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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Harvey Mourningdew decided that the best way to hold up his end of the deal to write Ralaea was to take it in literal letter rather than the spirit, and send her the address of Lathrik and Natalyah. Unfortunately for Harvey, Natalyah knows where he is, and she's not afraid to take Ralaea there with her. Ralaea manages to startle two worgen into using up one of their nine lives, and Natalyah explains Cinderella, and makes another deal. 7200~ words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Natalyah still has the air of someone who has succeeded in pranking someone who deserved it, a pleased mischief, as she pushes her away along the street. She's not really dressed for the weather, in her ballroom gown, but it may be that the worgen doesn't actually own any winter clothes or cloaks to wear, even if she wanted to. "So, Harvey really only wrote you the address to our place? Nothing else? Not even a single, cryptic word like, Forget, or whatever?"
Ralaea, walking along beside her, wrinkles her nose. "Forget? Why forget?"
Natalyah tosses her head against the wind in aggravation. "Because that's sort of what he was hoping was going to happen with the No Contact thing. He was hoping you would just forget him and move on with a living man because he's a hopeless case, blah blah blah. Lathrik and I spoke up against it, I'll have you know. We even made a deal with him that if Lathrik would take Harvey's advice on how not to be a bad paladin, Harvey would take our advice and actually talk with you like you're a person with agency in making her own choices," Natalyah says, tossing Harvey's intentions under the tram with the same cheery attitude she tossed Ren under with a few moments earlier. "Lathrik says that he's been harsher on himself after the whole Trial, where everything coming up in it makes him feel like all his good intentions came to nothing, and he wasn't good enough. Which is probably why he and Lathrik are such good friends."
Ralaea groans and rolls her eyes. "Is this about the Lich King situation? I bet it is. You know, I haven't seen him since I left Northrend, and I kind of almost died to a fence while he wasn't here, not that he'd know." She pauses, sighing. "My brother's with him?"
"You almost died to a fence?" Natalyah asks instead of answering. "I swear, if you are about to tell me that there's been some sort of fencing rebellion in the past ten years that no one has mentioned, I am going to be very put out at a number of people, if not surprised. After learning about the blue people from another planet crash landing on our world, my capacity to be amazed reached maximum incredulity and everything since has just been butting up against a filled meter." She gets a little breathless as she walks and talks, not quite as fit as Ralaea, at least not in this form. "And yes, Bren's with Harvey. I would have thought Emerine mentioned it. She said she knew you, and she said the same thing to Harvey that I did, which is that he should write to you and talk to you properly. I do genuinely like him, Harvey, but that doesn't mean he isn't being ridiculous about the whole thing."
"Deathwing threw me into a fence and it impaled me," Ralaea says, as if this sort of thing is common. "Which is why I don't want Bren out here while there's a big dragon flying around, but everyone keeps telling me that I have to let him die. So anyway, if you have any good dragonslaying ideas, I'm listening. As for Harvey, being ridiculous about things is his natural state, so get used to that I guess."
Natalyah laughs at the last, a wicked little chuckle. "Having him and Lathrik in the same room made so many things make sense. Your Harvey is still more paladin than anything, with the guilt and the surety that if he didn't somehow single handedly save the world, or be the most heroic person to ever grace the planet, somehow he had utterly failed, and failed you specifically. It's sweet in a way, but also very trying when he will insist on doing things like this of sending you to us rather than really writing to you.
"As for your brother, well I for one won't tell you that you have to let him die, and that when we went out together, I did what I could to keep him alive. I suppose no one really has to right to cage him in if he's insisting on being out, but it's not like you shouldn't be allowed to make sure someone keeps him safe, especially if he's going to insist on sometimes teaching ogres how to bandage themselves. Harvey probably does try at least to keep Bren safe, if that helps.
"I'm not much of a dragonslayer, if I'm being honest. I really was just a lepidopterist, a person who studied butterflies and moths, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and now I'm cursed, where I'm really a giant wolf-beast who can turn into a human sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not helpless against something like a dragon. I can do things now that I couldn't before, and I'm a lot more dangerous and capable of protecting myself than I ever was," Natalyah says defensively, as she guides them slowly but surely to the main city gates. "And I've been studying on how to use the Light to do things, now that I can. I wasn't able to do much before, but now I have a reason to do it that has nothing to do with me and everything about keeping Lathrik safe in particular."
"I've noticed since he died that he doesn't take getting bossed around very well," Ralea says. "Harvey, I mean. That's probably why he wrote the letter like this. But I don't think he thought it all the way through, since you know where he is."
"He might not realize I know where he is," Natalyah admits, as they cross a bridge on their way out of Old Town and fully into the center of the city. This is not as unrisky as a person might like, during Hallow's End. Natalyah walks on, unconcerned by the proximity to the possibility of holiday mischief. "But he has a really distinctive sort of smell, and I'm not one to leave things alone, especially when a friend of mine admits that he's living on the edges far, far away from people, and therefore any help if something were to happen to him.
"And for a man who doesn't take being bossed around very well, he certainly seems up to making decisions entirely unilaterally. Lathrik suggested, since Harvey's so concerned about you having a living man, that you two might consider adding a third to your relationship of someone who could be that. Next thing you know, Harvey's decided that it will happen and he'll go off and find this man, without even asking you if you would want that in a relationship at all, let alone that you might have some opinions about a man you would be getting involved with. Emerine and I did try to tell him that he was putting the cart before the horse, but he seemed convinced it was the best way."
"You know I just had that conversation with — uh, someone," Ralaea says. "She told me to keep an eye out for the rare breed of man who doesn't hate death knights. I was a little interested in that Count guy, before… I found out about his involvement with… everything."
Natalyah looks over at Ralaea as if she's said something half horrifying and half fascinating. "You were interested in Count Amerith? What? Why? He's, like, twenty years older than you for one thing, even if you didn't know anything else about him."
"I didn't even know that about him," Ralaea says, a little surprised. "He doesn't really look old. But he said he didn't hate death knights, so…"
"That can't be your only criteria," Natalyah says, although it sounds half-aghast like she's worried it is, as they leave the city gates and start heading out onto the road, mercifully unscathed by the holiday. "You had to have other standards for a relationship before the death knight thing became a thing. What did you like in people before?"
"I liked that Harvey was fun to tease, and that he paid attention to me, and took good care of his horse?" Ralaea says, like it's a question. "He put up with me, even when I was mean to him, and kept coming back."
Natalyah actually full on halts in the middle of the road, blinking at Ralaea, and then tosses her head back to laugh, a free, unfettered sound. "If Harvey and Lathrik are uncannily alike, then I guess it's not that surprising that you and I are," she tells Ralaea, mirth-filled, before she starts moving again. "Lathrik is one of those people who is so serious you just have to tease him sometimes, even though if I'm being honest, I love that he's so serious about things. And I like that he pays attention to me, really pays attention, like I matter a lot, every little thing about me. And he somehow always puts up with me, no matter how difficult I am, and he always comes after me, even when I'm being really very stupid about things. I guess the only place we really diverge is on the horse thing. I'll have you know, he does take good care of his horse, but I've never been much of a horse person, and even less now that I'm a wolf person."
Ralaea stumbles a little, surprised by the sudden stop. "Believe me, I know how serious your paladin is," she says. "I wanted some privacy with Harvey while he was babysitting him, and the guy wouldn't leave. He wouldn't even turn around, or close his eyes or something, so I made him hug Harvey for me in revenge."
Natalyah laughs wickedly. "I heard. I told Harvey that I would probably like you," she tells Ralaea, and between the laughter and the moving, she's getting more and more breathless. They're following the road, straight down south, rather than through the forest so far. "So if you've been talking about having a third, and Harvey's been deciding on it, I guess that at least there's that settled once you two decide on what sort of person you both want in there. How long have you and Harvey known each other?"
"Since we were little," Ralaea says, smiling a little. "I met him in the city when he got separated from his escort. He tried to order me to bring him where he wanted to go, so I got him more lost, until he started crying and I took pity on him."
Natalyah laughs again, clearly delighted by this image of the terrifying (?) death knight, but a thought must strike her in it, because she sobers, and grief streaks against her face like rain on a window. "I used to try to ditch my retainer knight whenever I would go to the city. A few times I managed it, but he would always find me before I could do much more than slightly harry him. Once I paid an entire group of children to deliberately walk between him and me and swarm him asking for candy. It took him an hour to find me that time."
She pauses, and then says with some amount of bravado that hides a much deeper well of guilt and shame, "He came with me to Gilneas when I went. I got him killed there. He was my assistant, who went into the field while I watched through his eyes, and I was in his eyes when the worgen came." In the dimmer light as twilight approaches, the faint senses of fur on her hands are unclear shadows. "I watched them kill him, before they came for me. I had always had him by my side since I was ten years old. It's not the same as you and Harvey, but I expect I know at least something of it."
"I'm… I'm so sorry," Ralaea says, her own expression falling back into its usual sullen lines. "I was… really lost without Harvey, both during the five years we were separated after Lordaeron fell, and when he died. Then he came back, and was following me around like some… nightmare for a while, but when he left it was like I couldn't breathe without him. But he's an exception, I still don't trust death knights, and you shouldn't either. I didn't watch him die. I'm sorry you had to see your retainer die, and for what happened to you after."
"I'm sorry your Harvey died, and that he was so ridiculous and weird about it after," Natalyah says. "Death knights don't bother me, but that's partly because of what I am now. I'll have you know, the whole worgen thing began because it was meant for a tool against the Scourge. If there's one thing we can do well, it's fight against the undead. I really don't have much combat training, and when the Gilnean prince led us through the city to take it back, I could still carve through the Forsaken in there like I was born to it." She relates this with that same strange bravado filled with shame. "I guess with your experiences on the other side of it, you wouldn't look at a worgen man for an option, but if anyone might not look at Harvey like he's a monster or with fear that makes it harder on him, at least some of us will just see him like he's a person, or at least sympathize with what he's going through."
"I got used to Harvey and my home was destroyed by undead," Ralaea says. "I can get used to worgen, it was just a surprise. The better I know the person, the less it'll matter, I think. It's just, some of the death knights got really messed up in the process, so that's why I can't trust them."
"As a matter of fact, some of us worgen got really messed up in the process, too. It does something to a person to have lost time to something else, and to always have this sense of something forever altered inside you. Most of us don't really remember everything when we weren't really there, when the wolf was in charge. To me, it's like strange, hazy dreams that I almost remember but I really don't. It was four years for me. And then there's how we can be forced back into the worgen form. Strong emotions, or being afraid or attacked, and it just happens. We don't have full control over it. Some worgen can hardly hold the human shape at all," Natalyah says grimly.
"I sort of… might understand a little," Ralaea says. "I had a thing where I thought I spent a year as a death knight, but when I woke up it had only been… weeks or something, and I was still alive. It was so… real, and weird. I spent a while looking for my runesword, but I never had one. That's not quite the same, and I don't turn into anything, but…"
"Ugh, that sounds awful," Natalyah says, her expression a mix of sympathy and horror. "Oh, was that part of the whole Nightmare thing? No one seems to be able to explain it to me except that it was madness and something something druids something. It must have hit us as well, but whatever it did wasn't anything that got through the worgen madness at least. I missed out on so much in the past nearly ten years, and catching up has been its own sort of nightmare, where you constantly feel like you showed up somewhere and everyone knows about all these things that you don't. Kind of like the reverse for you, where you have this year that you know about and if you mention something from it, everyone looks at you with a blank expression because it only happened in your world. Like those dreams where you show up to a place where everyone is naked except you, or you go somewhere and you're the only one who is naked."
"I don't uh, think I've had any dreams about being naked," Ralaea says awkwardly. "But, yeah, it was the Nightmare. I guess I bit the Vice Admiral, during."
"You — you bit Siamus? Siamus Fallon, that Vice Admiral?" Natalyah asks with a guffaw, as if Ralaea knows a lot of Vice Admirals. Look, Natalyah isn't even sure what rank that is. For all she knows, people sell those ranks on the street alongside fake brand handbags. And then the humor bleeds out of her face so fast it's like she's been cut somewhere. "I wonder if I —" She doesn't finish the sentence, but maybe she doesn't need to, as it hangs in the air, to wonder what a worgen possessed by the Nightmare might have done.
"Well, the good news, if you can really call it that, is that most of you were contained behind a wall doing that anyway. Except the ones in Duskwood and Northend, I guess," Ralaea says. "Not so many walls there."
Natalyah does not look cheered by this reminder at all. "I'll have you know, it's not 'good news' at all, none of it ever is with that damned wall. All it meant was that anyone I might have tried to hurt had nowhere to run. All the people I bit or killed, stuck there, trapped with me," she says in a hollow voice. She pivots on the path, moving off it and into the forest. It is much more difficult for her here now on her canes, the uneven footing making her work harder to keep her balance, and sweat has formed on her brow even as she has started to shiver from the cold as the sun starts sinking into the foothills around them.
Ralaea watches her as they walk. "You can shift forms if it's easier," she says. "I'm not going to freak out again, especially not if I know it's coming, and I have to get used to it anyway."
Natalyah's brows come down in a fierce look, and the haughty tilt of a born noblewoman. "It's not like I've been waiting for your permission," she says tartly, a sting of sourness in the note. It doesn't quite land as surely as it should, not with the way she seems to be suffering there, avoiding doing something that would likely do so much to ease the passage for herself. "And I'll have you know, you're not the only one I have to worry about. This close to the road, someone else might see me and you and think I'm some sort of mon — beast causing you harm, and take a shot at me. Not everyone gives a worgen the benefit of the doubt that we're not a feral creature."
They are, however, getting further and further from the road, where no one would see them. And the reason for delaying this transformation is growing thinner by the minute.
"Excuse me for thinking you were being nice," Ralaea says, her own defensiveness springing up. "I'm sure we both have good enough reflexes to deal with someone stupid enough to shoot off a weapon without understanding the situation." Says the person who is most likely to do just that.
Natalyah hesitates, and the nervous look she gives the road now is someone who is maybe wondering if she can, in fact, do that. But she is panting, badly winded, and the sweat of her palms makes her canes, the ones not meant for such long exertion, slippery. As they go over a patch of roots spreading out from an oak, all it takes is the one wrong step, the difficulty with her cane catching slightly on the ground, and there it is — the reason why Natalyah cannot always manage to chase physically after the butterflies she loves so much. She gasps, half an exclamation, and then she's falling to the side, the sort of way a person does who has had to learn the correct way to fall to avoid hurting herself worse when she does, as she lands on the ground with a stifled groan.
"You okay?" Ralaea asks, crouching near her. "Thought you'd switch forms. Can you only do it at certain times?"
Natalyah huffs out a heavy breath as she assesses herself. There's some light scraping on her hand, nothing more than the shallowest first layer scuffed away, and she may have bruised faintly on her right leg where she broke most of her fall. "I’m fine. I have been like this since I was born," she replies archly, as she rolls to her side, balancing carefully, and then rises back up as she gets her canes back under her. "I'm used to falling. I can shift whenever I want to, at least in that direction. It's getting back to human that's more difficult." She blows a breath up to get her hair out of her eyes. "And I couldn't have shifted then. I didn't have time enough to warn you about it." Oh, so, she was deliberately not shifting to avoid startling Ralaea then.
Ralaea stands up too, and moves a few paces back. "Consider me warned," she says. There's almost a dare in her voice.
Oh, did someone say…a dare.
Natalyah's head lifts defiantly, and even watching for it, even looking for the moment, there isn't much of a sign at all, just that brief glimpse of black fur over her hands and —
Whoosh, a six foot seven inches tall, deep silken black worgen is there, falling forward onto her hands with, if not grace, at least a firmness of purpose, staring back at Ralaea with her own dare.
Ralaea scowls at her. It isn't a hostile scowl, it's more of a 'so what if you're a worgen, I'm not losing this bet,' scowl. She crosses her arms so that they're not immediately near her swords.
Natalyah stares back, as if waiting, daring Ralaea to react. When nothing happens except that they end up in this locked gaze stare, Natalyah finally moves a step forward. "How fast can you run? Because even when I'm trying not to run especially fast, I am still faster, but if you can keep up enough, we could make it Harvey sooner, and then you'll have more time before it hits twelve bells, and you turn into a pumpkin."
Ralaea does not seem to get the reference at all. "You're not a witch, are you? Because I don't plan on turning into a pumpkin on my own. Either way, I'm pretty fast for a human? I'm not horse fast, or wolf fast probably."
"I am both of those. I can keep up with a horse, and even outpace some of them, but I'm not going to just leave you here alone in the woods," Natalyah says. "And of course I'm not a witch, do you really think I would have left that off an introduction if I was?" Her tone is teasing, if a little sharper. She sounds like a person who is used to giving lectures, as she moves her canes off her wrists and to hold in one hand, and begins a slow loping walk, already much faster than she was able to walk as a human. "It's like in the story, you know, about the scullery girl with an evil stepmother who wants to go to a ball the prince is throwing, and goes off and gets all her gifts from her dead mother to let her go and be beautiful and fine, except they all will expire at the stroke of midnight, so her carriage which was a pumpkin will turn back into a pumpkin."
"Why would she want to go to some prince's ball anyway?" Ralaea asks, quickening her own pace. "She's much better off finding someone fun who rides horses or steals shoes or something."
"It's the whole rags-to-riches story. She's poor and downtrodden, forced to sweep and clean up after her stepsisters and stepmother, while her father struggles with getting money, and so she wants to go to a fancy party and live like the wealthy for a little bit of time. And of course she's so beautiful that the prince falls in love with her, and even after she has run to away from him, because she can't reveal who she really is, he chases after her, and tries to find her through the whole of the kingdom, and when he does and learns she's a scullery maid, he doesn't care. He wants her anyway, and so he marries her, and happily ever after, you know. A fairytale," Natalyah says, now speaking easily as she picks up into a run.
"Okay," Ralaea says, jogging along after her, "but has she considered punching her stepsisters and stepmother if they're awful? Or, I dunno, sweep all the stuff onto their pillows or into their shoes? Nothing says she has to clean up after them. She can go be a mercenary for money."
Natalyah laughs, and it sounds only a little different coming from the worgen throat, deeper but still her own. "Sinners and martyrs, I didn't write the story, Ralaea. I just read it, like anyone else." Well, anyone else who could read at least, but Rich Girl Assumptions. "I have no idea why she does as she does, except that the author said that was who she was. Meek and obedient with her lot in life, for whatever reason, her personality decided so according to the person who wrote her. If you like those types of stories, you'll have to read something more modern. Although, what do I know? Maybe in the past few years it's all reverted back and now you'll only find books of stories of women daintily remaining at home for their princes to come crashing in through a window, or whatever."
"I only started to read a couple years ago, so unless they're children's books, I wouldn't know," Ralaea says, the sharpness of a complaint in her voice. "I went to work so my brother could learn the things, and he doesn't let me forget it."
"If I were you, I'd take my revenge on him by learning something he can't, and then brag about it all the time whenever he was around," Natalyah says, who believes in fighting fire with more, worse fire. "And then also learn how to read and show him up in it." More, worse fire, Rae, that's the way to go.
Natalyah keeps up the pace, but doesn't push it any further. She really isn't trying to outrun Ralaea, and it shows. They're making good time through the forest, and even as the dusky twilight begins to drop down, sinking the shadows deeper, Natalyah presses on without slowing, moving in an unerring direction to where she knows Harvey's territory to be.
It isn't much longer before they encounter a scent. A worgen scent, and one familiar to Natalyah from where it appeared before, around her home. It's dangerously close to Harvey's territory, right on the edge in fact, as if watching, spying perhaps.
Natalyah pulls up sharply in a halt, sniffing loudly and deeply, her head moving in a lupine way, scenting the air.
"Why are we stopping?" Ralaea asks, trying to peer through the trees ahead of them. "Did he move? If he moved, I swear…"
The worgen itself seems to be hiding nearby, on the other side of a cluster of shrubs and downwind. They have not yet noticed Natalyah, but their scent changes to one of fear upon hearing Ralaea's voice. They keep still.
Natalyah does not keep still, as she moves in front of Ralaea, a defensive, protective sort of movement. "There's another worgen," she explains, her voice low. "I've scented them before outside our house, and the scents here are old, and layered, which means they've been here for some time, on the edge of Harvey's territory. I have no idea who they are or if they're hostile, or not. Don't strike first, but don't hesitate to defend yourself if they come at us." It's delivered in that ordering sort of tone, but at least accompanied by explanations.
"Okay," Ralaea says, then she takes a deep breath. "HEY WORGEN! YOU CAN COME OUT NOW!"
Natalyah yelps with a startle at Ralaea's shout, jumping a solid three feet through the air, and is left scrambling for purchase on the grass of the forest as she lands again, unexpectedly, half in a heap. She's left panting, and for a moment, her eyes are a bright solid gold with pinpricks of pupils, an alien intelligence staring out through her eyes before she blinks, her eyes dark once more. "For the Light's bleeding sake, Ralaea!" she shouts, her fur standing high on edge still, a touch of Gilnean accent in her voice.
The other worgen APPEARS in a puff of startled white fur at the shout and the yelp, and claws its way furiously up a tree. It stares at them with blue glowing eyes, unwilling to come down.
"What? It worked," Ralaea says, pointing.
"For some definition of working," Natalyah rejoins, regaining her balance. "I feel like I just found out that I'm also part cat and used up one of my lives." She looks up at the tree at the worgen up there. "And I see I'm not the only one you have that effect on, which is something I guess."
The worgen is decidedly female, despite her larger, broader form, and wears armor that wouldn't be nearly enough covering for a human woman. She eyes them with an almost predatory hunger, but makes no move to come out of the tree.
"Think it's stuck?" Ralaea asks, peering at her.
"Whoever they are isn't an it," Natalyah bites out sharply. She moves in closer, her body language declaring her fairly dominant personality for all of her unimpressive size. She doesn't seem particularly muscular for a worgen, she's wearing a ball gown, and she looks well fed and well kept. When she addresses the worgen in the tree it's without hostility, as she sits back on her haunches. "I am Natalyah Kensington-Whit, formerly of the Elwynn Kensington-Whits until they disowned me, published lepidopterist, and obviously a worgen. This is Ralaea Westwind, ward of House Fallon, and the fiancee of the death knight whose territory you're edging up against. You are?"
"Not… a Huntress…" The voice that emerges from the tree-bound worgen is almost a whine, and the white fur melts and fades away, revealing a much smaller young woman in very different, green and brown leather armor, complete with a hood. She wobbles, nearly falling out of the tree. After taking a moment to catch her breath, she says, "Adamantia. My name's Adamantia. You're not Gilnean?" Adamantia does not sound Gilnean either.
"No, I'm not. As a matter of fact, I'm from this part of Elwynn, originally, just over that way a few dozen miles," Natalyah says, gesturing with a clawed hand further to the southeast. "I was cursed over in Gilneas, when I got caught behind the wall while studying a specific butterfly that makes its habitat in some of the forests up there." She peers up into the tree, and with a brief iridescent shimmer like a flap of butterfly wings, sheds her own worgen form, catching her balance carefully on her canes. "You don't sound Gilnean. Where are you from, and how did you get cursed?" You know, normal questions you ask a person you've just met.
"Northrend," Adamantia replies, trying to find an easy way down the tree. "Turned willingly. I say that, but the options were serve the Lich King as a worgen, or serve him as a zombie. That alliance sort of ended when Cobalt Company killed Arugal though. And then they got the Lich King after, I heard."
"See, Northrend," Ralaea says, pointing again. "We fought worgen up there."
"It's not like I doubted you," Natalyah says defensively to Ralaea. She watches Adamantia curiously as the worgen contemplates how to get back down the tree, and then says, "Let me see if I can do something. I might be able to levitate you down, so you can jump without it hurting."
Natalyah holds out a hand, palm facing Adamantia, and her cane dangling by her wrist. For a moment nothing happens, and it looks very much like nothing will — and then a spark of Light leaps around Natalyah's fingers like a little sprite, and between one blink and the next it leaps to Adamantia, settling into her as she's lifted up around half a foot into the air above the tree branch.
Adamantia is a bit startled by the sudden floating, and manages to squirm herself right out of the tree, but that's what the levitate is for, bringing her slowly and softly to the ground. "Thanks," she says. "You're one of those… Light people? A paladin?"
"What? No," Natalyah says, equal parts startled amusement and vaguely affronted, an odd blended mixture. "I'm not a paladin or a priestess of the Church. I've taken no vows or anything. I've just learned how to use the Light, as a work in progress. The man courting me who lives in the house you sniffed around is a paladin, though." This, in contrast to her own relationship with being a paladin, is related with pride. "What were you doing there, by the way? And what are you doing here, right next to Harvey's territory?"
Adamantia starts patting herself down, brushing the tree out of her armor. "When I got here, there were no other worgen," she says. "And then suddenly there were. At first I thought some attack was happening, so I started to investigate, and found out about that Gilneas place. From there, I started wondering if… maybe… I could find a new pack. So that's what I was doing near your house. But I encroached a little hard on your territory, so I'm sorry.
"As for the death knight, Harvey? He uh. Kills… things… sometimes, but doesn't use the…" Adamantia looks away, bristling with defensive shame.
Ralaea wrinkles her nose. "That's gross," she says.
"That's exactly what you do when you eat a meal that someone else killed, for all that it passes through a chef's hands to pretty it up," Natalyah retorts with an arch defensiveness. "It takes a lot of energy to hunt something, and living off the land without shelter is exhausting in itself. As a matter of fact, when I was living out here before Lathrik took me in, it was often all I could do to try to eat every few days, especially since everything I could hunt I could only eat then and there, with no way to preserve it."
Natalyah regards Adamantia with a look of fellow feeling and sympathy that manages to avoid the dangerous slide into pity. "I wasn't sure why you were at the house, and in general I don't like feeling snooped on. I'm not going to be much use to you in finding a pack, at least not a worgen one. I don't have one either. No one wanted me in theirs."
"Harvey doesn't kill animals," Ralaea says with her own defensive tone. "He kills people, or creatures that are near enough. Which means she's eating humans, or ogres or something. That's gross."
Adamantia hunches further under Ralaea's words, as if wishing she could disappear into herself. "These woods are overhunted as it is," she mumbles. "I was eating those big — cows I guess they're called, until the farmers started driving me off with guns and dogs."
Natalyah glares at Ralaea, and there's her own curl of shame. "I'll have you know, I don't even know who or what I ate in the four years I was feral. And besides mostly around here you'll find kobolds, and orcs with their worgs. I stayed clear because I really don't like getting shot at, and it's not just the orcs that will shoot at you." She turns that compassionate look back onto Adamantia. She doesn't ask if Adamantia doesn't have anywhere to go, or know anyone she can turn to for help. She probably knows. "You should come back with me after Ralaea gets to Harvey. I don't have a lot of food, but I do hunt enough for more than one serving at a time, and I have a cooler to store it so it doesn't all go to waste. And we have a couch, with a warm fire."
"Oh," Adamantia says, surprised. "That's cool? Your paladin won't mind? I thought I could make a go of it out here, but there really is some overhunting going on. The Northrend game is a lot more abundant."
"There's also only like 90 people who would live in Northrend and tens of thousands of people who now live here," Natalyah says, guessing at the population levels of Northrend maybe based on a general impression of the place as well as a narrow view of who she considers people. "Lathrik is the wonderful sort of person who makes it his real, genuine duty to help and protect people. As long as you aren't a danger to anyone, he'll want to help, and at least if we get you off the street or bush, then we can get you somewhere properly. Besides, a hungry, desperate worgen is the last thing any of us need. If you don't hurt or bite or turn anyone, and you try to keep everything under control, then we'll help you get out of living on the edge like this. Deal?"
"There's a lot more than 90, and there was a zombie problem, but yeah, fair enough," Adamantia says. "I'm not going to hurt or bite anyone. If I was, we'd already have a worgen outbreak in this forest."
"There's a difference between not hurting anyone while you're living on the edge of all society versus being sure you don't when you're elbow to elbow with them in the city," Natalyah points out with an actual finger pointing at Adamantia. "And honestly, it's a lot easier as a worgen to not be so deep in the city, but I don't have an alternative for you, so here we are." She looks up into the trees, where the dark sinks lower and lower with every moment. "And we need to get going to Harvey, so you can either gather up what you have and I'll meet you back here, or you can come with us. Obviously you don't have a problem with death knights, or you'd have done something by now."
"If by 'don't have a problem with death knights,' you mean 'not excited to risk my skin in a fight with one,' then yeah, I don't have a problem with death knights," Adamantia says. "I'm also not all that eager to meet one directly, so I'll wait here."
"Harvey wouldn't pick a fight for no reason. He tries hard to be a good person, and he has a lot of control over himself," Natalyah says in defense of Harvey. To Ralaea she warns, "I'm shifting again." That's the warning before it happens, as Natalyah transfers her canes to one hand again and there's a smooth ripple of black fur as she switches from one form to the other in an easy blink.
Ralaea's fingers twitch, but that's the only sign of any distress. "He's one of the better ones," she agrees. "Except when he's avoiding me. Anyway, I'm on a time limit. I've got a Vice Admiral to beat home."
Adamantia raises an eyebrow, probably unsure of what that combination of words even means, but she doesn't ask; she knows what a time limit is. "I'll be here," she says. "Or… around here. You'll find me."
Natalyah doesn't dispute this, as she lopes away towards where Harvey's tent must be, following the layered scents of old and new.
Ralaea jogs after her.
Harvey's tent, or maybe it's Bren's tent, because the death knight needs no mortal comforts, is a small round lump of cloth at the base of a tree, which is a silly place for it, due to the roots poking through the ground, and it probably makes sleeping there extremely uncomfortable. At least it blends in a little. Some distance away there is a small fire, around which Bren and the death knight in question sit.
"I was thinking Stranglethorn," Bren is saying as they approach. "I know it's not exactly in the Kingdom, but there has to be people there who need help too. Maybe even more so because they're not in the Kingdom."
Natalyah pulls up to a stop just as she'd be visible to both men, shifting back to her human form again, her canes catching her balance. She shivers immediately, a gust of the cold air hitting sweaty skin. It's not pain, at least, but it's not exactly outside the vicinity of discomfort. "Harvey! Bren!" she calls out, in a friendly tone, without distress. "Guess who showed up at my doorstep today!"
They do not have much time to guess.
In the three seconds between the moment Harvey sees Ralaea, and the moment she reaches him, he attempts to scramble to his feet. No such luck. Like a weaponized sewing kit, Ralaea crashes into him and pins him to the ground. "Thought that was funny, did you?" she asks.
"Ralaea," Harvey begins. "I can —"
"I almost got kidnapped by Count Amerith because of you. He could've led me straight to his mansion or whatever, and locked me away, and no one would've seen me again."
(Somewhere, Lester's mustache twitches in amusement.)
Harvey frowns from beneath her. "Count —"
"And Deathwing almost killed me with a fence, did you know that? No, because you were hiding. I bet Bren didn't even tell you that part, did he?"
If Harvey had any color to lose, he would have lost some then. "You almost —"
"I'd have tracked you down, but I didn't want to leave the house much because everything is different now and I was…" Ralaea pauses here, not for breath, but to bury her face in his shoulder. "Scared…" she says softly.
"Oh." With one arm, Harvey pushes them into a proper sitting position, while his other wraps around her securely. His expression is shadowed with guilt.
Bren, startled from the fire by the sudden onslaught of Ralaea, drifts over to Natalyah. "I told him it was a bad idea," he tells her.
"Everyone told him it was a bad idea. He brought this on himself," Natalyah says without pity or remorse. The wind blows at her, and her shivering increases. "Believe me, I know how and why someone would run away or push people away, but eventually, you have to stop and let people love you, and do better at loving them back." She pushes back along the way she came, shifting back to a worgen as soon as she's past the edge of the firelight, and leaping into the darkness towards home.