~*Author's Notes*~

I havn't updated in a while because I stopped playing WoW. I get off work at 8 in the morning and there are neither BGs, RBS or raids at this time of day. All my friends are either asleep or at work, and I don't enjoy solo content (that includes raidfinder, which is more frustration than fun). Because I'm out of pre-written chapters for this section of the story (this is the last one, written in 2012) it may be a while before I update again.

~*~ Chapter 33 ~*~

"What is it?" The largest of the Tauren men asked.

"It's a Druid!" The Priest quipped, frayed and frustrated. He pulled the blankets up to her chin and sat back from his work. Her bear form healed faster than any other so he had forced her sleeping body to change in order to make his work easier.

"I know what it looks like, I'm asking what it is. That thing is not kaldorie or sin'dorie, or quel'dorie or any kind of dorie!"

"Someday she will may be a dorie of the best kind, now leave me be!" The Priest was back in his linen breaches and thin linen shirt. He had no patience to deal with questions today.

"He's making a joke about healing Druids.' Corrosa said, oh-so-helpful. She was sitting in her rocker embroidering some kind of sinister pattern onto her cloak. (1) Something to call the power of fluidity to her mind when she tapped the runes or whatever the designs were.

The great white bullhead shook, the one good horn barely missing getting stuck in the rafters of the small Orc-styled hut. "My skull is thick, Mistress Felwitch, but not thick enough to miss his jeering."

"You're irritating him." Her eyes simmered for a moment, then back to their ghostlight white. "And I haven't had a last name since I was living. Felwitch? … yes. You may call me that."

"I want answers! I took over a dozen of my most powerful students to pull her down and she still got a piece of you before she went!"

The Priest was rubbing his temples, trying to get his headache to go away; "Before or after you clubbed her in the spine so she couldn't feel her own feet dislocating from their joints?"

Corrosa sat down her embroidering, "Do you know what happens when he gets irritated?"

The Tauren man snorted not seeing how something smaller than his right arm was going to intimidate him. It turns out he and his students had been outside when the zeppelin crashed... and missed the show of just who crashed it. "She would have had your throat if I hadn't stepped in. You were taking liberties with your life." The bull snorted. Druids were serious about that kind of thing. Tauren more than the Night Elves even.

"When he gets irritated," the Warlock's voice was sweet as she laced her fingers together, "I get irritated. I get irritated and I find someone to share that irritation with. Since she's asleep and my felstead has run off with my imp, you best run along home before I visit my intentions upon you."

"The Warchief is going to hear about your threats, Mistress." One of the white cow's three fingers pointed at the Warlock. It was almost as thick as her neck. She smiled at his threats. The man turned to the Elf, "And he will also hear about you and what you've brought into his city. That thing isn't natural. I know Scourge when I see-"

The Priest was too his bare feet in a moment, blue eyes locked with green eyes that towered over him. Both ears quivered with anger, "I am an Emissary of Silvermoon and your Elder, child. Go whine to the Warchief all you want, but she is not a danger to anyone so long as this collar is around her neck."

The Tauren man stepped back. "You may be my Elder in age and my superior in entitlement but do not for a second think that you are better than I as a person. That collar did not stop her nearly taking your face off, Blood Elf." He left then, as the Warlock jumped to her feet. The Priest put a hand on her arm to restrain her, letting the Tauren man walk out and close the door behind him.

The Priest sat down again, slumping into the chair. Both knees curled up into his chest as he rubbed his temples and drew the blanket around him. The single bed was occupied but for a moment he entertained the idea of pushing the tiny little bear to one side and stretching out.

Corrosa was quiet watching her companion suffer in silence, "She'll be here soon. If not then I can-"

"I told you I would never ask you to do that for me. Not again."

She was silent for a moment, her brows dropping together, "I would if you asked." Softly she leaned over and took his hand. Hers was frigid with death, his fiery with life. "Ask me to."

"No. She'll be here soon. I can wait."

From the palm of her hand she slid the mana crystal into his and watched him cringe to feel it against his palm, "It's the last one." She whispered, "Make it last."

A tear rolled down his cheek as he drew the crystal into his embrace and, like a man secretly in love, fought the desire to ravage it of everything it was worth till it was utterly spend and he was utterly satiated. Instead he drew from it a little at a time, slowly feeding till the throbbing in his head and the pain in his soul dimmed to a dull burning.

Till the voice in his head stopped screaming to ravage the Druid; the Wretched beast inside him having known for quit some time that she was a powerful Source of arcane magic, should she –or anyone- choose to tap it.

"You have to see this thing!" The white bull was saying. Behind him several of his student, more interested in witnessing the show than participating in the discussion, watched. "She's black like sin, green glowing strips all over her body and eyes like the Forsaken. She shifts but into what I cannot say! A fel-bear or demon cat-"

The Orc in front of him, green skinned and slow of nature, put up a hand, "I heard her screeching. All the way to this very spot I sit-"

"Domonic?"

"Terror. Fear. Anger. I heard pain." The Orc signed, glancing over at the Blood Elf emissary the High Priest was to replace soon, "Leave her be. Someone has given her quit a story to tell, should she ever find someone with whom to share it; I will not have you adding a chapter to it."

The white bull bowed, "As you wish, Warchief. Will you at least permit me to study her that I might find some way to undo whatever taint has taken hold before it corrupts her completely?"

"From a distance, my friend. A long distance."

The white bull turned and left the war room, students following in rows of three.

"This isn't natural," The Priest was saying, holding up a very fresh steak under the Druid's nose. She didn't move, "She hasn't eaten anything since she woke up. That was two days ago! She barely moves."

"Kill her, let it be done."

Scowling at his distracted companion, he wiggled the steak again, "It's fresh. I just got it at the market-"

"He paired someone to go get it for him, don't let him lie to you. Mr. Fancypants here has never even shopped for his own loo paper."

Scowling even more the indignant elf turned to the Warlock, "I'll have you know that I have never in adult years even used 'loo paper'. That is why I'm an engineer. I have a device that takes care of such primitive means of personal hygiene."

The Warlock laughed, "Proud of that fact are you?"

Since he couldn't scowl any deeper than he already was, he threw his hands up and turned back to the Druid. Two days now she had lay in the bed and been unresponsive to any stimuli. Food, water, the need to visit the loo herself… nothing. Not even a lick on the paw to clean herself.

"Please eat something," he pleaded, green eyes growing large and wet. Girls liked that kind of thing right? Vulnerability? That should get a response... no. No, not even that. And here a little child of a Nigh Elf whom his ego assumed found him adorable and would jump at the opportunity to please was crushing his ego. After all, the rest of the girls jumped up and down if he so much as glanced at them…

The Warlock's head snapped up suddenly. The Priest glanced over. "What's that I hear?" She said, face blank as she strained to catch the sound again, "Is that… is that? The sound of your ego shrinking? Oh, noes!" And she rolled in her rocker to avoid the pillow he threw at her as the cackling laughter bounced off the walls.

The Priest stood, ears limp, "You try then. I've done everything. I mean, she hasn't even gotten up to visit the-"

"-kitty box? She's go that 'crushed soul' look about her and there's usually no coming back from that."

Between her palms the Warlock created a glowing red ball of flame and shot it at the Druid, setting the fur on one shoulder on fire. There was the tiniest creak of pain and a single tear forming in the corner of one eye to register the pain before the flame poofed out.

"I didn't mean hurt her!" The Priest leapt over and quickly healed the singe.

"What? It's the one thing you didn't try yet!" Throwing her crocheting down, the Warlock got up and headed for the door, "She's depressing me. I'm going for a walk."

"In broad daylight?"

"Yes." The door shut softly behind her.

"Wait!" He called after her. He could feel her stop on the other side of the door and wait. Taking a leash out of his bag he fastened it to the little Druid's collar, tugging her off the bed and onto the floor. Obediently she followed, drooping like some melting piece of Scourge tainted candy.

"You'll feel better," the optimistic Priest was saying, "You'll see." His smile was only skin deep. Somewhere deeper he knew that the events transpiring between the getting on the zeppelin and here had damaged her somehow. Least of all coming that close to freedom only to be drug down and re-chained once more.

But she didn't feel better. It was as if a rain cloud followed her around the streets of the canyon-filling home city of the Orcish nation. Anytime the Priests stopped walking she flopped down into the dust, not even bothering to be neat about it. She wouldn't begin moving again till he had prodded her several times and pulled on the leash. Then like an old cow she would slowly get to her feet and continue on behind him, face almost dragging the ground. More than once she tripped over something and more than once ran into a wall or scraggly tree.

Their venture was short lived when she tried to dive into a fire pit. The Priest, cursing in a mixture of Highbourn and Thelassian, hauled her away from the pit by the skin on the back of her neck. Picking her up with one arm, he turned her to face him and scowled. But his scowl meant nothing to her. She was soon back on the ground, trailing along behind him shortly.

Two more nasty comments from passing Orcs had the whole lot of them headed back to the hut they were staying in. Halfway back to the hut they happened by one of the many ponds that dotted the various valleys of Orgrimmar. Turning to face the water directly, his hand came to rest on the Druid's shoulders where she slumped into the dirt and despair.

Something clicked behind her ears. There was a pulling sensation from around her neck-

"Jet-!" Corrosa's quick voice shot threw the air the same time the cat was lifted off the ground and thrown headfirst into the water.

"Sink or swim, but stop sulking."

Splashing into the surprisingly chilly water sent shock waves threw the Druid's body. Her head came up an instant latter, turning towards the Priest – and seeing the collar dangling from his hand. Instantly turning to other direction she made to escape – - until she noticed all the Orcs lining up on the edge of the pool waiting for her to emerge.

Without the collar she was fair game.

(1)I realize this was added with the LK expansion and this story takes place in BC. Some of the actions of the developers surely would have been retconned if they could, and placed further back in gameplay if they had though of it back then.

I wrote this chapter two days before the Hyjal Daily quests went live. The first (and last) day I did them I took a good look at Runetotem and bust out laughing. My 'made up' description in here was spot on, down to the broken horn. Either I'm that good, or subconsciously I remember seeing his model somewhere in game before.