In a big country, dreams stay with you

Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside

They stay alive.

-Big Country, In a Big Country

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"Out! OUT!"

All it took was one strident shout before the smothering tranquility of Darnassus was broken, the noise echoing out from the Centarion Enclave all over the city. Simultaneously, every Night Elf looked up with a sleepy blink or perhaps a wince, depending on how close they were to the ruckus. It was something that was happening more and more often nowadays, as the ugly beast of war stood breathing down the neck of every citizen; the more it drooled and panted, the shorter Archdruid Staghelm's temper was.

"I – SAID – OUT! GUARDS! Get this – get her – out of here! My time is far too important to be answering some, some – chattering featherbrain's trivia – why aren't you gone yet?! Why aren't you even running?! I said bOUT!/b"

No-one could say she hadn't been properly warned, but a few seconds later a scrawny excuse for a female Night Elf was tossed headfirst out of the Archdruid's tower. Any protesting quickly turned to one long shriek as she flailed to the ground and thankfully tumbled headfirst into a patch of particularly soft moss. She very slowly untangled herself and got up with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, sighing and dusting herself off. And, with impeccable timing, the Archdruid's irritated shout of "And for Elune's sake, take your damned bow!" followed after her. So did the bow. It hit her squarely in the back of the head, knocking her back flat on the ground with a distressed sound best described as a yelp.

Silence fell like a funeral pall. Nobody moved an inch to help her, although in the distance there was a perceptibly awkward cough. As the last echoes of the Archdruid's shout died in the trees, it became increasingly obvious that everyone was trying to ignore her. It was not something passive – it was a very deliberate act. To say that her appearance was against the grain, or like a lone nail in a plank of smooth would, would be understatement. It was somehow worse than that – a dark, unsettling smear on a perfect, pristine, holy white canvas.

She was trying her best, to be sure, but she seemed to have missed the tacit agreement laid down long ago – the farmers of Darkshore would stop as far as Rut'theran Village, receive handsome payments for their harvests, and never interfere with the tranquility and perfection that was Darnassus. Her Sunday best was a torn, dirty, moth-eaten robe that looked as if it had been in a forgotten closet for too many centuries. Her hair was unwashed and unkempt, tangled in knots with the occasional twig or leaf poking out, three shades closer to dirt brown than the pure white should have been. Cat hair dusted her bag and most of her possessions. In some forgotten little patch of rural life, it would have been forgivable, even desirable, to be so plain in face and so humble in figure. But in Darnassus, next to the glory of the temple of Elune and the shining armor and beauty of the Sentinels, it was shameful.

Again, she pulled herself up, heaving a deeply grumbling sigh. Again, everyone in the Centarion Enclave tried to forget what had just happened, staring straight ahead with a little more formality than usual. And, tweaking her ears out of nervous habit, her mother's warnings about city folk ringing in her aching head, Harpalyce Bearwarden shuffled off towards the gates, occasionally half-tripping over her own two feet. The perfect silence remained unbroken until she was nearly there, passing by two more Sentinels on her way out. In their perfect poised grace, they pointed at her, whispering a few snatches to each other, a few giggles – it was all Harpalyce really needed to know what they were talking about, who exactly they were making fun of. She exited Darnassus with a blush of deep plum standing on her face.

Breathing in deeply and sighing, she declared "I don't like cities." Her cat, assuming that she was perhaps talking to it, begrudgingly gave up its pursuit of a rabbit to come sit patiently at her side, staring at her bag, waiting for more bribes of fish. She breathed in deeply again before starting off at a fast jog – perhaps if she was not the type to find such solace in the outdoors, she would have become bitter long ago. Perhaps if her mind was more organized, she could actually keep track of a grudge and hold a festering anger for longer. As it was, her stupidity was a blessing, and the dappled pattern of the leaves her river of Lethe. One look up, and she could just forget all her cares in the world...

-

"Let's go over this again," Athridas Bearmantle sighed, reaching up to hold the bridge of his nose as if developing a headache.

"Claw, 'n a quill, 'n a shiny blue thing, 'n a rune. Though I don't think I've ever seen a rune before…"

"You'll know it when you see it," Athridas sighed again. It was incredibly painful, the thought of entrusting the fate of the Druids of the Claw to this dirt-covered, overeager Night Elf in front of him, but it didn't seem he had much of a choice.

"Right. Ban'ethil Barrow Den. Now go quickly!"

With a quick nod, Harpalyce bounced down the steps. Obviously not as excited, her cat let loose a large yawn before uncoiling itself and slinking after her in fluid steps. Its natural grace fortunately made up for her natural clumsiness; from a distance, they almost looked like they knew what they were doing.

"Arrows… some food… fishes for you, Ama... bit of water… hearthstone, that's important… 's that all we really need?" Harpalyce sifted through her bag, delighted at its lightness before slinging it onto her shoulders. The cat watched her closely, and, sorely disappointed that none of the fish accidentally-on-purpose found its way onto the ground, gave a snort. Somewhere in Dolanaar, the sound of someone singing with the birds danced around the trees, the chaotic smells of frying food and the nearby lake mingled all together, the earth pounded as an Ancient continued his perpetual rounds. It was a town that seemed much more alive than the funereal pall of Darnassus. The patrolling hunters actually smiled at Harpalyce as she dashed along the path, perhaps as if they recognized something in her that used to also be in them, perhaps even the sorely unwashed hair.

Even, apart from chattering nature, the woods were teeming as other adventurers worked against the menace of corrupt furbolgs. Swords hacked, arrows sang; it was another sort of happy chaos altogether, one that Harpalyce found herself equally pleased with as she pressed on and into the twisting labyrinth of the barrow den. Occasionally, she would pass another – they would wave, perhaps she would spare a few arrows to help them, if her fingers moved fast enough. But there was always another furbolg around the corner. So, there was always another arrow – properly greased with fish oil so that her cat's eyes followed it hungrily and attacked even against its residual stubbornness. Always more game to hunt, perhaps another smiling face to greet – the deeper she followed the pathways in the more Harpalyce began to love it, especially when her pockets filled with the steady jingle of found coin and needed items. Things were going fine. In fact, they were going perfectly.

And then she found Oben Rageclaw.

Harpalyce didn't know very much about druids, but she certainly did know that you shouldn't be able to see through people. For a few paranoid seconds she hung back on the bridge, her bow still in her hands. Her cat beside her gave a curious sort of prrt? before deciding that the furbolg corpse in front of it was far more interesting. In many long seconds they finally managed to meet each other's eyes; she recognized no malice – in fact, if you had asked her to name the emotion in his eyes – she would have called it sort of lonely.

"Come here, child. I'm not going to hurt you. I need your help." His voice half-pleading, he tried to take a half-step out and got no further, as if his ghostly foot were tethered by something even more invisible.

She leered back suspiciously, despite lowering her bow. "My name's Harpalyce."

"Harpalyce, then. My apologies." His voice was more desperate now, desperate enough to be believed. Eyes still narrowed, she finally moved forward to go speak to him.

The explanation of what he needed took a few moments at most. She listened intently as soon as she knew he was a druid. All she knew was that druids were important people, more important than hunters, far more important than farmers; if she deserved to run errands for anyone, it was a druid – as much as her throbbing head gave her second thoughts. Well, perhaps druids that were decently nice to her deserved special attention, anyway… Killing one of the corrupt furbolg shamans and snapping the talisman from around his neck took just a moment.

She held the pendant up to the light for him as he squinted at it. With a deep, ephemeral sigh, he began again.

"Harpalyce, I'm afraid I have to ask you for another favor."

"Yessir?" She blinked, standing ready, eager, waiting. A long silence suddenly stood between them that was very hard to break.

"This… talisman is what the Gnarlpine furbolgs are using to control my body. The only way I can be freed from them is for you to kill my physical form, and use the pendant on it." His voice was grave and heavy, weighing down the room. As he spoke he tried not to look directly in her eyes.

A look of deep-seated confusion spread over her face as she tried to figure out what exactly he said meant, slowly tripping upon the moral qualms. Realization came as suddenly as breaking glass, her expression suddenly changing as she panicked. "Oh, no! No sir! – I'm not – I mean, I'd never! – I don't want to kill another – "

"Don't ask, just do what I tell you." The ghostly druid commanded firmly, clasping his hand over hers where she held the talisman. She shivered. "It's not such a bad sentence, being trapped forever in the Emerald Dream, if I can get away from the furbolgs and back there." He smiled; she didn't seem to take much comfort in it. "Now go!"

She did.

For all her life Harpalyce had such terrible luck, she had come to count on it – tripping over her own two feet, breaking her bowstring at inopportune times – but the one time she tried to throw all the odds against her, Fate laughed and tilted everything back the other way. Standing in the barrow's main den, she made sure to aim awkwardly, to not grease the arrow with fish oil to give her cat such motivation, and to give herself a terrible view of her target – the corporeal druid lumbering along, eyes dark and hollow and wickedly soulless. She closed her eyes as she aimed, already hiccupping with tears, praying wild prayers to Elune in a desperate bid to save her soul for what she was about to do.

The arrow went smoothly through the monster druid's heart.

He turned, snarled, roared; lumbered at her, each step progressively slower yet more filled with dying rage than the last; on his knees, then crawling, then finally – still. Sobbing ungracefully, she peeled her hands from over her eyes to try and reason with what she had done. A ragged cloak she had found on a furbolg made a decent shroud; she placed the talisman atop that, and then, folding the corpse's heavy hands over his bloodied chest, decided it was best to not stay any longer.

With a slow and solemn walk she made her way back to the tiny corner of the burrow, feeling somehow obligated to check on the druid's ghostly soul after killing his body, if not to simply make herself feel better. He was, to her surprise, still there – the unrelenting look of hopelessness more firmly set on his face now as he stared hard against the opposite wall. He didn't greet her.

She ventured out with the first comment. "I thought you were goin' back to that, what's it's called, er – "

"I thought I was too," he said laconically. The silence that followed was not so much awkward as it was smothering and depressing. He didn't turn his head, even as he motioned vaguely to a box in the corner – "There's a sword in the box there, I think, if you'd like it."

"Thank you, sir."

Silence. Harpalyce tried for a moment to read more into his expression and failed. She reached up to tweak her ear nervously, even as her cat stared at her as if trying to communicate the pointlessness of them being there any longer than absolute necessity, before she reached a conclusion: "I'll sit with you for awhile."

And so she did, sitting down in a confused awkward jumble of limbs beside him. No further words passed, but she knew he was thankful for the company, even if it was momentary. Her cat sighed and grumbled, missing the point. Harpalyce tried not to look too pleased with her new sword. In the distance, the sounds of others fighting echoed up through the burrow. With nothing but the flat, dull brown of the humble dirt wall to stare at, the silence sifted down in around them and stagnated into loneliness. When the blurred sound of a cry for help finally echoed up to them, it was the opportunity Harpalyce needed to get up and out.

After apologizing for the fifth time, she finally received a nod of farewell in return and a rather hoarse "Safe travels."

That night, after the memories had grown just dull enough not to sting, Harpalyce sat out under the stars, patiently sharpening her sword and looking at the sky. She tried, for a long time, to think. Generally, whenever Harpalyce thought, she got too tangled up in her own ideas to continue. But, with stars overhead, she finally came up with a decent conjecture. Druids were looking for something, she realized. They were looking for almost the same thing Hunters were looking for. Priests, too, although not as much. And Shamans… she didn't really know about Shamans, at least not yet. And she didn't know what everyone was looking for, either, but the forest was a start. Druids had it much more dangerous, with the Emerald Dream. But something… there was one common something they all shared, if only she could find it.

In any case, by the end of it her blade was sharp and she had forgiven Archdruid Staghelm completely, so she considered it a successful think.