Amandil was really starting to hate bureaucracy.
After nearly a day of flying from Moonglade to northern Nightsong Woods, she'd found herself stuck at the regional command for the north central province of Ashenvale. The outpost wasn't particularly large since it consisted almost entirely of sentinels and a few druids only, but the problem was that it was understaffed. For nearly an hour after checking in her hippogriff at the flight point, she'd waited in the reception hall of a command tower, various cavalrywomen walking by without checking to see if she was lost or not. Only after much pleading had she been granted access to the regional command archives, a musty basement room that contained thousands of paper documents preserved by a priestess that maintained a non arcane enchantment on the old parchments.
It was there that Amandil discovered that, at some point two centuries ago, the lodge known as the Cypress Pallisades had been formally renamed the Oaken Glade. For night elven settlements, both names were about as generic as possible, but at least she was able to locate the Oaken Glade on a map after also confirming with the priestess that - surprise - Vindra had been sent to the place as a domestic worker on rotation just over six centuries ago.
There was only one problem, which she learned just after having copied the map and hurried outside the command tower, eager to discover the secrets of her own heritage.
"No civilians."
"What?!"
The stablemistress wouldn't budge, the older woman's silver eyes not even shining or flickering as she stood stoicly in front of the outpost's entry sign at the wooden gate ('Ashenvale North Central Province Command Center'; even the font that the sign was written in was plain, blocky and boring). Behind her paced at least three unused nightsabres, prowling around idly and practically begging someone to take them out for a ride.
But nobody would. "You can't be...this is an official Kaldorei waystation, I should be able to just rent a sabre here and turn it in at my next location!" Amandil protested.
"This is an official military waystation. And I can tell by your initiate robes that you aren't military personnel."
Indignant fury bubbled in Amandil's veins. She might be low ranking, she might have a lot to learn, and yes, she wielded a staff like a resto druid instead of claw gauntlets like the feral druid she was because she'd once accidentally claw punched Fewen in the foot, but she still demanded a certain level of respect. "I'm not an initiate, I'm a novice!" she retorted, intended to defend her rank. When she realized that she'd positively identified herself as a rank that still rendered her a noob, she blushed.
The stablemistress didn't even bother crossing her arms defiantly, as if the discussion wasn't worth her time. Hands aplomb at her sides, the woman continued to stare straight ahead, pretending that she didn't even notice the emerald haired novice's presence.
"Look...I was a sentinel once, too! I served as light infantry at Serenity Grove for a few centuries-"
"So you're currently on leave?" the stablemistress asked tersely.
"Well, no, I-"
"Because the ID you flashed me is for a student, not an actively enlisted servicewoman."
Pursing her lips and forcing her mouth to stop talking, Amandil tried and failed to produce a strong reply. True, she'd been a huntress once, riding on leaner nightsabres for the purposes of flanking enemy units, but that ended the day their people had joined the ranks of mortals; their servitude to nature had ended, and they were free to choose the professional paths they wanted. For Amandil, that had led her to her current focus.
"Goddess light your path," Amandil mumbled while walking away, heading north in the general direction of the Oaken Glade.
"If you're at least a novice, you should be able to shift and travel!" the stablemistress shouted after her, as if trying to make up for not helping at all.
"I'll shift you," Amandil muttered under her breath, no longer caring that her insult didn't make any sense.
Walking to the northern edge of the remote outpost in a very rural, thinly populated region, the aspiring druidess gazed out from the stone, arched walls and into the forest beyond. She'd already flown over that area just to reach the administrative capitol; maybe some of the terrain would even feel familiar to her.
Stepping onto the part of the road just beyond the heavily guarded walls, Amandil stretched a bit inside of the panther pelt that she wore as armor. Most of her class tended to hunt their chosen spirit animal, ritually thank it for its sacrifice and then wear the pelt to aid in shapeshifting, but Amandil was still learning to control that. The chosen spirit animal she'd tracked had been kind of sick and seemed to have possessed poor depth perception, which she struggled with whenever shifted. Strapping her staff to her back and holding her arms out, she pushed herself through a few breathing exercises and prepared.
Familiar green swirls surrounded her in the only spell she had a decent amount of control over. Unlike her first few months, shapeshifting no longer hurt like hell, and she found her field of vision dropping lower and expanding wider, though a bit less of the color spectrum was visible. Her front paws touched the ground, her body elongated and a considerably greater amount of power coursed through her. A sleek, purple panther with emerald colored fur markings stood where the elf had been, ready to bound down the road, following the map she'd memorized to the best of her ability (her backpack had shifted as a part of her fur coat, and was inaccessible now).
For a good few hours Amandil sprinted toward the region that the Oaken Glade was supposed to be centered in. More than once, or twice...okay, five times, she tried to run among the high jutting roots and the hills off the main road and ended up underestimating the distance of a few jumps, dirtying her purple fur when she tumbled. Fortunately nobody was there to witness her poor depth perception when shifted, and she continued on her way until the naturally conjured starlight of Kaldorei lanterns could be seen hanging from the boughs of exceptionally high trees.
"The Oaken Glade!" she meowed, not realizing that she'd tried to speak halfway through her shift back into elven form. Once again, nobody was there to hear her, and she strolled down the lightly beaten path on two feet.
As a testament to how remote the entire province was, this place seemed even smaller than the regional capitol that didn't have a proper name. There were no high wooden walls, and even though ancient protectors ringed the area, it still felt rather open and downright civilian. There were even a few cottages, naturally grown but still featuring what would appear to be carpentry work to outlanders. Speaking of which, there were none there; even after her people's agreement signed with the outlanders whose flag was blue and gold (Amandil still hadn't learned Common fluently, and lost track of all the foreign names), some of the smaller villages in areas with lower population density still lacked members of any of the small, squishy races that were considered allies for the time being.
The lake behind the main huntress lodge sparkled from the lantern lights. That water in particular appeared inviting, though the villagers appeared so busy that it was no wonder that nobody was swimming. A few druids, including another woman, sat cross legged and meditated while vegetables sprouted up in a garden in a matter of minutes before being harvested right away, only for more to grow in their place. There were archers, including a man, patrolling from the thick branches of the huge Ashenvale purplewoods above. Various skilled workers performed tasks around the few dirt roads that comprised the village, assisted by wisps as they undertook clearly domestic tasks. Amandil could quite easily imagine her mother having spent even a few centuries there during a rotational assignment.
Walking down the main dirt road, she began to review her plan. Although she wasn't doing anything wrong, she wanted to be subtle; she felt as if most of her hometown knewsomething about her origins, and had told her virtually nothing across half a millennium. Family relations were often a private matter in such a small, local place, a far cry from proper Kaldorei cities like Astranaar or Feathermoon Stronghold. Children were raised communally by an entire village and nobody really dwelled on roots. That is, unless they'd grown up missing half of them like Amandil had.
She spotted the main hall, a modest size huntress lodge overlooking the lake, and entered. The village was so small that there was no inn, and although the guards paid her no mind, a few of the locals did look up from their work to notice the visitor. Inside the wide, open air hall, she found a single, bored looking archer seated behind a desk. The blue haired woman's eyes lit up at the sight of a newcomer, and Amandil got a feeling that the woman was probably young like her and had been assigned the post because someone higher ranking didn't want it.
"Ishnu alah, my beloved sister!" the archer assigned to guarding an empty hall beamed while standing up and holding a fist to her heart.
"Ishnu dal dieb-"
"We welcome you to the Oaken Glade! Strange, I received no word of guests. What brings you here?"
The way the woman's long face focused so intently on Amandil, as if anybody passing through such a small village had an interesting story to tell, seemed a bit pitiful. Was she really that bored? "Well, I'm not here on an official trip; the nature of this visit is personal."
She was about to elaborate, but a few huntresses wearing guild tabards walked inside of the lodge. Rugged, brash and noisy as the cavalry of the night elves often were, all five women walked with a certain kind of swag normally repudiated by their people. They were sweaty as if they'd been on a long patrol, but they weren't uniformed like the official guards of the city. Without even greeting the woman behind the lonely reception counter, the huntresses walked out to the back verandah of the lodge that overlooked the lake. The sound of their loud conversation could still be heard, but by that time so could Amandil's self appointed host.
"So anyway...are you here to visit a friend or family member? Is there anything I could assist with? My name is Lilith, by the way, from Harmony," the woman said in a manner that would be considered hyper by most elves.
Amandil had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. "Nice to meet you, Lilith. I'm assuming that you're from a smaller village, and that name was given to it by these outlanders we signed a treaty with?"
"Why...yes, it's a small place in the same province as Maestra's Post. How did you know it's a village?"
"Well, I'm from much the same situation. My name is Amandil, and I'm from a village that had no name during the Long Vigil. Our outlander friends renamed it Serenity Grove."
For a good few seconds, Lilith smiled and nodded, rolling the name off of her tongue. "Serenity Grove, Serenity, yes...generic outlander name for a night elf village..." She stopped herself, and then started to blink rapidly. Her smile suddenly appeared fake. "Wait..."
Amandil raised a curious eyebrow. "Is anything the matter?" she asked.
Lilith continued to infer the matter before her long ears drooped. Backing away from Amandil, the similarly young night elf looked like she'd seen a ghost. "Why...what is this?" she asked, sincerely confused by...something. "Why now? At the same time that they're here?" She pointed toward the verandah with her thumb, where five guildmates were still lounging around retelling probably embellished stories of their exploits.
Confusion even greater than Lilith's infected Amandil's mind. "I don't understand...what's wrong?" she asked quietly, stepping toward the obviously disturbed woman.
Glancing around them nervously, Lilith suddenly stiffened and became less casual in her demeanor. "This is so soon after they...and now...this. I don't...well, I guess the timing is random chance; it doesn't match up exactly anyhow." When she noticed the puzzled expression that Amandil was giving her, she stepping forward as well, her voice dropping into a whisper. "Not here. Not now. Meet me during daylight hours, around noon, in the glade on the other side of the lake. Act normal, don't snoop, and stay away from me in public...I know why you came."
Before Amandil could blunder and ask more questions, Lilith stepped back behind the desk and started scribbling in the guestbook. "We have one unoccupied hammock upstairs. Per new Alliance regulations, we can no longer offer empty spots for free; that will be thirty silver to cover the next three days, please." The blue haired archer then started to stare at the wall across from her countertop, frozen like a statue of Elune.
Warily, Amandil pulled out her coinpurse, paid and then signed her name. Lilith became unresponsive, stepping away to check a record book as if to demonstrate her disinterest. Taking the hint, the aspiring druidess walked up the ramp to the second floor, deciding to make herself scarce. A hundred and one questions occupied her mind, preventing her from catching any extra naps before dawn approached.
