~*Author's Notes:*~
Written: 8/12/12 (The original Ch 29, updated)
I have a tendency to drop references very early to things that aren't going to happen until such a time as you forgot you read about it in the first place. The "grandpa" figure is just such a reference.
I had to smack the chapter to get it to stay on point.
Enjoy =^-^=
~*~ Chapter 71 ~*~
Kayas decided to test a couple theories. Some wild theories that would probably get her killed, and killed in a way that would make her stay dead. The though of coming back as an abomination similar to either the Priest's Warlock or the wicked Dark Lady was not too appealing but the though of keeping either of them interested in her any longer was less appealing.
Stealthing up over the hills, she made a B-line for the enormous zeppelin towers. During one of their short conversations about how to get Kayas out of Tirisfal Glades, Salira had pointed out the means of transportation that sat just outside Brill. Towering several stories into the air, and with precariously attached loading platforms, the structures dominated the landscape on the hills directly outside the undead city.
Right outside were twin Forsaken dressed in red and cream cloth and black metallic armor. Chain mail cowls just almost their faces, but then again the undead didn't need eyes to see. Coming out of stealth and out of her feral forms altogether she proceeded to walk directly toward the darkened doorway of the tower.
The guards looked at her. Then one looked away. The other said, "You might not want to do that." Her voice was like a hollow log full of moths. They made no motion of attacking or hindering progress into the building.
"What do you mean?" The little Druid stopped just outside of striking range. She would have room to turn tail and lead them on a chase if the two came after her. Or shift and fight. Whichever got her onto one of the boats faster.
"That one," one guard said, pointed a skeletal finger to the left dock dozens of feet in damp morning the air, "goes to the Warchief. That one," she pointed to the right dock, "goes to the Zandalari. So pick: The Warchief, who is none too fond of the Nigh Elves and their bogarting of all the world's wood; cannibalistic forest trolls, who eat their own mothers before the body is cold; or the Dark Lady, who has sympathies for things like you." She pointed towards the undead town. Everyone was ignoring the fact that said town was burning in fel flames at the moment and panicked citizens would be heard all the way up the hill.
Kayas was indignant. Of everything the guard said all that registered was 'things like you'. "And what do you mean by that?!"
"This was a very bad idea." The other guard laughed under her breath. "Come test the guards and see what they do?" The undead woman swept into a swaying fighting stance, "Will we fight you?" Her dull axe was in her hands and slicing the air with vicious force fast enough to make the Druid jump back in surprise, "Or will we let you pass if you are one of our own?" The axe was back in its holster at its owners hip, an owner who was executing a sweeping bow of respect, "Right this way, M'lady." Both undead hands motioned to the door. The nails were painted bright green. Or was it fungus?
The Druid was rooted for a moment. The woman hadn't said she believed one way or another what she was so… "So which is it?"
"It's very clear that if anyone harms you that they will have no only the High Priest to deal with-"
The other guard interjected, "-Not after what he did in the courtyard -" They looked at each other and nodded vigorously.
"-but Corrosa," the first guard continued, "or the Dark Lady. They're you friends or your keepers or your masters or whatever – they want you alive… mostly. I only tell you about the Orcs and Trolls to cover my own ass when they start asking after you latter on."
Like it would stop that Warlock from making your souls dance for her amusement, the Druid thought. Seems her Undercity tabard earned her some considerations, least of all helpful advice.
Left dock it was then, to Kalimdor.
They spoke of the Priest but what had he done that would frighten the undead? But before she opened her mouth to ask one guard with the green nails shook her finger. Neither of them would tell.
"You may go wherever you wish in Forsaken lands." The second guard sort of smiled as best she could with half her lips missing, "But beware of the obvious dangers of the world that do not come in the guise of death and the undead."
When the guard didn't elaborate the Druid was foolish enough to ask, "Like what?" Both guards giggled, a girlish and creepy sound that sent shivered up the Druid's spine.
One guard pointed to the road that lead to the Plaguelands, "Wretched, who will suck your soul out to ease their hunger." Which also confirmed that this is what the monster hiding inside the Priest was called. If indeed it was there and not just a malady of the Highbourn and High Elves. She didn't bother telling them she had been all over the Plaguelands and nothing bad had become of her.
Unless you count the dreams. Or the banshees in the one town. Or the stories. Or the stupid bag they had made her ride in most of the time.
The other guard spoke next, continuing with the story, "Blood Elves, who will use you in their experiments to find a cure for the Hunger."
The Druid had seen none of this either. Her time spend in Quel'thalas was far removed from any of the Sin'dorei settlements and, again, she had spent most of the time in a sack slung over the back of the Priest's horse. This galled her to an extent, remembering the tree he murdered that grew as a result of a short experiment called Letting The Druid Walk.
After that she spent more time in the bag than ever before.
The first guard spoke again, pointing to the tower that lead to the Warchief, "Orcs, who will sever your ears while you still live and mount them on a post for you to carry around the rest of your days."
Challenge accepted, if it gets me home.
The second guard pointed to the other tower, "Trolls who will eat what is left after their witch doctors are done with you."
Gulp. Maybe I should rething that rash notion. She had never dealt with or even seen a troll in her short years. It didn't sound pleasant.
The first guard pointed down the road towards an unknown destination, "Worgen who will shove their claws threw your sides and bring out your guts to feast on. Or turn you into the insane monsters they are with a single vile bite" After a second she cocked her head and said, "I wouldn't mind seeing that actually. What happens when one kind of Druid bites another…?"
Hold steel lanced her backbone at the though of one Druid attacking another. It didn't happen. It just didn't! (1)
The second guard spoke, pointing in a direction meant to indicate the other side of the Forsaken city, "Humans, who will see only your scars and not care how you came to have them. Who will light you up with fire because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, death came a-calling and there was no one there to protect you."
The Druid drew back a step, startled. Flashbacks of panic as the Dreadstead had shaken out her roots and trotted her into the Undercity -probably on the Warlock's command – and the Priest abandoning her to the trauma that followed.
"But most of all," said the fist guard in a hiss, 'beware those you formerly held in high regard. They too may have trouble seeing anything but your scars." There was such weight in her words, as if she had dealt with just that in life or in death.
Another flashback, of a young human girl with brown hair in a neat coif, elegant Kaldorei styled novice robes pressed and starched and her dirty hands in front of her face as if she didn't understand how they got dirty. Kayas standing to the side giggling, wondering how long it would take her new friend to figure out that messy was a big part of her life now that she belonged to Elune.
Kayas eyebrows knitted together, "My kin will not turn on me so quickly as yours did perhaps?" she asked the first guard. Her will to go through with her second plan, the first having been a failure, was faltering.
The woman smiled, "Jessica Ranstack," she said by way of introduction; "I stepped on an improperly cleaned weapon and fell ill. As soon as my family noticed the symptoms they beat me to death so that I couldn't infect the rest of them. But they couldn't find enough rope to bind what rose back up and I killed them all. I was thirteen. How old are you now?"
The Druid was horrified, her hand going over her mouth as bile rose. Sickness crashed in her stomach, rolled down her legs and back up again. She tried not puking this time.
Visions of what she assumed was this formerly Human child's family popped into her mind. A mother and father taking up arms against a beloved daughter, actually falling blows against her body, and keeps doing it while their child screamed and pleaded. Till she lay still in the mud and blood and tears… till she rose again and the weapons came down once more-
"If you quit fighting her, the Dark Lady will watch over you. I know you hate her for what she has done to you, but you were not there when a kingdom fell under her watch. You cannot know what that does to someone. We are all only pawns to the ones who can make the dead dance. I would rather it be the Dark Lady than the Lich King."
"Hard to think of Corrosa as a pawn…" The other guard interjected.
"The High Priest is Corrosa's keeper. Did you hear how he shacked her at the Monastery and drug her down like a kodo on pakui?" The second line was meant for the other guard, though she was surely interested to see if the Druid had heard this as well. "I don't even know how he knew she was there. He's been missing since that night in the courtyard."
That explained why the Dark Lady had said the Priest was 'hiding' and the comment about his wander lust. It didn't explain why the others don't treat him with the same difference as people had before. They didn't know who he was? Or maybe they did and they didn't care? Not that even the Druid knew who he was to these people, or his own.
There were lots of High Priests all over the world; what made this one thing he was so damned special?
"I should go," The Druid said, "I don't belong here. I'm a Druid of the Wild, not a pawn to the scheming undead because they put a plague in me!"
"No?" The first guard asked as the Druid shifted into her Dishu and ran off, voice growing louder as she moved away, "How about to a fledgling Forsaken then? You can't fight the plague. Whole armies can't fight the plague! Every heard of the Order of the Silver Hand? No? Because they're all dead!"
The Druid veered around, dashing back to the Forsaken guardwoman. Her body slammed into its upright form just inches from the one who had called her so vile a thing. "I am not Forsaken!" Kayas screamed at the woman, towering over her by a foot or more. "I am Kayas of Auberdine and I am alive! My heart is still beating; can you say the same for yours? I have no plans to seek revenge and I want none sought on my behalf. I am not Forsaken!" I know what I said before, but that was the moment upon me. Not till I am officially driven from my lands will I ever submit to that … word.
"I can see that." The woman admitted after a moment.
The Druid stepped back, panting heavily, trying not to cry. This was at least a small victory. Or so she though…
"It'll come with time. Just don't let it be when everyone you loved in life is dead because you neglected to take care of the problem before it spread to your neighborhood. The plague does not stop… and if the elves of Qual'Thalas can rise as the mindless minions of the Lich King, then so to can the elves in Darnassus. And there will be no Dark Lady to rescue them, I promise that."
Rescue?
The Druid stepped back, wishing fervently that she had kept going instead of coming back. "It will not be as that. My people possess knowledge that yours did not-" The though of her beloved twilight forests reduced to the stricken wastelands of Qual'thalas sickened her on so many levels. The hair on the back of her arms rose; her fingers twitched to stop it before it could happen.
"-And if they did I would not have bitten my mother's face off and ripped her guts out while she still twitched with life. They would have lent a hand to Quel'Thalas and Qual'Danil and none of this would have happened. The High Elves were Alliance after all. Same as your people."
Kayas' eyes twitched over to the other guardwoman.
And the missing half of her face.
Both guards started at her, waiting for the pieces to click.
She shrieked, jumping back.
"You see, we were all dead and wandering around the farm when grandpa woke up from his nap and came down the stairs for dinner. He'll show you his cane if you ask; got a tooth from every member of the family in it still."
"Goddess on High, stop!" The little Druid pleaded, trying not to picture an old man being overrun with ghoulish versions of his family, trying to fight them off with just that old cane. She had seen him too, the one who had spent the better part of two days walking by her dwelling in Brill.
He and the Priest had a conversation about how daughters grow up so fast.
Kayas shivered the memory out of her head, down her scarred neck and let it roll of her spine to be absorbed by the ground. Ugh.
Both of the guards laughed, this time high pitched like whining hyena. Evil. Joyful. Celebrating the kill. A fond memory for both, since it did indeed bring their family back together again…
Kayas fled into the tower and mounted the first set of steps she came to, spiraling upward. "Um…" the sound of protest followed her but she didn't care. She wanted to be away from here. She wanted out of Tirisfall Glade and the Forsaken blight-ridden ground. Away from death and the dead and the Undead who should have stayed dead but were just too selfish!
The guards made no move to follow, either too busy laughing at her expense or shrugging it off. They had given her all the warning they were capable of doing, so if she chose to leave the tabard she wore meant they had more reason to let her than to take her into custody.
You just try. Not that she was arrogant or anything, but she had faced more that two undead guards on her own and with success.
Coming out onto the jerry rigged loading platform she glimpsed something she had never ever seen before and had only ever heard stories about:
A Goblin.
Startled she almost punched him in the face. His grin was from ear to ear and plastered there as if his face knew no other expression to make. Ears like bats' wings rose up on either side of the face, framing a huge head mounted on a tiny body. A nose as big as a cucumber fruit protruded from the center of the face and was almost as long as the chin.
A voice like nails on a chalkboard said, "Where you headed, toots? You look like a sweet mount-"
"Leave her alone, Fizzlecrack!" A shrill voice harped, hinted with and edge of sweetness.
From the other end of the dock a female version of the short man in front of the Druid stood in her tiny Gnome-like armor. They were very Gnome-like in every way but for the enormous heads. The heavily lidded and painted eyes of the female were all that really differentiated her from the males.
"When will the zeppelin arrive?' Kayas asked the tiny woman.
"Sweet thing like you don't need to get on either of these zeppelins, toots." The man said.
Kayas shifted into her bearform, rows of slicing yellow teeth level with the goblin man's eyes. Ho, smelly animal breath snorted into his face.
"The zeppelin will be arriving in moments. And for you, my dear, a free ride! Just step aboard when the boat lands!" That he never lost that ear-to-ear grin spoke volumes for his nerve.
Shifting back into her feline form the little Druid went to the end of the dock and sat down beside the female goblin to await her ride out of here. Her heart was beating faster by the moment, blood starting to zing in her ears.
The view out over Tirisfal was magnificent. Vast forests spread out in every direction, punctuated only here and there by a small farmholding mostly returned to the while since it was no longer being farmed, and shining pools of murky water.(2) From her vantage point she saw not only the smoldering ruins of the Scarlet fortress miles into the distance, but also the citizenry of Brill finally getting the fel flames under control. High into the air on what passed for a bright, clear morning in the undead landholdings she felt only the cool, retreating winds of night blow over through her fur heading towards Undercity.
There were no birds. No insects. No worms in the ground which aerated the soil and made green grass grow. Green grass did not grow here and probably never would again.
It was incredibly lonely.
"Arn't you a Night Elf? You'll wind up in lands belonging to the Warchief of the Horde if you go where this dock takes you."
Shifting into her upright form, she hung her log legs off the dock and looked at her bare feet. They were bony and thin, as if she were a walking skeleton in the guise of an Elf. Even a week of Salira giving her extra food hadn't changed that
"Yes, I'm a Night Elf. A Druid of the Wild. And I know exactly where I'm going.
I'm going home."
~ End Notes ~
If I wanted to be mean I could end the story right here :)
Points to anyone who finds the Aavatar: TLA reference.
1) Up into the LK expansion, this was the truth. Even in BGs druids didn't fight each other.
2) The zeppelin tower to Howling Fjord was not built until the LK xpack, and Brill was not given it's overhaul until Cata.