~*~ Author's Notes ~*~

The story seems a little slow to me (pacing is one thing I'm working on as a writer) so I'm cutting out as many unnecessary details as I can in order to speed things up. Some of you may have noticed that the details of the chapters following chapter 5 are not as rich as the ones before and that is because more characters are involved so this cuts out room for environmental details.

However, it is important to note that everything that happens in Ghostlands is the foundation for the rest of the story so it's also important that I not cut out too many details.

~*~Chapter 12 ~*~

The Thalassian Pass was impressive. An enormous raised gate marked the entrance into the Ghostlands completely blocking the road from one side to the other. The Blood Elf architecture was beautiful and stunning. Aw-inspiring towers rose out of the ground, jutted against the sky, and giving whoever had once stood guard in them an impressive view of the surrounding lands.

The creamy white, blood red and shimmering gold seemed too elegant and out of place in the gloom and decay that surrounded them. The gate itself looked easy enough to defend and didn't look as if it had taken siege damage. It was obvious, by the banners hanging from every tower and the gate itself that the Scourge had been here.

Jetadiah stood silently gazing threw the raised gate. Kayas sat by his horse, waiting for the Warlock to return. The Priest's sorrow was palpable and made her mewl at him in sympathy.

As if started, he shook himself out of his reverie and glanced down at her. "I know this isn't your history, but perhaps you would like to know what happen here?"

Kayas knodded, but ran ahead to explore the gate as he spoke. She'd be able to hear him clearly regardless of where she was in the ruins. First on her mind was figuring out how to get to the top of the guard tower. A thing about cats and the high ground.

The Priest's voice was clear and strong; following her threw the ruins as if by magic, "A long time ago these lands were called Qual'thalas, home of the High Elves. We fought the Amani for these lands from day one."

'Well if you hadn't blown up two-thirds of the world, land wouldn't be so scarce…' Kayas though. The doors on the outsides of both towers were locked. She sat pondering as the Priest went on. Somewhere in the back of her mind the realization that the Priest who was now a Blood Elf had once been a High Elf surfaced.

"We called on the Humans for aid and they came to our rescue. They wanted to power we had acquired form the Well of Eternity at the bidding of Queen Azshara."

Her throaty warble, as she pawed at the lock trying to fit a claw in to jangle the mechanism, spoke her disagreement with anyone wanting to dabble with magic. All the power anyone needed to survive and protect your home and family could be found in Elune's presence. Nothing else was needed.

The Priest chuckled, "I know what they've told you." He shook his head as if denying it, "The Highbourn were sacrificed learning those lessons and I suppose it had to be done."

'We didn't sacrifice anyone,' the Druid though, miffed at the door. She was now sitting on a short bed of grass, little vines creeping up to where she had been fiddling with the lock. 'Your kind were corrupt. And you paid for it!'

"In return they helped us beat back Zul'jin, and the Trolls who threatened us with extinction, we promised ever to remain loyal to the Royal House of Arathi. This was all before I was old enough to fight of course. I was never part of that alliance myself. My sister was, however."

Kayas stopped fiddling with the lock and walked around the tower to give the priest her attention. The vines had grown up and were covering the mechanism. She had never had much flare for learning to control and manipulate the natural world. That was a healer's work. Her flare was on the front line maintaining stability.

"Mow?" she said, 'You had a sister?'

"Yes," he said, eyes seeming to glance back and memories, "a long time ago I had a sister. She was a Ranger under Lady Sylvannas, not a very high-ranking one, but a good one. She was stationed in what is now the Plaguelands. You would have liked her…"

"Mrew?" 'How did she die?'

The Priest took a deep breath, "You see, this is the Inner Elfgate. The other one is at the other end of the pass, called the Outer Elfgate. The Outer gate was guarded by squads of Rangers. Each squad held a fragment of the key that could bring down the Inner gate's magical barrier."

Kayas' ears dropped. She knew what happen. If the Litch King wanted to get to Qual'thalas, he'd have to get the key.

"Dar'Khan Drathir, you've never heard of him I'm sure, betrayed us all. Arthas swept threw and killed everyone, including my sister. She died defending the Outer gate as part of the troop that held the second key fragment."

He was looking past Kayas, brows furrowed, as if seeing the scores of enemies marching up the pass threw the gates anew. His speech had taking on a rote tone, as if he were giving a speech honoring the memory of everyone who died in Qual'thalas as the Scourge army descended upon them.

"The only people who survived," he was saying, "were the ones who had time to flee before Arthas reached Silvermoon. That is to say, only one in ten made it out alive. Arthas even rounded up the children. Most of them at least…" His voice was bitter only for a moment before returning to the speech tone.

"When the Mages of the Inner gate saw him coming, they knew what was going to happen to them. They fit as many into the towers as they could get and sealed it from the inside*. The rest died fighting the Scourge. And with the Elfgates down, Qual'thalas was flung open to the Lich King's armies. My home burned."

The little Druid didn't know what to say. Nothing so nasty had ever happen to her. Though her race was the oldest in Azeroth, and had seen many, many wars, she herself had never been witness to any.

"You see, the noble House of Arathi abandoned us in our time of need. Not one soldier came to help us, though entire squads of Ranger went to aid the Human races as the Horde were sacking Stormwind. We gave the mortal races magic, and were almost wiped out when they left us to this fate. In the end we won though since they were wiped out completely. For what it's worth, we survived."

Judging by the land around them all that the Scourge managed not to take was the lives of those who fled at the first signs of danger or were already away when the attack broke the gate. She wanted to be open-minded but they were Horde after all. The Orcish clans had tried to destroy the world; not to mention what the Forsaken had accomplished on that front.

The Priest frowned, gazing past her still. Dismounting form his horse, he swiftly strode across the road to the guard tower nearest her. The hem of his light gray and blue robes whispered over the ground, barely stirring up dust. It must take centuries to learn to walk with such courtliness.

Turning, she followed the path of his gaze – and was surprised to see the branches of the little tree snaking out from the back of the guard tower. She beat the Priest there however and found the place she had been sitting and messing with the lock.

Kneeling down, the Priest touched the tender little branches of the small tree. Hurt and pain washed out of his body; he was the beautiful man who had found her in Auberdine that day whom she had rarely seen since. There was reverence in his eyes, a soft smile on his lips. "It's beautiful…" he whispered.

Kayas didn't know how she had made a tree out of thin air so she accepted the statement as a means of knowing he wasn't mad about it. The Priest glanced at her; she glanced back at him. Neither of them had a clue.

Placing one paw against the green bark, she followed the essence of the plant into the ground. It was seeking out a source of nourishment and water. These grounds were so tainted that without clean resources it wouldn't make it much longer.

"It'll die, wont it?" Jetadiah asked in a hushed voice. "The pollution of this place will infect it as well. If it manages to live at all, it will be twisted out of recognition."

She knodded.

His hands traveled threw the whispery green leaves; enjoy the sapling for a moment. "Just another broken promise." He snapped the tree in half, sending shadowy energy into the root and burning it to the very tip.

The Druid jumped back with a startled yelp. The Priest rose up, face emotionless, and went back to his horse to wait for Corrosa. She chased after him, smacking at the hem of his robes, ignoring the shocks threw the collar. 'Why? Why did you do that?'

When he was up on the horse once more he looked down on her in every way. There nothing of the beautiful soul she had seen a moment ago. This was the shell he hid behind to stop the world he lived in from getting to him. "Control yourself, Druid. This is not a place to leave any part of yourself; even in the guise of a tree." Such coldness in his voice.

She glared back, angry. She had created life in this Elune-forsaken land and he had snuffed it out in the blink of am eye! "Mrow!" Batting at the hem of his robe didn't get his attention; he ignored her to focus on the book he had borrowed from Corrosa.

'Stupid Shadow-magic using … Holy Priest!' She leapt, attempting to mount the back of his horse. The plan was to grab his hood, which was always laid down for some reason, and drag him off the thing. When paw touched bone, however, the horse bolted. Rider and cat went flying off the back end.

The Priest landed in a heap of "oomph" on top of her. The sound was drowned out by her screech as one of the lacquered wings landed on her tail – the sound that erupted out of her could have sent naga fleeing back to Nazjar.

'That's it,' She though, 'I've had enough!' Flexing at an angle that would have broken a person's back, she squirmed from under the Priest. Running a ways off, she turned in the blink of an eye and charged. 'Kill someone else's tree next time you feel like practicing your Shadow arts!'

She saw him glance up from dusting off the book, eyes widening for a second. Even though is lips didn't move the barrier came up, conjured from Holy energy with a though.

Pain.

If there had been an angle to twist and get away from the pain, she would have found it. The world went red, then gray – the Priest was reaching for her. She clawed at his hands, hissed and ran. The pain was coming from the collar. Only too late had she learned what direct attacks on him would cause. Of course he had programmed the thing to stop her if she attacked him –why hadn't she realized that before?

She hid behind the guard tower, lay down in the bed of grass and waited out the pain. Had she access to her hearthstone's stored magic there would have been healing spells to make it all better. But as it was, she sulked and hid from the Priest while gazing at the withered vines on the door and mourning.

It seemed like a long time before the footsteps were heard coming around the edge of the tower. The Druid had taken to investigating what had caused the tree to grow. The cause, it seemed, was a tree seed that had been where she had sat but covered in the dust of ages. The little husk lay between her paws now, inches from her nose.

The Priest came up behind her. He was quiet, gazing at her find. 'Mine!' she put a paw over it to hide it from his view.

"You're sulking."

'You killed my tree, fell on me, hurt my tail and then shocked me so bad I saw colors. So, yes.' Her tail lashed. When he moved closer to the seedpod, she picked it up in her mouth and moved out of range. He could find his own!

"It's a dorei tree. The High Elves bred them out of the trees native to the area around the Well of Eternity. Instead of gold and purple, they are gold and white."

'None of the trees here are gold and white. And what you mean is 'it was going to be a dorei tree'- before you killed it.'

He took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to pacify her. It was very important to the Priest that everyone gets along. Something all healers strive for is the need not to heal at all, even if it meant mending hurt feelings and wounded egos.

He knelt down, looking odd doing so in his flowing ethereal robes, "Look, I understand that you don't understand. But can't you just trust me to know some things should not be left to exist in a tainted state?"

"You should listen to him, he knows what he's talking about." The Warlock nodded sagely from behind the Priest, astride her demon. The purple soul bag was full of screaming victims trapped in glowing crystal shards. At least they were mindless and not aware of what was happening to them.

Right?

The Priest's back stiffened. He hadn't heard her come up and this bothered him. She caught him off guard: never a good thing if you're a battle-hardened healer. It was a sign of weakness.

The Warlock surveyed the scene; the druid who was clearly holding something the Priest wanted, and the priest who had reduced himself to pleading to get her to hand it over. The guard tower with the dead vines, and the withered tree stump sticking out of the ground in front of the door.

"Did she grow a tree while I was gone?" She dismounted her horse and neatly dodged a hoof to the spine.

Jetadiah closed his eyes a moment, not wanting to answer her question, "Yes. It grew when she sat on the seed pod evidently."

"Why was she sitting there of all places?" The Dreadstead again tried to impale her and again was neatly dodged. Corrosa yawed at the furious being in mock boredom.

"She was trying to get inside the guard tower."

"… Let her in?" There was malevolence in her voice. As if she were looking forward to something nasty happening to the Druid. Some kind of booby trap?

Good thing the Priest was… good. "I think not. I want to know how she grew the tree."

"What kind of tree?" Kayas added Scholarly to her list of voices the Warlock possessed.

"A dorei tree." The Priest stood and turned towards her, speaking in Patience voice.

"What kind of dorei tree?"

"A paperbark dorie tree…?"

"Hmm." The Warlock mused a moment, eyes narrowing and brow furrowing. Ziltip filched two soul shards while she was distracted and ran off to have his first meal in days. "You better give one to the horse, damnyou!" she called after him, fist raised. The demon horse was chasing after the demon determined to get his share.

"I have just the thing!" the Warlock said. She turned toward the Druid, "How's about a trade?"

Kayas ears laid back, 'There's nothing a fel-tinged creature like you has that I want.' She wondered if the Warlock knew she was holding an empty seedpod. Wondered also if the Warlock cared what she was holding, only that the Priest wanted it.

With a dramatic flourish the Warlock drew something out of her robes. A small triangular vial made of shimmering crystal hung from a finely worked silver chain. The liquid inside glowed blue. The Warlock kept it well away from her exposed skin.

"I told you not to go to that island!" Jetadiah growled. He glanced at the soul shards in the Warlocks bag.

"Murlocs were all dead. Seems someone else wanted clamstoo."

Kayas looked closely at the vial and knew what it was. The essence of it drew her a few steps closer before she realized movement was happening. Normally the Druids heaped their praise upon Cenarius as the son Elune and the first Druid, but she herself was drawn to the Elune in her aspect Keeper of Balance. She held the sacred waters as close to her heart as the sentinels and Priestesses did.

Moonwell water.

* I read the gist of how the Elfgates fell on Wowiki and filled in the missing details with a bit of creative thinking.