A GREAT Idea!

The figure walked slowly down the ramp leading from the Temple of the Moon, a cowl covering her head and cloak flowing out behind her. Dressed in tight-fitting laced up cloth armor, the night elf's outfit was complete with a hunting knife strapped at her belt and bow strung across her back. Her footsteps were loud as her thigh-high boots clicked against the smooth stone pathway, heading deeper into Darnassus.

As the huntress passed other night elves, most gave her only a glance at best, and she secretly smiled to herself, relishing in the ability to mingle amongst them. Malandrae had spent a very long time putting together the PERFECT outfit that was a cross between what a sentinel might wear and one of the adventuring hunters that often visited the city. Except for the immediate glances when she stepped through the portal in the temple, no one else had paid her any mind at all! It was a fantastic idea she'd come up with!

She headed deeper into the city, passing through the Craftsman's Terrace and towards the outskirts of the city where a shop was located that she needed to visit. As she approached it, she heard a growing rumble of voices as they neared her. Curious, she turned her head, her cowl having obstructed her vision of the peaceful pathways between the natural tree-houses and shops. There, heading straight for her, were over twenty night elves, all shouting at each other and looking worried.

"There! There's one! Sentinel! We need your help RIGHT AWAY!" one of the people in the crowd shouted.

Malandrae blinked in surprise as one of the elves grabbed her arm and started to drag her towards the forest. "W-what...?"

For a moment, she couldn't make out individual words as everyone attempted to shout over each other, all the while half-dragging her along with urgent tugs at her arm. After a minute or two of this confused chaos, one of the other elves managed to shout down his companions and explained the problem to Malandrae, even as they continued to bring her deeper into the forest on top of Teldrassil.

"A child's been taken by one of the spider matriarchs deep in the forest's heart! We need to rescue him right away, before he's poisoned by the creature," the elf said, almost out of breath from hurrying. "We need your bow!"

"B-but I..." Malandrae trailed off as she was tugged along even more urgently. "W-where are the sentinels...?"

"Why do you think we got YOU?" Another elf said. Even as he spoke, the group entered a large clearing that was surrounded by high trees on all sides. Towards the far end of the clearing the ground dipped down, forming a natural cave of the tree roots. Before it loomed a huge spider, many times the size of an elf, with a tiny cocoon on the ground before it. "There's the beast! You have to do something!"

Malandrae felt herself roughly shoved forward. One of the elves even took her bow off her back and thrust it into her hands. She stood there for a moment, gaping at the spider and then back to the bow in her hands; a bow that she had absolutely no idea how to use. Even as she watched, the spider reared up above the trapped child, it's fangs dripping vicious looking green venom.

The crowd behind Malandrae began to scream, and something in her mind broke down. The screams triggered a memory buried deep within her, something she subconsciously blocked. Like a lock snapping, the door to the memories in her mind opened, and the screams of the elves around her mingled with the screams in her memory, the images of Zin'azshari's last days playing through her. Her eyes focused on nothing, lost in the episode, her body numb.

Her dazed mind focused her eyes on a single object; the drop of venom that fell from one of the spider's fangs. It glimmered in the light, seeming to slip off the protrusion and tumble in slow motion, as if it would take forever to strike the ground near the child. She watched it in bemusement, her mind filled with terrible thoughts and far from her body.

The drop struck the ground and splattered.

Her mind snapped back to NOW, her numb body shaking with the force of the return of her consciousness. Screams assailed her ears as the spider lunged. The bow tumbled from her nerveless fingers to the leafy ground. A single thought floated through her dazed mind.

Do the right thing this time.

Her hands came up and the ancient power that she once commanded crackled in the air around her, building up as if it had never been gone. For a single moment she was whole again, as before her stasis spell drained all her energy, before her world was unmade. She pointed, her magic a beautiful song on the wind. The huge spider's lunge was slowed to almost nothing as time itself bent around the creature. Malandrae dashed forward, the song of her spells floating with her and surrounding her in power. She bent down and scooped up the child, cradling him in her arms as time snapped back into place.

The spider's fangs slammed into the magical shield she had erected around herself, and without even consciously doing it, Malandrae spoke a word and teleported herself and the child over a dozen yards away from the creature. With its lunch taken, the spider gave off a hissing sound, lunging after the Highborne. Malandrae's hand came up and again a song floated on the air, dozens of orbs of arcane magic slamming into the spider, the ground, and the trees behind it. Pulped spider guts sprayed everywhere and the ground was torn to pieces as she expended the last of the power she'd touched when her dissociation episode began.

In the stillness that followed the destruction, the elves stepped forward, two of them taking the child and quickly unwrapping him from the spider's webbing. Rough hands grabbed Malandrae, yanking her cowl off and spinning her around. There was no mistaking the fading glow of arcane magic in her eyes as she looked at the other elves.

"It's a dirty arcane user!"
"Highborne!"
"She was pretending to be a sentinel!"
"I almost wish the child had died rather than have her filthy hands on it!"
"We should toss her off Teldrassil and be done with her!"

Other words pounded against her ears, unheard in the general rumble of the angry group of elves but unmistakeable in their intent. One of them spit on the ground in front of her, and most gave her dirty looks before turning and striding away in anger. She just stood and watched them go, her mind still trying to comprehend what had happened.

A hand touched her shoulder.

She turned and looked, seeing the two elves who had been freeing the child still standing nearby. The nearest, a female, smiled at her and nodded. "You saved my son's life. I can never repay you for this. The Goddess bless you and watch over you." Behind her, the man, presumably her husband, nodded and smiled as well.

Malandrae was at a loss for words. Her mouth opened but nothing came out as the various emotions she'd just experienced warred within her. Finally she closed her mouth and just nodded, bowing her head.

The other elf squeezed her shoulder before turning back to her son. She and her husband began to walk slowly away, but over her shoulder she gave Malandrae final parting words, "Don't ever let them make you doubt that you were a hero today. It doesn't matter who or what you are."

Malandrae watched the two as they walked out of sight, the silence of the forest surrounding her for a time. Finally a smile lit her face and she sighed, "Well, that could have gone a LOT worse I guess! Could have gone better too! And to think I dressed down for nothing!"

She whispered a word and a portal opened before her, leading her back to Stormwind, and a world that she at least was partially beginning to understand. It would take far longer for her to understand her own people, for they were as alien to her now as the humans were. With another sigh she stepped through the portal and was gone.