~*~ Author's Notes ~*~

At some point last night I wondered about how the Blood Elves do their laundry… I'm looking forward to theorizing that into one of these chapters.

This is not that chapter.

~*~Chapter 10~*~

The little druid snatched her hand away, tucking it into her lap under her other palm. She blushed, wishing her hair were down so she could hide her face. "It's the Moonwell waters," she spoke softy, "I just wanted a bath." She avoided the woman's piercing stare.

The Priest said something in Thelassian, causing the Warlock to sit down sharply, bony arms crossed, "Next time just chuck her into a river if she wants a bath so bad!"

The Priest's glare was impressive, conveying the question of 'and what clean river is there to put her in?' but didn't phase the Warlock one bit. One got the feeling he didn't often get upset, but when he did only the Warlock's wrath could match it and prevent the self-destructive reaction. She kept him grounded. Sane.

It almost made sense. He was pure Holy energy, a fully realized healer. She was pure Fel energy, a capable and great destruction. They acted, as two sides of a coin, equal and balanced in the fight to save what they each cherished. For the Priest it was his homeland. The Warlock, the Druid supposed, lived for the chance to kill whoever opposed the Priest? But just what exactly bound the two together, she still wanted to know.

"What is your name, little Druid?" The Priest asked quietly, turning to look at her. He was no longer angered with her, his temper sharpened against the Warlock of a wetstone and dulled at once by the same.

Her knees were drawn up against the cold of the night where she sat obediently beside him. Without looking at either of them she answered softly, "Kayas of Auberdine, Druid of the Wild. Defender of Ashenvale and the Darkshore, future hero of the Alliance." By rote as she had been taught. All Night Elf children who were pressed into service had it pounded into their head that, as the superior race, they would all be heroes some day. Otherwise they were failures in the eyes of their elders and outcast to guard remote villages where they wouldn't be able to embarrass their people.

Across the fire the sound of grinding teeth could be heard, "Future hero, aye? You don't know what kind of future you're invoking, child. Heroes aren't made from glory and honor. They're forged from losing everything they love, everything that keeps them playing it safe. If that's the future you want, you wont be short of employment."

The young Druid felt foolish, warmed slightly. A child preaching her hopes to immortals. Hopes that some day she would share in a tragedy so catastrophic that there is nothing left to live for? Yes, it was a foolish dream.

The Priest sighed heavily. His companion's words were meant to weight the Druid, though they weighted on him as well. "We all serve. Those who cant server yet look to the greatness of others as inspiration." To the Druid specifically he said, "One doesn't learn to be great by following an example, but by understanding why their example is great. Someday you will be needed to be what you were meant to be and if you are not that person then you will fail them all."

There were many messages in his speech. Some he said plainly, some he implied, and all the Druid could tell he had learned the hard way. Of these she though that perhaps he had been one who had fought his fate, thinking there would be not consequence for his refusal.

The fire cracked and the Priest continued to eat his spicy bread. It was the first time the Druid had seen him eat anything. He tore off tiny little bites and ate them with maddening slowness.

After a few moments of internal reflection, the Warlock said something in Gutterspeak, flipping back her hood. Spiky blonde hair shot out in every direction, looking like she had stuck her finger in one of her companions engineering experiments.

The Priests eyebrows shot up. Then he grinned lecherously, the lessons of the past forgotten for a moment, and said, "Well good luck to you then!"

If it were possible to look embarrassed, glowering and hopeful at the same time, Corrosa's expression was all three. What was left of her eyebrows angled upwards as she though something 'pleasant'. Then her expression fell again, "Yeah, yeah. I'll catch up some day."

Turning towards Kayas, the Priest, in a much better mood now, introduced himself formally, "My name is Jetadiah, a High Priest a Silvermoon," Though Kayas got the impression he was so much more than this simple distinction, "And my companion is Corrosa, -"

"She doesn't need to hear my life story, thank you!"

He paused for just a second to give her an amused look. In return the Warlock conjured up the image of someone sneaking up on him while he slept, but her not being there because she had to kill a Druid who knew too much.

He coughed, hard, and grinned for a moment. Then the shadows overtook him once more. Like memories coming out of the woods and surrounding him, pulling his spirit to the ground, draining him.

"And this is why we don't come back to this place!" The raw emotion in the Warlocks voice caused the Druid a start, "Because it tears you up so much to walk these roads again and see nothing of what you remember!"

Wide eyed, the Druid was puzzled a great deal. She cared? The Fel-damed curse of a Scourged woman, who stole the life from everything around her and twisted it into nightmares, cared? Holy Dragon Aspect!

"Oh," the Priest said softly, "I see a great many memories as I walk these roads…" He spoke of haunting visions of children and the dead, of which only a High Priest would be able to see. If he tried, as he had on their way back to the camp, the world fell away and there around him again would be images of the past.

Corrosa's head dipped down, her hood falling back over her head. A moment latter she snapped out her solution to the Priests heartsick problem: "Were leaving first thing in the morning." And that was that.

"That's not-," The Priest protested, attempting to pull rank of some kind. Problem was, the Warlock gave about as much of a damn about his rank that he did of her threats to turn him over to the Alliance for the reward money. That is to say, AHAHAHA!

"First thing! In fact, pack everything up tonight and we'll get breakfast on the road back to Brill."

"But, Corrosa-" He pleaded, sounding too much like a child complaining to Mommy. It was very unbecoming of his dignified stature.

"Don't you 'but, Corrosa' me! Feed her before you turn her back into a kitty. She put out a great deal of energy doing that thing you're refusing to admit you let her do and she wont last till we get to Orgrimmar now."

'What he let me do?' The Druid's mind spun. 'You didn't hear him fussing at me… He shook me!'

Kayas and Jetadiah stared blankly at the Warlock. "I'm not feeding her anything till I get your assurances she won't turn into a loaf of bread." The mental image made both their lips twitch: a loaf of bread with cat ears and a tail.

"I took the enchant off the collar when you repaired it. It's not so fun watching her waste away as I though it would be." Under her breath she muttered, "Like I can't do better than that…"

Jetadiah and his companion locked eyes for a moment. Relief showed in the Priest's face, his features softened. Yes, the Warlock cared about him. He was a bastion of Holy energy, attuned to the suffering of those around him, no matter what faction they were. If the Druid suffered, then so did he. Though the Warlock hated the Alliance, especially the Night Elves it seemed, she didn't enjoy watching them suffer so much that it was worth watching her Priest suffer as well.

Her Priest.

Breaking off a large hunk of the bread, the Priest handed it towards the Druid. Gingerly she reached out and touched it. Still warm from the enchanted bag their food was kept in. A moment latter he passed to her the drinking skin filled with a sweet juice of some exotic fruit she had never tasted. And slightly biting.

For the first time since she had been captured, she felt a stir of contentment. A warm fire before her, a warm smile from the Priest, whom she was grudgingly coming to think might just have been born on the wrong team, warm bread between her teeth and that juice burning threw her system making her head swim and her arms fill heavy.

She fell asleep by the fire after finishing the bread. This time, she didn't hear the Warlocks whooping laugher or the soft chuckle of the Priest.

"She's had wine before, right?" Jetadiah asked his companion

The Warlock took the skin as it was tossed to her, "Surely…"

"She downed that pretty fast though…" He poked at the sleeping Druid, noting that her dress really wasn't travel attire, however becoming it was. She was out like a light, curled up and seemed to blend in with the land itself. Where the drops of Moonwell water fell from her skin and soaked into the dirt tender green shoots were pushing threw the soil.

His amazement ended when the Warlock, having downed the rest of the flask, asked, "Remember the last time you got a girl drunk by the fire, Jet?"

The Priest blushed, head to foot, and put his own hood up to hide his face. Sparkling stars of mana danced around the clearing, chasing each other now that they weren't trapped in the hood.

Corrosa laughed, sounding like someone whose lungs weren't all there anymore, and pitched forward onto the ground. When she didn't get up, the Priest drew back his hood partway to look at her.

Fast asleep.

Jetadiah snorted, "I'm surrounded by lightweights!"