(14) Hyjal

The journey north had been long and tiresome. She had passed through miles of boiling desert, traversed strange jungles and forests. She had seen creatures unlike any before, from great yetis down to small rodents. It was truly an awakening experience, and Rhia was awed at the sights of the Twin Colossals and of the dry, salty plains in the Thousand Needles. She had starved, almost died from dehydration, yet it had not broken her will.

Despite everything however, she could not find her people. Was it just a rumor then, that her people were in fact all dead and she was the last of her kind? It seemed improbable. After all, if she had lived, then surely others had as well. Such thoughts she tried to keep out of her head, as well as the thoughts of her nightmares.

Ever since the war, Rhia had been suffering from Nightmares. She saw her families mutilated bodies on the streets of Zin'Azshari, saw herself kill her brother a hundred times, and relived each and every death of her few friends and colleagues. When she had been in the company of the traitorous trolls, she had kept them a secret, but she had suffered all the same. And as of late, the nightmares seemed to have been getting worse.

Despite everything, she eventually found herself slowly beginning the climb up Hyjal. It was around and on this mountain that she found her people. At first, she did not recognize them; there seemed to be more females than males, and the buildings seemed so different, so at tune with the land around it. Eventually she mustered the courage and approached the largest settlement which would later become Nighthaven in Moonglade.

Here, in what was becoming a city, she began to converse with various Night Elves, who had begun to return to their old routes after so much war. Exploring the new settlement, she oddly felt...Nothing. There was no old, happy memories stiring in her mind. Everything seemed so alien, so out of place and different. It felt as if she no longer knew her people, and felt odd standing among them.

From one merchant, a man named Fllian Shadecrest, she learnt a lot about the new elvish society. The old army had been disbanded, reformed by a new warrior army of exclusively females known as the sentinels. Druidism, something new based around nature or something of the like, had also taken shape. The Priestess' of Elune had taken on a more leading figure, and a police force or jailers of such had been set up with the formation of the Wardens. The new Night Elf society had become focused around being at one with nature, rejecting their magical heritage that had once brought their world almost to extinction.

Rhia was not sure what to think of these new changes. While she embraced the idea of the reformed army and of new organisations with a system that worked well with one another, she did not like the idea of the arcane being banned. That had once been the center of their society, the pillar. What would replace it, druidism? She had yet to see much about their work, but she was sure that it could not be greater in power than the arcane arts. Fillian stated that the arcane was the reason for the Legion's summoning to the world, but had it not also been the arcane which had helped to repel them?

After the conversation, Rhia realized that she would need to find some sort of work within the new society. Thankfully, Fillian had need of someone with some experience in alchemy and with herbalism. With some effort, recalling what little she had learned and had observed from her parents, she offered to aid him with his small merchant business. And so she found her work, and for the next year lived in relative peace. She found a new place of residence, in safety, and spent her days learning and helping Fillian with his work. Despite all of this though, and despite the friendship that had begun to form again between her and the merchant, she never felt at home or at peace with herself again.

Then, one fateful day, a sentinel outrider rode in to Nighthaven, bearing ill news. Rhia had not been there initially to hear what had been said, but from Fillian she learnt the dire news that the warrior women had shared. The remnants of the Legion forces, primarily Saytrs, had banded together in an effort to bring war back to the Night Elven people. The sentinels were being pushed back, and needed all the help they could get.

The burning desire for vengeance had never left Rhia. Despite warnings from Fillian, she signed up to join the sentinels, and made her way to join the war against the legion forces in what would become known as the War of the Saytr.