It's been almost a month since I've updated. So long. I feel so irresponsible:P But here I am with another update finally. Sadly, this is nothing exciting other than a couple of revelations. I guess not really a couple, just one. Meh, this chapter is another filler chapter of angst. All aboard the angst train.

Would you like a beverage to go along with your angst? No?

I don't know what I'm doing with life anymore lol. Take teh chapter. As usual I didn't edit, please ignore my mistakes I'm sorry I know I'm such a horrible person I'm going to stop rambling now I promise. Oh wait, one more thing. I have two stories I want to write but I don't know which one I should write first. One involves Night Elves, the other involves mainly Blood Elves and Humans. If anyone has a suggestion about which I should write first, please tell me in a PM or a review. I should note that both those stories wouldn't be out until after Exist is finished- actually scratch that because I'm horrible and can't be trusted. The stories will be out sometime during our lifetime-hopefully. Just someone tell me which one to do first please lol.

Anyway, here's the chapter.

When you boarded the ship you felt like collapsing. You were herded to a ladder, trying your best not to stumble with clumsy hooves that had never set foot on a boat before now. You remember the one time that you were invited to go sailing along the coast to see the giant, glowing salt-water marsh mushrooms under the light of the eclipse. You had wanted so badly to go, but Father never liked the marshes, he liked the idea of you going into them even less. He'd told you no, as you had expected. Tending to the spice gardens had been especially boring that day... You wouldn't mind tending to them at all now.

You were thankful that the rungs of the ladder were more like steps, wide and flat pieces of black metal to match the rest of the ship, you only wished they weren't so slippery. At least they had removed the ropes around your wrists and ankles before making you climb. Panic set in when you reached the middle of the ladder, about halfway up the ship. All to your right you could see the Talador coast. You were leaving... You were leaving, captured by the Iron Horde, being sent away as a slave to who knew where! You were a slave now... You were probably going to die... Your parents were dead, your people being massacred, your world was being destroyed... And you were never going home.

You would have fallen from the ship if not for Kaurin, your fingers had threatened to give out on you with the hopelessness that sat thick in your bones. He must have seen the terror in your face because he pushed you gently from behind, tapping your back with a shaky hand. When you looked down at him before climbing once more you saw how he struggled to hold on and you felt selfish. You were not the only one suffering here. Kaurin and all those people on the boat were suffering just as you were. Perhaps even more. You swallowed away the sadness and fear and grabbed the next rung. And the one after that, and the one after that too, and so on until you had reached the ship's deck.

When you did finally reach the top, you were immediately shoved to your knees and told to sit and stay in poorly spoken Draenei by another Orcish soldier. Once all of the others from the boat were sitting in a line beside you did the woman from earlier appear up over the side of the ship and onto the deck. She spat two harsh words at the soldiers at her side and they scampered off with quick salutes, they returned bearing chains and manacles. One by one, down the line, you and each of the others were cuffed and then shackled and then shackled together. Afterward the woman told you stand and you were lead down metal stairs into the darkness of the ship below deck.

The chains rattled with your every step, tinkling like music, a lighthearted sound unless you knew the source. It mocked your every movement. You were all silent as you were lead down into the dark of the ship's hold, no one even daring to whisper. The clank of plate-clad feet behind you urged the line forward at an almost frantic pace. It was strange and disturbing to you, the way that you eagerly went down into the unknown just to escape those that now owned you.

The air down in the hold was stale and dank, you shivered as it enveloped you and all light seemed to disappear once you were off the steps. Finally one of the soldiers who had cuffed you came around to the front of the line with a torch and lit another on the wall. You were shocked by what you saw. Dozens of Draenei, young and old, were shoved against one another for as far as you could see in the circle of light created by the torch. As more torches were lit and the hold grew brighter, you could see them packed together on the grated floor, all nearly naked and shivering, all silent save for the occasional sniffle or cough, a ragged breath. The little clothes they wore were mere rags now, threadbare and shredded, full of holes.

There weren't any Orcs from what you could see, only Draenei, Kaurin stuck out like a sore thumb. All eyes in the room were on your little group from the boat as they lead you to a less crowded area and locked the long line of chain that bound you all to one another into the wall. The looks Kaurin got varied, but not by much. The younger Draenei were either curious or terrified of him, the older ones looked either spiteful or pitying. But all eyes held fear, and you hated that your own did too. You slumped against the wall, Kaurin doing the same and everyone else eventually following. Then the Iron Horde soldiers disappeared up the steps, the torches went out one by one, and you were all left in the dark.

Eventually the ship moved. A loud humming sound filled the hold, much like that of the cart but deeper and more muted by the thick, metal walls that surrounded you. Kaurin had started to lean on you at one point, asleep you guessed. You leaned back, glad for the warmth he bought once again. Even though there were no guard, at least you couldn't see any, around no one spoke a single word. As the hours passed one of the younger girls cried quietly for a while before full on wailing. Others began to cry too. The sound was haunting, as if these were the cries of the already dead and not the still dying. But there is only a thin line between living and dead, and these people danced so precariously on the line itself, tipping from one side to the other and then back again. Weeping filled both the ship's hold and your ears, and when you couldn't bear to hear it any longer, you forced yourself into an empty sleep.

Waking up, the air was noticeably colder. The metal ship walls were unbearably frigid through your shirt. You curled your tail around your legs and pulled your knees to your chest. Uncontrollably, you shivered for the next couple of hours. At least they were quiet hours, no one cried, no one screamed, no one wailed or wept. But now the hold seemed eerily empty, and with slightly adjusted eyes you could make out the shivering forms of all the other Draenei huddled together for warmth.

Beside you Kaurin shivered too. He was awake now, sitting more away from the walls than before, like you. If he was cold too, you knew it had to be worse than you'd thought. Just where were you, that the waters of the sea and the air around you was so icy? In Shadowmoon it rarely ever got this cold and you had only seen snow once in your life. Was it snowing outside right now, you wondered.

For a little while longer you guessed at where you could be and where you might be going. You could only barely recall the maps Father had of this continent on Draenor, only able to image bits and pieces of it and of what he'd told you of the lands. You wished you could remember more. But still you could remember a little bit. There was a jungle, hot and wild, to the far north where two Orcish clans vastly different from one another lived. There was an open plain to the west, a land of legend called Nagrand that even most Draenei knew of. To the southwest of Shadowmoon was Arak, a dangerous land filled with bird people and monstrous ravens that haunted the skies of southern Shadowmoon too. You'd heard many terrifying stories of that place back in Elodor, though few ever dared to venture there. There was then, of course, Talador, and to the west of that another jungle called Tanaan, though you didn't know much of that place, like most of the other Orcish lands, however there was supposedly a hidden Draenei village somewhere in there.

You thought over the lands. None of those places were reputably cold. This could perhaps just be another odd snowstorm, like the one that had hit Shadowmoon in your childhood, but something told you that this was different. You thought over the map again, sure you were missing something... And then you remembered the final land, far to the northwest of any place you'd ever been. There had been little that Father had been to tell you of that place, only that the seas were rough with cold and violent storms and that the land was locked in a state of forever-turmoil. Cold against hot, ice against fire. You still didn't quite understand what he'd meant by that, but you were certain now that you were experience the "cold" part of that turmoil. Yes, you had to be off the coast of this northern land, where else could you possibly be in this cold?

You shivered, but not necessarily from the cold this time. You were so far from home now. What would this land be like? Was this even your final destination? So many questions... So much fear... You hid your face against your knees and prayed that the Light grant you some sort of warmth to ease both your body and your heart.