Two days later Shiawase was standing at the gates of Stormwind, one of the very few surviving cities of Human civilization. As always, the crowd moving back and forth on its main bridge was full of travelers, merchants, laborers, and the like, and Shia had to jostle for space to fit both his keg and himself. After a stop at a street vendor for some fried fish, Shia finally made his way to the Crimson Jewel, meeting place for the Retribution of Arathor, the organization that the Druid elders had sent him to serve.
The smell of ale, roast raptor, and mystery stew wafted from the tavern entrance, and Shia's belly moaned of its own volition. He hadn't made it two steps into the building before a chorus of Dwarven voices bellowed out, "SHIA!"
"You old Troll licker, where've you been? You were supposed ta 'ave been back a week ago!"
"I'm sorry brother, I-"
"I ain't yer brother!"
"Right, right, I'm sorry Olmag, I was sidetracked. But I brought presents."
"What sorta presents?" The two other Dwarves of the trio, Grimnar and Dagar, pressed in closer. Dagar's wolf tried to jump over their heads to plant a lick on Shia's face, but Dagar pushed it away and smacked it on the rump.
"Well, there's a keg of ale sitting outside."
And Shia was suddenly left to himself, alone with a very excitable, very large wolf.
"Shia, you're just in time for my new concoction." One of the senior members of the Retribution, Coleclasure, poked his head out of the kitchen and beckoned Shia in, who removed himself from under his wolf friend, wiped the slobber off his face, and stepped into the kitchen.
"It's not anything like that fire breathing chili you had me eat last time, is it?"
Cole smirked thinly and held up a small bowl with what looked like bubbling cheese on top of a black vegetable. The smell that wafted up from it reminded Shia of fertilizer.
"Ah... um..."
"Oh don't be a scaredy cat. Appearances are deceiving."
"Well, if you insist."
After a false start or two, a spoonful of the dish made its way to Shiawase's mouth, and the Druid chewed on it thoughtfully. The cheese was slightly sharp, but subtle, and brought out the earthly sweetness of whatever plant it was that Shia was munching on. "Mmmmhmm," Shia mumbled, and took another spoonful.
"See? Not bad is it?"
"HrmmhmmMmm?"
"It's a sort of mushroom that grows in old Arathor in certain caves. They're hard to get now that all those Trolls and Ogres are lingering around, but I managed to get a bag full during our last expedition."
"Hrmm!"
Cole nodded with a self satisfied smile. "I'll teach you how -"
"Oi! Ye flea bitten berry munching trogg child, what is this?!"
Olmag was standing at the kitchen entrance, deviate delights in hand.
"What do you think they are, troll-for-brains?"
"Well we all know Elves eat nothin' buh' berries an' bark, so I'm guessin' it's a present fer us!"
And with that Olmag popped a deviate delight into his mouth.
"Don't be hoggin' em!" Grimnar and Dagar immediately pounced on the rest of the delights, taking one each for themselves. In the commotion the whole package fell the floor, and before Shia could recover from his shock the wolf had gobbled the rest up.
Shia stared blankly at the ripped up cloth that had once cradled Shia's entire month's worth of profit, as the Dwarves settled down in the tavern chairs and let the deviate take its effect on their minds.
Shia sunk into a chair himself, pensively finishing the dish Cole had handed him, and resolved that from then on, he was going to hide a delight for himself somewhere on his person as a precaution.
"Well kitty, how was the family? And get us some ale would you?"
Shia sighed and made his way to the bar. "My mother was her usual self. I didn't spend much time with her, Teldrassil makes me uneasy. Ashenvale was pleasant as usual."
"Pleasant as in swarming with yer lot?"
"Yes, exactly." The keg Shia had brought was already tapped and ready, he noticed. He poured five mugs and set them onto the table.
"Where'd you get this stuff Shia? It ain't berry wine is it?"
"No, some pirates in Stranglethorn kindly provided it for me."
"Pirate rum is it?" Grimnar took a swig, thoughtfully swished the alcohol about his mouth, and took a gulp. "Ain't too bad, but it's no Dwarven stuff."
"I think it's rather good."
"Yer an elf, Shia, you eat berries. Whatta you know about taste?" The dwarves all laughed as a trio and began to down their mugs. Cole sat down to sip on his own, and Shia chugged his as fast as he could before standing up for another round. The ale burned down his throat and almost choked a cough out of him, but with the dwarves about he forced himself to suppress it.
"Anyways, to Shia! Friendly neighborhood kitty cat!"
A chorus of "Here here"s and "Huzzah"s rang out, followed by a call for another round of ale. By the time the sun had set the keg was empty, the Dwarves were jumping from table to table singing drinking songs, and Shia was passed out on the kitchen floor, curled up in cat form in front of the fire.
Chapter 5
A family of deer had passed this way lately, and a pack of wolves had been tracking it. There were some chipmunks hiding in the trees above, not worth his time. The wind was blowing from the… north. The ground was soft. It had rained not long ago.
Shia poked his nose into the air and twitched his whiskers. The scent of musk and dew and a thousand comings and goings of the forest embraced his senses. His stomach mumbled. It had been a full half hour since had last eaten. Shia stretched. The muscles on his back flexed visibly under his gleaming black fur.
The trees were so thick here that Shia could just barely slink his way between their trunks. Lightly he padded forward, the crunching of the twigs beneath his feet stifled by the chorus of calling birds above him.
And then, above all that, in a whisper that washed over Shia and dulled his senses of the forest around him, he heard it.
“Druid.”
Shia froze, heckles raised, lips hovering in a half formed sneer. A cold, nipping wind flittered past, and the whisper rode it. “Druid, the master of the true balance has returned.” It was quiet, peaceful even, but Shia could feel it in his bones, something malicious and dark. But there was no time to investigate. The trees were blurring, the birdsong was falling away, he was waking up.
His waking conscious bubbled up to someone scratching behind his ears. The smell of roasting goretusks danced about his nose and the warmth of the kitchen fire was radiating about his paws. Life was good. His dream was all but forgotten. With a contented stretch and a yawn, Shia readjusted himself on his back.
"Shia."
He was no longer being scratched behind the ears. This would not do. Although it pained him to do so, Shia opened his eyes, and through blurry, hung over vision saw the visage of Kitra, the tavern's proprietor, staring down at him.
"I don't want to interrupt your little cat nap there, but I can't get to the cupboard."
Shia purred and stretched again. A belly rub was in order.
"Shia? Did you hear me?"
Yes yes, Shia thought to himself. Belly rub first, move later.
Someone stepped into the kitchen. Someone short and stocky and smelling of ale. "Oi Kitra, that fleabag gettin' in the way?"
Kitra nodded. "Could you just nudge him out of the way please?"
"Will do. Git ready for a ride fleabag." Olmag rubbed his hands and was about to grab for Shia's tail when Shia jumped up with a yowl and pounced on his chest.
"Ouf! Gerrof me you overgrown stray! Ah said gerrof!"
Damn Dwarves, always ruining Shia's peace.
The Crimson Jewel was quiet that morning, with a traveler or two resting by themselves at the various tables, and not a drunkard or miscreant to be found. After he had eaten and recovered somewhat from his headache, Shia joined Kitra in the kitchen.
"I brought a new spice for you to try," he said, and handed over the wartroot he had bought at Ratchet.
Kitra took a sniff of it and smiled. "Oh, wartroot!"
"Ah, you've heard of it?"
"Yup. It's popular in Kalimdor. I hear they use it to mask the taste of bad meat. Are you saying something about my cooking Shia?"
"No! No!" Shia threw up his hands defensively. "Of course not. I had a taste of it on my way back and liked it quite a bit so I bought some."
"Well, thank you. It's a good thing you bought it in Kalimdor. It can run for a pretty silver on this side of the world, but over there a pouch is only a few coppers or so I think."
"Ah...really?"
"Yup." Kitra took another sniff of the spice and set it on a shelf. "I guess they eat a lot of bad meat over there," she said, smiling.
"Really? Only a few copper?"
"Yeah. Why? How much did you spend on this?"
"Ah, well, a bit more than that. But it's alright. I can recover my losses."
"I see. How was Ashenvale?"
At the mention of the forest Shiawase let out a long, drawn out sigh and shrugged. "Relaxing, to an extent. The forest is peaceful, but the Elves there do nothing but worry. They seem so obsessed with the war and aid and reconnaissance that I can't really unwind. I always get dragged into doing things for them. Just before I left they wanted me to take a survey of an entire camp's defenses. I almost got killed." Shia sighed, dipped his finger into a pot of soup, and promptly withdrew it with a hiss.
"Careful, that's hot."
"I noticed. Anyway, when I'm on break from my duties the last thing I want to do is more war play. I just want to sit on a beach, soak in the sun, gaze at the moon, and catch some fish. I understand why the Elves of Astranaar are concerned, but they need to take a deep breath and mellow out."
Kitra chuckled. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were just lazy."
"I'm not. I just don't see what all the commotion's about. So the Orcs are logging. Why does that mean we can kill them indiscriminately? The Kal’dorei have spent centuries at peace with nature, and yet they can’t teach the other races to do the same without bloodshed? I don’t understand. Ah, I'm sorry, I'm rambling."
"No, it's alright." Kitra moved the pot of soup off the fire and checked the goretusk with a knife. "I agree with you of course, but I think you say that so easily because you haven't really been wounded by war yet."
"The scars on my body say otherwise."
"I mean emotionally." Kitra turned to regard Shia for a moment. "I don't know how to explain it. There's a point where war hits home for people”
"If it hasn't for me yet then it never will."
"Maybe. Anyway, thank you for the spice."
"My pleasure."
A whole generation of war orphans had already grown up and passed through Stormwind Orphanage’s doors, and as many of them began to earn fame and fortune on the front they returned their war spoils to the place that raised them. As such, when Shia approached the orphanage ten or twenty fed, rosy cheeked children were running about outside.
As a crowd they noticed his approach and screamed in unison, "Shiawase!"
"Shia! Shia! Give us a bear ride!"
"Let's play catch!"
"Did you get us presents?"
"Did you fight the trolls?"
Shia was rooted to the ground as twenty little bodies scrambled on top of him. "Alright! Alright! You're all worse then Cenarius' daughters! Let me breathe! Here, I got you all some candy. But only one each! I can't get at it if you're hanging off my neck, Christoph. Hey! Give that back!"
One of the orphans, a pixie of a girl named Nadine, had grabbed the purse from Shia's side and bounded off cackling. Shia slipped into his panther form, shook the children off of him, and in two bounds was in front of Nadine, his teeth barred in a pearly white smile. With a good natured scream, Nadine shot off in the opposite direction. Shia slinked behind her until he was close enough to slip his head between her legs and scoop her up onto his back. She screamed again and grabbed at his fur as he bounded back and forth along the cobblestone. The other children were jumping up and down and cheering. A few had begun to cry in envy.
"Nadine!" The matron of the orphanage had run out into the street in a panic. Shia trotted up to her and with a duck of his head deposited Nadine at her feet.
"What is going- Shiawase!" Shiawase had returned to his Elven form and was now standing in front of the matron, grinning from ear to ear. "You almost gave me a heart attack! Oh, I should have known it was you! And you, Nadine, are you trying to pick our guest's pockets again?” Nadine shook her head innocently, Shia's coin purse still clutched in her hands.
By the end of the day Shia's bag of candy had been inhaled, his back was aching from the bear rides he had given, his coin purse had been stolen more than twenty times, and a handful of marbles had mysteriously appeared inside of it. He sat cross-legged in front of the fire in the orphanage's common room, one child on either leg and another hanging on his back, telling the orphans tales of his adventures.
"And so I just sat there and pretended I knew what the Orc was saying until he decided he like me and gave me some of his sandwich."
"Did you eat it?"
"Of course, it was delicious!"
A bunch of the children made faces.
"Orcs eat brains!"
"How'd you know he didn't poison it?"
"Why didn't you bite his head off?"
Shiawase laughed. "The Orcs and Trolls and other races are more like us than you think. If you get angry at them when they attack you and want to hurt them, remember that they might have lost their parent's too and think it's our fault."
One of the older boys snorted. "That's stupid."
Shiawase shrugged and laughed again. "That's what most people say. I could be wrong, but my sandwich wasn't poisoned and the Orc was nice to me, even though he didn't have to be."
The matron frowned. "Maybe we should talk about something else. Where else did you go Shia?"
"Have I told you about the Wailing Caverns? It's like something out of the Emerald Dream."
"The Emerald Dream! Tell us about the Emerald Dream!"
"Haven't I told you all about it already?"
The children on his lap tugged on his ears. "Tell us again!"
Shia smiled. "Alright, alright. Let's see. The Emerald Dream. Close your eyes. All of you. You too Nadine, I see you there. If you giggle you won't see it now. Alright, ready? Keep your eyes closed and take a deep breath."
The entire room fell quiet as the children began to concentrate.
Shia shifted the children off of him and stood up. He closed his own eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled up the memory of his childhood. The clatter of wheels on cobblestone and bread makers hawking their wares faded away, until the only sound in Shia’s mind was the soft rustle of spring leaves and the gentle whisper of the wind. “Close your eyes,” his old teacher had said, “Imagine you’re going through a tunnel…”
"Imagine you're going through a tunnel. It's dark, but warm, and you can see a green light in the distance. As you walk forward you can see the green light growing until it becomes an opening. As you get closer and closer your body becomes warmer and more relaxed. A warm breeze passes by you and rustles your hair."
A few of the children squirmed and put their hands to their faces.
"As you step out of the tunnel your bare feet land on soft, feathery grass. It feels as if you're walking on a ticklish pillow." The children wiggled their toes. Some screwed their eyes together. "Take a deep breath, relax. Look around you."
"There's trees as far as you can see. They're strong and healthy. Their leaves rustle hello. The branches stretch out strong and are perfect for climbing." Shiawase paused and walked around the crowd of children. Although his feet trod wooden floor, he could feel the damp earth of the forest between his toes.
"You hear the sweet song of the morning bird. Look, there's a nest in the trees. And a little morning bird family. The mother and father look down on you and cheep hello. They fly by. Oh, they're flying back. They land on your shoulder, unafraid. These birds have never seen a human child before. What are you, they're wondering? Can you sing?"
Shia puckered his lips and imitated the quiet chirping of a morningbird. One of the girls gasped.
"Oh, their children are hungry, they'll have to play with you another time. Let's go further into the forest. Watch out for the little mice dancing at your feet." More wiggling of toes commenced.
"Do you hear that? It sounds like bubbling water. Let's follow it. Look, a little stream, perfectly clear. There's little tadpoles inside, let's leave them alone, they look busy. Where does this stream go I wonder? As you walk along the bank the soft dirt sticks in between your toes. Oh, and there's the morning birds singing again. Look, ahead of you, a beautiful lake, with a beach of white sand. It looks like a mirror, stretching out all the way into the horizon like that. Let's dip our toes inside and clean this dirt off. Ah! It's freezing!"
The children shivered. A few jerked their feet back.
"That's alright, we can just rest in the sand. The grains are fine and light. Pick some up, sift it through your hands. It slides perfectly through your fingers. The sun has made it warm to the touch."
Tiptoeing to a potted bush, Shia gripped it by its trunk and rustled it gently.
"There's a shuffle from the forest behind you, what could it be? A baby dear has stepped out for a drink of water. And there's its mother following it. She looks at you, what sort of creature are you, she wonders. Look, the father's coming out too. He's very large. His antlers are heavy and look like the branches of a great big tree. They go to the back of the lake for a sip of water. It looks delicious, let's have a sip too. Don't forget to wipe your hands of all that sand."
The children giggled and rubbed their hands together.
"You take a sip of the lake water. It's sweet and pure and icy cold. You feel it travel down your throat, past your cheek, down down into your stomach. The baby deer comes up and nibbles on your shirt. What do you taste like, it wonders. It's fur is soft to the touch. If you leave your hand on its side you can feel its heart beating and its chest rising and falling.
"It's time to go back. Say goodbye to the deer. There's a door behind you in the forest. When you open it there is a dark, warm tunnel. As you walk down the tunnel you see a small green light at the other end. As you walk further down the tunnel the green glow gets closer. It's warm and inviting. The further you walk the bigger the glow becomes.
"You can feel the warmth of the fireplace, you're sitting on a wooden floor, your friends are all around you. As you come back to this world the green glow begins to fade. Take a deep breath, relax. You're back in Stormwind. Our little trip is over. Open your eyes."
As one they opened their eyes. Shiawase knew that many of the older children had sat still without seeing a thing, but the young ones, those that hadn't lost the wonder of the world yet, rubbed their eyes and beamed at each other. They had all been on a journey together. It was a journey he had taken himself when he was hardly older than they were, and was preparing for the deep sleep that he would rest in for five hundred years.
The matron smiled and stood. "Well everyone, thank Mr. Shiawase for visiting. It's time for bed." The children let out a chorus of groans. Shiawase laughed. "Maybe the morning birds will visit you again in your dream."
The older boys rolled their eyes, but a few of the younger children began scrambling up the steps to their bed.
When everyone had been tucked in the Matron saw Shia out. "Thank you for visiting again. The children love to see people coming and going, and that bedtime story of yours always leaves them in a good mood."
Shiawase smiled. "That's the power of the Dream, I suppose."
The matron raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "I suppose so. Good night Shiawase."
"Good night sister. I'll visit again."
