On they marched. Through the marshes, through the woods, across the shores and even into the larger silithid mounds. Step by step, battle by battle, Commander Lamia's column marched. Swarm after swarm had been exterminated. But after bug had been slaughtered and eaten by riding and fighting animals. Corruption after corruption in the land had been cured.

And on they marched. The eradication campaign was difficult. It was grueling, punishing, unforgiving and slow. There was plenty of danger but little excitement.

There were no epic confrontations.

There were no final battles.

There were no enemy bosses waiting at the ends of dungeons.

Just culling the swarms. Culling lots and lots of swarms, one after the other, all of them indistinguishable. Battle fatigue set in eventually, and the physical combat bore a mental counterpart as the troops all tried to stave off the crushing monotony of going through the same motions day in and day out. Finally, Navarion felt what his mother had described to him of her millennia spent in the Long Vigil, when a thousand years became indistinguishable from a thousand days.

The fighting became formulaic. Because of the boon provided by his stasis trap wards, Captain Soraya adopted the task of pulling the first waves of silithids. Once they figured out that the wards formed an impenetrable wall, they'd avoid them but since none of the silithids were ever left alive, that information could never be communicated. And so the formula played out: pull bugs, hold aggro, set down wards, trap, kill, repeat.

There were upsides to the arrangement. Thresha and Calil both increased in confidence a great deal; gone were the days where the two of them would drop their glaives and run in fear of being gassed by stink bugs. Having intimidating but immobilized targets to practice on helped them to gradually take more measured risks and press against untrapped silithids a bit more aggressively. Soraya noticed the change in them and resoundingly approved, pridefully watching the two youngbloods charge into the fray and let their moon glaives fly.

Navarion himself had done much to ingratiate himself to the captain as well. His connection to Marshall Silviel alone had landed Soraya an opportunity which, in her view, was a rather big deal. It didn't seem like a big deal to anyone else, including the Marshall herself, but for Soraya it had been the chance of a lifetime. Additionally, Navarion's war dance - the big, bad voodoo spell his father had taught to him and his sister Anathil - could provide temporary protection from harm for allies in a decently sized radius. Since Soraya was his commanding officer, it was her that the commanding officers of other units had to go through her to request that protection. Coupled with the fact that he was a battlefield soldier who wore medium armor but could also heal, and his presence had given Soraya plenty of reasons to be thankful.

Not that she'd ever tell him out loud. Ever the stern unit captain, most of her expressions of gratitude took the form of grunts and very subtle nods, and her readily given permission whenever he asked for a break from silithid carcass hauling or supply caravan tending. A woman of action, but not of words. And she demanded the same of her unit.

They were happy to oblige. Soraya had a natural talent for on-the-fly tactics, and Thresha and Calil both proved to be capable when backed up by Navarion's voodoo. When Zhenya's unit was added into the mix, the formation almost became overpowered in relation to the other formations in the military column. Pontus was as skilled as healers came, and knew to hang close to Navarion for protection as the shadow hunter set up his wards, picked off reavers via gunshots to the head and completely resisted the sonic screeches fired at him by a few of the bugs due to the blessing of Elune he'd received as a child. Both he and Zhenya could throw out quick, on the spot heals when Pontus was occupied though given the fact that she wore even heavier armor than the most fortified Kaldorei huntresses, little was needed. In combat, every movement Zhenya made was like a symphony of destruction; it was beautiful. And on the final sweep of what the scouts had thought to be the final mound, Navarion actually felt safe enough to leave Pontus under the protection of his wards and Soraya while venturing forward to join Zhenya in that symphony.

A wasp dove, going through the motions of the same telegraphed attacks all of its caste engaged in. As terrifying as the kamikaze dives would be for the unexpecting new recruit, they proved surprisingly easy to predict once the wasps hunched over and flew backwards for a beat. Unmoving, Zhenya hunched over herself in anticipation; her fighting style was about as unfeminine as a soldier could get, but that didn't matter; she was all about killing efficiently, not looking good while she did it. Bosom tucked in, shoulders curved forward and back hunched, she waited until the wasp had almost collided with her impenetrable armor before twisting back and hefting her warhammer without worrying about defense. So hard did the crystalline geode used as the actual blunt object of the warhammer connect with the wasp that it fell into pieces, the impact causing the ligaments holding its head, thorax and appendages together to snap off like a worn rag doll's parts. A second wasp slammed into her, barely causing her to budge and jamming its stinger so far back up into its abdomen that a portion of its internal organs fell out of its own mouth. Leaving it to die slowly, she pushed forward toward the huge silithid reaver charging straight at her, not even hesitating for one second to size the beast up.

The wasp threatening to slow down her own charge fell away when Navarion blasted it in the neck. A few more desperate workers fell to his sickle blade as he cleared her path of distractions and watched her meet the reaver head on. Before it could leap forward to snap its jaws at her, her warhammer had already been swung at its shoulders. Correctly predicting that it would pull back, her swing still connected as the bug didn't have quite enough time to pull away entirely and took the brunt of the hammer swing to the head. All six of its limbs stiffened and curled inwards as the silithid folded in on itself in death, immediately falling into paralysis from system shock.

Unscathed by the fight, she needed no healing other than perhaps rest after having felled so many of the insectoids on her own. Turning around to see him surrounded by several dead silithids, she relaxed and attached her warhammer to the magnetic carrying mechanism on the back of her body armor. Once the last few silithids at the latest mound on a coastal cliff were sliced and diced, the two of them were able to return to their units - if not holding hands, at least walking comfortably shoulder to shoulder without her pulling away or reviling his touch.

After tallying up all the kills, setting the mounts loose to feast on the silithid corpses and being relieved of duty by Soraya, the rest of their unit plus the draenei paladin were able to find a soft patch of grass near the edge of the coastal cliff, overlooking the ocean. Commander Lamia had given the order that no tents were to be set up until hippogriff scouts had scoured the area and confirmed or denied that they had completely rooted out the silithids in the immediate area. Without a proper place to rest, the four of them - Navarion, Zhenya, Thresha and Calil - resigned themselves to reclining on the grass until further notice.

Once they had all respectively caught their breath, they were able to actually engage in normal conversation that didn't involve who still had fresh drinking water and who needed to be healed.

Navarion admired the relatively calm waves of the ocean, finding a sort of soothing peace in the way the water moved so little despite the wind. "I could almost see myself staying in a place like this," he murmured calmly, feeling a tingling sensation as the battle fatigue drained out of him at the same time that the wind began to die down.

"Do you mean in New Nendis, or out here?" Calil asked.

"Out here. On this cliff. I could see me spending my years just waking up each night and watching the starlight reflect off of the waves."

A sly, barely noticeable rotation of one and a half horns informed him that Zhenya was looking in his direction. For once, he didn't turn his head immediately to see if she would talk to him first, and continued to look out over the ocean.

"It's certainly a nice place to visit, but I don't think I'd want to live out in the wilderness," Thresha laughed, reclining backward into her palms.

"You already live inside of trees; how different is it to be out here?" Zhenya poked at her, actually showing a rare glint of humor. "There are trees here, there are trees in the city."

"No, no, that's different. Totally different." Thresha appeared both amused but also accepting of the challenge at the same time. "The trees out here aren't suitable as living spaces, nor has nature designated the wilderness for us to live. We night elves live in proper groves and forest cities, protected from the dangers outside."

Showing a contrite reaction that wasn't normal for her, Zhenya reached over and patted Thresha's hand. "You don't have to defend anything, especially when doing so just makes me want to troll you even more," she joked again. For a split second, she glanced sideways to check if Navarion would react to her little jab at half of his heritage, but behaving unusually himself, he didn't take the bait. He wouldn't have for anybody else, and so that time, he didn't for her. "Anyway, it isn't difficult to appreciate the beauty here in north Kalimdor. I understand the sentiment of those who wish to stay at New Nendis."

"Yes, and not just the ones who have historical ties, either," Calil added.

"Personally, I find it amazing that the regrowth of Nendis has gone so well. Old Nendis was lost before I was born, but I remember hearing that it wasn't this large before - the city didn't even have the high walls it does now." Quickly and without warning, Thresha spun to her side and tugged on the leather jerkin beneath Calil's mail armor. "It's like that mountain fortress in Ashenvale that you told me your mother served at, remember?"

Put on the spot, Calil became awkwardly silent at first. His eyes lowered toward his booted feet splayed out before him and rather close to Thresha's, and he appeared to be at a loss for words at first. "Um...when? When did I tell you that, I mean?"

"Oh, you don't remember? It was just the other day!" Thresha shot back at him immediately, not picking up on his anxiety at all. "We were all at that one place...Zhenya, you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Yes. Definitely." Obviously lying as she often did, Zhenya stared out into the ocean before them, not even seeming to take joy in what was once the thrill (for her) of deceiving people as an inside joke only she was on the inside of. Thresha continued to poke fun at Calil for forgetting in a friendly manner, oblivious to the fact that she was causing his mind to draw such a blank that the young man probably forgot how to walk in a straight line right there.

Spirits whispered and Navarion could tell that Calil suddenly became very aware of how close Thresha was sitting to him. A quick glance confirmed that the young man appeared a tad bit uncomfortable, though the reason wasn't quite discernible. The spot they'd all picked on the grass felt so soft and welcoming, and it would have been easier for Navarion to stay. The look on his comrade's face pulled at him sympathetically, however, and he chose the mercy of granting them privacy over his own relaxation.

"I need to go check on something for a moment," Navarion announced while standing up and stretching. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Barely even noticing him, Thresha and Calil waved to him while almost starting to bicker with each other - giddily on her part and shyly on his - about when and where the discussion about whose mother or whatever relative had served at which Kaldorei stronghold. From the corner of his eye he could see that Zhenya fixed her gaze on the ocean, staying put by the two youngbloods at the spot they'd chosen. Unfazed, Navarion continued to walk away from the edge of the oceanside cliff and strolled through the camp on his way toward the woods due east of where the last silithid swarm had come from. Healers, logistics workers and supplies stood tucked into the safe middle of the camp, while the mounts formed a sort of wall around them. The soldiers themselves were just beyond the animal wall, either busy in their tasks, busy on patrol or busy taking power naps on the grass.

Few people or animals in the military column were resting. Healers expent much of their mana curing every wound they could on the few who had been injured during the last assault. The new recruits among the Sentinels proved to be fast learners; elves generally picked up knowledge and skills a bit more slowly than the younger lived races due to their long lifespans, and tended to be more cautious when honing their craft. This new batch, however, grew even more skilled after each battle to the point where the change was already evident. Only a handful had actually been hurt during the last excursion and those who had been injured also had quickly dipped out of the battle before agitating their wounds and allowed others to take their places.

Among the majority who weren't hurt, all had found ways to keep busy. Sentries patrolled the outskirts of the circle of riding animals and supply crates and two hippogriff riders even circled overhead for a bird's eye view. Crates were opened, inspected and repacked while kodo tack was removed, brushed off and attached again. Commander Lamia's tent hadn't even been set up, and she stood to the west of their location ahead of her entourage while staring off into the distance. Although Ragnar's position between the Commander and the rest of the circular camp informed all those around not to disturb her and her three assistants, Captain Soraya's position next to a few other officers just inside the camp signaled that at least she could be approached.

When Navarion stood outside the circle of half a dozen officers, Soraya took notice and stepped aside. No other soldiers had intruded on the officers' discussion, but he had a feeling that she'd be willing to oblige given the benefits she'd found to having him in her unit.

"News, captain?" he asked her politely, standing at attention despite the lack of rest.

For a second Soraya hesitated and looked back at the other officers gathered in a circle. None of them noticed as they were too engrossed in their own conversation to really pat attention, and there was nobody behind Navarion coming from deeper inside the structureless camp to spy on them. Something was afoot.

"A second scout team was sent out and should be returning shortly," she whispered to him, but without leaning forward or stiffening up so as to not draw any attention to them.

"Why?" he asked, going through the motions despite knowing that she would have told him eventually had he stayed quiet. His interest piqued, he found himself unable to stay silent.

Her eyes darted around before she replied. "The first scout team claim that they found a hive. Not a cluster of mounds, but an actual hive. It isn't huge and it didn't look connected to any subterranean passages, but they claimed it was definitely a hive." Pausing for effect, she became very solemn but not nervous or stressed. "This is our chance to wipe out all the silithids on the north coast once and for all...but not everyone will make it. Good women and men will die. I guarantee that."

"You don't have to convince me, captain," he sighed a bit too casually, though she let it slide.

Soraya nodded and took a step backward toward the chatting officers, flashing a hand signal indicating that he could be at ease. "You didn't hear this from me; keep it to yourselves," she whispered just as she turned around.

"Yourselves?"

For once, his voodoo hadn't warned him loudly enough and he didn't even notice that Zhenya had followed him and given their two younger friends much needed privacy until the captain had walked away. Because she hasn't removed her mask helmet thing, her expression was unseen but the spirits at least informed him that she got a rise out of surprising him.

Even though she didn't look at him, he knew she had followed him rather than just happened to have been looking for the captain of his unit at that time. Both staring in the same direction as the commander further ahead of them for a while, the almost nonexistent wind had died down into a calm, soothing breeze that ruffled his indigo mane. In order to get a better view of the woods to the west, they moved on the other side of a row of sleeping sabres and a wagon containing crates of sanitary tissues that provided them a measure of privacy of their own.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them watched the sun hang just over the top of the high canopy of the woods before them, the light noise of the camp creating a sort of ambience to accompany the scene. Finally letting loose, Zhenya reached up and unlocked her helmet, unfolding the two halves and allowing perfectly imperfect face of hers to feel the warmth of the sun. The golden glow of her eyes prevented the sunlight from actually reflecting off of it, instead mixing in a way that didn't seem possible in terms of physics. The naturally black color of her disheveled hair had grown from the roots outward a bit, creating an interesting mix of jet black, neon yellow and hot pink highlights. One and a half horns crowned it all, creating the truest image of a warrior woman he'd seen outside of his mother's race.

So still did Zhenya stand that Navarion really did begin to wonder just how old she was. Surely her claims of millennia couldn't be true given her lack of maturity, but in truth he had no means of gauging that. After all the time they'd been together, traveling, fighting and sleeping alongside one another, the reality was that they didn't know each other that well. The last time they'd discussed personal matters, he'd brought up his siblings in the course of the casual conversation only to realize that she didn't even know how many sisters and brothers he had. Nor did he know where her parents were, if they were alive or what she'd been doing with her life prior to the time when her people crash landed on Azeroth.

There were things they did know about each other; her present belonged to him. He knew her likes and dislikes via direct experimentation, and he knew what few opinions she did hold about politics and religion. He knew her personality through her demonstration via action, and knew that she was as narcissistic and self centered as she was confident principled, even if her principles were a bit odd. He knew that she had a volatile temper that never reared its ugly head in an obvious, overt manner, and he also knew that she was just as sensitive as he was if a bit better at hiding it. Yet for all that they knew of each other via perception and experience, there was little official history shared between them. He suspected she didn't know the names of his parents or the places he'd been during his old guild days, and he certainly didn't know where she'd been during the decades between crash landing on Azeroth and serving as a mercenary for the Sentinel Army.

He listened for his voodoo; it drew a blank. It was as if her mind truly was empty staring at that sun above those trees. Not a care in the world bothered her...or she had simply cleared her mind of such worries. Right then and there, he realized that he didn't really know her well enough to tell either way.

"Once we take out this hive...it's all downhill," he started, trying to garner any sort of reaction from her. They had made up in their own way, has revealed a lot more than either of them wished to and by all measures should be acting a little more openly. "We'll be done in a matter of months."

A matted strand of black hair dropped down over her cracked half horn, teasing him with the knowledge that she might not be comfortable enough to let him tuck it behind her ear. "Done with this tour of duty, at least," she replied. There wasn't exhaustion in her voice, but there was definitely something else. When he tried to probe her soul, the spirits didn't speak to him clearly and even contradicted themselves. He'd become too reliant on his voodoo and had neglected the simple skill of reading people, and when she closed herself off in such a manner, he was largely left in the dark.

"You'll need to settle down one day," he reminded her lightly, testing the waters to see what exactly she had in mind.

Had he pulled such a move a few months ago, she surely would have reacted by surreptitiously insulting him or at least passive aggressively dodging the question. To his relief, at least some things were different between them now. A part of her opened up to him; it was on her terms, by her own choosing, but that part opened up.

"I don't plan my life that far ahead...I have no interest in that at all. When this campaign is finished, I'll decide where to move on to."

As guarded as her statement was, it was about as much honesty about her feelings as he could expect from her. There was no uncertainty in her voice, but he could definitely sense something else. Something that wasn't as impervious as the wall she always hid behind, or the almost comically heavy armor she donned in battle. There was a part of her that, for all her pretensions and confidence, wasn't invincible.

Risking all dignity he had, Navarion turned toward her a quarter and put his hand on her armored shoulder. A simple show of affection and even if there wasn't anybody else around, it was technically in public. Many times before, she'd embarrassed him badly in front of others for violating her rule of secrecy about their relationship, rejecting him in front of their peers or simply belittling him in the sort of dismissive way only she had perfected. She'd taught him to keep their intimacy private the hard way, and after so many years of stubbornness, he'd learn to take those hard lessons during the time they'd been together. Too much floated in his head, however, and he found himself unable to be contained. He didn't try to pull her close just yet, but the physical touch was audacious for them.

Her head remained motionless, but he could sense her golden eyes shifting to meet his silvers. He had her attention. "If it comes down to it...would you move on without me?" he asked, not trying to mask the vulnerability in his hushed tone.

Taken aback, she shifted and grew wide eyed. She saw through his attempts to hide that vulnerability; she always did. But he always still tried to hide it, and this time he didn't. He caught her off guard this time, as he'd managed to do more than once over the course of the long march, and although she quickly accepted the sincerity in his question she appeared to have difficulty wrapping her head around it.

"I've never allowed anybody to get this close before," she whispered hesitantly. Throwing her entire persona out the window, she inched sideways and drew a little bit closer to him, allowing his hand to slide from her shoulder across her back to the center, just below her neck. Even through the cold thorium of her armor, he felt a warmth there that she only ever tried to stoke by begging him for it in private. It felt different this time. "I don't know anymore."

That was all he needed. Inch by inch Navarion moved in until his arm rested firmly around Zhenya's shoulder. He held her close, finally feeling what it was like to be normal with her; neither to have her pulling away from him nor to have her dragging him into a back alley after a night at the tavern for a temporary, almost routine release that led to her becoming cold to him again. She just stood there, almost leaning into him as he hugged his arm around her. Two hippogriff scouts broke out above the canopy, swiftly approaching the officers and the commander's entourage on the other side of the sabre drawn wagon. They watched the two scouts approach silently, admiring the yellow sun above the trees and the unspoiled mountains of the northern Azsharan peninsula like any other couple on a trip in the wilderness.

He craned his neck to look down at her. No longer did he try to behave in a subtle manner or pretend that he wasn't interested in her. Long ago, that had led to him being hurt and to her apologizing insincerely; this time, he dealt with her unpretentiously. "It's okay to let people get close to you, sometimes," he told her softly but without whispering his voice as if to hide how he felt.

The two scouts landed in front of the commander and strode off confidently, determined but not frantic. Ignoring them completely, Zhenya looked up at Navarion, letting him inside a sort of special place. A secret place, more secret than the physical side of their relationship. Discomfort flashed in those sparkling eyes but there was a bravery there as well. It was as if she feared him despite terrifying him so much with her belittling and mind games; she feared the closeness. She feared the intimacy. And she admitted that fear to him in a way not even the spirits could pick up on.

"I can't express those feelings in words. I don't know how." Leaning her head onto his chest, she relaxed into him and suddenly he felt like it was...not somebody else, yet not her. He didn't know how to describe it even in his inner monologue. Things were different. "I prefer to show my feelings via action...it means much more."

Ragnar led Commander Lamia's entourage from their spot at the front of the camp, trailed by the two scouts and the officers. Surreptitiously nodding to the couple sideways, Soraya confirmed the truth in the reports as the leaders of the military column strode toward the center of the encampment and spoke to Pontus near the healers' area.

Too little, far too late, cruelly brief, Navarion wrapped his other arm around Zhenya and pulled her close. Sliding up his torso and around his back, her armored hands bore a softness that clashed with her normal ungraceful roughness, and for the first time she hugged him in a non-sexual way. Time plodded on, refusing to even stand still for a second and grant them some sort of calmness as Lamia, Soraya and Pontus stood atop a large rock at the center of the camp. The war horn was blown again, and the final march to destroy the new hive once and for all commenced.