Chapter Text
Rescuing Winter Veil
By the light of the full moon, Meshanka peered over Olwyn’s shoulder armor at the Greench standing in the snowy vale before his cave.
“I don’t know Olwyn, he looks pretty tough...” Meshie tried to keep the trembling that shook her body and her pointy elven ears from registering in her voice.
“He’s a yeti, mon. We jus’ kill ‘im.” Tia murmured. She and Emi exchanged looks behind Meshie and Olwyn. The trolls nodded in agreement.
“Ya mon, Nightmare just needs some yeti-meat snackies.” Nightmare was Emi’s black hunting lion.
Wyn looked back over her shoulder, her eerie blue eyes glowed as she blew cold misty air in frosty jets at the group behind her. Being a Tauren Deathknight, Olwyn was not afraid of much in the world of Azeroth. She stood a full foot taller than Meshie. Tia and Emi were trolls, and taller than Olwyn when they chose to stand up. The two trolls hailed from the Darkspear Isles in the south of Durotar.
“We could send a message for help to Gulti and Neeli, I could send a messenger pigeon...” Meshie was stalling and trying not to be obvious about it.
“They opened that vegetarian restaurant in Thunder Bluff, they’ve been very busy lately. Plus, they’re across the sea from us now, no pigeon is going to fly fast enough for them to help us tonight.” Olwyn stomped a hoof, gave Meshie a slow blink and turned back to face her foe. “The children in the orphanage need the toys and gifts the Greench has stolen, and it is my solemn duty to fulfill that quest here. The Greench must die.”
The Greench could be defined as a yeti, if vastly overgrown for one of his race. He had greenish fur and massive horns curling out of his head. Gaily wrapped Winter Veil gifts were tied, dangling from each horn like earrings. His massive muscled arms were supported on the ground by his knuckles. Even as he sat on his haunches, he towered ten feet off the snow-covered ground in front of his cave.
Kai arrived on her raptor mount, from around the back of the hill where Meshie and the others were hiding behind Olwyn.
“Am I late mon?” Asked the troll shaman as she jumped off, giving her mount a smack on the rump to send him over to the rest, grouped downhill and away from the Greench.
“A little,” murmured Olwyn, “but we have not decided the best attack yet, and we are waiting for Nrublous and Shizaru.”
“I am here.” Nru’s dry voice came from above. The undead Warlock was sitting in the tree overhead, “I have been waiting to see what you would do.”
Startled, Meshie looked up.
Olwyn only shot him a mildly annoyed glance.
A shadow passed through the moonlight overhead, and Zaru, in the form of a dragon arrived with a thump. Meshie’s gaze snapped back to the Greench to see if he had noticed their gathering yet. So far, he gave no indication he’d noticed them, but he was turning his head and sniffing the air in the moonlight.
Zaru reshaped himself back into the troll shaman he was and Meshie suddenly felt like the shortest person on Azeroth. Now that the bulk of her friends had assembled, her confidence rose a notch. A deathknight, two hunters, two shamans, and a warlock. With Meshie as the priest to heal them, they would make short work of the Greench.
Meshie took a few deep breaths of the frigid night air, shivering both from cold and nerves for the battle to come.
“Very well, I think we now have all the help we can reasonably expect, Meshie.” Olwyn’s big hand weighed down Meshie’s shoulder momentarily. Elves were tougher than they looked, but Meshie nearly sat down under the pressure of her friend’s gentle (for a Deathknight) pat. “I have been told he throws... things... at his opponents.” Wyn’s voice rumbled in what passed for a whisper for one of her race.
“Then those of us who cast magic should remain far enough back to stay out of his way.” Meshie looked at the Shamans and Warlock significantly, “Those of you who can hit him directly, hit him hard and quickly.”
Olwyn marched toward the monster before the cave, and the hunters sent their pets in behind her, a black lion and an orange and black tigress slinking in her footsteps. Meshie prepared a spell of healing and the two shamans set their power totems with softly glowing light a few paces to either side of Meshie’s position.
Olwyn’s war cry echoed off the cliff face, and the combat began. Meshie could see Olwyn’s form like a black shadow with blue glowing eyes against the mass of the monster before them all, and the first blow landed on the Greench’s shoulder. He roared his pain and displeasure and swung a wild arm at his tormenter, but suddenly the two big cats came behind the beast to worry at his ankles, fearlessly without regard to their own safety.
Meshie unleashed the first of her healing spells and it raced in a beam of gold light to Olwyn, and expanded out to heal both big cats. In the meantime, Nru had cast a rain of fire bolts from the sky which caught little fires on the yeti’s fur and enraged him further. Both Zaru and Kai were casting spells of their own, which caused more howls of fury from the Greench.
Suddenly the Greench whirled, and pulled something out of his cave, a Winter Veil tree, lighted with fireflies. He threw it, and it landed miraculously upright, beside Meshie. Distracted from the battle, Meshie gazed at the beautiful tree, blazing with the light of the agitated fireflies. So pretty! It was exactly the sort of thing she and her friends were here to reclaim for the orphans in Orgrimmar. The light bathed her position, and suddenly she realized it actually made her visible to the Greench. He had correctly deduced that she was keeping Olwyn and all his other attackers alive, and set the tree there to pin-point where she was.
Uh-oh! As soon as Meshie realized what he was about to do, she tried to move, but he was fast. The Greench threw Olwyn aside and then leapt at Meshie. Meshie cast a desperate heal spell at Olwyn, meanwhile Zaru and Kai were tossing spells of their own at the Greench. He still landed on Meshie, full force, but Olwyn had scrambled up and come across the snow-covered vale to leap on his back.
Enveloped in stinking fur and squashed flat, Meshie let out an instinctive psychic scream which penetrated the Greench’s mind and made him run from her in unreasoning fear, with Olwyn clinging to his back and pounding him with her free hammer arm. Zaru retook dragon form and flew after the fleeing Greench, both hunting cats running after the over-sized yeti, and both Hunters firing arrows at the abominable opponent. Olwyn jumped free when she felt the wind from Zaru’s wings, and the shaman landed on the Greench’s shoulders and drove him into the snow at the base of a tree. The Greench drew a last agonized breath and collapsed for good.
Olwyn cheered in victory, and the pounding of hooves came up the vale as Zany arrived, late. “What did I miss, mon? I was waylaid by leper gnomes on my way.”
Meshie hauled herself to her feet, dusting off her robes. “You missed the fight Zany, but you can help us carry all these toys back to Orgrimmar. The orphans will be so happy to get these tomorrow.”
Zany was a lanky troll Deathknight, who had served with Olwyn in the times before their return to life and light. His glowing eyes flashed as he nodded, turning to follow Olwyn and the rest back to the Greench’s cave.
Meshie couldn’t see all the mud and forest muck that undoubtedly covered her from the tips of her pointy elven ears to her feet, but she could feel it. Staggering after the rest, she wondered if she could ever get the stink of yeti fur out of her nose or clothes.
The rest had gone into the cave, murmuring over sacks of toys and treats the Greench had stolen. More Winter Veil trees were crammed into the back of the cave too. A few paces behind the rest, Meshie heard the light clop of hooves and the snort of a deer to her right. She cast a light spell, and in a pen beside the cave, stood a lone reindeer. She recognized it as the pet of the orphans in Orgrimmar!
“I have found Metzen! We must bring him home too.”
“I’ll carry him home, mon.” Zaru said.
“Just promise me you won’t eat him....” Meshie let the thought trail off.
“I will give you a ride, and you can remind me not to.” Zaru’s dragon voice was loud and rumbly. He waited patiently while the others piled sacks of toys on his back.
Olwyn and the rest had rounded up their mounts, and Zany led Meshie’s hawkstrider for her, and they all made their way, following Zaru with Meshie.
Tiny elven Meshie perched on a toy sack near Zaru’s head, whispering to him not to eat Mezten every few minutes for the entire freezing flight back to Orgrimmar.
The sun was rising in the east as the adventurers finally slogged in through the front gates of Orgrimmar. The city was carved out of a winding canyon in a naturally defensible location. The orphans were still asleep, thank goodness.
Zaru landed beside the rest as they trailed in, and set the frightened reindeer in his home pen beside the Orphan home. Meshie climbed down stiffly, the mud had dried, frozen into her robes. Olwyn and Tia climbed up Zaru’s shoulder and helped pass sacks of toys and treats down to Emi, who passed the sacks to Kai, who in turn handed them to Zany, who set them in a stack. Once the Zaru was unloaded, he grabbed the biggest of the Winter Veil trees they had managed to save, and stood it upright behind the stack before turning back into his normal self.
“I told you I heard something!” Burnetta’s voice piped up from a window in the orphanage, and her cousin Bernex stuck her head out beside Burnetta’s.
“Hurray!”
“I told you Winter Veil would still happen!” shouted Hymlik, Burnetta’s brother.
Bernex’s glad, out-door voice woke all the other orphans and soon the street in front of the orphanage was full of excited children. Burnetta, Bernex and Hymlik were Tauren kids, but there was a mix of orc, troll and elven children too.
Meshie watched a rare smile crack Olwyn’s face as the gift wrappers went flying.
“This,” she said to her beaming friends, “is exactly why I am willing to face the monsters of the world!”
“Happy Winter Veil, everyone!” said Meshie, a call that was echoed back from every window in Orgrimmar.