the heads of the tauren guards.

I felt the jolt as he hit the ground again and sped up.

At that moment, I dared opening my eyes again. Just in time to see the gates passing me by. I was out of the camp, but not out of danger's way just yet. The tauren were getting on their lumbering Kodos behind me and they were setting out to hunt me. From the looks of it, most of those kodos were of inferior quality and wouldn't be able to catch me, but saw something that made my blood freeze in my veins. The snarling maw of an armoured riding raptor and the baleful yellow eyes of a war-wolf, also armourplated.

The troll and the orc, and they were on to me.

Dammit. Dammit.

I whispered to my talbuk again to run for his life...to run like the Eredar were hunting him. To run fast enough to save us both.

The road was still long, but I could see Eldre'thelas not far away. I had to steer clear of that, while keeping my pursuers behind me. I could only hope that they weren't using unnatural means of making their mounts run faster.

I rode.

Spirits preserve me, I rode like the wind, and from time to time, I really thought I had managed to shake off my pursuers, but every time I looked back to make sure, there they were. Just the orc and the troll, but they were undeniably there. If I could make it to the water, there would be elves there. Night Elves who could help me...

Surely, these two wouldn't want to tangle with that many foes?

I could only hope and pray that was the case...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those who know me can attest...I am not a coward. I have faced down death on many occasions, and it doesn't hold any fear for me anymore. But I admit I was scared as I fled from my pursuers through Faralas.

The tauren guards I could have dealt with, but I didn't want to fight them. The orc and the troll however, were an entirely different matter. I'm even pretty sure I could've reasoned with the orc once he knew what I was trying to do. It was for the good of his race as much as for my own...but arguing with trolls is a terminally bad idea. They just end up eating those they disagree with, and I did not like the idea of ending up in the belly of a troll.

But I couldn't seem to shake them.

The coast line was still far away and with it, the protection of the elves. But would these two even stop for that? There was no guarantee of that. I was desperate for a solution. I had to do something to shake these two off.

What did I know that I could use against them? They were drunk...that much I knew for a fact. They were drunk, and most people, when drunk, won't think clearly.

I bit down and shook my head in disgust. There was one thing I could do, but it was definitely not what I wanted to do.

I urged my talbuk to run a little faster. Just a tiny bit. It'd wear him out...he'd be foaming from the mouth soon but it was my only chance. He ran faster than I'd ever seen him run before, and for a little while, it was obvious that I was gaining ground on my two enemies. But unless that made them give up the chase entirely, I had no choice but to turn and face them. What I knew was that I would turn and face them on my terms.

This would be about trickery, and all I could do was hope their binge had been severe enough that my ruse would work.

I jumped off my talbuk and slapped his backside to get him to run on. I knew he'd run faster without me on his back and if my plan failed, he'd at least get away to safety. Pulling out an ankh from a small bag on my belt, I held the small magical item between my fingers. Then I pulled out my axe and turned. I flexed my fingers along the grip, holding the ankh against the leather-wrapped handle-bar. I was positioned on a small bridge. The coastline was visible in the distance, but this had to work...getting down there was no longer an option.

My pursuers turned the corner and whooped wildly with joy as they saw me. They clearly thought they had me at great disadvantage.

Summoning up the strength of the earth, I felt myself surrounded by the protective, healing magic of the Earthmother herself. I would need it...if I were to make it through.

The orc dismounted and pulled out another couple of long knives. Different ones this time...also poisoned from the looks of things. The troll jumped off the raptor, which screeched in annoyance, and pulled out a wicked looking long-bow, adorned in feathers and tribal symbols. He knocked an arrow and grinned past his long tusks.

I wanted him to fire. More than anything, I wanted him to actually shoot at me. It'd hurt but I would survive. No arrow from any troll could actually penetrate the full extent of the magical protections I had put up.

He aimed, the bastard...

And let the arrow fly. It hit me squarely in the chest. The pain was absolutely horrible, but so far...I was still alive.

I needed this to work. Dammit I needed this to work so badly...

Sadly, I'm not a great thespian, but at least I was acting to a drunk audience. They might just be fooled. I looked down at the arrow, trying to look shocked as I stumbled. I reached for it with one hand...the hand holding the ankh. It hurt awfully as I pulled the arrow out of myself, and the bleeding was terrible. Even magical armour and protective spells can be penetrated by a strong hunters well aimed shot.

As I dropped the arrow, I felt another one slam onto my left leg. I rolled my head back...not acting but honestly hurting like there was no tomorrow...

Come on you stinking creature...one more. Just one more...make it count...

I roared as I yanked out the arrow from my leg, tossing it defiantly aside.

I could taste blood...

Narrowing my eyes, I saw the orc coming closer, flicking the knives over in his hands in a gesture of self confidence. He was simply coming closer for the killing blow. They were content to let the hunter weaken me.

Still...as he walked I could see he was slightly unsteady on his legs. Not much. I could've beaten him in a one-on-one fight, but the trolls aim was deadly and accurate. Clearly, his strange metabolism had already taken care of most of the alcohol in his system.

He knocked yet another arrow and lined up. I turned...just a little, at just the right time. The arrow penetrated my throat. Had I not turned my head, it would've severed my spine...

Instead, I coughed and blood exploded from between my lips. There was no chance of pulling THAT arrow out without breaking it first.

I stumbled. I had to keep thinking clearly...I had to, or my life would end on that bridge.

No...

NO!

I would not let that happen. I couldn't. But the pain...oh spirits the pain...

I fell...away from the bridge and down...down...down into the icy cold, frothing waters of the waterfall beneath me. The last thing I heard was the enraged roar of the troll as his prey got away. The orc's face, looking down at me was the last thing I saw before the waters swallowed me up.

I died...

I have died before, and my ankhs have helped bring me back, if there were no friends nearby with a healing spell or some jumper cables. But I never died in such a terrible situation before. If my hand had not been closed around the ankh firmly enough...if it had fallen away from me...

No one would would ever have found me.

It would have been...my time.

I felt myself drift. I could swallow again, but felt no need to. I could see my corpse in the waters, and as always, I felt a certain detachment from it. Why should I go back? Why not listen to the whispers of the spirits of the past, already calling to me?

Should I not join my ancestors in the hereafter? Had I not honored them by the way I led my life? Had I not earned my place beside them?

My sister Melanchta would carry on the name, certainly. No one had expected me to bear children, after all. Not after they learned of my...connection...to the spirit world. Not...after...no, I couldn't think of that...

Had I not lived a full, complete life, despite my relative youth for a Draenei?

Why should I go back?

I swam upwards through nothingness. I smiled. For years, I had not felt as content and happy as I did at that moment. I could see old friends, long dead. Strong, able-bodied Draenei torn from life when the Exodar crashed. Allies fallen in combat. Friends and loved ones...long dead.

And there he was. The face I had always looked for in my dreams, and so rarely seen...

I saw Harken...probably the only male I have ever loved...who died, holding the gates of the temple of Telhamat against a flood of Fel Orcs...years before the Exodar was built.

He smiled at me. Beckoned me to him and I wanted to go there. It was the kind of happiness and joy I had not been physically able to feel while alive...

I could see my grandparents, who had been ripped from life, so brutally by the Eredar...

I could see them all...

Why should I go back?

I stopped. I forced myself to think clearly...amidst this bliss and joy, I forced myself to think and rationalize.

I remembered a feeling of a thousand cuts and I opened my eyes sharply. I saw looks of horror and surprise on the faces of my friends and loved ones. I looked down myself and saw myriads of little cuts opening on my ghostly, spiritual shape.

"I must...go back..." I whispered.

They shook their heads. Begged me to stay. Begged me.

All except Harken...

Strong, noble, powerful Harken of the twin swords. Harken with his purple, loving eyes. Harken, the lionhearted and the gentle...good spirits keep me and preserve me, how I just longed to be back in his arms and never have to fear anything again. I could feel him...feel those strong arms hold me. I wanted to put my head against his chest and hear his ghostly heart beat for me. Just for me.

Hear his voice, soothing me as he held me safe from all danger.

That was the Vidayi I once was. Before I hardened. Before...I experienced loss.

Before I had to sit there, watching him die of his wounds because I did not have the power to stop the blood from flowing...

I had to hear him say goodbye...asking me to live for him...

I have barely wept since then.

I don't think I had many tears left after that...

And here he was.

Why should I go back? Why? WHY??

Everything I wanted was right here. Why could I not stay? Why could I not allow myself some genuine happiness at last? This was where I belonged. With my family. With Harken...

He put his arms around me. I broke down in tears and held myself close to him. I wept so bitterly, you wouldn't believe it...

"Are you finally back, my little black diamond?" he asked.

"Black diamond?" I asked, through the tears.

He smiled at me and shrugged a little. "Of course. Dark, beautiful and all hard edges."

"But I don't want hard edges anymore..." I whispered, hoarsely. "I just want you...please, can't I stay?"

"You said you had to go back. Are you all done? Is this your time?" he asked, gently brushing my ghostly tears from my face with the back of his hand.

"I don't know. I felt a thousand cuts...or more...and I couldn't scream. I don't know the answer..."

"Then...it is not your time yet..."

I hid my face against his chest and cried like I haven't cried since I saw the light go out in his eyes at the temple.

That was when I swore I'd understand the spirits. The ways of healing. The power of the land and the sky...the way a drop of water could wear away a mountain, and the intensity of the naked flame.

That was when. That moment.

I looked up at him again. I didn't want to go but he was right, and I knew it.

"Will you wait for me?" I asked.

"Till the end of time and beyond..." he answered.

Then he wrapped me up in his arms and kissed me. I have no idea for how long. I wanted it to last forever. I had never felt so safe...

Then he let me go...

And I fell backwards...backwards into my broken, ruined body in the water under the waterfall in Feralas.

I opened my eyes...

My lungs were full of water and my eyes were glazed over. The arrow in my throat had to come out immediately. Forcing myself to sit up, finding strength I didn't know I had, I broke the surface of the water, at the same time as I broke the arrow...

Yanked it out...

I coughed and spluttered. My talbuk was standing next to the waterfall, looking at me with what I like to think was deep worry on his face.

I hauled my sorry self out of the stream...letting the water drain out of my lungs as I cast the smallest of healing spells on myself, to close the wounds I had received.

Then my face scrunched up and I screamed...

Not from any physical pain...but for the loss I had suffered in coming back...

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[Aslaug]

I didn't have the strength to move from where I was until the day was several hours old. I knew I had to. I knew that the longer I stayed, the less likely I was to find my answers.

Truth be told, there was a moment where I contemplated just letting it all go and not seek out these answers anyway. I can't remember having ever felt so destrought and lonely as I did during those early morning hours, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find hope and the drive to get up and continue...

I hated the whole world then. Everyone and everything.

Eventually I had to get back up. I had to move on. I felt like I could sleep for a month. Emotionally, I was completely drained, but physically I was pretty much back to full strength. I was sitting next to a bubbling clear stream after all...

Regaining my magical prowess had been a matter of minutes, and my healing magic was as strong as ever. But I could not heal my mind or remove the pain I was feeling...and actually, I didn't want to.

I needed this pain. I need not to dull myself to this kind of experience. If I lost my ability to cry for what I had lost, what did I have left? What then would seperate me from the ranks of the Eredar?

Not much, to be honest.

So by the time I got back on my mount, I was at full strength. My pursuers apparently hadn't felt that it was worth the time and effort to climb down the rockface, fighting off the wildlife to get to my corpse.

I looked at my talbuk at the thought. He had a few scratches and cuts, which I healed. And smiled as I reached up and scratched him between the horns, right where he likes it the best.

"Thank you, my friend..." I said, quietly. Clearly, he had made a stance against the wolves, to keep them from my corpse.

That kind of loyalty was special and I felt a warmth spread in me again as I sped down the road...between the twin rock spires. Normally I would have gone to the top and meditated, but that wasn't my goal today and I was in a hurry by now. But at least I wasn't far from my destination now.

I came up on some old ruins on my right...and I thought I saw some scaly beasts move around in there, but I wasn't looking for trouble, and besides, they were nowhere near the road.

I rode for another hour or so...passing a couple of landmarks. But the road was quiet. It was still very early morning. Once I came upon a bear crossing the road. It stopped and looked at me, then clearly decided I was more trouble than I was worth, and lumbered on. That, however, was the most dangerous moment from then on until I saw what I was looking for.

A stone circle...ancient beyond ancient...but sadly, those who had told me of it had forgotten to tell me about the camp of mountain giants who seemed to have made it their own.

At least...there was a minute chance that they would leave a shaman alone. I had to make the attempt and I rode closer. The nearest giant didn't seem to even notice me. I was probably too small and his eyes were up in the skies, but on the other hand I didn't want one of them to accidentally step on me. I pulled my talbuk to the right and looked up at the giant, hoping he'd catch on, but he didn't, simply ambling on.

The next one didn't see me either, but the third one did.

He wasn't pleased to see me from the looks of things. At least I didn't like the look on his stony face as he picked up a huge lump of rock and pulled back his arm as if to throw it at me.

I threw out my arms to the side and invoked the shielding spell I had used earlier, yet again. If I was about to get hit by that boulder, it would avail me little, but perhaps I could make him understand my friendly intentions by showing that I was in tune with the spirits of the land...

Just maybe...

The giant stopped...slowly lowering the rock and glaring at me again.

His gravely voice was impossible to understand, but I dismounted and sent my talbuk running to safety with a well aimed slap on his left hind leg...

The other giants were aware of my presense now, as well. I found myself completely encircled by these enormous creatures. And they were talking. Not to me, but to each other. It seemed they were trying to figure out if I was dinner or a friend.

I recast the spell...again and again. It was not an offensive bit of magic, and clearly turned my skin earthen. The giants seemed interested, but not convinced.

I was starting to worry. There were a number of giants...who seemed to be getting the upper hand in the debate...who seemed extremely hostile and I could not communicate with them. I did not speak their language, nor did I...

An idea born of desperation came to my mind and I closed my eyes, driving one of the totems hanging from my belt into the grave, booming out the command word loudly and clearly.

My earth elemental ally assembled himself from the ground around me and stood beside me. He was a tiny creature compared to the giants, but I knew his strength, and I knew the kind of strength he would radiate to these creatures of earth and stone. It was a very distant long shot, but while I have never shared more than an empathic link with my elemental ally, he might be able to speak to these giants more directly.

I closed my eyes and expected, at any moment, to feel myself squashed under a giant foot.

Instead, I heard the rumblings as the giants stepped back and moved away.

I could have hugged my earth elemental. Whether he spoke to them or not, I will never know...but his presense convinced the giants, of that I have no doubt at all.

They left me alone...in the center of the stone circle, and I was finally at my destination. What I had thought would be a hard, but probably largely uneventful ride had instead evolved into a bittersweet experience of death and long lost love refound. Only to be lost again...

I closed my eyes and swallowed. I couldn't give up now. Harken had let me go...so I could return and finish this.

My earth elemental vanished. His time in my service was always short, but this time he'd done me more good than at possibly any other time previously.

I kept my eyes closed and drew the land into myself. I won't try to explain the concept to non-shamen, and shamen will know what I mean.

But I could feel the land beneath me. It became one with me. I could sense the trees...the rocks...the streams of water. I could feel the footsteps of the giants on my bossom, and sense moles diging through my veins. Grass grew on my head. My fingernails were boulders.

My voice, the sound of earthquakes, rumbling through the valleys.

I was the land, and the land was me...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was an exhilerating experience. Not to mention humbling. I'm strong in my craft, don't misunderstand me, but there is a significant difference between being an accomplished shaman and actually absorbing the land into yourself like I had just done. It was a feat I would never have been able to accomplish anywhere else on Azeroth.

I could only hope this land would know what I needed to know.

"What causes the land to bleed?" I rumbled.

The giants all looked up from whatever they were doing and approached me again. They were a lot more deferential this time, too. Clearly, this was amazing to them. They seemed to understand my question as well. The one who had picked up the rock to crush me came closer.

"You speak..." it said.

I could understand it. It sounded like his voice was made from two large slabs of stone grinding against one another with gravel placed between them, but nonetheless, I understood him.

"What causes the land to bleed?" I asked again.

"Many things," the giant answered, sounding slightly surprised that I was able to communicate...and a little annoyed that I was so diffuse.

I tried to think of how to ask. Giants are not exactly quick thinkers, though not necessarily stupid.

"Do you feel Draenor?" I asked. It would make my answers easier to get if the land was somehow connected to what lay beyond the portal.

The giant shook his large head. I could see he had a glassy look in his eyes, and I realized he wasn't answering me. The land was...through him.

"No," he said. "But I know what ails Draenor. The portal stands on blighted land, and I know of Draenor's pain."

"How?"

"Every time someone crosses the portal, they had a little bit of Draenor on their boots or hooves. It sticks to me. Many tiny voices, crying in pain. The land is sick..."

I nodded. "I heard the Sin'dorei...and I felt pain. As if cut by many blades."

"I hear this pain also," the land answered, through its gigantic puppet. "It comes from many places. Draenor is dying. A broken world..."

It felt like someone punched me. Draenor was my home. I knew the land was devastated, sure...and I knew that most of my beautiful homeworld was long since gone. That all that remained were a few broken fragments, kept together only by the will of the land. But there was still beautiful places there. Nagrand, with its wildlife and green grass. Or Zangarmarsh...mysterious, wild, untamed Zangarmarsh with mushrooms larger than any tree. Or the sheer, majestic ruggedness of the Blades Edge Mountains.

There was still beauty beyond the portal, and I don't know a Dranei who didn't hope to one day liberate the fragmented pieces of Outland and remake Draenor...smaller, for certain...but peaceful again, full of laughter and music and life.

And now this giant told me that Draenor was dying. What hope was there then, for my people? We were guests here, in Azeroth. Guests who did not belong, and I knew it. Even the Vanguard...a group consisting of diverse and kind-hearted creatures...viewed the Draenei as outsiders.

'Space goat' they call me.

I never tell them, but it hurts terribly every time they do so. I don't think they realize this. I don't think they understand how hurtful it is to be singled out and set aside, made to feel different like that all the time. I don't think they understand how demeaning an expression it is. I've tried explaining that Draenei males don't piss their own beards to attract females, but it doesn't seem to register.

So the 'friendly' jibing continues. And the Draenei must endure it. We are, after all, guests. We have no rights, whatsoever, except to try to fit in. Refugees in strange and alien lands, all we can do is hope we will one day be accepted for who we are, not distrusted for what we are.

I gritted my teeth. What else could I do? I had questions that needed answering, and I wasn't sure how long I could keep this spell going for. Probably not long. I could already feel my body going slightly numb.

"Can Draenor be healed?" I asked. I was afraid of the answer. I did not believe it possible, but for my own peace of mind, I had to ask.

The giant pondered this for a long moment. A lot longer than I had expected. A simple 'no' would have answered my quiery in full. Instead, he took some time to find the best way to reply to me.

"You cannot heal everyone, Vidayi of Draenor...nor can you heal everything."

I felt suckerpunched again and my arms were getting impossibly heavy. Why must that phrase haunt me in everything I do? Why must those words be the mantra by which I must live my life? Why can't I heal at least more than I do now??

Why can't I heal my world?

Why?

"You cannot heal Draenor...but you can stop Draenor from bleeding..." the giant continued. He seemed unsteady on his feet. I wasn't the only one starting to feel drained.

I opened my eyes sharply. This was not what I had expected. This was hope. "WHAT?? HOW?" I demanded. "Where must I go? What must I do? I would die a thousand...a thousand thousand deaths for Draenor. Please...please don't leave me like this. Tell me, where must I go, what must I do?"

The giant lifted a huge, lumpy hand to its head and tried to stay focused. Clearly, it wasn't doing too well. But I needed that answer. More desperately than I had ever needed anything before. More desperately than I needed Harken...

And that's desperate...

"So...many questions...little black diamond..." it rumbled.

I felt like my stomach turned into a tight knot. How could this giant know...?

"H...Harken...?" I asked.

The giant shook his head. "No. It is the name...I have given you. It is what you are..."

'I'...in this case...meant the land. I knew that much. It made sense, really. Nodding, sadly, I looked up at the giant again. "Please tell me...for the sake of a world...and a race...and for all that is good and decent...tell me how I can stop Draenor from bleeding..."

The giant's eyes rolled back in its head. It wouldn't be long now. I could feel my lips move, but most of the rest of me was completely numbed by now.

"There is a place in Draenor...where the soil is purple from poison, and the Sin'dorei lance the land like a creature of flesh and blood would lance a boil. A place where they seek to satiate their sickest hungers...by killing a world, to stave off starvation. The Sin'dorei have lost their way..." the giant said.

I could see bits falling off him. He wasn't going to make it, but the land wasn't letting him go. It needed to tell me this and I needed to listen.

"Tell me everything," I whispered.

"Once, they walked amongst my glades and nurtured my ills. They fought like giants against the horde. Their arrows and the steel of human and dwarven blades drove back their foes. None loved me more than they...none understood me as they did. They were my favorites...my most beloved children. But they betrayed me..."

I nodded, urging the land to speak on. A huge hand fell away from the giant. Cracks were showing in his stony chest and down his stumpy legs. He was simply a vessel for the land's voice now. Nothing more.

I felt a pang of sadness for this great creature, but I knew his sacrifice was not in vain...

He was telling a tale that had to be told, and I was there to listen.

"They betrayed me. For their unnatural hungers, they betrayed me, and they are destroying Draenor. Not the orcs...the orcs are mere pawns. Not the Legion, impotent little demons that they turned out to be. The truest enemy are the Sin'dorei. Once they are finished, the Legion can return unhindered...and stronger. Once Draenor is dead...their hunger will still burn as brightly as it does now, and they will come here...to me...and there will be no where left to run, little black diamond. Stop them...stop their bleeding of Draenor...or all will eventually be lost..."

I wanted to ask more...but the giant finally crumbled. His chest split open...his legs fell apart and the huge creature fell to the ground, torn asunder by the forces he had encompassed.

As I watched...the head of the giant crashed to the ground. There was no light in his eyes anymore. His mouth was slightly open and he looked so incredibly sad in death that I felt moved to walk up to him, and touch his rocky cheek.

"I heard you, old one," I whispered as a tear ran down my cheek, "And I understand."

Now was not the time for exhaustion or weariness. If I rode north, just a little ways, I would reach the ash wastes of Desolace, and I knew the Alliance had an outpost there. A reliable one, as far as I knew, in the mountains in the northern end of the region.

I set my jaw and narrowed my eyes. I knew what I had seen in my dream. What I had felt. I had been Draenor. My home, my world, the core of my being...

I had been the Netherstorm...slowly but surely being ripped apart by the Mana forges...

The course was set. I sneered in barely contained rage as I heard the words of the Sin'dorei again...

I understood them. Every word he had said.

"Increase the pressure. The output is unsatisfactory. There are more resources to be torn from this deadrock, and I'll whip each and every one of you pathetic excuses for elves until we have drained it to the core!"

Not...in...my...lifetime...

I turned my head. My talbuk was already standing closeby. The giants were all stunned into keeping their distance. They had all seen and heard what happened.

I swung myself into the saddle and stroked my talbuk's neck gently. Then I spurred him on with my hooves and he bolted out of the stone circle and down the road.

Desolace was not far. Half an hours ride, and I passed through the low mountain pass and into the most dismal, gloomy area in all of Azeroth. It was what the entire world would become if the Sin'dorei were not stopped. Their insane hunger would kill all life, and eventually, they'd starve to death anyway.

Well, I'd gladly kill them off before they got that chance. Kill them off, cull the herd, and keep the survivors under tight control until a cure for their miserable affliction could be devised. And then...then they would have hundreds of lifetimes worth of penitence to perform. Hundreds of elven lifetimes.

But some of them could not be saved. And I would see every Sin'dorei in the Netherstorm turned inside out, split open and roasted over a slow fire before tossed over the edge and into the Twisting Nether.

A patrol of Centaurs blocked my path into Desolace. They were armed with crude weapons and looked like they were in no mood to back down.

I gave them once chance to do so. Just one. I am not a murderess.

The fact that thirty seconds later, I rode over their electrecuted corpses and into Desolace bears witness to the fact that they were too stupid to heed my warning.

I could see fires in the distance but I wasn't lured towards them. I knew the ancient ruins had been the home of the Mannoroc Coven of warlocks and they were still infested with the remains of their weak demonology. I could have battered my way through but I was in too much of a hurry and I turned the other way. I avoided a few horde patrols on the way, before coming up on a goblin outpost. I had ridden for almost an hour and a half in Desolace filth by that time. The goblins tried to flag me down...apparently to offer me a job or somesuch. Goblins always seem to have some kind of enterprise going that they need help with, and some of the time it actually pays. Despite their crass mannerisms, they tend to pay well...

I didn't have time to stop and help them with their kodo-farm this time though, and I rode past at full speed.

It was a smooth ride from there. For once in my life, I actually managed to cross an entire region of Azeroth without getting accosted by something in dire need of help, hard words or killing. It was almost too good to be true when I saw Nigel's Rest coming up in the distance. I could see the approaches and the guards patrolling back and forth. They looked slightly surprised when I sprinted past them. My talbuk was worn down. His flanks were covered in sweat and he was short of breath. Nonetheless, he wasn't upset. I think he understood how important this was as well as I did...

I have learned my lessons from druids, and I tend to avoid calling most beasts dumb. They just think in different ways than us.

From the looks of things, my good luck continued. For the first time in ages, I came upon a gryphon master I hadn't fallen out with, whos beasts weren't suffering from some unsightly illness or who was on strike...

"Passage for me and my mount to Theramore. It's extremely urgent," I said as I approached him.

"No problem. Is your...mount...used to flying?" the night elf tending the gryphons asked.

I shook my head. "He hates it but he's going to have to cope."

"I see. Sixty silver then. I'll have to set aside two strong gryphons to carry him between them."

I took out a gold piece. "Get me the fastest gryphon you have. I carry information that must get to the attention of the Theramore Vanguard and Jaina Proudmoore."

The night elf looked at the gold piece...then tested it by biting into it and he pointed me towards an armoured gryphon. "He's the fastest there is around here. Straight from the outlands..."

I nodded and mounted him. "Alright," I said and took off, hovering for a moment. "Thank you."

And with that, I was on my way...

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I always liked to fly.

Flying allows me to be close to the sky, and as I spend by far the most of my time with my hooves on the ground, it gives me a chance to be close to the diametrical opposite of the Earthmother. I love the feeling of absolute freedom of movement that comes when you are in control of a gryphon or nether drake, and even flying with the gryphon masters' mounts, unresponsive to the rider's commands as they are, is a liberating experience.

It really does give me a sense of seeing it all a little from above...

Pardon the bad pun, but I can't think of a better expression.

I could see the grasslands of Mulgore...the great herds of Kodos that capture the minds and hearts of the Tauren so vividly. Seeing the vastness of these herds, I admit I could understand them. Like a vast, living flood of flesh and bone, they were a majestic sight indeed, even from my elevated point of observation. I could see Thunder Bluff in the distance. I found myself wishing I could have visited that place, without hostility...

Such secrets I could have learned...about the Earthmother, the elements...all the things shamen need to know about.

Yes, I freely admit to admiring the Tauren. I make no secret of it, nor am I ashamed of it. I am greatly saddened that they are enemies of the alliance, but such is life.

Thunder Bluff was left behind and I came out over the Barrens. The gryphon flew quite close to a horde outpost there, and a few arrows came up towards me but the guards were too slow and poor shots besides. The gryphon I flew was much too fast.

I had to cross the Barrens, but while it was a long flight, it felt like time flew by me, as quickly as the landscape beneath me.

Yes, I do love to fly...

It never lasts quite long enough.

The barrens were exchanged for the swamplands surrounding Theramore and I realized I would soon be home.

Home...

I sighed sadly. No...I wouldn't be home. It was highly unlikely that my generation of Draenei would ever be able to go home. Beyond the portal...that is where we find our home, but even if we can gather strength and training and go there, we can't reclaim it.

The Sin'dorei even hold half of our holy city...that is how low we have fallen...

In fact, the Sin in Sin'dorei seemed particularly apt now, after my conference with the land, and mind you, I do not generally subscribe to any notion of 'sin'.

I have always...very strongly...believed that we are all held accountable on who we are and what we have done, but not in comparison to a divine measure. We are fallible...flawed creatures, all as one. Dwarves are strong...but stubborn. Gnomes are curious...but reckless. Humans are noble...but weak willed. The night elves are wise...but aloof...and the Draenei are the remnants of a broken race, who chose not to renege on decency and propriety, but who did not have the strength to prevent the vast majority of their people to do just that very thing.

The shame of the Eredar is ours for all time...

But not their 'sins'. What they do, they are accontable for. Not us. The same goes for everyone else. Shamanistic belief, as I interpret it, makes 'sin' anathema, because it means that someone can do wrong against the gods themselves...against the great spirits...

Beings so much greater than us that any act we take is insignificant and irrellevant to them.

'Sin' means that one can blame the child for the actions of the parent, as if the child is not an individual, capable of making choices of right and wrong on his or her own.

And yet...the Sin'dorei are doing just such things. Things so vile that they are a violation of the sanctity of the great spirits. Of an entire world...

A Sin'dorei child, imbibing the magical essense taken from the sundering of Draenor, takes part in the wrongdoing of his or her elders, and such the Sin'dorei have invented the reality of 'sin'...which did not exist except as a sick, twisted concept before this...

For that reason alone, the entire damnable race ought to be punished. How the shamen of the horde can stomach being aligned to these vile beings I will never understand.

Shaking my head to clear these dismal thoughts from my mind, I could see Theramore come up ahead. I could see Jaina Proudmoore's tower and the central barracks. I could see guards patrolling the battlements. I could even see the great sails from the ships in the harbor. I could see a bonfire by the place where I knew the gryphon master was waiting. The gryphon I had rented clearly recognized this too...and he landed safely. I jumped off, nodding to the dwarf tending the gryphon tethers, before walking across the courtyard. Now that I was here, I allowed myself a quick detour before taking care of business. Walking into the barracks, I found the guards' quarters. The ones I was looking for were fortunately present. They were playing dice around a table, trying to earn a few more coppers for themselves...

I walked directly up to the table and hacked both the crossbow bolt that had penetrated my shoulder guard and the one that had entered my talbuk's hind leg into the wood.

The guards nearly fell out of their chairs with surprise and, judging from the look on their faces, fright. I smiled at them. This time it was quite a deliberate action to further heighten their worry, and I narrowed my eyes.

"Next time...you shout 'who goes there?' before you shoot...or I will bury the bolts in something softer else than wood. Got it?" I hissed.

The guards looked at one another, nodding hurriedly. They were looking like they were trying to decide which one of their number to blame, but frankly that kind of cowardice wasn't my thing.

"I couldn't care less who shot. Any one of you would've done it, if he had been the one present. Just remember...something softer...than wood."

One of them actually whimpered and tried to cover his intimates with his helmet. I wasn't about to tell him I had been thinking of his neck. Whatever made them more frightened worked with me. I stood back up straight and pulled off my shoulder guard, looking at the hole through it.

"Good shot, otherwise," I muttered and walked out.

I could hear the collective sigh as the guards started breathing again. The Draenei are, as mentioned, still treated as outsiders. As alien elements barely trusted...and often spoken ill off when those speaking believe no Draenei ears are within range...

Shamen are barely understood by the average human.

I know I am a pariah, but I do what I must, nonetheless.

Then I left. I had to get my armour repaired, so I went to my quarters first. Rubicante wasn't there. I promised myself that as soon as I had told the Vanguard leadership of what I had learned, I would tell her as well. She deserved as much. Her worry for me was ill timed but genuine and kindhearted, and I am not used to kindness like that.

She is a friend, good and true...and I value her deeply for that.

I sat down for a moment, rubbing my face and trying to make sense of all I had experienced in such a short few days. It wasn't easy and I knew I would need time to digest it all. But nonetheless, I had to tell Heomer...Borin...a few others...about what I had seen.

I got up, got armoured and picked my broken and dented equipment up, carrying it to the blacksmith, telling him to have it repaired for me in short order. He didn't look pleased as he put aside the sword he was working on, but I couldn't be bothered. I needed my gear in one piece, probably sooner rather than later. So I left my gear and payment with the amourer and headed outside again, walking across the courtyard and back into the barracks. I walked upstairs and found the right door...

Heomer's door.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I felt Harken's arms around me, one more time...I felt his ghostly lips against my own, and I heard his voice, whispering to me.

I saw the giants, encircling me, forming a stone circle far greater and more powerful than the old shamanistic stones placed there in ages past. I heard the rumblings of the voice of the one possessed by the land...and I felt the thrill of being one with the land myself...

I felt the pain of thousands of cuts...and gasped as I opened my eyes once again...

And then finally...I raised my hand...and knocked on the door.

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And that's it...

[Nicolai Borovskaya]

UMMMPPHHH!!!

That hits hard, Aslaug. Wow. Great story, and I want to read the rest of it. Great characters and development, too.

More, please.

Nicolai

[Kristie_Kitty]

More please Aslaug... I might say that I do things with my bloodelf pally that no pally should do, but only a skilled warrior or druid can handle... I do fight and kill as many Sin'dorai as possible, they taint and found the land too much.

[Aslaug]

The next one was a short interlude I called 'At the Anchorage'...

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My wounds had healed.

At least the physical ones. I wasn't quite sure if my emotional scars would ever stop hurting. The spirits alone would know. I had spent a lot of time sleeping, trying to recover. Healing magic could take care of bleeding wounds, and even hacked off limbs, but not of the pain that tore at your soul.

I had tried to relax a little about it all but it wasn't easy to know I had seen the love of my life, lost for so long, only to once again have to let him go.

There are some kinds of pain that just can't be ignored or dealt with in any rational way.

Getting up, I put on a common robe, tying a belt around my waist. I was in no mood to go adventuring. I mostly wanted to just spend some time around the compound, listening to the sound of the ocean washing against the rocks and the voices of the sailors and marines.

I left the barracks, nodding to Rubicante who was coming home after a particularly long shift at the forges. She needed a bath, bless her, but didn't have the heart to tell her that, seeing how exhausted she appeared. It was late in the afternoon. The sun would be setting soon, and I had wasted most of the day simply laying on my cot, staring at the ceiling. It wasn't very productive.

Sighing, I stuck my hands into a pouch hanging from my belt, taking out a blue sapphire and a polishing stone. I worked on it, ambling aimlessly around the interior of the keep for a while, before nearly bumping into one of the guards.

"Hey...watch where yo..." he started, then cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. Didn't mean no harm."

I shook my head. Most of the guards reacted to me like that after I made my not-so-subtle threat involving a crossbow bolt and soft bodyparts. But I was the one who had nearly knocked him over, and he didn't owe me an apology.

"No, it's alright," I said, probably sounding rather distant. He looked concerned, at least, as I continued to apologize for not having seen him.

"That's a nice stone, Ma'am..." he said, trying to be conversational. "You're a jeweler? I didn't know that. Half the boys in the guardcompany thought you brewed potions..."

I couldn't help smiling. "Why's that?"

"Well, you know...witchcraft and all that?"

"Because I'm a shaman?"

The guard looked embarrassed and nodded. "Yeah...I know it's silly, Ma'am. It's very nice, though. You're making it into a ring or a necklace or something?"

"Don't really know, to be honest. Do you have any suggestions?" I asked.

The guard scratched his cheek. "Well...I know I'd love to give my sweetheart a ring with a stone like that. I'm sure most women would love such a thing. It'd just vanish underneath clothing if you wore it as a necklace, wouldn't it?"

I nodded. He had a fair point there. "I suppose so," I said, digging into the pouch again, taking out a thorium fitting and some mithril filligree.

It wasn't difficult to fashion it into a nice looking, blue and green ring. I did need to heat the mithril to get it to bend properly but commanding the power of fire makes that kind of thing fairly easy. I turned it over a few times in my hand. It was a little gaudy for my own tastes, really, but the guard looked at it with eyes as large as saucers. It hadn't taken me more than a couple of minutes, but the stone was held in place firmly by a mithril filigree netting, and it sat nicely in the thorium socket. Unless someone took a battleaxe to that ring, it'd hold.

It had no magic in it. That wasn't the point really. It was just...something to do with my time.

"That'll go really nicely on your hand, Ma'am," the guard said and smiled, politely.

He wasn't very old. Probably around 24 or 25 human years. He had a short, fair beard and clear blue eyes. I assumed his hair was the same color as his beard, but his coif and pot helmet covered it.

He looked like a nice person. Not the sort you'd expect to pick up a weapon in anger, but here he was...a soldier at Theramore Harbor, and consequently an accomplished warrior.

Maybe his sweetheart, as he had called her, worried as much for him as I had for Harken. Maybe she too dreaded that one day, she'd have to hold him as he drew his last breath, because she lacked the means to heal him. Maybe. Just maybe.

Or maybe she already did know how to heal the wounded. Maybe she was one of the priestesses tending to those in need at the small chapel. I didn't know. In fact, as I stood there, I realized just how little I knew of any of the guards in the compound. I knew the names of a few of them, but most of them were just...faces. I had visited the tower a few times as well, but Lady Proudmoore is an exceptionally accomplished wizard, and a leader of the alliance and frankly she's got better things to do with her time than chat with a lowly refugee shaman.

What would I have to offer someone like her? Knowledge or wisdom? The thought nearly made me laugh.

The guard clearly noticed my smile but he didn't say anything. He seemed to wait for me to speak again, or maybe to move away. I wasn't quite sure.

"What's your name?" I asked him, at last.

He looked completely taken aback by the question. "My...my name?" he asked.

I nodded. "I assume you have one? I thought it was common practice amongst humans to have names."

Laughing warmly, he nodded. "Yes, yes...it is. I do have a name. I'm Wilcott, Ma'am. Nice of you to ask. It's just that most of the Vanguard rarely bothers. Truth be told, a few of the boys think you guys are too high and mighty. I tend to think it's just jealousy on their part."

"Really?"

"Most any of us grunts see is this fortress, the ships coming into the harbor and the swamps beyond the walls, Ma'am. They'll never see what lies beyond the great portal, for instance."

I nodded again, looking at the ring I had made. "Where's your ladyfriend, Wilcott?" I asked. "Here in the compound or somewhere else?"

The young man didn't seem to realize what I was getting at, but he answered dutifully. "She works at the inn, in Menethil Harbor. We're hoping to make enough money to settle down in Goldshire one day, Ma'am."

I smiled crookedly and shook my head. "I wouldn't recommend it. The place is overrun by prostitutes and gamblers these days. It's the kind of place any sane person would ride through in a hurry. I suppose I'd recommend Redridge instead. Good fishing opportunities if you don't mind beating off a few murlocs first, but for a man of your abilities, that shouldn't be a problem."

Wilcott looked surprised at my description of Goldshire. Then he sighed. "Ah well...I didn't know that had happened, but your advice is sound. I'll talk to Maika about it when I see her next. I'm due some leave soon. I'll mention it to her."

"Here..." I said, taking his hand, placing the ring in his palm. "Give her this. And good luck."

As I walked away, Wilcott was staring at the ring in his palm as if I had just given him a year's pay. I don't think it was worth that kind of money. It was just something I'd made in a hurry. If Maika didn't like it, they could always sell it in Stormwind at a jewelers store, and get some money for their first home together.

I walked down towards the water. A ship was coming towards the docks. It was still a ways out. It'd take another half hour or so before it docked. I could easily spend that time simply sitting there, watching the water and the ship coming closer.

There were some barrels and crates that I could sit on. Probably meant to go onto either the incoming ship, or another one. But until someone told me to scarper, I could sit on them. Someone else already did.

I smiled, recognizing the person.

"Good afternoon, Mylord," I said, easing into a seat on top of a tall barrel.

Heomer smiled, taking a long chalk pipe out from between his teeth and blowing a smoke ring. As I expected from that particular human, the pipe-weed was of superior quality. It had a nice, fragrant scent to it, once it was burnt. No doubt it was a dwarven type. Perhaps something Borin had supplied.

"Good afternoon, Vidayi," he responded and stuck the pipe back between his teeth. "Nice day, eh?"

"It is, Mylord. It's getting warmer at last."

"Hopefully. I look forward to being able to enjoy the long warm nights."

I nodded. I could only agree, though the whole cycle of the year was still foreign to me. The seasons weren't quite as long as on Draenor...

Heomer brushed a lock of blond hair back over his head and looked out to sea again, propping his elbow on his knee as he pulled up one leg in front of him. He looked comfortable and content.

Again I found myself wondering about the odd dichotomy betweem warrior and peaceful exterior. Heomer was a force of nature in battle. Standing behind him or the tall, fierce night elf Arydía in battle always made me feel that I had more than merely steel armor and shields between me and danger.

There would be determination, purpose and power.

As long as my spells would not fail, I would remain safe, by their courage and self-sacrifice.

I freely admit to admiring Heomer for this. As I admired any of our front-line warriors, paladins or druids. Those who would charge at the enemy, however numerous, however dangerous, however grotesque, large or horrible. They would still advance, grimly and with long, steady strides, trusting implicitly in the ability of the healers...such as myself...to keep them alive.

They took the greatest blows...the most horrible pain, the most terrifying wounds...believing in what I, and other healers, did to keep them alive.

I felt privileged to fight alongside someone so brave. And I never had the words to express it.

I am not very good with words. I leave poetry to the poets and singing to minstrels.

Noone of consequence, that is who I am. A survivor from a broken race. A survivor without much merit. Someone without great accomplishments of her own, and yet, these brave people allow me to fight in their company.

Sometimes, they even thank me, saying I do a good job. It almost makes me want to cry...or shout out for them to stop. I am not the one felling the monsters. I am not the one who keeps their attention away from the mages or warlocks. Or the healers.

I have no accomplishments to brag about, and they are thanking me?

It makes no sense at all.

Sighing, I tried to push these thoughts away. It wasn't helping my state of mind.

"What's wrong?" Heomer asked. He sounded honestly concerned. His face showed this as well.

I didn't realize I had sighed so loudly that he noticed. "It's nothing, Mylord. Nothing important."

"You're important. And why do you keep calling me that, by the way?"

"Because you are."

I managed to stump him. I don't think he expected so short an answer. "Care to elaborate? You're supposedly the one with all the worldly wisdom here," he said, good-naturedly.

Was I? I know that's what a shaman was supposed to be, but was I really?

"You're a Knight. By definition, you are a noble. A holy warrior, charged by the Light itself to protect and defend those who are incapable of protecting themselves. You are a powerful enemy to those who would do harm to innocents. You are just and kind. Accomplished in many ways...not simply in the ways of war. You are, truly, a great man. What else would I call you?"

I didn't look at him. Afterwards, I suppose that was for the best. He didn't say anything but I could feel his disbelieving stare.

"I'm just one man, Vidayi. I wouldn't be able to do all that I've done without everyone else in the Vanguard."

"I never said they weren't great either," I said, probably interrupting him before he could finish that sentence. "They are powerful people."

"And so are you...don't leave yourself out of this."

"Am I, Mylord?"

Again, I stumped him. Perhaps the tone of voice in which I had asked was the reason. I don't know. I have no doubt he meant what he said. I simply did not understand his meaning at that moment.

"What really happened, Vidayi?" he finally asked. It had taken a long time for him to say something again.

"When?"

"You know when."

"When I went to the stone circle. I already gave you my report, Mylord," I said.

He shook his head, taking his pipe out of his mouth and knocking it gently against the side of his boot, he emptied it.

"To the Twisting Nether with your report. Tell me what really happened," he said.

I sighed. I wasn't even sure how to explain this myself.

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I took my time thinking. Finally, I realized why answering his question was so difficult.

He hadn't asked the right question in the first place.

"It is not easy to explain this, Mylord, but the trip to the stone circle is...not at the heart of it all," I explained.

Lord Heomer nodded, taking a deep breath through his pipe, before picking it out again and looking at me. He didn't say anything for a while, simply observing me instead.

"Alright then..." he said, clearly deciding I wasn't simply trying to get him off my back. "What is at the heart of it all, then?"

He was well within his right to ask, I should say. For one thing he was my commanding officer. For another, he had to know if something was wrong. I could be a liability if it was something serious enough, and many lives could depend on it.

Most importantly...he had a right to ask as a friend.

"It started before I even heard of the Exodar, let alone Azeroth..." I began. "It began when I was very young, and quite innocent..."

He smiled. Rather impishly. "I find it difficult to think of you as 'innocent', Vida," he said, trying not to chuckle.

I smiled. How could I not? He didn't know me all that well, although he probably knew me as well as the majority of my friends. I suppose I'm not the most open soul around.

The fact of the matter was, that I had once been innocent. There was a time before the wars...where the mere idea of taking up arms and causing harm to another living being was enough to horrify me to tears. It seems like it is several lifetimes ago, and I suppose, in some ways it is. I was different then. A peaceful person, who barely knew what she wanted to do with her life. I had odd jobs here and there, like the time where I worked as a tavern wench back when I actually had the looks to do something like that. Or the time where I worked for a scribe who could barely see. That's where I learned how to read and write. He taught me. I was a drifter on the great sea of life and I enjoyed it.

Then I met Harken.

I still remember that day. It was spring. It was a wonderful, warm day and I was sitting outside an inn in what is now the broken remains of the once great Nagrand plains. It is no longer there. I looked for it, from above. That entire part of the plains have fallen away to the twisting nether. I often pray that the spirits received the owner and his wife. They were very kind to me.

That day had been particularly busy at the inn and my legs were aching rather badly. I had been running to and fro. A large group of hunters had come to stay at the inn. A few prominent Draenei and all their retinue, out to hunt the great Clefthooves of Nagrand. Their expedition had been greatly successful and they had felled a number of the gigantic beasts. They had skinned the creatures and brought the meat along, salted. The plan was to sell it at marketplaces around Draenor, where the taste was in high demand.

I had gone outside to put my hooves in some cool water and to simply relax a little, so there I was, dangling my legs in the trough. I must've looked ridiculous.

And suddenly, I heard this voice behind me. It was warm, and kind...and quite amused.

"You know, there are plenty of streams and ponds in Nagrand that you could wash in, little one. You don't have to use a filthy watertrough."

I was so surprised, having sat there entirely in my own thoughts, that I lost my balance and fell into the trough, getting soaked through.

The laughter that met my ears could have charmed the undead, and the strong hands that helped me me out of the water were warm and very gentle.

When I looked up and saw the face of my would-be rescuer, I knew at once that I would never love anyone else again for as long as I lived. No magic could have hit me as hard. No sword or axe could've cut so deeply.

He was tall, even for our kind. Almost a head and a half taller than me. His skin was pale blue, bordering on that shade ice gets when it is very old and thick. His eyes were a deep, powerful purple and his smile was so warm and apologetic I couldn't think of blaming him for getting me all drenched.

"I am most awfully sorry..." he said and brushed my wet hair away from my face.

Spirits, I must've looked like something the cat brought in and then brought up, and I still hadn't said a word. I was dumbstruck...no other word fits.

"Are you alright? You haven't said anything...you haven't shouted at me for making you fall into the trough for instance."

I don't think he quite expected the response he got. The look on his face when I kissed him was one of absolute bafflement at least. He looked like I had just blindsided him, and...in a way...I guess I did. Not until that moment did it hit me that he might be married. That he might be angered by what I had just done. Or that at the very least, I had just come across as a silly little girl...

I did the only thing I could think of at that time.

I ran away as fast as I could.

He tried shouting something at me, apparently to get me to stay but I was terrified at what I had just done, and I was ashamed at my own forwardness and bad manners, and I just ran as fast as I could.

As these memories flooded me, Lord Heomer still waited patiently next to me. I wonder how long I was quiet for. Probably a good long while, but he is a patient man. Patient and a good listener. Some day, he's going to make some human lady very, very happy...provided, of course, that his order allows him to marry.

i began to explain this memory to him. I began to unload the pain I had carried within me for so very long, but I knew I could never get through it all.

He still listened, ever so patiently. Waited until I had explained how I ran away. Then finally he nodded. He'd finished smoking his pipe and he knocked the empty contents out on the side of the barrel he was sitting on. The ship we had seen in the distance was two thirds of the way towards us now. I guess I had been sitting there, in my own thoughts, for quite some time.

"You loved him deeply, I think..." he said. "It practically shines out of you how much you miss him."

Grinding my teeth, I nodded. "I do. I couldn't save him. He died because I didn't have the ability to save his life..."

Lord Heomer nodded. I think he expected that answer, pretty much word for word. "Mind if I ask you something, Vida?" he asked, sounding rather thoughtful. "And before you say yes, I want you to realize that it's going to be rather personal..."

I nodded. Again, I had to accept that he had a right to ask these things. To know the answers to the questions he had. Lord Heomer is a good man. He's treated me with nothing but kindness since I arrived. He, Borin and Rubicante are the three people I get along with the best around the compound...

What does that say about me? A human, a dwarf and a gnome...?

If I got any more open-minded, I could tie it under my chin and wear it as a summer hat, that's what.

Smiling a little at the thought, I took a deep breath. "Go ahead and ask..." I said.

The ship was still coming towards us. It seemed to loom larger and larger on the horizon, but by now, Lord Heomer didn't look that way anymore. His attention was focused on me.

He sat up straight. "Why do you doubt yourself so much? Everyone around here seems to agree you're good at what you do, and most of them seem to like you. Yet, you always seem to worry that somehow, you'll come up short. Is it that you worry that you're not contributing enough?"

I felt like he'd just punched my lights out. That question came out of nowhere. How did he know? Was it that obvious?

"My teacher told me something...when I first trained to learn the ways of the spirits..."

"He told you that you can't heal everyone, nor everything."

I nodded. "You know."

"Everyone around here does. I don't know if you realize it, but you repeat it to yourself over and over again, Vida...like a mantra. Like it's the one rule you live by," he said, shrugging.

"It isn't. It's the one rule am constantly aware of, however. I live by many rules..." I answered.

He nodded. "Fair enough, but you still haven't answered my question."

"I know," I said and rubbed my face. "But it's part of the answer. I want to do better. I always want to do better. I always want to outdo myself...and I always tend to blame myself for anything that goes wrong."

Again, Lord Heomer nodded. He paused a little while, taking out his pipe-weed pouch to refill his pipe. I think he did it mostly as a reflex, rather than because he really wanted to smoke again. It was simply something to do with his hands.

A few dockhands were gathering, to help unload the ship coming in. We'd probably have to move, soon.

"I know why you do it, you know," he said. He wasn't looking at me anymore.

"Really? Why then?"

"You blame yourself every time someone falls or gets seriously injured, because you see your own original failure in every single drop of blood you can't prevent from being spilled. Your entire life is bound up on Harken's death...and the sense of guilt you feel for not having been able to save him. But Vida, as the light is my witness, I am telling you, you are not to blame for that. Had you possessed the skills to save him, the ability to fight beside him to save his life or the magical prowess to blast his enemies apart before they reached him, then yes...you would have been to blame. But you did not..."

I knew there was sense in what he said but...for some reason I started to protest even though I shouldn't have.

"I..." I began, looking up. But he cut me off.

"No Vida," he said, shaking his head. "Listen to me. You are so strong now...so powerful...that you forget how you were then. We all do that from time to time. But take a walk through Stormwind one day, and look at the baker, or the chambermaid, or the street-urchin...or fly up to Ironforge and look at the refugees in the gnomish quarter. They are civilians, Vidayi. Civilians. Non-combatants. They can't defend themselves...and that is why we are here. To help keep them safe..."

Again, I knew he was right. But it still hurt to think of. "I still had to hold him as he died, Mylord..." I whispered.

He nodded and lit his pipe. "And many...many thousands of elves, humans, dwarves and gnomes have done the exact same thing with their loved ones. Held them as they died, because of this Light-forsaken war that just never seems to want to end. Some of them have tried to make a difference, but by far the most of them..."

He shook his head and sighed. He didn't seem to have the words to go on at that moment, so I completed the sentence for him.

"...they never try. They mourn their losses, becry the dead and try to go back to their old lives. But their old lives are gone forever, and they fail to grasp that," I said.

"Exactly. You held Harken as he died. He would have made you extremely happy had he lived, I have no doubt of that. But you made his death mean something, Vida. You didn't sit back and say 'oh woe is me, how am I ever going to get on with my life?'. You went out there and honored his memory...by saving so many other lives."

"Is it that simple? Nothing ever seems to be."

He smiled and shrugged a little. "The next time you heal a stranger of a serious wound...stop and think, if he or she might have a loved one. Someone special...who they will see again, because of what you just did? How can you think you don't make a difference?"

I felt ashamed. It was all true...and so very logical. And it was all so hard to see until someone pointed it out.

"I don't want to wallow in self pity..." I said, grinding my teeth.

Lord Heomer got up. He stuck a hand in his pocket and smiled. Then he patted my shoulder with his free hand and started walking away.

"Feeling sorry for yourself would mean you stopped trying. All you've done is doubt yourself for no reason," he said.

As he walked away, the ship slipped up along the docks and the dockhands swarmed to help secure it at the right berth. Beyond it, the sun was starting to set.

I was hungry...

But right at that moment, I didn't want to move.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There we go...two more coming eventually...

[Nicolai Borovskaya]

Filly, your skill with words astounds me. You did it with Transitions when I first discovered it, with AVC and T2 and T3, and you're doing it again now. You give me a goal to aspire to, to be a tenth of the author you are.

Kudos.

Nicolai

[Aslaug]

The next one was mostly written because I felt like going a bit further into Vidayi's relationship with both Blood Elves and the Forsaken, since those are the two horde-races she thoroughly detests. However, no rule without exceptions as the overused saying goes...

This one was called 'the decent dead'

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It had been a couple of weeks since my conversation with Lord Heomer at the anchorage in Theramore. Time that had passed rapidly and pleasantly. If there is one thing I can brag about, it is that I actually listen to what others tell me.

I'm sure you know the opposite type.

"Mhmm."

"Yeah."

"Erhh..."

Typical answers for many people who seem to listen with half an ear, while their minds are already drifting. It is rude and unsavory, and while I don't always agree with what others tell me, I at least do them the courtesy of listening to what they have to say.

In the case of Lord Heomer, I do tend to agree with him. I certainly agreed with him in the case of my doubts. And as I took his advice to heart, I found myself with a renewed sense of purpose on the adventures the following weeks. I felt less like a hindrance and more like a genuine contributor again, and my relief was almost overwhelming. Seeing Al'ar crumble in on itself the week after made me understand the folly of my own doubts.

Had we not all fought up to our best, the creature would've grilled us. As it is, I have no doubt the vile thing will be back next time we try to enter the Keep. A phoenix is a damnable thing to kill.

It just won't stay dead.

But at least I felt better about myself. Better, and I had the opportunity to help a few friends who were still not strong enough to brave the dangers of outland.

It was on such a mission that I found myself riding south from Darkshire, and into the Vale. My Talbuk, so long my companion, was not particularly keen on Darkshire, with its many wolves and worgen, but he loathes Stranglethorn even more. Not only is it full of raptors and hungry felines, but it's hotter than the inside of a smelting furnace and he made some very displeased noises as the heat became more and more invasive.

We had a long ride ahead of us too. A friend of mine...who shall remain unnamed for this story...was in trouble. He had found himself beleagured by a large group of hungry trolls, and I had to fight my way towards him to help him out. It was off the beaten path, and as I rode carefully through the jungle of Stranglethorn Vale, I marveled at the ancient ruins I could see everywhere.

I have commented before, that I see the races of the horde in a different light from many others. I admire the grandeur of the ancient troll Zuls, even though the trolls of today are savage and barbaric.

I stopped and took the time to admire the head and upper torso of an ancient statue. It resembled a troll, but in the typical style of the Zuls it was not naturalistic. The short tusks and the gentler lines of its face made it clear it was a female. I found myself wondering who she had been. Maybe a queen or a high priestess. Probably so. Few commoners get statues made of them, after all.

She might have been a great hunter, of course...knowing how Trolls value the hunt. Or even a brilliant warrior. I would never know. I wouldn't even know her name, but I couldn't shake the feeling that this statue had been made to resemble and honor someone specific.

My talbuk, in his typical irreverent way picked off a patch of moss from the shoulder of the torso and started chewing on it.

I couldn't help but chuckle. He really has no sense of drama, spirits bless him.

I continued on. To my right, in the far distance I could see the smokestacks of the Goblin construction over Lake Nazferiti. It stank up a storm and the lake, which had probably been both clean and teeming with life in times past, now felt like jelly when swimming in it, and only the hardiest of creatures survive there. Fish with teeth the size of my fingers and crocolisks with teeth the size of my fist.

Teeth all over. Far too big, too.

To my left, there was a slope on which I could see the tell-tale signs of basilisks. Goblins and a few human shapes, forever locked in their last, momentary death-struggle as their bodies turned to stone. It always gave me the willies to see that kind of thing. I had to move carefully. There was a bandit camp up that way as well and while I doubted any of the bandits felt in the mood to test their luck against a shaman wearing the kind of gear I was decked out in, I didn't particularly feel in the mood to commit mass murder on them either.

Live and let live, and so on. So I rode carefully.

A large, striped feline turned its head lazily and observed me from its perch up in a tree. It seemed to think long and hard about whether I was dinner, trouble or death. It seemed to settle on one of the two latter and contented itself with mrowr'ing indignantly at me. One of its paws, swinging lazily from the brance, batted at me as if to show me that it would put up a hard fight, if only I cared to move my face into striking distance.

Naturally, I couldn't be bothered and the feline licked its chops at the sight of my talbuk's muscular body, but otherwise did nothing as I rode by.

Wise kitty, if you ask me.

I estimated I had another half hour to go before reaching my friend's position. Some would probably be racing to get there, but I knew if I did so, I'd alert half the jungle and I'd end up dragging all manner of nastiness with me to his position. His magical message to me had said that he was safe, but unable to leave his position. As long as he could conjure up food and water for himself he could stay there indefinitely, but it was apparently rather dull looking down at a bunch of angry trolls, while being unable to move away for fear of being spotted.

I was coming up on the Mosh'ogg mound. The ogres there would leave me alone, I knew that for a fact. Even ogres wouldn't be so dumb as to attack a Vanguard with experience ranging from the halls of Karazhan to the watery depths of the Coilfang Cavern.

Well...maybe some ogres would.

I'd have to deal with that problem if it arose. For the moment, I had my talbuk, nimble beast that he is, climb up the slippery slope so that I could look down on the gorge leading towards the Mosh'ogg mound.

A tree had fallen across the gorge, ages and ages ago. It was still sturdy enough to carry the weight of a tauren on a kodo, and so a dranei on a talbuk should cause no trouble. I rode past a group of black felines, lazing in a sunny patch of grass, towards this fallen tree. One of the felines looked up...mrowr'ed at me and batted a paw lazily at me before rolling over on its back, stretching and enjoying life.

Smart kitty...

I rode onto the log. It was a far drop down into the gorge, and I moved slowly and carefully so as not to alert any of the ogres below.

But that was when I realized the ogres already had visitors.

I saw a night elf down there. He looked like a hunter. He held his bow with the skill of someone who had been extensively trained to use it. He had one of the stripy felines along. Clearly one he had tamed, although it seemed restless. I stopped for some reason, beholding the scene beneath me.

The elf hadn't seen me and if I called out to him, every ogre within half a mile would be alerted to his presence...and to mine for that matter. So I observed, in horrified silence. He seemed so alone and vulnerable down there.

I saw him approach the rockface and the entrance to the caves where I knew the ogres had their homes. The stench was noticeable even at this distance. Ogres and personal hygeine are not two things commonly associated with one another, after all.

The elf snuck closer. Crouched and cocked an arrow. I saw him nudge his feline companion closer, and the beast roared loudly and pounced the hapless ogre guard at the entrance. The arrow flew straight and true as well, hammering into the massive creature. But it takes more than an angry cat and a single arrow to fell an ogre, and the hunter found himself fighting hard to take down the guard. He was, however, maintaining the upper hand quite expertly.

That is...he was maintaining the upper hand quite expertly until another ogre came down the slope next to the entrance. Apparently alerted by the sounds of combat, a larger ogre with a huge stone hammer came rushing at the elf. I could see the disaster happening before the first blow fell.

Realizing that his life was in danger, I tried to call out to the elf to alert him to the new threat, but in the rush of battle, I don't think he heard me. At least...he didn't react in time.

A moment later, he crumbled to the ground, as the ogre's stone hammer caught him across the shoulder and neck. It was a horrible sight. I felt helpless, and I tried to remind myself of what Lord Heomer had told me at the anchorage. But yet again, I found myself in a position where I couldn't do anything. I was well outside range for any spells and while I could ride down there and blast those ogres, they'd have turned the elf into jelly before I found a way down. Jumping off the makeshift bridge would only result in broken limbs and possible death.

It was a long way down...

I turned my head left and right, trying desperately to find a way. The only way down that I could see meant crossing the bridge, riding hard through a small camp on the other side, hoping the ogres would be too stunned to follow me and then go down the same slope as the elf's assailant had used. I could do so...but I risked hauling along even more ogres.

That was when I saw the new threat...

At first, I wasn't sure what it was. I thought maybe it was a human being for a short moment, but then the lurching gait, and the distinct shine of bleached bones told me the truth.

Down the gully, towards the now-downed night elf and the ogres set on using him in their stew, strode a single undead.

Spirits, how I detest those creatures. They are the antithesis of everything I believe is good and pure. Defying death is one thing but surrendering to the abyss when one DOES die is the only honorable thing to do. The undead...forsaken and scourge alike...refuse to acknowledge the natural order of things by their mere existence. They have no right to...

No...I can't say they have no right to live, because strictly speaking, they don't live.

They have no right to remain ambulatory and consciously self-aware!

Blast it, that sounds so wrong, but there's no other way of putting it. They should do the world a favour and die like the corpses they are!

And here was one of them...honorless, vile thing that it was, walking towards the helpless, unconscious and possibly dying elf. Once she may have been a human woman, but now...she was nothing more than a creature of evil...a being of pure malice and the elf was utterly helpless.

I've seen what the forsaken are willing to do when they need to replenish themselves. There was no way I was letting this elf get eaten!

Spurring my Talbuk, I rode on across the bridge. I crossed over into the jungle on the other side, only to suddenly realize I could not make it down there in time. I was looking into a camp of at least twenty hungry ogres. They hadn't noticed me yet but I would have to blast my way through to get to the elf. Mortified by this fact, I turned my head and looked down into the gully. Maybe the ogres would take down this forsaken creature.

Just maybe.

I realized to my own consternation that I was rooting for the same ogres that had taken down the elf. One of them was badly wounded, and he seemed to be in a lot of pain. I almost pitied him. He looked feeble, with scratchmarks everywhere and two arrow-wounds that would definitely need treatment.

The other one looked hale and healthy. The wounded one dragged himself inside the cave mouth and the large one hefted his weapon with a bellow of rage. Another ogre, of the same size and with a big sword came running out of the cave, apparently alerted to the danger by his wounded companion.

Together, surely they would be able to take this undead fiend apart.

Or so I thought for half a second, before I realized to my horror that darkness came creeping out from underneath the very stones and roots at the bottom of the gully, encapsulating the undead in a shell of pure darkness.

A priestess.

She was a priestess in the service of shadow. My heart sank. The first ogre running towards her...the large one with the stone hammer...broke out in vile corruption and disease. I could see it even at this distance. His legs swayed under him and he slowed down. The one with the sword, hooting and howling, charged straight at the darkness-clad creature, only to see his massive sword-swing be mostly deflected. Still, he had clearly landed a blow. Surely he could land mo...

No...

Leaning back and emitting a shriek of rage, amplified by magic and shadow and the power of death...the forsaken sent the sword-wielding ogre scurrying for safety. While he ran, she gathered up magical energies, struggling to keep the forces at her command under control, before launching them at the already wounded hammer-swinger.

He crumbled to the ground as his slayer turned to face the still horrified ogre running around like a headless chicken.

It wasn't even a fight. He never reached the priestess again before he too fell, skin and bone flayed from his massive body...and finally felled by an invasive spell that literally made his meagre brains explode out through his ears and nostrils.

It was a gruesome, terrifying death and I looked on in shock. This creature now had an open path to the elf...

He was wounded, but alive. Trying to pull himself away with his unbroken arm, he looked at the undead with every sign of horror in his body-language. He knew he stood no chance of fighting her off.

Dammit...I had no choice. I turned in my saddle and looked at the ogres in the camp. I'd have to fight my way through. But...they were gathering up for some reason. It made my chances of simply hacking my way through them one by one considerably smaller. Maybe if I rode back and down the other side? But...that meant riding through the large pride of black felines. No doubt they wouldn't be keen on letting me.

I shook my head in despair. I could reach the elf...but not in time. All I could do was bear witness to what I knew was to come. Still, his courage was admirable...

He pulled out his sword with his unwounded arm, ready to sell his life as dearly as possible. His feline friend was a crushed, striped form on the rock floor of the gulley.

How long had this elf lived? How many centuries of life was about to be snuffed out forever before my eyes?

I had to watch. However horrible this was, I had to bear witness. I would at least do him that honor...

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The elf was probably dying anyway, but he wasn't going to go out without a fight. Nor was he going to let his soul be stripped from him by this creature of darkness approaching him, without at least trying to defend himself to the best of his ability.

That kind of guts is rare, and it's something I admire when I see it. Most people simply roll over and die, or weep for mercy in the face of the inevitable. But not this hunter.

Still, there could be no doubt about the outcome. Except by the luckiest of circumstance, he would die.

I had to do something to help him, but I was still out of range. I tried something in desperation and blasted a large rock with lightning and fire. It was well behind the undead creature, but it did stop for the briefest of moments, looking over its rotting shoulder towards me.

I got a good look at her. For reasons I did not yet understand, she let the shadows recede from all around her. It made her vulnerable and I could only hope that the elf would somehow be able to make use of this self-imposed, voluntary weakness.

It was a forlorn hope. He was unable to use one arm and couldn't pull his bow for that reason, and he was out of sword-range by quite a bit. Besides, he looked like he was about to fall.

But I couldn't drag my eyes from the undead creature. Now that I had seen her face...such as it was...I couldn't simply think of her as 'it'. I loathed that knowledge. The dead are not people. They're rotting carcasses, their spirits long departed.

But something was strange about this one. Her clothes were of good quality. Less like the rags most of the forsaken scuttle about in, and more like a new robe, made recently but already well used. She was wearing a tabbard as well.

A golden downwards chevron...like a V...a red background.

I saw it as clearly as I saw her face...

Her hair, now matted and stringy, was no doubt once beautiful and gleaming. It fell to below her shoulderblades in dark strands. Her face was obscured by a leather X. I have seen it done to other humans upon death. In all likelihood, this woman had been mutilated before she was killed. Her eyes had probably been torn out for one thing. How she saw now was anyone's guess. The leather cross covered her eyesockets anyway. But clearly...she saw me.

Then she nodded. Just once, before looking back towards the elf. He, in turn, stumbled once...then twice, and fell to his knees.

With a burst of speed that surprised me, the undead priestess was by his side and on her bony knees. I thought she was about to tear out his throat with her teeth, before I realized, to my absolute astonishment, that she was supporting him...preventing him from falling. He barely seemed to realize what was going on. No doubt, his conscience was fading rapidly, but the priestess pulled out a bottle from her bags and uncorked it with her teeth.

I thought for a moment to shout to the elf to clench his lips shut, but what did he really have to lose? She held him so gently, I found myself wondering what was going on...

And then she poured the contents of the bottle into his mouth and down his throat.

For a moment, I fully expected to see his body putrefy before my eyes. Or maybe for him to rise as some kind of vile, male siren. But instead, she simply eased him down on his back and then...

And then...

...She beckoned for me.

Knowing I was there, she waved me down towards her. I was shocked beyond words. Was this some kind of foul trick? But had I really any choice but to trust in the strength of my magic and the power of my warhammer if she tried to play tricks on me? Surely, I could defeat a single undead priestess if I had to.

Patting my Talbuk's neck gently, I eased him around the very edge of the cliffs. The ogres in the camp had mostly left...in the opposite direction...

I believe they were singing...

I don't speak ogre, but I think it went along the lines of 'hi-ho, hi-ho...'

...whatever that means...

Only four or five of them were left to guard their camp, and they weren't paying attention to the direction I was coming from. So I rode as far as I could...very slowly...before spurring my Talbuk and galloping right past the first ogre in line. He was too dumbfounded to react. The second one grabbed a hammer and tried to get ready to attack me but his swing was badly thought out and easily avoided. I simply held out my hammer to the side as I rode past him.

He'd survive...but he'd have to drink his food in the future.

Then I was through the camp. The ogres were too stunned to follow me and I blasted down the slope towards the priestess who was still waiting for me at the bottom.

The elf wasn't bleeding anymore. For a split second I feared he had passed on, but then I realized the wound on his neck had closed and his arm wasn't broken anymore. Just blue and black under his shattered armour.

Jumping off my mount, I fell to my knees next to him to examine him.

The undead didn't move. She let me make sure the elf was alright. To my surprise, he was. I had no idea what this was all about, but the stench of rotting flesh in my nostrils kept reminding me to be wary.

Then she held out the empty bottle towards me. What could I do but take it? I think I was was too taken aback to look angry. I even think I said thank you.

Clearly, she understood me. How, I didn't understand at first. My common is heavily accented, and I don't think the undead speak the language. But then it struck me. She might have been from one of the major kingdoms, while alive...and while she didn't speak the language anymore, probably on account of rotting vocal cords, she probably still understood it. At least part of it.

I don't know, to be honest.

But she definitely understood me. She pointed to the bottle and smiled. It was...a strangely friendly gesture. Then slowly she took two steps backwards and walked away, down into the Ogre's den. I sat there and stared after her, before remembering the elf in front of me. His feline companion was all but crushed, but I summoned up my healing magic nonetheless and brought it back from the dead. It didn't look too friendly but I tossed it a steak I had wrapped up in my bags. I had intended to use it as provisions for my friend when I found him but right now, this elf needed help urgently. He was unconscious...but alive. He would survive if he got to safety, and I was the only one available to bring him there.

For a moment, I wondered if the undead priestess would have brought him to safety if she could...but the point, obviously, was that she couldn't. Any alliance guards would have taken her apart the moment she got within half a mile of an outpost or city.

What a way to repay her uncommon kindness.

I found myself, sitting there in the gorge for a moment, wondering if what I had been taught was necessarily true. How I had been taught that the undead had no capacity for unselfishness. No concept of genuine altruism or kindness. That all they had left was hate of all things living, and bile aplenty.

Yet here I had seen one of them, so clearly in a position to tear a wounded night elf apart, and she had not only spared his life.

She had saved it.

Whatever the cause was, I couldn't stay where I was. I picked up the elf as gingerly as I could, placing him astride my talbuk. If the feline wanted to follow, I wouldn't stop it. But if it ran free, I think it had earned that right as well.

As chance would have it, it took one long, mournful look at the elf...then darted off amongst the trees. I quietly wished him all good things, and then I got up on my mount and sped off. There was a small rebel camp only an hours ride away.

My friend would have to sit still on his perch for a while longer.

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