Not long ago, Haiendrion had been a patient man. He had tried to fish again, just a few nights ago, and he couldn’t. The waiting used to relax him, now it agitated him. Fishing was all he had left of Nendis, and now that has slipped through his fingers as well. Mathzoril had changed him. Acherix had taken away everything that Illidan missed.

Now, pacing back and forth in front of the bed in the Moonglade, under Eilassyn’s watchful gaze, every passing second drove him to the brink of insanity and back again.

It had been three days before anyone found him.

Haiendrion had been so tired, so thirsty, so hungry, so hurt. He had wanted to collapse, but he couldn’t. What if Acherix wasn’t working alone? What if agents were hunting him still?

And the shadow was always there. The dryad silhouette with Thelnylla’s indistinct, disembodied voice. Was it her ghost? Her spirit? Her shadow from the dream? Merely Haiendrion’s fevered delusions? It was all of that, and more. Or none of that, and less.

By the end of the third day his vision had blurred, and he had begun to hallucinate. All the while, exposed to the overwhelming power of Norgannon’s Tear, the flower he had picked from the peak of Mathzoril which brimmed with the chaotic energies of the arcane. He couldn’t be sure which was responsible for which. He was losing feeling in his extremities. His head had ached for forty-eight hours straight. But all he needed to know, all he needed to understand was where Thelnylla’s shadow was.

She stayed on the edge of his perception, leading him down the mountain. When he fell, she would stand there, staring at him through the snowstorm with her eyes of impossible green until he rose. And when he felt he couldn’t, she would tell him he could until he believed her.

His legs had failed him as the ground evened out. He had fought to stay conscious, and he did so by watching Thelnylla through the storm. He had clutched the case with the tear to his chest, had locked his arms around it in the hopes that in death, his rigor would prevent an easy victory for his foes, allowing him some small triumph.

This is how far gone he was.

But eventually even the eyes of Thelnylla could not hold him to the waking world. He felt the melting snow soak through his leathers, his skin growing numb and hot with frostbite, and he knew, then, that death was upon him. If he lost consciousness, he would die, and his grip was fading. He had failed.

I’m sorry, he couldn’t collect his thoughts enough to speak. He could only think it.

I did everything I could.

“Don’t be sorry,” it was Thelnylla’s voice, but with a strange tone he had never heard her use before. It was her and wasn’t her at the same time. “It was enough.”

And then the world was dark to him.

He did not dream.

An expedition of dwarves had found him and transported him back to Starfall Village. He was unconscious for a day and a half. Treating him had been difficult, as any attempt to remove the box he hugged to his chest would result in violent convulsions. He had awoken nearly naked, doused in ointments, the case still in his arms, leaving divots in his chest.

The dwarves had sent word to the Moonglade, and Bandalar’s retainers - Eilassyn and Norrund Grovewalker - had arrived to collect him a few days later.

Eilassyn, Bandalar’s second dryad lieutenant, had been greatly disturbed by Thelnylla’s death. She and Norrund had remained in Starfall, helping Haiendrion recover with their potent healing powers until he was fit to travel, then they returned to the Moonglade. Eilassyn had handled the Tear.

Thelnylla had trained Haiendrion in the hopes that he would be the one to create the potion. The potion of the dreamless sleep. Bandalar refused to let him. He claimed that he had been exposed to the Tear too extensively, and he couldn’t risk him any further. Besides, Haiendrion was still very weakened from his ordeal in Winterspring, and he needed to recover substantially before he could take the potion and delve into the Dream.

That was all this was.

That was what Thelnylla had died for.

Potions of the dreamless sleep were not uncommon. The potion induced a sleep without allowing the imbiber to dream on their own. As such, they became linked to the Emerald Dream instead. A connection to the Emerald Dream allowed one to more quickly heal their wounds or recover their energies, and such was the intent of the potions.

The one Bandalar was creating, however, was far more potent. With it, Haiendrion would be put into a deep sleep without dreaming. His consciousness would enter wholly into the Emerald Dream, and would be directed to where his recurring dream was taking place. He would no longer be a mere observer of the scene of the warrior on the precipice, he would be a part of it.

Bandalar’s instructions were clear. Haiendrion was to make contact. Emeriss, or his agents, had guided Bandalar to Haiendrion, and the only possible reason could be his inexplicable, unique connection to this woman. Haiendrion needed to find out whatever she had to tell him.

It took the potion five days to render properly, and by the time it was finished, Haiendrion had almost fully recovered.

Bandalar had arranged that the ritual would be conducted at dusk, just as Haiendrion awoke. He had advised, ironically, that in order to prepare for the dreamless sleep, he would need a good night’s sleep.

That night he had dreamed of the massacre at Nendis. He dreamed of Illidan.

Haiendrion sat on the bed, tapping his foot, fidgeting with the edge of his tunic.

There was a knock at the door, and Haiendrion bolted upright to his feet. Eilassyn shook her head, the dry, autumn leaves of her hair rustling with the motion. “It’s just Norrund,” she said as she trotted over to the door and opened it.

Norrund Grovewalker entered, a bundle of blankets in his arms. He nodded his greetings to the two and set the blankets down at the foot of the bed. Haiendrion sat back down.

Norrund stood, clapping the dust from his hands, and noted the anxiety on the other druid’s face. “He’s on his way, don’t worry. He wanted me to make sure you’re drinking plenty of water.”

Eilassyn took a wooden pitcher and poured the water within into a matching chalice. She handed it to Haiendrion, and he drank it down in two gulps. Eilassyn’s movements, her whole attitude, were efficient and to the point. Perhaps, Haiendrion theorized, the dryads’ usually playful and affable expressions grew dour when the autumn came. Then again, she had grown cold and distant to him since she had learned that Thelnylla had died in his company.

Eilassyn took the cup back from him and refilled it. This time Haiendrion merely took one sip and set it aside on the bedside table.

“Has Bandalar made any plans for provisions while we stand guard?” asked Eilassyn. “This could go on for days; weeks even.”

Norrund smirked. “I understand he’s made some arrangement with Desdel’s attendants, but I don’t think it’s especially necessary...”

“Don’t fool yourself, Norrund,” Eilassyn warned. “If this Nightmare is as insidious as Bandalar believes, forces may attempt to assault him from the physical world as well as the Dream.” She nodded in Haiendrion’s direction. “Haiendrion’s training has prepared him for possible attacks from the Dream but he will be defenseless in this world. It will be up to us to protect him. Our will cannot falter. Nor can our stamina.”

Norrund sighed. “Very well,” he conceded.

The scent of mud in springtime preceded Bandalar bursting through the door. Haiendrion sprang to his feet once again. He was seized simulteneously by relief and anxiety.

Bandalar nodded knowingly, his great antlers nearly scraping the high ceiling. “It is here.”

He removed a bundle wrapped in a mottled green cloth, and handed it to Eilassyn. She unwrapped the cloth and revealed the pewter vial inside. She glanced at Bandalar. “Have all the preparations been made?”

Bandalar nodded his heavy head. “Are you ready, Haiendrion?”

Haiendrion took a deep breath. “I am, Shan’do.”

Bandalar put a hand on the druid’s shoulder and gripped it tightly. “Have you been drinking plenty of water?”

Haiendrion rolled his eyes. “Yes, Shan’do.”

“Then the way is clear,” Bandalar released him. “Whenever you are ready, Eilassyn will feed you the potion.”

Haiendrion got into the bed and sat upright. Eilassyn approached him, the vial outstretched. He instrinctively reached for it but she moved his hand away with her free one. He was not to touch the vial, merely drink of it. There was an outside chance, Bandalar had told him, that his touch could contaminate the potential effects. And they were taking no such chances.

She was about to touch the vial to his lips when he pulled back, and looked her in the eye. “If I don’t come back... I’m sorry about Thelnylla.”

Eilassyn’s face was impassive. She leaned forward and poured the potion into his mouth.

It stung his eyes and his nostrils. Cold began to bleed out from his mouth to the rest of his body before he even swallowed it. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t feel his tongue. He collapsed backwards. Eilassyn held his back and guided his head gently to his pillow. His vision was swirling, blurring, blending, acquiring shades and colours he had never imagined his eyes were capable of seeing. His guardians became the walls, the walls and ceiling became the floor. The floor became the bed. The beg became him. He tried to move his fingers, but they didn’t even twitch.

Even when he closed his eyes, he could do nothing but see.

To describe the Emerald Dream as Haiendrion experienced it is a feat which defies all languages known in Azeroth and beyond. For the languages of men and immortals are limited to expressions understood through the senses. The Emerald Dream defies the senses, and defies the physical limits of the mind these senses are interpreted through. Such that one cannot recollect the full extent of their experience within the Dream. Memories, when subject to the limitations of the unforgiving Real, are echoes and shadows, steeped in symbols, metaphors, and layers of subtle consciousness.

This is what Haiendrion could remember:

Fog.

He couldn’t be certain how it began. Whether he had beheld this fog for years or eons, had it crepts into his vision, had it flashed before him in the blink of an eye he could not say. He didn’t just see it, he felt it, heard it, tasted it, was it. It dyed his world an emerald green.

At the edge of his perception: sounds. They disturbed the peace of this fog. He looked in no direction and beheld a tall cliff ascending or extending or descending before him. He saw a voice fall or rise to him, and when he met it, he knew it. He had experienced it before, and it had terrified him. That terror comforted him, now.

A ball of snow appeared in his vision, and struck the back of his head.

The fog vanished.

Haiendrion turned, wiping snow out of his hair. Thelnylla stood atop the peak of Mathzoril, only there was no blizzard, and there was no flower. She laughed impishly, and gathered another ball of snow, ready to pelt him once again.

Haiendrion grinned, and rolled to the side, making his own snowball and retaliating. It struck her flank, and she scoffed in mock indignation, then began to frolick away. Haiendrion gave chase. Thelnylla’s delicate hooves sent up tufts of snow behind her.

Then a hand gripped his arm, pulling him back. He recognized her touch. It was Thelnylla. But when he turned to look at her she was a distance away, obscured by a creeping, green fog. So much so that he only beheld a shadow, with two swirling orbs of green where her eyes should have been. They were angry eyes.

“Have you forgotten her so quickly?”

The voice spat. It was Thelnylla’s voice, but it was not Thelnylla.

“No! Of course not!”

“Leave him alone!”

He turned back to the other Thelnylla. She was shouting, but not at him. At the shadow behind him. But when she did, her face grew somehow sallow, and the leaves in her hair looked slick with decay. When she clenched her fists, the vines around her arms were cracked and dry. It was not Thelnylla at all.

“Come, druid,” she enticed, her voice softening. “Let us play. We were friends once. Let us play as we once did.”

The illusion was deteriorating faster now. Her frosty skin was falling away, revealing yellowed, broken flesh. The soft cervine hide melted away like wax, and beneath was matted, mangy fur. Her hair, her face was shed like a snakeskin, and he beheld now a ruinous, dreaded face. She had the proportions of the nymphic dryads, but her eyes were sunken, her face prematurely aged. Her hair was a tangled mess of rotting vines, leaves, and flowers.

“Come, druid,” she said again, in a voice that was not Thelnylla’s at all. It was a terrible, familiar voice. “I will watch over you.”

Hers was the voice that ended his dream.

“No!” Haiendrion shouted, and the last vestiges of the illusion were no more. The snow on the ground exploded into a thick, green fog, and the scent of rotten cabbage drifted from the strange dryad.

Her eyes blazed, and she growled - it was a strange, gutteral sound. “You were foolish to bring him here, Dreamling!” she spoke not to Haiendrion, but to the dryad’s shadow behind him. The shadow was becoming less distinguishable. “I tried to be merciful! I tried to end this kindly! And you...” now her eyes were on him, and he felt more naked than he thought possible, “... you could have had a happy prison. We could have played together through the endless reaches of the Dream for an eternity. Instead, I shall trap you here in torment beyond your feeble imagination.” She grinned. “Only one such as I, who has known the Nightmare as I have, can plumb the depths of that dark place.”

“Haiendrion!”

He saw Thelnylla, her image shimmering now, like a reflection in a troubled pond, but heard not her voice. The voice he heard was strangely bestial and, he was almost certain, male.

“Get down!”

Haiendrion had lost all sense of himself, and so was uncertain what he could do with such a request. But the shadow suddenly dispersed into a violent cloud of wispy darkness that swept past him and enveloped the rotting dryad like a swarm of angry bees. The dryad shrieked, her voice splitting his vision and darkening the fog like arrows streaming oil behind them.

A shape emerged from the swarm, expelled, almost. It flapped wings, and wagged a short tail, but it was otherwise indistinct. Yet, Haiendrion knew the creature. He felt warm empathy for it, and it warmed him, spreading through his being, as if his heart was made of butter and his ribs were a heated grill. He loved it, and wanted to help it.

Haiendrion moved towards them, to try and aid the creature, but it turned to him, bright, swirling green eyes visible now within the shadows. “No! You must find the warrior!”

“But...” Haiendrion struggled to narrow his focus enough to speak. “I don’t know how to find her.”

“You are drawn to her, connected to her,” the creature shouted, still attacking the dryad. “Just let yourself go, and you will be brought to her.”

Suddenly the dryad lashed out, a rotten vine oozing ochre sap whipping the creature aside. She roared in defiance, attempted to jump at Haiendrion, but the creature was before her again, flapping its wings fervently, and swinging its little limbs at her.

“Go!”

He didn’t know how, but he looked down, saw nothing below him, and so fell. He looked up, or down, and saw behind him the rolling chaos of the small creature and the rotten dryad, retreating into the distance.

He looked down, or up, and saw in front of him the same precipice he had seen before. The same woman on it.

And then, he was at her side. The ground beneath him was firm, the sky above him was empty, and the wooden staff in his hands was solid.

A gangly shadow attacked him. He threw out his arms, spun his staff, struck it in the face. It fell, and disappeared, into the ground.

The night elf woman gasped, noticing him for the first time. “Who are you?” she asked, so bewildered she was almost struck by one of the shadow creatures. Haiendrion grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away, and smashed the shadow in its would-be face with the butt of his staff.

“I am Haiendrion!” he shouted above the growls and shrill cries of the shadows. “I have been brought to you, but I know not why!”

“Did she capture you too?” she cried, artfully spinning her twin glaives at the shadows, tearing them apart like moldy curtains.

“She?” asked Haiendrion, deflecting a strike from one of the shadows. “Who?”

Before she could answer, there was a disturbance behind them, and in the sky above them a dark, grinning face appeared.

“You will not succeed...”

It was the dryad.

The night elf nodded at the face in the sky. “Sindrathel.”

“Who?”

She pointed her glaive. “Sindrathel.”

The face contorted into a wicked smile. “Your struggle is fut-” she stopped, suddenly, as her glaring eyes fell on Haiendrion. “You!” she hissed. “You meddlesome fool!” She opened her mouth, wider than should have been possible, and a shrill, piercing wail fell upon the precipice.

The shadows stopped. They turned their eyeless faces to Haiendrion, and then sprang towards him.

The elf woman stepped between them and him, destroying two in one strike.

“You must leave! She won’t kill me but she will have no problem destroying you!”

Haiendrion fended them off as best he could but they were invasive, and they were many. “Wait!” he cried, drawing himself closer to her. “I need to know why I’ve been brought here! To you! What message do you have for me?”

He felt a tug, suddenly, as if from the back of his stomach, pulling him strangely backward. He thought perhaps it was the shadow people but they were not behind him when he looked.

“I have no message!” she shouted. “I don’t know who you are!”

“Who are you, then?” asked Haiendrion. “How did you come to be here?”

She pulled him out of the way as two more shadows lunged for him. She cracked them across their faces with the heel of her boot and they dispersed. “It’s a long story,” she confessed. “Too long for the time we have!”

The shadows had multiplied, and were now upon them in a frenzy. The woman forced Haiendrion behind her and, in a blurred, furious whirlwind, she staved them off.

“Find Bladeweaver!” she shouted. “If she lives! Thyn’tel Bladeweaver! Find her in the Waking World, tell her I sent you!”

The tug, again. More substantial, this time. Haiendrion felt as if someone was trying to pull him backward, not just physically, but backward out of that moment, out of that space and time.

He resisted. “But who are you?”

The force, however, was too great, and he could no longer relent. He felt himself slipping away, the shadows’ blows fell through him, and the woman was almost buried beneath them.

“Vertiga!” she shouted. “Vertiga Valerunner!”

The shadows overran her, and Haiendrion was pulled away. He lost all sense of his self and the world around him. Everything was indistinguishable, and he was a part of everything.

He could only discern two forces. One was something pursuing him. In this form, in this interaction, he could only sense a presence, but they were there, and they were the same as the creatures from the precipice. There was something else leading them. Of the same, but incomparable. He knew it to be the dryad - Sindrathel.

Sindrathel.

He tried to say her name aloud, but had no lips, tongue, or breath.

The second force was opposite them, leading him by some ethereal tether. It was familiar, it was calming. And despite Sindrathel’s presence, he felt safe and almost happy.

To behold the second force was to behold a dryad’s silhouette, with swirling green orbs where her eyes would be.

“You...” he didn’t know how he said it, as he had no faculty to say anything here.

He fell back on the ground, and sat up.

He was in a heavily forested area, on the shore of a small pond. It seemed so real to him. Were it not for the viridian sheen everything had, he would have sworn he had awoken.

There was silence, save for the chirps and twitters of animals in the forest around him. He was bewildered.

“Where am I?” he asked aloud.

“A safe place,” a voice wheezed beside him.

Haiendrion turned.

A few yards from him on the grass lay a large reptilian creature. His wings were limp on the ground behind him, his chest heaved with every struggled breath, and his head barely moved when he spoke. He was a whelp - the youngest form in the life cycle of a green dragon.

“She won’t find us here,” he said, panting. “At least, not for a bit.” He raised his head slightly. “I can’t protect you any longer. My energies are spent.”

Haiendrion crawled over to him. “Are you all right?”

“I will be, after some recovery.”

“Do you need anything?” Haiendrion moved toward the pond. ”I shall fetch you water.”

“It’s ok, I’m fine.” He righted himself into a more healthy looking position, though he was still very limp. “The only thing that can help me now is a good long nap.”

Haiendrion looked into the dragon’s eyes. “I know you.”

“You’ve met me,” the dragon corrected. “In a manner of speaking, anyway...”

“You were the one at Mathzoril. You were Thelnylla.”

The dragon sighed. “I’m sorry I decieved you.”

Haiendrion shook his head. “You saved me. Who are you?”

“My name is Oneiriaz,” he replied. “And I’m afraid that I’m responsible for all of this.”

“You are behind the Nightmare?” Haiendrion found himself exasperated.

Oneiriaz looked at him critically. “Don’t be silly,” he chided, then laid down again. “But I am behind bringing you here. I connected you to Vertiga. I told Bandalar about you.”

“Bandalar said Emeriss showed me to him,” said Haiendrion.

“I...” Oneiriaz sighed. He struggled to speak for a moment. Haiendrion got the impression that he was choking back tears. “Emeriss has gone mad. He... he moved against the Nightmare, and it consumed him. I don’t know how it did it or what it did to him, but he’s become something... so different from what he used to be. Everytime I think it’s as bad as it could get he gets worse. Soon I don’t think I’ll even be able to recognize him.” He coughed. “I knew Bandalar wouldn’t just take me at my word so I... disguised myself as Emeriss. To save him. To help save all of them.

“If the Nightmare changed Emeriss and the others then what hope do I have against it? This was the only thing I found that I knew how to fix. No one else would help me.” He bowed his head, and closed his eyes.

Haiendrion said nothing, just stared at Oneiriaz.

“He’s my father. Emeriss. I’m his youngest hatchling.”

Haiendrion shook his head. “I do not understand. What does all this have to do with me? Or Vertiga and Sindrathel? Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” said Oneiriaz, shaking his head sadly. “At least, I don’t know who they used to be. I found Sindrathel’s dreamscape some time ago, and Vertiga Valerunner was imprisoned within. She’s been there for some time. Longer than I’ve been alive. But through her I could reach out, to the rest of you night elves. I was able to find you. You… well, let’s just say you have very powerful, very loud dreams. I was able to tie those into Sindrathel’s dreamscape, and lead Bandalar to you. But this was all supposed to take much less time. Sindrathel’s power and control over this valley in the Emerald Dream has become much more substantial. She may have grown beyond our abilities to defeat.”

“Defeat?” asked Haiendrion. “You led me here to fight her?”

“It’s much more complicated than that,” Oneiriaz sighed. He was about to explain further, but they noticed a sound coming from the pond. The water in the centre was churning, as if boiling, and an expanding brown oil slick began to spread over the water.

Oneiriaz crouched low, his wings flared back, ready to pounce. “She’s here…”

Haiendrion scrambled to his feet. “What do we do?”

“You need to leave here, quickly!” Oneiriaz snapped.

But it was too late. The pond had turned to a watery bog, sickly brown and bubbling, more tumultuous in the centre than anywhere else. It sputtered violently, and Sindrathel burst from beneath, flanked by two shadow-creatures.

Her face darkened when it met Haiendrion. She turned to her attendants. “Find him.”

The shadows leapt into the air and spiraled into the sky overhead.

She folded her arms across her chest, and sighed at Oneiriaz. “You again, dragon youngling? When will you learn that your efforts are in vain? I have already won.”

Oneiriaz struck as menacing a pose as he could, but his limbs were shaking, and his jaw quivered with a desperate final reserve of energy.

“Haiendrion,” he whispered. “Please, leave! I can’t protect you.”

Sindrathel walked through the mud onto the shore, kicking off the grime with a jerk of each hoof. Haiendrion backed away.

Sindrathel looked at him with cold apathy. “You are right to fear me, druid. I could have offered you an eternity of bliss within the Dream. Together we could remake this dreamscape into whatever form you wished of it. But you threw it away.” She pointed at Oneiriaz. “You threw it away for this.”

“I threw it away for myself,” said Haiendrion. “I don’t want it. It would never be real.”

“Creatures live their whole lives within the Dream,” Sindrathel pointed out. “The world has been shaped and sustained by its power. I assure you, the Emerald Dream is real, in every sense of the word.”

A slow, sinister smile crept onto her face. “In fact, my agents are borne of the Dream, and they have followed your consciousness back to the waking world. You shall see, now, just how real dreams can be…”

Oneiriaz’s eyes shone with fright. “Leave here, druid. This instant! She has sent her agents to the waking world!”

Haiendrion looked at him quizzically for a mere moment, before an overwhelming spike of pain pierced his mind. This was the Dream – he had no body here. He had no sensation of physical agony; he could not discern where he hurt. He couldn’t even say that it was he who was hurting. He was pain. It was all he knew.

Then it was gone. He knew who and what he was again. He was still at the shore of the pond, on his hands and knees. Sindrathel stood above him. Oneiriaz was assaulting her face, his wings flapping vigorously, and with every movement, he grunted with such exertion that Haiendrion’s heart broke every time he heard it. But the dragon was weak, and it was a simple matter for the dryad to grab him with both hands and throw him to the ground.

Oneiriaz bounced when he struck the ground, and his tongue lolled out from his snout.

“Go…” he managed to wheeze. “Go now…”

His eyes closed, his image blurred, and he vanished.

Haiendrion did not know if that meant he had died.

Sindrathel cantered towards him. “You shall trouble me no more, fair druid…”

Haiendrion closed his eyes. All he had to do was pull himself out of the Dream, but he had no idea how he was to do that. He had failed. He had failed Oneiriaz, he had failed Bandalar, he had failed himself, his family, and the memory of Thelnylla. He remained on all fours, waiting for a death he knew he deserved.

But it did not come.

“No…” Sindrathel whispered. He opened his eyes and looked at her; saw horror and revulsion in her visage, which gave way to indiscriminate anger. “No!”

He looked down. His hands were not his hands any longer. They were branches, his fingers were roots, and were growing into the soft earth. His skin and clothing was turning to bark, and his hair was becoming a canopy of leaves.

Sindrathel regained herself, and began to charge at him. “I will not be cheated of my-”

Haiendrion awoke.

He sat bolt upright with a cry. Eilassyn caught him, and forced him back down onto his back. “Be careful,” she warned. “You’re still very weak.”

He was. His joints burned, and he had a throbbing headache. “What… what happened? How long…”

“Twelve hours,” Eilassyn answered. “Much… shorter than we had anticipated.”

“No…” Haiendrion had trouble getting his thoughts together, and trouble still expressing them in words once he had. “Sindrathel’s minions… we were attacked.”

“We… yes, we were,” Eilassyn replied haltingly.

Haiendrion strained to pay attention. He blinked, looking around the room, though his vision was still foggy. Norrund was sitting in the corner, his head in his hands.

Haiendrion moved to sit up, and Eilassyn tried to stop him again. He pushed her aside, as a figure below the baseboard of his bed came into view.

Bandalar lay dead on the floor.