Thank you.

To all of you, who have followed this story over the years.

To those of you who would excitedly comment on the latest twists and turns of this winding, labyrinthine epic.

To those of you who have just discovered it and binged through the entire thing in one sitting.

To everyone who supported me along the year-spanning journey of this fic.

To everyone who has made it this far and is reading this now.

Thank you.

This is the longest fanfic I've ever written. Actually, this is the longest thing I have ever written PERIOD. As of this month, this fic is now a full 3 years old. When I first started it back in 2019, I never expected it to go on for so long, nor for the story to deviate so greatly from my carefully-laid plans. I'll admit that it got a bit lost at times. As the story and the lore grew, it began to take on a life of its own. That made it difficult, at times, to pull the narrative back on course. Sometimes I could, but other times turned into plot holes; problems that needed to be addressed but no plan to do so and so many questions with no prepared answer.

I grew so much as a writer during the time I worked on this fic. You can see it as you read on, chapter by chapter. I don't think it is a stretch by any means to say that this fic changed me. And I am so grateful for this wonderful experience, as well as the support from all of you. I couldn't have continued for so long without you guys. That's a fact. There were many times where I felt like I was losing steam, like my motivation to keep working on this fic was slipping away. But the supportive comments and fanarts, encouraging me to keep going, really helped me to push onward.

But as for why I stopped...

I stopped in June of 2021, right before the news broke about the lawsuit at Blizzard. That really left me at a loss. Blizzard's various games, in the Warcraft series especially, were such a big part of my life and have been for many, many years. I have so many years of happy memories, not just of the games but the whole community surrounding Warcraft. And it felt like suddenly, all these memories had all been tainted. How could I be happy, knowing so many people had been hurting in the background? Perhaps it could be excused by ignorance, but now that I know, how could I continue to make more memories? It haunted me for a very long time. Many tears were shed. Much anger, much sorrow. I mourned. Truly. And no matter how much I mourned, the pain never faded. Even as everyone else around me forgot...

Last month, I was randomly scrolling Twitter and came across a random meme video. I clicked it. The theme of Stormwind played. The next thing I knew, I was weeping. Again. I missed it. I missed Azeroth.

But, again, how could I justify making new happy memories in Azeroth now? Knowing what I know?

I'll be blunt, kids. A month before I started writing this fic, I broke up with my extremely abusive former-boyfriend who constantly degraded and belittled me, manipulating my emotions to force me to change myself for him. This fic was born out of the anguish as I dealt with my feelings and began to recover myself, as a way for me to heal. I wanted to show a relationship based on mutual respect and acceptance of each partner's individual differences and flaws, even if they struggle in the beginning. Zami, in particular, was designed to be my idea of an ideal boyfriend. For me, at least, heh. Someone protective of his loved ones, sensitive to his emotions, who shows empathy and is willing to meet halfway.

WoW is more to me than just a video game. It has been with me through the years, through the ups and downs. And I won't forget the cruelties and horrible things that have happened behind the scenes. But here's the thing. I didn't do it. I didn't hurt anyone. And yet I still punished myself, feeling guilty for my happy memories. After all, I'm the one breaking down in tears over the Stormwind theme.

Last month, I decided to stop punishing myself. Life is short. And who knows how much longer we'll have. If it's not a virus, it could be war, or global warming, or this, or that. Why not just let myself be happy? So last month, I restored my WoW sub. And I'm happier for it. I'm happy to be back in Azeroth.

But returning to Azeroth has brought this fic to the forefront of my mind. I stopped this fic because it was too painful for me to continue at the time. I wanted to continue this. To jump back in. But the truth is, I can't. Or rather, I won't. I don't want to. I can produce something so much better. And I want to. And I will.

But this fic, and all of you, deserve a conclusion. So I'm going to tell you everything I had planned for the future of the characters we've all come to love in this story, as well as any major reveals or twists I had planned. I know it isn't the same, but I hope you enjoy it regardless!


Let's go through all the major characters: Aka, Zeni, Khall, Zalu, Jazax, Syrise, Mythene, Zami.

Aka accompanies Zami for the rest of her natural life. I don't know how long raptors live in WoW, but I imagine it is quite similar to a dog or a cat. This would effectively mean that Aka remains with Zami for the rest of his life. And yes, I do mean the entire remainder. A typical Troll's lifespan would be some time around 60 years, but can push as high as 80 if premature death is avoided. Though it certainly would not have been for Zami, heh. I'll explain more later. Aka herself, as a character, was based off of Ohgan'aka from the Stranglethorn quest line involving Zul'Gurub, as well as just a standard raptor mount.

Zeni is a plant. A lasher, to be specific. Depending on certain botanical properties, Zeni could either be an "annual" or a "perennial" type plant, with the former meaning a singular year's lifespan while the latter suggests merely going dormant each winter and aging. While there's no real canonical answer as far as I can find, I want to believe that Zeni has the ability to age and grow like a perennial. Maybe Zeni could even have a lengthy lifespan similar to that of a tree, which can span from a hundred to over a thousand. Either way, I think Zeni will be around for quite a long time, pestering many fledgling druids of Moonglade for years to come.

Khall most certainly remained a member of the Cenarion Circle for the rest of his life, but his time of active service ended shortly after the Burning Legion was thwarted once and for all as seen in the Legion expansion. Though he spent the majority of his time working alongside the druids in Val'sharah, he did find himself inevitably drawn to Highmountain. There he met a huntress named Henah. They fell in love and ultimately ended up having a daughter named Hallona who wants to follow in her father's footsteps as a druid. A family man now, Khall brought his wife and daughter back to Thunderbluff, where he now works as a teacher for young druids, including many trolls.

Zalu was always designed to be a foil towards Zami. They're two halves of the same whole. Whereas Zami was inspired by my idealized version of a boyfriend, Zalu was much closer to the one I actually got. Selfish, ignorant, emotionally-repressed in every aspect except anger, shallow, and overall unconcerned for the wellbeing of anyone besides himself. His fate was sealed since the beginning concepts of the story, and it ends about how you expect. After he finally reached his breaking point by murdering Jumi, any chance for redemption was lost. Especially since Zami was essentially required to murder him. When it came down to it, Zalu would die in a very similar manner to Zin'aka. And it would be equally as traumatic for Zami to have to kill his last surviving brother. He lost out on so much to help raise them, after all.

Jazax and Syrise have very interwoven stories, but when discussing each, I will primarily talk about their individual arcs and plotlines. Most of Jazax's own story had to do with Tezz and finally reaching a proper resolution. Jazax, for his part, just wants to move on and not think about the past. If you've read any of my short-lived prequel "Boombottle" focused on Jazax and his experiences prior to meeting Zami, then you'd know that he had a lot of unpleasantness in his past, with his marriage to Tezz only being one of many. That being said, after her run-in with Syrise, Tezz begins to become more heavily involved and crosses paths with Jazax several times. She ends up accompanying Jazax and Tezz through their leg of the adventure for a while. Jazax ultimately settles his differences with Tezz without killing her. Seems like his time as a Priest wasn't entirely wasted.

As for Syrise, I unfortunately stopped right at the precipice of getting to discuss some of her backstory. For reference, her father Tynlen was a powerful mage in the court of King Anasterian Sunstrider who Syrise looked up to when she was very young, desiring to become a spellcaster like him. But everything changed for Syrise after her mother Dalaya died in childbirth while giving birth to her stillborn brother. Maddened by grief at his inability to save his wife, Tynlen soon succumbed to his arcane addiction and became one of the Wretched. He still lives, with Syrise keeping him imprisoned in her family manor, keeping him well attended by servants in her absence.

As a result of her father's fall to madness, Syrise refused to learn the ways of magic, instead focusing on archery and eventually becoming a Farstrider. After the Scourge attacked Silvermoon, Syrise was haunted by everything that she'd seen during the battle. Since Sylvanas was dead and Halduron Brightwing was voted the new Ranger-General, Syrise found herself chafing under his leadership, which she found especially strict. She ultimately resigned from the Farstriders and left Silvermoon behind, becoming a mercenary. Her mercenary contracts forced her to more and more unsavory methods and ultimately ended up with her taking an indefinite contract with the Steamweedle Cartel.

Now, regarding the two of them together. Jazax and Syrise. They end up together, obviously.

As for Mythene, I don't 100% remember everything that was in the original plan. But she basically just lived, while Zami would've died. More on that later. But everything changed after Shadowlands came out, allowing me the opportunity to play with a different ending. I hadn't fully worked out the details of it by the time I stopped writing, but my fledgling plan had her sacrificing her life, to save Cenarius or something like that. Point is, she died. This is an idea I came up with after my first visit to Ardenweald, while playing as a Troll druid. I thought, what if Mythene and Zami got to be reunited in death, in Ardenweald? They're both druids, it would make sense. They would've both died during the Cataclysm era, which might've predated the deal between Sylvanas and the Jailer. The in-universe timeline is a little more crunched than we expect, due to the real-world years between expansions, but it's just chaos happening over the span of like 2 years for them. So it's really hard to say. But that's the ending I would've pivoted towards.

Now, Zami. This is one of the primary reasons why I chose that I did not want to continue this story. There is so much weird convoluted stuff that I didn't fully plan. My original plan, what I can remember, saw Zami sacrificing himself to aid the resurrection of Cenarius and his father Malorne. But Zami's soul would've persisted, becoming a Loa, which canonically can happen. He was specifically going to be the Loa of the Emerald Dream, working alongside Gonk to aid Troll druids. But after I changed things due to Shadowlands, I decided to ax the Loa bit and just allow Zami and Mythene to be reunited in Ardenweald.

And there you have it! That's pretty much every major point that would've been revealed. I don't plan stories beat-by-beat, so I only have loose ideas of what I want to do going forward. But if you have any questions about anything I might've missed, please feel free to ask directly in the comments!


Thank you for reading this fic! Please stay tuned because starting on November 1st, I am going to begin a brand new story! One to completely blow "In Our Nature" out of the water!

Stay in touch with me on Twitter ( Ravduu) for updates!

Also, shameless plug of my Twitch (Ravduu), where I stream some different characters in WoW! Currently, I'm going through a month of ORC-tober!