c3

Chapter 3

In Elwynn Forest...

Miriam Davidson sat on an overturned crate up against the side of her family's house that evening as the sun was halfway down in the west. Her own sea green eyes were staring past the family's garden and into the forest beyond. Her strawberry blond hair had come out of the loose bun she had tied it up in and much of it hung loosely around her shoulders. Her pretty features, pensive and distant as they were at the moment, might have been comparable to a woman of the High Elves, as much as any human woman could lay the claim to it that is. The large plot for growing the family's vegetables in front of her had been let to lie fallow for the southern province's impending, mild winter and it resembled a barren wasteland of rich brown soil, dead greens, and a few weeds here and there that would ultimately rot and end up fertilizing the ground when she and her daughter worked it in the spring. Her husband and two sons were once more in Stormwind, but she and Sarah had elected to stay behind this time. It was the eighth day in a row that they had.

The truth was she didn't know how to process all that had happened to her and Joseph concerning her oldest son in the last few months. And she couldn't bring herself to enter Stormwind again. Not yet, not with what was being said about him.

It had been more than a week since Jeshua's final visit to them in Joseph's furniture shop. In that week they had heard marvelous, fantastic stories of whole landscapes across Azeroth being changed overnight, and whole populations of undead being replaced by living breathing humans like herself. Rumors flew as to what had happened, how it had happened, or even if it really had happened. Some swore it was a miracle like Azeroth had never seen, others swore just as vehemently that it was all a trick. Disturbingly, many of Stormwind's more prominent clergy appeared to believe it was all some kind of dark hoax meant to steer the faithful off of the true path of the Light. Stormwind's Church of Light had all but rejected her son as a fraud and worse. She couldn't look those priests in the eye anymore, not without anger and hurt.

Miriam knew for certain what had happened to the world, and they didn't no matter what they said. Jeshua had told her what had happened before he left them for the last time. He had died and come back from the dead, and then he left to be with his sire. In the process of it all, he had changed the face of their world forever.

Incredible though it was, she hadn't doubted her son's words in the slightest. He had never lied to her as a boy, and though he could have as a man, he didn't even when his truth had hurt her deeply. For that reason alone, it really wasn't that hard to believe actually, not for her anyway.

What was hard was listening to priests and bishops that she had respected not long ago talk about her son like he was the Lich King reborn. Many, many choice profane words ran through the devout woman's mind about the Cathedral's clergy lately, though she had not yet resorted to using them. It was, perhaps, one of the reasons why she had elected to remain home rather than go to the city.

Joseph had not been so generous with a priest who had entered his shop the other day. Her husband had told her about the incident before bed last night. Apparently the priest hadn't realized who Jeshua was to the master carpenter and had spoken openly of him in a bad way. Miriam might have even smiled at the thought of the clergyman learning a few new profanities from her husband if it hadn't hurt so much, and if Joseph hadn't been so angry even then.

"Seek out my followers..." That was what Jeshua told them to do before he disappeared again.

Miriam had ruminated and struggled on his last words to them both since he spoke them. She hadn't wanted to talk to complete strangers about him, she had wanted him home with his family. As far as she knew, all of those people she had seen with him were in the north. The last time she had seen them, they were all in the fortified town called Hearthglen with him. But it wasn't such a hard stretch to think that if he had gone to what had been Lordaeron's capital city, into the heart of the Forsaken, they had gone with him. That was where she had been told he had died by the kind Draenei messenger from that people's ancient prophet. That had been the day before Jeshua had walked into Joseph's shop.

She had tried to be strong when she had heard the news of his death, accepting it outwardly at least, and hoping that he had finally found some kind of peace in his mission. In her heart, she had known what he was doing could only end one way with the powerful people who had taken an interest in him, and she had resigned herself to it. She had loved her son, but he had insisted that she let him finish his work and not hold on to him, and she had tried. It tore her up inside, but she had walked away and returned home when he told her to.

All that outward strength however completely dissolved when she saw him alive again herself. She had cried that day when she saw him. She had cried almost every day since. She would have cried there now, sitting on the old wooden crate that he had sat on the day he left them, except that she had few tears left to cry any more.

He wanted us to find his followers. The thought turned over and over again in her mind. He wanted us to get to know him through them. Why? Why should we have to get to know him through perfect strangers? The Draenei woman seemed nice enough, I suppose, but I'm his mother. I just don't understand.

Off to her right, the creaking sounds of her husband's cart and the clip clop of the horses could be heard coming down the dirt pathway from the main highway. She hadn't realized what time it was becoming as she was brought out of her thoughts and into the present. She hadn't seen the shadows and the darkness of the evening falling over the forest that had been her home for nearly twenty years.

I didn't make anything for supper! She then did realize with a start, rising quickly and heading into the house to see what might be available to throw together quickly. I should have started cooking hours ago! She began berating herself until the savory odors of bread and stew coming from the kitchen in the house hit her nostrils.

What? How? She asked herself in confusion.

A girlish voice called out the side kitchen door cheerily, "Supper's ready, Mama!"

Miriam came into the kitchen of the house to find some loaves of simple spice bread, still warm from the oven, placed on the table, and a blackened pot of meaty stew hanging over the cooking fire. Her nine year old daughter, Sarah, had just removed some cooking mitts from her hands and was setting the table with fire glazed ceramic bowls and the well used silver utensils that had been given to them as wedding presents before Sarah's older brothers had been born.

How much time has passed? I was only outside for a few minutes, wasn't I? Miriam thought to herself.

"Sarah? You did all this?" She then asked her daughter, guilt heavy in her voice. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I should've..."

"It's okay, Mama. You were thinking about Jeshua again." The girl responded. "I understand. I wanted to help when I saw it was getting later."

Miriam crossed the kitchen over to her daughter and held her in a deep embrace. "Thank you. You shouldn't have had to do this." She told her.

"I wanted to make supper for you and Daddy, Mama." Sarah replied. "And I made it all by myself!"

"Yes, you did." Miriam told her, trying not to visibly cringe at what Sarah obviously felt proud of. She had Sarah help her cook frequently in the past, so her daughter's ability shouldn't have surprised her, but it made her feel horrible as a mother that the bright nine year old had to do it at all.

"Are we going to do what he said? Are we going to find his followers?" The girl then asked her mother out of the blue. "Is that why you were thinking for so long, to figure out how?"

Miriam had forgotten Sarah had been there too when he had appeared to them. Their whole family had seen him walk into the furniture shop in the Trade District of Stormwind alive but with vicious holes pounded through his wrists, and fresh wounds visible across his forehead from something equally vicious. He looked like he had suffered horribly but had come through it.

"I..." Miriam didn't have an answer for her daughter. The truth was it wasn't something she'd wanted to do, and had been rebelling against since her oldest son's appearance. "I don't know. I think they're very far north, in Lordaeron. I don't even know if we can go there."

"I'd like to see Lordaeron. It's supposed to be huge with so much history there! I've read about it a lot in the books from the Library. I wonder if it's like Stormwind at all." Sarah said.

"I think it used to be before the third war, but..." Miriam replied, a growing sense of unease about that topic rising within her. There were a myriad of reasons why she did not want to go to Lordaeron at all, the least of them being her reluctance to learn about her son from someone else. She tried to think of a way to change the subject when her husband and two sons, Jimmy and Joseph Junior came into the family's kitchen and eating place.

The look on her husband's face was tired. Fresh lines of worry and anger were evident in his expression. It took a great deal to make her husband angry, even more to make him stay visibly angry all the way from Stormwind City to their house not far from Goldshire. Her two teenage boys had distant, angered looks in their expressions as well, very different from the generally friendly, hardworking young men she knew and loved. She had never seen her seventeen year old Jimmy with the dark look on her face, silent as he was.

He tried to give her a smile, but it was weak as though he would have trouble smiling about anything for a while. She waited for him to say something, though from his expression, she had an instinct about what had happened, again.

"Brother Kristoff stopped by the shop again. He brought Bishop Marcus with him to speak to me about my 'questions of faith.' Apparently, I am sorely in need of repentance for not renouncing our son." He told her, his voice controlled but she could hear the anger flaring again. "I've never thought myself that religious, Miriam, but even I know when a Priest is full of it, much less a Bishop. The man swore up and down that Jeshua was some kind of void crazed demoniac. I know I didn't know him as well in the last few years, but you'd think I would know what kind of man I raised or tried to raise."

Her two boys remained silent, but she could see their anger visibly as they clenched their fists at the memory. They had been much younger when Jeshua had left. Jimmy had been a nine year old, and had looked up to his brother, that is, when he wasn't pestering him like all little brothers seem to. But Jeshua had never seemed to get angry with either him or Joseph Jr. no matter what pranks they tried to play on him.

"The Bishop said that?" Miriam asked.

"Something close. You talked with him up there in Hearthglen. Was that the kind of man you met with? Did he seem like some dark sorcerer to you?" Joseph asked her, already sure of the answer.

"No." She told him, remembering the painful conversation she had with her oldest son. "No, he didn't, and the people he was with weren't those kind either. The soldiers there had nothing but good things to say about him and his followers except for how crowded it had gotten when they arrived."

Joseph took a deep breath, rubbed his face in his hands, and sighed before noticing the food on the table. "Thanks for dinner, sweetheart." He told Miriam. "I know it's been tough."

"Sarah made it tonight." Miriam responded, gesturing to their daughter who had been quiet up till that point.

Joseph then turned his gaze towards his youngest, "You did?" He asked, some of his smile returning. "It smells great, Sarah."

"Thank you, Daddy!" Sarah beamed at him.

Joseph then sat down at the table and the others followed suit. He then passed his bowl to Miriam who went and ladled some of Sarah's stew into it before passing it back to her husband, and repeated until she was filling her own bowl before sitting down.

Her husband paused, before taking another deep breath, letting it out slowly and saying, "After the clerics came into the shop, I went and talked to Dad for a while before the boys and I headed home. He thought maybe we should just keep the shop closed tomorrow, and the next few days too until the Priests forget about us." Joseph told her before taking a chunk of the bread, soaking it in the stew, and putting it in his mouth to chew. "Dad said he'd heard some talk of trouble at the Cathedral, something about the Priests not being able to heal like they used to. He thought they'd forget about us soon enough with their own troubles."

"Why don't we do what Jeshua said? Why don't we go try and find his followers?" Sarah spoke up to her father. "If we're not going back to Stormwind for a while anyways?"

The table then went completely silent for about a full minute before her mother responded. "I already told you, Sarah,..."

Joseph then sighed again before he said to Sarah in response, "I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind, to be honest, sweetheart."

"You can't?" Miriam then asked him, stunned.

"Honestly, no. Jeshua did something, and by all accounts it was something extraordinary, and I never got to see it, Miriam. You were able to see him up there in Hearthglen, but the kids and I didn't. I can't say I wasn't angry at him for years, but I never stopped loving him. I never stopped wanting him to come home. I never got to see what kind of man he became, or what kind of work he was doing. It had to be something remarkable, and I was never able to see it. I wanted to get to know him. When he told us to find his followers, I started trying to think of a way to do just that, but we still had the shop, and we still had our responsibilities here, and it's not like we can just drive the cart up into Lordaeron what with having to cross the Steppes, not to mention the Gorge and the Badlands. I thought maybe we could take the tram to Ironforge, but then we'd be on foot all the way up there unless we could hire enough gryphons to for all five of us, and I've never flown on one and don't even know how. There aren't any ships that even make port up there that are friendly to the Alliance, none that would be safe for you and the kids at any rate. I just can't see any practical or safe way for all of us to get there." He told her plainly.

"You didn't tell me you were trying to." She replied quietly.

"I didn't want to bring it up until I was certain how to do it. I knew you were already having a bad time of it, and I didn't want to make it worse for you." Joseph told her. "I'm sorry. I loved him too."

"I know you did." She answered.

"What about Mama's friend? The Draenei man that took her there before?" Sarah asked innocently. "Maybe he could find someone to take all of us there."

Joseph was about to reply, but then sat back in his seat thoughtfully stroking his beard with his fingers.

"Oh, Sarah. The Prophet Velen is a great man. He's the ruler of his people like King Wrynn is our ruler. I don't even know how to contact him, and even if I did..." Miriam trailed off not sure what to say next. The idea of a commoner like herself even assuming she could have that kind of rapport with such a figure was impossible to her.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to try." Joseph finally responded.

"You aren't serious, Joseph?" Miriam replied. "Are you?"

"If he hasn't gone back home yet, he might still be staying at the Keep with his guards. If he's not there, or they won't deliver a message to him, then that's that. If he is there, the worst he could say is 'no', and we wouldn't be any worse off than we are."

"Well, I suppose." Miriam answered, sensing defeat. She felt a pit forming in her stomach, but somewhere inside of her, she knew it was the right way to go in spite of how it made her feel. It felt like, once more, her world was being turned upside down just like it had been twenty years before when Jeshua was born.

In Stormwind City the next day...

The Prophet Velen, standing on the grass in the atrium of Stormwind Keep overlooking the pond and lake to the north, was increasingly disturbed by what he was hearing in the human city since his return from Light's Hope Chapel with his former student and Stormwind's rightful monarch, Anduin Wrynn. He had returned briefly to the Exodar by portal to confer with his own people's council on the outcome of the meeting before another Mage there opened a portal for him back to Stormwind, feeling that his presence in the human capital and support of the young Alliance king at the moment was more important under the circumstances. The ancient cleric was wise enough to know that what happened in Stormwind would reverberate throughout the Alliance and across Azeroth.

There was no question in his mind that Sylvanas Windrunner and Nathanos Marris were living breathing beings now. Whoever and whatever they might have been before seemed to have been washed away. Her demonstration by shedding her own blood and Anduin's use of the Light to heal her was proof enough for him. Added to this was their general demeanor and expressions during the meeting—he had never seen one of the undead act in such a way.

There was also no question in the Draenei prophet's mind as to what or who was responsible for it. His own respect for the young human healer, and he was so much more than that, had done nothing but grow since his conversation with him. The effects of his miraculous healing on them as well as on the former plaguelands had nearly brought tears to the old man's eyes upon seeing them. After twenty five thousand years, he knew the work of the Light when he saw it and experienced it and this was no less. In spite of his recent struggles with the Holy Light, it was still an old friend with whom he was intimately familiar, and whom, through the man Jeshua, had reached out to him to heal and restore his own heart and mind.

Velen found that he himself believed in Jeshua. How can I not? He had asked himself.

From what he had been hearing had been circulating among the clergy in Stormwind, that fact put him increasingly in opposition to the humans' Church of Light. Their High Priestess Laurena, when he had spoken to her in private upon returning to Stormwind from the Exodar, had not given him welcome information.

Upon seeing him in the Cathedral, she had quickly gestured for him to follow her alone into a side chamber and then closed the heavy wooden door behind them. The expression on her face was a mask that could barely conceal the real concerns that were creeping up.

She told him about the incident with the injured worker. She also told him of dozens of more incidents regarding Stormwind's clergy and Paladins being unable to call upon the Light to heal or do anything.

"I have never seen anything like it in my lifetime." She had told him. "It feels like the Holy Light is simply refusing to cooperate with us. I'm ashamed to admit my own faith has been badly shaken, and I know the faith of others has been too. I have spoken with the High Priest of the Conclave, and his holiness does not know what to make of it either.."

Her expression then changed to something approaching fear and scandal when she told him, "Some of our clergy have even been resorting to calling upon the Shadow. We of course have never fully forbidden it, though we have never encouraged it. Your experience with the Light is far older than all of ours combined. Perhaps you know why this may be happening?"

He had been just as stunned as she was at her confession. Faith in the Light was key to the Priest's unique abilities, and he knew Laurena's faith to be as strong as any human's except for, perhaps, the High Priest of the Conclave.

"This began a few days ago?" He asked her, trying to make sense of it himself.

"Yes, not long after the so called 'dawn event'." She confirmed. "Though much of my clergy refuse to even acknowledge that it even happened. Bishop Marcus has most of our people convinced that it is all an illusion that will dispel any day."

Wheels started to turn in Velen's aged mind. "And you, what do you think about it?"

"I don't know what to think. I'd like to think it was real. It would be wonderful if it was." She answered honestly.

"And what do you think about the man who caused it, Jeshua?" He then asked.

Laurena then looked from one side of the room to the other, and then to the heavy wooden door to ensure that it was shut completely.

"I don't know. Marcus came to me some time ago and asked me to censure him, which of course I couldn't as he wasn't one of ours. If he was the same Jeshua Davidson that I knew as a boy, I would have a very difficult time believing him a servant of the shadow, the fel, death, or any other dark force. He was a bright, intelligent, thoughtful boy. Bishop Farthing and I invited him to apprentice with us directly when he came of age, but he disappeared before that could happen." She told him. "People change, but that boy was always so full of the Light I would have sworn I could feel it radiating off of him."

"I spoke to him and to his mother. I went to Hearthglen to see for myself." Velen had then told her. "He was indeed the son of Miriam Davidson. I saw the restored plaguelands in the north around Light's Hope Chapel. I saw with my own eyes a woman who had once been a walking corpse bleed living blood and be healed by the Light with no ill effects."

Laurena's face then twisted in a range of complex emotions. When she spoke again, her voice was low, "It is becoming more and more dangerous, even for me, to hold a positive opinion of Jeshua or the Dawn Event within the Cathedral, especially in public. Marcus has made certain of it. I could expel him, but that would stop nothing at this point. Any public defense of Jeshua or his work now would compromise my position among the Priesthood, and then there would be no one to stand in the way of this... this Shadow that seems to be rising here."

Velen had thought much of her latter words then, this Shadow that is rising here.

At one time it had appeared that the Shadow and the Light had existed in an uneasy truce on Azeroth, called upon by clergy from all denominations at some point in time. Even the demonic fel appeared to be able to be commanded by those with noble intents as he had eventually understood with Illidan Stormrage. But as Velen stood in Stormwind's atrium considering what he had heard, it came to him that Jeshua and his work had shattered that truce, and Jeshua himself, his mere presence, was forcing all of them to take sides in a way that they hadn't been pushed to before and with results that none of them would have expected.

Who would have expected the Banshee Queen to be a passionate supporter of the Lightborn? She had informed them before they had all parted that she had even taken the extreme step of expelling all Shadow Priests from Lordaeron's borders. And yet he had heard her words with his own Draenei ears, and had seen the passion in her expression when talking about what Jeshua had done for her and her people. She had chosen her side, and so apparently had the clergy of Stormwind, and the world had been turned upside down overnight.

I need to speak with Alonsus Faol. Velen thought to himself. He has seen both sides in his existence with a perspective I do not have. He had not spoken with the undead bishop or returned to Netherlight Temple since the fall of the Burning Legion on Argus. He did not know even if he was still undead, or if he too had been caught in the Dawn Event in some way.

"My lord?" A human voice distracted him from his thoughts.

Velen opened his eyes from his internal meditations and turned to see a human woman dressed in the heavy plate armor, blue cloak, and lion insignias of one of Stormwind Keep's many guards and soldiers.

"Yes?" Velen responded, turning his aged eredar eyes towards her.

"There is a commoner woman in the hall with a young man asking to speak with you. She says she knows you." The soldier told him.

"Did she give a name?" Velen asked her, curious.

"She did, my lord. She said her name was Miriam Davidson." The armor clad woman responded.

His mother is here? Of course he remembered the human mother whom he so recently had tracked down to discover the truth of Jeshua's origins.

Velen, upon hearing the name of the woman, himself turned around completely to face the hall which led back into the Keep, though he saw no one from where he was standing.

"Should I send her away, my lord?" The soldier asked.

"No!" Velen responded. "No, please bring her here along with whoever came with her."

"Right away, my lord." The woman replied, stiffly turning around and moving to carry out his wishes.

I can't imagine any of this has been easy on her and her family. It will become harder quickly if it hasn't already. He thought to himself. Matters of state and faith had preoccupied his mind to where, though he had not forgotten the Davidsons, they had been pushed out of his mind. Now that they were there again, the conversation with Laurena had returned to his mind and he realized that they now might be in danger too if they didn't see things Marcus' way.

The soldier returned a few minutes later escorting a thirty something year old woman in a white blouse and plain blue dress. She was accompanied by a young human man, more of a boy still, with darker brown locks and the wisps of facial hair common to adolescents. His arms were muscled and his hands were calloused as though he was used to working with them. He wore a yellow plaid flannel shirt and blue woolen pants tied with a plain leather belt. His sea green eyes were like his mother's, and, Velen realized, like his brother's.

"Thank you for troubling to see us, your imminence. I understand your time must be very valuable." The woman told him deferentially.

"It is no trouble, Mrs. Davidson. This must be another of your sons." Velen responded, intentionally avoiding the use of Jeshua's name in so public a setting. "He is a good looking young man, for a human."

Jimmy Davidson looked confused at first, and then smirked at the Draenei's comment, though said nothing.

"I imagine things cannot be easy right now for you, or your family." Velen continued with a kind voice. "For that, I am sorry. If there's anything I can do for you and your family please let me know."

"No. They haven't been." She replied, struggling to contain her emotion. She then paused for a moment, trying to find a way to phrase her next words.

Velen waited patiently as she did.

"That is why we have come. My son came to see us in the shop in the Trade District before he left again." She then began.

"I'm sorry. He came to see you?" He asked, not certain if he heard her correctly.

"He looked like someone had beaten him. He said he had died but was alive again. There were huge holes in his wrists." Miriam told him, trying to keep herself under control. Her son put his hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her.

This was new information to the Draenei Prophet as his expression moved from mother to son studying their honest faces pained from the memory. Of course Sylvanas had told Anduin, Muradin, and he of what had happened to Jeshua after the Dawn Event, but this was further confirmation that someone else had seen him alive days after his death.

"I wasn't aware of this. What else did he say, if you would please?" Velen asked her. He needed to know as much as he could.

"He wanted us to go find his followers and have them tell us about him. He said that because he lived we would live. He said that we would find them in Lordaeron." She told him. She paused again, trying to compose herself a little more before saying, "Things have become difficult here for all of us. There have been some of the Priests that have been harassing my husband and sons in our furniture shop because we won't agree with them about my son. We were wondering... well, we were hoping that maybe you might be able to help us."

So, it's already started. Velen began to mentally kick himself for not seeing it sooner. He put his hand to his great white beard which flowed down from his azure face like a waterfall in thought. This was a kind, good family who had raised an extraordinary man. They didn't deserve to be caught in the middle of any of this.

"Can you help us... your imminence?" The boy asked, his voice already having deepened to that of a man. "Lordaeron's not the easiest place to get to, or even the safest from what I've heard, but that's where my brother wanted us to go."

Safer there now perhaps than here for them. Velen thought to himself. He doubted anyone there would harm a hair on their heads once they discovered who the Davidson family was, and would likely defend them vehemently if their queen was any indication.

Velen nodded his head, considering all the options. "Yes, I think I can make some arrangements for safe passage for you and your family. Return home for now and be ready to travel. I agree it may not be safe for you here right now. Don't risk returning to Stormwind again. I will send someone to your home who can open a portal to Hearthglen. I will also write a letter to Lord Tyrosus explaining your situation. I am certain he can see you safely from there."

Yes. Most certainly safer for Jeshua's family among those who bear his standard than here by far until Anduin and I can deal with what we were told at Light's Hope. He thought to himself. It was the best solution for Jeshua's family, for the time being at least.