~*Author's Notes *~

One should not cuss lightly. The reason for this is that, in the long run, the worlds will lose all meaning and impact. If you are going to cuss in your work then save it for when it is needed. That way the desired impact will be achieved. Hopefully.

~*~ Chapter 72 ~*~

It came slowly, slowly. Ever so slowly. Too slowly. The female goblin just pointed and Kayas, following the long finger, saw a spec on the horizon. It came through the clouds, bigger and bigger with each second, but so slow.

Did they not realize she had very little time to make her grand escape? The wind whistling under her toes only made the vast emptiness between herself and the ground that much more real. If they boat didn't get here soon she's just jump and end it.

Could I live as a true undead, cut off from Elune and everyone and everything that loves me? She already knew the answer even as the question formed.

As the enormous airship docked she hastened away from the ledge. The rickety zeppelin looked like it was barely held together with a few screws and some rope. No way they expected that to stay in one piece over the ocean? The lightest breeze would have it coming all apart!

Thankfully there were no passengers on board. The empty deck yawned at her, all loose boards and rusted bolts. The loud motor sputtered and clunked as the ship ground to a halt just a foot away from the dock.

The male goblin was grinning at her still, almost as if to challenge her to set foot on the rigging. Gazing hesitantly at the boat the though of abandoning her plan leapt into her mind but was as quickly pushed aside again. Gingerly she touched a toe to the boards to test them. The felt solid enough…

"Greetings, traveler!" The second male goblin had a similar voice of nails on a board. The voice bellowed out from the head of the ship., "Now don't you worry! The Thundercaller is the finest ship around! Don't pay attention to the reports about the safety of air travel. I could understand if a captain managed to crash his ship 22 or 23 times, but anything less than that isn't worth mentioning! All aboard!"

The little Druid blanched and froze. Twenty-two… twenty- three times he's crashed this ship?

"Oh, don't listen to him!" It was another female Goblin. By way of introduction she winked and soluted. "Coppermut is the name and our fair captain is the best in these parts!"

From behind Kayas there was a snort from the first female Goblin, "Not hard to be the best when you're the only, I suppose." She laughed under her breath.

"Um, on second though, I think I'll stay put. I-" - can't fly. She did not long to feel the floor come out from under her feet and wish, while she plummeted to her doom thousands of feet below, that she were a flying kind of Druid. That knowledge had been lost centuries ago. Right now she mentally kicked however decided it need to be buried or hadn't bothered to pass it on.

She'd take her chances with the Dark Lady, the High Priest or even the open ocean before she got on that-

"Nonsense!" The captain strode forward onto the loading platform and took her hand, "We Goblins are a neutral faction so you'll have no trouble out of us. You come right this way, mistress, and we'll get you taken care off!" With strength surprising for his little size he managed to pull her the two feet onto the deck of his ship. He didn't even break conversation to do it. "There's a cabin below with all the amenities of home… assuming you've the gold to afford amenities, that is…?"

"I, um, don't -" But he was dragging her further onto the rickety construction- it swayed under her weight even!- and below decks. His smile never faltered. She got the feeling he was the kind to not take 'no I don't have money' as an answer.

"Perhaps then I could put it on a tab if you'll just provide me with a name."

There were only two doors below, one scratched with the word 'CAPTAIN' in giant letters, and the other scratched with "WENCH". When he opened the door labeled 'wench' the first thing Kayas saw was a table with a loaf of bread and a covered dish of cheese.

Her stomach growled. It had been a long night. And her hunger was terrible.

"Actually," She said, "Do you know the High Priest Jetadiah?"

The Goblin went stiff, and then relaxed as if he weren't frightened and curious at the same time, "I know of his friend."

"Well I'm their… Druid. Put it on their tab." After a split second the little Druid found some nerves, "And if not them then send the bill to Lady Sylvannas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken." On second though, "And don't forge to add a generous tip for yourself. She's got enough gold to buy you a whole new ship, I'd wager… or at least a new balloon."

It didn't do much to abate the indigence of her situation, but it did help.

The huge grin was back! "Absolutely, Miss! Anything you want, and I do mean anything!" He elbowed her in the hip as if to imply something. When she stared at him blankly one eyebrow rose and then fell. "Guess not, but you don't know what you're missing."

Though it went without saying, as far as to why a half-undead Kaldorei with a Sin'dorei collar around her neck would be getting onto a ship headed for Kalimdor, she decided not to risk it.

"If anyone comes looking for me, I wasn't here, Ok?"

"Time is money, friend." He said as he hastily left the cabin. The Druid didn't know if that was a yes or a no, but distance between her and the Forsaken lands was more important that arguing so she let him go do his job.

Fast as the door was shut the little Druid was downing the bread and cheese, then scouring the cabin for what other food there was. A few moments latter the lurching sensation signaling the ship taking off had her pausing to see how soon the range on the collar would kick in.

…

…

…

After several minutes and nothing from the slim metal contraption around her neck, she went back to the food, elated that escape was going to be this easy!

~The Captain~

"Is that the Druid we were told about?" the Captain asked his first mate as he steered the ship out of Tirisfall Glade. His grin was gone, a grim expression taking over his features.

"Aye, captain. That would be the exact one." Ms. Coppermut said without taking the scope from her eye. The horizon was clear of all bad weather; she just needed something to do with her hands.

"A lot of people are going to be furious with us for letting her on the ship."

Coppermut took the scope from her eye, giving her captain as steely look, "We are a neutral faction. We take people where they want to go, as long as they can afford it, yes?"

"Yes."

"Can she afford it?"

The captain sneered like his teeth were turning to gold and said, "Yes."

The scope was back on her eye, "Then they can take it up with Jaina Proudmore, Thrall and Anduin Wryn. Besides, I'm more worried about the High Priest's friend."

"The Warlock? Why?"

"Because her allegiance changes as often as her hair. If the Priest wins the day then the world gets to see it's next sunrise. If the Banshee Queen has it her way… well you heard about what happened at the Monetary, didn't you."

The captain shuttered hard. "Yes, I heard. I also heard what happen in the courtyard when Her Majesty put a hand to that Druid. How many corpses did the High Priest return to the ground that day, you think?"

Coppermut shuttered, hard. "Lets keep two more out of the ground if we can sir. We're neutral faction, just doing our job…"

"Lets hope they buy that excuse," Deathguard Lawson said from his kneeling position by the stairs. He had stayed in the shadows when he saw a Night Elf sitting on the dock during landing. "I don't want to see what kind of mood any of them will have when they find out how Little Precious was just allowed to walk right onto an airship bound for Kalimdor."

"Precious?" Both Goblins turned and looked at the Forsaken man, on loan from the Dark Lady to keep the ship safe from pirates. Just having a Forsaken on board had been enough to deter would-be thieves. No one would risk catching the plague for all the gold in Azeroth.

Not without any know cure at least.

The undead man smiled, "I have a niece in Quel'Thalas (1). Her skill doesn't lie in her power as a Druid, but in her gift as a Druid. Let me explain why you were instructed to keep an eye out for her. Lets just say she's a pawn on her way up…"

~Kayas~

The little Druid stretched and lolled about. She rolled from one side to another and twisted herself into all shorts of funny shapes. Yes, it was just a cot on the floor with a straw mat throw under a sheet but it was all hers and it felt sooo good! In Traitor's Tower she had a bed all to her own, but it was where she slept because she had to. Now she could sleep anywhere, and she chose to sleep here.

Elune was smiling on her once again.

She was sent into a frenzy when the first made brought her a pitcher of hot water and some bathing supplies. Coppermut left with Kayas' laundry, waving her hand sweetly and declaring that they had a Gnomish machine which could clean her clothing for her. Yes, yes, even leather! The shift she provided, just a thin layer of linen and a decorative cording as a belt, was soft and smelled of salty ocean water.

It smelled like Darkshore.

Longing flooded her chest, packing in emotions that choked for a time. She fought it back with deep breaths from lungs that headily refused to work. Her stomach dropped, rolled and jumped. A tear would have escaped but there was not the time for it right now. Right now there was cleaning to be done; a removal of every trace of filth that had gotten onto or inside her while she was a prisoner in Loarderon.

After almost two hour of meticulously scrubbing and cleaning every part of her body, and several more pitchers of water and several piles of clean clothes latter, she sat back satisfied. Sitting on the edge of the bed, spread out so she could air dry in true Kaldorei fashion , she inspected her toes once again, making sure every line of grit was gone.

Smiling at her shiny nails and rough skin she felt all the fear of being recaptured drop away. Whatever possessed the Priest to remove the range on her collar must have come from Elune Herself; he would never be able to catch her now. Hope fluttered bright in the back of her mind, dousing her weariness in the sweet, fresh waters of hope.

By the time he realize she was gone she'd already be back in Ashenvale. Someone there would be able to remove the collar.

Standing, she dressed, winked at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser, and decided she didn't look as terrible now as she did. Still gray skinned, purple tinted nails, black hair and softly glowing white eyes, as un-Kaldorei as ever a color scheme was, but it was her colors now. She was getting used to it.

She left the cabin and went up on deck.

Lolling about on the deck in the moonlight had done wonders for her mood. Unlike a sunlight-loving house cat, she was a midnight-moon basking child of the stars. Her sleep schedule reverted itself back to it's usual nighttime routine in the first two days of the trip. By the third she was even starting to put on some weight from the food. By the fourth she was fishing off the side of the ship as it sailed lazily over the vast ocean.

Two days latter the Malestorm appeared on the horizon. The Druid became very silent, reverent. So many ghosts haunted these waters, not all of them guilty. She watched the giant swirling whirlpool of water. For days they had sailed over sea; sea that existed where land once stood. The white capped waves hit the few remaining rocks; rocks that outlined where the ancient capital of Zin-Ashari had stood. They looked like ghosts trying to escape the descent into the Malestorm.

Once it must have been the most beautiful spot on Azeroth, the Druid mused. That is, before her people had grown corrupted enough to blow a hole in the earth so big the sea rushed in to fill the void. She did not sugar coat things; a lot of the Kaldorei will claim it was not their fault, and their families, low-bred with no gift for magic, might indeed be blameless.

Kayas was not from one of those families.

After the explosion vile Naga had crawled up out of those depths; corrupted and twisted creatures of the deep and yet somehow so tragically beautiful in their purposeless existence. Somewhere down there, below where the ship sailed around the watery chasm, was the one who had done it all. Even the Lich King and the Scourge, the Banshee Queen and the Forsaken, were a direct result of that one.

Queen Azshara, asleep or scheming for ten thousand years while the world above rebuilt itself and carried on. Kayas wondered, as she had before when she had been made to rid some of the Naga from the shores of Zoram, if the Queen knew or cared what became of her people after her reign.

Did she care about what became of her most adept pupils, the Highbourne? Did she care that she had cursed them with an addiction to magic that would cause them to turn on each other? Did she care that the Kaldorei she once ruled had since lost most of their lands to invasions? Did she care about the Quel'dorie and their struggles to find and defend a new homeland? Did she care about the slaughter of the Quel'dorei at the hands of the demons she so joyously allowed into their world?

Did she even care that ten-thousand years latter, while she lay beneath the surface sleeping or scheming, that her selfish fuck up was still bringing mass genocide and destruction to everyone on the face of the planet?

No.

Probably not.

~End Notes~

Points if you saw the name of the chapter and knew right off that it was the name of the ship and not a trinket, weapon or NPC title :)

This chapter, like others, was written out of order on 9/8/12. It is the original chapter 30. Edited for updates.

1) His niece is SI:7, undercover and stationed in the Stormwind Embassy in Quel'thalas. He is her contact in Tirisfal Glades.