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A low sigh rolled from the tired worgen's throat as he gazed up into the eternal night's sky of Ardenweald. He watched tracers of fairylight and glittering stardust shoot across the sky before fracturing off into infinitesimally-smaller shards that shone like the distant heavenly lights of home. It'd been some days since Vaun arrived in the Shadowlands, beleaguered and lost - not as a soul awaiting rebirth but as a mortal pulled into yet another cosmic conflict, in which he was but the tiniest cog. He idly puffed on the last embers of his crackling pipe and mused at the events that brought him here.

He was always an idle wanderer - for the longest time, it was all he could possible know. His status as a turned worgen in a world years before the fall of Greymane's Wall left him a natural outsider - either feared as a mindless beast seeking flesh and blood and kin, or the subject of derision and mistrust as something so utterly different from everyone and everything else. It wasn't an existence he particularly liked, but it was one he'd grown to tolerate - at least until the kaldorei discovered him. There, he found some form of forlorn kinship in the druids of Darnassus - an undiscovered cousin, perhaps. It was them who taught him the ways of his craft, of mending and communion with nature, and in time, taught him to yearn for a home. And, through his friendship with a tauren he'd met in the Cenarion Circle that eventually blossomed into intimacy, a yearning for love.

The shifting of embers crackling in his carved pipe stirred him from his thoughts, the darkened smoke roiling up from the smoldering of charred tobacco dregs dredging up equally darkened memories of past events.

In his travels and tutelage, he found he was reluctant to join the kaldorei in their new partnership with the "Alliance". Vaun was content to remain a traveling hermit, a kin of the woods and those who called it home. But one drifting worgen's wishes stood for little against the political engines of new alliances. The raging campaigns of the Forsaken and their Horde cohorts through his native lands of Alterac and Silverpine ensured no distinction could or would be made between an unaffiliated man and his patriotic, distant cousins. Necessity had pushed his hand to choose or be cut down, to abandon past loves and friends for the sake of life and limb.

Necessity had been the impetus of much, lately. The war, the sieges, the burning of his once-adopted home; the death of elven friends and colleagues - even his old mentor.

The worgen sucked in charred air and coughed, sending a cloud of ashes fluttering into the air as shimmering coals flickered their last and slumped to the cool, wet earth beneath him.

Enough ruminating. That kind of thinking never got you anywhere, old man.

He picked himself up from the forest floor and dusted off the mossy loam coating the back of his mostly-bare thighs and the tail of the pelt cloak hung over his shoulders, heavy feet setting off on an unmarked trail back to what could charitably be called "civilization" here in Ardenweald - not that he particularly minded how sparse and primitive life was, here. It was almost comforting - like an entire realm modeled on how he'd lived for decades.

Obviously, though, being in the lands of the dead made some things more difficult. Eating, for instance, was a somewhat difficult thing to explain to the Night Fae - beings of pure anima sustained on the cosmic energies of their realm had no need to consume the flesh of animals and plants. A dozen sylvar and vorkai watched on in amazement as Vaun tore chunks out of imported, conjured meat on his first night there - eyes alight as his teeth gnashed through the cooked flesh.

Many things he found as mundane were unexpected curiosities to the spirits of this fae grove - not the least of which was bathing and, by extension, nudity. More than once has the old mutt had to shoo off curious onlookers who find themselves eager to see those strange bits under his skimpy hide armor. After the third or sixth too-close pair of eyes and boundary-breaking casual grope he also began to have his own curiosities - questions he didn't really think about asking himself until his new cohorts pressed the issue, more out of politeness than anything else. Questions like, "why do these strange creatures seem so interested in my junk?" and "don't they know what a sheath looks like?"

As he traipsed through the wooded groves, absentmindedly lost in his own thoughts, he suddenly found himself face-to-flank with none other than Lord Herne, a vorkai - something reminiscent of Azeroth's dryads and centaurs - and something like an acquaintance. The corpses of a dozen or so spriggans littered the forest floor in the ethereal, shaded copse - a few of Herne's subordinates finishing the dirty work of dispatching the foul sprites while he surveyed the scape and made notes.

Herne had appreciated Vaun's martial skills since the moment he set foot in Ardenweald and was made to show them off in fending off the land's overgrown threats - though given his station he was decidedly distrusting at first of the worgen's strange nature, both as a new arrival and a mortal. The Maw Walker had proven himself, though, and he couldn't deny a growing camaraderie with The Wild Hunt's newest huntsman. Vaun, meanwhile, appreciated Herne in a more.. unsavory sort of way. The cut of his jaw, his commanding voice and luxuriant fur - it tickled his fancy, to say the least.

The vorkai's keen hearing alerted him to the newcomer's presence and he greeted Vaun with a curt nod and a small smile. Vaun, meanwhile, greeted Herne with an interested glance-over. A sudden snort broke the mutt out of his idle ogling and his golden eyes drifted up to the huntmaster's singular gaze.

"Something on your mind, hunstman? You seem rather intrigued by my flanks." Herne set his barkwoven ledger aside in a saddlepack and turn-trotted in place to face the druid.

Broken from his appraisal, Vaun reacted more than a little caught - he'd be blushing if he could. He shook it off with a nervous laugh and folded his hands into pockets he now desperately wish he had, slumping them against his outer thighs and gently gripping the darkened fur there.

"Ah, nah. Well, yeah. A couple of things, but, s'probably not topics for polite conversation."

Herne raised a brow, folding his arms over the soft, creamy-white tufts of fur over his exposed midriff and let loose a considerably softer snort that only served to refocus the worgen's attention.

"I've yet to see something fluster _ you, Vaun. It's_ unbecoming_ of a hunstman. Speak plainly."_

Well, you asked for it he grumbled behind clenched teeth.

"Lord Herne, uh - I was glancin' at your flank back there because I've noticed something decidedly.. different _ between you Fae folk and me."_

Herne replied curtly, as if the answer to his musing was obvious.

"You're a mortal. That is the plainest difference between us."

Vaun shook his head, glancing around and nudging himself a little closer to the huntmaster before dropping his voice closer to a whisper.

"Do you know what, uh, genitals, are?"

The vorkai looked a little taken aback by the question, though confusion and thought darted across his face before he sounded his reply.

"It is a word I've heard before. Something to do with mortals' bodies, correct?"

An understatement. Strictly speaking, it was the sole reason_ for mortal bodies._

Vaun suddenly found himself a little dry-throated, gulping more than a little nervously at having such a conversation with someone who not only wasn't his child, but was considerably older than he was.

"Ah, mh. How do you fae make more of yourselves?"

Another curt, no-nonsense reply quickly leapt from Herne's lips.

"When the groves have need of us, the Winter Queen shapes more from Ardenweald's anima."

Another gulp followed by a throaty chuckle oozed from Vaun's jowls.

"Mh, okay. Uhm, can you just, follow me for a minute? I feel like I need to show _ you what I mean."_

Herne glanced back at his scouts and gave a curt nod, slowly trotting behind Vaun as the worgen led the vorkai away to a secluded glen by a flowing, glimmering stream. The druid checked around and, content that no prying eyes were upon them, posted himself up on a curved, gnarled root dipping into the stream and pulled his loincloth aside.

Herne's head tilted as his pointed snout dipped in for a slightly closer look.

"What.. is that? Or, those. What's any _ of that? Some kind of growth, maybe? Would you like me to remove it?"_

Vaun hurriedly shook his head and put up a stalling hand, a dry laugh leaving his throat. "Nononono, uh, no. These are, uh, genitals. At least, a worgen's genitals. ..Worgen -man's- genitals. There's a lot of variance."

Lord Herne's tentative hand reached out and brushed across the furred sheath and low-hanging worgen nuts, eliciting a soft gasp from Vaun's throat as those drooping nuts suddenly jerked up towards the worgen's crotch before settling back against the back of the vorkai's hand.

Herne's good eye narrowed as he folded his legs beneath himself and "sat" down, putting him on-level with the worgen's fuzzy package. "What are they for, exactly?"

The pointed attention and Vaun's own inclinations had caused his sheath to stir, the faintest peek of red poking out from within and greeting the curious vorkai. "You said the Winter Queen shapes you when she wants more Fae around, right? ..Well, hfh, when us mortals want more of us _ around, we.. use these."_

Herne's blue eye drifted up to Vaun's golden, glowing eyes and then back down to that speck of red poking out from a sea of creamy white crotchfur. "You sound winded, almost. Does something about what I'm doing - touching you there - hurt?"

The worgen clenched his teeth into a ragged smile as he slowly shook his head, his hand drifting down to meet Herne's, gently holding the other's wrist as the vorkai slowly shifted it up and down against his fluffy cockholster. "N-no. It - hmh." He found himself pausing, needing to find some common analogue between them that the sexless fae-creature could understand.

"Its.. you know the feeling, when you're in the heat of battle, blades ringing, your enemies faltering. The thrill of the hunt? That coursing, burning _ sensation in your veins that feels like you're unstoppable?"_

"Intimately" Herne replied without a moment's pause. "It feels like that?"

Another slow throb pulsed through Vaun's sheath as another glistening crimson inch pushed itself free, the warmth from Herne's hand having an effect on the worgen, undoubtedly.

"Better, sometimes. When two mortals come together and.. do things, like this, we call it "sex". We do it for procreation but, most of the time, we do it for that thrill_."_

Herne opened his mouth to reply but found it cut short by the sudden appearance of one of his satyr-like sylvar scouts - the woman seemed utterly nonplussed by finding her huntmaster's hand pressed up against Vaun's sheath, though she did spare a glance at the odd-looking thing.

"Lord Herne? We've routed the spriggans from the grove and placed some protective wards. That should keep them out for many moons, provided we can scrounge the anima to keep them running."

Herne glanced back at her, though he didn't move his hand away, even though Vaun's grip had recoiled back out of some understandable concern about getting caught. In fact, he shifted it again, this time a little more insistently, deliberately pressing the warm, soft fur of his hand up against that sensitive, plump sheath, urging another canine inch to push itself out into the open air. Did he realize he was doing it? Did Vaun care?

"Thank you, Syra. Return to Tirna Vaal with your cohort - you all have done well today."

The sylvar Syra bowed deeply and returned to bark unheard orders to her fellows as Herne's glance slowly drifted back to Vaun. "I must return to the Queen's Court now. It was a pleasure seeing you out today, Vaun."

The vorkai swiftly stood back up and began to trot downstream towards the massive, swirling tree in the distance, but halted for a moment as he regarded the half-nude worgen and his curious "genitals".

"..Meet me in my chambers after the night's feast. You've caught my curiosity with your words and form. I desire to know more of this "thrill" you seem to get."

The worgen blinked once, then twice, glancing over at himself before looking back up at Herne, slowly nodding in response - though the incessant, noticeable throb-throb of his exposed cockshaft spoke more than the choked words in his throat could. Herne definitely took notice, an open laugh leaving the reserved huntmaster's throat as he set back off again. "Hhah. Such curious things, mortals."