AN: I wasn't really trying anything with this chapter, except pushing Theron off to where he's going to need to be later. My biggest question for myself is in regards to the altercation. Why didn't anyone stop it? Darnassus has more than enough Sentinels who could have stopped such a thing, and then I realized that, ya know... maybe Theron's one of those people so horrible that even the law turns their heads away. Really, I don't know if that would happen. In Kaldorei history, we see a lot of banishing. The kaldorei who would later become the high elves, Illidan, the original worgen-cursed night elves, Staghelm... they've all been banished in one form or another, and some have been placed in places to keep them safe or put them in time-out or what have you.

It's fun to think of the different ways of punishment one sees through the world, both in game and out. Banishing a person or persons only works for so long, and then we end up having our heroes who need to do the messy work. Because of course, without bad guys, what would we smush to get our purples fr - ... I mean, how else would we make the cities love us? (Say Runecloth, and I will harm you.)

For fun, if you've got a question regarding the story so far? Let me know. Either in the reviews, or in a private message. You can even ask a character a question, if you like. I don't mind! They're a chatty bunch, and don't bite. Well, Winnie might.

Falling.

She knew the feeling, and knew what was at the end would kill her, but even the knowledge of that was somehow stripped from her as easily as her breath. There was nothing between her and death but vast emptiness, and she savored the moments that ticked by as if time had been slowed to a crawl. Above her, his lips still quirked in that painfully sadistic manner, Theron merely folded his arms and watched her fall.

There had never been a scream, not a vocal one. Perhaps in her mind, a sobbing wail as her feet left their purchase and she was dimly aware of the pain of contact on her back where the broad hand of the hunter had viciously pushed her and then recoiled so that she could not tear him down with her as he so believed she might do. Her eyes closed, and everything else just faded away. Nothing existed but the sound of air whipping through her hair and her breath leaving her...

… and she loved it. Anyone she had once known would have thought she had gone mad, but her body twisted around, her arms thrown wide to feel the air cup and push against her body, and then she'd tilt and drop like a falling arrow only to right herself again, somehow aware that she was slowing herself without the use of magic. All the while her eyes remained closed, blinding herself to the inevitable so that all she would know would be that feeling.

Freedom.

The feeling that all winged creatures now shared with her for those fleeting moments, and she was loathe to give it up as she knew she would have to. For once she felt the desperate hate that seemed to make all people fight against fate, the untamed desire for something worth living for seeping through her veins, and her eyes opened in time to see the land beneath her break through clouds, and the cries above her. Above, and not far.

The moments that had passed so slowly seemed to rewind and play again in the back of her eyes; Theron's lips near her ear, that eerie feeling of danger that she couldn't shake, the gentle press of his hands against her back that became a rough shove that was only now beginning to die, and his smirk. He wanted her to die, and if she did it would be murder. If. So what was it going to be when she lived?

Slowly, a mirror of his own smirk crossed her lips. The visions cleared, the sounds of water crashing on rocks flooding through the whistle of air, and she focused on the hand reaching for her. Without a thought, she reached, and fingers entwined around a thick wrist. Her body continued to fall, a grunt of pain leaving parted lips as her arm took the brunt of her weight, but she had stopped falling.

"Lassie, tha next time ye be wantin' ta jump, let one o' us know, eh?" Winnie grinned down at the hanging woman, her mirth sobering when she saw just how near a miss it had been; Brin's boots were no more than two feet from the shattered rocks beneath her.

"I didn't jump!" Excitement surged through her veins, her voice lifted with the residual swell even though it was easy to hear her. She couldn't help it, her adrenaline pushed to the brink. It was a miracle she hadn't changed in the fall, and she was happy for it. "I was pushed! Winnie, I flew!"

"Have ye gone mad, lass? Tha wasn't flyin', tha was fallin'." The dwarf could barely believe her ears, her words betraying the near helpless worry she had felt just after the strange fear when the hippogryph she had mounted lurched for the edge of the tree and jumped. "Ye didnae even have style to it, ye were jus' fallin'!" The bird-beast released a loud noise, something between the call of a bird and the neigh of a pack-mule, and Winnie hauled on the worgen's arm.

Brinella gripped the decorative saddle, pulling herself up with the dwarf's help. It was far from a graceful mounting, but it was all the beast needed to see. "I didn't jump. Theron pushed me." She didn't bother explaining more than that, knowing it wasn't needed. There was no question of why he had done it, no reason but on behind his logic.

"Hoped ye wouldn't say tha, Brin. Really hoped fer it." The flame haired woman shook her head as the hippogryph landed lightly and sprang back into the air to head once more for the lofty branches it had just tore from. They were silent for the flight, Brinella focused on keeping herself seated in the saddle instead of answering the odd desire for her to fall once more. Her attention turned from the sky to the trees as the beast began to circle, her eyes narrowed at the scene unfolding beneath them.

Lydros stood with his fingers ensnared in the snowy locks of their rogue friend, his other arm over her body to pin one of her arms while his hand held the wrist of her free one, holding back the lethal weapon she held. Ninya's face was flushed, her breathing ragged and eyes wide with something that was akin to the feral anger and insanity she had known when she ran with the pack in Gilneas. Tears streaked through light grime, and Lydros' muscles visibly strained to keep his friend pinned. The subject of her animosity was no better off – Theron was wrapped nearly head to toe in thick vines that pulsed and writhed, like snakes attempting to suffocate their prey.

His face was dark, hair hanging in thick tangles over his face, and yet he glared at the one who held him prone. Brinella had never truly seen a druid angered beyond sensibility, and now that she was faced with one, she wasn't sure how she was supposed to react. The moment the hippogryph touched down, Winnie was off and stomping her way towards the cluster of people, only to have her hair caught up by Lydros at the risk of releasing Ninya's dagger hand. It was a risk that became pointless, Ninya's attention breaking from the would-be murderer to struggle in Lydros' arms, her eyes back at Brin.

Lydros' gaze followed her own, seeming to understand. His release of the slender kaldorei woman lasted only seconds before Ninya collapsed against Brinella, leaving the worgen far more confused than she should have been. "I thought you were gone! I thought... he..." Her fingers came up, sliding through the crop of white hair in a soothing motion, something akin to a laugh summoned deep from her chest. "It's not funny! You could have been killed!"

"Monsters shouldn't live." Theron's words were raspy, spoken between ragged breaths that he was forced to try and take when the vines would release his throat. There was a manic glint in his eyes, one that had only increased the moment he spied Brinella. They diverted from her, glaring insanity at the broad-shouldered druid in front of him, the resemblance uncanny. Theron's father looked every part of a druid of the Claw, scars along every bare part of skin she could see, and his lips curled back the same way a large cat or even bear would do before releasing a warning sound.

When he spoke, it was in a voice of rolling thunder. Quiet, and yet so very much a portent of conflict. His rage was only just kept in check. "You do not play with the lives of others." As his fingers flexed, so did the vines around his son, squeezing air only to relent and allow the boy to breathe. For once, they witnessed fear in the younger elf. "They are not monsters - ..."

"Yes, we are." Brinella spoke before she could think about what she was saying, but the words seemed to spill from her as if a dam had been broken. "All of us are. Every last one of us are monsters, and we'll never be wholly accepted by anyone. It's a curse, and regardless of who brought it down on us or if we even deserved to have such a thing happen, it isn't going to go away." She looked down to Ninya, still clinging to her as if she were the last thing that held her to the earth. "There's a difference between the monster I am, and the one you are."

Theron made a noise, as if trying to negate all that she said, but his father was quicker. "I held on to you, hoping that the boy I called my son would come back. I know now, when you have brought the sky down around my ears, that what I had dreamed of was but a fool's dream." The amber eyes closed, his breath ragged as his fingers flexed and spread, and the vines dropped away to let his son crash to the floor, those around him backing away. "You are dead, and you... shall never walk on the soil of this home of your kin until all those who have witnessed your folly have passed as well. Or I will kill you myself."

The threat rang home, the color gone from Theron's face as he looked to his father. When there was nothing from him, he dared to seek pity from the others, and each of them looked away, all except one. Brinella returned his look, her eyes showing the pity she knew would hit his pride and make him angry, but she felt it anyway. When no one moved, when no one made a sound, he pushed himself to his feet, rubbing the imprints left by his father's attack. Without another word, he turned and made his way to the portal that would take him out of the city.

Behind him, Falshon dropped from the trees to land on one of Theron's father's shoulders, ruffling her snowy wings. Like the others who watched as the young hunter stumbled away, she made no move to follow, every movement of her own seeming to reflect the pain her male perch felt within. As Ninya's tears halted and became nothing more than hiccups, as Lydros and Winnie fell into another of their common arguments, and as Theron's father and his once beloved owl made their way from the group... it began to rain.