Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.

Note: You wouldn't BELIEVE all the things that have happened since I last posted. I'm not sure if I can tell you yet, but I'll fill you in as soon as I can. I've been up to a lot of fun projects, some of which you -might- be able to experience in-game if you still play. I'm going to see how many chapters I have semi-ready, then polish 'em off and post them ASAP to make up for being away so long. Enjoy!

Oh, and don't hit me but... I also started a really fancy Nightborne fanfic. I don't know if it'll go up here or someplace else. I'll let you know. (If you've been counting, that's 4 in-progress fanfiction stories going on all at the same time. Eesh!)


Chapter 13: Mooove 'em out, rawhide!

I ran to save the Night Elf.

"Stop!" Meydiri cried, "What are you even going to do? You'll burn, yourself! And what if Kael comes back to finish the job when he sees you helping?"

That was a very sinister turn of thought for Meydiri. I looked at her, horrified. She yelled at me again, as I stumbled forward and ended up dragging her with me. Mey dug her hooves into the grass. She screamed for me to stop and think.

"He was never going to help you! Can't you see that it could have been you, or me? That's what Alessandre wanted, for you to take that hit instead of him—"

"I could have stopped it! We three could have crossed the plain together."

"Turaho, we would have been leading an assassin, a Kal'dorei murderer, into Thunderbluff. We couldn't do that!"

I stood there, unable to believe this was truly happening. She took the chance to race out in front of me, helped me pick up my mace and two satchels again.

"Look, honey. Here. Let's get your things. You see the Bluffwatchers coming, don't you?"

I looked. The Bluffwatchers were finally coming down. They had kodos and water buckets.

"They're distracted, Turaho. This is your chance to get me past the guards, get me safe to Chief Baine. Isn't that what you wanted?"

I staggered backward. She put a hand at the center of my chest, helping me to take big steps away.

Finally, I came to, "Come on, Mey."

"Good. You go. Go on. Get us out of here, sweetheart."

I took her hand and we went as fast as we could, while weighed down with all my stuff.

Kael'thas' eerily calm face came to mind again and again, though. Why? Because the damage had been done. Kael'thas had accomplished what he came halfway around the world to do.

He'd killed the man sent to assassinate him.

And he'd sure as hell sent a horrifying message to Darnassus about it, ontop of that. Now, there was no place their agents could plot about him and be safe. None.

But how could Al be gone? Truly gone. Funny, annoying, contemplative, a kind of mentor and yes, oddly warm at times… Dead? Truly, dead. Just like that? And Alessandre had been trying to warn me about how ruthless Kael'thas could be. Help keep me safe. Keep us both safe and alive. And Meydiri. Alessandre had wanted life. That was all. Alessandre even claimed he wanted to take out Kael'thas, in order to preserve lives.

Then again, maybe that was the point. I never learned Al's lesson.

Now it was all on me. Me alone against Kael'thas.

I was in a haze for the rest of the day. It was like the air was oven-hot again, all around me. I couldn't breathe as well as I wanted or fully see through it, to other people. Maybe I just didn't want to see anyone, anymore.

Mey and I made it to Chief Baine. It was easier, with there being an emergency down in the plain and all the Bluffwatchers being nervous about that.

Baine was more sensitive, more understanding than I'd seen him these last few days. More worried about the state of 'the herd' than usual. So all the tension over Mey (whatever she and him had fallen out about two years ago) and whatever Baine assumed I'd heard about him and Saturna and the scrying orb, it faded away.

Baine agreed to help Mey without much of my assisting with the conversation, it turned out. I couldn't manage it, I really couldn't. I kept seeing Kael'thas, fire, Alessandre screaming for his life.

I guess Baine mistook it for deep concern on Mey's part. I suppose our chieftan could have never assumed I was this shaken up about a dead Night Elf assassin.

Mey did some fast-talking about Thousand Needles and the Twilight Cultists. I watched Baine be drawn in, look truly mournful, then concede. Mey was energetic, almost smiling with relief that he was going along with it. Was that wrong of her? Well, she needed the support. It was two years' worth of weight being lifted off of her shoulders. I didn't really hear any of it.

Baine nodded, "Meydiri, this is all very compelling and I'm sorry Thunderbluff could not have assisted you sooner. You really have been covering that one assignment for a long time." He looked up, resolute. "We will bring it to an end."

"Hardly anything ever scares me, Baine." Meydiri insisted, but then her voice faltered with emotion, "But… I guess I can't believe I'm really being welcomed back with open arms, just like that. You and I had the worst disagreement before…"

I watched Meydiri carefully tuck away her true feelings again. Like she was afraid to really indulge being herself. It hit me, then. Mey was miserable. No one was supposed to notice how she suffered. I wanted to take her aside, and maybe I should have. Instead, I stood there wondering if I had the energy, without breaking down myself.

She settled on, "Baine, I'm moved. Thank you."

I heard myself saying, "Meydiri needs to get out of there—"

Mey shushed me, gave me some look that I was too freaked out to read properly. It was easier then to just withdraw back inside of my own clouded mind.

Baine gripped my shoulder meaningfully, then gave me another stiff nod. "Rest easy, Turaho. She'll be safe, I promise you. I'll put one my best Pathfinders on it."

Then, a little pang of nostalgia. That used to mean me.

"You alright, Turaho?"

"…Yeah. I always have been before."

After, Baine reminded me that Queen Saturna and the zeppelin out of Mulgore were waiting. Ugh… welcome back to the new me.

Mey took my hand and pulled us away a few paces to talk.

"You really don't look okay, Turaho. Please tell me you're not going to mourn that shifty Night Elf."

I wasn't sure what to say.

"Well." But she wasn't saying anything, either. Mey looked down at our hooves together, momentarily. "After hearing what I said to Baine, it wouldn't be right for me to hold you… you know, to what you were starting to say out there."

All my senses were dull. But then it occurred to me that our scant chance together might slip away again if I didn't straighten up.

"No, no, no—I meant what I said on the plain. I am coming home to you with a ring."

"You don't have to do it. I'm so-"

"Yes I do. I want you, Mey." I hugged her, then I kissed her. "In a few days, I'll be my old self. Silvermoon… Eversong Woods has trees and rivers, doesn't it? What else have I ever needed to recoup myself than a nice, long, lonely walk? Or a few."

"Or a hundred."

"This is my mission. I will not fail. And I am coming home. You will be my home, Meydiri."

She held the sides of my face. Then she shook her head and teared up.

She whispered, "I love you, too."

"And this secret you have, whatever it is… When I come back to Thunderbluff, it becomes part of the past."

"You shouldn't say that."

"I know what I am saying. You are going to get the help you need in Thousand Needles. And I will get back here to be by your side as soon as I can. I promise. I'm not marrying anyone else, how could I? You made fun of my instinct before, but this time it really is killing me. I need you, Mey. Wait, are you the one who's scared to do it now? What changed?"

She looked away, anxious. That fire was hard on both of us, I was sure of it then. Maybe Mey had just been putting up a tough front for me. Maybe for her, being a good member of the Horde meant not caring when someone in the Alliance experienced a gruesome death. The Alliance probably faced the same damned burden. That's war.

"Mey." When I spoke, she looked at me again. I saw that she had been crying. "Please, promise to at least think it over?"

"If I write to you, Turaho, will you actually write me back this time?"

I made a face, but then I reassured her that I would make the time.

Then I fumbled around in my pockets. I had to have something to give the poor girl. No time to run around on the middle rise, frantically going from the auction house to the bank in order to find something precious I couldn't afford or had stowed away.

"Here." I honestly didn't know what it was when I offered it to Mey. Just that it was ring-shaped and had slipped down my index finger, so it was sure to fit one of hers.

It was a broken off gun trigger part. Gods, my mother was right about me never ever cleaning out my pockets. It must have been from my time in Ashenvale or something, when there was no safe place to toss it out and not have some Night Elf spy notice an intruder was around. This one was different. The trigger had jammed, so I'd been messing with it and broke it off with the ring attached. Well, that was embarrassing.

But Mey was the kind of lady to love having a token of death and destruction on her hand. She smiled and slipped it right down her middle finger, waggled it proudly at me. Just right for a Tauren hand. Well, she was my kind of girl, too.

A final, long goodbye kiss. "I will think about your offer very carefully while I wear this, Turaho. I promise."

"And I promise that will think about that hot tail of yours, very carefully."

Mey swatted me, but then she let me reach down and have her tail slip through my fingers one last time.

After that, I was off.

Saturna and all the other Bloodknights were already on the zeppelin. A few were lingering on the bridge over, keeping an eye out. They took my bags when I approached and stowed them, which was almost a shock. How nice of them and not snooty at all!

But it also meant they were dead serious about getting the fel out of there. Some surprise, after the way their fearless leader had just behaved. I hoped Kael'thas wasn't hiding in some locked closet on the zeppelin. Then again… I suppose, if I was him and had the ability to go from city to city at the speed of magic, I would have booked it all the way to Pandaria by then or something.

"Move 'em out!"

The whistle blew and Goblins scurried around, untying ropes and bashing wrenches at pipes and joints of the metalworks—I learned from Fitzsprocket that some Goblins know it doesn't actually mean they're fixing something, but they like their supervisors to assume they're staying busy. As for the supervisors? They're not stupid at all, they just enjoy watching their put upon minions squirm.

I didn't see Saturna right away. She was below deck most likely and I was still in that mist. I was free to worry again without Mey there. What had I done? What had I caused? Al only wanted my help. So I helped Mey instead, but not Al? In a way, Al had been a lot nicer to me over the last few days than Mey had been in the last few years of our on-again-off-again romance. Which was doubly weird since Al was a killer by trade.

Look. I know how that sounds.

I then heard familiar footfalls come near. Saturna joined me. She stood closeby, also watching Mulgore and then the Southern Barrens go by beneath us.

I didn't even know what I was saying, "…I met your husband."

Her fingers tightened on the rope. One of so many others that helped buoy up the deck and keep it attached to the hot air balloon above us. It looked like a masterwork of shoddy Venture Co. engineering in my eyes, but hey.

Saturna whispered, "I didn't know that Kael'thas was even here. I ran into him last night, at the party. He and I had a bad fight about precisely that."

Funny. I didn't feel so sympathetic anymore.

Saturna turned to me. Her silhouette was, well… right up against the scene the golden Barrens floating by at an exciting pace. I tried to think of Mey instead. Wrong move. I uh… just ended up wishing Saturna had a tail.

"Turaho, Kael'thas really, really wasn't supposed to be here. The thing is, he and I didn't leave things so well when I rushed to Mulgore. I believe—I know he was very upset about me coming. And he was worried about us. However, Kael'thas also nearly threw my credibility right out the window when he arrived! In fact, if Baine ever finds out Kael'thas started that fire on the plain, it will incinerate my standing with Thunderbluff."

I didn't offer to help her, this time.

"Oh, Turaho. He's a beast when he's roused. I am sorry if Kael'thas frightened you."

"No, I admire it." The sarcasm was leaking in, big time, "Not every man can portal to Thunderbluff to patch things up with his adoring wife and then round that off by killing someone in cold blood."

"…What?"

"Kael'thas killed him. He killed Alessandre."

Saturna gripped the rope with her other hand, too. She then held her whole body against it.

We went on in silence for a while. The Crossroads, at the heart of the Barrens, was starting to appear on the horizon.

Saturna cussed under her breath, then took a step back from the edge. She shook her head, "If that is true, then we'll be hearing from Malfurion and Tyrande, soon. Possibly even Illidan."

"They wouldn't go all the way to Silvermoon."

"You wanna bet?"

"Don't you feel bad about what happened to Alessandre? The least bit guilty?"

"This is war. I know that's not helpful. But whatever feelings I have about Kael'thas going rogue and protecting our family, and destroying another man in the process… I can't afford to be too empathetic for long. I can't, Turaho. Kael'thas, you, me, we all have enemies. And they are waiting for us to let our guard down, precisely like that."

I lay my head back. I was sure I couldn't hear any more about how 'he's Alliance, we're Horde.' It was starting to feel so pointless. At the end of the day, an infuriating, but (in a weird way) a fine and decent man had been killed. His only real problem was that he was a Night Elf, and Alessandre could hardly make up for what he'd been born.

I had been talking to him, laughing with him just an hour ago. Then I saw him walking in flame like some nightmare, smelled his flesh burning. I could barely think it, let alone speak of it any longer.

Saturna looked off into the distance, "Well, if you saw his corpse then I can't blame you. That will stay with you for your whole life, trust me, I know. I've seen my share of bloodshed in Outland, and in Silvermoon before, when Arthas came. You sort of grow with it. It becomes a real part of you. I… won't be so cold to say that it makes you stronger. But it imbues you with something. Like sharpening a sword."

"Thankfully, I didn't see his corpse, Saturna. There was so much fire. Mey was good, she wouldn't let me go all the way in."

Saturna turned halfway toward me.

I blinked at her, "What?"

"Turaho, I'm not saying that I'm glad, but our Night Elf friend might not be dead."

"I saw Kael'thas—"

"Why don't we… take things slowly. Let's see how things are first, before we start building war memorials in the Golden Plain, or in front of the Sunspire, to fallen Night Elf rogues." She smirked, but then that wilted when she knew better, "Sometimes, Kael'thas misses." She swallowed, "And sometimes, he even misses on purpose. With precision. I'll have to ask him when we get back. I'm sure Kael'thas wants an in-person visit from Malfurion and Tyrande, especially now, even less than you and I do. He certainly never wants to see Illidan again, if he can help it. Which would make more sense. I was so sure my husband didn't make idiotic mistakes like that anymore, dropping an obvious fire-bomb where Baine could see it. I mean, Kael'thas really is off of most of the things he was taking back then."

She meant while he was in Outland. So, Kael'thas was still on drugs maybe. Whoopee.

"…Probably, Kael'thas was just trying to scare Alessandre away."

"By… BLOWING HIM UP?!"

"And what's with you getting engaged all of a sudden? So you don't want to flirt with me anymore?"

"How do you know about that? That just happened! And why are we changing the subject? Another thing, Saturna—why are you married to a man who casually blows people up when he can just tell them off, or at least send them a hate letter in the mail? Kael'thas ups it to suffering by explosion instead of hurt feelings and the good chance of a papercut?"

Saturna walked up and kissed my cheek. "Shame. I thought you and I really had something."

"But, at the party you said—"

"I'd watch out, if I were you. These things crumble so easily long-distance. And you're going to be surrounded by a lot of temptation in my homeland. You're really going to go and get married before having a good time with some of the most beautiful women on the planet?"

"I…" Crap. I had forgotten about that part. The dreaded Elf booty. It was going to be everywhere.

Saturna hugged me, "Hang in there, tiger. You've still got all your stripes, haven't you?"

"What does that even mean-"

"Also, I meant to tell you… When we reach Orgrimmar, we're not portaling straight to Silvermoon." She gripped the rope again, placed a hand on her hip and stretched her back in an annoyingly distracting way, "…for a reason. I need to take the long way home. I need a break from my husband, for obvious reasons. You are alright with that, aren't you? It means the investigation will be delayed, a tiny bit—"

"Try two weeks in a zeppelin and then on a ship. I don't think I can allow it. So that's why you've been buttering me up."

"But we'll be spending oh so much more time together."

"Hold on. I just got engaged. But… Are you inviting me to…?"

Then Saturna had this teasing look, that she had every intention of sussing out whether or not I had made a real commitment to Meydiri or not. She must have also thought it was some kind of just crusade on her part, for the sake womanity or something. Or, a challenge. Likely, for a Bloodknight, the morality and amorality of it comingled in some awful way.

I felt flushed, "So, you didn't want me before, but now you do want me because I'm getting married?"

"You know, Turaho, I've read plenty of adventure stories where the couple gets married before the handsome hero runs off to war. I would have waited for you and Mey to do that."

"Oh, I see. You're saying you don't think I meant it when I proposed? Because Mey and I were broken up for so long and we only spent one night together, and since I was going out of town, and we were afraid for our lives at the time, yadda yadda… Well, maybe I see your point. But that's a pretty big assumption when you don't even know Mey. She's very lovely-"

"Only Greatfather Winter truly knows when we've been naughty, Turaho. Tea is at two o'clock."

She waved prettily, and then jogged back down below deck.

It felt like the whole world was spinning. The only thing I was sure of? I dreaded finally meeting Kael'thas. For real. He had all the earmarks of one of those guys that other guys can't actually stand, but all the women love or love to hate. Add to that I had just watched him try and burn a man alive like some crazed Goblin mob boss, and not even be fazed by it.

That focused, emotionless Blood Elf face returned to mind once more. As if total and utter ruination of a mortal being was old-hat for Kael'thas. He could have pitched Silvermoon and the Horde into war with Darnassus over that—even the Night Elves were being more careful about potential assassination. Well, according to Alessandre.

If Al still existed.

While I was busy being horrified about all this, the Goblin captain of the ship resurfaced. He started whistling, and then the others started whistling and and winking at each other. Finally, they eased into a very annoying, and I would argue, offensive song once he and his crew were free and clear of Mulgore all our Tauren Bluffwatchers. In fact, it turned into some crappy impromptu off-Karazhan musical production with Goblins swinging across on ropes, banging their wrenches on the machinery in-time, jazz hands, and dancing a silly circle around me.

Move 'em out, head 'em up, head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em out, head 'em up, raw hide!

Don't try and understand 'em,
Just tackle, ticket and brand 'em,
Move that Tauren gold and spend it, high and wiiiide!

My Gobby girl is waitin' for me,
Waitin' for me at the end a' my zeppelin riiiide!

Move 'em out, head 'em up, head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em out, head 'em up, raw hide!

Rake it in, rawhiiiiide! RAWHIIIIIIDE!

Then, one of them cracked a whip out of nowhere. I flinched.

You see, I was the only one on deck at the time, and I'm a Tauren, so maybe that's what made them so comfortable with it. Bunch of arseholes.

Well, at least I could be sure that Kael'thas was not, in fact, hiding away on the shoddy Goblin zeppelin...

What a fire hazard that would be.