~ ~ ~ ~

Naralex finds him some hours later, coiled in serpent's shape in a narrow crevasse that the netherdrake couldn't hope to fit into, though by the scorchmarks on the stone and deep gouges from searching talons, it had tried. He bore its efforts on his own hide, for the moment little more than a burned flank and clawed nose. The stalemate had been reached when he'd snapped at it and managed to get in a good bite, and now it waited crouched outside his hiding place like a massive, patient cat, its breaths deep and even, the bite wound on one forelimb licked clean every time it oozed blood. He wishes he could do something similar to soothe the pain on his snout, but a cobra's tongue wasn't meant for such things. Instead he can do nothing but bide his time.

The netherdrake, he notes with a level of utter unsurprise, does not seem intent on rending his teacher limb from limb as the older druid crouches at the entrance to his hiding place. Again he refuses to look at him, instead turning to rest bleeding head against one deep blue coil, and study the wall.

"Hiding from the concequences of your actions won't make them go away." Although sonorous and still reproachful, there is a note of tired amusement in Naralex's voice that makes his hood flatten a bit, even coiled as he is. "When will you stop being such a coward?"

That snaps his head up and around, but without the ability to speak in this form, his response is an agitated hiss. Outside his hiding place, the netherdrake gives a low, grating growl. He wasn't a coward. Hadn't he helped the Violet Eye soothe some of the restless souls in Karazhan? Hadn't he gone far underground to kill the naga in Zangarmarsh to satisfy the Cenarion Circle? (Hadn't he also convinced them to simply give him the armaments needed so he could stop killing them and they could stop killing him, and anyway, weren't they on the same side..?) He'd driven out demon warlords, killed dozens of orcs and ogres (with help, granted), and somehow he was still a coward?

Somehow, impossibly, Naralex seems to know precisely what he is thinking, tilting his head slightly, pale silverwhite hair sliding across one shoulder. A burr was stuck in it, he notices. "And how much of that was done on your own, of your own free will? I know all my students, Ayrionthar. How many of those battles were fought by you alone, able to rely on none but yourself?"

... Not many. He wasn't a strong physical fighter, that's why he chose the serpent totem, so he could use trickery and deciet instead of direct confron--

"You should have chosen to take up blades and become a rogue then," is the blunt statement before he can conclude his own thought. "The place of the serpent totem is not cowardice and lies. The dire cobra hunts its prey actively, and that is the aspect you took, isn't it? The cobra relies on its poison last and rarely on stealth. It hunts in the open, with its strength and speed and resilience. Why are you hiding in that hole?"

He hisses again, this time annoyed, hood half-spread. The netherdrake lunges abrubtly past Naralex and lashes out with hooked black talons, scraping across his scales but failing to get a purchase. He recoils further into his hiding spot, anger dissolved for a moment into blind panic, then knots himself in a defensive wall of dark scale and sturdy muscle, head protected neatly from further clawing. He chooses to ignore them both.

Eventually, Naralex leaves him there. Some hours later, so too does the netherdrake.

~ ~ ~ ~

Hunting in the Barrens isn't all that difficult. The easiest method was to wait until middling afternoon, when the sunlight threw slanting beams of radiance on the pools outside the entrance to the caverns and made patches of shadow and light that were easy for him to hide in. Feeding himself as a night elf was a simple matter, but would require cooking or at least cleaning, but the animal aspect of his spirit was easier satisfied, and the dappled light and shadow was more than enough to hide a fifty foot long dire cobra in the water. His patience is rewarded eventually, soaking in the warm liquid, in the form of a centaur colt, stinking and filthy, creeping to the water's edge for a drink.

He can see the wariness, possibly expecting one of the massive turtles to make a grab for a hoof or leg and drag him under, but the turtles were otherwise occupied, and he is the only danger immediately lurking, a lone leaf resting on his head from where it had fallen from a tree.

Death is swift. He could suffocate his target like a python but preferred venom, it made digestion easier and lessened struggles. The colt only kicks once or twice before he can wrap around it and keep it still, preventing it from calling to its family, who shortly notice him missing anyway. An uncivilized breed, these centaur, but they do look after their foals. At the shout of alarm, he draws a breath and submerges with his meal in a languid ripple of indigo. They'd have spears and ropes, and their numbers could be an inconvenience.

He tells himself it's not cowardice, picking off the young and stupid. It's practicality. It's not fear, escaping from the wrath of the adults.

~ ~ ~ ~

Naralex doesn't speak to him for days, and he hunts and meditates on his own, tending to the raptor chicks, spending the better part of a night regrowing a webwork of roots that kept a wall in place instead of tumbling into one of the freshwater streams. His teacher sleeps - but lightly, and only one investigation into that cavern leaves him well aware that Naralex won't be so easily trapped in the Emerald Dream as before. Which was ... good, wasn't it?

He makes his own home where Pythas once kept his. It was a good spot, well drained but over a thermal vent that kept the ground comfortably warm and the air pleasantly humid. He sits for hours, listening to the song of the venting steam and air, and the whistle of the wind. In it the bone-chimes click and patter, and when he isn't still he's gathering the bones of the druids left here dead. Why had they all been killed? Where were the Tauren, he wondered. There had been Serpent-totem walking carpets, why were none of their bones paling in the darkness? Maybe they'd led some kind of revolt, chafing at Serpentis' rule. Because he was a night elf, not one of their own kind.

He crafts memorials of their bones, weaving them together with strips of cloth and hide. Here lie the remains of his friends. Here is Anacondra's remnants, her laughter forever silent. Nobody would ever hear her sing again, or listen to Cobrahn's long, rambling stories about his childhood at the base of Nordrassil. How the mighty had fallen.

He misses them, he realizes eventually, tended to by a raptor chick more exploratory than her clutchmates, tiny claws hooked into his breeches, attempting to climb his leg; she's learned long since that he gave treats and scritches, and was gentle with their hurts. All of the druids of the fang had been. He still couldn't think of them as corrupt, simply more ambitious than the rest of their kind, aggressive instead of passively waiting for something to happen. That didn't make them corrupt. That made them revolutionary. What harm had they done? It was their power that brougth the oasises to life, wasn't it?

He remembers, placing skulls together in silent memorial, that once this place had not been so silent. When Naralex had slept, it seemed the whole world was theirs for the taking.