"So there I was! Hiding for my life, and my face swelling up like a balloon! I didn't know what to do, but then she slides under the rock I was hiding under and she does this weird thing with paper and made it burst into flames without any tinder. And she puts her hands on me and my body doesn't hurt so much anymore. She pulls me out, and then there's these two Orc guards there. They try to attack, but she held on to me as she fought them one handed! And she JAMS her knife into one guy's neck and turns around jams the knife in the other's JAW!" He pointed on his own face.
"Then she takes off running and we escape before they know what's going on! So then she ties me to her back and starts to run again, but there's these giant killer plants! And she starts fighting them and cutting them to pieces and there's this HUGE centaur guy and she jumps up on him and jams her knife in his eye and she leaps off of him and runs and runs! Then we finally escape the plant place and there's this camp of evil orcs and stuff, and she just RUNS through the camp, left and right and right and left and she just MOWS down ten of them! And she takes this FLYING leap into the bushes, and there's this GIANT TIGER and she just reaches up and pats it on the head and says "good kitty" and she just tames it on the spot! It was the coolest thing! And then she grabs it by the neck and pulls herself up and she rides it to safety!"
Harvard laughed as he pat Bradly on the head. "I seriously doubt it was like that."
"He's right." Elunara leaned against the door. The other kids gasped. "First of all, it was six orcs, not ten. Second, I didn't ride the tiger immediately, just after I realized it wasn't going away." She walked in, "How is he doing? Of course, given the look of him, I'd say he's doing well."
"It's thanks to you he's even alive." Harvard sighed.
"I'm sorry I called you bad names." Bradly added meekly.
"Kid, the day you can give me a clever insult, is the day you see me impressed."
"I told you my Momma was amazing."
"Rub it in AFTER he's out of the healer building." Elunara scoffed.
"Can I speak to you outside?" Harvard frowned.
Elunara shrugged and walked outside. Harvard joined her.
"I AM sorry for how he acted."
"Please don't make me repeat myself."
Harvard rubbed his neck. "Listen, apparently my wife and kid took this whole move to Draenor thing a bit hard. I didn't realize HOW hard until my wife flipped out on me last night. She heard some bizarre rumors and..."
"I'm going to stop you right there. They're probably all true, except... no, I do NOT actively try to steal husbands, I got enough of them as is. No, I do NOT seduce anything that moves, I have enough clients, I don't need to hunt them down. No, Jordan is NOT gay for Grogek, and no Zelinnia is NOT part of my little circle. Yes, I did Renwa years ago, but no I am not currently doing him now. He's quite obsessed with his wife." Elunara tapped a finger to her chin. "Oh, and I did almost rip Gerald's balls off, he shouldn't have cheated his bets. No, he doesn't cheat his bets any more, he's too damned afraid of me." She considered. "That should cover the basics, though if any others pop up, let me know, I'll clarify them."
"I...uh, wow." He scratched his head. "Moving on... Since she was already so upset about moving here, I guess she decided to take it out on him and you, since you were nowhere near her to defend yourself. She's been saying them in front of Bradly, and since he was so upset, he just mirrored her, I guess. Anyway, I think we're headed to a divorce. I refuse to leave, and she refuses to stay. This puts Bradly in the middle." He sighed.
"You're worried she'll take him with her."
"Terrified. But what can I do? I'm at the training yard all day, and he'd be by himself."
"Let me explain how this town works. We look after each other. Every time a new crowd comes through, we filter out the loyals and ship out the assholes. Negative people don't stay here very long, we won't let them. If your soon to be ex-wife demands a port home, she'll eventually get it. We avoid portals home because they're... messy to deal with. However, if she does, Renwa will ask your boy where he wants to go. Back to Stormwind, or stay here? In the end, he will get to make the decision. We'll just do our best to encourage him to stay here."
"Well, I think he loves you now."
She shrugged. "I have to warn you, though." She peered in the building to make sure Darguni was still inside. "Those portals are NASTY. I mean seriously messed up. I went back to Darnassus for a week. I had to, no way around it. When I left, I carried a child that was not quite two, through the portal. The next morning, I had a four year old. We were there for a week and when we returned, two moths had gone by. The next morning, I had a six year old on my hands." She pointed. "That child is two freaking years old."
"Gods..." He whispered.
"He could come back through that portal a man, and you'd have no idea. No, we'll do our best to keep him out of that portal."
"So, what are you going to do about your new friend?" Jordan took a bite out of an apple.
"Well, he's actually fairly well behaved. He gets along with Yoona just fine. I figure maybe I could train him up as a mount. He did well the other night." She scraped a pile of meat into a dish and sat it on the floor. The big cat began to devour the meal. "I'm trying to figure out a good name for him."
"Blood?"
"Hah! No." She shook her head. "I don't want to go with obvious."
There was a knock on the door. Elunara stared down at Bradly.
"Can I have my picture done?" He held out a hand with some coins. "I can pay."
She blinked at him a moment. "Sure kid, come have a seat."
Pointing to the chair, she went in her library and prepped her board. When she came out, the tiger was rubbing up against Bradly and purring.
"Are you keeping him?"
"Yeah, I just gotta think of a REALLY good name for him."
Bradly giggled as the cat licked his hand. "How about savage?"
"I kind of like that one." Elunara sat down on the couch and popped her board open.
"I wanted to thank you for saving me." He swung his feet. "You were SO AWESOME!"
Jordan laughed. "I don't have to worry about you going hungry today."
"Oh, leave off." Elunara laughed.
"What does that mean?"
"It's an old joke; I'll explain it when you're older."
"I'm getting tired of hearing that." He sighed.
"Hey, don't rush it kid."
"People think I'm just a little kid, and they won't explain things to me."
"Fine, how about this... I absorb energy from positive feelings as food."
He blinked at her. "I... don't get it."
"Which is why I said I'd explain it later." She tapped her pencil on the table. "You understand love, right?"
"I guess."
"Well, when you love someone, or REALLY like them, you give off energy towards them. Most people can't even tell, but some people can sense it. I actually feed off of that energy. I can never take more than is already given."
"I'm still confused, but that sounds really cool."
"That." She pointed. "Right there. That's like food to me. But before you ask, no I don't do things to get fed. I get enough "food" from the people that love me that I don't need to hunt any down."
"I bet you don't have to eat vegetables." He made a face.
"Not a single bite."
"My parents don't share energy." He frowned. "At least, not since we got here." He sighed. "And especially not after yesterday. Mom will be mad I came over. She doesn't give me energy either, says I take too much energy..." He sighed again and fiddled his feet as he rubbed his arm. "She doesn't want me to talk to... you. She said that Papa should have gone after me, not you. She was also mad that no one told her I'd run off."
"Well, she has a reason for being mad, but your dad could not have handled the wilds. Besides, I'm a Night Elf, I blend into the shadows, I can run and hunt in ways he cannot. I'm also the best tracker in this town. General Grogek could have found you, but not as quick as I could. That's just a combination of my racial abilities. When I strapped you to my back, you became a beacon for anything that wouldn't have seen me on my own."
"I'm sorry." He fidgeted.
"Eh, I'm just impressed you made it so far, so fast, without dying." She pointed. "You've got some hidden talents yourself."
"I do?" He brightened. "But, I just ran." He bit his lip. "I ran and ran and when I got tired, I kept finding myself being chased by demons and orcs and things. I was so tired and hungry that I grabbed what looked like food... and then my tongue got swollen."
"Well, now you know why we train everyone so hard. This place is deadly." She shrugged and continued working. "Listen kid, I'm going to be honest with you, I've never really been around kids. When I was growing up, my mother wanted me to be a priestess like her. I was put into the study from birth. But, unlike her, I have no ability for it. They tried and tried, but I could never be like her, because it wasn't in me. I am me, I am not my mother. You are you, you are not your parents. Don't try to be like one or the other, always be you."
"What about your dad?"
"To be honest, I don't even know who my dad is." She shook her head. "In the end, I never spent any time around kids my age, and by time my mother had given up on me, I was old enough to do what I wanted. But then..." She shook her head again. "Listen, I'm going to be straight with you, because that's all I know. I got mad at someone, and I did something really hateful to him. Don't ask me what, because I don't care HOW old you are, I'm not telling you. But, he died because of me. My mother was so angry with me, that she banished me from Darnassus."
"How could she banish you from a whole city?"
"My mother is Tyrande Whisperwind."
Bradly gasped and put his hands over his mouth.
"Yeah. Anyway, for the past thirty years I have been banished, because what I did was THAT bad. I learned to live on my own and live with myself. I am who I am, because I never tried to be who I am not. And now? My mother has accepted me into her arms, as the person I am." She shrugged. "I was once told that mothers get the maddest at their children. Or something like that." She shrugged. "Listen, I'm going to tell you a HUGE secret, and no matter HOW mad you get, you can NOT tell anyone what I've told you. Understand me?"
He nodded and scooted forward.
"Your mother wants to go back to Stormwind, and your dad wants to stay here. They're reaching a point in which both are going to get what they want, and you will be stuck in the middle. It's mean and it's not fair, but it is what it is. Your mother hates this place. Your dad wants to join the Alliance Army and help fight back the Iron Horde. When they come to that point, Admiral Renwa is going to look at you and ask you what you want. I'm not going to try to make your decision for you.
You can go back to Stormwind, back to your old life, old friends, things you knew. Or, you can stay here and figure out a new life, make new friends. You know what it's like in Stormwind. But here, everything is tougher, meaner, scarier. You have to work extra hard just to survive. I'm sure you've seen the guards of Stormwind, how do they compare to the guards here?"
"Your guards are so much bigger." He had a shade of awe in his voice.
"That's how this world works. Get tough or get eaten."
Savage wandered over and lay down at Elunara's feet. She gave him a scratch behind the ears.
"I'm just telling you this, so you have time to think before it happens. No matter what either of your parents says to you, it comes down to what YOU want. Go home? To what you know? Or stay here? In this strange rough world? You go home with you mother, or stay with your dad, who admittedly, won't have that much time to take care of you, because he'll be so busy training. Perhaps you start training with us, I mean, a kid's gotta know how this world works, or he could get himself into some major trouble." She shrugged.
He sat there, his mind racing, as he bit his lip.
She turned her board around. "Satisfactory?"
