Even after having been ravaged by fire, Nectarbreeze Orchard still held a quiet sense of beauty. The soft colours of the white and pink blossoms danced as they always had in the gentle winds of the Jade Forest. Old familiar scents rushed back to him, no longer obscured by the thick blanket of smoke that covered the landscape the last time he had been here. In many ways it was a picture of peace and tranquility; all one had to do was tilt their view away from the remnants of the charred homes and instead look out towards the trees, most of which were mercifully spared the worst of the fire-casting mogu assault.
If only the farmhouses had avoided being put to the flame as well. The mogu of Camp Gormul had been ruthless. It wasn’t enough to simply kill the nectar farmers of the village; they sought to haul them back in chains. Gybs’ grip tightened on his grip on his bow, the thought of his countrymen subjugated in such a manner filling him with anger that had become far too familiar in the past few years. He carried no arrows, but still had to stop the reflexive action of his hand moving to his quiver in anger. But the mogu were long gone now, and the village, while destroyed, had returned to a calm and quiet, just as it had been long before. A strange sense of peace, even though it came from destruction.
His grip loosened. He can wield the weapon more powerfully than he would have ever dreamed. Bending down and placing it gently in the grass, he left his bow behind. It felt fitting; it was here where he had first wielded such a weapon. Of course, it wasn’t with anywhere near the same skill as he had now.
--
“Get inside!” Shao called out as the mogu raiders and incinerators crested the hill overlooking Nectarbreeze Orchard. “I’ll hold the door as long as I can - but we mustn't wait any longer! We need to hide!”
The first of the Gormali raiders came upon some hapless workers that had not heard the call for retreat. The nectar harvesters were dedicated workers, and little could distract them from their labour. For many, it would prove their undoing. The ones that weren’t killed outright were captured and put in chains.
Gybs heard Shao’s warnings, knowing he had to move or risk being killed. The shock locked his feet in place. It was such a peaceful land, one he had been so proud to inhabit for the many years that he had. Why would they attack here? What possible reason could they have for wanting to destroy such a place?
“Gybs! Now!” Shao’s call rang out again, an urgency in his voice. The first fires began to find their way onto the roofs of the village, the incinerators setting the small wood and stone structures ablaze with ease. They’d reach his section of the village soon. If he wished to survive he’d have to run, but not without first having found Bohren. His friend from childhood, he moved to Nectarbreeze Orchard and she to the Tian Monastery, training to become a monk. She’d come to visit just recently, having been given a moment's break from her long hours of training. He knew well that she’d hold her own against the mogu, but anything he could do to help would be better than nothing at all. Against his better judgement and ignoring Shao’s warning calls, he ran for his farmhouse.
He’d long been a hunter for the village, heading for the woods in the early hours of the morning and collecting whatever game he could to feed the ever-hungry people. A pandaren’s belly was never full, after all. It was here that he was most at peace, and it was here that he developed his skill with the bow and arrow. He flung open the door to his home and took up his weapon, the likes of which was far better suited to hunting than it was for warfare. Nevertheless, bow in hand, he ran towards the home where Bohren was staying.
She was already engaged with a mogu, a statuesque giant of muscle and hatred. Ducking and diving under its heavy blows, she rattled its body with fists the speed of lightning. Although he was terrified of the fight ahead of him, Gybs did what he did best. He fired arrow after arrow at the mogu. It hardly seemed to feel it. Its skin closer to stone than flesh, the arrows bounced off it harmlessly, serving little better than a distraction - but just enough for Bohren to get a moment’s rest from the onslaught of heavy swings from the mogu attacker. Charging towards him, it swung a heavy fist that landed heavily on the side of Gybs’ head, knocking him well off his feet. Landing flat on his back, the world began to spin and go dark.
---
It was warm today in the Jade Forest. Gybs took off his helmet next, running a hefty pandaren paw along the back of his skull and feeling the scar that had long served as a reminder of that fateful day. He had taken a few knocks since, but at least there had always been something to take most of the hit. It had served him well over time, but what use would he have for it now?
It felt such a part of him now that he hardly noticed when he was wearing it. He’d remembered taking it off to drink from a stream after battling against the Burning Legion not long ago. In the crystal waters of Azsuna he saw his reflection. The black patches of fur on his face had hints of grey that had never been there before. His eyes dropped and looked terribly hollow, whatever innocence that had been in them having long since passed. A hunter turned soldier; the trials had aged him terribly in just a few short years, and it manifested physically in his worn and tired form.
He laid down the helmet in the grass not twenty steps from his bow. Twenty steps closer to Nectarbreeze.
---
Gybs’ head throbbed terribly after being struck by the mogu. When he began to come to, his vision was blurred, and the fur on his head was matted with blood. Thoughts immediately turned to Bohren. Was she safe? Had she defeated her attacker? Worse yet, had more arrived to overwhelm her in her heroic stand?
His vision cleared and he saw her fighting still, a whirlwind of punches and kicks, her training making her as graceful as a bird in flight and as powerful as a charging ox. Yet she was not alone; a small, heavily bearded creature was fighting with her, spouting curses and taunting any that came towards them.
“Back, yeh savages, I’ll bury this axe so deep in it yeh won’t see the other end of it!”
Gybs placed his paw on the back of his head again. Just how much blood had he lost? Was he hallucinating?
“Agh, I’ve cut down dragons and orcs twice as tough as the likes o’ yeh!”
No, that would not be his imagination. There was indeed a small but powerful creature swinging an axe with all his might. He charged the nearest enemy, just as the mogu’s hands were becoming encased in flames ready to blast through the air straight at him. Doing just as he promised; his axe went so far into the side of the mogu he struggled to free it.
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There were many such oddities defending their village. Even smaller ones, using strange mechanical gadgets and firing bolts of frost and arcane magic. Large blue men and women wielding mighty hammers, tending to the wounds of their kin - and those of the pandaren as well. Strangest of all was one particularly strong looking man that seemed to be battling with a child just behind him, the later holding a sword as well but just watching and learning. Their saviours were so strange, so bizarre.
Pushing himself up, Gybs rushed past the dwarf and called out for Bohren.
“Gibs!” she called back, and they embraced, happy to see each other alive and safe. “I saw the mogu hit you… I-”
“By the light, lad!” the short warrior interrupted, eyes wild with fury and ready to swing the axe he had just dislodged. “Coulda taken your head off! Yeh shouldn’t come up behind a dwarf and expect your head to stay on your shoulders!”
Gybs looked at the dwarf, his beard hanging down almost to his waist. While barely half his height, he was seemingly forged solely from muscle and fury. Bleeding in multiple places, the mad dwarf seemed to embrace it, only wanting more.
“Meet our saviour,” Bohren said. “His name is Haloric. He’s a soldier of the… the…”
“The Alliance!” he said with pride, pounding on his chest before spotting another mogu and roaring some stream of curses and taunts before charging off.
“The Alliance...” Gybs repeated.
---
Gybs removed the Tushui tabard of the Alliance-affiliated pandaren with great care and reverence. He didn’t place it in the grass with the rest of his gear but rather carried it, not to dirty it on the ground. The Alliance had given him more than just a home after his village burned. They had given him a path and a purpose.
He would save it for a place of honour and respect that it deserved.
---
Emotions were vast and confusing in Nectarbreeze after the attack. Those that survived and remained out of chains were thankful for the Alliance soldiers that had saved them. Still, it was no time for celebration; dead lay in the streets, pandaren, mogu, and even some of the brave Alliance having perished in the attack.
Haloric, Bohren and Gibs knelt in the grass, exhausted from the battle. It was then Admiral Taylor, the leader of this particular Alliance force, crested a hill and addressed the pandaren. He spoke of honour and duty, justice and hope. He spoke with conviction and a true, honest belief in the ideals of his faction. In the end, he offered a role as a soldier, extending a hand in friendship, offering the pandaren to join with him and fight the good fight. Bohren, much to Haloric’s joy, immediately volunteered her service, ready to use her training from the monastery to great effect.
Gybs, however, was hesitant. He had always used his weapons as a means of survival, providing food and living within his means. He had a tremendous respect for life and the animals that embodied it. Never once had he hunted any more than he had to, and with every creature he felled, he thanked them for the bounty he received.
To use those same skills as weapons for the makings of war and destruction felt so foreign to him. Feeling at a loss, he looked to his friend. “Boh,” he said, quietly under the rising voices of the restless crowd around them, “I’m not sure if I should do this. Is the path of war the life we’d want to lead?”
She smiled at him, placing a paw gently on his knee. “I left for the monastery years ago because I saw how great this land is. I joined because of how much love and respect I have for nature, our beliefs… even our village,” she said with a hint of pain. “I joined because when you care for something like that, sometimes you have to be willing to fight for it. Because Nectarbreeze wasn’t the first, and I know in my heart it won’t be the last.”
Haloric elbowed him playfully in the ribs, far stronger than Gybs would have liked and far harder than the dwarf would have realized. “Also, it’s pretty fun if I may say so myself.”
---
His heavy mail boots were the next to go. The cool air felt refreshing on his feet, constricted as they were for so long. His feet ached every day. He’d spent years now travelling through the most terrible of places, fighting the most frightening of enemies. Those boots had served him well, even as he stepped over broken weapons, burning lands...
And far too often, fallen allies.
---
Joining the war effort of the Alliance, Gybs travelled far and wide alongside Haloric and Bohren. He saw parts of Pandaria he’d never dreamt he’d see, from the beauty of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to the desolation in the Dread Wastes. With the fall of Garrosh Hellscream, a warrior of foolish pride hailing from the same lands as his new dwarven companion, he was faced with a terrible choice. Return to Nectarbreeze Orchard and his old life, trying to rebuild and start anew, or continue alongside the Alliance and fight for ideals he thought were good and true. He chose the latter.
His travels took him to Draenor, the orc homeworld, to battle in the past against many of the same race as Hellscream. When the legion came to bring all of Azeroth to heel, the three were there to meet it. When the Horde went to fight in an all-out war across land and sea, he would follow the Alliance across the whole world for those that had saved his village from total annihilation. He felt it was owed to them. The debt had to be paid.
---
The final piece of armour he wore were the heavy pauldrons upon his shoulders. To him, they were the greatest representation of how he felt today. They were the heaviest, largest pieces, and thus the most difficult to travel with. They were the burden of war that weighed upon him so heavily. It was with great meaning and care that he slowly removed them, letting them fall off his shoulders and land heavily in the grass.
“That meant a lot, didn’t it, lad?” Haloric said quietly. It was one of the first times he’d ever heard the man speak in anything less than a full, hearty bellow. He and Bohren had been following him, letting him have his moment, the necessary catharsis that came with truly saying goodbye to what had been such monumental and important moments in his life.
“It did,” Gybs agreed. Stretching out his back, he heard pops and snaps through his whole form. It would take quite some time, and more than a few cups of brew, to heal those aches and pains.
“And you’re certain?” Bohren asked. She had since become a tremendously accomplished monk, and someone of which he held great admiration.
“I am,” he said. “I’ve spent so many years in service, putting down those that threatened this world with evil. So much destruction… so much pain. It’s time for me to build, and to heal.” Along his belt he held an assortment of small construction materials. It would be a long project to repair the village. In many ways it looked no less daunting than the Horde and the Burning Legion. It was a challenge he wanted more than anything. “I believe it’s time. I’ve paid my debt.”
“Are yeh sure I can’t bring just the one of ‘em?” Haloric asked. He was referring to the two animals that were play-fighting by his side. One, a massive gorilla from the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale, the other a great cat he had come across in during his travels through the Broken Isles - McGee and Abby, respectively. It was Haloric himself who named them.
Gybs looked them over. He watched the spirit in which they played, Abby darting around, McGee pounding his chest in challenge. They had followed him through the most tremendous of challenges. How could he remain here while they still pressed forward?
“I’m afraid not,” Gybs said apologetically. “They’ll be staying with me. They’ve earned it just the same.”
“You know we can’t stay with you…” Bohren started to say, afraid to broach the subject. “The way of the monk is my life-”
“And the way of the warrior, mine. I need an axe in my hand, lad,” Haloric agreed.
“-and I don’t think that this life is for us.” A tear threatened to break like a cloud just holding back the rain. “I think we may have had our last adventure together.”
“But what an adventure it was,” Gybs said, stretching his back again and smiling. “But I’ve got work to do here. It’s time to rebuild.” He looked back at his friends and his two animal warriors that would follow him anywhere. “I believe I’ve earned my rest.”