Hope from the Horde

Thank you guys for your patience. I was out of town at the end of last week through Sunday, and I had a great time, but didn't take along a computer. No smut in this chapter, saving it for the next one :) This is just a bridge, but the next chappie should be up in a couple of days. I hope you enjoy it :)

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Time was what she needed. It was this that the healer told her every time that she visited. There was not much point in chafing against her restrictions, but the draenei wanted to run free again, climb, visit the special places in this land that she had discovered. She missed communing with the Spirits of these wild and free places, and as much as the Spirits of the city of Dalaran were willing to speak, they were civilized, old spirits with none of the wild place energy that was present elsewhere. Dalaran's ripping away from the earth itself had seen to that.
still moved stiffly, but her companions felt safe leaving her for the day now. They went to hunt and fish, taking care of the trio's daily needs. She was now able to take herself to the baths, wash her own hair, and even able to carve a little jewelry now and again, but the Flightmaster flatly forbade her to ride even one of the tame gryphons, even if she only wanted to ride to her home at Crusader's Pinnacle and exchange a few of her worn items for some better ones. Besides, there was something teasing at the outside edge of her memory. Something she was forgetting that she just knew that she needed.

The holes in her memory were frustrating. There was much more than just the blacked-out period in Naxxramus, there were also other holes that she found now and again, things that related to what she couldn't remember happening. Finally gathering her courage around her, Calistera settled in a comfortable wicker chair and sent her mind in that peculiar twisting pattern of within and without.

Floating through the twisting nether searching was nothing new for the Shaman. She called, and searched, and before too long she was answered by the first of the Naaru she had ever met: O'ros.

"Greetings, Shaman. How may I assist you?"

"Greetings, O'ros. I have come about my memories." If there was an acrid touch to her mind-voice, who would have blamed her?

"Ah." He lapsed into silence for a time, and Calistera was content to wait. In her experience, the Naaru didn't do anything quickly. Their extended lifespans made for a warped definition of time for them, and in addition to that they tended to take the long view. Finally he spoke. "It was thought that you would be better off without them."

"Why?" No rancor in that question, just a simple request for information. They would do as they thought best, and she had one chance to get them to explain, if, indeed they would explain anything at all.

He sighed, the sound seemed to echo all around her. He seemed sad, as if there were things he would like to hide from her, but could not.

"You were damaged, some of us thought perhaps beyond repair. Some of us thought beyond your ability to heal your own mind if you remembered all. We could not take some without taking all the parts, things related. This is why you have problems remembering now."

"Some of my elemental knowledge is missing. There are things I know I should be able to do but cannot. I can see in my mind's eye a twisting bright bar of light, it should be at my command, but I no longer know the word to call it. I can smell the ozone in the air as it is released, and it seems to me that it was a great defense for me at one time, but I cannot recall the spell, cannot release the...." She trailed off, frustrated, knowing that she should have known this.

"Hmm..." O'ros hummed while thinking to himself. "Perhaps there is a way. Hmmm."

All she could do was wait while the Naaru considered his options. Begging the Naaru was not an option, nor was violent confrontation, not for a Shaman. These beings of Light had been her spirit guides since she was a small kid.

"The memories will never be truly yours, Shaman." The Naaru finally said. "They will never be yours again. You will only see them at one remove, as though they happened to someone else. There is more to your future than will be accounted for if I simply shoved the memories back into your skull."

"As you wish, O'ros."

"I wish I did not have to do this at all. Your inability to call lightning, though, is serious, and some of the damage must be repaired."

"Lightning." She repeated the word after him, and knew how to call it again, how to bend it to her will, how to use it to her defense, and how to chain it from creature to creature. The simple word activated the chain of memories, and she watched somewhat impassively as she saw what had happened in Naxxramas, how her allies had betrayed her. How she had been mercilessly tormented and raped, and how the Orc and Tauren had come to her rescue. The memories came back as she watched herself, but although she felt horror at the memories, it was as O'ros had said, it was as if it had happened to someone else, a close friend, perhaps, but not her. She realized that it was a mercy, that she would be able to sleep tonight, and most nights after without obsessing over things that were false, but that she knew females who had been taken against their will wrestled with.

"The other memories will return slowly." Said O'ros gently. "I am sorry all this happened."

"It happened. What is, is." She smiled at her former teacher, who apparantly had some things to learn himself about life. "There is no changing what has happened. Now I must live in spite of it, in spite of them."

From the tone of her voice, O'ros understood that it was a good thing for those that were dead. At least now she wouldn't be able to seek them out and butcher them. Her tone promised death, eternal torment, promised a lifetime of screams, but the ones deserving of this treatment were already gone, already mindless slaves to Arthas.

He spoke this to her.

"Aye, they are. Mindless slaves to the Lich King, and serve them right to live in eternal death and servitude." She paused for a moment, "Even I could not do so much to them as they have done to themselves by virtue of the place they chose to do this thing to me."

"What now?" Came the gentle mind-voice of the Naaru. He was somewhat distressed at the distress of his old student.

"I will return to Northrend and fight the Lich King as I have been."

The light of the Naaru shone upon her, and she knew that he was pleased with her response. It had been his mission to destroy the Burning Legion before, but Arthas was more of a threat than even the Legion.

"There is one more thing that I keep forgetting..." She trailed off even as the Naaru pushed her out of his place and back into her own mind.

"What are you forgetting?" Asked Serroc, quietly.

"I am not sure. There is something, something that will happen if I don't...." She probed her memories for the needed item and it continued to elude her.

"It is late, Cali. We should rest, you should eat, and have a drink. You were in a trance when we returned home, and that was before sundown. It is now nearly midnight."

"Really?" She was slightly surprised. She'd been in trances longer, but usually she felt stiffer when she emerged. Of course she was already feeling pretty stiff when she'd tranced, so perhaps...but her movement was fluid when she rose, and she felt better than she had in a long time. "I feel so much better, so much stronger."

It was then that Nargsmarsh caught the first scent of phermones and realized exactly what it was that the Draenei had forgotten. The potion, the potion most Horde females used religiously to keep them from going into heat. It wasn't a problem that he had considered with Alliance, their races seemed to always be in season, like the blood elves, he'd neglected to think about the Draenei's possibility and plan accordingly.

He looked cautiously over at Serroc, whose nostrils had flared wide at the scent now rolling off the female. The Tauren seemed to be even more susceptible to it than the Orc. Nargsmarsh visibly controlled himself and forced himself to stop staring at the Draenei's shapely backside. The Tauren attempted but wasn't quite as lucky.

"Cali," said Narg in a strangled tone of voice. "I think I know what you forgot."