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New Perspectives By Lyrissa "I said no, Jarn. I'm done. No more fighting," Vorn Frosthammer said, wiping away the last scraps of ale from his bushy beard. Jarn Steelaxe shook his head, sighing, and took another swig from his tankard. He simply didn't understand why Vorn had changed so much lately. The two had been friends ever since they were both young, before Jarn pursued the way of the warrior and Vorn became an Ironforge mountaineer. They had served together in the Alliance military for years now, but lately all the joy and drive had vanished from Vorn, like he had been drained of his passion. Jarn ran one coarse hand through his rusty red hair and looked over to Vorn. "Lad, it's just a scout assignment in Pandaria. We won't even be on the front lines. Just protecting the rear and the locals from marauding beasts and nasty bugs!" Jarn said. Vorn slammed his tankard into the table so hard it shook and stood up. His dark eyes flashed with a sadness that surprised his friend. "No. Not again. I can't... not after Daina. Never again." He turned and made his way out of the somber dwarven inn, pushing any guests that were in his way to the side. Jarn considered calling out to him but then realized it was fruitless. The death of Vorn's long-time animal companion Daina (a friendly but huge black bear) had been the final straw. Soon Vorn was gone through the doorway. The hunter didn't even look around at the towering chambers and architectural marvels of Ironforge as he left the bar and stomped down the neatly paved street towards his new home. He had only recently moved into a house inside the city proper, having lived all his life in various cabins in Dun Morogh and the surrounding areas whenever he wasn't on some faraway battle front in a tent. But now he just wanted to settle in the city and become a craftsman or something similar, and fortunately for him a suitable housing had just become available. Vorn continued down the street through the Commons, passing humans, night elves and gnomes in addition to other dwarves. He felt like a stranger when he saw how easy they could laugh, joke and flirt. It was like he was a stranger among his own people, not just among the other races. His stomach contracted and he felt melancholy almost overtake him, and knew he needed to do something simple and basic to take his mind off things. He walked up to the building where he now lived and scaled the few stone steps up to the front door. His new housing was on the first floor of the building, extending into the living rock of mount Ironforge, with several other tenants living on the floors above. Vorn slammed the door shut and locked it, and kicked off his heavy boots. He went about lighting the lamps to make the messy rooms easier to work with, and then set about cleaning. It was a dull, boring task, and thus perfect to make him stop focusing on the past. Vorn sometimes wondered what kind of odd people had lived here before him. There had been weird books left in the shelves, suspicious jars filled with dust that may once have been something else and tattered charts of stars and patterns Vorn couldn't interpret. He reminded himself to actually ask the caretaker at some point, even though the wizened old dwarf had been elusive the first time Vorn had inquired. He tossed a half-burned stack of parchments into the trash pile and reached over to pull down a wall scroll that was covered in ugly dark splotches. As his gnarled hands tore the tattered parchment from its hanger, Vorn froze and blinked in surprise. There was the thin outline of a door on the wall segment that he had just revealed. It was thin and barely noticeable, but to a trained hunter such as himself it was child's play to spot. "What in the name of the Nether is this," he mumbled, reaching over to trace a finger across the thin line indicating the door. When nothing happened upon touching it, Vorn began feeling around the edge of the doorway for a hidden way to open it. There was no keyhole or handle that he could find, but his experienced fingers soon brushed over a stone that yielded just a fraction of an inch. He grabbed the surface, which was just right for a dwarf or human hand, and tried a few ways of moving it. He ended up spinning it to the side, which caused the door to simply slide open. Beyond was a small stairwell leading down into darkness. Picking up a lantern, Vorn began descending the worn stone steps into the bowels of the city. Vorn wondered what he would find. Weapons? The hidden den of some wretched cultists? A Horde spy safehouse? Instead he stepped into a large but odd room at the end of the stairs. The room was as large as the whole of the ground floor of the building and may once have been a cellar. It had been extensively converted by the previous inhabitants, however, and now was lined with tall shelves and cabinets, with several large tables scattered across the floor. A large, very complex metal device occupied a large chunk of the opposite wall with spiraling tubes and valves and other odd extensions the use of which Vorn couldn't even guess. A large copper vat was situated next to the device and currently empty. Vorn carefully stepped through the gathered dust, fearing traps. He walked up to one of the large cupboards and opened the sliding doors, and almost dropped his lantern. The whole thing was filled with empty skins dangling from hangers, their lifeless faces little more than empty masks. "By my beard!" Vorn exclaimed, but managed to keep himself from stumbling. He gingerly reached out with his free hand to brush against the surface of one of the suits, apparently a human female with long blonde hair. It didn't feel like real skin, being more elastic and smooth, and Vorn placed the lantern on a nearby table to examine closer. He pulled the suit off the hanger and flipped it over, discovering a long seam running from buttocks to neck on the back of the suit. Otherwise it was a perfect reproduction of a human woman, down to rooted hair and nails. It was definitely not real skin, however, as Vorn knew how leather felt and smelled. This was something different, something reeking of chemicals and arcane reagents. "Magic," the dwarf chuffed. "It's all magic. But for what purpose?" He picked up the lantern again and began searching the room. He found that other shelves were filled with clothing and armor and even weaponry, all of it carefully sorted and labeled. He suddenly realized each piece of gear was meant for a specific skin, as if they were mannequins with their own fashion outfit. Other shelves revealed drying arcane reagents and musty tomes that Vorn couldn't make much sense of. There were also much simpler documents which indicated testing had been going on in which these skins were used to magically change people for infiltration and spying purposes. Vorn blanched. So it was a spy den of some kind! He went back to the suits and marveled at the craftsmanship of each, from proud, tall night elves to squat, ugly kobolds. He wondered who the previous tenants had worked for and what had happened to them. Surely had they been Alliance operatives their work would have been reclaimed by now. Suddenly Vorn was overcome by curiosity. Maybe it was the fact that this was the first real distraction he had had since he came to the decision to leave the military, but he felt an intense urge to check out the suits closer. Rummaging through the paperwork again he found what seemed like a draft for user's instructions. Apparently one had to be naked to use the suits, which seemed a bit odd to Vorn but then he knew little of magic. Stripping out of his rough workman's clothes he was soon standing nude in front of the shelf filled with the suits. He narrowed his eyes in thought while his fingers examined each skin in turn. Many did not appeal to him in the slightest, being too thin or too weird. Others were from races that Vorn simply didn't find very interesting, like various elves. Suddenly his fingers touched upon a skin covered in thin fur, and the dwarf felt a forbidden impulse rush through him. He pulled the hanger out of the cabinet and examined the empty skin. As he had suspected the tall empty object was a hollow replica of a tauren, female by the look of the empty breasts on its chest and the lack of a manhood between its thighs. The suit was well sculpted and covered in short dark brown hair with empty, fake-looking horns attached on the head above the mask. He examined the face closer and found it to be fairly feminine for a tauren, with a slender snout and large eye-holes. Vorn suddenly felt like he wanted to try this skin, and nothing else. He began slipping his thickly muscled leg into the open seam on the back of the tauren, shoving his other leg down after it to stand uncomfortable in the empty hooves of the skin. Naturally Vorn was much too short, but unless this was a very elaborate and expensive prank then there was powerful magic involved, and he really wanted to see what happened now. He tugged the suit over his abdomen and groin, his thick dwarf member pushing up against the slick inner surface of the skin. Then he awkwardly worked the long arms of the tauren over his own, shoving his thick, stubby fingers into the three-fingered hands of the suit. It was a bit hard to slip the rest of the suit on, especially after Vorn pulled the floppy mask with its long empty snout over his own head. Peering out through the large eyeholes his suited hands flailed around the back, feeling for the pull that closed the seam. He began tugging it up quickly, suddenly feeling very foolish and a bit claustrophobic, as if the skin was strangling him. As the seam closed at the top of the suit's neck, however, Vorn's entire world turned upside down. He felt like he was being stretched out like a piece of taffy and his body expanded in all sorts of directions. The mask became sticky and clung to his face like a living thing and he felt a slight jab as the horns pushed into his head and stuck. There was a twitch at the lower end of his back as the slender tail of the tauren attached to him, and he gasped for breath. Suddenly he felt completely fine again, even feeling a slight chill on his skin. Vorn stood up straight, suddenly realizing he had hooves on his feet instead of toes. They scraped across the stone floor as if they were wholly solid, not the fake, empty things that had been attached to the suit. He lifted his hands up and studied them and saw two strong three-fingered hands at the end of long muscular arms. He briefly cupped the shapely breasts that weighed down his chest and felt a twinge of pleasure arc through his body. Looking down he confirmed that he had become the perfect image of the tauren skin, as if he had never been anything else. "Muradin's beard..." Vorn muttered and gasped as he realized his voice was now a deep yet feminine tone. Walking over to a dusty mirror leaning against one of the walls, Vorn quickly learned to balance in this new form. He didn't know if he was still a dwarf inside a suit animated by magic, or if the skin had actually changed him into a tauren, but right now he still felt merely curious. Brushing a thick layer of dust from the mirror, he studied his reflection. There was a tauren woman there, her body beautifully muscled after a life of physical pursuits. She had a cute face for her race with large deep blue eyes and some white on her snout, and a pair of small arced horns. Vorn realized that this was really him. Or rather, her. Suddenly she realized that surely this was the doing of fate. Vorn had wanted to retire and never see the grim toil of battle again, and now he had by pure accident stumbled upon a cache filled with magical disguises that let him change into anyone. "Thank the Light," the tauren woman said to herself smiling. Mulgore, Kalimdor Two Months Later Onawa Hawkshot jogged across the rustling plains of Mulgore with the wind at her back and the sun above her. The smells of the land were wonderful, the scent of wildflowers and dry grass mixing with a hint of kodo and wet dirt. Her hooves struck the ground securely, as if she had been born with them. Her long rifle was firmly strapped across her back together with the results of her hunt - a small gazelle and a few smaller animals like rabbits. The wind playfully wafted through her long brown mane, and Onawa laughed at it like it was an old friend. She could scarcely believe she had wasted her whole life in holes in the ground or on battlegrounds covered in carnage when there were places this free and beautiful on Azeroth. She barely missed being Vorn at all. It had been easy to arrange transport to the (mostly) neutral port of Ratchet under the guise of a travelling merchant, and from there Vorn had snuck into the wilderness and changed into the female tauren costume. She had then slipped into the matching outfit she had taken from the cache, which when accompanied with a hunting rifle made the tauren into the image of a humble huntress. Fortunately it seemed the disguise had been designed to help infiltrate other societies, because the newly re- christened Onawa found herself learning taurahe at an alarming pace. She had been welcomed into the Horde town of Crossroads without question and continued to Mulgore without being even stopped by the Horde patrols or civilians she encountered. And now she was here, in this land so utterly unlike Dun Morogh. A vast prairie ringed by tall mesas and occasionally covered with sparse forests, teeming with wildlife. To Vorn/Onawa, this had become a paradise. At first it had been odd for the false tauren to hunt and travel the plains wearing little but a halter to keep her bust under control and a bottom to keep her modesty, coupled with archer's gloves and boots which (for obvious reasons) ended at the ankles. But soon she had become used to this as well and felt no shame around other tauren she met. It was just the way of these people, and their ways fascinated Onawa endlessly. The tauren were spiritual and calm, slow to anger and content with their lot in life. Of course they had character flaws, but the contrast between their life style and the tense, rigid life of being a dwarf was immense and refreshing. Onawa had quickly been accepted as a traveling huntress and was soon making her simple living from the land, occupying a small tent at Bloodhoof village when she was not on the hoof. It was a good life for a tired, disillusioned veteran. That she had changed over from the Alliance to don the appearance of a Horde member didn't even occur to Onawa until a week into her masquerade, and didn't bother her afterwards either. She wanted to get away from fighting, not take up arms for the other side. As such, what did it matter what she looked like? Being a woman did not bother her either, in fact it added to the relief. It was as if Vorn had taken a simple step out of his old life and right into Onawa's, leaving fears and doubts behind. In truth, one of the best things about the skins rather than just retiring in Ironforge was that nobody could conceivably recognize Vorn Frosthammer anymore. During his career, the dwarf mountaineer with the big black bear had become something of a minor hero in the Alliance forces and a scourge on Horde patrols. But now that too lay discarded behind Onawa, just like the trail of footprints she left across the plains. "Greetings, Hawkshot. Was your hunt successful?" asked an armed tauren woman as the huntress jogged into Bloodhoof village. "Indeed, the Eartmother was gracious today," said Onawa showing off the gazelle on her back. "May your day continue to be this sunny, brave Rainchaser." The guard smiled and waved as Onawa continued into the center of the village, heading over towards the large two-story building that served as an inn. Entering the structure she was greeted by Kauth, the innkeeper, and a few other tauren enjoying a good meal also shouted cheerful greetings. Onawa returned the wellwishes of each in turn, and then walked over to sit down at a table a little bit away from the other patrons. Onawa ordered some fruit juice and a pie and while she waited she just leaned back and thought of how much her life hand changed. Later in the day she had plans to get the meat of the gazelle and other animals prepared and then perhaps undertake a trip to Thunder Bluff, just to experience more of the city. The tauren capital amazed Onawa who was used to the enclosed, subterranean depths of Ironforge, and she had already undertaken two visits there just to marvel at the view. With these pleasant thoughts swimming through her head, suddenly some scraps of conversation reached the ears of the young tauren female. "-get the bastards. Kill them all for what they did," said an unfamiliar, coarse tauren voice. "Don't leave a single one alive," muttered an orc voice in agreement. "We'll go at first light," said a second tauren voice. Onawa felt a chill rush up her spine and opened her eyes from her daydream. Around a table a bit away from hers sat two heavily armored tauren and an equally well-armed orc, all discussing passionately. She did not recognize two of the three, but the third was familiar to her, a younger tauren male with a scar across his snout and a black mane. "Brave Stonehoof?" Onawa said, standing up and walking closer. "That is you isn't it? It's me, Onawa Hawkshot, the huntress." The young tauren brave looked over, and his two comrades grunted dismissively. Still, Stonehoof's face split into a warm smile. "Onawa, greetings plainsrunner. Has the Eartmother smiled on you?" he said. "She has been kind, but tell me, what is the matter? Are you leaving Bloodhoof?" Onawa asked with concern, feeling a twinge of worry that she couldn't shake. Stonehoof nodded, his expression suddenly downcast. The orc and other tauren at his table nodded empathically. Stonehoof looked up at her again, and this time his pleasant expression was twisted into an angry snarl. "The Alliance struck again in the southern Barrens. We can't just sit by idle anymore as our brothers and sisters are hunted and slaughtered. We're leaving to join the army at Desolation Hold." Stonehoof said, his voice filled with conviction. "The Alliance, b-but-" Onawa started, suddenly feeling the fear blossom into outright panic. The orc stood up and rammed his mailed fist into the table. "Those cowardly dogs struck at a caravan going north. No warning. No offers to surrender. Killed every last one!" he shouted. "They must pay!" His two companions nodded in agreement, and so did some of the other guests at the inn. Even Kauth raised a vengeful fist in conjunction with the orc. Onawa felt like the ground was opening up beneath her hooves and the beautiful serenity of Mulgore now threatened to become a sinkhole that would swallow her whole. She fought to get her question out, the words feeling like bile in her mouth. "The Alliance? But who? Who did this?" she finally managed. The orc met her gaze, his eyes blazing with fury. "Those stinking, lying, backstabbing dwarves from Bael Modan. If it weren't for them we'd have peace in the Barrens!" Onawa had to fight to keep herself from running away right there. Her legs felt weak as every memory of Vorn's washed over her. She felt guilty over what she was hearing, mixed with anger at the Horde whom a part of her screamed were the ones responsible for the conflict. Stonehoof looked up at her with concern. "Huntress? Are you alright?" "I am fine. I just remembered I must go and tend to my meets. Good... travels, brave. And please be careful." Before the confused tauren male could reply Onawa had walked back to her table and picked up her gear. Then she was gone out the front door, leaving only some money for the innkeeper for her unfinished meal. She tried to control herself as long as she was within Bloodhoof village, even though her knees were weak and her breath ragged. She stopped by the craftsmen's tent and turned the prey she had killed in to the smoked and dried, promising she would return for it when it was due. She knew she wouldn't. Onawa left Bloodhoof village and ran until she was out of breath. Only when she had left the settlement did she stop underneath a ragged pine and fish out a fist-size whitish stone with a large blue rune on it from a pouch. With tears in her eyes she rubbed the specially prepared Hearthstone that would return her to Ironforge. The Jade Forest, Pandaria Three Weeks Later Xiang-Ji Cloudrunner walked up the road leading to Dawn's Blossom, the jewel of the Jade Forest. The pandaren town reared up ahead of her with its elegant pagodas and intricately decorated buildings, and the pandaren girl smiled to herself. This land was soothing in a different way than Mulgore was, but the life of a pandaren was even more calming for the soul. After returning to Ironforge and shedding Onawa's skin in his cellar, Vorn had been close to tears. The reminder that his own kin were aggravating the horrible war that was engulfing the world had been like an arrow straight into his heart. He had only managed to recover after several days of apathetic depression, and it had been by a surprising idea. While looking through the closet of disguises, absentmindedly letting his fingers flick through the neatly arranged skins, Vorn had found the warm, fuzzy form of a red pandaren female. Her long bushy tail, beautiful, honest face and shapely body had suddenly appealed to Vorn, and some impulse he couldn't even understand caused him to strip down and leap into the skin like a drowning man reaching for a piece of flotsam. Once sealed up, the red panda girl had felt new energy and new life flow into her tired limbs, and she had relished the feeling with every breath. She suddenly knew what she had to do, and the next day Vorn departed to Stormwind, from where he secured transportation to Pandaria. It was ironic that he was now following in Jarn's footsteps after creating such a fuss over the other dwarf's plans, but Vorn's intentions were not war. Far from it. Upon arrival the scarred, black-haired dwarf had found himself a minor celebrity at the Alliance base in the Jade Forest, the easternmost territory in Pandaria. Just the reception he feared, Vorn had given them some weak excuses before rushing off into the wilderness. There he had shed his clothes and slipped into the pandaren girl's skin, and soon Vorn was no longer there, only Xiang-Ji. The youthful pandaren beauty had laughed to herself as she got dressed in some simple clothes that Vorn had picked up, and even smiled when she threw the heavy bundle containing Vorn's clothes and even personal belongings over the cliff into the ocean far below. Xiang-Ji wanted to part of Vorn's life anymore. Her first attempt to escape his life had been too close to home. Kalimdor was not different enough, not free of the conflict that Vorn hated. Pandaria had some skirmishes between the Alliance and Horde, but none of the ancient, ingrown hatreds that made any battle in Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms so vicious. Xiang-Ji wished only to live as a humble craftswoman, and fully intended never to remove her skinsuit again, much less return to the chilly halls of Ironforge. And that is why the young pandaren woman was now walking calmly and peacefully up towards Dawn's Blossom. The wind ruffled her long ponytail and made the green-colored streaks in her reddish-brown hair whip around a bit. She smiled, watching square-bodied kites sail high above the town, attached to gnarled trees clinging to the tops of the mountains that formed the backdrop to the settlement. She loved the feeling of the longer fur that a pandaren had compared to a tauren, and it was much nicer to have paws than hooves. Her bare feet stepped confidently onto each flagstone as she walked up towards the gate, a simple pack slung over one shoulder. As she approached, the tall, powerful-looking guard peered at her. "Ah, a newcomer. You came with the strangers, didn't you?" he said with an amused tone. "Is it that obvious?" Xiang-Ji said, feeling a chill of fear run down her spine. Was her secret already exposed? "I had not seen you around here before, and we have received quite a few young pandaren from the Wandering Isle lately. You are from there, aren't you?" the guard said, chuckling. "Oh, yes. I am. I'm Xiang-Ji Cloudrunner, I'm a scribe in training," she said, relieved. "Ah, you will need to find Rinji, the scribe. She lives in Greenstone village, just north of here, but she visits Dawn's Blossom all the time to sell her wares and buy new pigments, inks and parchment." Xiang-Ji's heart leapt at the news. "Thank you so much!" she said with a warm smile and passed the guard, who waved her in with another chuckle. Inside the gates, Dawn's Blossom turned out to be rather bustling after appearing so serene from a distance. Pandaren of all walks of life were going about their business in the neatly paved streets, crossing the many arched bridges into different parts of town, haggling over prices with merchants or eating their fill at some food vendor. There were people of other races as well, both from the Alliance and the Horde. While there were some ugly glares, it seemed the Dawn's Blossom guards were effective at keeping the peace, because Xiang-Ji didn't hear the noise of any fights or see any of the visitors come to blows. The pandaren girl made her way through the town to the sprawling Drunken Hozen inn, where she rented a room for now. The kindly female pandaren innkeeper welcomed the young traveler with open arms, and even offered her a free meal as she 'looked a little on the thin side'. Xiang-Ji munched happily on the warm noodles and felt the calm of her new life settle in. It felt like she was finally home. *** The pandaren girl settled in well in Dawn's Blossom. Soon Xiang-Ji could sleep peacefully without a single bad dream, and didn't think of herself as a dwarf at all, even in private. She found work as a junior scribe to be calm and soothing, learning the elaborate brushstrokes of pandaren calligraphy being enough of a challenge to keep her mind active. It also gave her some amount of spare time to see the surrounding area, not just the town itself and Greenstone Village. She visited the majestic cliffs overlooking the ocean and spoke to the fishermen who plied their trade up and down the coastline. She journeyed to the enormous Temple of the Jade Serpent where the priests and monks revered one of the four ancient Celestials of Pandaria. She also visited small forest shrines and drank from cold mountain springs, watched flowers bloom and crickets jump. It was almost as if the harmony of the land itself was rubbing off on the newcomer, making her slip more and more into her pandaren role. In Xiang-Ji, the personality of Vorn found a new expression. As Onawa the dwarf had become a tough, self-reliant loner. In touch with the land she hunted in, sure, but still a hardened individual. Xiang-Ji instead let Vorn become a soft, joyful individual, deeply content with her simple life and still wide-eyed at the wonders of the world around her. It was like the scarred, traumatized dwarf had returned to his happy youth and grown up into somebody totally different, removing the years of combat that had weighed down on his mind. As the pandaren, Vorn even began coming to terms with being a woman. Initially he had simply chosen a female disguise because he wanted to become something as far from himself as possible. Not just change the race, but also age and gender. But now, Xiang-Ji found she acted more and more feminine, and enjoyed it. In her time at Dawn's Blossom, nobody had even suspected that the cute pandaren girl might hide something. But one day, her new life was suddenly challenged by an unexpected event. *** "Bring him in here!" the voice shouted, making Xiang-Ji peer up from her calligraphy parchment. A black-furred pandaren guard entered the inn, carrying a small form in his massive arms. He was followed by two other pandaren, one male and one female, and a whole gaggle of townspeople who stayed outside the door and peered in. As Xiang-Ji got up to ask what was going on, she glimpsed a mess of red hair that seemed very familiar. The guard laid his charge down on a small cot and the female panda kneeled down next to it, administering first aid. Xiang-Ji rushed over and almost cried out. Vorn's old friend and loyal battle-brother Jarn Steelaxe lay on the bamboo cot, looking pale. He was bleeding from several wounds and his Alliance tunic was tattered. "What happened to him?" Xiang-Ji asked fearfully. "Is he dying?" The healer looked up at the young scribe, but decided she had more important things to do than argue whether the girl should be there or not. She shook her head as she rubbed a thick aromatic paste into the unconscious dwarf's wounds. "No, child. He is hurt, but he will live," she said patiently, not looking up. "What happened to him?" Xiang-Ji repeated, looking over at the guard and the male pandaren who had entered with them. "Hozen attack," the man said sadly. "I think he was traveling back to the Alliance home base near Pearlfin Village when they ambushed him. He killed a few, but was hit by several spears. We chased the monkey-men off when we heard the commotion." Xiang-Ji looked down at Jarn's face. The dwarf looked just like she remembered him with a broad nose set over a red-brown beard and bushy eyebrows on his forehead. She hadn't realized until now how much she cared for him, and seeing him wounded like this made the pandaren girl feel shame for abandoning him to the dangers of Pandaria alone. She sniffled and felt some tears fall from her eyes, with the guard giving her a reassuring pat when he noticed her crying. "Don't worry, girl. The little beard-sprite will be alright. The healer got to him in time." As he spoke, Jarn groaned deeply and his eyelids fluttered. Suddenly he was staring up at the ceiling, surprised to see a group of smiling pandaren faces looking down at him when his vision cleared. "Och, what hit me?" he grumbled. "Those cowardly monkeys ambushed me, jumped down out of the bamboo before I could raise my shield..." "Try to rest. Your wounds are taken care of, but you will need some time to heal up properly," the healer said, gently patting the dwarf's forehead. "Oh. Well then. Thank ye kindly for the help, folks," Jarn said, wincing as pain lanced through his head. The healer stood up, gathering her medicinal kit together and turning to Xiang-Ji and the others. "He will need some rest to recover. I don't have time to stay with him when there's more urgent cases that need treatment, so I would appreciate it if one of you could take care of him? It should be an easy affair, just switching bandages now and then." "I'll do it," Xiang-Ji exclaimed without thinking. The healer nodded, smiling, and she and the other two soon left the inn. Xiang-Ji walked over to Jarn's cot and sat down next to it, patting his hand gently. His eyes fluttered open again, and he smiled a little when he saw her kind expression. "Jarn Steelaxe, miss. My apologies for not bowing," he said. "Xiang-Ji Cloudrunner," she said with a small curtsey. "And you are forgiven, Jarn Steelaxe. The healer asked me to keep an eye on you until you are well enough to travel back to your people. I hope you don't mind." The dwarf chuckled and touched one of his bandages gingerly, wincing a bit in pain. "Not at all miss Cloudrunner. I welcome any friend I can make in this strange new land." "Aye," she said, feeling misty-eyed again "friends are the most precious thing in the world." *** The young scribe and the dwarf from across the sea became fast friends as he recovered, with the pandaren girl showing him all the sights that his condition allowed him to visit. Like all his kind Jarn was hardy and became stronger each day, taking longer and longer trips together with Xiang-Ji. She showed him things that he had simply marched past the first time, and opened his eyes to the beauty of her adopted land. Deep inside the pandaren, Vorn was thankful beyond words that fate had chosen to reunite her with Jarn. However it came as quite a surprise to Xiang-Ji when Jarn one evening confessed he cared for her beyond mere friendship. They were watching the stars on top of a cliff when the dwarf professed his feelings in awkward stutters, leaving the pandaren speechless. She said she needed time to think, and spent some agonizing nights trying to decide what to do. Vorn had never felt anything romantic towards Jarn, but Xiang-Ji had developed beyond the taciturn dwarf and she found herself very fond of the idea. While it took a while for her to overcome the last few stages of surprise and doubt, eventually Xiang-Ji met with Jarn again and confessed that she felt the same. They shared their first kiss right there, underneath a blossoming cherry tree. Despite that Jarn's wounds were now fully healed, he remained in Dawn's Blossom just to be close to Xiang-Ji, and the two were rarely seen apart from that day. And although the stories circulated far and wide about the shocking idea of a dwarf and a pandaren finding love, neither of them cared. Their love was born of a deep friendship, a sharing of life experiences and emotions. It did not matter to either what the other looked like on the outside, as it was what lay on the inside that mattered. And so the search of Vorn Frosthammer ended in the most surprising way possible, with the former mountaineer rediscovering the joy of life through the eyes of a new identity, and finding love in the arms of someone that had literally been under Vorn's nose the entire time. A new perspective indeed.