Part 1

Later that night, when everyone is sitting around a large campfire, in the piece of land that border Eversong Woods and the deserted Ghostlands, they all sitting in silence, staring at one specific person- Valeera. She too sat there silently, keeping her head down in embarrassment as eyes were focusing onto her.

“Valeera… mind telling me why are you hiding in the crate?” Valeera blushed hard, she could only try to stamper out some weirds under such detail scrutiny that is coming from Aethas.

In truth, Valeera ran away from home the moment she got wind of the news that Aethas family are going to move away, into the dangerous wildland that is the Ghostlands.

“Young lady, my guess is that you ran away from home, didn’t you?” father Aethas smirked, he was confident that his guess was straight on point just by watching the reaction of the young teenager.

“Did your parents know that you ran away from home?” Aethas mother asked, worrying about what kind of hell would ensue them if Valeera parent filed in a “Missing Child” report to the local militia. It wasn’t in any doubt that Chaos would not going to stirred up in their former little village, and at some point, there will be someone who say, “hey! I saw your little girl snuck into the Aethas family convoy”

It’s difficult to explain to any distressed parents on the reason of “Why did your beautiful daughter just ran off with my family precious son?” depended on the outcome, there could be a feud and set in some bad blood, that or a more positive outcome of both parties came up with a mutual beneficial deals.

“Erm… I don’t think you need to worry about that… madam, I told them that I was on a job for the guild.” Valeera replied, she had lied to her parents, saying that she accepted a quest from the guild and would be leaving for a week, at first her parents were worried- however, due to their family situation of living in a poor village, they reluctantly agreed, any source of income would help them a lot in the long run, plus they know their daughter can look after herself.

“Dear lord…” Aethas facepalmed himself, thinking how courageous this little girl must have been to have pulled off such a stunt, he doubts that her parents would ever allow her to set foot out of the house again, even if it means losing a part of their family earnings- money means absolutely nothing if you lose your children, more so true for the Blood Elves as their population were greatly diminished to less than 10%.

“Dear, should we send her back to the village? Her parents would worry themselves sick once they caught on to the lie.” Mother Aethas suggested to her husband, as he himself is in command of leading this convoy- father Aethas too was contemplating on whatever to send the little girl back or not, however it would posed major problems for the group.

Such as they have to split up their manpower to safely deliver this girl back, and they have already set foot into the dangerous territory- so he couldn’t do it as the little group would be easy picking for any Wretches bandit party or worse, Scourge- thus there’s the choice of letting the girl follow them into the Ghostlands, from there they could arrange further transport back to Eversong Woods- out of all those option, the last one seems to be the most feasible.

Even Aethas had to agree with the idea, splitting up now is just pure stupidity, and they couldn’t just turn the entire convoy back just for 1 person either, Aethas look at his father, the elf seem to notice his gaze and simply nodded his head.

“Mother, I think it’s better if Valeera tag along with our convoy until we arrive at Tranquillien, I’m sure we can arrange some form of transportation service to get her back to the village, instead of endangering ourselves by splitting our forces.” father Aethas couldn’t have worded it any better, he couldn’t help but feel proud of his son, such a young age and have already mastered the basics of military tactics.

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If Aethas could truly read his father's mind, he would definitely unload a few rounds of explosive marble onto the man's forehead before cracking it open and see if his skull is filled with tofu are what- “Mastered the basics of military tactics” my ass! Even a kid would be smart enough to come up with such a logical choice, wait- he’s a kid… much to Aethas own displeasure. “When will I grow up?” he questioned himself in the back of his mind, thinking how much pain it is not being able to “Grow up” fast enough.

Part 2

“Aethas! Look! Isn’t it beautiful!” Valeera pointed at the beautiful wildlife and vegetation of the once population southern front of Quel’Thalas, now known as the Ghostlands- it was decided that Valeera would follow the convoy until they reached Tranquillien, from there they will decide the next course of action.

For now, Aethas parents believe that it’s best for the girl to stay with them, first it would provide the little one with protection against danger that lurked within the land, second- it would provide their son with some sort of companions who’s around his age( much to Aethas own displeasure.) Valeera seem to be too hyper on this trip than usual, the same could be said for professor Sunreach, the old elf doesn’t act like a well respected professor anymore after their class graduation, gone with the scholarly personality that would accompany a “sage”-like sorcerer, it was replaced by eccentricity of a youngster.

For some odd reason, his father has been staring daggers at the old elf since the day he joined the convoy, one part being happy that a competent sorcerer had joined the party- the second, the hostile reaction was unknown- the man been trying to stand in between his wife and the old elf at every possible moment, there must be some “deep” history that he doesn’t know about here, his father wouldn’t act like an idiot for no reason… well he acted like an idiot most of the time that anyone would hardly noticed the difference.

As Aethas was contemplating about his current situation, suddenly from out in the dark woods, an arrow shot toward their caravan and pinned itself onto the wooden side of the carriage, this brought the convoy to a sudden halt and his father yelling out.

“Enemy attack! Farstriders find the enemy!” however, it doesn’t look like “finding the enemy” would be a problem, as from the same direction the arrow came from, a band of Wretches emerged with eyes full of greed and lust and armed, ready to fight.

“Well, nevermind then- it looks like the enemy lack more patient then I would give them credit for… damn Wretches… all of them.” father Aethas glared at the band of marauder with hostility, Scourge is one thing- at least with Scourge it’s easier to prepare against and let not forget, much easier to deal with than a bunch of rats that hidden within their society and constantly attacking their weak point due to their thirst for magic.

“What are you waiting for? Kill them! We need to get moving quickly before our presence attracted more than what we asked for!” father Aethas ordered, and immediately the clash initiate between the two groups, arrows flying alongside frostbolt and fireball, let not forget the old fashioned sword and shield bashing, sound crude for Elves, but it gets the job done and that is all father Aethas asked for.

As for Aethas, his mother and Valeera, they made sure to stay on the sideline, far away from the fighting stages between the Farstriders and the marauding band of Wretches, Aethas mother being considerate and try to cover both of the children's eyes, preventing them from watching the bloody brawl( one-sided massacre) while saying “you children are not old enough to witness such a scene yet!”, much to Aethas annoyances, but he could see that his mother cared, she hope that Aethas wasn’t traumatized by such gores.

Aethas could only stood on side and quietly attracting the dead Wretches soul toward himself- thankfully the soul energy is mostly invisible to mortal eyes- unless they are sorcerer trained to pick up on such energy, fortunately the sorcerers in the group are too busy to notice such minor movement caused by Aethas, else he could attract a whole lot of trouble toward himself, as Necromancy were outlawed in Quel’Thalas since their people couldn’t forget about the horror of such horrendous school of magic.

The feeling of ecstasy washed all over him as the soul of humanoid beings are much more potent than that of beasts, he could feel a major boost in his own mana reserve as his soul were boiling and churning to devour all the souls of the Wretches nearby- that was until he suddenly felt a tug from behind- “what the-!” before he noticed it, it was already too late! A deformed face of what formerly a Blood Elves stared at him.

A rogue Wretch had managed to sneak around the massive brawl and got behind the enemy line- where the civilians are kept, and Aethas seem to be an unlucky victim as the Wretch took off into the woods, dragging the little boy with him.

“NOOO!!!! AETHAS!!!” his mother screamed, which brought the attention to his father, who finally noticed that there was something wrong! His precious baby boy had been kidnapped! At that moment something finally snaps inside the Orc-like elf mind.

“I’ll FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!!!” with a swing of his mighty sword, he cleaved the last remaining survivor of the band of Wretches Marauder before taking off after Aethas kidnapper with hatred filled his eyes.