A/N: This is a story about my Hunter on Argent Dawn, this is his backstory, started totally off the fly. Hope you'll enjoy

As usual, I own nothing of Warcraft save for the character Buckmane

Prologue

Some people give in to their fear, despair, their lost hope whilst others, perhaps of a stronger heart, see the world with a cup half full with a look for adventure round every little curve ball thrown their way. It could be enough to make one sick with rage, in many ways to see how people can always seem to find the smallest positive thing out of a really bad situation. It's an insidious kind of thinking, one that most can often under-appreciate. You also find those who are just, well, neutral to a fault, never reacting emotionally to anything. People react in different ways, different strokes for different folks… isn't that what your grandmother told you, when you were but a child?

There are times when there is everything you want to do, fight or scream, push or turn tail but you just can't. No matter how hard you try to push against the odds, no matter how much you fight back, nothing goes the way you want, and every time you do something, it pushes that dream of hope further away. However, no one told them that trying to shut the demons out with a wall or fighting fire with fire was not going to help them at all.

But then, perhaps every Gilnean knew it anyway, there was just no choices left open. Or so they had thought

Chapter 1 ; Fleet of Foot

It was a decently sunny day in the land of Gilneas as Thorsten moved to the stables. He was the son of the local butcher, a family business as most businesses were. They had a decent sized farmstead where they raised and bred cattle, pigs and horses with enough acres of land for them to freely roam. They believed that the meat of the cattle and pigs tasted better if the animals were given a better lifestyle. Thorsten wasn't really feeling the warmth that the sun gave into the earth and its subjects. Everything just seemed eternally cold. The wall that King Greymane had erected on the borders of Gilneas to protect it from outside threats and problems stood proud against the backdrop of the landscape that surrounded him. A walled city inside a wall.

Thorsten held no real patience for the nobles but he was proud of his people and he was proud to be Gilnean. He would fight for his country and he did so by providing the finest cuts to feed the Gilnean people. An army never got anywhere without its stomach being fed continuously.

He walked past the training paddock and paused hesitantly before he stared at it with a little of forlorn hope and sadness. He had lost one of his best friends in this paddock. A friend of whom he had been considering asked for her hand in marriage that same afternoon. He could never forget that day as much as he wanted to believe that it was some kind of cruel dream or joke. He wished so many times that she hadn't been there to be hurt, that he had taken her somewhere else or hadn't known her at all. Alyna had been the most beautiful thing in Thorsten's existence and the only things that came a close second in his life were the horses he bred.

The Gilnean closed his eyes, picturing her hair and her eyes, trying to recall the sound of her voice. He shook his head. He could never forget her face but her laughter seemed to be a thing of the past. Maybe he would remember one day. He sighed and carried on, there were animals to feed and stalls to muck out. Never the most enjoyable of daily tasks but Thorsten didn't mind. It meant he could get away from the brat next door, that kid never seemed to stop bawling its eyes out. It always drove him up the wall and he always had to get out of the house otherwise he had a feeling it would not end well for either of them.

There was a stillness to the air that seemed foreign. The crows still cawed and the horses and cattle were still braying in the field, but there was an underlying tone to them that didn't sit right with the Gilnean. They knew something wasn't right and they continued like it for the rest of that day. It was only when the sun vanished and the night sky began to cloud over with a particularly bright moon that everything had come to pass.

The war against the undead had been taxing, more demand had been placed upon resources and that meant there were half as much livestock he tended to than normal. Meat was needed for food, their hides for clothes and armour, horses needed to cart other resources and men around to different locations near the wall. It was a difficult time for many a Gilnean. Thorsten was still out in the paddock about to head back home for the night, his shirt thick with sweat from working the day. He heard something growl behind him that made him pause and look behind him, wary of what it was. It couldn't be Percival, the hound was always close to the house begging for the scraps and attention. The mutt was generally useless. It wasn't Brumus either, he wasn't old enough yet to be out with his proposed master. That and the growl was all wrong for a mastiff. It was deeper, throatier and far more primal. Goosebumps rose along his arms as his heart beat faster within his barrel-like chest.

There was only one thing it could be. Thorsten's eyes widened with fear and horror.

He turned as the beast leapt for him, its hands with sharp claws extending for the Gilnean's shoulders with an open jaw of sharp pointed teeth hungry for the man's blood. Thorsten vaguely heard someone shouting and crying as man and beast fell, colliding into the ground. It was all that Thorsten could do was to hold the worgen's drooling maw away from his face and neck, gripping at the ragged fur with strength borne out of fear and desperation. He realised how bad things truly were out beyond the wall, and for the first time in his life Thorsten realised that perhaps shutting themselves off from the rest of the world was not the brightest idea after all. No one would come to the aid of those who had shut themselves away from the rest of those that had once been an Alliance of nations.

He growled back as he held his quarter though he was only just able to keep the jaws from ripping a hole into his neck. Without warning, he heard the shot and then the yelp as the projectile found its target. The beast slumped to one side, its head a mashed mess of fur and brains.

Thorsten held his breath before he squirmed out from beneath the foul creature. This was not how it was meant to be. These things were supposed to go after the undead, that they would ignore human life by Arugal's hand. He was helped up by his father with one arm, his shotgun brandished in the other as they stared down at the beast. Both men peered then towards the forest that grew beyond their farm inside the wall's confines with wary expressions.

"They haven't held the line," was a brusque response from his father, Bastiaan.

"But.. they said they had this handled?" Thorsten replied, his voice betraying his emotions as he peered back at the beast that had so nearly claimed him. It was black and grey with scars that spoke of its age. Some were old and others new. It was difficult to remember that it used to be like him. Once.

They both stilled as they heard a howl break through the silver barked trees of the forest and Bastiaan held his shotgun properly now that Thorsten had his own two feet again. Horse, cattle and pig went forgotten as both moved to leave their fields and headed back to their homestead where his mother had been left with their two mastiffs, Percival and Brumus. Only, they didn't manage to get that far. The growls behind them made them both halt in their run and turn in trepidation.

Bastiaan gave a fierce yell of anguish as he managed to shoot one of the worgen down but could not shift the barrel of his gun to kill the other in time before it barrelled into his son. He watched with a parental kind of horror as arms and legs entangled themselves in the struggle to stay alive or to feast. With the pair scrabbling about on the ground, he could not fire without fearing to hit his son. Blood poured from a vicious bite as Thorsten's hand finally found the a rock roughly embedded into the ground. Bastiaan watched aghast at the wound the worgen had torn into his son's neck as the Gilnean beat the beast's face with the sharp rock in hard thumps. The worgen paused in its struggle against the man beneath, its maw darkened by the human blood and peered upwards at Bastiaan as the older man fired his shot. Like before, the worgen fell, struck in the head in a gooey bloody mess but the damage was done.

His one and only son was now infected.