Something roared in the distance, worrying Ethan immensely. Curious of the continent after a lifetime in Drustvar, Ethan had read books about the northern human kingdoms and one of them had covered major fauna. The largest predators in the Eastweald before the third war would have been bears. Or the rare dragon.

Ethan hoped it was not a dragon. He had never seen one in person but the recent things concerning the one named Deathwing scared him. He hoped it just a weird bear.

Next to him, Stub cackled. The hyena only did that when excited or nervous. Ethan figured it was the latter of the two.

"My sense of smell is not as strong as yours. Why don't you sniff around for her? Ethan suggested to Stub. The hyena lowered his nose to the ground and scurried around the forest, looking for a whiff of Sapphire. It took a moment but he found a trail of broken brush and disturbed ground cover. The hyena trotted off, wagging his stubby tail. Ethan followed him.

it did not take long before the hyena stopped dead in the forest. Fur stood up along the ridge of his back. Ethan tried to nudge the hyena forward, but he wouldn't budge.

"Where's Sapphire? She's not here," He said.

Stub backed away suddenly. Something rustled in a bush. Suddenly, a tiny ball of bloodied fur came barreling toward the two. Ethan stared in disbelief as a tiny gnoll rushed at him.

He reached down to pick up the frightened baby. It was coated in wet, sticky blood. Yet as he examined it, there did not seem to be any wounds.

"Hey, hey now. It's okay. Where's your momma, little friend?" Ethan asked curiously.

It trembled in his arms. Ethan made soothing sounds while stroking the tiny body. Stub leaned down and sniffed. The gnoll yipped curiously at the sight of the hyena. Ethan had to admit it was funny to see the two of them together. Hyenas and gnolls looked so similar. He wondered if they were related.

A branch snapped somewhere in the near distance. Ethan's head snapped up, immediately alert. The noise had been loud, as if the thing that broke it was large. The birds had gone eerily quiet. A predator was near and it wasn't Stub.

In his arms, the gnoll whined. Ethan got to his feet. He went to tree with some low hanging branches. He put the gnoll in a crook of the tree's branches and gave it a serious look. It cried when he pulled away.

"Can you be quiet?" He asked, putting a finger to his lip and making a shushing sound. The gnoll looked at him with wide eyes, but surprisingly put one of her own fingers to her snout and repeated the noise.

Ethan heard the beast come closer and dropped down from the tree, only hoping the gnoll understood. He found a rather defensive spot near moss covered stand of boulders. Stub snarled in alarm.

In horror, Ethan saw the creature show itself. It was neither bear nor dragon. A lanky beast stalked in the forest. Its head was devoid of any flesh, nothing but bone and teeth. Some unfortunate prey's flesh hung from its jaws, dripping red. Blue fire burned in its eye sockets. Though white fur covered its neck and part of its back, most of the creature's flesh looked like it belonged to a month old corpse. Ribs and vertebrae protruded out from its flesh.

It sniffed around the area curiously. To Ethan's horror, the beast lurched upwards and stood on its hind legs and gave him a good chance to look at the curved claws on its forepaws.

The thing turned toward the tree where Ethan had hidden the gnoll. Panic gripped him. He rushed out of his own hiding spot. Stub followed him, hackles raised and teeth bared.

"No!" He yelled.

The beast whipped around, snarling in surprise. It's eyes glowed with rage. Stub snarled back in response. Ethan only realized how big it was now that he was so vulnerable to it. Despite it being the size of a horse, Ethan saw how large its paws were in proportion to its body. They were really big. Ethan had grown up with wolf pups. Their own paws were huge compared to their bodies because they needed to grow into them.

This thing was a baby. He dreaded to see an adult. Not that he ever would. The baby was enough to kill him.

Light grant me the strength I need, He thought in his head and felt a warmth grow inside him.

The beast tensed up and made to lunge. Ethan summoned up the Light in his fingertips. It went at him, roaring. Fear gripped him but he raised his hand and willed the light to grow. Blinded as it grew, Ethan only heard the animal yowl in pain and felt something hit him hard in the gut and threw him back.

The light faded as pain grew in his stomach. He sat up quickly and wished he hadn't. He saw the gashes in his clothes and the blooming red. The beast had lashed out and slashed his stomach. Ethan quickly put his hands on the wounds, feeling how deeply they went.

The beast stood a few feet away from him, shaking its head and making a deep throated groan. Wiping one paw against its face and snout, it then started to look around in confusion. The fires in its eyes were dimmer and seemed less angry.

Ethan caught its eyes and it lifted its head. To his shock, its bony whiplike tail started to swish back and forth. It then lowered its head to see what his hands clutched. The tail stopped and it whined. When it started to move toward him and lifted a paw to almost reach out to him, Ethan jerked back fearfully.

The beast retreated. It shrunk back and whined again. Stub got between the two of them, teeth bared. As if a human, the beast covered its head with its paws. A pained noised came out of it. It then raised its head, eyes blazing in rage again. But Ethan did not have to worry. The beast sniffed around and found what it was looking for. It snarled. It leaped over Stub and Ethan before rushing headfirst away into the forest.

The Light did not abandon him. He had never healed anything so dire before but Ethan summoned up the will to do it and bit down as he felt the purging pain of the Light.


A spike of ice whizzed past Arthas's right ear only to imbed itself into the closest tree. He struggled against the urge to kill Jaina. While not as powerful as the last time they fought, Arthas felt he could defeat her in a fight. Emotionally, he disliked the idea. Yet she seemed determined to impale him on ice or blind him with arcane magic.

To keep her from doing that, Arthas worked himself up to make anti magic shielding around him. He was rewarded with a shimmering purple dome that rose up around him in a circle. Jaina looked unimpressed.

"You really think that would help you?"

She shot an arc of magic over head and instead of hitting him it sliced through a tree behind him.

Arthas smirked, "You missed."

Jaina narrowed her eyes. "I wasn't aiming for you."

Suddenly Arthas heard the sound of wood splintering. He whipped around to see the tree she had hit split and falling toward him. He let out a grunt of surprise and rolled out of its way. He then turned on Jaina, enraged.

"Seriously? I have not done one offensive attack on you and you try to crush me with wood?" He snapped.

While he had been acting playful, Jaina did not ounce show any kind of familiarity with him. It annoyed him immensely. Not only did she try to steal his daughter from her, but she ignored her own feelings toward him.

Arthas tried to antagonize her, to get some kind of reaction.

"You weren't so hostile to me when I kissed you in Theramore," He boasted.

Now he got it. She curled her lip up.

"I was upset! I had just seen my entire city and a lot of its people obliterated! You weren't there!" She shouted angrily.

"I could have been if you hadn't abandoned me all those years ago," He retorted.

Jaina recoiled back in disgust. Arthas narrowly avoided a flash of fire directed at his head. He smelled singed hair. Now he was angry. Arthas used his own magic to combat her. The wind around them suddenly whipped around and Arthas mustered up snow which combined with the wind to force a miniature blizzard around the two of them. It took more out of him then it used to.

He made his way to where she had been, but she knew his intentions and used the blizzard to hide herself. Arthas saw a dark figure in the snow. It got larger, larger than Jaina definitely was. The arrogant smile on Arthas's face faded.

A skull faded out of the mist followed by the rest of it.

"Not again..." Arthas groaned. He then tried Lethumo's tactic for calming down Sapphire by trying to speak in a soft singsong voice.

"What was it? Little saber cub-"

Sapphire stood up on her hind legs, standing tall over him and roared at him with full force.

This wasn't her in an uncontrollable rage. No, Sapphire was fully in control of herself. Arthas ceased the blizzard immediately.

"Jaina! Tell your daughter to calm down!"

Once the blizzard dissipated completely, Jaina got a good look at the both of them. He saw her pale in response to the giant creature.

"What...what is that?" She mumbled fearfully.

Sapphire growled at Arthas. He didn't want to hurt Sapphire, but she did not seem to think the same toward him. Despite her previous hostility toward Arthas, Jaina seemed more concerned about her angry daughter. She attempted to use arcane magic to form a cage around Sapphire. Their daughter hissed at the magic around her. She poked one of the magic bars with her snout, then snorted.

She easily passed through the magic and turned to face them. Beside him, Jaina gasped.

"She shouldn't be able to do that!"

Sapphire hissed, clearly upset at the both of them.

"Sapphire, calm down."

She slowly approached the two, as if she were finally listening to him. Arthas gave her a truly apologetic look.

"Sapphire, I am so sorry. I can explain everything-"

There was a quick blur and Arthas's left eye blacked out and felt like it was on fire. Arthas roared in pain, clutching at his face with both hands and falling to his knees.

"Arthas!" Jaina cried out.

Oh now you care, Arthas thought bitterly.

Before Sapphire could do anything else, Jaina got between the two of them, holding up one hand.

"Please, Sapphire stop this." She was practically begging. Arthas could not do much to help because of the searing pain in his eye. From the other eye, Arthas saw Sapphire turning back to normal. Bone and fur was replaced by skin. Claws retracted back into nails. Sapphire stood there, breathing raggedly.

She gave her father an almost sadistic, crooked smile. "Now you know how it feels."

Jaina came over to her daughter and started to put her hands on her shoulders but Sapphire drew away. She gave her mother a tearful look.

"No, mother. I can't do this. I...I gutted Ethan. He...He might die. I hurt people."

Jaina paled but she just shook her head. "I'm sure it was an accident, I can help-"

Sapphire made a quick turn of her head to face her mother and Jaina flinched back at the sudden movement. Pain showed in the young girl's eyes as she saw her mother react in fear to her.

"No. I'm sorry. We just met and now I have to leave. It would have been nice to visit Dalaran. But I can't hurt anyone else I care about again."

Jaina started to cry now too. When she next spoke, her voice started to break up.

"No, sweetie. I just got you. I can't lose anyone else. Please."

Sapphire put a comforting hand on her mother when it should have been the other way around. Arthas watched in silent turmoil. Without another word to either Jaina or Arthas, Sapphire turned to leave.

"Sapphire, please!"

She didn't turn back even when Jaina broke down in loud, grief stricken sobs.