A.N. - Well, here's a sequel. There really wasn't supposed to be one, but... I just love the characters too much. So they're all back! Hoorah!
This was written much as the other was. All in one night and with no one to check it for errors. Hmph, whatever. I'm too lazy. I wasted all my energy chasing this effing plot bunny.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer - i pwn j00, beeyotchz!!1!!11111
"No!"
Aushaedra could scarcely register the ragged cry of her friend, for someone else was screaming. Someone much closer. As her indigo-skinned hand reflexively closed over the girth of a spear that had been driven clear through her abdomen, the draenei realized that the closer screams had been ripped from her very own throat. The huge, black tauren that owned the weapon drew it out swiftly, sending the huntress sprawling face-first onto the soft, loamy earth that made up the spidery streets of Astranaar. She lay there, writhing and groaning, morbidly marvelling over the way her life seeped away in torrents, changing the soil to mud beneath her. It took everything that she had to lift her head, peering through her sweaty hair at the immense warrior that stood triumphantly over her.
He winked mockingly, twirling his enormous polearm as if it weighed no more than a marching baton.
I've seen him somewhere before, came a disconnected thought from some random corner of her agonized brain.
Strangely exhausted, Aushaedra's ridged forhead plunked down into the dirt. She couldn't breathe, but it didn't matter. She knew from the way that the tauren had ceased his laughter, from the way he had inhaled, from the way his spearhead sang in the light of the burning homes... she knew that her life would end there, crumpled in the street.
"To the abyss with you, you great oxe!"
It was the half-sobbed roar of a vengeful night elf, her violet hair flying about madly as she thrust her trident out, catching the death-dealing spear between its prongs. The momentum of the jab swung the two polearms about, and the trident was wrenched from the far less brawny elf's hands.
The tauren had no time to gloat however, because the elf flew at him ferociously, teeth bared and fists clenched. Said fists dealt lightning fast blows, and the tauren staggered backwards, completely stunned. After a few seconds, the bull gave an angry snort and set his hooves, ramming the back of his spear into the elf's ribs. She went down breathlessly, the wind knocked clean out of her. Fluidly he spun his weapon, intending to impale her as he had the draenei, when a huge, snarling nightsaber buried its wicked claws into his side.
"That a girl, Jaeda," gasped Raelena as she rolled onto her back and threw out her legs, hurling herself to her graceful feet. The fallen trident was snatched up as she went. Huntress and pet fought valiantly, ignoring the choas that ensued around them, but very conscious of the draenei dying on the floor but a few feet away.
When the ground gave a sudden, violent shake, and Raelena found herself more concerned with keeping her footing than delivering her next strike. The tauren grinned darkly and lifted his massive hoof once more, slamming it full-on into the side of the nightsaber, which gave a strangled roar before it collided with the smoldering trunk of an ancient tree. Raelena, dazed and unthinking, shot a glance to her unconscious cat worriedly, wondering if she would lose both of her sisters in the same night. This gave the warrior time enough reach out and push his huge elbow into the night elf, sending her to the blood-drenched earth near a motionless Aushaedra.
Her energy spent, Raelena forced herself into a crouch, eying the chuckling tauren with tired hatred. He gazed back smugly, then in annoyance. He knew that he had won, so why did this girl maintain the cold pride of a victor?
A grim smirk twisted her lips. In beautifully accented orcish, she hissed: "This is for spilling your ale on me five years ago, you flea-bitten sod."
Lengthy, venomous fangs pierced armour and sunk into flesh. The bull's small eyes widened in shock and pain. After uselessly clutching at the vice-like jaws fastened around his neck, the warrior began to flail about with his spear. Briefly. Within seconds he was bound by the mighty coils of a monstrous viper, who had finally released it's toothy grip on the tauren's punctured throat to rear up over him, hood spread wide, radiant red eyes staring murderously into the terrified face of its prey.
A flicker of it's shining tongue later and the lower jaw had unhinged from the upper, the gaping mouth easily enveloping the warrior's black-furred snout.
Raelena did not watch as Dazragoth, Ausha's companion, attempted to devour the paralyzed, dying tauren. Instead she clutched at Aushaedra's shoulders and gently turned her over, taking in the closed eyes and pallid skin of her fellow huntress. Raelena bit back her tears when she felt a faint pulse in her friend's neck and looked around desperately, calling out for help. But the foreign horns of the Horde were sounding a retreat, signaling the raid to be at an end, and the remaining Alliance were too taken with chasing after stragglers to hear Raelena's pleas.
"Whoa there, boy!"
"What-- have we missed it?"
"Damn their green skins!"
"Where are they?"
A riot of snarls in Darnassian.
Raelena whirled around, hidden tree roots biting into the leather that encased her legs. Eight night elves sat astride their oversized sabers, apparently dismayed to see that the Horde had already gone. One had even climbed off of his tiger just to kick the corpse of an orc childishly, swearing in irritation.
"Help!" Cried Raelena, her voice worn and broken. "Please, help! My friend-- Ausha! She's dying!"
But most of the elves had sunk into a shouted argument-- some rubbish about who made them all late, who was responsible for leading them on a wrong turn-- such innane and trivial things, when Raelena's sister lay, nearly gone, in a pool of her own blood. They did not hear her.
Red misted the corners of her vision as she twisted to her feet, glowering in a maddened way that many warlocks would envy. She began to sprint forward, set on crushing the skull of one of the more surly male elves on the horn of his stupid epic saddle, when what appeared to be a huge panther raced by in the opposite direction. It was intent on reaching the vulnerable draenei behind her. Some panicked part of Raelena's mind shrieked that the strange cat intended to make a meal of her friend. Horrified, she whipped in front of the panther, the beast stopping in surprise as blood-speckled, rosy hands braced against its sinewy chest, holding it at bay.
"No, you awful furball," the elfess sobbed, shooting a glare at the bickering elflords. "Control your bloody kitten, alright?!"
And then she was suddenly grasping a pair of leather-clad knees instead of a velvety pelt.
Gawping lamely at the tall shins before her, it was a second or so before Raelena leapt away, staring up into the calm yellow eyes of an elven druid.
"Get out of my way," he began in a deep, soft voice that contained more warmth than the words themselves implied, "and I will help your friend."
Raelena looked a little longer at the young-yet-old face of the elflord before shuddering and moving away, falling to her knees at the edge of the bloody puddle beneath the fallen draenei.
As soon as she moved the druid did, swiftly stepping to the other side of the draenei and kneeling down, murmering to himself as he gently brushed filthy hair from the dying woman's closed eyes and lax lips. He placed his hands expertly over the dire wound, assessing it, then turned his gaze once more to the lifeless face. He seemed to hesitate, his long brows furrowing in thought.
"Please," moaned Raelena in anguish, clasping the draenei's cool hand in her own, watching her friend through her tears. Why was he dallying? "Please, please..."
The druid regarded this in silence before nodding, resolved. Bowing his head, he lifted his arms out and away from him, palms open and faced toward the smoke-veiled moon. As he drew in a slow, deep breath, lively emerald light began to swirl and sparkle about his splayed fingers. He then swept his hands downward, running his magicked palms an inch from Aushaedra's body, from head to hoof, before bringing them together over the pierce. When he exhaled, the light intensified, departing from his hands altogether and vanishing into the torn flesh of Ausha's torso.
Hope died in Raelena's eyes when, after many seconds, nothing happened. She looked to the druid frantically, but found his countenence to be just as calm and thoughtful as it had ever been, his gaze intent on Aushaedra's face.
"Try again!" The purple-maned elfmaid snarled, tightening her hold on the draenei's hand. "You must try again!"
The druid blinked as if wakening from a trance. Slowly, very slowly, he lifted his sharp, goateed chin to look on Raelena placidly. After another painfully long moment, his deep voice inquired, "Whatever for?"
"What kind of a druid are you!" Crowed Raelena, tears flowing from her pained silver eyes. "It didn't work, you big idiot! Now, you've got to try again--"
"Rae..."
It was a faint, cracking voice. One that made Raelena forget her frustration entirely and snap her attention down to the stirring draenei.
"Rae..?" Ausha gasped again.
"Ausha!" Raelena burst into new tears, running her hands over her sister's warm, but still pale face. Her beautiful, beautiful face! "Ausha-- you're fine, you're alright!"
"I was stabbed," the draenei murmered dazedly, looking around her. "I was dying, Raelena, I knew I was." She frowned in foggy confusion. "Who... who healed--" her voice faded as her large, bleary eyes widened, settling on the druid's faintly smiling visage. All she saw in her delirium was his blue skin, very angular features, and bright yellow eyes...
Aushaedra's shaking hand lifted. The druid did not move away when the draenei's fingertips ran in a caress across his cheekbone, but a ponderous sort of interest began to gleam in his luminous gaze.
Raelena, allarmed by her friend's feverish behavior, did not recognize the word that Ausha then spoke in so hushed a whisper before she lost consciousness.
"Arakem..?"
"Dazragoth!"
Thick purple mist hung inexplicably over the damp, weirdly spongy forest path, making it quite difficult for Aushaedra to see past the treeline. Enormous, puffy blue blossoms fluttered from the sky like snowflakes, obscuring her vision all the more. The huntress was beginning to suspect an allergy to the airborne flowers. Sneezes like roars ripped through the woods, bouncing thunderously off distant mountains and giving the Dark Iron Dwarves all splitting headaches.
"Ugh," moaned the draenei after one particularly violent outburst. She ran her fingers over her nose, sighing in relief upon confirmation that it still remained firmly attached to her face. Stupid flowers. Stupid mist. Stupid snake-- where is he? "Dazragoth?" She called again, scanning the impenetrable purple vapor in hopes of glimpsing seafoam scales. Up the path, the slightest glimmer of light winked through the fog.
"Dazra!" Ausha bolted over the well-trodden soil madly, somehow convinced that the shimmer was the early morning sunlight playing off of her viper's shiny body. Waxy, fat leaves thwacked against her blue skin as she hastened onward, topping a hill that she had no recollection of climbing. However, the altitude meant that she had escaped the queer fog, and could now see what had glittered at her from the distance.
It was the window of a curiously cute yellow cottage. Aushaedra was instantly enchanted by the sight. The tiny dwelling seemed to have become one with a gorgeously well-tended garden. Fragrant creme hydrangeas lined the cobblestone path that led up to the door, which stood totally ajar. The aroma of bacon and eggs wafted from the house, and Ausha became aware that she was utterly ravenous, even though she had been just fine a second before.
"Maybe the owner will have seen Dazra," Ausha muttered to no one, secretly hoping that the occupants would offer her some of their breakfast. She eagerly clip-clopped up to the cottage, deciding to knock on the door despite it being open. She hoped she wasn't drooling like a maniac. "Hello?"
"Come in, come in!" Came a cheerful reply, although it sounded as if the voice's owner was stricken with a terrible sore throat. "In the kitchen."
Blinking at the casual welcome, Ausha padded across the soft, fluffy rug of the entryway awkwardly. Finding the kitchen was simple-- there had to be two rooms in the entire cottage, and only one was filling the house with that mouth-watering smell...
"Hello," Ausha repeated, announcing herself as she entered the kitchen. The master of the house was hunched over an oven, lost in a cloud of delicious smoke. He did not turn to look at her. She willed herself not to stare at the platter full of toast upon the counter and continued. "My name is Ausha, and I was just wondering if you've seen--"
He whipped around suddenly, his oddly-shaped, oversized chef's cap flying off of his long, black-purple hair. "Aushaedra!" Arakem Dra'Lonn cried in happy greeting, his lost hat forgotten entirely.
"By the Naaru," gasped the wide-eyed draenei, her brain flat-lining in shock. He looked no different. He was dead, so he couldn't age. Rich-but-ragged priestly robes were still present, even his gauntlets. But new to his apparel was a crisp white apron with pale pink frills, the phrase "Kiss the corpse" stitched across the front in a decidedly feminine flourish.
Ausha gaped at it.
The forsaken grinned merrily, turning from his guest to shuffle through his cabinets and then back to the oven, brandishing a shiny spatula.
"A-Arakem?" Stammered the huntress, not really believing that she was seeing him, and not at all believing that the cozy little cottage was his home.
"Fancy a pancake?"
Ausha took the plate that had been thrust in her face, looking at her reflection in the over-abundance of maple syrup that was quickly drowning a mass scrambled eggs. "Pancake," she stated dumbly.
Arakem was back at his oven in a blink. "Mmm, pancake," He agreed, and Ausha could see his grin through the caverns of rot that resided below his sharp cheekbones. "Have a sit down, Miss Zalduuni! It's been a while, hm? Bacon will be done in two shakes of a murloc's spear."
Like a brainless gnomish automaton, Aushaedra plunked down at his kitchen table, resplendant in a white and red checkered tablecloth. She didn't eat, but just stared at Arakem in utter bewilderment. "Bacon?" She asked weakly.
"Mmm, bacon."
Ausha's head was starting to hurt. A fork was suddenly in her hands, and she found herself shoveling down the contents of her plate as if she had no control over her body. The eggs had somehow turned into toast, but Ausha didn't pay it much attention.
"I must say, I'm flattered," snickered the frill-decorated undead, shaking his head at Ausha as if she were the ridiculous one. "I must be a wonderful cook. Either that or she hasn't eaten in days. You really should take better care of your mistress, Dazzles."
He was now addressing Dazragoth. The viper had appeared out of nowhere, and appeared to be accomplishing the impossible by swallowing a tauren whole.
Completely overwhelmed, Ausha began choking on her toast, which had turned back into eggs whilst she chewed them.
"Uh oh!" Arakem croaked in allarm. "Man down!" Showing incredible agility for a dead guy, the shadow priest leapt up onto the table and began slapping the wheezing draenei in the face with his spatula. "Are you okay?" Whack! "Ausha!" Whack, whack! "Are you okay, Aush?!" WHACK!
Aushaedra groaned and whapped plaintively at the hands that were roughly clapping her cheeks. "Cut that out," she muttered, flopping an arm over her eyes. She knew she should have been thanking Raelena for extracting her from the millionth dream she'd had involving he-who-must-never-be-spoken-of. Or-thought-of. But...
Why did she always feel so put out when his face vanished with the dream?
"You're awake!" Squealed Raelena joyfully.
The draenei scowled. "Unfortunately, and to my extreme annoyance. I'm exhausted, Raelena. Go away."
Raelena glowered at her friend, planting her hands on her hips. "Just glad to know that you aren't going to die. My bad for caring."
Aushaedra sat up rapidly, remembering the tauren and the spear and the pain. In a moment of belated panic, she lifted her torn tunic to inspect her stomach. It was quite in-tact. "Light be praised," she sighed, running her palms over her curling horns as she calmed down.
"Nature be praised, more like," came a basement-deep, masculine murmer.
Ausha started at the strange voice and twisted around to blink at the druid, his hawkish face illuminated hauntingly by the light of the campfire.
"Er-- pardon?" Fumbled the blue huntress.
"Oh yeah," grumbled Raelena, waving her hand unceremoniously in the elflord's general direction. "This is Lume, the incompetant druid."
The elflord, Lume, gazed evenly back at Raelena as she tried to glare holes into his head. "I healed her in one sweep, hunter. I assure you, this is not an implication of incompetance."
Raelena ignored his eerily calm behavior without shame. "And I can assure you that you're as slow as a tortoise."
"Thank you, my lord Lume," Ausha broke in loudly, annoyed by the one-sided bickering. "You saved my life," she continued once they had quietted. Lume returned his feral golden eyes to her, tilting his head in a bestial manner. Multiple tiny hoops in his long ears jangled softly with the faint action. "I owe you my life, sir. I don't know how I can repay you, but I am grateful." The draenei hoped desperately that he'd hear her sincerity.
The druid regarded her in his customary silence, his great hands steepled before him. He looked like was sitting on a throne in Darnassus, not a blasted stump in the center of a very ruined elven village. His long white hair made him look like an ancient, majestic lion, and Aushaedra realized that she was looking at him in unveiled awe. Embarrassed, she quickly straightened out her features and focused on his winged brows instead of his striking eyes.
"You are welcome, lady huntress," he rumbled, his expression intense, thoughtful and unreadable. "I shall call in a favour someday, then."
The druid's flowing speech was spellbinding, and Ausha was caught up in gawping at him again when Raelena gave a snort of laughter, instantly twisting the druid's meaning into something that made Aushaedra blush navy. She glared at the elfmaid's waggling eyebrows, mouthing an emphatic 'no'.
Rolling her bright eyes as her elven friend began to make kissy faces at her suggestively, Ausha decided to tune her out and instead turned to Lume, who had coaxed a passing lunar moth to alight on the back of his hand. He seemed to have the world as a whole on ignore, favouring the twitchy insect with a faint curl of his lips.
"So, you're a druid." Ausha immediately wanted to slap herself. What a stupid question!
But Lume looked at her without mockery, his gaze much the same as it ever was. Passive and observant. "I am."
"D'uh," huffed Raelena flopping onto her side gracelessy whilst fluffing the nightsaber, Jaeda, as if she were a pillow. The snoring cat did not stir.
Ausha shot her friend an acidic look, but it was wasted. The elfmaid had already fallen asleep.
Sighing, she turned back to Lume, who still looked on her in silence, as if they had not been interrupted.
She cleared her throat. "I've never had a chance to really talk to a druid before," Ausha explained, fiddling with her torn gloves. "And I was... I was just wondering about something."
Lume nodded, dismissing the charming green moth with a gentle flick of his wrist. As soon as the creature bumbled off on it's way, the elflord steepled his hands before him once more. "By all means, lady huntress. I welcome your inquiries."
Smiling at his extreme likeness in behavior to one of her old professors, Aushaedra felt suddenly very at ease with the soothing-voiced druid. "I was wondering whether druids naturally can just become animals, or if they have to learn how to do so. If the latter, then couldn't anyone change into an animal? And why only night elves and the tauren? How is the magic of nature different from the arcane, or that of the light? What--"
Ausha halted her assault when the elflord raised his hand for silence. His chuckle was like the roll of distant thunder. "You are a lover of knowledge." Gold eyes sparkled with admiration. "Allow me to answer these complex questions of yours first, and in a logical order, if you do not mind." He gave a hint of a smile at the draenei's blush, shaking his head dismissively at her murmered apology. "Let me first explain to you the differences between these 'magics'..."
A few hours later, Raelena woke up to the sound of voices. Instantly alert, she pretended to sleep and watched the elflord and her friend through her eyelashes, the one ear she wasn't sleeping on perking curiously. When she realized that the druid was monologuing about the souls of beasts and birds and other boring things, she felt very sorry for her friend who had gotten stuck with him. Upon flicking a secret glance toward the draenei, the elfess was shocked not to see her comatose, but quite the opposite. Ausha sat on her hooves, elbows on the floor betwixt her knees, her chin cradled in her hands. She was facing Lume, listening to his lecture avidly, interrupting politely to ask him attentive questions every now and then.
By Elune, Raelena thought exasperatedly. I can't believe she's enjoying this. He sounds like a bloody talking encyclopedia!
"...is not so much that a human or one of your kind couldn't become a druid, but that the tauren and we night elves have long developed our relationships with nature, unlocking mysteries and forging bonds. We have drawn close to nature, we understand it, feel it's moods and desires. Because we are closer to nature, we have discovered the water is boiling."
The poetic rhythm of Lume's voice made his last words seem to go together with his lecture, so Ausha blinked in confusion when Lume just sat quietly, looking at her.
"Huh? Oh!" She clattered to her hooves, reaching out to remove a pot from it's place gurgling over the flames. Two mugs had been laid out beforehand, and she filled them carefully before setting the pot down in the ash-speckled dirt.
Lume rose from his kingly perch and knelt next to Ausha, reaching into a pouch to draw out a few pinches of dried feathery leaves and crushed white blossums. These were sprinkled into the mugs, and Ausha smiled, inhaling the sweet-scented steam rising from the steeping tea. She was blushing again just as soon as the white-haired elflord took up her leather-clad hand, kissing her knuckles in a purely well-bred fashion. Only afterwards did he thoughtfully and gently brush away bits of fertile, dark earth that clung to her long fingers.
"Thank you for boiling the water, lady huntress."
Ausha fought her blush furiously, unused to such actions. She and Raelena were just simple rangers. Lume's high-class background was obvious at a glance.
"Thank you for the peacebloom, my lord Lume," she returned.
He was regarding her with that barely there smile again. " 'Lume' suffices well enough, I think."
Ausha nodded once more, smiling back. "Alright, Lume."
Nodding, Lume rose and turned back to his makeshift seat, his silvery hair shining in the firelight. Once the two had resettled into their old positions and carefully sipped their scalding tea, the druid resumed his lesson as if he had never paused.
Raelena was not the only one who watched the two.
A shadow stood in the darkness of the forest, blacker than the night that surrounded it.
Arakem Dra'Lonn had never known such senseless, covetous rage in his life. Or in his unlife, for that matter. He clenched and unclenched elongated, claw-like fingers, bared his yellowed teeth, bit down on his graying tongue. Pent up energy snapped and crackled about him, summoned and ready to be hurled mercilessly at that thrice-damned druid's skull.
Word of the successful raid had reached Orgrimmar a thousand times faster than the returning raiders themselves. Arakem had been shocked to hear that Morthas, an infamous tauren warrior, had been slain by a mere slip of a night elf. When he had expressed his admiration for this mysterious huntress, the messenger shrugged and replied, laughing, that the girl had been royally pissed off when Morthas had skewered her draenei friend.
Odd couple, thought Arakem absently, not really listening anymore. He had only ever seen one such duo, and that had been five years ago on The Night.
The undead froze up suddenly before he reached out and clutched the messenger's sweaty wrist in his icy hand. The messenger ceased his excited rambling and looked at the snarling dead priest fearfully.
"Listen to me, this is very important." Arakem's voice hissed and gurgled in a sickly, repulsive way, and the messenger wanted desperately to bolt. The fel yellow eyes of the forsaken bound him with terror however, and the orc youngling could only nod.
"What did the elfmaid look like?"
"Uhh-- she, uh--" Arakem gave the youngling a harsh, commanding shake. "She had pink skin, long, purple hair and leopard-ish dots on her face, and she was really, really hott--"
Arakem's skeletal stallion left the messenger choking on dust.
Terrible fear gnawed at his unbeating heart as he flew to Ashenvale, slipping the flightmaster a very generous mass of gold. The flightmaster made sure that the wyvern flew far faster than it usually would.
Arakem had no doubt that these were the very same Alliance ladies he had encountered five years ago. He was only afraid, so desperately afraid, that he would arrive to see Her skin pale instead of rich indigo, Her shining eyes glazed and unseeing, Her body mangled and cold...
As cold as his was.
"Hang on, Aushaedra," he rasped pleadingly into the thick forest air, his horse's hooves beating the ground at a frenzied pace. "Please, don't leave me!"
He had dismounted when he drew near to the charred carcass of Astranaar, shifting into a sleek shadow and creeping about. His bones creaked as they normally did, but the resumed chirruping of crickets and the yowling of wolves covered him.
Besides, the village had been mostly abandoned.
Arakem's keen eyes inspected scores of corpses, but none were his Ausha's. He didn't know whether to be relieved or to panic. He was near the latter when he saw a lone campfire. Hope flared into brilliant life in his lifeless chest, and he moved forward swiftly.
Only to go stiff when he was close enough to see.
Yes, Aushaedra was alive and well. But who. Was. That?
The undead was vaguely aware of his joy upon discovering her to be alive, but screaming jealousy raged in the forefront.
A striking elflord moved gracefully to Ausha's side and dropped to his knees. Their backs were turned toward Arakem, and he observed coldly the way her soft white hair was more ivory in comparison to the elflord's moon-pale mane, falling down like a frozen river on his lithely muscled back.
Some broken bit of him even niggled plaintively over how much taller than Arakem the druid was.
And the elf was a druid, that much was clear. More than likely he was the one that had healed Aushaedra. The one that had saved her life.
Her hero.
Arakem slumped further than he normally did, hiding his face away with his unnaturally long, decaying hands. How many times on his rushed journey had he secretly entertained visions of healing Ausha, or breathing life back in to her? Such romantic fantasies always ended with some sort of wild, impassioned and totally unrealistic declarations of love from the draenei woman, and he would have been her hero.
No, no. Arakem grit his cracked teeth. This cursed, long-eared vulture had to swoop in and save the day. How long had they known eachother? Had they been close friends for years?
Were they lovers?
Breath that the forsaken man didn't require hitched in his useless throat. His spirit cried where his body could not. "No," he moaned in a shattered voice, having looked up just in time to see the druid kiss his Aushaedra's hand gallantly.
Damn him! It was supposed to be me!
The night elf caressed Aushaedra's gloved hands. Arakem spun and stalked back into the deep, mocking symphony of the unspeakably alive forest, hiding away his deathklike face once more. He just couldn't bear it any longer.