A/N: hello, dear readers! Welcome to volume six of the seven volume Saga of Sharimara, my tale of a half night elf, half jungle troll wandering the world. You DO NOT need to read any of my other stories for this one to make sense; all context will be given either in the narrative itself or in the paragraph below. Of course, I'd enjoy it if you read my other stories, but I won't force you to. This one can be read and enjoyed on its own, like most of the others.

This takes place in year 327 on the Warcraft timeline. For perspective, the Warlords of Draenor game expansion took place in the year 31; this is Azeroth 300 years in the future, where the events of the games are just blips in history books. Enjoy!

Miles and miles. For miles and miles, that southern ocean stretched out. For miles and miles, the shallows lined that natural sandbar that never seemed to end. For miles and miles, no other signs of intelligent life could be seen. And for miles and miles, that frightened orc man ran.

Legs pumping and chest heaving, the green skinned gambler fled, running along the strange sandbar that led south from the southernmost island in the world, in the southernmost ocean in the world, on the southernmost piece of solid land in the world. Crossing latitudes that not even trade and exploration ships sailed, the frantic man ran until all he could see was the blue of the sky, the blue of the sea, and the light beige color of the bizarre sandbar he was using to escape.

But there was no escape. And when he tripped in a particularly sloshy patch of wet, briney sand, he realized the futility of his own actions.

For hours, he'd run. Every muscle in his legs ached, every joint in his body popped, every expensive article of designer clothing was covered in salt water and clean mud, yet he'd run. But when he lied face down in the mud of the sandbar, feeling the exhaustion finally hit him, he gave up. Pushing himself into a kneeling position, he surveyed his surroundings as he sucked air into his raw lungs.

So far from solid land, the ocean was intimidating. Without a large, dry piece of the planet to slow down the tides, the waves were huge. Off in the distance, he could see some that were at least twenty feet high...and it was a mild day with very little wind. For much of the year, that sandbar was probably completely under water, covered by all the waves that were far rougher than anything he saw on the beaches of the island he'd tried to make his home. To flee so far away from the shores of Chi-Ji had been an exceedingly foolish gamble on his part, he realized. And as he waited for his pursuer to fall upon him, he hoped she'd at least respect the fact that he'd admitted defeat in his collapse.

Her tone as she flung him to the ground said otherwise.

"Hands behind your head!" the acrimonious voice hissed from behind him as he was knocked down into the mud again.

Doing as he was told, he quickly found both wrists yanked behind his back and then bound together in a piece of rope. She was rough when she grabbed him by the ankles and bound them in the same fashion, frightening him for a few seconds when he honestly worried that she was about to drown him in the ocean.

But who was he kidding? He owed somebody money. Killing him would be like tossing all that money into the ocean with him.

"I yield, I yield!" he yelped as she flipped him over onto his back. The sky was just cloudy enough that the light illuminated his captor rather than blinding him to her, though he could have done without the piercing green eyes glowing with non fel magic.

The warden loomed over him like a dark, angry shadow, her flowing cape and pointy, batlike ears complemented the sharp edges of her plate armor in a horrific way. As if torturing him without really torturing him, she dragged the silence out, staring at him h til he began to squirm.

"Even...even on the southernmost land mass in the world, behind the southernmost latitude in Azeroth, it seems I can't get a break from creditors," the orc laughed nervously.

The warden just continued to stare down at him, unmoving even as fifteen foot wave rolled toward the sandbar from about a mile away, gradually picking up speed.

Sighing deeply through his nose, the man let the back of his head sink into the soft, damp sand. "Look...I just need another week-"

"Three days," the warden muttered, cutting him off.

His eyes flew open and his head snapped up. "Three da...how the fel am I supposed to come up with ten thousand gold in three days!" he gasped once he realized she wasn't joking.

Dark green eyes glowered at him. "You're the gambler. Figure it out."

Without a syllable more, she turned around and began to walk away, her metal ninja boots pattering on the soft sand. She didn't get very far before he realized how much trouble he really was in.

"If that wave off to the east sweeps me away, Yao Guai will never get paid!"

The warden didn't stop walking. "But you'll die, and I'll spread the word in every bar and den on the island. And your death will serve as a warning to anybody else who bails in their debt repayment date," she shouted back at him over her shoulder.

Bucking his feet like a helpless worm, the orc began to panic as the sound of the crashing wave about half a mile away reached his ears. "My winnings are in my safe deposit box! The key is in my boot!" he blurted out desperately.

The warden stopped walking, standing just out of his view as the wave approached. "If you turn out to be lying, and I let you go now, I can still find your sister over at Angkhal City," she warned him as she began to return to his spot in the shallows.

"You're sick!" he whined as she removed the key from his boot and cut the rope binding his ankles with the razor sharp talon that tipped the compartment in her gauntlet for her index finger.

Before she'd even taken another step away, the orc found himself lifted up off the ground by the eight foot tall giantess. Holding him by his free legs, she let him dangle in the air in front of her, the only parts of her he could see being her moon blessed greaves and the long indigo ponytail reaching almost that far toward the ground.

"I know."

Before he even knew what was happening, he hit the surface of the water just beyond the shallows adjacent to the sandbar. Thrashing with his feet, he found swimming without the usage of his hands exceedingly difficult. Panic increased exponentially inside of him as he began to run out of air, and he bonked his head against the shallows as he literally stuck his ass up in the air and pushed himself forward like a wheelbarrow, flopping back onto the sandbar like a fish and coughing up seawater.

He rolled over, realizing that the wave was rapidly approaching; he'd have to sprint for dear life and worry about freeing his hands later. The warden was nowhere to be seen.

Sharimara smoothed out her kimono with her free hand as she walked down the sidewalk toward the loan office. The garment was Kaldorei in origin, harking back to her mother's side of the family, though the tailor had needed to widen the midsection to accommodate her hips - a gift from her Darkspear father's side. Even two and a half centuries after their natural deaths, they still popped into her mind at odd times, especially in environments where she felt a little out of place. And even after eighteen years since she'd washed up on the shores of Chi-Ji, she still felt a bit out of place in the realm of the pandaren.

The safe deposit box clinked in her hand, a testament to her prowess at her job. Unseen by security and even bank staff, she'd cast her blink spell while behind the bank in order to teleport to the other side of the wall, literally just walking in to the main vault unhindered. That she hadn't even worn a disguise while doing so was a testament to her precarious balancing act between confidence and arrogance, a fault that had been absent in her parents, aunt and uncle but ran in many of the generation after them. There were very few people walking the streets of the market district that evening, a rarity in a bustling port city like Balrissa.

Though Sharimara much preferred it that way...if she couldn't find any shadows to walk in, she could at least be relatively anonymous and unnoticed as she wove in and out of the cramped, narrow streets in between the various wooden shophouses and contracting offices in the far corner of a darker, more isolated corner of the district. Only a few local pandaren were present as she walked up aged wooden stairs to the second story of a small office complex, haggling over cured snake meat and paying the funnily dressed foreigner no mind for the few brief seconds that she was in viewing distance of them.

Inside the shared hallway of the wooden office building sporting an older architectural style that didn't use bricks or glass, Sharimara sped up her pace. At the far end of the hallway, outside the office that served as her employer's headquarters, two of her coworkers flirted. Lashka, an overweight but rather cute orc who was skillful at hiding her conniving nature, leaned against the wall opposite the office and looked rather pleased with herself. Leaning over her in a suggestive way that made Sharimara want to shout at both of them was Hardinger, the only human still living in Balrissa.

The two of them nodded to Sharimara as she approached the office, and she could already feel her emotional walls rising around her. If she could live out her days without actually needing to speak to or interact with living beings other than her targets, it would suit her just fine.

"Job well done, Shari?" Lashka asked as the warden walked by.

Strategically waiting until she'd already stepped into the front office, Sharimara answered through the door that was always open twenty four hours a day. "Job well done," she replied, forcing herself to use a polite tone of voice.

Inside the front office, two more coworkers spoke about more serious matters. It wasn't surprising that they were born people Sharimara could actually tolerate being around, other than the green and pink couple outside who were just a few seconds away from swallowing each other's faces.

The goblin secretary at the desk looked up first. "That's what we like to see!" Dilly beamed while eyeing the stolen safe deposit box in Sharimara's hand.

The second person, a greying pandaren woman who was technically the highest ranking of them, turned and adjusted her glasses. Mao Mao narrowed her eyes upon seeing Sharimara's kimono; foreigners often mistook the night elf garment for a pandaren one despite the fact that, to both peoples, it looked nothing like that at all. The sight of the locked box quickly lightened the mood of the sister and partner of the big boss, however.

Mao Mao pulled out her skeleton key. "Let's see what the legendary gambler has hidden," the furry old woman chuckled to herself.

Placing the box on Dilly's desk, Sharimara folded her hands in front of herself and struck a stiff, attentive posture while the second in command unlocked the supposedly safe box. Dilly rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

"Serves him right for thinking he could run out on his debt...oh wow!"

The box popped open, sending a few stray poker chips flying as the lid hit the surface of the desk. Bills from multiple currencies, coins minted from at least three precious metals and an assortment of precious stones were inside, testifying to the errant gambler's ability to repay his debts despite repeated claims otherwise. A sly, wry smile subdued by years of shrewd business deals with partners held honest only by the threat of force peeled across Mao Mao's lips as she held up a particularly smooth cut diamond to the candlelight.

"Yes...this should cover what the man owed as well as all of our operating costs for the rest of the year," the old pandaren hummed. "Shari, you're a veritable gold mine."

The warden's facial expression didn't change. "Thank you, mistress," she replied, ever mindful of showing respect to the family of loan sharks even if it meant occasionally humbling herself in front of a woman less than half of her age.

Winking at Dilly and sliding the poker chips to her as a gift, Mao Mao scooped up the rest of the items inside of the box and closed it again. "I'll take these to Yao Guai...I think he'll want to weigh everything himself. But rest assured, Warden Hearthglen, that your bonus will be quite handsome for your twelfth anniversary with us this year."

"I am honored," Sharimara replied while holding her right hand to her heart in a miniature salute. "If everything is in order, I'll take my leave; I actually had to wake up before noon to block this fellow from skipping town."

"Yes, of course; I know you're a creature of the night," Mao Mao replied while leaving to her brother's office further back into the building. Coming from her, Sharimara considers the remark to be a great complement. "Consider your weekend to have started; I'll send Hardinger for you if there are any emergencies."

Laughter rang out from the hallway as the orc and human proved yet again that they had no shame, and Sharimara wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there. Her direct superior having given her the nod for the start of an extended weekend, she turned to leave Yao Guai's bail bonds and loan shark office and return to her proverbial cave to hibernate.

The shady office's deceptively cheery, honest secretary jumped up on top of the desk to grab the warden's attention. "Shari, before you leave," Dilly said while rummaging through the office inbox.

Sharimara's chest tightened as her emotional walls flew up again in anticipation of the ever present reminder of her isolation. "Another letter from my family, I take it," she stated plainly, refusing to let any of her true feelings slip through in her voice. "They usually only write to me once every quarter; this is a bit early."

Not realizing the danger she was putting herself in, Dilly deemed it her place to toss in a casual comment on the warden's (lack of a) personal life. "Well, they'd probably write to you every week like they used to if it weren't for the fact that you haven't replied in almost a decade," the diminutive goblin said while continuing to rummage through all the office mail. She missed the burning, acrimonious glare that Sharimara sent her way.

"Ah, here it is!" Dilly chirped while reading the envelope. "Hmm...I don't recognize the name this time."

That Sharimara had received enough unanswered mail from worried family members struck a hard blow against her walls, only causing her to recoil with false sarcasm. "What...is it another niece or nephew I've never heard of? Or more of their kids?" she asked with a fake smirk.

Not realizing the weekend of depression she was about to unleash, Dilly handed the letter over with a smile. "No, this person seems to be from another branch of your family entirely...some guy all the way over in freaking Feralas named Centrius Nightshade?"

For a few long, awkward seconds, Sharimara froze. Appropriate, considered that she actually experienced a heart palpitation for the first time in her life. The muscles in the back of her neck stiffened as she tried to calm the nerves that had been jarred in about half a millisecond. Dilly cocked an eyebrow at her curiously, and Sharimara began to worry that her cool exterior had been revealed for the fraud it was.

"Thank you, Dilly," she muttered while accepting the letter and tucking it into her kimono.

The goblin may or may not have replied; at that time, Sharimara wouldn't have been aware. Memories, feelings, questions...ghosts. All of them floated around her head, taunting her with the fact that after a century and a half, to merely hear a name out loud could still affect her so strongly.

Casting her blink spell to teleport above the roof and land on top of the building, Sharimara leapt from rooftop to rooftop as she sped home. Questions could be answered later. Until then, she just wanted to lock herself away and crawl into a dark hole for a while.