1.

From every corner of the ancient lands of Kalimdor, the fire could be seen. It hung in the sky like a second sun, its emerald flames wrapping around the remains of the colossal World Tree Nordrassil and billowing out and down the sides of Mount Hyjal. Almost every living creature on the continent turned to watch the fire burn, to observe the great towers of smoke that now flowed like blood from the mountain. Dark clouds gathered around that blazing, blinding peak, streaks of emerald lightning striking out as the storm marched down the summit and into the surrounding woodlands. There was no hope in stopping the coming storm, for the war against the Burning Legion was lost, the resistance reduced to corpses and ash, and now those demonic enemies of Life itself have claimed their prize. For the denizens of Kalimdor, all there was left to do was to watch and wait for the flames to pour down the mountain and consume them.

Far below the storms and flames that now ravaged the heavens, nestled against the base of Mount Hyjal, the smoldering remains of Bough Shadow lie. A child of the World Tree once dwelled here, its branches towering over the forests the same way its predecessor once scraped the heavens themselves with its crown. Now, in the aftermath of the war that had culminated in the death of Nordrassil, this child too lies dead, a flimsy trail of smoke rising from its charred, gray husk. An edifice of white marble columns and stairs rests against the stump, where upon it, a strange, circular gateway etched with emerald runes lies dormant and silent. Tiny streaks of green light crackle around the frame, similar to the lightning that now assails the sky but more calm and fluid, the winding waves and patterns of the light a sharp contrast to the rough, jagged lightning that surged overhead.

Even the most untrained of magic users could identify the energy as Nature magic - and would have done so, had anyone been there to observe it. Only the corpses of Bough Shadow's guardians remain, their identities masked by the great mounds of moss, vines and wildflowers that have grown up to claim them merely hours after the tree's destruction. Despite the devastating flames that had swept through Bough Shadow and destroyed it in less than a day, nature has raced just as swiftly to reclaim it, the speed at which the regrowth occurred no doubt in thanks to the energies that once flowed freely from the Great Tree's gateway. That sudden, wild growth stood in defiance of the destruction that now threatened to swallow the world whole, a reminder of the power the wilds of Kalimdor possess. But the restorative energies of Nature magic could not repair the loss of the World Tree and its child, nor could it prevent the descent of the storm. Soon, the fury of the Legion would once again fall upon Bough Shadow, rendering what little had been reclaimed by Nature to ash and cinders once more.

With the storms brewing overhead, a tiny orb of blue light descended upon the remains of Bough Shadow, buzzing through the air like an insect but having no body or wings with which to fly. To the elven denizens of Kalimdor, the tiny spirit was known as a wisp, a caretaker of the forest bound to the world through the raw magics of Nature herself. It crossed through the middle of Bough Shadow before snaking between the trees at the perimeter of the meadow, as if it was an eye trying to take in every little detail it could. It left as quickly as it came, disappearing into the tall grass that had erupted around the mounds of deceased guardians. The forest became quiet and still once more, the sound of the wind only periodically interrupted by distant thunder.

Several minutes later, the tall grass began to stir. What emerged was no demon or lifeless ghoul, no elf or woodland critter, but something else entirely: it was a dryad. The creature had the four legs and body of a woodland fawn, but where one would expect the neck and head of a deer instead rose the stomach, torso, arms and head of the violet-skinned night elves that were native to Kalimdor. Her upper body was covered with an assortment of green leaves and vines that snaked in and out of her skin like emerald veins, and upon her forehead was a pair of small, branched antlers. Her eyes glowed with a dim orange light, and her waist length green hair snapped side to side as if caught in a tumultuous, invisible breeze. The dryad gripped a wooden spear with a tip made from sharpened amber, a weapon she clenched tightly as she took in the devastation that surrounded her.

As her eyes scanned the perimeter of Bough Shadow, the wisp that had disappeared into the tall grass returned. The dryad raising her right hand to allow the wisp to swirl around it as if in some sort of greeting, or perhaps as if they were touching base on what each had seen of the meadow. A moment later, the dryad pointed toward the south, and the wisp accepted the command and left, disappearing into the shadows of the forest.

The dryad stepped into Bough Shadow and began approaching the marble edifice that laid on the southern side of the Great Tree's remains. Her hooves clacked on the ancient stone ramp that led to the gateway, white petals and green leaves from the peacebloom that grew in her hair falling to the ground as she walked. Where they fell, great stalks of grass and flowers bloomed, the power emanating from the creature as strong and attuned to Nature as what once poured from the portal. She ran her free hand across the glowing green runes of the gateway, pulling back and gasping as feedback from the magic within them shocked her fingers. The creature let out a sigh, banging her fist into the gateway and cursing at her misfortune.

The damaged gateway was once a portal into a verdant spirit realm known as the Emerald Dream, a reflection of a primordial version of Kalimdor, what the continent once and could have continued to been had mortal civilizations not interfered with the growth of the wilds. It was all that was left of the land the dryad once called her home, a memory of what she had during her fifteen thousand years of life before the coming of the storm that would soon engulf the whole of Kalimdor. It was meant to be her means of escaping the chaos, of finding some last respite from her failures and her suffering. But with its destruction, she remained trapped on Kalimdor, and if she could find no other way to the Dream, she would be forced to live her final moments at the mercy of the lightning and flames that now bled from the mountain.

Just as she was about to turn and leave Bough Shadow, her wisp returned and flew in dramatic circles around her face. It paused in front of her and then shot into the woods, the dryad turning to observe whatever it had come to warn her about. A stirring of tall grass stopped as she looked, and the air grew tense and silent as both parties froze in fright. But when the wisp returned and graced the dryad's fingers, she untensed her muscles and sighed, her connection to the spirit allowing it to tell her it was no enemy stalking in the shadows but something much closer.

"It's okay, sister. You can come out now."

From the tall grass emerged a second dryad, her hair short and orange while her upper body's skin was not violet but rather a shade of light green. She held her arms close to her and was trembling, her head turning back and forth as she took in her surroundings.

"Y-you're… Lunara, aren't you? The first daughter…" the newcomer asked, her voice shaking. "My… oldest… sister."

"Yes, I am," Lunara replied.

"We… lost the war, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did."

Lunara's hearts, one each in her upper and lower bodies, ached at seeing the younger dryad and the state she was in. She was barely a handful of centuries old and only a little more than half of the size of Lunara's height of eight feet. The younger dryad was a child caught in one of the worst places affected by the war. Lunara did her best to erase the sorrow from her own face and offer a reassuring smile to the younger dryad.

"And what would your name be, little one?"

"I'm Iphy… I saw your wisp… and the bodies… what happened here?"

Lunara raised her hand to the stump of the great tree of Bough Shadow, its remains towering over them despite most of it being cut down. "No doubt the Legion destroyed the Great Tree's portal to prevent reinforcements from coming through the Dream. But they're long gone from this place. We'll be safe here, for a time."

Iphy breathed deeply, her trembling subsiding just a little at being told there were no demons close enough to find them. Lunara felt bad, knowing what she said was partly a lie. Her wisp had warned her of a regiment of red-skinned demons known as orcs to the south, the creatures and the wolves they kept as companions sickened by the Legion's dark magics, the Fel. The orcs were traveling away from Bough Shadow, towards the river to the west, but there was no telling what fel magic did to the tracking capabilities of the wolves. Even now, the wolves could have picked up their scent and turned to track the dryads down. At that thought, Lunara sent her wisp into the surrounding forests of Ashenvale to keep a vigil on their foes, to keep both her and her younger sister safe from their terrible wrath.

Iphy moved to the side of the marble edifice, pointing up at the storms rattling the sides of Mount Hyjal. "They're getting closer. The storms. I've been watching them. Will we have to leave?"

Lunara nodded. "As far south as we can go, I'm afraid. Those storms won't be stopping anytime soon."

"Why did you come here then? Rather than going south?"

"Well, I wanted to go into the Dream to take shelter from the storm. Have you been there before, little one? It's a lovely place."

"No… father said it was too dangerous. Because of the Nightmare."

Lunara looked down to the ground. As if their situation wasn't dire enough, even the beloved Dream was not without its problems. Corruption, entirely independent from the forces that now sought to destroy their world, had infected the Dream, causing all it touched to be afflicted by a Nightmare that burned the soul and maddened the mind. Its presence had long ago denied the dryad and her siblings their birth rite of shifting into the Dream at will to bask in the splendors of its ethereal meadows and forests. To a dryad as ancient and well-traveled as Lunara, the thought that some of her brothers and sisters had never once physically traversed the Dream before in their lives angered her greatly.

"The Dream is only dangerous when you try to phase into it by yourself, without the aid of a Great Tree's portal," Lunara explained, staring up at the ruined gateway. "It would have been safe for you to travel into the dream through Bough Shadow. There's no corruption where the Great Trees lead."

"I see… and now that's not possible anymore," Iphy sighed.

"Not true. There's another Great Tree far to the south in Feralas, with another portal that's safe. I could bring you there with me. It's a long journey, but we can make it."

"Feralas… I've never gone so far from home before."

"You'll be safe with me. Feralas is as wonderful as Ashenvale, if not more, and it's most certainly been untouched by the war. You'd love it there."

"What about the others?"

Lunara gave a small, somber smile, gesturing to the storm clouds above. "We don't have the time to look for them, and the forest is swarming with demons. If any of our other siblings are still alive, they're already traveling to Feralas on their own. It'll just have to be you and me. Come, we have no time to waste. We can get to the Barrens before sunset."

As Lunara walked down the marble stairs and into the southern woods, she noticed Iphy wasn't following. She turned, and the younger dryad was pointing at her, at the wooden fingers and palm that Lunara wrapped around her spear.

"The stories are true, aren't they?" Iphy asked. "Your arm. It's made of wood. Like our brothers, but not natural."

"How perceptive, little one. Yes, this is no glove or armor." Lunara replied, shifting her spear to her right hand and raising her left arm. From the elbow down, the limb was made entirely of wood, bark and flesh mingling seamlessly into one. It moved no differently than the arm she once had, a near perfect replacement, one that still ached now and again from memories of the trauma that had brought such a wound upon her in the first place.

"My friends said you lost it in the first war. With the demons. Is that true?"

"Yes. Very early on in the War of the Ancients, actually. I missed quite a lot of the fighting back then."

"How did we win back then?" Iphy asked.

Lunara paused before answering, sighing as her eyes became lost in thought. "One miracle after the next," she said with sorrow she could not deny.