So, I have to say for about five minutes I wanted to see Brath hung. Drawn and quartered. Forced to ride across a continent on a griffon. In human form, of course.

Maybe I could talk the dragons into eating the griffons….

Not my point. Anyway, I was really angry, but then what's-his-name—that scrawny guy told me his name like five times and I still can't remember it. It's not even a hard name, either. It's like Tom or Jeff or…something. Anyway, the rest of the humans were really quiet, like it was just dawning on them that they'd been complete jerks to me before and that less people might have died if they'd been patient enough to hear me out.

But this guy, who I really don't think was there before because he's actually nice—which makes me feel bad that I can't remember his name—is apparently a mage. Which is not a warlock. And mages get really mad when you call them warlocks. I guess consorting with demons is frowned upon in Azeroth as much as anywhere else, which makes me wonder why they have warlocks at all. Like, couldn't they just outlaw it?

Anway, mages can make portals. Which isn't as good as it sounds. Tom or Jeff or TJ made me a portal to the draenei's home and I was all excited, but I was kind of confused because it didn't have any statues around it. There was this awkward silence before I asked him if I was supposed to do anything special and he said to just walk through it.

So I did.

And then I turned around and looked back at him and asked if something was supposed to have happened. He must have cast like twenty portals. I couldn't go through any of them. Mr. Responsible went through one, just to make sure they worked. It did for him.

I know I shouldn't be resentful because it's not their fault they can use portals and I can't, but…it's totally there whether I want it or not.

It took me a second as TJ was flipping through this book that hung from a leather rope on his belt before I remembered the whole Fizz spending two weeks trying to get me to be able to speak and having to cast that slow fall thing a million times. I mentioned that and TJ looked up at me, his eyebrows arched so high they were completely hidden under his shaggy bangs.

"I've never heard of a magic resistance that high."

I shrugged and motioned toward the woman. "I think that's why people have trouble healing me."

She was quick to agree with me. Her name's Clara, by the way. Once they knew my name it was like default that they all introduced themselves. Clara is a priestess—also not a warlock—and she's devoted her life to healing others or something. So like a biased Mother Teresa. Then Mr. Responsible's name is Randall and apparently he's like a priest, but not. I wasn't really paying attention to what they were calling him, because when they started talking about priests and some light thing, I got this super religious vibe off both of them and the feeling that if I tried to ask them to repeat so much as a word, they'd take it as an invitation to enlighten my poor, deprived soul.

I'm not really religious myself, if you can't tell. I mean, if people want to believe in something, that's cool, I just don't want them to be preaching to me all day long. And…yeah. They felt like the types who would totally do that.

So anyway. Those two follow the light. I guess TJ kind of does? I don't really know. He didn't seemed bothered much by the priesty talk. The jerk on the other hand, whose name is Nicolas—why can I remember his name and not TJ's?—got all grumbly when they started talking about souls and hope and stuff. Or maybe he's just always like that. I sure haven't seen him not be a jerk. Oh and their dragon has a name that's even weirder than Brath's, but he told me to call him Derres. It's got like Zs in it and stuff. Dragons are weird.

Since she finally listened to my whole, 'my world is ending' speech, she's been like super nice, but I still don't really like her. I mean, she can smile and say nice things all she wants, but I know she's just petty deep down. Gutter speak hater...

But I'm not about to shoot myself in the foot. She's got some guilt trip going on and I'm so using that to get her to help me. That's horrible, isn't it? It is. I can tell because Brath's proud of me.

Speaking of. Brath is one of those people who I think my parents would have told me that it was unhealthy to be friends with, since, you know, he's horribly evil and all. One of those 'friends' who just drags you down with them.

Since I couldn't take the portals, it was agreed that we would have to continue flying. I was less mad at Brath at this point, though I doubted he realized that I wouldn't be able to take portals when he told me that flying was the fastest way. I mean, I could tell myself that he did, but that would just make me look stupid. And feel it.

Like I don't already.

Well, TJ offered to go ahead of us, partially to let Randall know that we'd be taking forever to get there, and partially to go ahead and start talking to the draenei about going to my world. Since he's a mage, he's more knowledgeable about the whole unraveling space to make gateways thing. The jerk tried to say something about it wouldn't work, and that they had a raid to go to and all this stuff.

Just as I was about to tell them to go off on their raid and leave me to my travels, TJ perked up. "Your goggles." When I stared blankly at him, he motioned toward my bags. "If I can bring those to the draenei, then perhaps we can use it as an energy focus to locate your world and attempt to make a bridge to it."

I didn't understand half of what that meant. And that wasn't even the whole explanation. He went on talking about frequencies and stability and some other stuff for like five minutes before Derres interrupted him and suggested he go ahead. The half I did get was that he wanted to take away one of the main things that proved I was from another world. Sure, he was nice, but…I've been having so much bad luck here, right?

Right when I was gonna tell him no, it occurred to me that they were already broken, so even if he stole them, it wasn't like they'd be much help. And my anti-magic thing is proof enough, isn't it?

So I let him have them. Here's hoping he's not as manipulative as Brath and better at hiding it.

Well, Clara was really trying to prove that she wasn't a horrible person or something, because even as TJ's looking over my goggles and being awed by the plastic bits, she offered to let me ride with her to the Exodar.

On a griffon.

"Um…thanks but I already have a ride," was my response. And I'd pointed at Brath.

Well, Mr. Jerk was having none of that. It was weird, like he didn't realize that I knew someone was killing the dragons and he didn't want me to find out. Because he was all like, "Oh, we have to…take this dragon into custody." Blah blah blah.

Even Brath looked bored as he was talking.

"But Brath already promised to help save my world," I replied as innocently as I could. It occurred to me that I could probably pretend that I just didn't know he was evil, but then, remember how I can't lie for anything? Yeah. Gave up on that pretty quick. I decided that Nicolas had a certain 'do whatever it takes' vibe about him, so I tried to play off that.

God…Greg would be laughing so hard if he saw me trying to manipulate people. Even as the jerk started explaining that Derres could probably get some of his drake buddies to come help—which Derres responded to with this look that pretty much said he had no authority to do that, not that Nicolas noticed, since his the dragons were both behind him—I looked him over once and crossed my arms. "Are you swearing to me on your life that you'll save my world?" When he just sort of stopped, I frowned. "Because right now, Brath is the only help I've actually secured. And you want to take that from me. That does not make me trust you."

"You don't seem to understand that you don't have a choice in this," he snapped abruptly. "Either you take our help with a smile and a 'thank you' or we can leave you here, alone, dragonless to find your way north," he had a nasty look about him, "which, I have little to no doubt you couldn't find if we pointed you in the direction, or we could just kill you and be done with this nonsense."

Good to know he wasn't feeling guilty about being a douchebag earlier.

Any way, it was a harsh reminder that I was woefully underprepared for this journey. After all, Clara could probably beat me to a pulp, so Mr. Jerk and his dragon would have no trouble at all—and he'd already poisoned me once.

I was losing ground quickly. So I stared at back at him and just let myself talk. That'd worked a couple times by now, I think, so I figured I'd let my subconscious handle this one, too. "Two things: I am allergic to feathers," I'm totally not, "and Brath said he would keep his reigns on until after my world was saved."

I didn't know if that would matter. I mean, I could circumvent their power, making them useless, but maybe it would mean something to our captors?

It did.

This is the part where I type like twelve smiley faces with the little greater than angle bracket symbol above them that makes them look like they have angry or plotting eyebrows. Victory.

Of course Mr. Jerk was unphased. I think he'd seen me get sent off by Fizz or something—stalker—but his dragon buddy seemed all impressed and glanced at Brath as though a 'good' black dragon was the coolest thing since sliced bread. And Clara…I think she started praying, but I don't know if that was out of the ordinary or not. TJ didn't seem to care. I think he just wanted to head out and felt like he had to wait around to see what the others would do.

As the guy who made the portals, he probably did.

Well, Clara was adamant that she would fly with me, if only to make sure I didn't get hurt again. I was a bit disappointed when Derres spoke on his rider's behalf and said that they'd stick with us, too, to make sure Brath didn't try to chow down on us ladies or something.

TJ seemed fine with that and he led Randall's and his mounts through a portal as Mr. Jerk resentfully cut Brath free.

Brath was loving it, too. He gave the other dragon this wistful look and was all like, "How will I fly with these injuries?"

I think the other dragon regretted taking the ropes off his mouth. But apparently red dragons are healers. Because he fixed Brath up, and he in turn trotted over to me and acted all cuddly. I was not amused.

After all, I know he's a bad person and to see him happy with things that I've done…that doesn't bode well. And when Brath did that, Nicolas eyed me like he was going to make it his life goal to prove that I was as vile as the black dragons.

Well, he can bring it. Because I'm not. Yet…