Fylariea Talvethren

Fylariea Talvethren
Fylariea Talvethren prior to the Third Legion Invasion
Title	Archdruid of the Wolpertinger
Gender	Female
Race	Night Elf, Wildling
Class	Druid (Druid of the Wolpertinger), Mage (Transmutationist), "Theurgist"
Reaction	Alliance Horde
Affiliations	Army of the Black Moon, Cenarion Circle, Druids of the Wolpertinger, Druids of the Moon, Bronze Dragonflight, Green Dragonflight
Religion	Elune, Druidism
Occupation	Intercessor
Location	Various
Status	Alive

"The strong must defend the weak - and protect life with death, when necessary."

Fylariea Talvethren was an oddly arcane-affinite Wildling druidess in service to the Night Elven people and the Cenarion Circle. Born to uncertain parents, one of which assumed to be Gaerolas Talvethren of whom she acknowledged as her father, she was a Nighthaven native who followed Gaerolas to Teldrassil when he took over the Bane'thil Barrow Dens. She is one of, if not the only, known direct survivor of the razing of Starbreeze Village in Teldrassil by the Gnarlpine furbolg.

In the aftermath, Fylariea would go on to dedicate the rest of her life to the ideals Gaerolas held so central to his identity, believing strongly in tenants of balance above all else. Though a druid in all but classical method, Fylariea was more accurately an arcanist by nature, and earned widespread disapproval for her ideas of balance extending beyond the scope of nature, eventually culminating in exile until the events of Amirdrassil. Fylariea held deep-seated beliefs that all forces, including corrupting ones, were the natural order of things in their own realms, and that evil was not inherent but rather earned via attempting to usurp ones' domain - as in the myriad invasions of Azeroth to occur over the years. Of especial scandal was her close relationship with the Emerald Circle of Felwood, which led her to make the absolutely reviled claim that nature and fel magic were far more closely linked than anyone would be comfortable admitting.

Fylariea was a passable druid and an arcanist of surpassing skill, especially where transmutation was concerned, and was exceptionally versed in exploiting and subverting natural law. She would later dryly marry these concepts with the self-assigned shorthand of 'chronodruid', later more accessibly adopting the title of 'theurgist'. Despite her potential as the latter, she refused to give up the former and tended to seek its solutions first. She would later go on to found the Druids of the Wolpertinger and would serve as their incumbent Archdruid, if only as a formality.

Fylariea is loosely associated with the Green Dragonflight, as one would expect, but retains a far 'closer' bond with the Bronze Dragonflight. Though their associations date back to the Cataclysm, Fylariea's much-improved demeanor toward everyone else has seemingly inverted with the Bronze, who retain a comfortable wariness of her - and a select few who speak of her with sorrow in their tones. Fylariea has a tendency to aggressively curate what she assists the Bronze with, but generally ends up an ally in those matters she does.

Biography

Childhood and Early Life

Fylariea was born in parts and to parents uncertain, though she makes claim that Gaerolas Talvethren was her father and that she was born in Nighthaven. Despite this, no midwife in Nighthaven recalls Fylariea as a babe, nor Gaerolas ever taking a lover with which to sire a child. Regardless, Fylariea lived her childhood out in the typical Night Elven city. Despite being surprisingly ignorant of Kaldorei culture, she proved a fast learner and eager to internalize their cultures, traditions, and lifestyle, and seemingly took great joy in little things that normal children would take years to come to appreciate.

Gaerolas would eventually become the Great Warden of the Bane'thil Barrow Dens, and be reassigned to the then-new world tree of Teldrassil, bringing Fylariea along. He chose to settle in Starbreeze Village, where proximity to the Shadowglen and the Gnarlpine furbolg promised a prime environment for aspiring and adept druids alike. Fylariea's affinity for arcane magic clashed with contemporary Kaldorei views on such power, often putting her at odds with those around her. She was often the target of reprimand, as she was best known for magical mischief and pranks that went distinctly unappreciated by those around her.

Eventually, the lingering corruptive fel moss began to manifest chaos throughout the great tree's boughs. Among a thousand other things that went wrong in those days, Starbreeze Village was razed to the ground, and Gaerolas Talvethren was killed. This is where the Bronze Dragonflight first makes note of a grief-stricken Fylariea, though it would be some years before they would have a true relationship. In the aftermath, Fylariea internalized much of the anti-arcane rhetoric fed by the departed, thoroughly blaming herself and her arcane nature for the fate of her village and swearing to instead follow in the footsteps of her father - whether as a form of honor or penance was uncertain.

Fylariea eventually found sanctuary amidst the Shadowglen, finishing out her formative centuries with years of stalwart obsession over the ideals and techniques of the druids. Thus motivated, she devoured knowledge at an unprecedented pace which alarmed her teachers, who urged her to slow down and take time to internalize the spiritual lessons as well as the practical ones - which Fylariea equally stalwartly ignored. Her forms were acquired rapid-fire to the eyes of the Night Elves, what should have been decades or centuries of meditation and knowledge compressed into years. While on paper a top-mark student and a prodigy, her teachers almost universally expressed extreme wariness of her, citing emotional immaturity and druidic secrets making for poor bedfellows. Some actors even cited her as an example of why the new rules to accept female druids into the Cenarion Circle was a bad idea, though nothing ever came of it.

In the years preceding the Dark Portal, Fylariea would commission adventurers for many things for private experiments that never seemed to bear fruit - things such as black dragon scales and qiraji hides. The practical purpose of this research was inscrutable to anyone but Fylariea, who insisted this was incalculably important. "We need to be ready," she would justify with the selfsame importance every time. Later, events would see Onyxia and countless other Black Dragons felled, along with the Scepter of the Shifting Sands completed and the gates of Ahn'qiraj opened, though this was most likely by coincidence.

The Burning Crusade

With the revelations of Outland via the Dark Portal, Fylariea was handed off to the Cenarion Expedition to gain much-needed experience and maturity. Fylariea would prove 'acceptably useful' in helping establish relations with the Sporeggar of Zangarmarsh, and seemed to relish in many of the tedious fetchwork tasks that she was given - albeit being notably slow to complete the majority of such tasks, as Fylariea used these tasks as excuses to explore on her own.

At some point, Fylariea used this deployment as an excuse to verse herself in demonology (the study, not the art of summoning), keen to dissect what made the demons tick and vaguely interested in fel magicks for the purpose of both general understanding and a desire to see the portion of Ashenvale dubbed 'Felwood' cleansed. Whatever revelations she obtained were inevitably kept to herself, however, as she was reprimanded for their obtainment by her superiors when the secret inevitably broke.

Fylariea would eventually be recalled in the twilight hours of the expedition, taking up brief residence in Shadowglen again before her redeployment elsewhere.

The Northrend Campaign

Fylariea did not contribute to the Northrend campaign insomuch directly as she did venture over to observe a new faction of the Expedition - specifically, the radical druids of D.E.H.T.A. While initially cautiously engaged with their ideology, she eventually came to see the D.E.H.T.A. as a borderline terrorist group, and did what she could to mitigate their harmful effects on the population of men in their pursuit to protect the world of beasts. For such crimes as releasing a hunter instead of gutting him on the spot as an example for others, she was accused of treason and abandoned to her fate amidst Northrend's hellish climes.

Fylariea would eventually be rescued by a passing group of Kirin Tor magi, where she was whisked away to the floating city of Dalaran. Despite her initial terror and revulsion at the sheer scale of arcane magic on display and the re-awakening of MANY, MANY deep seated traumas, the mages who saved her would eventually become friends, and she would warm up significantly to the idea of arcane magic as a whole, cautiously experimenting with minor cantrips and other spells the Kirin Tor assured her were low risk. She took a reluctant shine to the art, but did not pursue it with as much vigor as her druidic studies - for now.

Fylariea would eventually turn down an apprenticeship in Dalaran, but did instead seek to conduct independent relations with the furbolg of Northrend, as she had the sporregar before them, figuring that if she was finally getting over arcane magic, she might as well attempt to curb her biases against furbolg as well. This was only partially successful, as while she completed her reports (and gave Dalaran a copy before she made it to Shadowglen, as thanks) the furbolg tended just to reinforce the violent, war-mongering stereotypes she had come to expect. Nevertheless, they provided key insights to the theology of the twins that eventually enabled Fylariea's acquisition of her guardian shape. As an offering of good will, an ursa totemic by the name of Drolnug offered to take its place, believing that Fylariea would perhaps be best served by direct experience with the instincts of the furbolg rather than mere study, and offer which she graciously accepted and led to a friendship that continued long after Drolnug's eventual death.

Fylariea briefly found herself embroiled in the War Against the Nightmare that followed the Lich King's defeat, though she would not have a prominent role in such a conflict for years to come.

Xaxas, the Cataclysm

Fylariea greeted the Cataclysm with abject shock and horror - with cities such as Auberdine being summarily deleted from the map, she was made sympathetic to the idea of 'lost homes' and advocated strongly for both the Shen'drelar and the Gilneans' refuge. Fylariea used the return of the former to shore up her knowledge of the arcane with the Shen'drelar, now that such knowledge would no longer be persecuted - at least as openly - as it was before. She found in the Shen'drelar open-minded allies that would assist her in harnessing both her arcane talents and sharp minds with which to discuss the aforementioned demonology, as they had sustained themselves through such arts over the long millennia.

Fylariea put her new arcane talents to use in the exodus of the Gilneans, assisting in relocating them to the presumably safe boughs of Teldrassil. Fylariea would spend the rest of the Cataclysm introverted and single-mindedly focused on her studies. Fylariea was eventually anointed by the Shadowglen as a fully fledged druidess of the Cenarion Circle, though some of the shan'dos whispered fretfully that she could have done with a century or three more training before being turned loose onto the worlds.

Fylariea would cap her training off with her assistance in the matter of defending Mount Hyjal from the encroaching Firelands, invading that elemental realm and involving herself with the Molten Front campaign.

The Mists of Pandaria

After finishing her training, Fylariea's exact rationale for ending up in Pandaria is not a matter of common knowledge, save that she ended up on the Timeless Isle and worked closely with the Bronze Dragonflight throughout most of her tenure there. By necessity, the nature of the work she did there is a matter of some debate and secrecy, though those who worked on the island in the selfsame years would likely remember her.

During her off-time, Fylariea spent a lot of time in the Tian Monastery, taking the words of her former shan'dos to heart in an attempt to find inner peace and tranquility to further connect her to her druidic arts and to curb the inevitable egotism that comes as a trait of arcane manipulation. Fylariea's essential takeaway in the end, though, was using the ideals of chi and chi-manipulation techniques to further enhance her spiritual connection with nature and prowess as a druid, much to the disappointment of her mentors, who felt that her practical application of such techniques was "profoundly missing the point", but did part amiably and was invited to return.

Pandaria: Remix!

Fylariea participated in some capacity in the Infinite's maiden sanctioned efforts, using it as an excuse to return to Tian Monastery and relive her time there. She used this time to further her previous studies and become more adept with the spiritual connection she had long since neglected. She was encouraged toward self-acceptance and spiritual inner peace, drastically changing her view of her mutations and her role with them into something potentially more positive. She spent much of her time engaged in the various potent side-effects of brewmasters and other such indulgences.

Reopening of the Dark Portal

After Fylariea's departure from Tian and her release from service on the Timeless Isle, she chose to wander the wilds of the world as a pseudo-adventurer of sorts, offering her assistance in exchange for new knowledge, techniques, or in the most boring of cases, simply gold. Fylariea specialized in what one might define as 'detective work', often able to unravel minor conspiracies and mysteries, and otherwise plied her trade in order to maintain a sense of harmony along her routes. While the stops at settlements and villages along the way served as the milestones of this era of her life, the majority of her time was spent alone in the wilds, where she honed her connection with nature and sharpened her wits against the boundless dangers it challenged her with.

For the most part, Fylariea managed to dodge the Alternate Draenor campaign entirely, save a brief stint in the Everbloom due to its cross-timeline shenanigans. Her brief exposure to it, however, forced her to reconsider her initial ideas on balance, which formerly had excluded the idea of life as a potential intrusive force - as well as yielding to her the idea that perhaps everything could be dangerous in excess, life included.

The Third Legion Invasion

The Legion's invasion called Fylariea back from her nomadic wanderings, exposing her to the druidic institution for the first time since her graduation from the Shadowglen. As were most of her ilk in those days, Fylariea would be called to the Broken Isles to fight against the Burning Legion and their various schemes that threatened the harmony that she so treasured. It was here that Fylariea fell in with the Druids of the Moon under the archdruidship of Isoraen Nightstar for the first time, drawn like a moth to a flame to the idea of wielding celestial powers by balancing arcane and nature in harmony. Given her natural affinities for the arcane, she excelled in her given tasks in the sect, and would hold to their tenants fondly ever-after.

After learning firsthand that the Legion's fel magicks could simply feed off her nature spells and completely negate her arcane abilities, Fylariea decided to use the unification of combatants in Dalaran to delve at least superficially into the shades of other cosmic forces to get a more complete understanding of the nature of magic in general as well as enough practical application to avoid being completely impotent, and actively strove to improve her martial aptitudes with common weapon and armor types. In her off time, she could often be found dogging the steps of countless varied disciplines in these days, haunting bars where alcohol loosened lips to get her an in, and always taking enough notes to make a mage proud. She was a common sight at sparring rings of the day, taking beatings from all manner of opponents and limping her way to the sidelines to make notes in lieu of immediate medical treatment.

The Second War Against the Nightmare

The first and primary of Fylariea's duties on the Broken Isles took shape as the Nightmare revealed itself from within the black heart of Shaldrassil, under the command of the satyr lord Xavius. Fylariea was heavily involved in the Second War Against the Nightmare, both eager to prove herself to her newfound fellows and settle long outstanding scores from the first War Against the Nightmare. Fylariea proved a fiendish force on the battlefield and solidified herself into the public record with her actions there, which is where most people believe her story begins. She was highly accredited and decorated during this conflict, oftentimes triumphing over missions considered suicidal and defying conventional logic of what should have been possible. A non-insignificant number of Druids of the Moon have standing life debts to Fylariea's actions therein, which culminated in the invasion of the corrupted Dreamways to slay Ysondre and her consorts in preparation for the artifact-bearers to assault the Rift of Aln.

Due to the timeless nature of the Dream, it is uncertain how long Fylariea spent in the Nightmare War from an Azerothian perspective, but her sudden personality changes in the aftermath of the war and the strange new techniques she developed over its course imply much more than the months it lasted in real time. Though not 'corrupted' in a literal sense or becoming a Druid of the Nightmare, her experiences in its dark corners would haunt her for the rest of her life in ways both obvious and subtle, and would drastically affect her personality and goals moving forward - she became profoundly untrusting of everyone and everything around her, often electing to do things by herself and rejecting offers of help, and tensed at things as benign as certain color combinations or smells. Her responses to perceived danger were often disproportionately tipped toward fight, and she tended to treat deception more or less the same way as most would an active threat, regardless of its purpose or veracity.

Fylariea would emerge from this war accompanied by an emerald whelpling by the name of Hypnora, who claimed she owed Fylariea a life debt of her own. It was most often Hypnora that was capable of getting through to Fylariea when she was, as the whelp put it, 'in a state', and her presence was one of the few things capable of allowing Fylariea to sleep, if only fretfully.

The Liberation of Suramar City

Fylariea's next campaign was the liberation of the Nightborne from their self-imposed tresses. Fylariea distracted herself from the aftermath of the Nightmare War with her missions in Suramar.

Unlike previous escapades, her efficacy had become noticeably unreliable. Despite having more power and expertise to draw from, Fylariea was often reprimanded and reproached - sometime with horror - at the sheer disregard that she appeared to have for the violence she employed to accomplish her missions, more often than not leaving a trail of corpses behind her sleuthing wildshape. While she tempered herself slightly in the latter months of the liberation, she still had a tendency to immediately kill any Shal'dorei which managed to break her stealth, and almost never left survivors. She was quickly banned from any and all attempted capture missions, as it was far more likely that she would 'accidentally' kill the target.

The Tomb of Sargeras

While effective in the Broken Shore campaign, Fylariea was lauded for the selfsame viciousness she was previously reprimanded for. Her military service is otherwise unnotable during this time.

Shadows of Argus and Silithus

When Argus split the heavens above the Tomb of Sargeras, Fylariea remained (albeit reluctantly) on the home front, recognizing that her particular expertise would prove ill of use for the most part. Instead, she busied herself with plumbing the city of Suramar in the wake of Elisande's defeat, comparing notes with the long-isolated Nightborne and contrasting them with the knowledge of the arcane she possessed from the Shen'drelar. When her welcome eventually ran out, she retreated to Dalaran, where she returned to her old incessant pestering of various war-weary disciplines and her old haunts of bars and sparring rings - a thing to which she devoted herself to entirely, and by the end of the war with the Legion, she was at least a toss up bet instead of a sure loss against the menagerie of opponents she chose to face.

Though Fylariea attempted to assist efforts in Silithus at the war's end, she was ill suited for the restorative efforts, in large part due to her own mental health, and was summarily dismissed from the efforts. Fylariea eventually returned to Dalaran to continue honing herself with the steadily dwindling remnants of the war remnants which remained in the city of magic.

The Isle of Tírna nÓg

In combing the mage state's extensive records, Fylariea would eventually occupy herself with a long-disowned deed to an island, far to the northwest of the Azuremyst Isles. While skeptical, she eventually set out for the island, only to discover it did in fact exist - a land closely linked to the Emerald Dream due to long periods of divorce from mortal input, with ley mana in the water itself. Nestled within a caldera isolated high above the world, it was only reachable via the long-defunct lava tunnels that wound through its base. Fylariea would devote her time to cartographing this maze of tunnels, and took the caldera as her new home, using it as a place of respite and refuge.

Fylariea would eventually purchase the deed to the island from both the Alliance and the Horde, the latter via a paid-off proxy, for particularly low sums. It would become her base of operations for the forseeable future, and most of her personal life would be conducted from within the caldera. She would spend much of her subsequent time warding the caldera against intrusion, entrusting the empowerment of such spells to the latent energies still in the air.

The Fourth War

War of Thorns

Fylariea heeded the call to the Darkshore when the Horde's plans became clear, intending to protect her home with all the fury and fire she could muster - a turn of phrase she would never use again by the war's end, as the Horde loaded catapults full of flame and set it against Teldrassil itself. Though quick to use arcane prowess to assist where she could in the evacuation efforts, it proved too little in the end. Hypnora would forcibly remove Fylariea from the tree after the smoke rendered her delirious and on the border of consciousness, an act Fylariea certainty took irrational contention with in the aftermath. Even at the cost of the nightmares, she refused to be tended by her, and when she recovered enough to wield her own magics again took to occupying herself trying to heal the more grievously injured.

Fylariea was not fit for combat by the time the Battle for Lordaeron broke, and remained behind as an assistant healer, occupying herself almost exclusively with those wounded during Teldrassil.

Despite not having been relevant for some years, her relationship with the Bronze Dragonflight began to break down rapidly at this time. By the end of the burning, she was considered an enemy of the flight, to be captured if possible and terminated if not. Despite the severity of this change in relationship, the Bronze Dragonflight did not explain even to their own agents what prompted this reclassification.

Kul Tiras

As a general rule, Fylariea abstained from the resource wars waged over azerite, participating as a matter of proximity and convenience rather than on principle or ideal, and usually against whoever was doing the extraction in the first place. Fylariea's re-entry onto the scene came in the form of the Drust and their Thornspeaker druids - and more importantly, the dark tales of Thros, the Blighted Lands, which held a gut-wrenchingly familiar description to the Emerald Nightmare. Fylariea set out for Drustvar to investigate, spending most of her time in the Fourth War actively working against the Heartsbane Coven and their witchcraft, as well as prizing what little eclectica she could tease from the secrets of the Thornspeakers there.

Fylariea cultivated a positive, but rather obscure, relationship with the lun'alai Zandalari trolls at some point during the campaign. The logistics and rationale of this decision are uncertain, though Fylariea claims that "the Moon recognize their own." Fylariea is, of course, not an authority of the Druids of the Moon and should not be considered a reliable source on this particular opinion.

Battle for Darkshore

While abstinent from the Arathi Highlands Assault and even the Siege of Boralus, Tyrande Whisperwind's call for kaldorei loyalists immediately dragged Fylariea's presence back to the Darkshore, offering herself in her totality to the Army of the Black Moon. She was present to receive the blessing of the Night Warrior, a faustian gift she immediately put to good use, falling upon the Horde in vindictive rage, an avatar of celestial vengeance raining down unstoppable havoc. Whatever traumas had fueled her in the aftermath of the Nightmare War here reached their unfortunate apex, and would herald ominously what was to come.

Battle for Dazar'alor, Rise of Nazjatar, and Liberation of Mechagon

Fylariea spent her time in the subsequent campaigns single-minded in her pursuit of vengeance. While the Alliance waged their wars against the warchief and her allies, Fylariea cared little for such posturing and at this point cared only for vicious, unequivocal revenge.

She grew slowly more and more distant from the Circle and her other affiliates, growing reclusive and introverted and turning her attention to remote issues that seemed to have little bearing on the war efforts as a whole, something that irritated her superiors to the extreme. As she grew more distant, she came to be spoken of amidst the Circle like a bogeyman; vigilante justice made manifest and increasingly desperately sating the Night Warrior's wrath. Some viewed her as a failure, wasted potential; others view her as a lunatic, psychotic and unhinged for a lack of control of the power she dabbled in. Many try to employ her as a warning to youngsters about why one should not dabble with the arcane without care.

She grew more and more difficult to speak with coherently in the following months. Distracting her attention from whatever poor sod had run afoul of her attention was not only difficult, but dangerous as well. Seemingly innocuous appeals to reason could be interpreted as siding with 'the enemy', and required quick backtracking and lucky guesses to placate her. Though she didn't initially kill her own, she had no qualms about making sure they could not interfere again, at first through mere restraint and in the latter months being outright willing to non-lethally incapacitate.

This eventually devolved into an open willingness to slay anything that she came across without discrimination. Combined with exposition from the Emerald and Bronze Dragonflights, the kaldorei elected to officially exile Fylariea from their society. Subsequently, hunts began to attempt to take her down, though they universally ended in increasingly comical disaster. The list of fatalities accredited to her grew exponentially in these twilight months, including but not limited to exceptionally decorated Wardens.

The Black Empire

Despite having little apparent relevance to events in Fylariea's life, the rise of the Sleeping City saw her abandon her long-standing frenzy against the Horde in favor of throwing herself against the Corruptor's minions, fighting along those she had hours or days before been ready to kill on sight as if she didn't see them. Fylariea roamed from vision to vision, smiting celestial fury on anything unfortunate enough to be in her path and refusing to explain herself, now having become either entirely non-verbal, or no longer believing there was any point to socializing beyond absolute necessity - and she was very loose with that definition. The few who claimed to have gotten to speak with her in those impossibly mythical moments of calm got scattered, seemingly inconsistent explanations, ranging from ye olde edgy 'The Old Gods took everything from me' to the slightly more sinister 'He's in my HEAD. He will be SILENT.' or, simultaneously the most lucid and inscrutable justification of all; 'He is the Nightmare. I must Wake.'

Some of the more chilling rumors that abounded in her wake spoke of a fittingly mad plan - citing Ashamane and other complex mechanics surrounding loa and Wild Gods - that posited an idea around the metaphysical process of a mortal ascending, as men may into loa, as beasts may into Wild Gods - that, in attaching oneself to a concept, one could in essence use the mechanics of conquest to ascend past mortality, ceasing to be a player in the metaphorical game of life and death and instead becoming an avatar of a rule in that game.

In the aftermath of the fall of Ny'alotha, Fylariea seemed to turn in on herself, retreating to her island sanctuary. And then, shortly before Sylvanas shattered the Helm of Domination and opened the skies to the Shadowlands, Fylariea vanished. The caldera she inhabited had, according to those who went in search of her, been completely glassed by some unfathomably powerful manifestation of Holy Light, sanctifying - and sterilizing - the entire caldera into a blank, featureless white desert, barely recognizable save by its geography. Hypnora, her one-time faithful companion, claimed in no uncertain terms that Fylariea was dead.

And so it was for six years.

The Dragon Isles Campaign

Some druids familiar with Fylariea, from her escapades in the Nightmare or from shared heritage in the Druids of the Moon, reported odd glimpses of a strange blue fruit infused with silvery light that refused to let them approach. When they attempted to tell and show their superiors, the fruit had vanished. Others saw a glimpse of a green dreamform betwixt the trees, either of one of Fylariea's rather uncommon wildshapes or of a Night Elf bearing the selfsame mutations in the exact same places. As per the fruit, it vanished if they attempted to get closer or if they attempted to get others to verify what they were seeing.

Soon after, those wildshapes were sometimes spotted slinking around residences and the like, wherein the occupant would discover some strangely fitting gift - be that eerie or comforting. Injured Horde soldiers sometimes got things that would assist with their injury; Shal'dorei officials found things that had gone missing years ago that they had forgotten they'd ever had, and Dalaran was bequeathed with a trove of books they had frankly overlooked for the simple fact that they had too many of them.

Not long after they had arrived, Fylariea showed up at the Temporal Conflux, perfectly hale and healthy, and immediately surrendered to the Bronze Dragonflight, which caused a not insignificant stir. In the aftermath of many hours of interrogation, Fylariea was set free, her status once again amended to neutral, albeit not ally. A similar scene played out in the Emerald Gardens not long after, whereupon Fylariea and Hypnora remet for the first time in years. Fylariea returned to Hypnora one of her scales, and subsequently returned to the Temporal Conflux, where she oscillated between life in Valdrakken and assisting the Bronze with select tasks.

Fylariea's personality had seemingly mellowed to the point of some describing her as 'content'. While some hints of that obsessive need to better herself and research new forms of magics still persisted, mostly in her talks with the evokers, especially preservation evokers, in how they wield bronze and emerald magic in tandem, for the most part Fylariea amused herself with inane and seemingly inconsequential mortal comforts, perfectly happy to enjoy her lot.

Dawn of the Infinite

Fylariea's renewed relationship with the Bronze Dragonflight saw her present for the Infinite Dragonflight's various assaults and schemes. Her effectiveness as a militant was seemingly drastically reduced, according to reports, over the past near-decade. Fylariea tended to hesitate a moment too long without a clear catalyst to defend, her conflict buying the Infinite precious moments to strike. Fylariea was a fairly common sight in the healing wings, almost exclusively with wounds sustained via Infinites. The Infinite had a tendency to lash out at her verbally as well, often focusing on her at the expense of other combatants and offering some variation of 'traitor!' and 'failure!' in jeer. Despite their attempts to capture other assistants of the Bronze to convert them to their cause, they (or at least, the followers of Murozond) seem to exclusively want Fylariea dead.

Guardians of the Dream and Amirdrassil

Fylariea's choker, devoid of charms.

Fylariea reduxed her work in Hyjal again in the Dream when it came time to defend against Fyrakk and his Flame acolytes. She notably expressed through sobs unbridled joy to be 'home'. In the aftermath, she dedicated herself to the conflict entirely. Her status as an exile complicated her work, but she was eventually allowed under the auspices of the Bronze and Emerald Dragonflight, though many expressed anger at her tenure. After the initial pushback, Fylariea was eventually reluctantly allowed to pursue the goals of her overseers, where she was reluctantly noted as having returned to form.

The Blossoming of Amirdrassil saw Fylariea in attendance. In offer to the ritual to consecrate Bel'ameth, Fylariea offered the bronze choker she had worn on her neck for the majority of her life, and all the charms contained on it. In the aftermath, she claimed of a vision she had in the Temple of Elune, back when the tree first burned; when she had demanded a vision from Elune as to why she had let the tree burn, and in response received an image of a verdant forest, which burned down around her and, in time, regrew stronger and more bountiful. She had rejected this vision in the moment, she claimed, but with Amirdrassil's blossoming, she believed herself thoroughly proved wrong.

In the aftermath, Shandris Feathermoon pardoned all exiles and abolished the designation completely, reinstating Fylariea among others to Night Elven society and returning to her all titles and affiliations she had formerly held. She maintains a particularly close relationship with the remaining Sisterhood, seeming keen to re-establish good relations with Elune.

The Druids of the Wolpertinger

After a brief reprieve in Bel'ameth wherein Fylariea floundered, uncertain of what to do with herself post-exile and in this newfound, if momentary, 'peace', she eventually found herself in the shape of the wolpertinger. Believing firmly in newfound purpose, Fylariea set about founding and codifying the Druids of the Wolpertinger, and was granted the rank of Archdruid of that totem by technicality (in that she is the founding and at least briefly was the only member of that totem, so she laid claim to such a title by default. While the Cenarion Circle does reluctantly acknowledge the Druids of the Wolpertinger in some respect, their new practices tend to earn them many detractors, not least the way they choose to conduct themselves to accomplish their goals.

Appearance

Fylariea oscillates between two primary visages; the first, the one she presents most often in public, sporting eternally-shaggy raven hair and fangs that don't quite hide behind her lips when she smiles. She appears in all other ways offensively average - slight and sinewy of build and impossible to really attribute to one point on the strange spectrum between troll, Kaldorei, and quel'dorei, seeming in some ways to resemble all three, with her build closer to that of the last and her ears resembling that more of the former two, fangs as pronounced as the first. In this, she tends to behave as one might expect, reasonably able to blend in with crowds. Her eyes are cyan.

Fylariea's mutations, prior to her disappearance

Those that dig deeper, though, or those that have seen her drop her attempts to normalize herself in the eyes of others, are instead treated to the vicious mutations she has undergone from extensive exposure to the Emerald Dream. While the most common form of these mutations in druids are antlers, extended abuse (or simply exposure) of the Emerald Dream has a tendency to amalgamate features from ones' animal forms, as is happening to Malfurion Stormrage and Broll Bearmantle. In Fylariea's case, though the reasons are uncertain (with one of the most common hypotheses surrounding the influence of her extended campaign against the Nightmare, as this is when they began to show up).

Fylariea unveiled sees her pale flesh suffused with transparent, moving stellar automata, like a full-body tattoo. From her back rise three pairs of grotesquely oversized wings, inherited from her flight forms - seated one below another in order of size, like some demented seraphim. Sweeping antlers crown her head like a halo, and the sigil of the Lady and Child is nestled comfortably between them. Her hands are replaced with vicious, harpy-like talons, and her chest is almost hidden by a heart-shaped mane of brown fur, like a rabbit's mane or a moth's wool. Her eyes become black and beady, containing stars at impossible depths.

When unveiled thus, Fylariea tends to become much less careful with managing how others perceive her - having already portrayed herself a monster (and indeed; where some might assume monstrous features might make her 'cool' or 'hot', it cannot be overstated how duly horrific and far into the uncanny she falls), she eschews all inhibitions and simply engages in whatever paltry hedonism catches her attention, her smile an almost permanent feature. She drinks with abandon and feasts gluttonously, far more than her slight form would inform her capable of, and seems unaffected by alcohol in truth, though she plays it up to buy some lenience with her antics.

In both forms, some mutations persist by necessity. For example, to support the new appendages upon her back, her bones have become porous, and her metabolism is extremely overtuned. Even without presenting herself to the world, Fylariea is extremely light and constantly ravenous. Though she possesses incredible stamina and strength, the limitations of this tend to be fairly normal, as she is fragile and can easily harm herself, making such things largely useless.

Personality

Fylariea in the modern day is generally described as 'content', maintaining (or attempting to maintain) an essence of otherworldly stoicism. She often distracts herself with inane and inconsequential mortal comforts, and would generally like to portray to the world a changed woman - a true enough visage, as Fylariea has changed significantly in her time away, managing to at least temper some of her her ruthless epistemovore and idealistic tendencies, its accompanying fear of impotency and loss of control, and the raw, apathetic slaughter her experiences with the Second Nightmare War taught her to embody into something approaching introspective philosophy.

Acting according to a rigid internal code of conduct, Fylariea values harmony more than explicit balance these days, though she would claim her understanding of balance has simply evolved. She is reticent to resort to violence in most situations, and often struggles to defend herself with lethal force, though she will not hesitate to defend others with such when the need arises. As a general rule, Fylariea seems to believe in matching force with force, and almost religiously avoids consciously escalating if possible, usually considering such situations as personal failures.

Fylariea often oscillates between thoughtful and reserved speech and the unreserved hedonism, correlated based on how much she chooses to reserve herself physically. When doing her best to appear as a normal elf, she behaves accordingly, but seems to possess manic disregard when she lets loose. While one might assume one to be a 'truer' guise than the other, this would be a mistake; even in private, Fylariea obeys this convention, and can be predicted largely by such physical appearances.

Her primary contemporary character flaw manifests in the form of codependent tendencies due to an obsession with 'atonement', with Fylariea often over keen to share or provide with what she has, or obtain what she does not, to the point of personal detriment. She has a tendency to obsess over problems not her own and fundamentally needs the people around her to be 'happy' in some form, and internalizes her inability to assist as a personal and moral failure - ala 'If I can't help you, then what's the point of me?'. Furthermore, Fylariea is often unreasonably protective, in a way that borders on controlling 'mother knows best' sort of fashion - even in cases where that analogy is utterly laughable. While Fylariea is generally capable of recognizing these shortcomings in the modern day, it still causes her extreme distress to forcibly go against them in most cases.

Quotes

"That's REAL WEIRD."

"Good people don't need rules. Now is not the time to find out why I have so many."

"Yes, yes, we've heard it all before. The line between Light and Dark is so very thin. If you ever want to see what's been watching you the whole time, just stand on that line... and look up.

"No one else. Never again."

Notes and Trivia

• Despite the Night Elves no longer being immortal, Fylariea seemed to retain her non-senescence.
• While Fylariea was classified as a druid, she was often times proficient enough in arcane magic to be reasonably considered a mage, of which she often referred to herself as an oneiromage.
• Fylariea was capable of casting in her animal forms.
• While not capable of speech, Fylariea employed the use of psionic projection to the area around her to communicate via thought-speak while in her animal forms.
• Fylariea used to aspire to become a professional battle pet tamer. While this no longer seems to be the case, she did retain an arsenal of animal companions scattered throughout the world in her youth.
• Fylariea seems immune to alcohol. Despite this, she continues to partake in it religiously.

See Also

N/A (for now)

External Links

WoWPedia

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