"You need to hurry." The voice was solemn, calming after the same idea given by the gnashing, impatient, dark spirit, and Raheli considered it. She'd heard this voice before...but not because she was a shaman. All could hear the naaru.

"What am I coming into? Raheli demanded, pushing the charger into a faster pace. She could afford to wear him down now, they'd reach Jaina's consort this day. The charger could rest while she tended the man.

"He was shot at Theramore's gate, and triaged in their infirmary to the point where he was stable enough to wait. He was dosed with painkillers when he would not sleep. He teleported in spite of all of that, to arrive at the Altar of Damnation."

Raheli grimaced. Hardly a good spot for an injured, drugged mage to land at. Even if the spirits chained to the Altar left him alone, the native fauna was unlikely to.

"The Arrakoa picked him up."

Never a good thing. Pesty, squawky, beady eyed evil little shits. Feather dusters with a bad attitude.

"And they died for it. But their treatment has only made him worse off."

Of course. Raheli let the charger open up his stride, flying over the dismal gray ground. At least she was a small tauren, a lightweight taken in comparison to her race's norm, and was not as much of a burden as she might have been. The open ground made for good time, she could see obstacles and rough spots from miles away, and there, visible on the horizon, an Arrakoa camp. She arrived in a flurry of totems, in case there were Arrakoa, or anything else, hidden amongst the silent tents, but there was nothing but what she'd come here for. She discovered him in the largest of the tents, either asleep or completely unconscious. He'd reached the point where that determination was difficult to make, and she plopped another totem close by, to begin a slow heal while she took stock of his situation.

He was most certainly human, and big for one of those. Her grasp of racial beauty was sluggish, she could judge orcs fairly decently...but humans, not so much. She had no clue if Jaina's consort was appealing, or appalling.

The naaru chuckled in her mind. "Physically? Appealing. Spiritually? Often appalling."

Charming idea. He was wearing mage's robes, but they'd seen much better days, and she was content to cut them to view his wounds quicker. They'd been bandaged, and she caught a whiff of an antiseptic ointment impregnated into the fibers. The job was only supposed to have held him a couple of hours, a day at the most...not five of them. He was a fighter, she'd have to give him that. He didn't feel pretty...

"Varrick. Pretty? No. Not even close."

Raheli only nodded, closing the naaru out of her mind. It was not a source of power for her. Nor was it truly a source of support, or comfort. It was an alien force, one she had never understood. But she understood the ill man before her, and she took a deep breath, touching the wellspring in her soul that the spirits had gifted her with. Be whole. Be well. Be strong.

Varik came to, feeling a thousand percent better. He was no longer alone, he had a bony wolf lying on his right side, gazing at him through wary, malign, pale yellow eyes. His left side was butted up against the tent side, and his head was pillowed in a lap. He had woken to a slight stroke down his forehead, gentle and delicate. He turned his head slightly, to get a better view, and blinked. No cow should have breasts. And no cow should have breasts like those, eclipsing the view of everything above them from his current angle.

"You're awake." It had a deep voice, but not rumbly deep. "Good."

"You must be Raheli." At least that sounded more sane than any other comment he could come up with... all of them were some dreadful combination of cow and boobs.

"I am Raheli." It confirmed, apparently content to leave him just as he was.

"Your wolf is..." He tried to come up with an appropriate compliment, but there were none. Much too small for her, thin as a nightmare, and just as unpleasant to face.

"Not my wolf." There was the bell edge of a laugh under her syllables. "He's all yours."

"Mine?" Now that it was mentioned, the wolf did resemble his last one.

"Yours. The spirit calling me to you said it was the right one to bring...speak to it if you do not like the wolf." It was odd to hear what truly appeared to be some sort of animal speak to him in a lilting, vibrant orcish. She leaned over so that she could look at him over her breasts, and he got his first good look at what he rested against. She was pale gray, with a splash of pure white across her forehead. A pair of dark horns sprouted from a cascade of flint colored mane, broad ears edged in black, so animalistic, until he met her eyes. A great people, the naaru had vouched for them, and he saw it at that moment. She had a brightly intelligent gaze, calm and gentle. "Can you sit?"

Yes, yes he could. And if he did, he wouldn't be staring at a large talking cow's breasts. He let her help push him up into a seated position, leaning against a pile of dusty cushions. "You need to drink something." She stated, turning to rummage through one of the packs next to her. "Here."

He was parched, truly, and drank easily half of the small bottle before he tasted it. And it was good, much better than he'd been steeling himself for, a hint of sweet, an edge of tangy...it washed his mouth of dry gunk and thirst. It made him feel much better than it should, yet didn't come with the buzz of a potion. "That's great." He admitted, smelling the empty bottle.

She gave him what had to be a smile, and he was surprised he could read it as such. "Touch of sugar, touch of juice, herbs to combat dehydration, and fizzy water." She ticked off the ingredients. "I make it for our units in the field. Works wonders, if I'm allowed to say so."

"Our units?" He'd seen these in the assault on Theramore. She spoke orcish to him. She said that she had been called by a spirit of his, probably Gul'dan. Did she believe he was part of this new Horde? A brother in arms? She wore armor and gear that he knew had to be screaming her allegance, but he didn't recognize the blazon. It wasn't the Horde. It wasn't the Alliance. It wasn't Theramore. He'd never seen it before.

"Ah." She murmured, "I belong to the Argent Crusade."

Which meant absolutely nothing to him. There wasn't even so much as a teasing hint in the back of his mind in answer to it. Jaina hadn't mentioned them, either. He spread his hands in confusion, and she took the motion as an opportunity to put another bottle in his grasp.

"The Crusade is a group that came together to fight the undead in Northrend. We are neutral, we take champions from the Horde, from the Alliance. We do not answer to king or warchief...only to our own Highlord. We seek to set aside the old hatreds and work towards a larger goal." She shrugged, watching him drink. "Sometimes we are successful. Sometimes we are not."

"So you are not a member of the Horde?"

He sensed a rising edge of unease, the way she stilled, dropped a shoulder, her ears vanishing into her thick mane. "No." She finally admitted painfully. "No longer. The warchief is mad. I thought that before Theramore. Now, I have incontrovertible proof of that. He is insane. I will not follow that."

Well, at least she was saying things that he finally understood. This was something that he grasped implicitly. "How long do we stay here?" He asked, lifting the edge of the tent fly to watch a deeper darkness creep across Shadowmoon.

"Until you are fit." She answered patiently.

"Jaina..."

"I told Kalecgos that you did not seem to be dead. I assume he told her. None of that matters, however." Her patience moved firmly to implacabililty, and he nodded. He knew stubborn when he saw it in play. He wasn't going until she said so...or until he got well enough to go in spite of her. And they both had the same result, he'd be able to leave.

He nodded, finishing off the second bottle. It had helped banish much of the lightheadedness, now he was starving, and had to piss...both cheerfully normal signs that his body was recovering. "I don't suppose you have food?" He asked hopefully. The Arrakoa had food...but it was the sort of food he'd have to be truly desperate to eat.

"I do." She promised, standing to walk out of the tent. He blinked, and clenched his teeth in shock. No cow should look like that. The breasts, the hips, the sway. He was definitely feeling better, and it was showing in a terrible way.

She came back in with a bowl, passing it to him. It smelled wonderful, much better than he'd been hoping for, and he fell to eating. "This is great." He stated truthfully, around a mouthful. "I wish I had a better place to offer you..." He chuckled, glancing around. Her gaze flicked along the same path, and she shrugged.

"I've been in worse." She said wryly. "Although it does smell like a Sin'dorei stable in here."

Another one of those comments he didn't quite get, but he understood 'smells like a stable' and he'd agree with that. "So, what now?" He asked when she settled back down across from him, a bowl on her own knees. "I must admit..." He began slowly, "That I am concerned about how I'm supposed to get back to Azeroth...and Jaina."

She paused, considering the question. "I'll hire a mage from the Lower City to get us to Dalaran, if it's open. If not, we'll have to figure out some other route to get you there."

(AN- Aaaaggghhhh! I was writing this section, and part of the section before, singing along with Varik's theme song, when... BAM, there goes my power. They had decided to replace our street's electrical mains. Long story short, I lost data, and the rewrites after that happens are never as good as the first flow. :( But it's back on track now, so... my apologies-

H.A.)