A Story of a Shaman

Birds. Birds were the first thing she noticed; their beautiful singing and their wings flapping. She could feel a mild breeze. That was odd… There aren’t supposed to be breezes inside a giant hall… Maybe it’s the work of the titans? Yes… definitely… That was her explanation.

She wasn’t sure how long she just lay there, but eventually she could feel something else. The pain; she could feel a brutal pain in her head. Well, mostly in her head; the rest of her body was aching as well, but the thing that stood out the most, was her head. It felt as if her head had become a drum for 2 ogres during Brewfest. This reminded her of Algar… Fond memories of last year’s Brewfest had been great fun, although she still didn’t drink, Algar however, drank for both of them, emptying keg after keg.

She giggled a bit, until she remembered her pain. She wanted to move; she really did, but her body seemed not to want to cooperate with her at all. She tried moving her legs, but they did not obey. Her arms… She couldn’t feel her arms… She still had her tail, her legs felt the same, but her arms felt strange… There couldn’t be anything wrong with her arms, it was probably just the headache, albeit a very strange headache. She couldn’t remember how she got it…

Roll… She rolled around the grass. It had taken hours of practice, but she could finally distribute her weight around her body. Her arms still felt strange and nonexistent, but she would figure that mystery out once she could open her eyes. Something told her that opening her eyes were not the best thing to do right now, so she just rolled around the grass. It felt nice, the soft grass, the mild breeze, the birds singing. She had never felt so serene since her test of water. Taming the element of water required patience and 100% serenity, and it was her favorite element, having mastered it very quickly.
Odd… She couldn’t feel the elements here… Actually, she couldn’t feel any form of energy current at all. She could always feel Pupazzo’s energy flow whenever he was close, even though it was chaotic. But now she couldn’t feel any at all. It didn’t matter; all that mattered was that she was rolling around in the soft, soft grass.

Now she felt it was time to open her eyes. Her eyelids obeyed her command, and opened straight away, this changed nothing though, as all she could see was black. She could feel sunrays on her body, so it wasn’t night, and she weren’t in the void… But it was all black, and that should have an explanation, so she tried finding one. Maybe she was in the shadow of a big tree? No… Then she wouldn’t feel sunrays… Wait, why could she feel sunrays? Sunrays didn’t feel nice at all on Azeroth; or Outland for that matter… So why could she feel them? They made her feel all nice and fuzzy inside, so she wouldn’t give it too much thought.

She still needed to find out why she couldn’t see anything, so she started to try and remember what had happened the day before. She didn’t stop rolling though; the grass was too soft to stop rolling. Maybe she could cast a spell that would make her see? Far sight? It had been a long time since she had last needed to cast that spell, and she could hardly remember how to cast it. And her arms felt strange… Why did her arms feel strange? It would be hard to cast a spell without her arms to direct the flow of energy. And could she cast it without being able to feel the elements?

She would try. She concluded that after minutes of thought. Yes, she would try to cast far seeing, so that she could see why she couldn’t see. She giggled again, that was a funny thought. She still couldn’t remember what brought her here… How did she get on this soft grass? She felt like she could never stop rolling, so she didn’t. The grass was too nice. She looked inside her mind, to access the spell that would allow her to see. And then she tried focusing her energies towards her hands; but they wouldn’t obey. She couldn’t focus her energies towards her hands..? Now her arms definitely felt strange…

Now she could feel an energy flow, but it came from the strangest of places. Her head… Why did she feel and energy flow in her head? No, how could she feel an energy flow in her head… There weren’t anything that could cause an energy flow in her head, unless her head had been engraved with runes! Oh no! Now she really needed to see what had happened to her! And why was the grass so soft?

Focusing her energies once again; this time towards her head; she tried to cast far seeing. Her head started to feel fuzzy, and she could feel her energy flowing. But her far seeing didn’t work. Had she casted an entirely different spell? In that case, what had she casted?! Had she released a fire elemental?! That would definitely burn the soft, soft grass… Then she couldn’t roll in it anymore, and she wouldn’t ever want to stop rolling in the soft grass…
Maybe the runes had her spell locked? She had cast a spell, she was sure of that; but maybe the runes had caught her spell before it could work? If she couldn’t cast spells, she would have to try to remember what had happened. What happened yesterday...? It was all so blurry, and she could hardly make anything out; honestly this grass was too soft, and too distracting…

Slowly, but surely everything started to come back to her; she was overwhelmed with memories. How they had entered a forbidden vault, defeated a robot; met an avatar of the titans. How they had been imprisoned; how Algar had burst into her prison cell. She giggled at that part of her memory; Algar would always find a way back to her. The discs… There was something after the silhouette had given them the discs… She felt it was somehow important, but she couldn’t remember it. Had the avatar engraved runes onto her face? No; it was something else.
Her mind finally remembered the elephant standing in the middle of her memory; the blindfolds. Why didn’t she remember before? It was obvious… She started to move her arms towards her face. Now she realized why her arms felt strange; they had no hands, or fingers… Why was she missing her hands?! Had the inter-dimensional teleport forgotten her hands?! Why was this grass so soft?!?

Okay… She had to keep her focus, how could she get her blindfold off her head; without her hands… Okay, that answer was simple, just push the blindfold off; duh. She closed her eyes, and pushed off the blindfold; now she could feel the sunrays on her face as well. It felt… Nice? She had never felt this way about the sun before; so why did she now?

She opened her eyes; too bright! She closed them quickly again. Her eyes adjusted after a few times of opening and closing them. She finally stopped rolling; now that her eyes were open, she could investigate some of the mysteries. First mystery to solve: Why were her arms feeling so strange?! Looking down on her body, she saw something she had never seen before… Her arms were now… Hoofs? But...She looked over her body, taking a moment to note every change her body had went through.

Apparently, now she had fur. This was the second thing she noticed. She was covered in a deep midnight blue coat. Except for her flank; that had a special ‘mark’ on her flank. Okay, that definitely wasn’t there before that inter-dimensional travel. It looked like the 4 elements; represented by orbs of their respective element. 1 water orb, 1 earth orb, 1 orb of air and 1 orb of fire, all arranged in a sort of diamond shaped crown…thingy.

Okay, this was just getting weirder and weirder. There were only 2 mysteries left, that Neizana still couldn’t answer; not without someone else at least. Why could she feel an energy flow in her head and why was this grass so soft?!
Looking around, she could determine she was in sort of clearing, surrounded by trees; she could only assume that she was in a forest. The birds were singing, and the sky was clear; not a single cloud could be seen. The sun was shining brightly, but somehow, it wasn’t too hot, even with all this new fur. Seriously, how could any animal deal with fur? It felt nice and soft though, so she wouldn’t question it too bad. She was still unsure why she had transformed, but could only assume this as a side-effect of inter-dimensional travel.

She was lying on a patch of green grass, and nearby there was a small pond of water; crystal clear water, it would seem. Neizana realized just now, that she hadn’t had the opportunity to drink proper water in many days. Could she trust her legs… and arms(?)… to carry her? She would at least give it a shot. Carefully, she slowly but surely rose from the patch of grass, a bit wobbly, but she stood none-the-less. Neizana let out a cheer, putting her front hooves into the air, face-planting the ground before her. She was not used to not being able to cheer with her arms in the air.

Groaning as she lifted herself up again, less wobbly than before. Okay, she could stand… Could she walk? She took a few unsteady steps, before getting used to not having 2 hooves, but 4, but she quickly picked up on how to walk.

Approaching the pond of water, she could see some-ones reflection in the water. It was a midnight blue… unicorn? Even in Azeroth, there were not many creatures with a horn in their head, and she had only heard of unicorns in fairytales when she was a small child.

She stared at the reflection for a long time, finally realizing that it was herself. Taking one front hoof up to touch the horn, she finally pieced the last mystery together. The energy flow came from the horn on her head. She lowered her head down to the water, and drank some water. It was ice cold, and completely pure.

She finished drinking, and gave the clearing a look again; it was then she noticed which spell she had cast instead of far seeing. She had been completely oblivious to a knocked over tree. Ripped from the grounds, roots, trunk and everything, was lying at the edge of the little clearing. Mouth agape, she just stared at the tree. She had never before been able to throw stuff around; clearly she wasn’t aware of how this world worked, and how it affected her magic.

Taking some moments to let everything new seep in, she started thinking about how she would get home. The avatar had mentioned a lesson that needed to be learnt, yet had not left any clues as to which lesson or how one could accomplish it. So she started to think of the possible lessons that she might have to learn; and the consequences of them. Maybe it was about her curiosity; that would make sense, considering the titans did not take too kindly on intruders. It was just too simple; it had to be something else. But her mind went blank; she could not process anything else.

Not being able to think of anything else, she started to analyze her situation. She was in a clearing, in what seemed like a forest. The grass here was very soft, and she was apparently some sort of equine. She had travelled to some other dimension, probably nothing like Azeroth. The sunrays made her happy; bizarre as that was. There had to be some sort of civilization nearby, although that sounded unlikely considering how serene these woods were. Maybe the local race was like the night elves; tree huggers at heart.

She took a decision; she would find civilization, and ask for shelter. Hopefully the locals would be friendly, since she had no clue how to control her magic, and was a weakling in melee combat. She started trotting out of the little clearing, with only one thing in mind; she would find her way back home.

The road she walked on was narrow, infested with all sorts of roots. The sides of the road were covered in bushes and branches that looked very hostile, giving the appearance of a possible attacker or a wild beast. The forest had quickly turned dark, even though when she left the clearing, the sun had only been halfway through its cycle. Maybe time worked differently in this dimension? Maybe she had walked for longer than she thought? Had she lost track of time already? Maybe she wer….

*SMACK*

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted when her face met the hard dirt. She lied in the middle of the road, head first, front hooves (arms..? I don’t know anymore…) stuck on a particularly large root. She just lied there for a while, moaning in pain. Maybe she should heal herself? Did she dare… She couldn’t even control her far seeing spell. Her face hurt; a lot. Maybe she had broken her chin…? No… That didn’t feel like her chin... Then maybe her muzzle; how would that feel; breaking your muzzle? Could you even break a muzzle?

She carefully rolled onto her back, trying to stay on the road. Failing miserably, she rolled off the road, right into a big patch of flowers; purple flowers to be more exact. These were even softer than the grass she rolled in at the clearing! She started joyously rolling around in the field of flowers, completely forgetting her very recent meeting with the dirt road. Giggling like a little girl would’ve done if she had been tickled by the tickle monster.

Taking a deep breath, and exhaling loudly, she calmed herself, settling down again. Taking a moment to search her feelings, the pain in the area of her muzzle hurt less now, however she also found that exhaustion was getting close, and she couldn’t possibly travel much farther that day. She wasn’t quite sure if she dared to sleep in the forest, or if she should go on a search for shelter; the forest hadn’t seemed incredibly dangerous the short time she had spent in it, but as it got darker and darker, the forest seemed to change. The trees had changed their shape, bushes started to grow leaves, and, clearly, roots had started to grow in the roads. Because overseeing them was unheard of, and was simply impossible.

She was lying on a comfortable patch of flowers… And she would be able to fend off most creatures of the wild in Azeroth at least. This couldn’t be much more dangerous. Could it? She wasn’t sure of her capabilities as a fighter in this state, form and universe, and she hadn’t quite gotten control over her magic just yet. But… Her energy reserves were running low, and she wasn’t sure how long she would have to look- or if there even was any shelter in this forest. Even if she did find shelter, it might belong to some forest creature, of which she wasn’t sure she could best, or was willing to share with her.
Before making her decision, she looked at her surroundings, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, and in the case of her sleeping here, had an idea of how her defensive possibilities were. Glancing around she found herself surrounded by thorny bushes and scary looking trees. Behind her was the steep hill she had rolled off of, the road hidden by branches and leaves; except for one spot, which had a hole, the shape of pony, in it.

How she had not noticed her fall, she did not know; maybe she was getting sleepy? She decided to, at the very least, take a nap. She couldn’t continue her travels before sleeping a bit. That was impossible. Clearly.