When she woke again, it was to the sound of a lone bird's mournful song in the grey dawn. She glanced over to the raptor, snapping awake when Apoch was nowhere to be seen. The branches he had used to sleep on were gone, along with the fire and wolf corpses. Outside of the sleeping roll and snoring raptor the campsite looked completely untouched.

"Apoch?"

"Shh," was the response as he stepped out of the shadows with a small handful of mushrooms and edible roots, his raptor lifting his head to yawn impressively before rolling over. The troll leaned down to place a part of the meager breakfast beside her before continuing over to the snoring beast, sitting heavily on its exposed side and getting a gurgled snarl in response. He grinned wryly, eating the food in silence, not bothering to look at her. Suddenly self-conscious Iscah ate her breakfast in the same fashion, trying not to blanch at the bitter flavor the roots had until she realized eating the mushrooms with them neutralized their flavor. It wasn't eggs and bacon, but anything was better than nothing she mused. Finishing her portion she rose, biting back a cry of pain as her muscles protested the movement before going to find somewhere a bit more private. When she came back, the bedroll was gone and the small clearing looked as if they had never been there. Apoch jerked his head in a direction and moved that way, threading them through the woods as if he knew where they were going. Iscah followed, sore muscles warming quickly as she struggled through the undergrowth to keep up with the two expert travelers.

After a few hours they finally came to a clearing, the muted sunshine surprising her as they stepped out of the thicket. Apoch looked around warily before moving forward, a road hidden by the grey grass popping into view. Iscah nearly cried with relief, glad to be on a flat path with no gnarly roots to stumble over or branches to scrape herself on. The troll moved to a sign post planted at the edge of the woods next to the road, and pointed east before looking at her.

Iscah looked at the sign as well. "Darkshire."

The troll nodded, and turned the opposite direction. Iscah blinked, turning to follow him.

"Im, IM!!"

He dropped the reigns and wheeled on her, his patience obviously at an end. Jabbing his finger towards the direction of Darkshire he glared at her, and Iscah glared back.

"No! I'm coming with you!"

"So worl!" He pushed her away, the girl stumbling but recovering and attempting to walk around him. He blocked her path, a warning growl given but she stubbornly tried to squirm past him. Apoch snagged her arm and jerked her around, half dragging her down the road towards the direction of the town. Iscah screeched in frustration and tried to pull away, the troll using her own movement against her by turning her and letting her go. She tried to find her balance but fell, catching herself on her wrist with a cry before sitting up, dirt leaving a trail of brown down the side of her dress at her hip. He hesitated, some of the anger doused by her miserable state before he shook his head again and pointed towards Darkshire.

"So worl," he repeated, gentler this time. Iscah shook her head viciously, not looking at him to hide her tears. He sighed and crouched down next to her, taking her wrist she was cradling and looking it over seriously before massaging the joint. She took a sharp breath at the pain, glaring at him despite herself, but slowly the ache went away beneath this fingers and he let her hand go before meeting her gaze.

This human was obviously not going to give up. Already she had proven herself inept in every sense of the word except in stubbornness. If he left her out here, she'd be dead within hours. Blanching he reached up and scratched at his scalp, looking down the road that led to the untamed rainforest of stranglethorn vale. He knew she was just as lost for answers as he was, knew that there had been no closure in finding her. In the dead of the night previous he had watched her sleep, watched color rise to her cheeks as she said his name in her dreams. Being near each other had not made the dreams go away, in fact it seemed to have the opposite effect. What had started off as just unnatural attraction was turning into desire in his own dreams, and it was hard to tell what was real and what was in his mind anymore. He shook his head and looked back at her, aware of the wide azure pools locked onto him.

There was only one person who might be able to offer them answers, but he had no clue how sane that old man on the road had been to begin with.

He took her hands and helped her back onto her feet, turning towards his raptor and pulling his head around by his reigns before murmuring to the beast. Bu'u hissed in response and he let him go, looking back to the girl and pointing in the direction opposite of the alliance town.

"Go, Bu'u will protect you."

She walked up to him and he placed the raptors reigns in her hand, wrapping her delicate fingers around the leather. Bu'u moved forward and Iscah was pulled along, sparing a glance back to him before turning to follow the mount.

If she was going to travel with him, they'd need supplies. He vanished into the woods, setting a brutal pace in the direction of the town he had tried to make her go to.

Iscah woke in the middle of the night and half sat up, straining to hear what she thought were bells tolling an alarm far to the distant northeast. An owl hooted in a nearby tree and she relaxed, accepting the sound as a figment of her imagination. Beside her the raptor snorted and flinched, a soft chomping noise coming from its maw as it dreamed of dancing leg drums and slabs of meat.

They had traveled the day alone together, the raptor weaving through the forest to clear any threats out of the girls path as they headed further south. Iscah had managed to enjoy the walk, identifying various plants and brush that had medicinal if not magical properties. Occasionally she'd leave the road when a particular species would pique her interest, and she'd pick or pull them to carry with her on the journey. Bu'u never let her roam very far though, popping out of the underbrush to hiss a warning at her and herd her back onto the well-worn path before vanishing again. As the sun had set and the grey of the forest grew dimmer, the raptor had appeared back in front of her, chirping a greeting before moving slowly off the road and waiting for her to follow. They came to a small area hidden well away from the main path, and Bu'u stopped and waited patiently as she untied the pack bags the troll had left strapped to him. She rummaged through the satchels, finding flint and tinder, along with some strips of dried meat that could be her dinner. It took twenty minutes and a heated one-sided debate with a raptor who watched on with indifference to the mages struggles before she finally gave up and blew the small stack of twigs to smithereens with a conjured fireball to make them a fire. It had died sometime during the evening, and the raptor had decided snuggling next to the human was warmer than sleeping alone. Iscah snuffled back down against the animals side, and fell asleep again until the morning birds woke her up a few hours later.

Apoch was still missing, but the raptor seemed unfazed by this. Iscah tried to scatter the cold embers around and make it look like no one had been there, but instead she made it look like there had been a scuffle instead. She winced at her own inabilities before Bu'u nudged her expectantly, leading her back to the trail. He brought her various animal corpses for the rest of the morning, but she had no idea what to do with them. With a sigh she ignored the growing pains of hunger and tossed the carcasses back to the waiting raptor who realized any food he would bring the girl would become lunch, continuing onward without really paying attention that the raptor seemed to be bringing her more animals more often.

She had no idea why she was following him, only knew it felt right to be near the troll. Her dreams had taken a turn for the worse, bringing aches and desires she had never known she had to light and throwing her whole balance off. It was one thing to have a little girlish crush on a fellow student, but a troll? A murderer? It was utterly wrong.

A low growl broke her out of her musing, and she stopped as a tawny lion prowled out of the undergrowth. Violet hues locked onto her, and the creature crouched, tail whipping venomously as it readied to attack the lone human.

Bu'u leapt from the brush, skidding to a halt in front of Iscah to block the cats attack, hissing slowly as he flexed his talons in preparation of the fight to come. The lion's ears flattened against its skull, baring massive canines at the raptor.

"I wouldn't do that, Druid," Apoch growled in warning, stepping onto the trail next to his mount. The cat recoiled, form shifting so that it sat and looked at the troll ladened with two full bags warily.

"A troll defending a human? Not a sight you see everyday," she purred, tail still tapping against the ground in an irritated display.

Apoch chuckled, letting the bags fall and stretching out his back casually.

"She's worth a lot more alive. Apparently there's a large price for her capture, something about her being a bargaining chip." Apoch shrugged nonchalant, glancing at the human with disgust.

"I find it interesting if she's your captive she's not in bonds."

"I'm in alliance territory, you don't think they'd notice that?"

"I suppose," the druid replied, beginning to doubt her first assessment of the situation.

"Besides, what are you doing here?"

"Passing through," she responded curtly, rising smoothly and circling the three. She hissed softly at the human before prowling onward.

Apoch waited until the druid was out of sight, exhaling the tension he had been hiding during the encounter. That could've gone a lot worse, he supposed. He hadn't expected to run into any of his allies until well into the rainforest.

Iscah leapt onto him, wrapping her arms around him in a hug before babbling in her strange language. He snarled in response, peeling her off and turning to the two bags he had dropped.

He pulled out bread and cheese, tearing a hunk off the loaf and handing it to Iscah before ripping off a mouthful of his own. Iscah nibbled hers as reservedly as possible, but by the end she had eaten the whole thing. The troll handed her half of the hard cheese before turning and beginning their walk again, Iscah falling in step.

It was hard to ignore the warmth running up his spine her greeting had caused.