“A secret? What, I didn’t offer any of those…”

Kyuusei sighed. “Fine. But we have to go to Stormwind.”

* * *

Walking through the pumpkin patch in Stormwind, the druidess explained.

“The Cenarion Circle didn’t recognize female druids until after the Third War. It doesn’t mean we didn’t exist, it just means we weren’t welcomed. We had no formal training, no acknowledgment, no voice. Most druids seek out Cat and Bear and other spirits as part of their training. Some are approached by those spirits before they’re ever trained, and the Circle takes them in to help them understand and adapt.”

Kyuusei stopped near the edge of the field. A giant Ancient of Lore stood in the distance, tended by a group of night elves. Refugees from Teldrassil, kaldorei and Gilnean alike, were scattered through the farm - helping the human farmers, resting in tents, sitting around campfires, conversing in small knots.

“Cat came to me almost two centuries before the Third War. But we were still in the Long Vigil, and the few druids awake from the Dream were of the Circle - they wouldn’t recognize me, didn’t care. So what should’ve been a gift was... confusing, terrifying, as Cat and I struggled with each other. I’m not sure how long we wandered through Darkshore, but we were tired and hungry and weak and still fighting with each other when we stumbled across an old Kaldorei hunter’s campsite.”

“He recognized us. What we were, how we were fighting each other.” Kyuu smiled. “He wasn’t a druid, but he knew beasts, he understood. And he taught us. He couldn’t teach me to be a druid, but he taught Cat and me, he taught us, to be me. Until the Circle finally relented, he was my only teacher.”

“He wouldn’t let me call him Shan’do, but Shan’da - I guess you’d use grandfather - that’s the only name I’ve ever had for him.”

Kyuu motioned towards one knot of refugees. A male kaldorei with visible signs of age and wild, greying hair sat at a campfire, playing cards with a grey-muzzled Worgen. Three young women, kaldorei and Gilnean, sat nearby - and the old Night Elf occasionally made some unheard remark to the trio that resulted in an outburst of laughter.

“I found a place for him in Nighthaven, but he won’t leave. He never minded living rough, and he says nobody plays cards there. I think the sly old coot just likes having an audience.”

@inkedwolf-compendium writes: Share a memory, big or small, that has shaped your muse’s fears, trust, or mindset into what they are today.

It was an old dream.

She was lost.

She knew this forest, knew it by sight and smell and sound and touch from when she was a child. But not from these eyes, not by these smells. Not this form. This form was sleek and powerful, even as she was afraid and lost.

The shape of her wished to prowl, death-in-darkness, through the undergrowth. Yet she stumbled through brambles, night-birds and rabbits scattering before the all-too-obvious noise of her passing. The spirit she shared scented prey, stalked it with deadly purpose. She pounced, more clumsy than any cub, with nothing in her claws but leaves.

Hunger gnawed at her.

This had been a gift. But the gift fought with her even as she fought with it, neither fully accepting the other, neither willing to release its grip.

There. A scent. Many. The smoke of dry wood burning. Meat, dripping fat. Two legs, old. Four legs, guarding pack.

The spirit snarled. But she padded forward.

Four legs, barking alert. Her shape yearned to leap forward, to silence the alarm before pack came forward. But two legs was the only pack that four legs guarded.

Two legs sat at the fire, tending three skinned rabbits on a spit.

Our rabbits, her shape chastised. But she ignored that voice and crept into the flicking edges of the firelight. A turn of rabbit on the spit, and two legs turned his head to sight her unerringly, his eyes gleaming in the reddish light of the fire. One hand waved towards four legs, and created silence.

“Ishnu-alah, young one. Well, aren’t you a sight?”

A snarl, both in surprising unison.

“No need to be like that. You’re fighting you, not me. Come.”

She took a tentative step forward, and the shape snarled again before she could quiet it.

“See? Fighting yourself. Come. The fire’s warm, there’s rabbit to share, Tag won’t bother you. Come.” Two legs patted the ground, then turned back to tend the rabbits.

They crept forward. They bared her teeth to four legs, but four legs remained silent and only watched, true to two legs’ will.

Wordlessly, two legs took a rabbit from the spit and tossed it to the ground before her. The meat was hot, but not charred. Still red. They sniffed, pawed once, then settled to feed.

Two legs nodded approval before tossing a second rabbit to four legs. The third, he returned to the spit.

The rabbit was bones for gnawing by the time two legs took his own from the spit. Hunger sated, she was content. She groomed her fur, smoothing the tangles of her earlier clumsiness. The fire was warm. Four legs guarded. 

She curled up to doze in the warmth.

“Easier when you’re not fighting, isn’t it, girl?” The old Kaldorei took a blanket from his pack and spread it over her. Tag, on the other side of the fire, whined once before returning to worrying his bones. She reached with one hand to tug the blanket over her bare shoulder.

Lost no longer.