[Aqua-chan]

While under the watchful eye of her totem bear Amara slept. Though the sun was only barely in the West the strain of the day had taken a great toll on the druid, forcing her to seek a series of concealing trees at which she could drop her guard. She nestled herself away as best she could, all the while knowing full well that her sleep would be restless because of the inevitable nightmares. There was no avoiding it, however, and so the human forced the fear from her mind and dared herself to brave closing her eyes.

And just as she had expected the dreams came to cloud her rest.

It was she, Sytze, the rotted corpse of Blackoak and the druids of the Grove, gathered all about a pile of smoldering orc bodies. Except that the bodies were not lifeless - the Black Orcs, stacked a mile high and burning, gazed about the surrounding druids blankly. Their red eyes darted to and fro, blinking periodically but giving away no indication that they felt their incineration or that they had intention to get up.They just looked around pointlessly.

Prying her stare away from the burning orcs Amara looked over to her companion, Sytze. He was standing next to her with a satisfied grin upon his face at seeing the monsters' defeat. It would have been more settling had his throat not been bleeding profusely, probably from some slash of an assassin's blade, but for some inexplicable reason Amara did not feel that this was out of the ordinary. In her dream it was easy to accept the fact that the practical stranger was a walking dead-man. Perhaps it was because he was a walking dead-man in the daytime, too.

Picking through the anonymous faces of familiar druids that were likely all murdered by now and the eyeless, animated corpse of Blackoak Amara saw, towards the very back of the group, a man who did not belong in the sequence. He seemed very familiar with a stupid, sideways grin that made Amara want to laugh, and in his arms was a moving bundle. Amara strained to see it.

With a cackling meow the bundle shifted in the man's arms, and once the druid was able to see it better she realized her old friend was holding an atrociously ugly cat. The cat's yellow eyes peirced through her coldly, much like the red ones of the orcs in the fire. Then Amara awoke.


The massive, hulking black bear was sprawled in the carpet of leaves next to Amara, aware of her peril but knowing it could not assist her. Human greif and tears were not the same as animal grief, the beast knew, and while it would try to provide company it did not have the means to provide Amara with comfort. When the young druid hugged the bristly black body of the bear the animal did not move, allowing her to weep into its thick fur.

"I don't know where he is," she said tiredly. The bear couldn't discern whether she was using human speech or telepathy express her feelings. "I can't get through this by myself. Please, friend... Carry me to Windhaven swiftly. I... I must find BS."