Adventure Loves Company, Too

Epilogue

A/N: Okay, so you have all spoken to me and I won't change the story. Even though there is one chapter in particular that still gives me nightmares at night because it embarrasses me just by existing. Oh well. I'm adding an epilogue on to the end of this one to set up for the sequel, "Rightly Considered Inconvenience."

Two years have passed since the incident in Desolace. The ramifications of the event were miniscule at best. The disappearance of a young girl was not of interest to anyone in the world, as there were more important things happening. During the past two years, Azeroth was wracked by cataclysms. The earth shuddered and seized, buckling against itself as Deathwing tore through the Maelstrom and wreaked havoc on the landscape. The Horde and Alliance had a brief moment in which they put their war on hold to dispose of the common enemy the patriarch of the Black Dragonflight gave them.

That time was all over, though. Deathwing was slain, his madness slowly being cleaned from the world, but its face would always bear the scars of the rising of the hour of Twilight. It was the dawning of the age of mortals.

The focus was forced for those two years from their mission. For two years, Gat and Jen'Zin in particular fumed. The new Warchief called upon them and forced them into work, not tolerating any deviation from his commands. While the two had no respect for Garrosh, they had no wish to push their luck against him. So, they waited. They made their plans. They kept in contact with their companions, and kept a particularly close eye on Soreledin, the undead warlock.

She was about as good of a Forsaken as she was a warlock. She was something of an anomaly among the undead, and was largely shunned by the rest of her peers. She had a sense of humanity to her that denied her that particular charm that the Forsaken usually had, and she still felt remorse for any harm done to innocents. Over the course of the first year, she had expressed intense regret for what she had done, and quickly agreed to help them right what had happened. She tried to shift her direction in her magic, but there were subtle differences between the arcane magics used by mages and the fel magic used by warlocks that she couldn't quite overcome. She settled instead on manipulating fel fire.

Gelt and Zalgash returned to their lives before. The tauren was highly reluctant to return to Thunder Bluff, and was met by the months-long lecturing and punishments for running off like he did, for so long. The orc returned to Strangethorn, and spent the same amount of months whipping the workers at Grom'gol back into shape. Bhazrael stayed near the two trolls, either out of unwillingness to return to Silvermoon or for lack of anything better to do. Or perhaps both.

Thal did not return to Darnassus. Instead, she backtracked to Ratchet, where she boarded a ship to Booty Bay and worked her way north to Stormwind. There, she sought out the parents of the girl that disappeared.

She found that the girl's parents were exactly as she imagined they would be. Her mother was of average height, her father slightly above average height. There was nothing remarkable about the pair, they were a very ordinary couple. When they opened the door, Thal sensed a kind of resignation about them. As the rogue talked to them and mentioned Claryssa, the woman's eyes sparked into life and she began to question the elf, wanting to know what happened to her daughter, beckoning her inside.

An inexplicable pang of guilt went through the rogue as she remembered that her original goal was to kill the girl. As she thought back on her actions, it occurred to her that the whole thing was absolutely preposterous and she was ashamed to remember it. It was embarrassing. She rather tactfully omitted that particular part of her tale, but she relayed pretty much everything else. The couple listened to her with minimal interruptions or reaction.

"That's all well and good, dear," the mother said finally, "but is she still alive?" Thal silenced the arrogant part of her brain that was instantly irritated by being called "dear."

"We don't know," she admitted. "We hope that she will be. We're going to be going after her. Eventually."

"We?" mom asked. "Meaning, the other guys will be going too?" The woman's voice wavered slightly. She was clearly disturbed at the idea of her daughter cavorting with Horde men. Thal forced out a light-hearted laugh to try to make her feel better.

"Don't worry, it's nothing like that," the elf said, waving her hand as if dismissing the mother's fears. "These guys are the biggest group of bleeding hearts I've ever seen. It's actually kind of silly how they all act. You have nothing to worry about." Thal paused momentarily. "Except maybe Gat, I think may be kind of a cradle robber."

The two humans stared at her incredulously.

"Of course, I don't think that it's quite that much of a difference, only what, ten years?" Thal mused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Although, since trolls mature so quickly, I don't really know." She privately gloated as Claryssa's parents blanched as the image of their daughter with a troll danced through their heads. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. She made a mental note to ask the little priest to extend an apology on her behalf. If they ever found her.

That sobering thought brought Thal back, and wiped the smile off her face. "I don't know when we'll be able to go find her," she said. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "If we do find her, I can't guarantee that she'll be alive, and if she is alive, I don't know if she'll be the same. We know she is somewhere in Outland, most probably in Shadowmoon Valley. There still remains a strong Legion presence there. Hopefully she somehow made her way out, but we really have no way of knowing until we get there."

"Why are you doing this?" the father said. It was the first thing he had said the whole time.

Thal thought about that. Why were they going to such an extent?

"Despite all of the aggravations, the irritations, the silliness of it all, we all found ourselves bound together by a strange type of camaraderie, and that girl is really the start of it all. If it weren't for her, Jen'Zin would not have dallied in Elwynn. She would still be here, he would be off somewhere else, every one of us would be continuing our lives in utter boredom. We are all indebted to her, even though some of us would rather die than admit it. She's annoying and naive and childish," Thal paused to take a breath, "but without her around, life is just so awfully boring."

"So," dad said, trying to put his thoughts into voice, "you're going through all this trouble, putting yourselves in danger...to keep yourselves entertained?" He sounded a bit insulted by the prospect, to which the rogue cocked her head.

"Isn't everything that we do to and for other people ultimately for our own entertainment?"

Thal later left the house, her mind working. She had a lot of work to do to prepare for their departure.

Two years later.

END.