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| - No more time to listen. No time to think, to hear, to say. It was time to do. Time to run. I had spent my day travelling alone. Even Dogtooth had been left in Orgrimmar with the stable-masters; Lunch was with Gulgrim, and Gulgrim was still asleep in Mulgore when I had left him. I had fallen to sleep myself beside him the previous night after taking care to carry him to the inn out of the rain after he collapsed; it annoyed me that he had drunk so much that we were unable to further our union that night. Our Chieftain had blessed the two of us together earlier that eve – such was the occasion that had caused the call for drinks in the first place – and he even had gone so far as to publically suggest that we take each other that night, mentioning that the intensity of such an act would be greatly increased by the magic from the blessing. In the end, the alcohol had made that impossible. The frustration borne of such a promise remaining unfulfilled grew acute as the night dragged into the early hours of the morning, especially considering that my body was in a furious heat regardless; but after a few hours of meditation, I managed myself to sleep. I woke well after sunrise, evidently roused by my mate's loud snoring. I sat up, meaning to tilt his head to the side that he might be quieted – instead, all I could muster was a groan as I flopped back down, firmly accosted as I was by a headache manifest of last night's drinking. I sat up again, more slowly this time – then stumbled downstairs and fetched some tea for my headache. I woke Gulgrim up whilst drinking it. He complained of a similar headache, so I proposed some fresh air. The Mulgore hills stretched in front of us for miles. We walked together without a single word exchanged – Gulgrim groaned periodically, presumably because of his headache, but my own body had other ideas. We had walked for about twenty minutes away from civilisation before my heat overwhelmed me – I took him in the bushes. Gremkarc had spoken the truth about the blessing – the feeling of each and every movement was enhanced. Afterwards, Gulgrim nearly fell asleep, and I nearly joined him. We found it within ourselves to return to the inn first, however. I took a short nap. Whilst I slept, I dreamt of a dance between four spirits. Something below them threatened to upset their joy. I woke not half an hour later, but found myself unable to wake Gulgrim as well. I resolved to go about retrieving his belongings from the lakeside instead – they had been strewn there in his drunken state the previous evening. I found the majority of his armour with comparatively little incident. Things that the Den Mother had told me two nights' previous floated to my mind as I did so. She had told me that all orcs ended up violent, and that Gremkarc had not been a violent orc before he had met her. I looked at Gulgrim's armour now – dented and fixed in so many places, swapped and changed when too far gone, altered and augmented to best protect his strong, muscular form – and realised that he fitted well within Guak's words. He was already violent (moreso than I); he fought like a berserker, with two vicious axes. He threatened violence as punishments. He was arresting, physically, when we mated. I began to worry for change in myself, too; if Guak could change Gremkarc so much, what was to stop Gulgrim changing me into something other than myself as well, even if by complete accident? One of the boots was missing. Gulgrim loved those boots. I knew this. They represented, he had said, his achievements for the Horde in the Argent Tournament. They meant a lot to him. I, myself, could not care less for them. I conceded that they had the practical value of being (apparently) comfortable, and also that they looked just as presentable regardless of whether Sergeant Gulgrim had, in fact, been wading through boar dung or not: otherwise, they were a pair of boots that merely made me feel marginally nauseous whenever I so much as glanced at them. They were important to Gulgrim, though. They made him happy, and that was the most important thing in the entire world to me. I took a deep breath before diving into the lake. The water was surprisingly clear of silt; I swam a good few feet down before the bottom came into clear view. I had to go up for another breath before I spotted the thing – right at the bottom, it was. Another breath, then several strong strokes down to retrieve it. One by one, I carried his pieces of armour into the main village before setting them by the fire to dry out. I avoided eye-contact with the villagers for now. I preferred my own company. Besides, I was speaking with the Fire. Thanking it, to one degree; listening to it, to another. Something was calling me. Once Gulgrim's armour was dry, boots and all, I bundled it up to carry it to him. I struggled with this; Earth lent me strength. I set the bundle beside my sleeping mate. Lunch, our wyvern pup, was curled upon his rising and falling chest now. I tried once more to rouse him (to no avail). I brought him tea for when he did finally wake. I checked that nobody was watching. I kissed his cheek gently. Then, I left. The grasslands receded rapidly beneath my paws as the past-midday sun beat down onto my back. I was headed north through the Barrens, following a call carried by the Wind that only I could hear. I had heard it in the Rain the previous night, too, and in the Fire this morning; only, then it had been weaker, and I had been distracted. I did not know where this was taking me but I was not going to argue with it. By mid-afternoon I had reached the Ashenvale border. The wind at my back – a wind only I could feel, according to the trees – was still calling me northwards, but I knew in my head that I would need to take care to avoid the Silverwing Sentinels. I had been working for the Cenarion Circle some this week. Although it had been a relatively brief encounter (two half-days with an overnight in between), it had changed my opinion of the Kal'dorei almost entirely. Before, they had been somewhere between tree-hugging loonies and savage, feral beasts of the forest – now, I held that at least some of them could hold and share profound wisdom to match that of the Tauren. Unfortunately, not all of the elves were pacifists as the Cenarions were. Many still coloured my entire race with the deed of Grom Hellscream, or with the warmongering, woodcutting ways of the Warsongs. I regretted that, but there was nothing that I could do to combat it. For my sake and theirs, I would just have to circumvent them as best I could. Slowly, the trees that I was slipping through grew sicklier. The atmosphere began to grate on my lupine nostrils; my spectral breath hitting the rancid air was making sparkling clouds of mixed-up magic as the two opposed schools met. It was getting for evening now. This did nothing to calm my nerves. The wind still drew me onwards. The Earth crooned to itself in pain, cracked and creaking branches singings sad songs to themselves. Ill green braziers spat and swore as I slunk through what I had come to know as Felwood. When I came to the Bloodvenom Falls, I finally had to shift back to my bipedal form to stop myself from baying in empathic anguish with the Water there. The slender waterfall roared and screamed, spilling itself down and down and down. Something in the current moved. I backed away before it – whatever it was – saw me. I was still being called north by the weak breeze, but there was something much louder now. Spirits of a non-elemental type did not often speak with me, but a clear voice with tones still lilting in its anguish drew me now to a town called Jaedanar. Jaedanar. There were no words to describe it. I was filled with such fury at those there that I could not contain myself. The lightning danced from my fingers, drove into their verdant flesh and cleansed it with righteous burns; I danced, as well. I did not think, because I did not have to. Ryzarhn had trained me well. My axe met edge-on with neck after corrupted neck. Almost all orcs. Traitors. Dae'mons, with twisted souls, minds, hearts. I merely made their bodies match. Perhaps Guak was right, but I barely had time to entertain the thought. I heard screams. I spun to face them – it was a good few moments before I realised that it had not come from any men or women, but from a set of stones in the centre of the town. As I approached, it became clear that it was not just that – and why it screamed also became clear. This was supposed to be a moonwell. My visit to the Cenarion outposts in Silithus had taught me something about the nature of these sacred pools. They were bastions of Elune's power – Elune that the Tauren knew as Mu'sha, and I knew as the Moon. They were supposed to glow, basking you in serene light even before you stepped foot in them. This one didn't do any of that. Its light almost crackled with the fel energy that had been forced into it – spiteful sparks danced just under the surface, seeming almost to form cackling faces. The screams had been from the spirit world. I knew that, sometimes, wisps – the spirits of dead Kal'dorei – got imbued into moonwells. I had listened to a love story around a Cenarion campfire about that, whereupon a male became a priest (against the social conventions of the time, I understood) that he might spend time with his deceased mate whose spirit had alighted into such a well. There were Ancestors in this well, regardless of whose. They were being tortured. The worst part was that I knew that I could do very little indeed to even ease their pain. A voice purred behind me, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. "My, my. What's this?" I felt the heat flare up, my cheeks flushing, and knew what was stood behind me. But the anguish of the Ancestors was in me already. I must have entered some manner of blood fury. I do not remember what my body did, but I felt my mind take a step back. Things became much clearer; this was how I asked, this was how I threw. I saw the once-beautiful body of the succubus fall to the might of the Four as naught but a charred husk. I heard my roar – a roar that turned to the mournful howl of a wolf, even if it was coming from Orcish lips. When my sadness was quietened, I heard the wind again. Time to move north once more. I met Nafien at the tunnel entrance. "Well met, Nafien." "Greetings, traveller," grunted the furbolg. I did not find offense in his forgetting my name. He met many each day. "Might I have passage to Winterspring, friend?" "I remember you. Very well," he said, his beady eyes turning me over. "You showed your merit before. Many others have forgotten, however. Take this and pass it to the gatesman on the other side once you are through." I nodded and took the bundle of feathers and charms that Nafien had handed me. I was met with distrustful looks from many of the Timbermaw, but I kept my weapons sheathed and the bundle in front of me. They allowed me passage. Winterspring was just as cold as I remembered it from half a year ago. I supposed that it was too far north to be affected by summer and winter. I ran on soft paws to Everlook. I changed my clothes to warmer ones. "It has been a while since I was last in Winterspring," I said, into my buzzbox. I heard Kruss' voice. Nelai's. Gulgrim's. "Did you drink your tea, Gulgrim?" "What tea?" I grunted. I turned off the buzzbox. Now, there was no more time to listen. No time to think, to hear, to say. It was time to do. Four paws and a wolf ran from the town of wits and wills into the wilderness of Winterspring.
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