There was a moment as the sky rippled over head with a virulent green that punctured through the storm clouds that she wasn’t sure where she was. Her body aloft in the air as she was speeding through it with the wind knocked out of her and pain a distant thought as there was a finality coming through her senses. This was it. She was certain of it as she flew through the air and watched as the skies were opening up only for more of the invading ships to be coming in and dropping their shock troops upon the world. It couldn’t just be here, oh no, wherever she was in that fraction of a moment that seemed to last for an hour, those ships and those demons were coming down upon the world in complete totality.  This was it. WHACK The rockface that she found herself crashed into and bouncing off of was hard and unforgiving as the sense of wonder was gone. Her head rattled with the echo of the impact and as she fell completely down onto the ground and felt the strange sand underneath her back she was helpless to watch the world starting to fade to grey at the edges. The colors that were so bright and dangerous were muting. Sputtering out a breath she watched the skies wide eyed as the ripping pain in her right arm decided then was a good time to rip her out of her reverie. Pink mist left her lips as she coughed where she lay, broken on the broken shore with little more than a struggling breath and muted whine escaping her, the idea of even crying out was ridiculous but she tried just once and it only came out as a shattered whimper to the roar of demons overhead.  The graying world around her was brightened for a moment as she saw overhead the Val’kyr from the Forsaken Troops come sweeping overhead and picking up figures to carry them somewhere. To safety. They weren’t looking for the nearly dead woman, completely singed from her close encounter with an infernal that was missing an arm and broken posed on the ground.  No. She wasn’t their target at all.  “K...Kong...” She was trying to move as she lay back on the sand, only to find in a moment of panic that one arm wasn’t responding how the other was and how it had always. Weakly she tried to lift her arm to look at it, to see what the damage was and how she was going to fix it when wide eyes went wider. Where once a functioning arm had been, instead there was the nub from below her elbow and the creeping green that had been in the sky as it worked along veins and had completely burned the wound sealed. Terror started to grip her dizzied mind as she felt tears roll hotly down her cheeks in a state of panic.  Of course they hadn’t picked her up, she was a crippled version of herself.  “S...s...” Her breathing started to come in gasps as she lay there on the ground, trying to force out words that no one would ever hear, ragged breaths losing their strength where she lay.  “...sorry...” lub- Sitting upon the sand she looked over to see someone sitting on the stones, two someones in fact that watched her. One was so much older and yet so completely unfamiliar to her as she leaned against the rock and shook her head. The other she knew, she had known that face since she had been just a few months old, Lau sitting next to her and stroking her face but looking so incredibly firm.  “You aren’t allowed this, Mei. Papa cannot lose two of his daughters in the same year. It would break him.” The older woman came forward, reaching out her hand to Mei as she lay on the ground.  “C’mon and get up. Dust yourself off. Booger can’t lose both of us either.” Booger? But I ca-... she thought. “You can and you will.” A third came out of the mists that were starting to shroud her. An older tauren coming froward, elderly woman that she looked to be, and she smiled down at Mei, coming to cradle her head gently where she lay. “The spirits are calling to you, Skyflower, the scream their pain and torment and you can see us, which means you can help them. You, shaman, are needed.” I...I never trained to...she wanted to frown but as she actually looked down at her body she saw a white ethereal version of herself moving away, lifting out of her body much to the same that they looked. “The spirits choose, Skyflower. It is a gift, not something you can train for. They want you. They need you.” The elderly tauren spoke, even as her sister continued to stroke her face, reassuring her where she sat. Kneeling down at her feet then was the unfamiliar elderly pandaren, taking her by the leg and shaking it gently. “You can’t do this to him, can’t just give up when he prays and keeps faith in your strength. Marvels in it. You are so much a part of him you can’t just let that all go now. Hold it tight. That tight feeling in her chest, hold it.” “Wake up, Mei Mei. The world needs you.” “Take this, Skyflower. The spirits have work for you still.” -dub A great surge came from her chest as she gasped, screaming out in pain as the ships were leaving so that the great cry of pain and anguish echoed against the water. Trembling there against the ground the apparitions vanished from her sight and she dug her fingers into the earth beneath her. A ferocity there in her cry as she forced herself to roll over, each movement its own little agony as she pushed herself up from laying to kneeling in the strange dark sands she had fallen into. Her glasses lay to the side of her, broken from her face and shattered on the ground, they would be useless for her now.  Digging into the ground with one hand she dug whisped fingers of air into the earth itself, tearing into it as the rock beneath the sands came upwards and almost seemed to fuse with her skin, fingers of earth firmly taking their heavy hold as her tool there at her side as she used it to push herself up fully.  Run. The winds spoke to her, and even over the din of the demons roaring their success and motors in the distance of the signaled retreat, she could hear the wind and a rush of soft voices speaking to her. With her hair torn from the ribbons that held it all together, it whipped in the new winds that rushed around her.  Looking to the water she could see in the distance more land, and in that moment she could only hope that the pull of the elements that she felt in her chest would lead her to some form of safety.  Oh, if she only knew that for certain.  “I...have work to do.” The winds rest at her feet as she pushed her body with the very ladt she had and all she had been given towards the shores that were spread out just over the waters edge. Away from the Maelstrom and towards solid land where the elements and spirits all cried out, pleading for her to help them all if she could. To the waters edge she came and then across it. How she managed to never sink was well beyond her thoughts at that moment, she only knew one thing for certain.  She had to find safety. She had work to do. She had to survive. She had to.

How she made it back to the tent where she slept with Kong, how she made it back to what was home in a manner of speaking was beyond her ability to actually understand. Something had happened and she was sure that she had not walked this way, but as she lay in the furs, sobbing into the fur of a young wolf who did not understand why his mistress was so upset, it was her reality. His fur was warm in her hands and his stoic presence trying to comfort her was the best she was going to get for the moment as her words seemed to be failing her completely.  Tears rolled down her cheeks, staining what white fur she had on her muzzle with the salt within them as she openly wept, keening cries plaintitively crying out into the tent only muffled by the fur in front of her. Her body was a trembling mess, and briefly she was aware that her armor was gone and her nightshirt was in place, before the sobs brought her back to the pain that was the central focus of her night. Her body betrayed any semblance of control she might have had on a myriad of emotions, how she had been the rock for her beloved just the night before during his recovery from the horrors she had seen...and how alone she felt without him there, and how terribly small.  Curled up in a ball as she was the world seemed to fade away, her sobs mixing in upon themselves and compounding as the world faded gray. Her dreams fell into sad disarray, between the smile of her dear sisters face and the sudden horror of seeing her sisters skin neatly packed into a box that had had bits of others within its confines. She had even praised the person who had done the other leathers on their nimble knife work and how pleased Bailou would be with them. The condition of them so grand she was happy to have them within the storehouse...and that abject horror of a red and white skin she knew so well laying before her.  The sickening twist of her stomach and the sudden need for air had been so very real. In one twist of a moment all of her words had been robbed from her and only violent mourning remained. Her body had wanted to heave, to retch and relieve itself and even that simple action hadn’t been able to come to her, denied by the wracking sobs that took over her completely. There was no red, no anger, just grey sadness bleeding the color out of everything around her as it played over and over in her mind. Her beloved sister, laughing, playing, smiling...left as nothing more than skin in a box... Memories played over in her head, happy moments with her sisters bright face, guiding her around in the groups as they had grown up. A constant voice for her and a life preserver that had helped her guide the many social situations of her life. She had been the loud one, the one who knew her sister better than anyone else in the world ever would...and each time a memory played her sister slowly lost color until she was nothing more than a faded echo of herself and the crate came into view once more.  Gone. Lau is gone. Intermittently in her dreams she saw Quinh coming forward, in the few brief and candid moments she had had with the woman, from first meeting her as she struggled at the stoop of death’s door, one foot already over the threshold to where she had been coming about. Watching her recover, working with her to help rebuild her body...a playful grin on her face and a wink towards Xingba. Stolen glances that Mei had watched as she saw the pair look at each other from the corners of their eyes before going back to what they had been doing. There was something there, from the first time she had really seen them together in the flower garden in a place so private...and she too was tormented in Mei’s dreams...catching on fire right before her very eyes and burning, screaming, torn apart by an unseen force until all that was left was a singed tail laying within the box and then cradled in her hands... In the room she lay in Mal was there, Wei’feng was being dutiful in cuddling with his mistress as best as he could before leaving the tent periodically. The Thunderbluff air echoed his mournful cries as he tried to bring home the other half of the family. He was so young and she was in need in a way he knew that he could not fix nor provide the comfort for. She was breaking down in front of him and there was little the Garn could do...and so he called for help.  Back within the tent Mei’s nightmares caught a hold of her as she sniffled into the furs, lost and desperately reaching for a body that was not there. Briefly she realized in her dream that she was alone, that she was reaching for him and he simply wasn’t there and the torment of the heartache that she felt ripped at her soul.  “K-Kong....” Her voice was weak, thready even as she called out to him, hiccuping back her tears as she reached desperately only to find an empty space beside her where she lay. Her body shook with emotions and exhaustion that was settling into her as she lay...calling out for him wordlessly as her weeping started itself over once more. Wei, to his credit, came back into the tent after his mournful howls proved fruitless and he moved underneath her outstretched arm and let her hold onto him tightly.Though he was not what she wanted, he at least would work for the time being. Her dreams were a horrifying place, falling to the story that he had told her of what the Saurok had done to him, the torment and pain that he had been in there, her imagination running wild and loose and muddying the reality of the situation to the point where him, hanging by his hands and being peeled apart suddenly turned to him catching on fire. There in front of her as she was too weak to stop it from happening, Kong’huo was burning and looking at her desperately to help him until all that was left was an ear...that was tossed at her. “K-kong’huo...”  Desperately she reached out, her claws before her as she tried to reach for him as the dream shifted, once more a replay of her sister standing before her...before she was tied to a tree by her legs and was treated much the same way one would a deer. Her throat slashed open and gurgling as she was treated like just so much meat before an unknown force began taking her skin from her. She flinched, the memory twisting as she heard the cries filling the night air, hanging in a cage that was all too familiar to her dreams with bars so warm that they near scalded her back...the woman without a name who was screaming for mercy wordlessly as she was skinned for the entertainment of another. “N-no....” Constantly the faces changed, the people involved between Lau, Quinh, and Kong’huo...all being ripped from her time and again. Once more it felt like her world was shrinking, the numbers dwindling and the familiar sound of doubt speaking to her came once more. ‘Of course, because they all leave, Mei. It’s because of you...it’s always been because of you...’ Back in the tent Mal had managed to make a sort of makeshift pillow for Mei, a shirt of Kong’s wrapped around a bag and tied in place seemed to help at least a little as visibly her stirrings slowed but her mind was a raging torment of gore and pain that was on constant repeat. Now and a again she would hear a howl in the distance that sounded like Mai’go crying out sadly to the night air that simply made her heart twist in agony once more.  The one thing she needed was the one thing she didn’t have. Malourn was trying, with her cold presence, but even the deathknight knew that she was not what was really needed in the dark of night in that tent.