Robin never made it all the way to Silithus. Her group had received a missive partway on the journey, the leader of the party had walked to the night elf in the group and pulled them aside. Robin had endured shouts of anguish for a long while without knowing the reason. At first, she didn’t believe it. Teldrassil couldn’t be lost.
Why would the Horde do that? After all they had accomplished together. Robin’s doubt was removed, from the monk training grounds she could see the sprawling expanse of refugees, both Kal’dorei and gilnean. Robin taught peace, sought peace. How could she do that now?
She paused at a few camps, some with only tattered blankets and offered what bit she knew of mist-weaving and Gnomish healing technology to those she could. At one camp she came across a night elven monk she had trained with once, his eyes looked haunted and he huddled on the stones without only the clothes on his back. She took off her cloak and rolled it into a soft bundle, handing it to him and set down some travel rations and a flask of water. “Robin…my wife…I can’t find her.”
“I’ll look for her. Can you…write down her name for me? I want to make sure I’ve got it right.”
He smiled at her and wrote it with a shaking hand. Robin managed a smile and went on a search. She wandered for hours, showing the name to groups she met, finally standing in a long line at a city clerk’s office. The human at the desk looked bored and exhausted all at once. “Hm? No…no one by that name….what was her profession again?”
Robin sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Sir.”
“Probably priestess or sentinel, right? Aren’t all the women those…” The man picked up some cards from a file box, sorting through them with a dull look in his eyes.
Robin’s mouth formed into a thin line. “That was a little rude. But, no, I don’t think she’s either one of those. I think…an herbalist, or a druid.”
The man tiredly mumbled some names off the cards and then put them away. “Nope. Not here. Sorry, you’re friend’s probably dead. Next!”
Robin slammed her hand on the table, standing up on her tip-toes to reach the counter. “Look again.”
“Look, little miss, she’s either dead or not put on the census yet or still out fighting an unwinnable battle. I’ve got people to add to this list. And I’ve got fifteen minutes until I’m off the clock. I want to go home on time.”
“Do you have a heart?!”
“Do I need to call for the guards?”
Robin frowned, glaring at the man and turned to leave. “No.”
What was she do? She understood the man was tired. She was tired of walking, too. She was tired of the world being at war. Robin headed back down the canals and began showing the name around to others again, determined.
Robin returned to her friend’s little camp, empty-handed and without any new knowledge. He thanked her anyway and she provided him with enough gold to put him up in an inn for a while. His eyes looked lost as he gathered up his scant belongings and wandered towards the nearest inn. “You’ll fight, Robin…you won’t let them get away with this…we’ll fight together.”
Robin didn’t know what to say, she just watched her dazed friend as he walked away, and longed for a wife that probably would never be coming back. She had to wonder, had to wonder, with the anger she felt and the pain she had seen that day, if there was any choice but to fight? How could she promote peace when the world was so full of pain?
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