A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing!

…-…

So. It's been a while since I've had time to really consider what's going on. Apparently being injured just means that Nicolas will push harder during my training—something about if you're hurt, the enemy isn't going to slack off and let you walk away? Well, Nicolas may be my trainer, but he sure feels like an enemy most of the time, so I can buy that.

But, since I was pretty much stomped into the ground—face rolled as Michel says—by that warlock, a lot of things have happened.

First of all, Blood Elves scare the crap out of me. I'll get to them later, but…Aaaah. Why? Why couldn't they be Legolas elves? I mean, I guess they're pretty, if you can get past the glowy devil eyes and the fact that they feel like demons—so remember that wrongness I'm always going on about in reference to demons? Apparently my kind—so weird saying that, but Michel feels it, too—are good at sensing something called Fel energy. So…warlocks, demons, corrupted anything, Blood Elves.

Too bad we can't tell which it is, you know, because when we showed up in Shattrath—we got there, by the way—there were a bunch of elves running around and both Michel and I freaked out. Before we saw them. And even after, because we didn't realize they were what was triggering our demon sense. I mean, we could tell there was something wrong with them, but we sort of thought there were additional wrong things and kept looking for felguards. Well, I was. I guess Michel was searching for something called a pit lord, which will apparently make my heart just give up and die if I ever see one.

Michel has such overwhelming confidence in my ability to handle scary crap.

I didn't die from being stuck in a city with the elves, did I?

Anyway. Backing up a bit.

I was pretty mangled by that warlock and Brath carried me to the Exodar. We'd almost gotten to the area outside the entrance of the ship, where the woods tapered off and this group of new vindicators or whatever trained—they had a first aid station—when I heard someone calling my name and I turn to see Eric, good, nice Eric, trotting up to us from the edge of the woods.

Now, my muddled mind would not have wondered much about this chance meeting, had Eric been wearing his clothes. As it was, he was down to his pants—which were unlaced around the waist—and had his robe and socks slung over an arm as he carried his shoes.

It would so figure. The one genuinely nice guy is some freaky pervert.

I mean, why strip down in the middle of the woods? There are baths in the Exodar. And it's not like he's some ripped guy, like Nicolas or Brath, who look good wandering around without a shirt. He's scrawny. Like my brother.

I guess that's because he's a mage and he focuses more on magic than physical prowess, but still.

So, in my foggy, near deathness, I just kinda stared at his weak pectorals for a minute before he realized what I was staring at.

Then all of a sudden, his questions about what had happened were silenced and he was jerkily pulling his clothes back on and offering something about he'd been going for a run. Uh, huh. I bet if I asked Clara, naked running through woods filled with giant, man eating cats would not be normal.

Whatever.

Even that, I could have dealt with, you know? I mean, people can be weird and you can still be friends with them. It was what happened next that has me kind of avoiding alone time with Eric.

We got to that first aid station and the draenei nurses—priestesses?—were quick to take me to a little screened in area where the guys couldn't see me and fling off my shirt so that they could see my injuries better. One lady set my hand while the other channeled healing magic into my injuries, after cleaning them out. I kind of insisted on that, not wanting my injuries to be healed with dead people bits in them. That would just scream infection, you know? And it's not paranoid. If he was rotting—he clearly was—it's likely that something fell off during our fight, right?

Eww….

Anyway. So, they gave me a different shirt to wear after they'd both spent their energies healing the worst of my stab wounds, breaks, and bruises—though, again, with my magic resistance, they had to leave quite a few scrapes and stuff because they were just worn out from what they did manage to heal.

Well, as I'm walking out, I see Eric and Brath standing a few feet away, not talking. Well, Eric had my old shirt…and he was smelling it. Like, his nose was buried in the fabric.

So creepy.

I kind of edged around so that Brath was between the two of us, and the nutjob didn't even get that I was freaked out about him. Instead, he just looked up and asked me where the forsaken had gone. I just sort of assumed Brath had filled him in—well, partially anyway, as Brath likes to tell people just enough to make them freak out a little—and shrugged and said that we would be meeting Horde at the Dark Portal apparently.

You know that look your best friend gives you when you tell them you invited that one guy to your party, only to find out that they had a thing and apparently someone's leaving in a body bag if the two of them are forced into the same room? That's sort of the look Eric gave me when I mentioned the Horde.

The Alliance really don't like them. That Forsaken guy was pretty brutal…and I guess orcs are worse? I dunno. I mean, they were explaining things to me, but it just seems more like cultures clashing than true good or evil.

Anyway. When the three of us wandered back to where the others were—Eric explained that he'd gotten a little aggrivated at some vindicators, hence his leaving the others and going off for a run—we found that Fizz and Maevlen were spellcrafting a portal to take Michel and me to Shattrath.

Since Eric's antagonist was gone, he rejoined them and that left me and Brath to find the others. Who were at the training dummies of course. Michel was being all impressed by Nicolas' super awesome attacks against inanimate objects and I think Brath may actually have cuddly feelings toward me because I asked him, "How much would the kid love him if you just ran over there and bit off one of that prick's arms?"

I guess he likes the thought that I like the thought of him maiming things. I don't really, but…eh. I'm tired of fighting the details.

Well, when we showed up, I guess I had a black eye—from my thrashing, though I don't really remember getting hit in the face—and some other bruises and that was enough to tear Clara and Neesera away from Michel and they hurried over, wasting their magic on some of my injuries as they asked what had happened.

Well, I was all grumbly as I told them that Brath had 'secured' some Horde assistance. At first, it looked like it might be Booty Bay all over again—with Clara and Nicolas, anyway, since Neesera is just awesome—but then Michel was all, "Oh that's a good idea. We can be a neutral faction."

Still a little fuzzy on what that means, but it made Clara and Nicolas back off, so yay.

Over the next three weeks, Nicolas buckled down on my training, Brath learned that he couldn't really taunt Nicolas because the rogue doesn't mind going against orders and just killing him a dragon and in his irritation Brath flew off to find that warlock to let him know to meet us in Shattrath, not the Dark Portal.

Neesera spent her time organizing things—that's super vague, I know, but she's been like finding people to watch her house and shop and she found some guys to make Michel and I better clothes/armor. We're both in leather now, though Michel keeps insisting he wants to be a warrior, so he needs better armor. But no one really wants him to fight, you know? Since he is a kid, everyone—me included—will feel especially bad if he gets impaled by something.

I was missing Brath and Nicolas picked up on that and was even harder on me.

But! I can now say that I hold my daggers right. Most of the time. And I'm getting better at dodging things, sort of. Like I can dodge Michel and Clara, but not Nicolas. I doubt I'll ever be able to evade him. At first, I was kind of upset because Michel made some offhanded comment about how slow I am in the learning department—mainly because I agreed with him—but then Nicolas just lectured us both on how it takes years to get to where he is and a bunch of stuff. I kept waiting for him to say that he had to walk uphill to school both ways.

I didn't think he was that old, but I guess he's thirty four? He doesn't look it and I guess that's not that old anyway. He was quick to point out that 'my dragon' is much older than he is when both Michel and I made these faces implying he was ancient.

And I guess when I'm about thirty I'll be as good as he is—assuming I live that long?—so that was sort of uplifting, I guess. Though, I don't really have years to get that good, since I need to save my world now.

That was another thing he was quick to lecture us on. Patience. He wanted us to know that we wouldn't be stepping into our world and just tada! World saved. It would take months or even years to push back the demons fully and we needed to get used to that notion now so that we wouldn't be crushed with disappointment later.

I think I like him more when he's just a jerk than when he's an informative jerk.

Well, without Brath around, life was pretty boring. I mean, you need conflict for a good story, right? We didn't have much while he was gone. Things went smoothly.

Michel's a good kid. I feel bad that I was so jealous of him at first, because, while he may look at everyone else around us like they're gods, he has an odd sort of respect for me, too. It's like we're family, because we're from the same world—we even both have brown hair, hazel eyes, and freckles. I didn't used to have those before I came to Azeroth. Oh, and by the way, I heard Clara and Eric talking, and they're wondering if my 'human species' is very different from theirs, since I have a smaller frame than Clara and I guess they think Michel has a less buff frame than the human kids his age here. I didn't think we looked that different, but whatever. I guess we'll find out when we get back to my world.

Back to Michel, though. He teaches me about Azeroth—the stuff that no one else here would think I'd need to know, like phrases like face roll and stuff—and I've been sort of helping him find the differences in the game world and the real one.

And we both think it'd be cool to learn magic, but I mean, we have to be realistic.

Well, I thought that, but…

Okay. So. Our mage trio finally got a working portal to Shattrath—I guess with the help of some locals holding the portal from their end—and it was time to move forward.

I was really sad, because Maevlen didn't come with us. I guess he's working on a portal from the Exodar straight to my world, but my group is an exploratory one, so we're like the scouts, going in first. Because it'd be too much of a pain to get all the vindicators to go from the Exodar to Shattrath to some abandoned portal in Zangarmarsh.

That's what Eric had been going for his run for, apparently. The vindicators had told them to screw a portal for Michel and me and just make one for them to invade our world with their holy righteousness. I shouldn't say invade, but…yeah. I don't like that one guy.

Shattrath is so pretty, by the way. I mean, it's got a lot of broken buildings, and architecture I've never seen before, but it's just…other-worldly. Ha. And it feels kind of like an old European castle might, I think—I admit, I've never been to one in person. But it's like, you can feel that so much history has happened there and that it's withstood all that, so it's not going to just crumble away if a building or two get a few cracks.

And even with all the elves running around, there's this underlying peace. I guess that's the naaru? They're like angels or something. I don't really know.

I suppose that I should go try to find my way to the Aldor's Rise, since apparently there are way less elves there—is it racist that I want to avoid them? I don't mean to be. It's just that that Fel taint of theirs makes me think that I'm about to get maimed by a demon whenever one runs by. And no one knows how to dull that sense down a bit. Or make it register different things as different things.

And taking portals really takes a lot out of you.

That's a little off topic, but I just wanted to say that maybe if I wasn't so worn out, I would be able to tell the difference. I mean, Michel pretty much passed out as soon as we got here and Nicolas carried him off on his back—they actually looked cute, like father and son sort of.

I was heading with them, but I got distracted. Looking for Brath. I guess he's not here yet.

However, as I was wandering around, this chipper little, high pitched voice interrupted my growing panic that I was horribly lost. When I turned around, it took a minute of searching before I realized to look down and found this tiny little, huge eared, green haired woman—gnome, according to my journal—standing at my feet. She had a huge sword—for her—strapped to her back, along with what I guess is a shield. Like, I think it would still be considered a sword if I held it. She was in this meticulously worked metal armor and her hands were on her hips as she craned her giant heat back so that she could look up at me.

"You from that other-world?" When I wasn't sure whether she meant Earth or Azeroth—since you know, I guess Shattrath is in a third world?—she let one of her hands fall down to her side. "You know Neesera?"

When I nodded, she grinned and offered me a quick bow. "Cistern Wobblebracket at your service. Call me Cisty."

I gave her an awkward bow and introduced myself and in no time she was leading me through the city, to the Aldor's Rise. I really couldn't believe it. I'd known Neesera was working on getting things together, but I hadn't considered that she'd been trying to expand our group, as well. I had to wonder if there were many more people who'd be showing up and if we'd even need the Horde's help after all.

Then it occurred to me that maybe Cisty was a denizen of Shattrath and had just been sent to find little, lost me. I wanted to casually work in my question as she talked to me about how she liked my daggers—Nicolas had bought me some new ones just before we headed out here, saying I needed something that would actually do damage—but, like I said, I was really tired and so my tact left me taking advantage of a lull which she probably was hoping I'd use to comment on her weapon/armor. "So…are you going to be going to my world with us?"

Cisty's giant blue eyes widened for a moment and then she giggled and then flexed at me, even as we stepped up onto this freaky, magical elevator. "Sweetheart, I'm your tank."