Nasharja: the Awakening

Cute and Quiet. Makes a lot of hand gestures, a bit like Yoda, but less green.

Topic/Postby Gergel » 27 Jun 2008, 10:56

Nasharja: the Awakening

OOC stuff.


So I got me a second WoW account. I'm going to try it out for a month, see how I can get into it. So here's a bit of history behind Nasharja -- the new druidess -- and Gergel.

I was hoping to use one of the existing Barrow Dens for Nasharja but unfortunately none of the ones I found in WoWWiki were really suitable. So let's just look the other way and pretend there's one more Barrow Den somewhere in Ashenvale that's not corrupted by demons or furbolgs or overrun by Forsaken. Or one whose existence doesn't really make sense. (How can Ban'Ethil Barrow Den -- a place where night elven druids are supposed to have been asleep for thousands of years -- exist on Teldrassil if Teldrassil itself is only a few years old?)

* * * * *

IC stuff.

* * * * *


She had been asleep, floating in the Emerald Dream for countless years. She saw the corruption of the Nightmare but was able to avoid it. She noticed her companions disappear from the Dream as they awoke but she did not know why they left or how much time had passed.

And then, in a flash of green light, she too was torn from the dream into a place of darkness.

Nasharja struggled to regain her sense of self. Her eyes were wide open but she could barely see anything. Ancient roots were all around her, in the ceiling and the walls and the floor. In a dim glow she reached up her hand. It seemed to change but not under her own volition. She shook in spasms as her hand shifted from an elven form to a bear's paw, a flipper, a long-clawed feline's limb and back to five-fingered shape.

She tried to speak but could only let out a low growl. It had been too long since she had controlled her physical form.

The Elf lied on her ancient sleeping-mat for what felt like days. She was back in her original shape but too weak to move.

* * * * *


Another Barrow Den. Gergel had seen its like in several locations across the Night Elven territories. They had either been mercifully empty, or full of hostile creatures and the tortured spirits of deceased Night Elven druids.

This one seemed... different. The ancient structure that surrounded the entrance was overgrown with trees and vines. She had stumbled upon it completely accidentally when she had slipped and fallen from a hillside. A quick spellcast had saved her from the worst and the gnome floated down light as a feather. Straight into a thick tangle of green. And through it into a dark doorway.

How odd. Gergel had not heard anything about a Barrow Den in these parts of the woods. Because that's obviously what it was, a place where Elven druids slumbered for thousands of years.

Never one to shy away from exploration, Gergel lit a tiny white flame in her lantern and stepped inside.

* * * * *


After what had seemed to be eternity, there was light. A flicker danced on the cave walls. Nasharja struggled in her weakness but could only manage a groan.

The tiny reflecting and moving light seemed to explode into a blaze as the person carrying it hurried into the room. It must have been an ordinary small lantern flame, she realized afterwards, but to her eyes that had been in darkness for centuries it was incredibly bright and beautiful.

So her Elven brothers or sisters had found her at last.

Nasharja tried to lift her body but was too weak. A tiny gentle hand touched hers and tried to help her up. Then she looked down upon...

Upon what?

It was unlike anything she had ever seen. Smaller than a child, yet shaped in a way that suggested adulthood. Dressed entirely in white. Her clothes and hair seemed to glow in the reflected light. She smiled at Nasharja and the Elf felt that whoever or whatever else she was, she was a friend.

* * * * *


It took several days for Gergel to get the strange Elven woman into a shape fit enough to travel. She did not speak a word of the Human Common tongue. The little knowledge Gergel had of Darnassian was clearly insufficient to understand her words. So the two women ended up communicating entirely in gestures -- something which was quite familiar with Gergel but somewhat unusual for the druidess.

Druidess, obviously, considering the place she'd found her. But she seemed to have lost most of her knowledge and could not even cast a single spell.

There was no one else in the Den. Gergel scoured the caves thoroughly. So once the Elf was strong enough to travel, there was really nothing keeping them there any longer.

* * * * *


Every step in this new world was full of strangeness to Nasharja. The travellers came across individuals of races she had never seen before -- short, tall, pink, green, blue, hairy, bald. The tiny white young woman beside her seemed unconcerned, so she was too.

It took the travellers several days until they reached a settlement. And what a joyous occasion that was. There were Elves everywhere. Real, purple, tall, slim, bouncy, honest-to-Elune Night Elves! Ones that spoke her native tongue, ones she could talk with.

They filled her in on the most important parts of what had been happening for the last several thousand years: the rise of Humans, the appearance of Dwarves and Gnomes (apparently that's who the tiny being was), a couple of invasions by Orcs (the green ones) and so on.

And they arranged for a flight on a swift hippogryph to the brand new capital of the Elves -- the new World Tree, Teldrassil. And the city Darnassus on top of its branches.

She parted from Gergel tearfully. During these last few days she had become attached to the silent gnome. But apparently she had matters to attend to, enemies to fight, errands to run. And Nasharja would now need the guidance of her own kin in Darnassus to study this new world and its people.

* * * * *


Months later Gergel received a letter from an old friend Daryn in Darnassus. Nasharja was progressing well. He believed that she would be ready to set foot in the wide world very very soon. Already she had started on the path to regain the druidic knowledge that she had forgotten during her aeons-long sleep and the frightening awakening and solitude. Her grasp of the Common tongue was not perfect yet but she could make herself understood.

Gergel smiled, twiddled with a Rune of Teleportation, found herself in Darnassus after magically zooming through the Twisting Nether, called forth her Wintersaber and rode to Shadowglen.

* * * * *


"Far too many 'p' letters in that name," Nasharja thought. The Night Elven tongue flowed far more smoothly than that. But she had to try to say the name... The fact that the tiny important person looking at her from the top of the crates seemed to be preoccupied with several other matters (of the female kind) did not help with her nervousness much.

"Can you take a drink?"

"He wants me to... become a bartender? Where would he want me to take the drink? Why should I fall down from taking it? Is it heavy?" She shifted into bearform. "This should be sufficient for him... Oh... He's really talking about drinking something. Ah, the Common language is sometimes so difficult to figure out. Of course he is fluent in it and assumes I am too. And that I'll understand his strange sayings... Oh Gergel, help me out here! But she cannot. But maybe she can! What is that she's handing me? Smells familiar... Why, this is the dizzying brew the furbolgs make! Or something like it. So that's what the gnome with too many 'p' letters meant by 'taking a drink'. If I can drink and not fall over like furbolg? That should be easy. Oh! He seems to be accepting my response! And he's inviting me as Gergel said he would."

And then Nasharja was being congratulated by surrounding members of the Rhyme and Punishment collective, and she was being hugged by Gergel (who had climbed a barrel to reach a comfortable height), and she was holding a bag full of very... questionable... items that was handed to her by the gnome with a difficult name. All in all, it had not been a bad day.
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Gergel
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