The Quiet

When you live in a war zone you notice when it gets quiet. It can mean that something is coming, the proverbial calm before the storm, but in this case it was just the normal hum of the forest reasserting itself while us warmongerers slept. It seems even Orcs need some sleep. I'd been watching for a few days and nights, but that night was the first time I'd heard the forest speak again. There was gentle rustle of nocturnal creatures rousing from slumber, preparing for their hunt... but there was also a sense of... well a prickle down my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck rising in a warning. I'd felt it before, when my body recognizes a fellow hunter and tries to warn my mind to stop thinking and start acting.

At first I was worried it might be one of the trolls looking for Astranaar scouts like me, but the wind shifted and I caught a familiar scent. The tension shifted in my body, my instinct was still to run but not with the threat of death hanging over my head. No, this hunt was a different kind, an expected one. He called it "training". Quietly and slowly, I slung my bow on my back and drew my dagger. There was no point in drawing my sword, the reach would have been a burden in such close quarters. I leaned forward, my foot braced against the tree behind me, my knuckles barely grazing the branch I crouched on. I knew, just knew, he'd come from behind... so I was still surprised when I felt a soft brush against the top of my head.

There's no graceful way to leap out of your skin, really... so I'm going to say I was happy that I didn't fall out of the tree. I managed to make it look like I "dropped" off the branch, grabbing it with my one hand and a few fingers of my other. How I kept a hold of my dagger, what with my heart busting out of my chest, I'll have no idea. Somehow I kept my features schooled while I looked up at the cat on the branch above the one I clung to. His tail hung down to where my head must have been a moment before. The smugness on his feline features was so plain that I couldn't help but glower at him. With a heave I threw my dagger at him, with less force than I would have liked, and grabbed the branch more firmly with two hands. The cat only flattened his ears to avoid the dagger... but in my defence, I was hanging from a tree branch.

Catching the flash of predator in his eyes I decided it was time to get going. Quickly I climbed down the tree, trying to keep my senses both on the cat and on where my dagger might have landed. I had others, but it doesn't do to be wasteful. He followed, of course, it was part of the game we'd been playing since before either of us hit puberty. A game that had become more rough as the years went on, from hide and seek in Darnassus to seek and destroy in the wilderness.

I'm not sure how the Druids in Darnassus feel about one of their own that "goes feral" but I know my mother doesn't approve. That may have more to do with my own tendancy to spend time with the wild than with Dathelor and his near constant cat-form. Mother always imagined I would be a chosen of Elune and serve in the temple. When I showed an aptitude for martial pursuits she had visions of me leading the Sentinels. I suppose that makes me a disappointment, to her at least. Dathelor tells me that she has something to prove and was trying to use me to do it and that it's best to let the weight of her judgement go, but that's not so easy sometimes. Mother and daughter relationships are more complicated than Dathelor seems to think.

My feet touched down and I took off running, slowing only briefly to scoop up my dagger before disappearing into the brush. He had the advantage... speed, stealth, and the ability to track the faintest of scents. I needed to gain the proverbial upper ground, and quickly, before he pressed his advantage. I stifled a curse when I realized I hadn't thought ahead and was heading for Silverwing Refuge, now horde controlled. Still, hesitate and die, that's what Dathelor would say. So I kept running, now focused on more than just the feline pursuing me. While it was dark and many would be asleep, I knew even the horde wasn't stupid enough to forgo sentries.

I could almost feel Dathelor's alarm as close as he was behind me, then... there was space between us. He'd slowed, perhaps trying to puzzle out what I was doing in a horde encampment. It took a bit of effort not to laugh, I think I was starting to lose it. I WAS IN A HORDE CAMP! Honestly most of the run through the camp was a blur, I tried to keep to the shadows and listen for any sentries, but I was more focused on getting to the western edge so I could make it to Talondeep Pass. If I could get to the pass before Dathelor figured out which way I'd gone, I would have time to lay a trap. That's what I kept telling myself. I tried not to think about the Krom'gar army incinerating the landscape in the pass.

At one point in my desperate dash I thought I was caught for sure, but instead I learned that some orcs sleep with their eyes open. Especially when on sentry duty. When I reached the western edge of the Silverwing encampment I could no longer sense Dathelor. I knew better than to relax though and kept going, full tilt, down the road toward Stardust Spire. I wanted him to know which way I was going. I stuck to the road right into Talondeep pass, until I was almost on the horde again, then stopped.

Crouching I snuck up to the barracade of spikes the horde had put up, (as if they could stop one of the elven archers), and laid my trap. With a quick glance around to be sure there were no immediate sentries about, I climbed up on the end of one of the poles, trying not to think about how not too long ago it had been a proud tree, and used the leverage to leap onto the cliff. I used the horde's own wall reinforcements to climb up to Trueshot Point, ducking into hiding the moment I got up there. Then I waited.

It didn't take long for Dathelor to show up, I could see him as a slightly darker shadow along the bottom of the opposing cliff. If I wasn't specifcally watching for him I know I wouldn't have seen him coming. The tension in my shoulders increased as I waited and waited, trying to imagine what he was thinking, holding my breath to see if he would notice my tracks abruptly ending. Hoping against hope that if he did (because he would) that he would assume I'd leapt over the barrier, not onto it and to the side.