Of Claws and Totems

Chapter 26

Dustwallow Marsh

As consciousness filtered back to Blackheart and he started to wake for the day he was keenly aware of the warm presence nestled into his side. In the dim pre-dawn light streaming through the window he looked over Kalara's peaceful form. He reached over and brushed some stray hair off her face and in response she murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her and quietly watched the sunrise through the window. As he looked down at the draenei's sleeping form, he marveled again at just how closely he was able to hold her. Her hand rested on his chest, right over his heart, which she had deftly claimed as her own.

As the warmth of the sun broke through the window Kalara stirred awake, looking sleepily up at him. "Good morning, furball."

Blackheart gently chuckled before kissing her forehead. "Good morning my dear." They lay in bed for a while longer before the city became awake and they could hear the vendors in the distance trying to sell their wares. Blackheart stretched out and swung his legs over the edge of the bed before sitting up.

He felt Kalara drape her arms around him and lean against him. "Must we get up so early all the time?" She asked in a sleepy voice.

"I would like to pick up supplies for the road before the streets get too terribly crowded and so I can get my choice pick of the goods. Would you like to come with me or rest some more?"

At the mention of her staying behind her grip on him tightened a bit. "I'm awake, I'm awake, plus I'm not letting you out of my sight. You always get into trouble."

He turned to look at her. "I think if you will recall it is always you who trouble finds, I just happen to be there. I was just living peacefully in the woods until you came along."

She feigned a hurt expression. "And I suppose it's just been a terrible time being around me, hmm? I do bring a lot of chaos into your life don't I?"

He turned and looked at her seriously for a few moments before answering. "Regardless of the danger, the fights, or the… death, the time I've been able to spend with you has easily been the best time of my life, and I wouldn't do it any differently." He accentuated his point with a tender kiss.

Once they parted she smiled up at him and hugged him quickly before getting dressed and packing up their things. Once out in the hallway they went to the Tauren's rooms and listened at the door. A massive snoring sound, like a woodsman cutting a tree down, was coming from under the door. With a quick smile at each other they decided to let them rest in peace. They locked their room's door and left the inn, hefting their packs and strolling out into the early morning street.

The sun was peeking through the clouds as the two strolled easily, arm in arm, through the street. It wasn't nearly as crowded as it was yesterday when they had arrived and Blackheart felt much more at ease knowing he would be able to sense anyone near him. They took their time, leisurely taking in the sights of the almost peaceful city before venturing over to where the vendors were to purchase some supplies that would help them on their journey.

Once they were loaded up on supplies, they made their way back to the inn. By this time the city was fully awake and Blackheart had to constantly look out for bumping into everyone that was bustling about. Luckily, once they got back to the street that the inns were on it calmed down slightly and they were able to make their way in relative peace.

Upon entering the common room they noticed the two tauren talking to an orc who nodded to them before leaving past Blackheart and Kalara. As they sat down near the two tauren, Blackheart could tell that something was a bit off. There was a sadness to Miakoda that Blackheart didn't quite understand.

Kalara must have picked up on it too. "What's the matter Mia?"

"That orc we were talking to was a wind rider master. We were discussing how… to get me home." She said, staring at the table. She didn't want to leave her friends, but she desperately wanted to see her family.

Kalara and Blackheart both solemnly nodded. They had both come to hold Miakoda as a very close friend and, while they would be sad parting with her, they knew that this was most likely for the best. A family visit was something that Blackheart had been thinking about himself recently.

A thought occurred to Blackheart that made him snicker. When everyone gave him a questioning look, he said, "You're scared to death of boats but you're going to fly somewhere? I'm going to have to be there to watch that."

Miakoda harrumphed before punching him good naturedly on the shoulder. "You hush. It's the fastest way to get there from here and, while I might not be keen on flying, I'm less keen on having to deal with any more raptors we might find along the way."

With that they shared one last meal together, not bothering to talk about the things weighing on their minds, such as Kalara's sister or Miakoda's impending homecoming. Instead they talked of little things and the good memories that they had made together. Once finished, they gathered their belongings and headed for the flight master.

Blackheart could smell the flight master before they rounded the corner and saw their destination. There were a few people milling about standing near the orc he had seen earlier. The orc whistled shrilly and a wind rider. He had never seen one up close before. It was a strange mix between a lion and a bat, though it appeared to be tame enough. It stood calmly as the flight master put the saddle and the rest of the tack on the creature. The orcish customer wasted little time in getting seated and strapped in, though she appeared less than happy once the creature took a couple running bounds and was airborne.

Sinyo turned to face the group. "I'll go ahead and get thing set up while you say your goodbyes, Mia." He turned to Blackheart, extending his large hand. "It was an honor to get to know you Blackheart, and once again you have my thanks for helping out Mia. Perhaps sometime I will be able to repay the favor." Sinyo's hand dwarfed Blackheart's human hand, but they shared a firm handshake nonetheless before he turned and bowed to Kalara. "It was also an honor to meet you. I will take word to the Earthen Ring post near home that I have inducted you so you will be officially listed among our ranks. Good luck finding your sister, and make the Earthen Ring proud." He offered both of them a smile before turning to head for the flight master.

A few tears stung Miakoda's eyes as she gave Kalara a soft hug and wished her well. "Good luck to you, Kalara. I'm sure you'll find your sister and be able to bring her back. Thank you so much for all that you've done for me. Try to keep the furball alive, I think I've grown rather fond of him. And when the time comes, I expect an invitation."

Kalara hugged her back, but gave her a confused look. "An invitation to what?"

Miakoda smiled and sighed, shaking her head at Kalara's obliviousness before turning to Blackheart and surprising him with a rib cracking hug. "You take good care of yourself furball, you hear? And you take good care of Kalara. You better not let anything happen to her, or you're going to have a very angry tauren after you."

When he could breathe after being released, Blackheart nodded. "I will give everything I have to keep her safe."

Miakoda smiled one last time before saying, "I know you will." She waved at both of them before hefting her pack and heading up to the flight master. Her last look back at them was a scowl and a rather rude gesture as Blackheart howled in laughter at the sight of her getting on the wind rider and getting situated. She was airborne and on her way home, but had a feeling this definitely wouldn't be the last time she would see them.

Kalara managed to wait until the two tauren were airborne before she started sniffling and letting a few tears leak down her face. She would miss them both dearly. She felt Blackhearts arms encircle her and she rested her head on his chest for a while until she pushed aside the grief at their parting. She looked up at Blackheart as he gently wiped the tears from her face and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. They then hoisted their packs and, arm in arm, walked through the now busy streets and back out onto the road to head south towards Theramore.

It took them a few days of foot travel to reach the edge of Dustwallow Marsh. They luckily had managed to avoid any trouble on the short trip there, but Blackheart knew that traversing the Marsh would be quite tricky. It was a decaying place, full of dragons, ogres, spirits, and other strange happenings. One particular area of the marsh that they would have to travel near stuck out to him, and as they stopped for a meal before entering the marsh, he warned Kalara of it.

"There's a place we will have to go by in the swamp to get to Theramore that has creatures in it that aren't quite of this world."

Kalara looked worried. "What do you mean exactly? How are they not of this world?"

"I don't know exactly what they are, but they are dangerous and unpredictable. Some say they are spirits, possibly the ghosts of travelers lost in the swamps or maybe a malefic group of specters summoned by something evil. They've been known to pass by people, leaving them unharmed at times, and other times they have attacked, causing ghastly wounds and being impervious to any normal steel. Your magic might harm them, but as it is we want to try and avoid them."

Kalara considered his words for a few moments. "If they're so dangerous, why don't we just go around them?"

Blackheart sighed and finished eating before answering. "To the north of them leads deeper into the marsh, where it is so easy to get lost I'm not sure that I would be able to lead us out again, and further to the south and we run into ogres and, if you're unlucky, black dragons."

Kalara looked at him before smiling and sarcastically replying, "Sounds like a lovely place you've got here."

"Perhaps not the best place to grow up, but it was home."

They finished eating and packed up their things before descending into the marsh. As they entered Kalara immediately noticed two things: the stench of rotting vegetation and the copious amounts of humidity that clung to her skin and made it hard to breathe. She looked back at Blackheart and saw that he was wrinkling his nose and had a most displeased look on his face. She could only imagine what his heightened sense of smell was doing to him right now.

There was a road, of sorts, that lead through the marsh. At some point in time long ago, before the marsh was actually a marsh, it had been a farmland and a stone road had woven all through the marsh. Now, all that remained was the occasional patch of cobbles that were nearly overgrown. They did their best to follow the road, but often had to go around when the road lead directly into a deep swamp. Kalara had opted to use some of her remaining vials of fish oil to allow them to walk across the swamp, but was quickly down to her last vials and decided it would be best to hold these in case of emergency.

The deeper they got into the marsh, the worse the smell and humidity got, as well as the visibility. The trees that were there seemed to choke out the light, leaving an oppressive gloom that hung all over the place. When a few hours had passed they came to part of the path that was completely submerged underwater for a few hundred paces. They could see the road on the other side coming up out of the muck. When Kalara looked back at Blackheart, he was frowning and eyeing the water suspiciously. "What is it?"

After a few moments consideration, he replied, "This was not here the last time I came through. The Cataclysm must have caused this. If it has just shifted some water around then this road is only a foot or two under the water. We will have to ford it.

She looked to the swamp between them and the road, and then back to Blackheart. "Really? There's no other way around?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. We might try and skirt the edges, but I would rather not be lost in here."

She sighed and followed him as he stepped into the bog. Once she had one hoof in and it squelched down she couldn't help the shudder of revulsion at the feeling of the warm, mucky water. "Gross."

As she waded in next to Blackheart, the water came up to her knees. "This is really gross."

Blackheart gave her a sympathetic look before taking her hand. "The footing in swamps can be treacherous, so keep hold of me and stay close."

Once they were part of the way across the pond, Kalara said, "You know, if you wanted to take a hand in hand walk with me somewhere, you sure picked a sorry place for it. The beech? Nooo. Through the woods? Nope. Soggy, nasty, smelly swamp? Sure. Let's go through…" her words cut off in a gasp as the next steps he took found her sinking rapidly into the swamp. She had stepped into a rather sizeable hole, and only Blackheart's grip on her hand kept her from sinking further than her thighs. He held her up and, gently as he could, brought her over to stand in front of him. She clung to him for a second before stepping a little back from him, away from the hole.

He would have laughed had they both not been so miserable. "How about the next time we are somewhere nice, we'll go for a long walk and you won't have to worry about stepping in something."

She gave him a mock stern look. "You better remember that. I'll hold you to it."

As they were nearing the bank, something started to bother Blackheart. Something was not right, and his danger sense was starting to flare up. He stopped moving for a moment, as did Kalara, and he listened. He couldn't hear or see anything but the feeling was still there. "We need to get out of this swamp. Now."

Kalara had heard that tone and knew Blackheart well enough to not bother asking why, just to do it. They both started rapidly making for the shore and a sense of dread started to overcome Kalara. Something bad was about to happen, the only problem was she didn't know what.

They had just made it to dry land when Kalara heard a splash and a cry of pain from Blackheart. She looked back to see Blackheart being dragged back into the swamp by a large crocolisk. It looked to have bitten into his ankle and was trying to pull him under the water. Blackheart was struggling to get his sword free as they reached the edge of the muck. Kalara pointed her hands forward and let loose with a blast of frost, but it merely froze the surface of the water, missing the crocolisk's descending snout by inches. She watched in horror as Blackheart was pulled under the water. She desperately wanted to user her lightning but that would possibly kill Blackheart as well. As she began to panic, Blackheart burst forth from the water holding his sword over his head and coming down with all of his might repeatedly into the water. The first strike seemed to have little effect and the crocolisk rolled forcing him to go as well or lose his foot. The next time he emerged he struck again, this time with a more true strike. Kalara saw the mucky water take on a red hue and the crocolisk released Blackheart. He fell forward, barely keeping his head above the water and dragged himself towards the shore.

Kalara screamed his name when the crocolisk re-emerged and latched onto his thigh pulling him back in. It pulled him so hard it left his sword buried in the muck. The pain was starting to overwhelm him from his mangled ankle and now his thigh, so Blackheart did the only thing he could think of: he shifted to his worgen form. Shifting while in the jaws of a creature was never a good idea, but he was out of options. He let out another growl of pain as his body grew larger causing the fangs of the crocolisk to sink deeper into his skin, but he let this pain fuel him and soon he was using his sharp claws so slash open the head of the crocolisk. He bent down and grabbed onto the jaws of the beast and started to pull with all his might, and was slowly making progress when he heard a yell and a flash of silver next to him and suddenly the pressure completely eased and he fell back in the water. As he struggled to the surface he saw Kalara leaning over the crocolisk holding his sword that was now buried through the creatures head and into the muck.

Kalara quickly let go of the sword and rushed to Blackheart, dragging him to the edge of the swamp. He tried to help her with his own weight as best as he could, but now that the fight was over and his adrenaline was ebbing away, he found it hard to focus on anything. Once they reached the shore they both collapsed.

Kalara got up quickly and Blackheart heard her stifle a gasp when she looked at his ravaged leg. He didn't want to think about it nor look at it, so he just stared up at the canopy formed by the trees and tried to fight the pain.

Once Kalara got over her shock at seeing Blackheart's injuries, she quickly began to pour healing magic into him. His foot looked more like a piece of raw meat than something belonging to him, and his thigh was in bad shape, with some of his chain linked pants torn and pushed into the wound. There was also blood… a lot of blood. The healing of his foot took much longer than she would have liked. In the short fight with the crocolisk it seemed like somehow infection had already set into the wound, either from the crocolisk itself or from the fetid swamp that they had been fighting in.

Once she had his foot looking more like a foot, she turned her attention to his thigh. Before she healed it, she knew she would have to remove the damaged links of mail that were embedded into it. She reached up and placed her hand on the side of his face for a moment, and he opened his eyes to look at her. "I have to get the chain out. This is going to hurt." He nodded once before closing her eyes and tensing in expectation.

It was a long, slow process of removing all of the small pieces. She couldn't begin to imagine the amount of crushing power the crocolisk's jaws possessed to pierce through the chain mail like that. It would have been bad enough if it had been one or two places, but the crocolisk had rows of serrated teeth that left Blackheart's leg a bloody mess. She cringed every time she pulled out more of the linkage and caused Blackheart to groan. Once she was sure she had all the metal out, she finished healing his leg. It had taken nearly an hour to finish the whole process.

As Blackheart felt the familiar comforting healing waves wash over him he finally began to relax. He had been injured many times but this particular go round had been one of the more unpleasant ones. Fighting a creature like that in its home turf was something he didn't want to try again. He had been partially afraid that he had lost his foot when the thing decided to roll over with him. Once Kalara completed her healing, he shifted back into his human form. He tried to sit up to survey the damage, but with the amount of blood he had lost he immediately was dizzy and fell back down.

Kalara was at his side a moment later with some fresh water which she helped him drink, gently lifting his upper body so he could swallow it easier. He laid back down, resting his head on her legs as he looked up at her. He could see the worry etched into her face and smell it coming off of her in droves. She had saved him once again.

He took hold of her hand before looking up at her. "What would I ever do without you?"

Kalara brushed some of his hair out of his face gently before answering, "I'm not sure. I'm sure you'd find some way to get yourself killed. Can't we just go for a little while without you getting seriously hurt?"

He thought for a moment before responding. "It doesn't seem like it, does it?

A sad smile spread across her features. "No, it doesn't."

He reached up and gently caressed her cheek. "It won't always be like this. Once we get your sister back we can do something peaceful that doesn't involve being attacked by giant elementals or crocolisks or blood elves or anything else."

Kalara nuzzled into his hand for moment before she shook her head and sighed. "I think you're wrong. As much as I hate to say it, I don't think we'll be completely free of conflict ever. Not if I want to keep on with the Earthen Ring… and not if you want to stay beside me." She gathered her thoughts for a few moments. "Given the opportunity, would you settle down right now, and leave all of the danger behind?"

"I would love to never have to worry about your safety again."

"I wasn't talking about my safety, I was talking about you. You were almost killed and we were just going through a swamp. We haven't even crossed the ocean yet, and we still have to make it to the Twilight Highlands and then deal with the Twilight Hammer again, and even then I don't know what we're walking into dealing with my sister. We're going to face so much more danger and I just hate putting you into it."

He smiled at her then. "I would follow you anywhere. You know that. Sure, I would love to live a life of peace but not if it meant I couldn't have you in it. What would be the point then?"

She shook her head before whispering, "But why?"

Blackheart slowly sat up, finally having the strength to do so and pulled her close before looking deep into her eyes. "I thought that would be obvious. I would follow you anywhere because I love you."

She was stunned into silence for a few moments. She felt an outpouring of emotion for the man seated before her and in that instant she knew, without a doubt, of her feelings. "I love you too" she whispered before leaning in and kissing him passionately. There was nothing else in the world but Blackheart, not the swamp or their future journey or even her sister. The only thing in her mind's eye was the man she loved.

Once their lips parted they merely enjoyed looking into each other's eyes for a few moments before Blackheart's stomach rumbling interrupted their shared look. Kalara giggled at the interruption while she began unpacking some food. Blackheart had told her that her healing had always made him hungry afterwards, and she would be perfectly glad to feed him.

Once he had eaten and regained his strength, he waded back out into the swamp to retrieve his sword, having to put some effort into dislodging it from the crocolisk's skull. With the effort it took to pull it out he looked over at Kalara and wondered just how much strength it had taken to drive it through the beast's head. He cleaned his sword the best he could and sheathed it before taking Kalara's hand and continuing on their path.

A few hours of travel later, they were walking along the road when a strange feeling came over Kalara. She felt something tugging at the edge of her senses, but when she looked around she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"What is it?" Blackheart asked. She smiled in spite of the unease at just how well he could read her.

"I'm… well I'm not sure. There's something out there, or at least it feels like it. Like something keeps tickling at my senses but I can't see or hear anything."

They continued walking for a short way before Blackheart recognized where they were. No wonder Kalara had felt some kind of presence, they were entering the part of the marsh that he most feared, where spirits would wander and travelers would disappear.

"Remember that place I told you about that we would have to be careful of? We're here. I don't know what it will bring, but keep a close lookout and whatever you do, don't follow anything off the path."

The idea seemed absurd to her. "What on Azeroth would make me want to leave you and the path?"

"Just be wary is all." While Blackheart wasn't in his worgen form, she could tell that if he had been his fur would have been standing on end. If something bothered him this much, she would definitely have to watch out for it.

They continued through the marshlands for some time with no interruptions and with neither of them speaking. She could still feel the odd sensation, just at the edges of her senses. She was about to ask Blackheart how much longer it would take to get through his area when she noticed something odd. A small glowing orb of light seemed to appear a few feet off the road. It was emitting a soft blue glow and seemed to whisper in her mind, as if comforting her. She felt a profound sense of peace and wanted to just touch this creature, whatever it was. It felt warm and inviting. She began to slow as they walked past it and made to turn to examine it more. In addition to its warm and comforting presence it was beautiful as well. Soon there were more than just the one, they slowly started to wink into existence and they were surrounded by dozens of the lights. They seemed to her to be so beautiful it was stunning.

She wanted to stop and look at them, but something tugged her attention back to the road. It was Blackheart. He had his eyes fixed dead ahead, doing his best to ignore the lights. He was walking still and she had no choice but to follow him with his firm grip on her hand. It was that or be dragged. Once she had taken a few steps she became a little confused. Why had she wanted to go towards the lights? Her place was with Blackheart. Once she realized this and stepped up beside him to walk away from the lights, everything about them changed.

The lights stopped glowing an inviting blue and changed to a menacing black color, and in the place of the comfort she felt from she only felt malice and evil. Blackheart picked up his pace and she did the same. Soon the lights started emitting a horrible buzzing noise that grated on her nerves… and they were following them. The lights began to swoop around their group, and she ducked as one came for her. Blackheart was trying to dodge them as well when one came from behind and went through his leg. As it exited the other side he hissed and nearly went down to one knee and as Kalara tried to help him one passed through her shoulder. It felt cold like nothing she had ever experienced and her shoulder was immediately numb.

Once Blackheart regained his footing her tugged on her hand. "Run!"

They started to sprint along the road, trying to avoid the balls of light as best they could and, when they were struck, trying not to stumble too much. Kalara tried hitting them with a blast of lightning and, while it would strike one day, there was always another to take its place. Soon, the buzzing intensified and when it reached a point where her head was pounding with it… it stopped. She didn't feel any relief at this though, because she knew something worse was coming. The lights were now an angry red and they swirled around her and Blackheart before all at once diving into the ground.

She was looking around, trying to decide what had happened when the ground a few feet away erupted in a shower of dirt and a skeleton with glowing red eyes landed in front of her. Before she even had time to gasp, Blackheart's sword sliced down through it, breaking bones as it went and extinguishing the red light in its eyes. They tried to hurry forward, but soon realized it wouldn't be that simple when skeletons began leaping out of the ground all around them. Soon the two of them were surrounded by unmoving skeletons with red glowing eyes.

Kalara balled up her fists, calling lightning and fire to fight for her, before saying, " I really, really hate this swamp."

"Are you ready?" Blackheart asked in his husky worgen voice.

Kalara hadn't even noticed him shift but knew that the extra strength he got in that form would be well worth it. "Ready as I'll ever be." As she finished speaking she pointed each hand at a different skeleton and unleashed the stored elemental energy, incinerating one completely with the fire of her left hand and blasting one to pieces with the electricity in her right. As if on cue, the skeletons raised their arms and opened their mouths in a silent battle cry and charged them.

In tandem the two of them worked together, Kalara blowing the skeletons apart with elemental fury and Blackheart deftly cutting them down with his sword or smashing them to pieces by slamming them into the ground with his shield. As they fought, she felt a connection with Blackheart like she never had before. It was almost as if their minds were one and they could cover each other's weaknesses before they appeared. As Blackheart was trying to dislodge his sword from one of the skeletons and another one came up on him, Kalara deftly blasted it away with lightning before turning her attention back to her side. A few moments later when she felt a skeletal hand close around her arm it was jerked loose as the thing was cut in two by a slash from Blackheart.

She bumped into Blackheart's back and they leaned against each other as she blasted the last skeleton to pieces. Bleached bones lay scattered everywhere, but none of the skulls had glowing eyes any longer. The battle only lasted a minute, but they were both panting from the intensity of the fight. She felt Blackheart tense behind her and she turned, electricity arcing from her hands ready to fight when all she saw was one of the lights, now glowing blue again. It seemed to consider them for a few moments before streaking off into the swamp away from the road and vanishing.

"Can we never come through this swamp again?" She asked as the elemental magic dissipated from her hands.

"If I have a choice in the matter we won't."

After sheathing his weapon, Blackheart stayed in his worgen form as they continued along the swampy road. "We should arrive at the edges of Theramore in a few hours by mid-day tomorrow."

It was nearing nightfall and they were about to make camp when voices filtered through the trees to them. Neither of them could quite make out what was being said.

"I'm going to have a look." Blackheart said, but stopped going when Kalara gripped his fur.

"And what, leave me here on the road? I don't think so." Kalara said, one eyebrow cocked doing her best imitation of him.

He gave her a toothy smile before nuzzling the side of her face and went on towards the voice, with Kalara right behind him. As they got closer, they decided it was two voices and they were arguing. Blackheart was trying to determine what was ahead by smell, but mixed in with the plant life was such a cacophony of smells he couldn't place anything specific.

The first voice, low and gravelly, said, "Ye just had to have this forsaken plant didn't ye?"

A second, higher pitched voice, said, "Of course! It was tantamount that I get it for my experiment. And it's not forsaken, it's just very rare."

"And did ye know it was right here?"

"Well of course! I always know just where everything is at."

"So ye mean ye intentionally led us out into this?"

"It's where the flower was, so yes."

"Well why didn't ye bloody well say it was in the middle of a bloody quick sand pit?!" The gravelly voice began to sound a little bit irate at this point.

"I didn't think it was relevant."

Blackheart and Kalara looked at each other, sharing an odd look, before rounding the corner and seeing one of the oddest things they had seen on their journey yet. In the middle of a pit of quick sand was a dwarf up to his neck in the pit. The odd part was that he was holding a female gnome above his head, and she herself was holding a strange contraption with pincers at the end, reaching for all her worth towards an oddly colored flower in the middle of the pit. At the edge of the pit was a small cart with a bored looking pony attached to it. There were a few bags in the cart as well.

"Ye didn't think it was relevant that I'd be nearly up to me eyeballs in quicksand afore today was done?"

The gnome swatted the dwarf on the nose gently, saying, "Hush! You're fine. I'll have this flower in… just… a… bit… further…" with that stretched to her limits and grabbed the flower with the contraption. "Hurray!" she shouted, doing a little victory flourish before putting the flower in her bag. "Now," she pointed to the shore, "let's get out of here."

"Oi, finally." The dwarf said. He turned to go towards the shore… but didn't move. "Blasted… quick… sand… can't… m…." His words ended in bubbles as his struggling only caused him to sink deeper until his mouth was covered.

"Oh dear…" the gnome said, finally realizing her predicament. The dwarf rolled his eyes and bubbles came out from where his mouth was.

Blackheart had seen enough. As he and Kalara came through the bushes the gnome perked up immediately. "Oh what a timely arrival for you two to make. I don't suppose you would be so kind as to help us out, would you?"

Kalara said, "That's the plan. Do you have any rope.?"

A few bubbles came from the dwarf before he sighed and remained silent. The gnome answered, "Yes, in that pack there by our cart."

Blackheart found the pack she was talking about, pulled the rope out, and made a lasso from it. After a few tries he managed to get it over the dwarve's outstretched arms. The dwarf lowered his arms so that he could grip the rope and when the gnome gave Blackheart a thumbs up he and Kalara gently but firmly pulled on the rope. Trying to pull backwards didn't move the dwarf at all. After a few more tries, Blackheart decided to change tactics and wrapped the rope around his waist and bent down on all fours, using his claws to grip with. This time when he pulled forward the dwarf moved, slowly at first, but eventually he made it all the way out of the pit before gently setting his charge down and then promptly collapsing.

Kalara started to move forward to help but the gnome waved her off. "Oh Thrak is fine, he just needs a little rest is all. I guess I could introduce us. I'm Maleah Feldspar and this is Thrak, my husband." At the mention of his name he raises his hand and waved a greeting before letting it fall back down.

Blackheart and Kalara shared a look. He had never heard of a dwarf and a gnome marrying, but considering their odd pairing he decided it wasn't that far out of the realm of possibility. Blackheart proceeded to introduce him and Kalara.

Maleah hopped up into her cart and pulled the flower out of her bag and put it in a pestle and immediately started to grind it. Blackheart watched, amused, as her purple ponytail swayed rhythmically with her grinding. She had blue eyes and they were intently watching her pestle. Thrak, when cleaned off, was found to have brilliantly red hair and a long beard that he spent many moments and a copious amount of water trying to clean. He had slate grey eyes, and once he had the energy to sit up he had thanked them profusely.

"What is that flower for?" Blackheart asked.

"You'll see, it's almost ready!" Maleah shouted happily. She pulled out a few glass vials containing various other ingredients and mixed them all together, making a potion that was a brilliant pink. She said, "Bottoms up!" as she drank it. For a few moments nothing happened and Blackheart looked back and forth between the odd pair. Thrak looked as if this was a normal occurrence, and looked back to Maleah in time to see her jerk once and then… her hair instantly turned the same brilliant shade of hot pink that the potion was colored. "Success!" she said, giving them a thumbs up.

Kalara was dumfounded. "Wait… you came all the way out to Dustwallow Marsh and waded out into quick sand, just so you could turn your hair pink? Couldn't you have just dyed it?"

Thrak was already shaking his head and gave Blackheart a look like this argument had already been had… and lost.

In a sarcastic tone Maleah said, "Well of course I could dye it, but that will eventually fade. This, my dear draenei, is permanent!"

Blackheart and Kalara shared another look before busting out laughing, and soon Thrak and Maleah followed. Their pony had stood completely impassive the entire time. With the eccentrics of its owner, there was probably little left that would startle it. The worgen turned to Thrak, saying, "Well, we're headed towards Theramore, I don't suppose you'd be headed that way would you?"

Thrak smiled. "Oh certainly! Now that we have this," he inserted a long string of dwarvish that, from Maleah's narrowed eyes, was some form of extended curse," potion taken care of, we'll be heading back. You're welcome to hitch a ride. It's the least we can do to thank you." With that they shook hands and Blackheart and Kalara climbed into the back of the cart and were on their way to Theramore.