Chapter Nine
Larraine was glad for the path she stumbled upon during her search for Cho's hut. The fog surrounding the marsh was oddly thick for the time of day, making it difficult to tell if she and Fang were actually traveling in a straight line or if they were merely walking themselves in circles. Eventually, they came across a worn signpost, and she was relieved to find the words carved into it were written in a language she understood. A post directed toward an offshoot of the path they had been traveling on was labeled Dreamer's Rest, and though she had no idea what such a place might be she was at least hopeful that someone there might be able to point her in the proper direction.
The two of them made their way down the side path, and though Fang kept looking toward her with his ears perked up she chose to ignore the strange noises she heard coming from within the thick pockets of mist. They were unlike any wild animal sounds she'd ever heard before, a combination of a growl and a pained moan which made her feel even more uneasy than she already was due to the limited visibility. As they continued along the path, the noises grew farther away and the fog began to clear to a lighter mist which gave everything a sort of etheral-looking glow in the fading sunlight.
Suddenly, Fang took off at a run and Larraine began to call after him – then stopped when she saw where he was headed. The ground sloped upward slightly before her, creating a small hill at the very edge of the marsh they had just emerged from, and seated upon that hill was some sort of pandaren dwelling. The entirety of the property was surrounded by a stone wall, the center of which sported a perfectly-round gate which was accessed by finely-crafted set of stone steps.
"Think this is the place?" she asked her wolf, and he jumped about a bit before running up the steps ahead of her and through the open gate.
Larraine felt strange, just walking onto the property without having been invited. Judging by the fence and the location of the dwelling, the owner was likely a person who cherished their privacy. The gate was open, however, and the other pandaren she had met back at Paw'don Village had been welcoming of her and the others in spite of them being foreign strangers. She figured this was likely Cho's home, but in the event it wasn't she would merely apologize for the intrusion and ask that the owner assist her in finding him.
"Wow," she whispered in awe as she stepped through the gate, taking in everything the fence had been hiding from her sight. In the center of the area was a wide stone courtyard which opened up to two paths: one leading to a small house, and the other to a traditional-looking pavilion sporting several decorative lanterns hanging from its roof. Unusual trees rose high into the sky all around, seeming to have sprouted directly from the patches of rich, dark green grass surrounding the facilities like some sort of giant, majestic flowers.
Looking to her side, she found a large tiger sleeping on a patch of green just inside the gate. Figuring the animal was likely some sort of guardian, she slowly approached it with an outstretched hand, speaking calmly to the animal to let it know of her presence before touching it gently on top of its head. The great cat barely stirred, lifting its head up only a few inches as it opened its eyes halfway to take in her appearance. Then it settled back down to sleep, once more. Larraine smiled as she continued to run her hands through the tiger's soft, thick fur for a few more seconds, then she began to explore the rest of her surroundings.
"Hello?" she called out to whoever might be home, but no one answered or came to the open door of the small house.
The sound of crashing waves reached her ears, and she walked past the house toward it, thinking perhaps there was a path leading down to a beach. Unfortunately, the land simply dropped off in a steep cliff, and the only path appeared to lead to a small strip of land bearing a short dock with a pile of traps and a fishing chair upon it. She sighed and turned to go back to the courtyard, then gasped when she saw the wreckage of Horde ships in the distance. She wondered if those were the same ships they had attacked when they first reached Pandaria, or if they were merely more casualties of the storm which had caused Taylor's vessel to eventually wreck upon the shore.
Deciding not to dwell too much upon it, she returned to the house and looked around for any sign of who lived there. She knew it was still inhabited, not only because of the tiger outside but because there was a pot full of some sort of stew slowly cooking on the fire inside and a large pitcher of steaming tea set upon a low table just inside the front door. She knew it would be impolite to partake of any refreshments in the absence of the home's owner, but she was feeling particularly thirsty from the walk she and Fang had taken through the jungle and the pandaren tea she'd had before had been some of the best she'd ever drank.
"I suppose just a little drink won't hurt," she reasoned, pouring some of the liquid into a small bowl she assumed was some sort of serving vessel. "I'll be sure to tell the homeowner I had some and apologize if they take offense."
She looked curiously at the liquid swirling in the bowl as she held it in her hands. It was an odd color – almost a pale, misty, golden-blue shade – and one she had never seen before in tea. Furthermore, even though she had poured it from the container it was still constantly producing steam. For a moment, she contemplated not drinking the substance in case it was some sort of poison or cleaning product, but the sweet, fruity, floral scent was far too tempting. With a shrug of her shoulders, she drank the liquid and sat the bowl down as she tried to discern what sort of flavor it had. It wasn't anything she could really put her finger on, but there was a rich, earth quality to it that didn't match up with either the look or smell of the concoction.
No sooner had she thought about the disparity between the taste of the tea and its appearance than she began to feel its effects. She began to feel lightheaded and very loose, and she swore it was like she was outside of her body. She grabbed for the nearest solid object but her hand seemed to go right through it, and she gasped in shock and stumbled back outside to the courtyard in search of Fang so she could send him to go get help from the others back at the jinyu settlement.
"Two hundred ships at my disposal, yet the one carrying my son goes missing!"
She heard the voice of the king, repeating the very words which had led to her being in Pandaria, and turned to see a giant wolf with gleaming white fur striding toward her with a murderous gleam in its eyes. She quickly backpedaled away from from it, but soon the wolf burst into a cloud of smoke, leaving Stormwind's king standing in its place.
"I am sorry, but I cannot go back just yet."
"Anduin!" Larraine exclaimed, spinning around at the sound of the prince's voice. He was standing there, his hand extended toward where his father now stood, wings of brilliant golden light emanating from his back. She rushed over to hug him in her relief, but ended up passing right through him and nearly ended up falling onto her face as she tripped over her own feet.
"Anduin?" she repeated his name as she turned to look back at him, her brain trying to comprehend what was going on.
"I've decided to search for the Vale..." she heard him say, his voice echoing as he suddenly took off and ran toward the gate at the other side of the courtyard.
"Anduin, wait!" Larraine called and she began to chase after him, but she soon stopped dead in her tracks when the entire length of the fence surrounding the area burst into flames.
She watched in horror as Horde banners appeared around the gate as well as across the top of it, and then a massive figure emerged from the flames right above Anduin: Garrosh Hellscream, the current Warchief of the Horde.
"Storm the shores," Hellscream yelled, his deep voice so loud that Larraine had to cover her ears, "and paint this new continent red!"
Hellscream's voice somehow still rang as loudly and clearly in her ears as if she hadn't been covering them, and Larraine whimpered as the sound of his words continued to reverberate in her head. Crying out, she doubled over until she was curled up on the ground, her eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to blot out the horrible sounds and images she had just seen before her.
"My, my," came a new voice, muffled slightly by her hands over her ears. "Hello, stranger!"
This voice was unfamiliar to her, but had the same inflection as other pandaren she had spoken with, and so she cautiously cracked open one eye to see who was addressing her. To her surprise, she found that she was not lying outside in the courtyard but in the middle of the floor within the house. She blinked in confusion and lowered her hands from the sides of her head, then pulled herself up into a sitting position and looked around at her surroundings.
"I... what happened?" she asked, looking to the pandaren who had found her, only to find him watching her with an amused smirk on his face.
"It seems you have sampled some of my dream brew," he told her, lifting up the pitcher she'd poured her drink from.
"What I saw... I thought... It was all a dream?"
The pandaren shrugged, still smiling at her. "Its visions are hard to interpret – half truth, half illusion. Who's to say which is which?"
"That's why he couldn't hear me," she said to herself, recalling not only how Anduin had seemingly ignored her presence, but the way she'd literally passed through him like he was nothing more than a ghost.
"What is it that brings you here, stranger?" the pandaren asked her, and Larraine snapped out of her thoughts and looked to him.
"I'm looking for someone named Cho," she said to him. "I was told by one of the jinyu that he could help me find my missing friend."
"I am Cho," the pandaren greeted her with a bow. "Might I know your name?"
"Larraine," she told him, sitting up on her knees and bowing forward in respect. "Please, Master Cho... I'm begging you. I need your help."
"There is no need for such gestures," Cho said, chuckling, and he patted her head with one of his paw-like hands. "I will be happy to help you find this missing friend of yours. But, first... Come, walk with me. Let us learn from one another."
"Learn?" Larraine echoed as she rose to her feet, and she followed Cho outside of his home.
"Yes," Cho replied with a nod of his head. "You see, I am a Lorewalker – a historian of sorts for my people. My instrument is the spoken word. I know all there is of this land, and you would do me a great honor by allowing me to learn something of your people while you are here."
"I suppose I could tell you some things of my people," Larraine agreed. "After all, I did drink your dream brew. What is it you would like to know?"
"Are your people fond of gardening?" Cho asked, and Larraine was so taken aback by the oddity of the question that she stopped in her tracks.
"I... suppose," she answered him. "I've known some people who keep small boxes in their windows where they plant flowers. Our king has an especially impressive garden, though he doesn't tend to it himself."
"Good," Cho said, turning back to her and extending his hand. Larraine reached out to take it, but when she looked down she found he was holding out a pair of pruning shears toward her.
"Um... what are these for?" she wondered, taking them from him. Cho merely gestured to a tall, rather misshapen shrubbery standing next to him.
"You want me to... prune your bush?" she asked, looking from the shrubbery back to the pandaren, who smiled and nodded to her.
"If you would be so kind," he requested, and Larraine quirked an eyebrow at the oddity of the situation. Still, she needed his help to find Anduin so she figured it couldn't hurt to humor him for a bit.
With a sigh, she stepped up to the shrubbery and looked it over, then chose a spot and began to cut down the plant. Cho soon stopped her, however, taking her hand in between both of his.
"Some people take their knives and lop away anything that displeases them," he said to her in his calm voice, "but this would kill the entire tree. That is not the Pandaren way."
Larraine looked to him and he gave her an enigmatic smile and a nod before releasing her hand, once again gesturing to the overgrown shrubbery before her. It took all of her willpower not to roll her eyes as she turned back to her task, and this time she looked the plant over more carefully before finally snipping away a piece that was sticking out at an odd angle. She then trimmed of another piece, then another, continuing until what was once a shapeless plant had started to change form into something more pleasing to the eye.
"That's it," Cho praised her as she continued working, "delicate cuts. Let the tree decide."
Larraine continued working at the shrubbery, not wanting to stop until Cho said it was okay even though she was acutely aware of the fact that the sun was already setting and it would soon be too dark to see where to make her cuts. After what felt like an hour had passed, Cho finally clapped his hands together and Larraine looked over to where he was to find him wearing a pleased grin upon his face.
"Well now! Who knew such beauty was hiding here?" he said, and Larraine took a step back to get a better look at what she had done. To her surprise, the previously overgrown plant now had a distinct corkscrew shape.
"Are you hungry?" Cho asked her, then began to walk back toward his house without waiting for her to answer. Larraine looked after him, then turned to Fang – who had laid down for a nap next to the tiger while she was trimming the shrubbery – but he seemed as confused as she felt. With a sigh, she carefully placed the pruning shears on the ground at the foot of the shrubbery, then gestured for her wolf to join her and followed Cho into his home.
"I have made a traditional pandaren stew," Cho said to her, setting out bowls at his small table for both of them and then adding a third on the floor. "I hope you do not mind."
"So far, I've enjoyed all the food I've tried here," Larraine assured him, then sat down upon one of the cushions surrounding the table. Cho smiled and lifted the pot of stew off his cooking fire, then placed it in the center of the table and removed the lid, after which he leaned over the pot and deeply inhailed its scent.
"Please," Cho encouraged Larraine, and she followed his example, sitting up on her knees in order to lean closer to the pot and inhale the scent of the stew bubbling within it.
"Eating is not just about the sense of taste alone," Cho said to her as he began to serve their meal. "Indeed, it is an experience for many of the senses. We look at our food, we smell it, we feel its texture in our mouths."
"I suppose I never really thought of it that way, before," she told him, holding out her bowl to him when he stretched out a hand to retrieve it from her in order to fill it.
"Our ability to enjoy our meals with so many senses is part of what places us above wild animals."
Fang growled in protest at his remark, and Cho chuckled.
"Well... most wild animals, I should say," he amended, then picked up Fang's bowl and served him some stew, as well – making sure to pat the wolf on his head after he'd given it to him.
As they ate, Cho asked Larraine questions about everything from the different races of the Alliance and Horde – he particularly found the dwarves fascinating when he learned they also had a long-standing tradition of brewing their own drinks – to her own family and upbringing. She wasn't exactly comfortable talking about how her parents had died and the way she was taken in by Mathais as a favor to them with a complete stranger, but Cho had been kind and hospitable toward her and so she gave him the briefest overview she could of her childhood without having to go too far into the details which she knew would upset her.
"I see," he remarked thoughtfully after learning that she was, essentially, an orphan. "That is why you are so eager to find this missing friend of yours, yes? He is an important part of your family."
"We're not related," she corrected him.
"One does not have to share blood with another to consider them family," Cho said sagely. "In fact, I daresay our friends, our pets... all of our loved ones make up a greater part of our families than those who share our blood."
"I suppose you're right," Larraine agreed.
"Come," Cho urged, standing from the table. "I fear I have brought your spirit down with my curiosity about your life and I wish to make it up to you."
Larraine quietly got up from the table and followed him back outside, and the two of them walked together over to a portion of the wall next to his gate which sported a rather crude painting of moonlit path.
"Sadly, my – ah – artistic talents are somewhat lacking," Cho said, sounding embarrassed. "What would you do to decorate my wall here?"
"Well, I... I don't know, really," Larraine replied, shaking her head. Cho smiled at her and wandered over to a small chest nearby, which he rummaged around in for a few minutes before returning to her with a painter's pallet sporting various colors of paint and a brush.
"Here. Don't say a word. Allow your image to speak."
"But... I don't really know how to paint," Larraine protested, but Cho practically shoved the pallet and brush into her hands."
"We pandaren prize beauty, and we find it all around us," he told her. "In the curves of a tree, the colors of a sunrise, even in the perfect physical form of a warrior's exquisite swordwork."
"I'm sorry, but didn't you say that you had something to help bring my spirits back up?"
"Yes, and this is it," Cho announced, gesturing to his own meager attempt at creating art. "Looking at things of beauty can make one happy, but it is creating them which brings about the most happiness."
Larraine stared blankly at the wall for several moments, then turned back to Cho. She opened her mouth to protest, but he placed a finger to his lips to signal that she should remain silent. Not knowing what else to do to convey her frustration, she shrugged helplessly and hoped that her facial expression would be enough to let him know how clueless she was feeling.
"Look deep into yourself," he instructed her. "Listen to your soul, and let your heart guide your brush."
Larraine groaned and returned her attention to the wall, then – deciding it would be best to at least start with a clean slate – she dipped the brush into some grey paint and began to place random strokes across the landscape picture. Cho gave her an encouraging pat on the back and walked away to leave her to her work, and Larraine continued on for several minutes until she was staring at a blank grey spot on the wall.
"What should I do, Fang?" she asked, and her wolf whined and ran back into Cho's house. A minute later he came back with something in his mouth and dropped it at her feet, and Larraine bent down to pick up the leather journal she'd been carrying around with her ever since Bixby found it on the wreckage of Taylor's ship.
"You're right," she told him, staring at the golden letters on the cover. "I need Cho's help to find Anduin, so I should just suck it up and go along with whatever weird game this is he's playing."
She handed the journal to Fang and instructed him to put it back where he'd found it, then returned to her task at hand. Whether or not she needed Cho's help, though, she still had no idea what to paint. Deciding to attempt to take his advice, she dipped her brush in a random color and started to paint for a while, then switched to another color, followed by a third. As time wore on, she was vaguely aware that the sun had been completely replaced by the moon in the sky above, and Cho began to bring out candles to set about on the ground by the wall and around her feet in order to help her to see better.
Hours passed, and Larraine simply continued to add random bits of color to her stone canvas, hoping that something would emerge from the mess she was making. She was about to give up and tell Cho it was an abstract piece when she saw it: a form was starting to emerge from the cacophony of color. Keeping her focus trained on that form, she spent the rest of the night adding additional colors and changing some of the ones she already had in the picture until a definite image finally took shape. At first, all she could tell was that it was a person. Then, as she added in more detail the person's identity came more and more into focus. His golden hair, his blue eyes, that smile of his which always made her feel happy and calm no matter how angry or upset she was...
"Anduin," she gasped, dropping the pallet and brush with the sudden realization of who she'd just spent the entire night painting. It wasn't a perfect portrait, but it was good enough to tell who it was supposed to be.
"Who is this?" Cho asked from behind her, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "A boy... But one who appears to have had no childhood – you can see it in his eyes. Is this your missing friend?"
"Yes," Larraine admitted, still surprised at who she'd ended up painting. Of all the people she could have chosen to create a portrait of, it had to be Anduin. Not her father, who had been taken from her far too soon, or her childhood hero – but Anduin. She supposed it made sense, though. She'd been concerned about his safety for more than a week, and Fang had brought her his journal before she started her actual painting, after all.
Cho made a thoughtful noise, pulling her attention to him, then handed a small sack of seeds to her.
"Come, you may help me feed my collection of exotic birds," he told her. "Then, we shall have some breakfast and you can assist me in creating some more of my dream brew so that you may find this young man."
Larraine had been about to give the pandaren a piece of her mind when he foisted yet another chore upon her – especially considering she'd spent the entire night standing there painting his wall – but once she learned what the rest of Cho's plans for the day were she soon calmed down. Cho led her to a grouping of trees situated nearly halfway between his home and the pavilion, then demonstrated what she should do by taking a handful of seeds from the bag in her hands and gently sprinkling them across the grass in front of them. Larraine followed suit, spreading out some more of the seeds from the bag, then stopped when she heard the sound of feathers ruffling and something walking toward them through the trees.
"Here they come," Cho said proudly. "You see how easy it is to make friends here? One should always remember that not all allies will be won over by sword point."
Larraine nodded in agreement with Cho, but her attention was focused on the tall, graceful birds which were starting to emerge. They had featherless legs which were like those of a crow but much longer and the graceful necks of swans, but their heads and were different. Black feathers topped their heads and also made up their tails, contrasting with the pure white of their bodies and the vibrant splash of red across each of their crowns. She scooped some more seeds into her hand and held out her palm, attempting to entice one of the birds closer so she could get a better look, and was rewarded when – after a couple of minutes – one of them finally wandered cautiously toward her and began to gently take the offered food from her hand.
"They're beautiful," she said in awe at the creature, amazed by the additional markings she could see up close.
"Thank you," Cho replied. "That one is named Autumn. She is the tamest of my birds. Sometimes I even use her to ride from one village to another."
"You ride them?" Larraine asked and turned to look at him in shock. Like all the other pandaren she had met, Cho was not by any means small, and the bird's legs were so delicate-looking she couldn't help but wonder how they didn't collapse under so much weight.
"Their legs are stronger than you might think," Cho informed her, as though he was able to read her mind.
"I see," Larraine said, feeling a blush creep into her cheeks.
"I am sure you must be hungry after painting all night," Cho said, smiling. "Let us eat, and then I will do what I can to help you find your prince."
Larraine stared after Cho as he made his way to his home, then gave Fang a puzzled look. For all the things she had said to Cho about Anduin, she couldn't remember having ever told him that he was a prince.
