Chapter 15

The Shan'do and the Highborne's leader—Karielle, she reminded herself—led the group from the front. The students took up the rear, with the blood elves between them. They left the mound still burning, and Sel'uen watched as the storm swallowed it up behind them.

The bubble followed them, as it always did. The wind and the amount of debris whistling through the air seemed to have picked up in intensity and size. They were traveling deeper into the storm. When she looked up into the violet wall of air that surrounded her on all sides, she was constantly surprised by how un-claustrophobic she felt. Perhaps it was simply the nature of the bubble and the calming effect it had on the air, but she felt perfectly—foolishly—safe, despite the fact that if they wanted to get out of this storm that was capable of picking her up and tearing her to pieces that they would have to travel days to get out of it, she was not perturbed.

She had other things on her mind. She watched the back of Aethellion.

The first night she had satisfied her curiosity. At first, the blood elf hadn't wanted to share anything with her, but her incessant nagging—yes, she had nagged him mercilessly—she had gotten him talking. And once he started, it was difficult for him to stop.

She learned a great deal that first night. She was still processing much of it, especially the bits about the Sunwell and the result of its destruction, causing their green eyes and their magical addiction. It all fascinated her, and she had spent most of the night interrogating Aethellion.

He had even asked limited questions about her, and her homeland. He seemed disdainful of her druidism, but that only made her want to change his mind about it. She hadn't been very successful. He had only seemed interested when she mentioned how she could shape-shift.

"You mean to tell me," he had said. He had a very cultured speech. "That you have the ability to change your form into an animal's? Any animal you wish?"

She'd shrugged. It was more than that, and she'd tried to convey that to him. She didn't just take the shape of the animals, she actually became the animal, at least in part. Much of her training had been focused around being able to remind herself when she was in another form that she was still, in actuality, a night elf. There were radical groups of druids who embraced the animals they shape-shifted into, to the point of totally becoming that animal and leaving their night elven lives behind. She told him how the cornerstone of her training had been on teaching her how to adopt an animal's skins and ability, not only to use them in desperate circumstances, but also to understand the nature of the animal more, without being consumed by it.

"Besides," she'd said. "It's not any animal I want. Each form is different, and requires extensive training. Then, after a great deal of practice, I can shape-shift."

"You can do this at will?"

"More or less, yes."

"What forms can you take on?"

"Not many. I've mastered only a couple. The saber cat is one I use a lot." She blushed. "I can also do a squirrel."

"A squirrel?" He looked perplexed. "That hardly seems useful."

"It's not all about usefulness," she told him. "I like squirrels. I like seeing the world through their eyes."

Eventually, they had both become too tired to continue talking. Somehow, they had ended up sharing a bed. She'd been astonished at how frigid his skin was. It was as if he was a corpse. She had noticed he looked like he was suffering a bit from malnutrition, but not much. She guessed rightly that it was the magical hunger.

She'd curled up next to him, and tried to warm him with her own body. The move had woken him, and he'd rolled over to face her, his eyes glimmering that strange fire in the gloom of the tent.

Sel'uen had never made love before. When it was over, she lay on her back, her head on Aethellion's chest. She contemplated some of her Shan'do's metaphors then, in the quiet, rustling of the tent. And as she thought of her Shan'do's many lessons over this adventure, she realized she saw some of what he meant. She doodled with her finger on Aethellion's bare side, tracing the lengths of his ribs, and wondered at what it would be like to have a mate. She tried to imagine something greater than a lover and couldn't. She found herself wondering about one day returning to Teldrassil and looking for a mate. Could it be that other males had been interested in her, but in her innocence she had driven them away? She imagined her return home, and smiled.

Innocent no more.

Eventually, she had started giggling. If Aethellion had been asleep, he woke up. He nudged her and she glanced at him, and it only made her giggle more.

"What is it?" he demanded.

She just shook her head and pointed. Aethellion followed her indication.

"I forgot he was here," she said. She thought of Drex, semi-conscious, unable to speak, but perfectly able to hear them from only a few yards away, and she devolved into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

She'd visited the Shan'do when she'd awoken next. The walk over to his tent had evaporated the magic of the night, and thick shame started to settle on her shoulders.

She had just slept with a blood elf! Their enemies! She should have been guarding him, not snuggling him. She felt like a traitor until she caught a glimpse of the female curled up in the Shan'do's bedroll.

The shame wasn't totally gone when she picked her way back to her tent. But it was lessened.

She looked forward to the second night, and wasn't disappointed. They shared more of themselves with each other. She learned that Aethellion had been, like her, one child out of many. The difference between them was that all but one of his sisters had not survived the Scourge.

The stories he told her had made her feel sick, and when she thought about her idyllic childhood in Teldrassil, she also felt guilty. To think that she had been blessed with such fortune when her own kin half a world away were suffering atrocities like this… She could see the darkness in Aethellion's diseased eyes as he told her stories, and of how he had joined Karielle's expedition to find Kael'thas's promised land for his people. He talked about how humanity had betrayed them, and how even Dalaran had turned them away. His speech was black and increasing in rage, and eventually Sel'uen had heard enough. She took him to bed again, and the waking nightmares had faded into the stale air.

When she woke, she found him straddling her. Groggy, she had smiled, thinking the obvious. But then she felt the cold, and the strange exhaustion sweeping over her. She fought the malaise, and realized he had her pinned. His eyes were blazing.

She cried out his name, but he hadn't seemed to have heard her. Panicking, she fought back. She did not consider herself very strong, but Aethellion's frame had about as much muscle as a sloth's. She wrestled him, and received a couple hits in the tussle, which must have been where she got the black eye. She tried to not to lash out at him, afraid she would seriously hurt him if she did. His skin felt like pale film over bones.

She was able to pin him. He cursed her in spits and and hisses, flailing like a caught snake, trying to wriggle out from under her. He had looked blurry through her tears. She begged him to stop, but he kept fighting hopelessly and pointlessly. She felt like it was hours before he finally ceased, exhausted.

She remembered giving him consequences. She remembered threatening him. He hadn't answered her, except in vile looks. She, too, soon stopped speaking.

Now he walked straight and proud - as all the sin'dorei seemed to - and didn't look back. But if he had, he would have seen her watching him. She kept an eye on him because she felt responsible for him. Her tears were dry. She doubted he would try anything now, but if something needed to be done, she would be the one to do it. She would be ready. There was no logic in it. She just knew it had to be her.

The day passed mostly in silence. They only stopped when Ero'then called for it. Karielle was leading them without hesitation. Sel'uen wondered how she knew where to go. More so, she wondered where they were going.

Paradise. She thought of Aethellion's flailing and Karielle's bruised and battered face. She didn't think she wanted to visit what these people thought of as paradise. Her imagination along those lines was enough to trouble her.

She almost gasped out loud.

That was why they had chased the Highborne - or blood elves - across the world. She looked to Ero'then, who stomped alongside Karielle, his gaze fixed straight ahead, straying only to keep an eye on his blood elf. They hadn't chased them to kill a bunch of helpless pilgrims - though they had already seen how the blood elves were far from helpless. The Shan'do had chased them out of curiosity, or, worse, a sense of duty. Brim hadn't died needlessly.

This had been the plan all along. To find the pilgrims' "paradise."

Knowing their purpose, she felt her feet fall easier and the pack on her back grow lighter. Sel'uen knew now what the blood elves were. The stories she had been told as she grew up were not fanciful, vindictive fables. The Highborne really were dangerous. Their tampering with powers they didn't understand had been catastrophic. The magic-starved blood elves were now proof of that. Thinking of the animalistic behavior of Aethellion, Sel'uen wondered if even a wildkin would have behaved with such single-minded madness.

No, they wouldn't have. Wildkin had become the natural beasts of the world. Blood elves were no natural beasts; they were twisted, helpless slaves to their hunger, unnatural parasites that fed on the world around them. Sel'uen gritted her teeth.

Her Shan'do had been right in this chase. She had been a fool to doubt him. The Highborne had to be stopped. For their own good and Azeroth's.