Tale of Lupa'Jin -- The Long Arrow

[Yenene]

Long ago before I was born and before Revantusk was little more than a wandering clan, there lived a great huntress. Her name was Lupa'Jin.

Those were the days of aftermath of the Troll Wars. When the Unnamed One took his vast armies and wiped out many of our kind that could not form under his great power. The days when the dwarves hid in their mountains, not venturing out to cut down the trees of the forest we love so much. They say that those were the days when the biggest threat to us were our cousins themselves. The days before we met a pact with the 'New Horde' as my mama calls them.

The stories say, we were decimated. We Revantusk had not the strength and numbers of other tribes. We Revantusk are meant to be fisherfolk and storyweavers, not battlemasters. We Revantusk are considered weak in the eyes of our cousins in Hinterland today over the destruction they wrought in our lives.

But not Lupa'Jin. This is her story.

My mama tells me time and again not to believe in this tale as she says that Lupa'Jin was just a lady she knew. And the lady was not the negotiator that everyone claims she was. Well, I know it's true. I know that the story is true, deep within my heart. She left our lands to spread her words, to give others that power she had, her long arrow.

But I should start at the beginning. Because all stories start at the beginning.

Revantusk was once far back from a huge beach where turtles came to mate. It was a long run to the ocean and we prided ourselves on the longboats we pulled across the beach made from the core of the tallest trees, felled by our hands. And chosen from those that the Loa knew wanted to be boats. Those were the days that we could see enemies coming because they had to run across the beach to the village or drop down from us from above. If they did, they'd die because the cliff was that high. Those were the days, they said.

Lupa'jin was born without a father to a mother that had never lain with a man. Yao Jin, the mystic, cast charms upon herself so that she could call the longest fanged wolf of the forest and turn him into a man beast. Every month for a year when the moon was full, she lay with him. She lay with him and gave birth to Lupa - the wolf. Then after, she turned him back into a wolf and he went back to his folk.

But he wouldn't go.

The village said you could hear him howling around the perimeter. Longing to be with the woman he loved and to protect the child they bore. After five months of this, they say that Lupa herself, crawled out of the village and came upon him. He could smell his scent on her and he was about to spirit her away to be raised with his wolves, but she had no fangs, only tusks, and she had no paws, only hands. And he knew he could not take her from the trolls because she was one more than she was wolf.

So he sent the howls on the wind that she would never be harmed by wolves again. That she was his daughter and his jaws would crush any wolf who would try. He marked her then. Nobody knows how, but wolves bowed to her and followed her for the rest of her days. For she was one of them.

Now everyone knows that Lupa was smart as a crack whip. She swam further and longer than any of the other whelps. She was a terror with a slingshot. The lady I called Auntie, who really wasn't but that's another story, told me that she used to shoot eagles out of the sky with her slingshot. One crack of a rock, right in the noggin. Wham! Veering down to the earth to be breakfast.

She could jump higher than the tree tops and she could fly off cliffs without dying as she landed below. She ran with wolves at night, never sleeping. Through all this, our people began to fear her. That kind of power she could turn it on her own tribe, they said. That kind of power, she could be a threat to Zul'jin -- er the Unnamed One himself and he could come to find her, killing all of us in his wake. But still Yao Jin, the Great Mystic, knew her daughter was meant for something more. Her daughter was meant to bring The Great Peace.

We Revantusk aren't really fighters. You have to leave the tribe to be able to learn. So Lupa'jin learned with a bow and arrow to fight with the wolves. When they lunged, she shot. When they clawed, she shot. Soon her arrow was long and true. Made of bone and stone, weighted perfectly like no fletcher could devise.

She was so smart and crafty that they still say, "You're no Lupa," when you make mistakes to this day.

But all heroes have to leave their homeland at some point in the story.

One day, her father wolf came to the village. By this time she was long of leg and nearly grown. By this time, his fur was grizzled and his eye bled from the fight he had the day before. See wolves, so my Auntie told me, fight for power. The strongest is the leader and when a wolf gets old he will be bested by the next wolf. Wolves don't live as long as you and me. And Lupa's father was dying.

Our hunters shot him, thinking him come to pick off our children, but Lupa's keen hearing heard their shouts and cries and she ran across the village in three great leaps. She came to him and took him up in her arms and she brought him to her mother. The arrows out of his body.

"Save him!" said she.

Her mother said, "The Loa can't save him. He is my love, but he has to go."

And he went.

So Lupa cried tears. Tears of sadness. The salt of her tears made the water in the ocean rise. She cried for fourty days and fourty nights until the waters rose and the beach flooded. The waterline came up to where it is today. When the water touched her father's body, he floated away and Lupa stopped crying.

Well it wasn't long before she had to leave. The other villagers knew that she would do so soon because the wolves started howling, baying for the her loss. They could feel that her heart was heavy and see it in the rain that fell from the sky. They knew that she had to go, that she had to roam and find her place in the world.

For her place was not with us.

That was when she left to join the Horde.

I think I need a water break. I'll be back in a second.

[Yenene]

So. Lupa'jin. The Long Arrow. There are many different versions of what she did next. I like the one with the most magic and so I'll tell it, even though most of our tribe thinks it's blasphemy and there is no way Lupa'jin would ever be turned into a night elf. But I think though she had little magic of her own, she WAS magic, and that this story was true.

She went to Lordaeron. That's where we Revantusk often start out cause that's where we were for so long before we came back to our homeland. So many of us go there cause it's familiar ground. It's hard leaving the woods for the wilds of the 'civilised' world as they call it. It took her hours to get there, what would take another days of straight running.

She was not tired and so she ran all the way only to stop at a place where the wolves howled saying it was not natural. Would she help?

Yes she would, she howled back. Lupa could speak wolf, I forgot to mention that. Sorry. She came across an evil castle full of wolf men. These were not like her father, these were wolf men of an evil nature. By day, human. By night, beasts bent on killing and maiming everything! This part was scary and I used to have nightmares about it all. These wolves were led by an evil sorcerer under the power of the Darkest of Dark, the Lich King himself.

Lupa reached Shadowfang Keep and she jumped over it, to land on the ceiling of the tower where he hid. She ripped off the corner of the roof and looked in. She saw him torturing and murdering those who came to defeat him. She saw the bodies of the dead, gnawed to the bone.

So Lupa knew she could trick him. See, I forgot to mention that Lupa was tricky. She once tricked a fox out of his rabbit for her stew. She once tricked a turtle out of his clam. She was tricky. So she waited until Arugal, as they call him, was brewing some kind of evil concoction. She snuck through her hold in the roof and put it down above her quietly so it wouldn't make a noise. Then she jumped down onto a ledge across from where he was.

She called across the way to him. Startling him because he hadn't been warned of her coming.

"Mister Arugal, have you evah seen da Lich King?"

Arugal looked up to her, about to cast some evil spell and kill her. But she was a woman and she was a troll and everyone knows that troll women are gorgeous and so he could not. "Yes, troll, I have. I am not afraid of the Lich King, are you?"

"Well now Mister Arugal, I did see da Lich King. Do choo know what he said about choo, chil'?"

Arugal was weak. He had a big ego. "What did he say about me?"

"Da Lich King said choo is afraid of him. He say dat choo is afraid to look at him!" She laughed, a boisterous laugh. The kind that echoed in a room.

Arugal howled in anger. "I am not afraid of the Lich King. I am not afraid to look at him! You speak lies, troll!"

"Well I don't tink dat choo be willing to come wit me up da mountain and let me introduce choo to da Lich King himself."

"Is he here?" Arugal asked, confused. "He hasn't contacted me. What makes you so powerful that he contacts you before he contacts me?"

"He be watching choo. Choo be weak."

"Then we go. Now." He looked about ready to use his magics to propel them to the top of the mountain that instant.

"No." Lupa said. "Dis be a test. Choo need to seek him out tomorrow. When choo see da smoke rising, no be afraid. Dis a sign dat da Lich King is moving and soon be dere."

Arugal nodded as he expected tests of his loyalty. That's the way that he kept his power. "I will be there."

"When choo see bird fly crazy, child. When choo see deer run away. No be afraid."

"I will not be afraid."

"If choo hear fire, no be afraid. If grass smoke. If wind howl. No be afraid. He be dere for choo in da middle of da heat."

So Lupa left, alive from Arugal's castle. She went in there alone and she planted a seed. A seed she saw grow that next day when she saw Arugal fly to the top of the mountain. There he waited. Then she built a fire. She was always the fastest at building fires. The creatures in this evil wood were beyond saving and so she knew that if they died when she did this it would be for the best. That part always made me sad, but then again.

So she blew on the fire and her great breath spread it up the mountainside. Higher and higher. It burned inferno. Higher and higher until Arugal was in the middle surrounded by it. So Lupa jumped up the mountain and she sat with Arugal. It was hot! Something fierce.

"Troll! What is this?"

"Jus' da Lich King, breathing hard. Noting more."

Lupa jumped off the mountain and the fire engulfed Arugal entirely. It burned for a week until there was nothing left to burn. Then Lupa called the rains and they washed it away. Arugal's body was not found, but his spell had been broken. In thanks, the wolves let her have one of their cubs and she named him Tempest.

[Yenene]

So much happened after that. I like to pick and choose the things that interest me, because Auntie always said that in storytelling you focus on the stuff you like to tell or the story will be boring.

There was a bit where she led a Never Council. Whatever that is.

There was a bit where she was kidnapped by pirates and became their pirate queen, but that's kinda something everyone does.

It was her time as a pirate that Ula'Tek, Lady of Serpents, took control of her. Twisting her mind to do evil things and with Lupa's great power, she beat her over and over. Lupa could not get away! No matter how far she went, the serpents came to bring her back.

It was only when she was in Alliance territory and the Alliance killed her that it was going to be over.

Yet it wasn't.

Now this is the story that everyone says is blasphemy. That it isn't true. But it's gotta be true. Cause that's how it's gotta be. I heard this from my Auntie who told me never to tell it at the campfire with anyone else who knew of Lupa'jin. But I'm telling you now cause I can. And cause it needs to be told.

Lupa'jin became a night elf.

I don't lie! I am absolutely serious! So here's the story.

She was slain and lay for dead when an evil sorceress who sucked blood sucked her blood and left her there to die. Lupa crawled, like she had done to her father oh those years ago, but she crawled and came across some senile old night elves. The seniles took her in as their own and named her Upae. Cause they were senile they didn't know that she was a troll, they thought she was a night elf. And so they raised her again, as their own child, as a night elf.

She became a druid. She left behind her wolf past and instead, took up the walk of the cat. She ran as a cat. She fought as a cat. She fought WOLVES as a cat. Yet they could still smell her mark and would not fight her back. They knew, as wolves long do, that she would return.

Then the evil sorceress came back and she saw Lupa as a cat and she knew who Lupa was because she had drunk of her blood and so she laughed a great laugh and she knew she had been successful in ruining her. Because night elf druids are always bad people anyway.

But then a great pesistence -- pestiven -- famine came across human lands. It was caused by powerful trolls allied with the evil Ula'Tek. They wanted to kill everyone by starving them into long deaths. I've starved before and I can tell you it's not a good way to go. The crops failed. Animals died from strange diseases. Spring turned right into winter without the harvest of autumn and people were going to die over the winter.

So Lupa, knowing who she was deep inside, offered herself to Lukou. She called up to the Great Loa and she said, "Lukou take me! Take me instead!"

They chained her to a rock. And then Lukou sent the children of Ula'Tek to strip her flesh. The snakes coiled around her ankles and nipped at her, filling her with poison but letting her live.

Still Lupa cried. "Take me! Take me instead! Don't punish them!"

So Lukou called off the snakes.

Then Lukou got Akil'zon and she had him do his worst. He sent eagles to pluck out her eyes and peck at her skin. He had eagles drop rocks on her like the rocks she had used to kill them so long ago.

And still she cried, "Me! Me! Take me instead!"

Together with Halazzi and Nalorakk at her side, Lukou sent the bears and the lynxes. They clawed Lupa's body to shreds.

Still, with her last breaths she cried, "Me! Oh take me!"

So then Lukou took pity on her and she took Lupa, ending the famine and saving the humans from death by starvation. The winter turned right into autumn with the biggest harvest the humans had ever known.

All because of Lupa.

[Yenene]

I think that story's true because I think that Lupa was meant to be the Long Arrow into the Heart of Great Peace. She was meant to bring us all together. I think she's out there, working at The Great Peace. Working to make us all better for having known her stories and for having known her deeds.

War is easy. It's easy to hate. It's easy to crush things. It's hard to love. Lupa loved. She was crafty, but she loved.

I heard a story that she became a tinker in Shattrath and so when I went to Shattrath I looked for her shop, but it wasn't there. I think that Lupa is still running the woods of the world, two leaps at a time, tricking the evil doers and saving those who deserve saving.

So though mama thinks this story isn't true, I know in my heart that it is.

Thank you Lupa'jin. I hope to meet you someday.