Shattering

                Pain. Excruciating mind destroying pain. That's all that had become the shaman's mental world as he felt the Earth rip apart. The Elements were raging, and felt it fit to inform every Shaman on Azeroth of their fury. The book he was reading lay on the floor next to the tipped flagon of water. Shadoren lay on the floor of his house in Ironforge writhing in agony, mouth open in a silent scream, Elemental energies going haywire within the small living space.

                After what seemed to be an eternity to the shaman the pain subsided and there was an urgency. Get something done. Aid where you can. Heal. Some compulsion to get something done. As he lay there, trying to regain his wits about himself he realized who he could contact to see what he could do.

                He slowly pulled himself, making sure he was stable on his hooves before allowing his weight to rest. When he realized he wasn't going to collapse in pain once again, he first went to work on taming the elemental imbalance in his immediate area. With that completed he went to work on a letter.

                Walking around briskly to the nearest mailbox he noticed others recovering from whatever happened. But he needed to see if he could help, and the only person he could think of aiding was Jacob McSars. Because the Earth finally told him what was troubling it, and the result was terrifying.

                Deathwing.

Preparing

                Shadoren slowly walked, limped more like it as he was not fully healed after the incident in Westfall, around Ironforge. The last elemental attack had been repelled and he was making sure the mountain was still sturdy.  The Earth was becoming more and more distant as of late and he didn't want that distance to become a catastrophe were the mountain to collapse.

                As he made his way back to his house a familiar figure was waiting outside.

                "Ahh, Phasha, what brings you here my dear?"

                "The Aldor have requested I live with you or Mother. They say Azeroth is going to need me more than they will in the coming weeks."

                A huge smile broke across the man's face, "My dear, I would love for you to live with me."

                "Forgive me Father, but I was just going to tell you I was going to go live with Mother. Ironforge is far too different a city than I am used to, and your house is far too small for two to live together unless you were sharing a bed."

                "Oh, well I suppose that makes sense. Have you talked to Lyc about this yet?" he limped to his favorite chair and sat down letting a slightly pained groan escape his lips.

                "Not yet, but she said I was more than welcome. And if not with her, there are other places near her house I can stay. Also Father, I wish you would just let me heal you. The Light would not see it as a selfish request."

                "I'll tell you what I told your mother, I'm fine. Really. I needed this to remind me of my mortality. Though we live forever doesn't mean we can't die. It's a nice reminder."

                Phasha sighs as she blatantly ignores her father's requests and casts a spell on him, the Light flowing into his breaks and aches and healing them as though they were as good as new.

                "Fel damnit Phasha!" Shad sighs, "Go inform your mother of your decision. I need to get back to work. The Earthen Ring needs any and all able bodied shaman. They feel something is about to happen, and when it does, we need to be there to take care of it."

                Phasha nods as she walks out of the small home, taking one look back and she sees her father going down the stairs to his bedroom, silently praying to the Light that she was not going to lose him again in whatever the Earthen Ring needed.

Ow...

Another fist lands on Shadoren's body as he stands there and takes the beating the human insisted on giving him. It's odd touchy they get.

                "Had enough traitor?" the warrior was furious.

                Fel damned lunatic thought Shadoren as he stood there. All I said was that his zeal and hated for the Horde reminded me of the Orcs when I was on Draenor...

                "I don't see how telling you something I noticed makes me a traitor. I still fight alongside the Alliance, just not with the hatred you expect me to have."

                The draenei's calm seemed to infuriate the man even more, as the beating got worse. What seemed like house later the human walked away from the beaten and bloody draenei, left there to die apparently.

                "Fel damned lunatic..." Shadoren slowly pulled himself up, attempting to walk before letting himself fall back down to the ground, and coughing.

                This is insanity...allies attacking one another because they happen to disagree with their point of view. The Earthen Ring has never looked to damned good right now...but first, I need to get bandaged up and back to my house.

                The thought of getting back to Ironforge from where he was in Westfall made him groan. And so he fought the pain and started the painful trek back to Dun Morogh, refusing to give the warrior that attacked him the satisfaction of using the Elements to heal himself. He would heal the old fashioned way. Even if it killed him. And it just might.

Elemental VS Arcane

                "For the fifteenth time, the Elements don't work that way and never will!" He had had this argument before. Many times. Every time a mage asked him to do something they expected a snap of the fingers and the Elements would do his bidding. They just didn't understand the bond a Shaman had to make.

                "But why not? I can command fire, I can create a gust of wind, I can conjure water. Why can't you, a shaman who supposedly have some deep connection with the elements, demand them to do your bidding?"

                "Because. Elemental magic is not the same as twisting the arcane into another elemental force. They are not my lapdogs to do as I see fit, regardless of the outcome. The forces I can use, only because the Elements allow me to, are primal. The very forces that hold our world together. So forgive me, Mr. Woler, if I cannot demand the Earth to tell me what's wrong with Azeroth. I and every other shaman on the planet have been trying."

                The mage seemed put off by Shadoren's comparison of the arcane to a lapdog.

                "Fine. You want proof? Conjure a fire. Either a ball of it, or perhaps, just a campfire. Make it as hot as possible. I shall show you the difference between arcane twisted into elemental powers and what I can do with it."

                And so the mage, Jacob Woler a man who increasingly getting on Shadoren's nerves, conjured the hottest ball of fire he could both muster and stand. There floating between the two men it floated, blazing like a miniature sun, the heat visible as waves radiating outwads.

                "Now watch." Shadoren's eyes and hands started to gently glow with a light green sheen, his lips moving slightly, as if whispering to some unknown force. Slowly his voice grew louder, until it could be heard, "Reth. K von von. Ko ta k reth. Kranu ra brom kel'shae." over and over. As his words grew, so did the greenish sheen in the draenei's eyes and on his hands.

                After what seemed like forever to the mage, though it had been perhaps a minute, the words stopped and the green sheen in the large blue man's eyes and over his hands turned into a fiery red. As he looked at the conjured ball of fire floating in the middle of the room he smiles. Slowly, as though it were some undulating creature the fireball grew. Not in size, but in intensity and heat, until it was almost unbearable to look at, and it was unbearable to be in the room.

                The mage, surprised by the amount of power being put into his fireball, realized he could no longer feel the arcane behind the fire. It was as though the elemental magic of the shaman had burnt the arcane away. And as bright and intense as the ball of fire was, it went out with barely a whisper, and there, where Shadoren had stood strong and proud a moment ago, was a man covered in sweat, down on one knee and panting.

                "Roath von." was all he seemed to be able to get out before looking at the mage with this look of, "Happy? Now you know the difference..."

Phasha

                The draenei priestess walked with purpose through the cavernous halls of Ironforge, her white robes flowing around her, making it as though she was floating. Only the clop of hooves against the stone floor gave any evidence as to her actually walking. Why her father chose to live in such a city was beyond her. She longed for the open air of the Aldor rise back in Shattrath, even if being in the remains of the once glorious city made her want to cry. Not that she ever would.

                "Now where did that dwarf say he lived? By the Mystic Ward?" the conversation with one of the guards as to the house of her father had been difficult, as her grasp on common was less than passable, and the dwarf wasn't helpful as he didn't know draenei, "How does father get along here? No one speaks our language."

                At last, she found the house. It seemed small for a cleric as devout as her father. Did the dwarves not know of his devotion to the Light? Walking up the stairs, stairs? Was this not an issue for him? to the front door and knocking gently as she mentally prepared for seeing her father for the first time in ten thousand years.

                Mutterd cursing in draenei could be heard in the house and she smirked to herself. Well father, you were never a morning person. AS the door opened she was suprised what she saw. It was her father, Shadoren, yes. But he seemed different.

                "Yes? Can I help you miss?" he asks.

                Unsure what to say she just stares blankly at the man in front of her. He was Shadoren. But he was differnt. The Light in his eyes was no longer there. What had happened to him?

                "Miss?"

                His words snapped her out of her stunned silence, "Are...are you Cleric Shadoren of Argus?"

                "Cleric?" he chuckles, "I haven't been called a cleric for about sixty years now. But I am Shadoren of Argus, a Farseer now. I followed Nobundo after...after my faith was shaken at Karabor."

                Thoughts raced through her head as she digested his words. His faith shaken? What had happened? Had he lost her mother? Did this mean he lost his connection to the Light? After his long lifetime of devotion?

                "Miss? Do I know you?" Shadoren seemed confused at the priestess' presence at his home. Especially so early in the morning after staying up late attempting to deduce the cause of the earthquakes with various other members of the Earthen Ring.

                Again, his words broke her out of her thoughts, "What happened to you? You used to be one of the most devout men I knew! Did something happen to mother at Karabor? No one I talked to seemed to know where she was. And what is this Farseer buisness? I thought Nobundo only took those.." her ranting went on and on, but Shadoren was stuck at one word. Mother. Why would he know what happened to her mother? Unless...

                "Ph...Phasha? Is that you? You survived Draenor!" he sweeps the girl into a hug, almost in tears. Sixty years of thinking he was alone in the world. And his daughter, long thought dead, comes right to his doorstep. His daughter. With Lycannon. That Elicoor had no knowledge of.

                "Of course it's me, father, who else would I be? What happened to you?"

                Sighing, he ushered his daughter into his home. This was going to be a very long and awkward conversation...

Well Fel...

                The draenei sighed as he sat in his small house in Ironforge. Ever since the incident on Bloodmyst with Lycannon, Jacob and that elf things seemed to get...complicated. Was he wrong for wanting peace? Was McSars right? He could only speak of peace because he might live one day to see it? And the added matter with Lycannon bringing up feelings they had lifetimes ago, plus their daughter being alive.

                "Well Shadoren old boy, what to do what to do..."

                He sighs once again and pinched the bridge of his nose, an action that was becoming more and more common as things because frustratingly difficult.  He ran the words of McSars over and over in his head. Did he have no conviction? Or loyalties? Did he not aid in every way possible in Northrend? Always there with a blessing, or healing, and if need be even the fury of the Elements upon the Scourge.

                McSars seemed so upset when he spoke of his thoughts of Varian and his attitude towards the Horde, would Shad react the same had someone insulted Velen? Of course he would. He folowed the Prophet across the cosmos. His faith in Velen was unwavering, but would he blindly attack a lone member of the Horde if Velen said to do so?  The elf, what did she say her name was? Ashendari. She seemed just as welcoming to peaceful conversation as he was. Even if she was a blood elf. Had she attacked Lycannon, or even McSars as annoying as he could be sometimes, he would have defended them withouth a second thought. But to attack just to attack? The doubt in his mind was disheartening.

                Of course I would have defended Lycannon and McSars, they are my friends and allies. His thoughts wander to all of his friends. Elicoor, Phasha, Elyona. Even Hellissa, though their friendship was still rocky due to the almost marriage.

                "I need to think...maybe a walk will do me good."

                The Forge was bustling as always as he slowly sauntered around the city, hooves echoing in the cavernous city. Being under the Earth made him feel closer to the Elements. Stormwind was just too much like a city for him. And he found being around humans too much gave him a headache, with very few exceptions.  Walking through the Mystic Ward back to his house, he looks at the small pool of water there, seeming to meditate for a moment while looking at the calm pool.

                "Fel..."