Faeranaar Tidesong

Faeranaar Tidesong

"*Ru shallora enudoril. Tor ilisar'thera'nal, ash'andu-falah-dor. I anoint these caretakers of the wild. Let our enemies beware, and balance be restored.*"
—A druidic oath among the Kaldorei, said to have once been spoken by Elune.
**Faeranaar Tidesong** (born c. 10,200 BDP) is a wandering hunter with druidic knowledge, left unused save for communion with beasts and healing in dire moments. A survivor of the War of the Ancients, the War of the Satyr, the War of the Shifting Sands, and the Battle of Mount Hyjal- a witness to the planting of two World Trees, Nordrassil and Teldrassil, as well as the fall of a third, Andrassil- and a widower, only now emerging from millennia of sleep and mourning to greet the new world birthed in the wake of the Battle of Mount Hyjal.

## Biography

### Early life

Faeranaar was born on the shores of Lake Kel’theril some two centuries before the Burning Legion’s name had ever been spoken by Elven lips. His first touch of the world was water, and when lifted to land his cries rose and fell in a croon attuned to the waves’ ebb and flow- so he was said to be born to the tides, his soul bearing their song.

As Queen Azshara started to encourage expeditions into the lands surrounding the Kaldorei Empire, Faeranaar began accompanying as a cartographer and researcher, marveling at the varied beasts which roamed pre-Sundering Kalimdor. During this time he also met his bondmate, a warrior-priestess from Kel'delar named Cydaria Moonquill, who often accompanied the caravans of explorers as a guard. He was enamored by the veteran's tales of war against the trolls, and saw in her a strength beyond any he had yet met, a beauty of spirit that reflected the wonder he held for all the world. They explored the far reaches of the Kaldorei Empire and witnessed marvels beyond measure- Shandaral and the icy forests of Moonsong, an entire realm of life hidden in the lush wilds of Then'Ralore, the great Highborne city of Eldre'Thalas and its' arcane miracles. Those were the best years of his life, each offering something totally unseen and incredible, begging further exploration.

After several decades spent traveling together, he yearned to settle and focus his energy on understanding all they had seen, particularly the Wild Gods. He respected Cenarius above them all, for the demi-god seemed to have a particular fascination with his people, and treated them always with respect, imparting wondrous knowledge without expecting anything in return. Cydaria too wished to center herself, to rededicate her worship of Elune, whose silver light had entranced her countless nights during their wanderings. They eventually made a home in Moonclaw Vale, close both to a sacred grove where Cenarius often gave counsel, and the Temple of Elune, where Cydaria could serve the Sisterhood as a Priestess. For a time, it was paradise. But it was not to last.

### War of the Ancients

Faeranaar, along with many of the Kaldorei in Val’sharah, was rallied into the Kaldorei Resistance when the Legion first came to Azeroth under the bidding of Queen Azshara. Though new to battle, he quickly learned under the tutelage of Cydaria, and proved ever willing to rush where the fighting was thickest. As the war went on, he found himself best suited to a support role, carrying wounded off the field of the battle then treating their wounds in safety. He was there in that devastating battle where Malorne was broken by Archimonde, but fled long before Malfurion arrived to drive back the Eredar, feeling duty-bound to accompany the retinue of Cenarius as they spirited the wounded demi-god away from the fight. Cydaria stayed behind, telling him she could not abandon the battle for anything, even a God.

    By that point, the war had gone from from dark rumors of monsters in the night, to drowning in the demons’ onslaught, and for all the protectors Azeroth offered, each day brought only more death and despair. The Wild Gods began to fall one by one- the dragonflights turned on themselves and warred in the skies, great blasts of magic and massive winged corpses falling on every skirmish. Faeranaar's brethren had collapsed, cut off from Jarod Shadowsong's supply lines and the leadership of Malfurion and Tyrande. Left with a ragged collection of civilians and survivors, without a priest or Resistance officer in sight, Faeranaar organized those he could find into a caravan, and set off to find refuge. The Moonglade was by then a legend of safe haven, supposedly untouched by the Legion's advance- though countless miles away, it seemed their only hope. The road was long, and culled many from their ranks, whether by injury or illness- but eventually they arrived in Nighthaven, the last sanctuary left to elvenkind. He swore himself to the Moonglade’s protection, knowing nothing of Malfurion’s plans for the Well of Eternity and only hoping to see his people through to the next day. By this great distance alone did he survive the Sundering.

He never saw his bondmate after those disastrous early days of war- but many years later, he would meet her mentor from the Sisterhood of Elune. The priestess told him of how Cydaria had sworn herself to the Temple of Elune's defense in Crescent Vale, and likely perished there. He finally knew her fate, but it brought no relief, only scouring away the last vestiges of hope for his old life.

Yet not all was lost- the Kaldorei still had paragons to look to for guidance, among them Malfurion, beginning to earn the title of Shan'do by spreading Cenarius' druidic teachings among his people. Faeranaar found that, while the old world was forever lost, he might heal what was left by pursuing such magic. As he dug more and more into the wild corners of his spirit, he recalled always the sight of the Wild God Goldrinn tearing through Legion ranks, utterly unafraid and possessed of such fury that none could stand before him. Moreover, the Great Wolf's turbulent relationship with Elune struck a chord with Faeranaar, who could not help but feel Cydaria's service to Elune had overshadowed everything else in her life, and surely lead to her death. His loss of faith in this regard only pushed him further into the dense realms of druidic magic, where he could give his mourning purpose and feel the life of the old world live through him. Upon the planting of Nordrassil and the oath sworn to Ysera to preserve the Emerald Dream, he found a new purpose, to walk once more among a land he thought forever lost and protect it from ever changing, ever sundering as it had on Azeroth. In this paradise absent the scars of war, he could escape all that was taken from him- and in that sleep, he found a dark, blissfully ignorant kind of peace.

### The Long Vigil

    He woke only thrice during the Elves' Long Vigil- once when Shandris Feathermoon called on the druids to fight Xalan the Feared during the War of the Satyr, again to accompany the Cenarion Circle in felling Andrassil, and lastly in the War of the Shifting Sands. Each waking proved a wound, their scars crescendoing to an experience which chased him from the Emerald Dream forever.

#### War of the Satyr

    Seven hundred years passed before the druids of the Cenarion Circle were called from their sacred slumber. When the Satyr struck out against the Kaldorei, Faeranaar saw in them the Legion’s spirit rising from history to savage Elven lands once more, and vowed to return their fury sevenfold. He put himself to the front line of every battle he could find, and often would accompany missions in Satyr territory, stalking them deep into their corrupted lands so they could be eradicated at the source. While out on assignment, tracking a sect of Satyr shadowdancers that had penetrated the forests of Ashenvale, he and many of his brethren were ambushed and captured. The Satyrs tormented the druids, seeking to make the Kaldorei become monsters like they by exposing them to the fel magics of their corrupted moonwells and carving demonic curses into their flesh.

During the course of these tortures and interrogations, the Satyrs discovered Faeranaar’s greatest shame. He, like many druids in those dark days, had begun to overlook Malfurion’s taboo of the Pack Form. As the Satyrs killed more and more of their fellows, some calling themselves Druids of the Pack had revived this forbidden art, unleashing the rage of the dead god Goldrinn by taking his canine form and tearing into the Satyrs’ lines with claw and fang. But the form was difficult to control, and often lead to bloodlust blending the lines between friend and foe. In fact, even then as he was captured, some were beginning to find the transformation irreversible, stuck as avatars of Goldrinn’s unchained rage. Faeranaar saw how these druids lost themselves as they embraced the magic deeper, and had begun to turn from it, in fear of what he might unleash and shame at what he might become.

The Satyrs saw how deep he had buried this secret in his heart, and thus dragged it to the forefront of his mind, forcing him through half-transformations and other unimaginable horrors. At times, the Satyrs would even starve him until he could not control his spirit’s canine aspects, then set him loose to slaughter his fellow captives. Faeranaar vowed each day to hold true to Malfurion’s teachings, to resist his rage, knowing it to be useless- and each day they sought to break him again. Those were the darkest days of his life, and very nearly ended in him being corrupted by the same sins that had turned Xavius’ kin to Satyrs themselves- but eventually, the captured druids managed to escape, carrying him from those dens of nightmare and cleansing the corruption from his body.

Yet the experience never left him, and the scars of the mind are not so easily scoured away.He had been forced to confront the corruption growing in himself, the hate and fear which had come to rule Goldrinn in his last days and threatened now to overtake him. When he returned to Moonglade, he found Malfurion forming the Cenarion Circle to combat the Druids of the Scythe, and saw in their fall a mirror of his own- so he dedicated himself to this new druidic order, hoping to overcome his own weakness by fighting those who had succumbed where he had not.

Though his people came out of the War of the Satyr victorious, Faeranaar never felt quite whole after, and the subsequent sentencing of the Druids of the Scythe to eternal slumber within the Emerald Dream only seemed an omen. Disturbed, he resolved to rededicate himself to preserving the Dream’s purity, entering once more with the Cenarion Circle into their sacred sleep.

#### The Fall of Andrassil

Nearly five millennia passed before the Cenarion Circle again called him to wake and lend aid. High in the Northern reaches of the sundered world, Fandral Staghelm had secretly planted a new world tree, Andrassil, the Crown of the Snow, using boughs stolen from the World Tree Nordrassil. Seeing in this treachery a repeat of Illidan’s theft of the Well of Eternity’s waters, the Circle was outraged- yet his actions seemed to have their intended effect, healing the surrounding land and halting the corruption of the saronite seeded within. Now, however, the circumstances had changed- beasts of the surrounding forests slaughtered each other without mercy, and the land’s saronite sung once more. The Circle discovered Andrassil’s roots had reached a dark and ancient power, the very name of which stung to speak- and so they declared it must be cut down, before that evil could exert any further influence on the world.

Faeranaar readily agreed to serve this mission, seeing in it a chance to preserve what remained of the continent where the Moonsong forests had once stood, groves of great meaning to he and Cydaria before her death. The Circle set out on great ships grown from the thick trunks of Kalimdor’s trees, and Faeranaar proved a natural navigator, spotting the swelling and turning of tides as easily as another might see sunrise. When they arrived, the ritual was already well underway, needing only enough druids to focus its energies. Though he was proud to serve alongside so many of his brethren, he could not help but feel sorrow at Andrassil’s felling, and in its’ necessity a sharp reminder of his own failings against corruption. While the others prepared to leave, he settled into a deep sleep by the titanic stump of what was now Vordrassil, the Broken Crown, seeking to center himself through communion with the Emerald Dream.

Yet his sleep was fitful, filled with visions of waking nightmare and eldritch atrocities committed in an Empire amassed and collapsed long before his ancestors had ever walked Azeroth. Faeranaar never spoke of what he had seen, unable to convince himself it had not been a reflection of his own sins and worried his long-past dabbling with the Pack Form might be discovered by deeper questioning. Ultimately he could make no sense of these sights, and left the frozen continent of Northrend more uncertain than ever, profoundly fearful for the paradise Ysera had opened to his people.

#### War of the Shifting Sands

Faeranaar buried these doubts in duty, as ever returning to that Emerald plane he had long ago sworn his spirit to. There he could always find sanctuary, wandering a world that had been burned away millennia ago, often encountering his fellow druids as they tended their own sectors of the sacred space. Over the next three and a half thousand years, whispers of a darkness within the Dream began to spread- each new tale stoked the memory of his meditations at Vordrassil, turning his once restful work to a frenzied, pressured task. Faeranaar could not help the feeling that somehow, the Emerald Dream was slipping, a paradise on the path of being lost- yet what could he do but tend its roots?

Outside the Dream, the Kaldorei continued their mission to regrow and revive Kalimdor. Inevitably, this led them to the sandy southern reaches of the continent- and the ancient insectoid minions that still lay sleeping, breeding, deep in the darkest hollows of the earth. Faeranaar didn’t hear of the massive army that awakened from Ahn’Qiraj- nor did he hear of the Qiraji’s swift advance there, the crushing defeats the Kaldorei suffered throughout Silithus, or even of Southwind Village, where Fandral Staghelm’s son Valstann was seized and torn to shreds. For Faeranaar, the war came first as a slow lessening within the Dream- druids he had known to rest for millennia suddenly vanished, their fields going overgrown in their absence, smelling of blood and ichor. Faeranaar wandered far through the Dream for his lost friends, and found nothing. When he emerged from sleep to search reality, he saw ruin facing his people once more, his friends’ corpses long crunched between Qiraji jaws.

His rage could not be restrained, even had he wished to hold it back. Within a week’s time, Faeranaar was fighting beside the Sentinels and the Keepers of the Grove, sons of Cenarius, all ankle-deep in sand and blood. He quickly discovered this was no war as they had ever fought before- even against the Legion, there had been victories between the massacres. Here was only an unending attrition. Some wonder why they call it the War of the Shifting Sands- it was not because of the terrain, nor what it had spawned. It was named thus because for every inch of ground gained, it would be lost the next day- then regained and lost again, until the ground they fought over was nothing but gore and graves. The Qiraji came like the tides of a swelling storm, ever eating more of the shore, receding only that they could come back in greater force. For every five Qiraji killed on the ground, seven would streak from the sky, their buzzing the herald of blood wetting saw-toothed mandibles. When the Kaldorei buried their dead, the Qiraji would burrow beneath and eat the corpses, use this sustenance to breed a dozen soldiers, then erupt from the sand like the angry ghosts of the fallen turned traitor.

The insectoid threat seemed insurmountable- moreover, they didn’t even seem to care about the conflict, not as the Kaldorei did. It was as if the Qiraji, born of an era ages past, knew that they could not be stopped, that they were no more able to be purged than a dead horse could be spurred. They were like Azeroth itself, turning on its children, devouring a squadron of Sentinels whole then burying the next in their brethren’s bones. Faeranaar and his allies were pushed back deep into the sandy wasteland of Tanaris, and there received the aid of the dragon flights- but by then, he was exhausted, having fought day after day for months on end. When Staghelm and the dragons suggested their final desperate attempt to lock the insect menace within Ahn’Qiraj, Faeranaar and his fellows thought it folly. They even suggested, in the deep shadows of night, by campfires blazing bright because they knew the Qiraji would come even if the light was low, that Staghelm merely wanted a suicide that would be remembered with honor, to finally end the misery and mourning that had consumed him after the loss of his son.

The battle at the gates of Ahn’Qiraj was terrible. Indescribable. Thousands died in a charge- and those behind them stomped the corpses into the sand and stole their weapons, for it was the only way to survive. Somehow, Staghelm succeeded, breaking the earth and hauling its rocky bones above ground, creating the infamous Scarab Wall. For the first time since he had joined the war, Faeranaar saw a barrier the Qiraji could not cross- and then, like something from ancient story, he saw it sealed.

There was no time for cheer. Too many had died for any claim of victory to be made, and even today, standing outside the Scarab Wall, one can hear the hissing and scratching of monsters unimaginable, waiting to swarm the world if ever the Gong outside Ahn’Qiraj’s gates is struck again.

Faeranaar was glad to have survived, to have shown the Qiraji that Goldrinn’s fury had not died with the Wild God, that it still lived fervently lived in those who carried his memory. But the rage within him did not die on that last day of war- it stayed stoked by every memory of his slain brothers and sisters, a blazing inferno that could not be tempered, could never be tamed. It frightened him- not only for the sheer force of it, but for the freedom he had found in letting the feeling flow through him. Faeranaar was changed forevermore, and felt he had crossed a precipice that had yawned before him since the first moment he had taken the Pack Form. He had not surrendered to the call of Elune’s scythe- had not become Worgen- but a man does not need to become a beast to lose himself.

The sands of Silithus had settled- but Faeranaar found he could not.

#### An Omen of Nightmare

After the war with the Qiraji, the Dream did not respond as it once did to Faeranaar. He began to feel he had been corrupted in some way, and thus could not protect that most sacred space the Elves had sworn to preserve. Retreating from his druidic sleep, he turned instead to study, poring through Moonglade’s vast reservoirs of knowledge and speaking with many of its most accomplished druids in search of a solution. Few could give the answers he sought, for he had little understanding of his own questions. As the years stretched on into greater uncertainty and doubt, even his ability to shift into bestial shapes began slipping, either holding him too long in forms unfamiliar and consuming or refusing to mold him into anything more than the man he was. The call of wild shapes, the savagery and purity of being found within them, took hold of him as it had for those of the Scythe in the War of the Satyr, as it had echoed again for him at Andrassil, as it had roared free for the sake of his survival in the sands of Silithus. He yearned to know purpose again, to find focus in the service of his people, but for every corruption healed or creature killed, he found no satisfaction, only thirst for the next fight.

Not one to surrender easy, Faeranaar decided he must confront the corruption within himself, and either emerge victorious, or fall to his own weakness. He had heard oft the legend of the Wild God Omen, who had once wandered primordial Kalimdor and guided the hunters and gatherers of the Kaldorei to understand their place in the world around them. Omen, like he, had fought during the War of the Ancients- but where Faeranaar had found his abilities lacking and instead led others in their flight from the war, Omen had stood firm, slaying the Legion until their foul blades pierced his heart and corrupted him with fel magics. Omen still lived, but it was a cursed existence, kept drowned and silent beneath Lake Elune’ara by the druids of Moonglade. Yet at every Lunar Festival, Omen rose again, insane and raging- and every year, the druids would battle him back into the lake’s blessed deeps. In this fable he saw a mirror of his own struggle, a flaw cut open in a once-noble soul by the Legion invasion and left exposed forevermore, always threatening to consume the soul entire.

Faeranaar thought that if he was to settle Omen’s spirit, he could sew shut the scars of his own. He believed that if the God could be shown that the fight of the Ancient Age was not all there was, he too might finally be satisfied with the knowledge that any war he found now would not change what had happened then, would not wipe away his regrets. So he gathered three of his most trusted Cenarion brothers, telling them the Circle could no longer stand by and let this corruption linger in their midst. He did not tell them of his struggles with nature’s magic, nor of what had plagued his every dream for months, nightmares of twisted torments. Memories from the War of the Satyr, of slaughtering his own kinsmen, of becoming a beast that felt nothing but the purity of blood and battle, fading into the horrors of the war in Silithus, where he saw himself as a Worgen sprinting over sands crusted with skulls. And he never said a word to anyone of the last image, always the same- Andrassil breaking, falling, a great cloud of buzzing, howling shadow streaming from its shattered stump.

The four druids gathered at the shores of Lake Elune’ara, growing cocoons of root and flower within its waters that would preserve their mortal vessels as they ventured into the Emerald Dream. Omen was too powerful to face on Azeroth itself- they must find his spirit where it slept, and attempt to speak with the fallen god there, in his own domain. The children of Cenarius watched from the groves about the group, uneasy, remembering all that had perished in previous attempts. Their silent warnings were ignored. The druids entered their slumber. Only one would come to wake.

None know exactly what happened within the Dream- even Faeranaar remembers just moments, horrific shades of scenes blocked and forgotten. They went into the Dream, and found the moons overhead black and red, ever watching like the eyes of a demon. They found Omen- and the god would not listen, tearing into them the moment they made themselves known, chasing them through the infinite dreamways of that plane until they could run no longer and fell to his wrath. Faeranaar was the last pursued, and so wandered longest, heedless of direction or caution, only wanting to be far, far away from Omen’s slavering jaws. The Dream twisted upon itself as he went on into its darkest depths, almost as if something within was leading him, calling him back to a prison he had only barely tasted after Andrassil. He roamed farther than he had ever known was possible, deeper than he could ever describe, into a living darkness so total he could no longer tell his own shape, whether he ran as beast or Man, could no longer sense anything but his own screaming mind, echoing endless.

Meanwhile, within the waking world, the cocoons which had chambered the druids turned foul and rotten. They grew monstrous thorns dripping with heady toxins, tightened upon the fragile bodies within, and spewed their corrupted venoms into the vulnerable druids. By puncture and poison the druids’ hollow shells were slain, even as their spirits were devoured by Omen. Faeranaar only lived because he had run to nightmares even Omen would not enter, and because Cenarius’ watching children, a dryad and a Keeper of the Grove, had sensed the corruption growing within the grove and sought to correct it. While cleansing the cocoons and carrying them away from the Lake’s shore, they sensed life lingering within one, and cut it open to try and save whatever remained. Faeranaar emerged still sleeping, bathed in his own blood, flesh torn by wounds of no known weapon, covered in sores that formed scrawlings which stung the eye and offended the very nature of this world. He was taken in by the Circle and kept in quarantine as they tried to discover what poison had forced this state on him, only waking after long years of healing and experimentation by others of his kind. Even then, none were quite sure what had succeeded in waking him- some said Elune had felt merciful, or that he had simply stumbled back into the Dream where he could be found again. None liked to think on what it meant that wherever he had been was apparently connected to the Dream- such knowledge would lie dormant, left in those dark annals of history better left unsaid.

When he woke, he could not- or would not- remember the details of what had taken place after he had become lost in the Dream. Omen’s howls would still haunt his sleep, and each year upon the Lunar Festival’s eve he would near that dark prison again in dream, hear whispers and madness and a malevolence which surpassed even the Legion’s menace. To tap into druidic magics brought all this back, even the simplest spell pushing him to- and nearly over- that precipice. Overwhelmed with guilt over the druids who had died beside him, yet more fallen because of his own failings, he left the Circle and chose to wander, seeking a place where he could not put any more into the grave by trying to protect them. For a time, he tried to reconnect to his druidic teachings, feeling as if some part of himself still lay trapped in that dark corner of the Emerald Dreamway. Until he saw another path.

Deep within the woods descending from the slopes of Mount Hyjal, Faeranaar encountered a legend of Silithus- Myraea Starbloom, one of the few Sentinels who had met the Qiraji head-on and never lost her resolve. The woman had become something of a myth to the war’s veterans, having left the world behind once Ahn’Qiraj was sealed. After years away from civilization, struggling to understand and heal the ravages of his spirit, Faeranaar craved confession- and she proved willing to listen, even offering advice, in her own way. Through their conversation, he came to understand that the drive within him to gain power, hold it firm that it could be both sword and shield to his people, was not something that had to be tamed. He had always thought the only other option was to become consumed by it- but in this legendary warrior who had set her blade aside when she saw she should no longer wield it, there was another option. The option which the Highborne, the Druids of the Scythe, even Fandral Staghelm, had all ignored- to see the cost of power, and accept that it is not always worth the risk. That the world would live on without people to wield these powers, and may even have suffered less should that have been the case. For too long, he had sailed through life by steering into the storm, believing he could conquer it before it consumed his soul. Now he saw he could simply follow the wind.

So it was that he devoted himself to exploring the world he'd once sought to forget, traveling far across the Kaldorei holdings in Ashenvale, Felwood, Hyjal, and Winterspring in search of lost texts and relics to add to Moonglade's knowledge, spurning any impulse to use the teachings therein for himself. He revived the training his bondmate had once given him in the bow, and used his druidic knowledge warily and sparingly, to commune with the beasts of the forest and heal it wherever he could. In this way he began to walk the path of the hunter, feeling he had found only failure and ruin in that of the druid.

### The Battle of Mount Hyjal

    This new era of training was timed well- for soon the Kaldorei's lone existence would be roughly disturbed by the arrival of refugees from the Eastern Kingdoms, their homes and nations broken and scattered by the return of the Burning Legion and their undead vanguard. Faeranaar returned from his journeys in the wilds to find new races huddled along the coasts, scarred from their failed struggles with a war like none in their memory had ever seen. A war that his people had been fighting, preparing for, guarding against for nearly ten thousand years. Soon, the Legion and its' minions would follow on their heels, razing the forests as they had millennia past and once more carving through Elven civilization to overtake and conquer the Well of Eternity. He made haste for Moonglade, fearing the worst- and when he arrived, he saw it had come without him to stand against it. Vast swathes of forest lay scarred, fresh graves stood everywhere bearing the glaives of fallen sentinels, and the once-sacred grounds of the druidic sanctuary were fouled by the smoke pouring off great pyres, dark with the necromantic magics being burned from the remains of the Legion’s undead vanguard.

The time they had all dreaded had finally come. The chance he’d sought to confront his past, and prove it could be overcome. The ancient, everlasting war could yet be won.

When Malfurion and Tyrande called for the defense of Mount Hyjal, Faeranaar was waiting with bow strung, sure it was only by the efforts of the Kaldorei that anything on Azeroth could survive another invasion. He began by assisting in the construction of defensive positions along the mountain's paths, weaving thick gnarls of root and bark to serve as cover and sweeping the land aside to create pitfalls and other such traps.

As the day came to an end and the soldiers began taking their positions, he saw something utterly new to his eyes- these strange, small races, so young and naive, standing shoulder to shoulder with his kinsmen. Moreover, they came with new marvels, ideas and strategies never considered by his people- odd, smoke-belching machines that could destroy a foe before an arrow could ever reach them, thick armor that could keep a warrior up after mortal blows, even without healing magic. Though so far behind the Kaldorei in many ways, these races had their own strengths, strengths they were all too willing to offer in sacrifice and duty. The nobility of these young reminded him dearly of the duty he'd once felt bound to, putting him to a purpose that far surpassed the hounding calls of the old nightmares which haunted him.

Yet not all the newcomers were to be respected. In the forests of Ashenvale, the orcs had shown their weakness, their inability to overcome their bestial natures. Hunger and greed for the resources of lumber and game brought them into conflict with his people, and when Cenarius came to offer his wisdom, they rejected his offer and accepted the Legion into their very veins, using that fel corruption to slaughter one who had only brought prosperity and guidance to Azeroth. The trolls, too, eternal enemies of his people, all too willingly threw their lot in with these monsters. Though they were forced by necessity of the impending Legion to fight together, Faeranaar and many Kaldorei could never trust those so evidently uncaring, so obviously devoted to the destruction of all the Night Elves held dear. In this he saw the seeds of another war, inevitable should Azeroth survive- and it was one he would be all too glad to join, when the time came.

The battle that came on the slopes of Mount Hyjal proved the crucible by which all civilization was reforged. All the desperation and chaos of the War of the Ancients, distilled into barely a day's worth of bloodshed and heroism. The great collection of Azeroth's defenders died by the thousands, and he himself watched warriors and druids he had known to be without peer fall like flies. Men and women he'd known for thousands upon thousands of years, survived countless atrocities alongside, were swatted aside like flies by the demons. Some were risen again by the unholy abominations that shambled alongside the demons' frenzied advance, forcing those under siege to cut down those they loved most or die beneath their blades. It was an impossible battle, slated for complete and crushing defeat from the moment it began- bleeding from a dozen wounds, half of which should have killed him, Faeranaar often believed the battle had already been lost while he stood within it. Yet, like the Great Wolf Goldrinn had showed him in that first terrible invasion of the Legion, one must continue fighting, if only to tell the enemy they would have to earn their take. Azeroth would give no tithe to the Legion.

Again and again the enemy came, again and again the defenders shook, fell, retreated, regrouped and countered, like hounds barking and snapping at the ocean coming to shore. They lost, over and over, kept fighting- faith flagging, bodies battered- until it came.

A resounding bray, deep as Azeroth lay wide, thrumming through every mote of every body and soul upon the battlefield. The Horn of Cenarius, the cry of the Wild Gods, the forests, the very world itself. The spirits of his people, all the fallen friends and family he had thought forever lost, rose from Nordrassil itself. It was as if the very gods had seen the worthiness of Azeroth's cause and sent the source of her strength, her people, back to live once more in glorious triumph. Archimonde, that titanic force of defiled power, was swarmed, buried beneath the righteous howls of the dead and the primordial rage of the wilds. His armies were cast aside and burned, his invasion denied- and Faeranaar's people saved.

It was like nothing before. They had not only held their line against the Legion and survived, but truly defeated it's forces for perhaps the first time in memory. Together, Azeroth was strong like nothing else in the cosmos. Faeranaar had finally found a place for his rage to have purpose, to serve something greater than its own bloodlust. Like Goldrinn before him, Faeranaar saw where he belonged- on the front line, protecting those who could not be, fighting for the righteous cause rather than any burdened by petty rivalry or foolish ambitions. There were true causes left in the world, and he would serve them valiantly, even if it meant his own life.

The Alliance was born, for all of Azeroth. The Kaldorei would answer its' call.

### Modern Day

    After the Battle of Mount Hyjal, he found himself in a world rapidly changing- and the Night Elves were not immune, having lost the immortality which once set them apart from the world’s young races. Inspired by the dawn of this new era, he bid Moonglade a bittersweet goodbye and, on hearing of the Archdruid’s plans for a new World Tree, made the pilgrimage to witness Teldrassil’s planting. From there he helped build Darnassus, drawing on his druidic magic despite the risks- this was worth it, a symbol of all his people could strive to once more be. Though for all he felt reinvigorated by the breaking of the Kaldorei’s isolation, the old terror of the Dream’s hidden corruption lingered, and he soon retreated again from druidism, leaving his brothers in the Circle with only his plantings as a farewell. After Darnassus’ creation, he decided instead to travel, to learn of the world that had risen from the ashes of the Sundering and birthed itself anew. Yet all is not peace and new knowledge- for the Horde even now encroach on Elven lands, and as in times of crises past, he will respond with all the savagery of the wilds to protect his people.

## Trivia

* None of the art presented in this article is mine, and was sourced from public galleries found through Google Image Search. Below are links to the incredible artists who've made these works available for viewing. All other artwork presented is drawn from in-game screenshots and Blizzard's Chronicle volumes.
	+ 'Rohrin' by Eepox
	+ 'Thydrias' by Owlet-In-chest
	+ 'Glaedr' by Eepox
	+ 'Hyjal Aftermath' by TheWabbajackX
	+ 'Night Elf Hunter' by Gino Whitehall

## Notes and references

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Bloodsail Hold - Faeranaar Tidesong