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"Stop!" Kazbo screamed. "Don't hurt my friends!"

Sanja squeezed her brother tightly and tried to shield his little body from the archer's attack.

The bear charged forward with shocking speed and reached the Tauren just as the jungle cat leapt at the huddled forms.

Sanja shook uncontrollably as she waited to be struck, but it did not come.

"Wait, Ellemayne," the Night Elf woman said softly in Common. She unhooked its claws from where they had dug into her armor. "Do not hurt them."

Sanja looked up at the beautiful woman that had been a bear only moments prior. She had saved them from the nightsaber's claws, but she still faced the young Horde with caution. Her eyes were strange and unreadable. She held a small, green-handled knife before her.

"Are you well?" the woman called over to Kazbo.

The little man's face looked bad; very bad, actually. One of his eyes was black and blue. He had been laying his head on his hand, and now that cheek was bruised as well.

"I realize that trusting is not without risk," he explained in Common. "But my friends didn't harm me, that was a crocolisk! Sanja and Jorga, they both saved my life." Kazbo accented the Tauren names to make it clear that they were people, not enemies. "So please, I beg you, put away the knife."

With great trepidation, the woman slowly returned her blade to its sheath. Her face relaxed a little and the archer approached at a jog. Ellemayne sat on her haunches, content that there was no need to fight.

"I gave Kazbo some bruiseweed to suck on, for the pain," Sanja explained in Common. The elves looked surprised that she could speak something that they would understand. "With all of our fur, my people's reaction to the leaves is... well, less dramatic."

"My apologies," the man said in an icy smooth voice, "I thought the Gnome was held captive."

"I am Kazbo Fizzgimbels. Transcriber of symbols."

"It is an honor to meet you, Kazbo. I am Tanavar, and this is my wife, Meridia." He bowed low, from the waist.

"I'm Sanja," Sanja said, not that anyone had asked. She got up off of her brother. "This is Jorga."

To Sanja's surprise, Meridia's face went from cold to beaming the moment she saw the boy. She bounced in place happily and tugged on her husband's hand.

"Your son!" she squeaked. "He is adorable."

Normally, Sanja would be insulted by such a comment. But she was just relieved that they had met someone on the journey, and that no one had to get killed. "He's my brother, actually..."

"May I hold him?" It was impossible to follow her peculiar, glowing eyes, but Sanja doubted that the woman had ever even looked at her. She couldn't take her attention off of Jorga.

What a strange request! Sanja thought. It was common among the cows of her utankan to want to hold another's newborn, but Jorga was deep in the middle of his first summer. Boys like Jorga never wanted to be held unless they were frightened or injured.

She looked over to her brother and he looked back at her with similar bewilderment.

Without another word, Meridia scooped Jorga up and squeezed him to her heart. The poor boy looked puzzled and awkward for a moment, and then to Sanja's surprise, he seemed to melt into the strange woman's embrace. In just seconds, she could see all of his homesickness dissolve away. All of the morning's animosity seemed to fade into the unexpected tenderness.

Sanja shared a private look with Kazbo. His bruised face seemed to say, I'm very proud of you! Hers said simply, Thanks.

Ellemayne butted her head insistently against Sanja's arm and purred a deep, and almost frightening sound. Sanja started petting her, but that made the huge cat only more demanding of her attention.

"The children have been separated from their kin; and are facing a journey, year-long from start to fin," Kazbo explained. "I am partially responsible for their predicament; and so, their party, I do augment."

Kazbo sighed deeply. "Though they take better care, working in tandem; than I have proven to take of them."

"If you are not in need of help," Tanavar said, "then we will take our leave."

Meridia looked stricken at the thought of leaving.

"Don't go, please," Sanja said. "We haven't seen another person in weeks. If you're not in a hurry; I think we'd all appreciate having a little company. Even if just for the evening."

The Night Elf woman looked between Sanja and her husband.

"The three of us are stuck here until Kazbo has recovered," Sanja babbled nervously. "I put some Briarthorn on his injuries, but I haven't yet... tried... to stitch his wounds closed." She looked down at her hands and realized that they were trembling at the very thought. She clasped them behind her back.

"I can help out there," the druid said. She looked down at the boy in her arms. "Would you like to help heal your friend's wounds?"

Jorga looked up at her, but said nothing. She set him down on his hooves and carefully lifted the little man's blood-stained jersey.

Druid magic is a beautiful thing. Mages bend reality with their iron will and extensive knowledge. Warlocks and shaman derive their powers from demons and spirits. But druids call upon the power of nature; not because they command it or promise it something in return, but because they are somehow attuned to nature itself.

Druids can heal injuries because it is in the nature of a wound to be healed.

With a foreign word and a complex gesture, Meridia began to focus her powers on Kazbo's wounds. The air filled with the sound of wings and the smell of honey. Around her spun sparkles of light, and then ghost-like leaves of deep green ivy. It was mesmerizing to watch.

In a minute, the spell was complete and Sanja stumbled to stay upright. She felt a quick flash of vertigo as the spinning leaves vanished.

"How do you feel now?" the druid asked.

"I feel... wonderful! Mended, repaired, and even powerful!" Kazbo shouted. He jumped to his feet and waved his arms in the air. "Thank you!"

Sanja swooped in and caught the Gnome before he tipped over into the campfire. "You should probably sit back down," she told him. "You've had so much bruiseweed that it's a wonder you can even see straight."

Kazbo chuckled and returned to where he had been sitting. The magic had not healed the discoloration on his face, but at least he was smiling. In fact, he was positively beaming.

"Thank you so much," Sanja said, falling to her knees. She was relieved beyond belief that she would not have to sew her friend's wounds closed. The bruiseweed would help some, of course, but the process would have been torture - for the both of them. "How can we ever repay you?"

Meridia smiled wide. She looked to her husband and there was a long pause.

"I suppose you could share your camp with us this night," Tanavar said with the hint of a smile. "Then we could call it even."

"Deal struck!" Sanja said, leaping to her hooves. Tanavar's long, green eyebrows twitched with surprise as she shook his hand. He seemed shocked to touch a member of the Horde, and a woman no less.

His wife's face seemed to grow a little colder.

"I'll put some jacao beans on the fire, to celebrate," Sanja said, far too relieved to sense any tension.

"Wonderful," Tanavar stuttered for a moment before regaining a calm demeanor. "We can roast the piglets I caught this afternoon as well."

Jorga's face lit up. "You have boar?"

"Indeed, we do!" Meridia twittered. She pressed the tip of a long finger to his nose and smiled.

---

"He toyed with the centaur, and death he did defer;" Kazbo explained to the Night Elves. "as if the rogue wanted the scout to linger and suffer."

"What a horrid story," Meridia gasped. "You poor, poor children. Is there anything we could do to help?"

"Well, I am assisting to get back to their home. Your help added, would exceed that of a Gnome." Kazbo smiled in a hopeful way.

"We won't be able to travel through the Stonetalon pass until the snows melt in mid-summer," Sanja explained. "So we're hoping to push on to the foothills of the mountains. Low enough to dodge the worst of the winter, but high enough that wood and game will be plentiful. We won't be able to make a tent, but perhaps we could find a cave or dig out a..."

"I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible," Tanavar said to Kazbo. "We're on an important mission to meet with the Princess Theradras."

Sanja made a sour face at being interrupted.

"We could come with you," Jorga said, his ears hopeful, "maybe the princess could help..."

Tanavar shook his head and gazed into the fire. "Her highness lives at the bottom of a sacred Centaur tomb called Maraudon. It is no place for a child. Especially not a Tauren child."

"You don't like me, do you?" Sanja blurted out.

All eyes were on her now.

Tanavar choked a bit on the pork he was eating. "I... never said that..." He looked from person to person.

Sanja ignored him. "You look at Kazbo when he speaks, but when I say something, you look away. Is it because I'm Horde? A girl? A Tauren?" Tanavar looked down and Sanja nodded. "So why do you dislike Tauren?"

"I do not dislike Tauren!" the Night Elf nearly shouted. "It's just that you... make me... uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable?" Sanja said; the surprise evident in her voice. "Why?"

Tanavar sighed deeply. "I doubt you could understand."

The girl growled softly and stared at him with a single squinting eye. "Try me."

Tanavar sat up and straightened his clothes. "Tell me about your home, back in Mulgore."

"Our... home?" Sanja looked from person to person before her gaze returned to the purple-faced man. "Well, we're nomads, so we move with the seasons to follow the animals; and to get to the different plants as they mature. We don't live in a single place."

He shook his head. "No, I mean, 'Tell me how your family stays dry when it rains and warm when it is cold.'"

"Oh, I see. We live in large tents that are light enough to carry with us. They smell like smoke and family." Sanja smiled as she thought about home. "We make them out of tanned kodo hides that are stitched together with sinew. Then we oil the seams to keep the out the rain. Wooden poles and ropes..."

Tanavar seemed disinterested. "How long does it take to make a tent?"

"Well, I guess it depends how many people are working on it." Sanja shrugged. "If everyone helps out, then just a few days."

"My people live in the trees."

Jorga looked up at the tall, slender man. "You nest... like birds?"

"Tauren don't climb trees," Sanja explained.

"When I was young, I selected my favorite hill in all of Ashenvale," Tanavar closed his glowing eyes and thought back. "I planted an acorn on top of it. I went to my hill every morning and gave the acorn a drink of water, and I asked it to grow for me."

The children looked at each other and then back to Tanavar.

"As the young tree grew, I named him Dor'diende, and I promised him that I would keep him from harm. I cleared away other plants that tried to take his sunlight or share his soil. I warded off the insects and animals that wanted to eat his leaves.

"I thanked the tree for growing," he explained, "and I asked him to leave some room for me, so that I could continue to take care of him, and keep him safe. And so Dor'diende did just that. He formed a hollow center. It was small at first, but as he grew, so did the space inside him."

Tanavar took a sip of the wine he kept in a skin. "After a hundred years had passed, there was room enough inside of Dor'diende for me to live - although the space was quite small and cramped for many years."

He looked over to Meridia and smiled. "When I married, I told him of my good fortune, and asked him to make some room also for my bride. Dor'diende continued to grow, and another hundred years later there was room for Meridia as well."

Jorga broke the silence that stretched. "You live... in a hole... in a tree?"

"I have met many, many Tauren in my lifetime," the man said, ignoring the question. "There were not always factions of Horde and Alliance, you know. And even now, many druids ignore this artificial fracture in their order.

"You, however, are a mysterious people." He raised one eyebrow and studied Sanja more closely. "I have seen a Tauren man meet another Tauren man and take instant dislike to him. There was no apparent reason. They just hated each other."

He shrugged in confusion. "I saw them wrestle around - in the dirt - to determine who was the strongest. And after what I was certain would be bloodshed, they were suddenly the best of friends. It was as if they had known each other from birth."

Tanavar slapped his palms to his thighs and let out a confused breath. "This is not the Night Elf way." He seemed at a loss for words, and thought a long time before continuing. "We spend decades getting to know one another. We call someone a friend after a century of fellowship.

"But Tauren..." He shrugged again. "No sooner have I learned a Tauren's name, that I find he has been replaced by his progeny. It is..." He searched for a word. "Disorienting.

"How is someone ever supposed to befriend another that they only meet in passing?" He looked directly at Sanja. "I apologize for any discomfort I have made you feel, but I ask you; if a butterfly should land on your lap for a moment before fluttering off... do you think back on the friendship the two of you once shared?"

Sanja smiled at him for the first time in their conversation. She nodded her head. "I think I like you."

Tanavar seemed to collapse in on himself. He put a hand to his forehead. "I thank you for illustrating my point. But I ask you, why is it that you think that?"

Sanja pointed at him. "I like adults that aren't afraid to explain things that they don't think kids will get."

Jorga grinned. "I bet you have a lot of kids, don't you?"

Meridia looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, but Tanavar was the one to speak. "No, Elune has not yet blessed us."

"Oh! You should ask Kazbo how," Sanja said. "He has two sons."

The Gnome's face blushed red in the firelight.

"Er, um. Thank you," Tanavar said most graciously. "I will do that... later."