Time is a strange place. Described as a thread by the foolish and unknowing, seen as a desert, an ocean of sand, by those who have experienced its multitudes of truths. Those who measure it are aware that they do so in relation to their own time, what is a fleeting memory for one is alike an eternity for another, an identical given situation passes with different velocity for two different individuals. Time is personal, its travellers seldom know more of its wiles, its quirks, its deeps and shoals, its ebbs and tides... Azeroth's time is, when the old general alignment system is applied to it, True Neutral at best, and Chaotic Neutral at worst, and this worst has bled, or rather will, over into Draenor during the passages of time when the Dark Portal was - or will be - open, as did - will - influences from the worlds beyond the gateways that would tear the planet apart. Draenor's time is chaotic. Chaotic enough, it seemed, to return people of different ages to the same stage of childhood... The draenic priest who had an eye on a group of children of many different people - most of which he had never heard of, let alone seen until this day - was not sure whether this had been a coincidence or if someone (or something) had created a sand painting of time with unerring skill and ability... But still, the fact that two of the children were known to him amused him in a way. Nerina had defected from the Burning Legion some millennia ago and had become a paladin so devout it bordered on fanaticism of a most unhealthy kind at times, and Karel was a young follower of the light who had been... fascinated by Nerina ever since he had witnessed her smite a Dreadlord to dust with two strikes. Judging by how she just had gleefully coaxed him into seeking, her self-destructive tendencies had ceased in favour of a slightly mischievous streak, and that Karel had not managed to get as close to her as he might've liked to, if he wasn't mistaken. From the corner of his eye, the priest noticed a blue and green, tusked cat creeping up a tree, only to be returned to the ground by an almost black one with silver crescent markings on its shoulders. The two felines hissed and clawed at each other, and as they chased each other over the roots and through the shrubs, he couldn't help but wonder how majestic and frightening a battle this would've been had they been their full sizes. He also couldn't suppress a chuckle about how fast Karel had spotted them and called their names, Miraga and Tebraska. Miraga was one of the lavender-skinned sisters with glowing white eyes, Tebraska... was the one who had not been part of the pile of blue, two-toed, three-fingered and tusked children bawling their eyes out some time before. One of the children of said pile, Sul'Zala, had had a... heated back-and-forth with Miraga's sister, Tilaria. The priest hadn't understood a single word of it, but judging by the other's reactions, he hadn't intervened, and judging by their gestures, the subjects had been the hair of that third boy, Frey's - apparently Tilaria's son, but he looked so much unlike her with his pinkish skin, blue eyes, and how his ears pointed upwards instead of backwards - hair, the ears of many people and how the darker haired sister had begun sobbing when someone handed her a mirror. Long story short, as soon as Karel had started counting, they shorthandedly polymorphed each other, and on Tilaria's spot appeared a fat, clucking bird, and on Sul'Zala's a toad. Karel, oblivious to the disguises, passed by them and continued searching. The next one to be found was a pudgy girl reacting to the name Awanatu. Like Celys and Beth - another pair of sisters - she looked a bit similar to Frey in terms of skintone, but, curiously, had round ears. After the seeker had found her, she left the barrel she had hidden in the same way she had entered it - by making it fall over, climbing out, and putting it back up.
In the meantime, Karel had, on the way to a statue depicting a warrior and a cleric, tripped over another pair of tusks, these belonging to Jubu'jin, the only boy among the tusked children, who, while holding the place where the tusk emerged from his jaw, promptly emerged from a shrubbery while loudly yelling at Karel. The two smaller figures on the pedestal with the other statues started giggling. Jubu'jins two other sisters, Al'sheira and Tol'waris, had assumed the postures of the two larger figures in an attempt to hide in plain sight. The priest noticed their composure, as they had petrified their faces again in an almost parodying reflection of the statues' expressions, but as Karel attempted to chew them out for their (in his eyes) disrespectful behaviour, the two blueskinned girls keeled over laughing and rolled across the ground, clutching their bellies, which only fueled the seeker's tantrum. All this, however, couldn't move Celys to slip, who had crawled behind the cleric's shield. The priest could imagine how difficult it must be for the girl to stay where she was, an act of balance, strength and concentration, all while praying that the statue didn't break - the priest knew that it wouldn't, but did she? He chuckled and let his gaze drift over the courtyard, when it struck him that he couldn't locate three of the children. Nerina, Frey and Beth had found their hiding spots when he hadn't been looking. While searching for them from his higher point on the above terrace, he heard a voice from behind.
"Akama?" The priest turned around and bowed down hastily when he saw who had addressed him.
"Prophet Velen! What has lead you here -"
"Oh, I was informed of a temporal and magical disturbance, but...", Velen glanced down into the courtyard, "the only thing I can see are playing children." The Prophet smiled softly.
Akama blinked. "... of which three have hidden themselves so well that I can't locate them, even though I had an eye on them all this time."
Velen looked at him with an expression of slight surprise and bemusement. "Is that so?"
Below them, two bats had replaced the chicken and toad. Akama had the impression that they mocked each other's lack of imagination, but that could very well be his own, for he also could've sworn that one of the bendwood stalks was twitching slightly.
"Did you know, Akama?"
"Hm?"
"That old tree over there...", Velen pointed to one of the oldest trees on the temple grounds, a behemoth with two intertwined stems. "If you approach it from the other side, there's a small gap, near the ground. Curiously, I've seen quite a few of the younger temple inhabitants do something few of the older ones don't even seem to take into consideration..." The senior priest chuckled softly. Akama furrowed his brow. "I'm afraid I can't follow..." The old Prophet turned his head to the younger priest and suddenly his eyes glowed with youthful energy. "This gap might be too small for an adult, and far below their field of vision, but I've been told that a child fits through quite well, depending on its size..." he set an artistic pause. "I've also been told that one of the trunks is partly hollow, leaving enough room for at least one child, again depending on its size."
Akama blinked, them a smirk grew on his lips. "Now I know where Vassilj and Mikhael hide from their chores... But what about -", the priest stopped when he saw that his visitor seemed to be deep in thought. It quite surprised him when he started to speak again. "How unique a hideout..." - "You've found the last child?" - "Indeed. Say, Akama, how would you search for her?"
Akama thought for a bit, when it hit him. "Mind Vision! So she's within seeing range of one of the others?"
Velen looked at him disappointed and tsked disapprovingly. "Only half as good as you usually are. You should work out in the fields again for a bit, you've lost greater parts of your vision..."
The younger priest hit his forehead with his hand. "Of course! Birds, insects, rodents, the children are not the only creatures with eyes down there!" He laughed at his own blindness. The Prophet smiled again. "Wasn't so difficult now, was it? Ah, before you choose your eyes, I wouldn't take the turtle as it appears to be a victim of a polymorph spell."
Akama looked down. The two bats were nowhere in sight, but a brand-new turtle sunbathed on a rock near the pond. Within, he spotted an easy target in a carp that moved slowly through the water. For a moment he had the impression that it was struggling to move like a fish, then he was greeted by a flurry of curses and a very unfishy mind as he looked through her eyes. What were the odds? Someone seemed to mess with them today. The carp floated towards a small forest of bendwood near the edge of the pond, where he spotted the last girl, Beth, patiently sitting below the surface and breathing through a bendwood stalk. Impressed by her tenacity, he retreated from the not-carp's mind.
"I thought you had seen it flap towards the water.", Velen mused. "I pondered congratulating her, but she seemed distracted by figuring out how to move. A quite impressive learning curve, though, I must say."
From below, the two heard Karel yell something, followed by a synchronous snide remark from the discovered children. Shortly after, a water spouting Sul'Zala emerged from the pond, followed by a water spouting Beth attempting to either strangle or drown the not-anymore-carp. Tilaria simply acted as if she hadn't noticed the polymorphization wear off and continued sunbathing like she did in her ten-minute existence as a turtle. Celys joined them rubbing her wrists. She looked around puzzled. Moments later, eight children frantically scurried around calling the names of their two missing friends. As the ex-turtle rolled on her back, the two cats yawned, looked at each other and dashed towards the old tree. Their race was followed by a high yelp and the other children running towards the sound.
"What would I give to understand the tongue in which they're talking...", the old Prophet said when their voices grew louder again. Nerina was surrounded by the the girls, a giggling mass of voices, while Jubu'jin had put his long arm around Frey's shoulder and dragged him away from Karel, who seemed to be fuming with rage.
In the middle of the courtyard, Frey and Nerina faced each other. Momentarily, the air around them changed, brimming with a playful antagonism. Velen motioned Akama to stay put and watch as both children shot forward their right hands in different postures. A second later, Frey threw his fists up in triumph.
"Looks like the next round is starting."