Chapter Eleven

It felt like days passed as she slept, her body finally having reached its limit from all the traveling and fighting and worrying she had done since she first set foot outside Stormwind Keep after hearing about Anduin's disappearance. Even in her dreams, she dreaded waking up because she knew the prince – being a healer – would chastise her for taking such poor care of her health. But he was there, he was alive, and she would endure any amount of lecturing he had for her because it meant she would get to see his face and hear his voice again.

She felt something brushing against her forehead and reached up absently with one hand to swat away the offending insect – or what she assumed to be an insect, anyway. Soon enough, however, the gentle touch returned and when she batted at it a second time with a groan of protest she heard a soft chuckle and opened her eyes. She then shut them once more as the early morning sun filtering through the canopy of the trees above attempted to blind her, and she turned her head toward the sound of the laughter she'd heard before making another attempt to look at her surroundings.

"Are you always this grouchy in the morning?"

"Only when people insist on waking me up," Larraine retorted, smiling at Anduin. He was kneeling next to her on the ground, his hand poised above her forehead. This time when he lowered it to touch her, she didn't swat it away. Instead, she closed her eyes and breathed a soft sigh as she felt the gentle warmth of the Light radiating from his hand.

"You seem much better this morning," he told her after he had finished his assessment, brushing his hand over her hair briefly before finally pulling away. "You had me a bit worried yesterday, though, with the way you suddenly passed out."

"I was just tired," she insisted, sitting up. A sudden wave of dizziness came over her and she immediately flopped back down onto the makeshift bed she'd been placed upon, and Anduin sighed and slid one of his hands under her shoulders in order to support her as he helped her to sit upright more slowly.

"You were a bit more than just tired, Larraine," he admonished her, though she noted a fair amount of concern in his voice, as well. "You were suffering from complete exhaustion and a mild concussion."

"A concussion?" Larraine wondered, raising a hand to her temple. She hadn't fallen or hit her head at all during her search, so the fact she would have one baffled her. Then she remembered the way Cho had hit her upside the head while she was attempting to focus her energy after drinking the dream brew. With an annoyed sigh, she closed her eyes and shook her head briefly and then laughed.

"Alright, yes," she said, nodding. "I suppose I may have had one of those, as well, and not realized it."

"How did you even find me here?" Anduin asked her, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Well," she began, turning slightly so she could face him without having to twist half her body in an uncomfortable angle, "I met this pandaren and he made me a special tea. I drank the tea, and I saw a vision of you, running away from hozen. You defended yourself, then attempted to flee and ended up backing yourself into a corner, so to speak. Luckily, though, there were two pandaren meditating nearby and they came to your rescue. After I saw that, I found my way here using the landmarks I had seen in my vision as a guide."

"That's remarkable!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up in wonder. "Those events are exactly what transpired several days ago."

This time, it was Larraine's turn to look confused. "And you've been here all this time? Why not leave for some place safer? You do realize your father sent a search party out to look for you, don't you?"

"I figured as much, but I just couldn't leave them," Anduin told her, shaking his head. "Not after they saved my life."

"Leave who?"

Anduin moved aside a bit and Larraine looked past him to where the two pandaren she'd seen in her vision were. The male was on his back, clutching his stomach in pain, while the female was kneeling next to him with her hands folded in her lap and her head bowed in either prayer or meditation.

"He was injured when they fought off the hozen that were pursuing me," Anduin explained, then let out a weary sigh. "I did everything I could to heal him, but it wasn't enough. I don't understand..."

Larraine reached up and placed a hand upon his shoulder, silently comforting him. She recalled part of a particular entry in his journal – where he had lamented being unable to save all of the people who were injured on Taylor's ship – and leaned against him as she wrapped her arms around one of his in a sort of half-hug.

"You did all that you could, Anduin," she assured him, her voice quiet and soothing. "That's all anyone can ever ask of you."

"I should be able to do more," he argued, shaking his head.

"Maybe the hozen use some sort of poison on their weapons," Larraine suggested, thinking that if she could somehow convince him that the pandaren's continued suffering was due to no fault of his own he might cheer up a bit. "Without the proper antidote to use in addition, no amount of healing magic can overcome that."

"Maybe," Anduin said, turning to her, and Larraine lifted her head from his shoulder to look up at him and gave him a gentle smile.

"There's something I need you to help me with," he told her after a moment, and she released her hold on him and sat back with a nod.

"Alright, what do you need?"

"The cave near here is said to contain waters with special healing properties, as well as information about a place here in Pandaria which is supposedly a valley full of energy which sounds very much like the Light."

"So you want me to help you get some of the water to hopefully heal his pandaren," she surmised.

"Yes," Anduin replied, "and also I wish very much to find out more about this mystical place."

Larraine laughed a bit and carefully stood, then held out her hand to him.

"I would expect nothing less from you," she told him, and the prince smiled and took her hand before standing. Larraine's own smile fell, however, when she saw how unsteady he seemed on his feet. For the first time since she'd found him, she took a good look at him. In her excitement, she'd missed the fact that he looked utterly exhausted. His hair was a mess, his skin slightly ashen, and his blue eyes had dark circles around them from lack of sleep.

"Dammit, Anduin," she swore under her breath, then placed her hands on his shoulders and urged him to sit back down.

"I'm fine," he protested, attempting to stand once more. In his weakened state, however, she was able to easily overpower him and he finally sat down with a weary sigh.

"When was the last time you slept?" she demanded, still standing in front of him with her hands on his shoulders.

"Honestly?" he wondered, looking up to her. When she nodded, he averted his eyes once more with another sigh. "I haven't slept much since I first arrived here. A few hours here and there when I felt marginally safe, but most of the time was spent running until I came across these two. And then I was sleeping whenever I could in between trying to keep Ren alive. I didn't get any sleep at all last night, though. I was too worried about you, on top of everything else."

Larraine turned her gaze away from him and instead stared at her feet, suddenly feeling guilty for having been partially responsible for the state he was in. She'd run her own well-being into the ground during her desperate search for him, and as a result he'd ended up doing the same with his own.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, and he looked up at her with a confused look on his face.

"What for?"

"You wouldn't be so tired right now if I hadn't shown up here yesterday in the state I was in," she said, kneeling down by him. The prince merely chuckled and shook his head.

"Larraine, it's not your fault," he assured her. "Aside from my father, you're probably the one person I can think of who I would expect nothing less than for them to drive themselves to their limit and beyond while searching for me."

"When was the last time you ate something?" she wondered and began looking for her pack. Perhaps if he had something to eat, it would at least give him a bit more strength.

"Two days ago, I think," Anduin answered, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Two days?" Larraine practically yelled, giving him a reproachful look before snatching her pack from where he'd set it. She hastily yanked it open, not bothering to hide her displeasure at his answer, and rooted around inside for a bit before finally pulling out some of the tortoise jerky the jinyu had given her and skin of water she'd been saving for herself in case she got hopelessly lost.

"Here, eat this," she ordered, shoving the items into his hands. The corner of Anduin's mouth quirked upward slightly in a smile and he quietly thanked her, then he ate the jerky and a couple of red bean buns she offered to him upon realizing she still had a few left.

"I can't believe you were stupid enough to stay up all night healing two people after not having eaten for days," Larraine grumbled as she settled next to him on the ground to eat one of the buns herself.

"It's not like I had the opportunity or tools necessary to do any hunting," Anduin replied around a mouthful of jerky. He then held out a piece to Fang, who had come around to sit by them as soon as Larraine opened her pack. The wolf gratefully gobbled down the offered food, and Anduin scratched him behind one ear as he continued eating.

"How did you manage to survive up until that point, then?" she asked, and he took a second to wash down the food in his mouth with some of the water she'd given him before replying.

"I remembered what you told me about your lessons with Casia," he said, handing the water to her so she could have some, as well. "I figured, since we're still on Azeroth, the same logic probably applied to the plant life here as far as what's safe to eat and what isn't."

Larraine blushed and slowly lowered the water skin from her lips. "You remembered what I said?"

"Of course," Anduin told her, smiling. "It was hard not to pay attention to you, the way you were excitedly dancing all over the place when you told me about everything you'd learned."

"Well, I hate to disappoint you," she said, handing the water back to him, "but I don't really remember much of what you've told me about your lessons in the Light. Not that you've really divulged much about them to me, anyway."

"I'm not disappointed," he told her, shaking his head. "I understand that for those who aren't practitioners of the Light, or really any sort of magic, discussions on theory and practice can be rather boring."

"And I'm sure listening to me ramble on about my training in the ways of a hunter were just so much more enthralling for you, right?"

Anduin shrugged. "I would rather listen to you talk about being a hunter than someone talk about being a warrior. At least I understand some of it, since I'm an archer, myself. Plus, you learned a lot of wilderness survival which – quite honestly – would be beneficial for everyone to know about, not just hunters."

"Still, I'm flattered that you would remember something I probably only managed to convey through a series of high-pitched squeals while skipping in circles around you."

The two of them laughed together over their shared memory, then Anduin took one final drink from her water skin before handing it back to her. Larraine stared quietly at him for a moment, still smiling, and realized just how much she missed being around him. Their times together had become rather sporadic following his father's return to Stormwind, but when he left for his training at the Exodar under Velen they all but ceased altogether. They wrote to one another as often as possible, but she couldn't hear his laughter through the words written on a page and that was one of the things she missed most of all. Odd as it was, this was the first time they'd spent any actual time in one another's company in months, and a part of her was dreading returning him home to Stormwind because she knew things would just go back to the way they had been and it would likely be another several months – or perhaps even years – before they would get to sit and talk like this again.

"So, um," she started, clearing her throat and averting her gaze as she felt the threat of tears starting to form in her eyes. "I found this in the wreckage of Taylor's ship."

She pulled his journal from within her pack and held it out to him, still keeping her eyes cast downward. Anduin reached out and took the journal from her, but said nothing, and she listened as he began flipping through its pages.

"Actually, I didn't find it. Bixby did, but she gave it to me and I've been keeping it safe until I could give it back to you. I read the last few entries. I'm sorry, but I had hoped they might give me a clue as to your whereabouts."

"Larraine," Anduin said her name and gently placed a hand upon her wrist to cease her rambling. He waited until she finally looked at him, then smiled and shifted his grasp to take her hand in his and give it a gentle squeeze.

"Thank you. I thought I had lost this for good when I left it behind. As far as you reading it goes, well..." He held up the journal, opened to two of the water-logged pages which were completely illegible. "It appears that any of the entries I might not have wanted you or anyone else to see got destroyed, so it's fine."

A part of her wondered what he could have possibly written that he wouldn't want her to see, but she didn't pry. It was his journal, meant for him to put down his most private thoughts. She felt bad enough about having read what she did, even though it seemed to have been written in the hopes that someone would read it, so she would simply let their conversation about the journal end with the positive note that he had received it back and was grateful.

"Are you feeling a bit more up to exploring this cave you were talking about, now?" she asked him, wanting to change the subject before her curiosity got the better of her and she asked about what he'd written anyway, and he nodded in reply.

Still holding his hand, she stood and then pulled him to his feet with a playful smile. Anduin laughed as he stumbled to his feet, then he led the way down the hill to the cave's entrance – pausing only momentarily to let the female pandaren know where they were going and that they would be back, soon. She reminded them to search for some sort of poem and handed them an empty vessel to collect the sacred waters they were going to look for, then returned to her quiet meditation over her fallen companion.

"I feel sorry for her," Larraine said once they had entered the cave. "She reminds me of Amber, in a way."

"Amber... Agent Kearnen?" Anduin wondered, his brow furrowed in confusion. "How so?"

"Rell was badly hurt when he and the others were searching the forest," she told him, keeping an eye out while he went to a nearby pool and put some of the water from it into the vessel they'd been given. "Mishka did what she could to help him, but she's no healer."

"Will he be okay?" he asked, recapping the vessel and shaking some water from his hand.

"I don't know. He was in pretty bad shape when I left to look for you on my own. He... he might already be gone, by now."

"I'm sorry, Larraine."

"Maybe if he's still alive, though, you could help him when we get back to the others," she suggested, and he nodded in agreement.

"I'll do whatever I can for him, I promise," he told her, standing back up to his full height. He turned to her and reached up with one hand, then brushed his fingers gently across her cheek.

"Please, don't cry," he said, but her vision was already swimming with tears.

"I'm sorry," Larraine apologized. "I just keep thinking about how distraught Amber must be. They're apparently rather close to one another, like we are, and I know how much it would tear me apart – how much it did tear me apart – when I thought I had lost you."

"You don't have to worry any more," Anduin said, taking both of her hands in his and gently squeezing them. "I'm right here."

Larraine pulled her hands from his and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, causing him to to stumble a little, but he quickly regained his footing and returned the gesture with a soft sigh.

"You're all I have left, Anduin," she told him, her voice muffled a bit against his chest. "When I heard you were missing, I had to find you. I needed to know you were safe. I did my best to keep my faith you were out there, somewhere, but... the longer it was taking to find you, the bigger the spark of doubt in my mind became. I was afraid, Anduin. I was so scared I would never see you again."

"I'm not going anywhere, Larraine," he replied, his arms tightening around her when he felt her body shudder as she finally let out the tears she'd been holding back. "We made a promise, didn't we? We'll always be there for each other. It would be rather hard for me to hold up my end of the deal if anything were to happen to me, wouldn't it?"

"That's not funny!" she scolded him, smacking a hand against his chest before taking a step back. "I saw what nearly happened to you, Anduin! If it hadn't been for those two pandaren being there, those hozen would have... At the very least they would have captured you, if not worse."

"But they didn't," he reminded her, gently taking her face in his hands. "I got away, and Ren and Lina protected me. I'm safe. I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."

He held her gaze, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb until she finally stopped crying, then continued to silently look into her eyes for a moment longer before leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Are you okay now?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I think so," she replied just as quietly, nodding her head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said, stepping back away from her. "I'm sure you're not the only person who's been worried about me since I've gone missing. Besides, I'd probably be in much the same state if I was in your position, too."

Larraine nodded once more and Anduin offered her one of his hands, which she took in hers. The two of them then continued to search the ancient cave for the other sources of sacred water housed within it, pausing only to deal with a few stray spirits they came across who turned aggressive upon their approach. Anduin cleansed each one of the strange corruption they seemed to have fallen to and, once purified, the spirits thanked them before pointing them in the direction they needed to go. Larraine was surprised to find that – once cleansed – the spirits seemed to be those of jinyu, though considering their fish-like appearance she supposed she shouldn't be all that surprised their spirits were guarding pools of sacred water.

"Is that everything, then?" she asked Anduin once he had finished gathering water from what she assumed to be the last pool in the cave, which they had found hidden away to the side of the most open area.

"No, there should be one more," he corrected her. "And we also need to find the poem Ren was planning to search for."

"What is this poem, anyway?" she asked, falling in step beside him after he'd once more taken her hand. "Why is it so important?"

"It's about the Vale of Eternal Blossoms," he explained, a note of excitement in his voice. "The Vale is said to be full of some sort of energy which had incredible healing powers."

"So this is the place you were telling me about before, then?" she wondered, recalling how he'd mentioned a place with Light-like energy.

"Yes, and I must say I am just as interested as Ren to find out what sort of information this poem may hold about it."

"Alright, then," Larraine agreed. "We'll get the last bit of this special water, grab the poem, and then head back to camp."

Once the two of them reached the central room of the cave, they took a moment to figure out which way they had already been, then they took the one path they hadn't yet explored. It was no surprise at all when they entered another open area of the cave and found the largest spirit they had seen thus far guarding what appeared to be some sort of ancient scroll pinned to the back wall, and the two of them – along with Fang – battled against the dark, shadowy apparition until it was finally weakened enough that Anduin could properly cleanse it without fear of interruption.

"Finally!" the spirit said as the last of the darkness faded from it, leaving the visage of an old pandaren standing before them. "To be free from the grip of that darkness. The light! The blessed, beautiful light!"

Anduin perked up at the mention of the light, and he eagerly approached the spirit.

"What happened to you?" he asked, and the pandaren spirit bowed its head in shame.

"A thousand lifetimes ago, I brought the waters here. A gift to the Pearlfin for ancient deeds. We guarded the waters. Too dangerous, too powerful, to fall into the wrong hands."

Larraine looked from the spirit to Anduin, but he prince did not seem at all dissuaded from his interest in what the spirit was saying despite the obvious note of foreboding in his voice.

"Then... the darkness came. It seeped from the ground. Slowly, it infected us... suffocated us! Even after our mortal flesh had rotted away, it leeched hope from our souls. It was unending!"

"What was the darkness that corrupted you?" Anduin wondered, but the spirit closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I shudder at the thought," he replied, backing away from the young prince. "An ancient evil. An enemy of Pandaria. I will not speak their name."

"Wait!" Anduin called out as the spirit began to fade. "I'm searching for the Vale. Can you help me?"

"The Song of the Vale is upon the wall," the spirit said as he gestured to the scroll hanging nearby. "Take it. I hear the celestials calling. Thank you..."

His final words were a mere echo on the empty air where he had once stood, and Anduin continued to stare quietly at the empty spot for a moment longer before going to retrieve the scroll from where it was hanging.

"I don't know if we should really be pursuing this place, Anduin," Larraine warned him. "You heard what he said... all that stuff about too much power and darkness and corruption. I don't like it."

"Let's at least bring this back to Ren," Anduin insisted, rolling up the scroll. "Once the waters have healed him, maybe he can translate what's written on here. Then we'll decide if it's worth pursuing or not."

"Fine," Larraine agreed, albeit reluctantly. She knew Anduin well enough to know that once he had decided to pursue something it was hard to shake him from it – especially if that something had anything at all to do with the Light or healing. Perhaps the scroll would give more insight upon the darkness the spirit had been talking about, though, and with any luck that would be enough to convince Anduin that it wasn't worth the risk to keep pursuing whatever was within this Vale.

Anduin administered the sacred waters to Ren as soon as they returned to the camp, and then he and Larraine went into the wooded area nearby to hunt for food. For the most part, Anduin merely stood by while Larraine did the actual hunting, but she was still glad for the company. Within an hour she had killed and cleaned two large jungle birds – the latter part of the process had caused Anduin some obvious discomfort to watch, but he still remained at her side – and the two of them returned to camp in order to prepare the evening meal for themselves and the two pandaren.

Ren was awake by the time they returned to camp, and after eating he had regained enough of his strength to look over the Song of the Vale and begin work on translating it. The text was in an ancient tongue not many pandaren still spoke, he explained, but he was a historian and luckily was familiar enough with the intricacies of the older version of his people's native tongue written upon the parchment that he was sure he could come up with at least a rough translation.

It took all night for him to decipher the short poem in its entirety, and Larraine ended up falling asleep near the warm glow of the campfire while they were waiting. Thankfully, when she awoke just before dawn she found Anduin lying next to her, getting some much-needed rest of his own. She debated waking him, but decided to let him sleep in the end after remembering how he said he'd barely slept at all since he first found himself stranded in Pandaria.

She soon dozed off again, and didn't stir until Lina woke them both up and announced that Ren had finished his translation of the poem and breakfast was ready. She and Anduin groggily asked one another how they had slept, then laughed after their mutual response had been to merely shrug. Breakfast consisted of a strange combination of leftover meat from the night before and fresh-picked berries from the surrounding area, and Larraine wasn't quite sure if it was actually good or if she was merely hungry enough that anything would have had a decent flavor.

"So, what does the poem say?" Anduin asked once they had finished with their meal, no longer able to contain his excitement at the prospect of learning something else abut the Vale.

Ren chuckled and set aside his bowl, then picked up the scroll and cleared his throat before he began to read.

"There is a valley where dreamers sleep, where flowers bloom and willows weep. Where loamy earth springs life anew, and waters sparkle, clear and blue. Where every hearth brings peaceful ease, and beauty sings on every breeze."

"But is there anything about-" Anduin impatiently blurted out, and Ren held up a hand to silence him.

"Here the Sacred Pools sing pure," he continued, giving the prince a meaningful look. "Here, seek any who desire cure. Holy, nature, powers divine... turn death to life, death to life."

"So it is a place of healing!" Anduin giddily exclaimed.

"So it would seem," Ren replied. He then rolled the scroll back up and stood. "As I told you before, young prince, I plan to search for more clues as to the location of the entrance for this mystical part of Pandaria. You are certainly welcome to join me, if you like."

"Of course I want to join you!" Anduin replied, scrambling to his feet, as well. Larraine gaped at him and stood, grasping one of his hands in hers.

"Anduin, no," she said firmly. "We have to get you back to Stormwind."

"Didn't you hear the poem, Larraine?" he replied, turning to her. "This place could be the key to so much. It could cure disease and stop the suffering of so many. I... I have to find it. I must study the Sacred Pools and their healing powers."

"I'm not letting you go, Anduin," she insisted, her grip tightening on his hand. "It's too dangerous. We're going home."

"Larraine..."

He said her name softly, his voice calm and soothing, and stepped closer to her. She looked up at him and his incredibly blue eyes held her gaze steadily as he closed the distance between them. He then reached up with his free hand to touch the side of her face, causing her to feel a comforting warmth all over her body – like someone had just wrapped her in a heavy blanket on a cold day.

"I have to do this," he told her in that same, unearthly calm tone of voice. "You understand, don't you?"

"I... Yes," she agreed, nodding her head a single time. "I understand."

"Good," he told her, then easily pulled his hand from her grasp, though he continued to gently stroke her cheek with the other. "I want you to go back to the others. Tell them I'm safe, and that I will return once I have found the Vale and finished studying its healing properties."

"Okay," she said and left him to gather her things. She called to Fang to follow her, and the wolf made a confused sound, but fell into step behind her as she began to slowly walk away from the camp, though he kept looking back at Anduin and whining. Larraine ignored her pet's protests, not even verbally acknowledging them as she walked away from the prince and his two pandaren companions.

"Larraine!"

She stopped when she heard Anduin call her name once more, and turned to face him, her expression blank.

"I'm sorry," he said to her, and she nodded, then turned around and continued on her way back to the jinyu village, following his orders just as he had asked her to.