Johan readjusted the small mirror he had propped between the gnarled folds of the immense Ashenvale purplewood he had chosen to camp at that week, taking care that it wouldn't fall. More than a year in into his new, semi-nomadic life and he had managed to prevent it from falling and shattering twice. He might be able to trade for a new one, but caring for what few material possessions he still held on to was one of the joys of daily life he had never realized before.
Sitting on a rock he had rolled over under the small ditch roofed by a dozen massive, jutting roots of the purplewood, the youth took time washing and combing his hair. If there's one thing from what he had learned from observing the elves that he put into practice daily, it was hygeine. Foregoing the manufactured soaps common of the upper classes of his own people, Johan had learned to mash and mix natural fragrances himself over time. Rinsing out the hair on his face and scalp with the slightly tingling but naturally disinfecting concoction he had produced from several species if berry and sap became a weekly routine, just as cleaning up the finer points of his appearance - even if nobody saw him other than the sprite darters that followed him everywhere - became a daily routine.
One of the two sprite darters floated around him on that particular night, watching him cautiously at first as the pair always did. The otherworldly creature hovored onto one of the large roots of the tree forming a natural ceiling over the dugout ditch Johan had been camping in and watched the young man in fur trousers as he pulled a straight razor - one of the few human artifacts he had kept from home in Westfall - from his bearskin travel bag. Looking in the mirror, Johan ran a hand along one of his cheeks.
"I'm tired of this style," he said to the female of the pair as it landed on an opposite root. "Maybe this month…how about I try to switch things up?" He turned from the mirror to the darting faerie dragon as though it could understand him. "What do you think?"
The darter's flourescent wings shone as it let out an ethereal croak, though it's tone sounded approving enough to him. "Alright, new style it is! Always nice to try new things, isn't it?" Parting his hair down the middle and brushing the two shoulder-length sides behind his round ears, Johan took the razor to one side of his face.
Loneliness had been surprisingly easy to stave off so far. Regardless, he quite enjoyed the company of the two creatures. He'd seen them accompanying the natives of the land during the Third War, and knew they were capable of defending themselves if provoked. Around him, however, these two in particular were as harmless as house cats. Often, they were waiting for him as he awoke at his various campsites, and on one occasion had even stirred him from his slumber to warn of an approaching wolf. Though they were most certainly animals, they were welcome companions all the same, and talking out loud to them had helped him sate whatever desire for daily interaction he still retained.
In a way, they reminded him of his cousin Harold. The man had owned two house cats of similar natures; he had also been one to teach Johan how to shave when the need had started a few years prior. The similarities gave him a very fleeting sense of déjà vu at a time when he thought he'd cut off from a life he left behind him.
"Ow, son of a gun!" Johan whispered to himself as he nicked his cheek at the memory of his cousin. Images of his former home tugged at his heartstrings, but were quickly flushed out as he finished and moved on to his second cheek.
Once he finished, Johan put pressure on his cheek without lingering in front of the mirror too long, took a volume from the top of the pile of books he had laid on his bedroll and made his way out of the dugout. If he had to wait for the thin cut to finish bleeding before putting a shirt on, he may as well hold a book in the other hand and get some more reading done.
"Guys, watch the camp for me, will you?" The two sprite darters took turns chasing each other in and out of the root system over the dugout as he sat on a grassy patch on the bank of the nearby river, one hand holding his book covered in elven script and the other applying pressure to the cut.
"The Sentinels and the Long Vigil," he read out loud, his pronounciation of the elven prose only slightly accented.
He had read it a hundred times, though he never grew tired of it. As a child, the village library contained a few tomes left by high elves about the supposed 'dark elves' on a mist-shrouded continent across the ocean, though they were considered fairytales and much of the information - as he now knew from firsthand experience - was inaccurate. They had fueled the daydreams of his childhood, though, and while the other children were spending their time on checkers and other simple games, Johan spent his time learning to read the ancient script with the quarter-elf librarian in his aunt and uncle's village. The old sage's pronounciation wasn't perfect and Thalassian had numerous differences, but upon Johan's enlistment to the Alliance forces during the Third War, it served him well when his unit first encountered the inaccurately named 'dark elves.'
Wind rustled the enormous leaves of the canopy at least a hundred feet up, and Johan couldn't help but close the book for a minute and enjoy the sound until it dissipated. The huge purplewoods were by far larger than any trees in the Eastern Kingdoms, with trunks as wide around as the house he grew up in. They were spaced wide apart, leaving the entirety of the Ashenvale rather sparsely forested despite its seeming impenetrable nature. The stars were barely visible through the canopy, and the sight and sound coupled with the still air below were, in and of themselves, an experience that made his self-imposed solitude worth it; the canopy prevented the wind from flowing down at the forest floor, leaving the air still despite the whistle of the breeze. The darkness of the night sky, the light of the stars, and the vibrant colors of the purple canopy, dark brown trunks and green grass…no, he never doubted the choice he had made.
The breeze died down and Johan flipped the book open again, continuing to review a chapter on the rounds the Kaldorei patrols made annually around the southern reaches of their lands. In the past year since the Battle of Mount Hyjal had ended, Johan had slowly learned to recognize their outlines from afar when they shadowmelded, and could identify which groups were regular sentries and which had been sent out to hunt for skins and meat (unlike his race, the night elves apparently kept no livestock in their settlements). Watching for them had always excited him even more than hunting for his own food. As much he did feel at home by himself, he certainly didn't mind company even if he was technically being monitored as an outsider, and his fascination with their lifestyle is what had led him to stay behind when the rest of the humans retreated to the Alliance stronghold of Theramore far to the south.
Spying movement across the river, Johan continued holding his book open while spying the area just underneath a bush. After a few seconds, a squirrel scampered out and then back in, rusting the leaves of the bush as it ran.
He chuckled at his eagerness. The sentries never patrolled that area, and the bush was far too small to conceal any of them anyway.
Sensing that the cut was sealed, Johan proceeded to wash his face in the pure water of the river. The schools of koi fish that seemed to be everywhere in northern Kalimdor rushed to watch him as though there was nothing to fear, their scales glimmering under the strands of moonlight escaping from between the thick branches above. Making his way back up to the camp, he pulled one of the few shirts he had originally brought with him from Westfall and struggled to put it on. Although he was still growing a bit taller, the constant physical activity required by his lifestyle - coupled with a more natural diet heavy on berries, roots and white meat - had caused him to grow a bit broader as well. The white t-shirt fit snugly, though he could have sworn he heard a stitch or two snap around his chest. He couldn't be sure given the trickling sound of the river.
Having finished his moonrise review of the books he'd chosen, Johan flipped open the last journal he hadn't yet filled. His separate backpack for books was the heaviest item he ever carried, though he had begun to worry about storing them. He couldn't lug them around forever, and he had actually considered leaving off writing to focus on simply experiencing the natural world around him; there wasn't much reason to record what might never be read.
Opening to a blank page, Johan wrote rapidly in elven script as he recorded his thoughts on the eerie silence in the parts of the forest near the natives' dwellings - not even the crickets could be heard chirping, and the birds did not sing in the general vicinity of their hidden glades. It was as though the entire environment quieted down so they could better monitor their sacred grove, and when he wandered into those sections he always left out of respect. They had left him unharmed even as they ejected other outsiders from their lands regularly, and it seemed intrusive to approach their settlement without permission, he wrote.
It had been more than a year since Johan imposed nomadic isolation upon himself, he realized. At just a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, he'd taken his deceased uncle's rifle and joined an Alliance ship carrying irregulars to fight the Burning Legion on the new continent and, if need be, the dark elves he had read so much lore about. The relations of the Kaldorei with the Alliance were just as tense as with the Horde at first - they had fought several skirmishes and many among his people as well as their dwarven and high elven allies dismissed the night elves as savages only slightly more civilized than orcs. Considering that Johan never had a problem with orcs anyway - evil was committed by individuals, not entire groups - it wasn't difficult for him to reach out the first time his unit encountered a night elf patrol as they both made their way to the final confrontation with Archimonde at Mount Hyjal.
It wasn't easy to communicate at first. Johan's Thalassian was conversational at best and the high elf sorceress accompanying his unit stubbornly insisted that she couldn't understand a word of the 'barbaric' tongue of the Kaldorei - a pure lie if he ever did hear one. There were obvious differences, but the fact that the two languages were mutually intelligible was obvious even to the humans and dwarves in his unit who spoke no Thalassian. The first few meetings were tense but fascinating as all three sides joined forces to fight the Burning Legion, and he filled pages and pages of his journals describing every detail of the imposingly tall, stoicly silent beings he had grown up thinking of in awe.
With most of his family members dead, the surviving ones scattered and bickering over petty inheritance disputes and his forestry skills exceptional, the introverted frontier boy found it quite easy to simply stay behind in the forest after the Third War concluded. In fact, Johan felt as though no specific, conscious decision was made at all. As he watched the last column of Alliance soldiers march south toward the Barrens and then on to Dustwallow Marsh, he felt as though following them would have been a conscious decision requiring justification. Remaining in the forest, however, felt more natural than anything else he had known in his short life.
He flipped through the last volume of his journal. Noticing that there were only ten blank pages left, Johan marveled at how much it didn't seem to bother him. Part of trying to commune with nature and live without leaving footprints was the acceptance that he was a part of that balance, and his time would soon pass. Perhaps it was his youth that allowed him to accept such a fate so easily; he had built up little to lose in life. He wondered if acknowledgement of his own impending death outside the civilization of his people would seem as normal and natural when it was staring him in the face.
"Hey, settle down you two," he said to the sprite darters with a laugh. They had crawled closer to him on the underside of the tree roots to get a better look and their long tongues kept darting out of their mouths to catch his attention.
Johan gave both creatures a pet before setting his last journal on the pile of books and rising to exit and start a fire. Though he couldn't explain why, he suspected that the two little elf dragons bore an intelligence bordering on sentience given their attempts to communicate. They had been his most loyal and ever present friends for nearly a year, just before contact was established.
As he arranged the kindling in preparation for the night's campfire, his mind drifted back to the first few months of his self-imposed isolation. There were learning curves, certainly, but he adapted to both the lonliness and the rugged lifestyle as well as he could have hoped. He spent the first month observing the movements and tracks of the more dangerous wild animals and learned to avoid them, and the second observing the growth of edible tubers and roots as his hard rations dwindled. Hunting for meat, fur and leather came only at the end of the second month when he was confident he could care for himself materially.
It was only in the third month that the young forester combined what he knew from the fairy tales about 'dark elves,' his first hand experience with them during the Third War and a log he had salvaged from a departing supply caravan on observations of their movements that Johan tried to find - or more accurately, tried to be found by - the night elves. Were anyone to ask him why, it would have been another question he would find no need to answer. His drive seemed as normal to him as remaining in the forest, and he rarely pondered over it. His fascination both drove him and extinguished any need for introspection.
They were rightly suspicious at first; his people destroyed forests just as quickly as the orcs and since they were long lived beings, he was certain his short lifespan might lead them to assume him brash, tempermental or otherwise ill-intentioned. His childhood growing up in the forest, though, had made him more in tune with his surroundings than other humans; he was entirely aware the first time a patrol of three large, unseen beings shadowed him as he inspected several berry bushes and didn't acknowledge their presence. What he assumed was the same patrol followed him for days, unable to drag him off in his sleep as he had already reverted to their nocturnal schedule by then. Daylight, as he had learned at the base of Mount Hyjal, interfered with their eyesight and impeded their ability to shadowmeld. On the fourth day they departed only for another group of three to track him down soon after. It went on like that for a few weeks, and then the aggression started.
They actually fooled him the first few times. A snapping twig, the clear sound of a combat boot stomping the soil, the occasional hiss. Johan ignored it all, and after another period of observation the attempts at intimidation escalated. Though they never stole or left him destitute, he would return to his camp after forays into the wilderness and find his supplies strewn about as some sort of a warning. The sentries - thinking themselves invisible - would sometimes approach him only to back away when he would meet their eyes. It came to a head when one of them attempted to speak Common. 'Go away' was all she could rasp, though the other sentries whose presence he sensed stopped in their tracks when he addressed them politely in their own language. Taking a risk, he left one of his two salvaged logs on Darnassian phrases translated into Common, some trinkets manufactured in his home town and some elk jerky which he had dried himself (he learned when trying to approach a night elven unit after the Battle of Mount Hyjal that they didn't know what jerky was but loved it). When he returned, the items were gone and the observation continued from both ends.
Somehow, some way, they figured out what he was doing and reciprocated: upon following their intentionally obvious clicking noises, he happened upon a tiny clearing with a variety of fruit he had never seen before, an elven ring unlike those of the high elves and a book. The last gift was the most treasured, a treatise giving an overview of night elven history up to the War of the Shifting Sands; it was, apparently, intended for those of their people born at that time and needing to learn their history after the society had been without children or schools for millennia. Johan read it front to back three times before the sprite darters began following him, and only a few months later - half a year into his having no direct contact with other sentients - did they reveal themselves in a tense yet unaggressive meeting at his campfire one night.
"And here we are," Johan said to nobody in particular as he sat down in front of the fire.
He arranged the logs in the same pattern he had that first night they made their presence known, staring at him with emotionless glowing eyes. When he reacted without fear or apprehension, the stoic elves could not conceal their shock, and it began an interesting friendship where he, the outlander alone in their forest, was constantly surprising them rather than the other way around.
Laying out a few rabbit haunches on a flat rock, Johan closed his eyes and allowed his mind to rest. Living alone often caused one to overthink. Given that it was the night of the weekly visit by whichever patrol was on duty, he wanted his mind to remain clear.
And so he sat, his eyelids and his serene smile warmed by the fire until he sensed them there. Their footsteps were silent but he had learned to feel them out. They stood before him, ever patient as they waited for him to open his eyes.
As usual, there were three of them. Their bodies weren't entirely opaque, but he'd learned to spot their outlines. Massive sabretoothed cats with fur the color of night stood at the ready, each of their claws the size of a steak knife. They were larger even than the Stranglethorn tigers he had seen with a traveling circus as a child, and he knew from the Third War that these mounts were as ferocious as any trained soldier. Atop the backs of all three were the dark, feral looking riders. Sharp, pointed ears and long eyebrows complimented the bright shine of their eyes to form a sight that would send most other humans running and screaming. The glint of their flawless suits of armor reflected the light of his campfire despite their partially transparent nature, providing an ethereal view of the warriors of the night as they watched him.
It was a sight that should have terrified him, yet it filled him with even more warmth than the campfire.
Johan pushed his fist into his opposite palm as he had learned and bowed his head to all three of them. "Greetings," the young man said in his only slightly accented Darnassian. "It's so good to see you again."
Although his words were directed to all three, his pale blue eyes focused on the elf in the middle. Noticeably shorter than the others though still a hair taller than him, her presence was far more commanding. Waist length locks of dark indigo hair fell over back, lying against a cape of the same color and contrasting with her deep mauve skin color in a way that was almost hypnotic. Her heretofor expressionless face returned his smile ever so slightly, and she spoke for the group as she dismounted first.
"Likewise, diligent one," she answered with a voice that somehow reminded him of wind chimes. The other two followed her lead and dismounted, though they hung back and remained only partially visible. The leader remained between them all, fully visible and much more forward in her manner than the other two, though still bearing that elven restraint he'd noticed among the high elves. "You seem to have fashioned quite the living space for yourself here," she added while eyeing the area he'd scratched out beneath the tree roots.
Johan's first instinct was to think of some sort of an explanation for his actions, recoiling in defense of the possible insinuation that he'd disrupted their lands. Over the time he'd observed them, though, he'd learned that they tended to seek to understand before seeking to be understood, and had given the behavior much consideration. Clearing his mind, he simply spoke whatever came to his mind.
"The forest always provides if we but respect the balance," he replied.
This time, the leader of the three elves more visibly reacted in approval as her mouth pulled into a more noticeable, yet still understated, smile. "I take it you've enjoyed the books we loaned you...and I can assure you that what you loaned us has also been out to use."
The small chess match ensued, and the two companions of the leader broke their shadowmeld and became fully visible without joining her spot just a few paces away from him. Ever cautious, they never seemed to rush introductions, and he'd once wondered if they would simply leave if he ever misspoke or misstepped. Fortunately, they didn't seem to find anything wrong with standing tall without the need to busy their hands, which he found freeing compared to the need of other peoples to constantly look busy.
"Ah...so the people of your village all practiced speaking in Common for three hours a night? And you used all the phrases in the log?"
Almost like the sighting of a rare moon, her lips pulled into an open, obvious smile, causing one of her companions to nearly follow suit. Switching into fluent if accented Common, she demonstrated the results to him. "More than half of us now. Every single night, as you advised."
"Good, that's great progress. I suppose that...a bit of practice would be in order...Sentinel Unelia?" he asked, ever cautious and wary of being too direct in his speech. The elf who heretofore had not smiled snorted, a sign of displeasure that wasn't particularly subtle among their people, but her reaction went unacknowledged.
For the second time since he'd known her, the usual leader of the patrols in that area actually bowed her head and directed her gaze toward the ground as she just barely showed the white of her teeth. "We would always be honored to learn and to teach," she replied softly.
That seemed signal enough to her less surly companion, who walked toward the logs Johan had set up around the campfire, only then revealing a bag of what appeared to be vegetables in one hand. She looked at the seating spots briefly before turning toward him with an expectant expression; they'd wait for an hour to be invited before asking on their own.
"The honor is all mine. Please, make yourselves comfortable," he said while motioning toward the logs with his entire hand. "The goddess saw fit that I capture a rabbit tonight; it would be prudent to begin preparing the food while I listen you your improvements."
Nodding without speaking, the second elf took a seat and began pulling out the produce they'd grown in their village, as they'd done so many nights before ever since they had begun to penny communicate with him. Even the third elf eventually joined them after a big of unpleasant hesitation, taking the partially skinned rabbit from among his belongings without asking in a display that was rash by their standards. As they got to work, Unelia brushed past him and turned to speak when they were only about a foot apart; it was difficult to remind himself that she was a rather hardened warrior and his respected guest, and that it would be imprudent to let his mind linger on the otherworldly beauty she possessed.
"You have our thanks, Johan," she told him quietly. Though she seemed nonchalant about the comment, it still seemed odd to him; they never thanked each other for the exchange of linguistic and cultural lessons before, nor did she tend to speak to him out of earshot of the others.
"Oh...you're welcome, Sentinel," he forced himself to say before he could let himself become nervous. They had a good deal of time practicing speaking ahead of them, and he didn't need his heart racing the way it had a few times before,
The four finished their post-lesson meal of rabbit, cucumber and carrot stew in silence, a habit he had picked up from them. The sabres and darters all preferred to prowl and forage in the surrounding area, leaving the three elves and single human to their language practice and meal sharing. Passing food back and forth was a form of bonding for the Kaldorei, as Johan had learned, and he always felt honored even as more regular faces began appearing at their weekly sittings.
The sentry who had smiled along with Johan and his teacher wiped her eating hand on a handkerchief and her clean hand against her sea green hair to smooth it back. The two women sat opposite Johan as they finished eating, while the third faced away and kept to herself as usual.
The greenheaded sentry began to speak in intermediate level Common, eager to practice what the young human had just taught them. "This is aa good raabit," she spoke slowly with a heavy accent. "Thaank yoo for it, Dchohan." Though she was brave in speaking, her sentences in his language were simple, and she sounded much less articulate than she actually was.
"You're welcome, Velonia. And your speech flows better every time you visit."
Relatively young for the average age of the others in their small hamlet, Velonia was a little more animated, and didn't resist the urge to purse her lips in a show of cautious appreciation. "Now you're making fun of me," she responded in Darnassian with an embarrassed grin.
"No, I'm being honest," Johan insisted. "You appear to think less about what you say before you say it, at least when compared to before."
With some difficulty, she code switched back into Common. "I caan try my bhest, just only," she said.
"Your best is quite good - you should give yourself more credit. Soon enough you can have conversations entirely in Common with your shield sisters, without my presence," he claimed, his certainty showing through.
Though Johan meant it honestly, the greenheaded elf snorted a laugh through her nose as though she didn't quite believe him. When she gave him a polite nod and moved to pour herself some water, Johan faced Unelia. As the highest ranking in the group that usually passed through the area, she was his unofficial teacher of Kaldorei faith and lore and the reason the locals had agreed to initially establish contact rather than eject him from their forest.
"How are the others faring, back in your grove?" he asked with barely concealed interest in their home.
Unelia smiled with a mouth full of food as she struggled to keep her lips closed. Once she swallowed, she took a sip from Johan's waterskin - earning them both a dirty look from the enormous elf scowling on her own seating log - to rinse her mouth before speaking. "We have tried to introduce periods during the night where our off-duty sisters practice what they've learned in groups, as you outlined for us," she explained while she turned on her seat to face him as well. "But as you predicted might happen, they fall back into speaking our native tongue when they can't find the words to express themselves. As you put it...it's all downhill from there." Removing the half-helmet covering the upper part of her head and face, Unelia became serious for a moment. "Our lives were once so long, and we are used to learning at a slow pace."
"It's not easy even for those of us with shorter lifespans," Johan said in a similarly formal tone. "It took me a few years to become passable in Thalassian. Your sisters, however, do have the advantage of a larger number of people to practice with. Twenty something people is a good number of conversa-"
"There are twenty five of us," the tallest of the three elves snapped in Darnassian. She used her hair - the exact same color of Unelia's along with her matching skin tone - to conceal the side of her face as she stared in the opposite direction. "It isn't difficult to remember." A brief, uncomfortable silence fell over the others until Unelia spoke.
"Twenty something, in the language of our guest," she retorted in Darnassian with an emphasis on the last word, "refers to any number between twenty and thirty." Johan and Velonia both held still as Unelia stared down her larger but younger and lower ranking blood sister. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, though it had only a single, surly source. "Would you like to practice your math-related vocabulary with our honored host, Isurith?" she asked pointedly in Common as though to reestablish to chain of command.
A few more seconds passed as Isurith continued looking away from the group. Johan truly had no qualms with the younger sister and always sought to excuse her behavior as the natural culture shock someone who had spent ten thousand years in a waking dream would experience upon realizing not only that there was an outside world but that she would die, like him, before she would get to see most of it. Chafing under the intense stare Unelia was giving her sister, Johan tried to look to Velonia for guidance though she seemed as perturbed as he was. The older yet shorter sister saved them both when she reopened the discussion.
"I do believe the linguistic portion of our night has come to an end," Unelia stated calmly as she leaned closer to Johan, and he could sense she was trying to assure him that all was well. "You teach rather well, Shan'do."
Her wry smile as she addressed him with a title of such respect in their language caused him to blush for the first time since the locals had interacted with him. Such a term was reserved for high ranking teachers, and considering how awestruck he was with the depth of night elf history and culture in general as well as Unelia in particular - she was old enough to remember Azeroth even before arcane magic had been discovered - he felt unworthy of her words.
"Oh, don't say that," he chuckled sheepishly as he tried and failed to look her in the eye. "My knowledge is nothing next to yours, I'm just trying my best to help."
"You help us by teaching a valuable skill. Many of us refer to the lands outside our own as the 'brave new world.' We must be able to communicate if we are to survive." At Unelia's last sentence, her sister silently slinked away and tended to the sabres, eliciting from Johan and even Velonia visible breaths if relief. "As encounters with your kind increase, knowledge of your language will increase in importance. The world will not change for us."
Johan ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what else to say to the compliment. "Well, I will always help any way I can. It's the least I can do considering the guidance your people have extended to me."
Patience was a virtue of their people he tried to emulate, though his desire to learn more got the better of him and his eyes shone hopefully. Though most the sentries from the local grove offered help with his learning on some level, none of them devoted as much time and effort to his development as Unelia. Four times a month - sometimes more - she would arrive with a book from their village library in exchange for whichever he had last been reading last. Upon their next meeting, she would have him repeat whatever he had read (mostly history though also religious studies and elven grammar), though like the others she never asked him questions about himself or what he had learned personally; all their inquiries came in the form of polite demands or statements intended as prompts.
She smiled at his comment until her lips parted slightly, and the maturing young man had to fight to focus on the conversation and retain a respectful demeanor in front of the woman who had taken him under her wing as some sort of a personal project. "That reminds me…I come bearing news." Johan leaned forward, feeling no need to contain his interest despite Velonia's stifled laugh. When Unelia merely stared at him with an almost coy expression he realized it was one of her rare instances of humor and he settled down with a smirk. "I wish to inform you that I will not be reviewing your historical studies with you here at your camp tonight."
Despite his understanding nod, Johan couldn't admit that his heart sank. Their assistance was a much appreciated kindness and he was aware that they were thankful for a native speaker to teach them Common, but he was also aware of the fragility of their insular culture and respected their right to rescind the weekly meetings and meals at any time. "Oh…I see," he said congenially as he did his best to mask his disappointment. "Well, regardless, I am still glad that the three of you came. Even without the lessons, our conversations are always enlightening."
Unelia shared an open mouthed smile with Velonia as though there was some detail he had missed. Rising from her log without a word, Johan began to wonder if they would cut the meeting short. "Our grove's leader, Priestess Lamynia, has taken an interest in your…ah…interest. Our people don't have much contact with outsiders - even other night elves - and the assistance you have provided as well as your devotion to the teachings of Elune have not gone unnoticed, even by those yet to meet you."
The words were already overwhelming. Although he was closer to Unelia than the others, the Kaldorei were so reserved and while he heard them compliment each other, any personal comments directed at him at all were uncommon. Not knowing what to say, Johan simply remained silent as Unelia motioned for him to stand.
"Your history review for tonight will take place at our home, in our village library. The Priestess has decided that you have earned enough trust to be the first outlander to set foot inside our grove."
"Really?" he exclaimed with an amount of enthusiasm that made him feel silly, though Isurith was the only one who grunted in displeasure from afar. "I mean...I'm honored. I honestly don't know what to say."
Velonia had already mounted her sabre, and Unelia was standing by Johan's books in the ditch. "You don't need to say anything. The Priestess has invited you based on the recommendations of a...few of us..." Unelia's voice trailed off and she broke eye contact, covering the side of her face with her hand. He wondered if she wasn't feeling well until she turned back to him and appeared to be fine, smiling warmly at him again. "We must return you to your camp before dawn and there isn't anyone else out here to pilfer your belonings; all you need are your books."
"Will I be able to exchange some in person, this time?" he asked, his restraint slipping from him at the thought of being the first outsider to ever enter their home. Most weeks they would bring him a book or two from their library and take one or two of those he had been keeping with him. He had long ago surrendered all his material on the differences between Common and Thalassian as well as the texts he had on forestry from the Eastern Kingdoms, taking great interest and often discussing what they had read in the week as much as what he had read.
"I promise that you'll be able to do that, as well as more," she said before looking away from him again. "We...well, we didn't plan the whole night for you, but you won't have much time since this is the first...time, is that the word again?"
"Yes, time has more than one meaning."
"Alright. This is the first time we've had a visitor actually enter inside. Everyone will likely want to meet you, so your time won't be yours entirely. But I promise, this will benefit all of us."
He had already packed his bag while they were speaking, and Isurith had ridden off without permission. Following Unelia toward her sabre, Johan let his mind wander, images running through his head of what the inner world of the fabled but inaccurately named 'dark elves' would be like.