~*~ Author's Notes ~*~

This chapter crit me in half and left me bleeding inside.

It's short because I can't keep writing it.

I hope you all will forgive me.

~*~ Chapter 24 ~*~

She hates me. She really hates me.

"Stop sulking, your gloom is spoiling the fruit." Serz was picking threw the vendors offerings. "Where did you say these were from?"

The vendor shrugged, "Heck if I remember."

Serz went back to smelling and poking the offerings. "Smell this." He held a fruit out to Caspin.

The tall elf bent over obediently and sniffed, "Smells fine. She hates me, right?"

"She doesn't appreciate being called an 'it'," the undead man replied sagely.

"I didn't know…" Caspin turned his toe in the ground. The vendor eyed him up and down. The imp sitting on his shoulder was all that stopped the woman from calling the Deathguards. Though she should remember him; most of the Forsaken in these parts knew him on sight by now.

Serz continued to pick threw the fruits, "Do you have anything from Ashenvale or Darkshore? Better yet, Teldrassil?"

The woman glowed at him and threw a basket at his head, "Do I look like a goblin? You have any idea what I have to go threw just to get pumpkins?"

"I'm guessing it's more what the farmers have to go threw to keep their pumpkins from you." Caspin said dryly. Having grown up amongst these people he knew them very well.

A finger that used to have a nail on it stopped inches from his face, "That's right! And these farm hands can't fight for crap, but the Scarlet Crusade guards them. Lost me a boy once, I did. Not braving Sentinels to get you some moonberries."

"They're arnt for me." Caspin was still sniffing fruit, though he didn't know why. Forsaken have better noses than anything on Azeroth.

"Your girlfriend then? That's who you're talking about, right?"

Caspin blushed, "No, it's not like that! And he wants them, not me!"

"Oh, well then. I got a crate or two in the back. Lemmy see…" The vendor shuffled off to find the promised fruit.

That she wasn't going to sell them to a kaldorie didn't surprise the elf at all. He was used to being ostracized wherever he went. His own kind wouldn't have him and he practically had to wear this imp as a necklace to get the Forsaken not to run him threw on sight.

Layla was very kind though, whispering nasty things about people into Caspin's ear who looked down on him, which brightened his outings.

"Just be nice to her. And she'll like you more if you'd talk to her and not about her while she's around."

Caspin sighed. Night Elf women were crazy and he knew that to be fact. Most of the Sentinels were women and all of them had run him off in due time. It didn't help that he didn't understand their words in the initial interview, and that eventually there would come a change in the wind and they would notice how he reeked of the Forsaken. Then came the shurikens and battle songs and him running back to Serz like fel was on his heels.

He hated seeing the sorrow in the undead man every time it happened.

But the first time he saw her it seemed like he'd seen someone who might be able to relate to him; perhaps another feral child. Then he'd seen the collar he knew that she was just like the rest of them. She was not an unfortunate refugee or someone the little country Priest had taken in, but an unwilling captive.

Eventually she would make a judgment about him and reject him as well. As she had done the moment he admitted to not understanding her language. She'd turned back to Serz and ignored him after that. Even though he'd seen it coming the rejection still hurt. It had distracted him too much he'd almost blow his hands off twice before he gave up trying to say or do something to get her to talk to him again. … to even notice him.

But it had broken his heart to hear her cry. His teacher, whom Serz had simply always called 'my Lord', just sat staring at the fire for the rest of the evening. A gesture Caspin knew well from growing up amongst a race haunted not just by their past, but their present and their future.

The vendor came back hauling two crates of berries. A mortal woman would not be able to carry the load, but the wonderful thing about being undead is that if you tore your arms off carrying something too heavy, you just had someone stitch new ones on. Serz had taken up tailoring for that very reason, though never becoming too skilled beyond reattaching fingers.

"This what you want?" There were blue lions painted on the sides of the crate. She pried the top off – and silvery moonlight flooded out, casting the shop in an ethereal glow.

Both Forsaken had their hands up to shield their eyes from the light. Caspin looked deep into it, feeling a stirring in his soul, a calling. He closed his eyes and looked away. Fruit and fabric and the occasional piece of armor changing hands at a merchant's stall were as close as he would ever come to the Night Elves.

"Yes, that's it exactly!" His guardian was almost leaping with excitement, "How much?"

When the seller listed the price, Caspin's jaw almost hit the floor.

"Ah, discounted I see." The Forsaken man was much pleased, "Such a lovely and fair lady." He actually kissed the seller's hand. The woman raised an eyebrow in annoyance, but when Caspin and Serz were hauling away the crates the elf glanced back and saw her touching the back of her hand, a slight smile on her lips.

It has been so long… He could almost hear her thinking.