Two months before returning to Stormwind, Bossia stepped out of the Menethil post office. She had just mailed a letter addressed to Cenarion Hold in Silithus. Since the post office staff would not enter the desert themselves, the letter would be handed to guards at the border of Un'Goro Crater and Silithus. Whether the letter would reach its destination intact and on time depended on the guards' mood and luck. Bossia knew this all too well from her three and a half years living there, where receiving mail felt more like an unexpected ambush than a welcome event.
After mailing the letter, Bossia returned to her hotel room and opened the window. The fish market and the church were visible, but she chose a room that did not face the sea to avoid seeing ships that might change her mind. The decision to board a ship to Theramore had been spontaneous; she had wanted to visit Ashenvale for its tranquility, something she had missed in the past eight years.
There was a knock at the door, and the landlady's voice called out. Bossia opened the door to the middle-aged woman, who inspected the room with a smile, warning about the prevalent theft in the area and advising to keep the windows shut even while indoors.
Bossia assured her she would be careful. The landlady, ever smiling, inquired about Bossia's stay and preferences, emphasizing that she treated long-term guests as family. Bossia offered to prepay for two weeks, and the landlady, curious but well-meaning, also asked if Bossia was a follower of the Light, mentioning that the local church welcomed outsiders every Wednesday.
After the landlady left, Bossia noticed an ink stain on the table, a remnant from the letter she had written that morning. The ink, once a cohesive drop, had spread into fine lines on the wooden surface. This tiny remnant contrasted with the weight of the words she had written, now traveling far away. Bossia recalled the hesitation before she wrote the first stroke. She closed the window, and the room darkened.
That night, Bossia was awakened by some noises in the hallway outside her room. At least two people were walking back and forth and paused outside her door. There was no talking. Her sword stood by the bed, within easy reach. A sliver of light seeped through the window that couldn't be fully closed, slightly illuminating about two inches of the sword's sheath.
She recalled that as a mercenary sleeping outdoors, she had developed the habit of holding, even hugging, her sword while sleeping. Later, she realized that this habit did little for self-defense and often woke her with the slightest movement, so she stopped it.
After leaving Gadgetzan, she had traveled with a gnome researcher's caravan to Marshal's Refuge in Un'Goro Crater. Initially, she thought the environment there was much more pleasant than Gadgetzan, but within two weeks, her opinion changed completely. First, Un'Goro was the smelliest place she had ever seen in Azeroth. Tar pits everywhere, plants rotting faster due to the heat, and dinosaur droppings as big as kodos'. Moreover, she found herself incompatible with the gnomes, especially the researchers. Their enthusiasm for their studies was such that they assumed others would naturally share their passion upon contact with their research. This mindset made them indifferent to paying for services. Bossia, fetching crystals and dinosaur scales for them, was rarely paid as their minds were captivated by the invisible glow of their materials. Working for goblins was another option, but that was another torment—she had had enough of goblins.
After only three months in Un'Goro, Bossia planned to leave but couldn't for a long time. She hadn't decided on a destination or found an opportunity. Heading east meant passing through Gadgetzan, but she didn't know if the people from the MI7 had left. West was Silithus, the edge of Kalimdor, and the most dangerous region of Azeroth. She heard mercenaries easily found work there—for many obvious reasons.
Since leaving Stormwind, this was the second time Bossia felt a contradictory sense of constraint. The first was on the ship departing from Menethil, sitting in the dark hold, her mind replaying the battle scenes with Dragonmaw orcs—her first personal encounter with death, while the sound of waves against the hull made her acutely aware of the significant decision she had made. A decision meant to grant her freedom had instead taken away control over her future, at least until the ship docked. In Un'Goro, her semi-nomadic lifestyle made it impossible to turn back, yet it hadn't necessarily honed the strength to move forward.
One day, she woke up, peered out of her tent, and suddenly realized she had been seeing the same sight for months: a sky almost completely obscured by dense leaves and tangled vines. The overly thick and foul-smelling greenery no longer symbolized vitality and life. Un'Goro had become nearly identical to the prisons she had once inhabited. She hadn't boarded that ship to stay in a place like this. She didn't like it. Fueled by this repulsion, she set off for Silithus.
Things began simpler than expected, as the outpost at the Un'Goro-Silithus border welcomed adventurers willing to become mercenaries, a friendliness that surprised Bossia. Compared to Tanaris, the desert of Silithus had a paler color, with an eerie grandeur at first glance. The sky, meant to be continuous, lay in solitary silence here, like a missing memory one could never retrieve. She felt she saw sunlight for the first time in months: the sun less harsh than Tanaris but brighter.
"You picked a good time," the escorting guard said to Bossia, who was clearly too engrossed in the scenery. "In a week, it'll be sandstorm season, and you won't see anything then. But the timing is unpredictable, so we must hurry if we want to survive to reach Cenarion Hold. What did you say your name was?"
She should have been astonished that she had lived in such a place for nearly four years, but now she was more concerned about having not only left Silithus but also sent a letter there. Anyone sending a letter expects a reply; she was no exception. But given the peculiar destination, the nature and mode of reply were secondary. She had to wait in Menethil for some time. This realization made her feel bound by contradictions again: she had left Silithus yet remained to await a response from there.
The footsteps in the hallway were likely not from suspicious individuals. She heard them move to the right, open a door about three rooms away, and after the door closed, the hallway returned to silence. Bossia turned over, her back to the sword. This excess tension was perhaps just a matter of not yet adapting to her surroundings, she thought. Many things could bring a sense of security conducive to sleep, even the night breeze of Silithus, if she were willing to accept it.