All remained quiet in the small room as the first rays of the morning sun shined through the little, round window.  It wasn’t much of a room for a pair of tauren to share, but the bed was comfortable enough.  Normally the disciplined, albeit naked, Drenan was quick to get up at first light, but this morning he merely exhaled and rolled onto his back to look at the partially-lit ceiling.  Even on their travels, today wasn’t just any normal day to him.

In his shift, however, suddenly something felt oddly amiss.  “Mmmph… Lyrah?” he murmured as he tilted his head, only to realize she wasn’t in bed with him.  He raised up to prop himself up on his elbows to look around.  The goblin-sized inn left no room for either of them to hide, so it was clear she had to have left the room entirely.  “Strange,” he remarked as he worked himself fully awake and got out of bed, quickly dressing himself in a tan-colored set of pants with a matching vest.  They weren’t set to leave Gadgetzan for a few days yet, so he left all but a small pouch of gold behind and left their room.

The hulking tauren had to keep his head low throughout the inn, though he stopped to chat with a smallish goblin at the front desk.  “Pardon, have you seen a female tauren leave the inn this morning?”

The goblin had been in the midst of counting a pouch of coins when he noticed Drenan, and with a cackle he quickly shoved the pouch into a hidden compartment beneath the desk.  “Ohhhhh, a female eh?  Hmm… sounds kinda familiar.  She hot?”

The paladin glared fiercely at the goblin, who in turn quickly shrunk back behind his desk.  “Nevermind,” Drenan rumbled before striding away and out of the inn, leaving the goblin visibly shaking as he watched him go.  Even in the early morning, the sun was glaringly bright in Gadgetzan, and the ever-industrious goblins were already bustling about and setting up shop, likely to bring in tourists and anyone else who cared to pass through.  Members of other races, both Alliance and Horde, could be seen perusing goblin goods, though in the current clime it was clear they were avoiding each other like the plague.  Despite the crowd, the tall race of tauren were easy to pick out among them, and it didn’t take long for a familiar sight to catch his eye.  “Talla?”

The white-furred hunter, garbed in a flowing, gold-colored dress this morning, had been browsing a small stall of jewelry when she caught the paladin’s call.  She turned to him with a smile and abandoned her spot to meet him halfway.  “Good morning Mr. Lighthand.  Sleep well?”

“Indeed, though I woke up without Lyrah.  Have you seen her?” he asked and crossed his burly arms over his chest.

Talla’s hands went behind her back as she started rocking from side to side.  Her eyes turned upward as she dragged out her first word.  “Mmmmmmmaybe she’s somewhere outside the city?”

Drenan cocked a skeptical eyebrow.  “Maybe?”

“Maybe,” she said with a nod.  “Maybe somewhere by the eastern shoreline.”

“Thank you,” Drenan returned begrudgingly and turned away so quickly that he didn’t even catch Talla’s amused giggle.

The paladin’s path took him out the southern gate of the city and toward the ocean coastline not far from Gadgetzan, yet there were no signs of Lyrah.  Hoofprints were difficult to determine in the ever-shifting sands, but he couldn’t help feel more and more concerned as he started a path southward along the coast.  He had no reason to believe Talla would lead him on, but he did feel she wasn’t telling the full truth.  Still, he couldn’t bring himself to grill the timid huntress, and he was growing more keen to her as time passed.

The worried paladin had traveled quite far down the coastline on foot.  The sun was nearly at high noon, and his occasional call for Lyrah revealed no response.  Finally, a single figure could be seen off in the distance, and as he called out to it, a turn of its head revealed it to be of another tauren.  He quickly dropped into a dead sprint, but slowed himself as he neared, to his surprise, the druidess Shele.  Her ever-amused smile was spread across her face as she stood ankle-deep in the saltwater, her vibrant green dress hovering dangerously above the lapping waves that flattened the sand around her.  “Well well, fancy meeting you out here, Drenan.  On vacation too?”

“Still looking for a home,” he added, breathing heavily from the sprint.  “Have you seen Lyrah out here?”

Her smile slowly shifted into a smirk.  “I have.”

Drenan looked at her dumbly when she didn’t elaborate.  “Where?”

The druid slowly turned to look further southward, her arm raising to point at a cave toward some small mountains near the shore.  “That way.”

The paladin spent no time with a response, rather he strode past her to make a beeline for the cave.  “Damn strange,” he murmured to himself, though he doubted she would’ve heard it.

As he neared the cave, a soft, melodious humming reached his ears.  His pace slowed as he instantly recognized Lyrah’s happy hum, prompting a confused look to cross him.  He stopped dead before the dark cave, yet unable to see inside with the bright sun above, when suddenly a series of thick vines burst forth from beneath the sand to cover him from head to toe.  He’d hardly had time to react to such a move, and before he knew it he was cocooned helplessly inside.  “Hey!” he rumbled.  “Let me out!”  While no verbal response met him, he felt his living prison shift and begin to move forward.  His muscles tensed as he knew not where he was being taken, and he was full and ready to muscle his way out of the vines, until they began to bear down on his lower body.  Forcibly he had to take a seat, and as his legs crossed each other, the vines suddenly vanished without a trace.

“Happy birthday!” a trio of voices cried out in unison.  Drenan found himself seated inside the cave, in front of a massive, red-colored cake with more candles on it than he could count, and accompanied by a banquet of crayfish and a massive basket of corn and spiced bread straight from Mulgore.  On either side of it sat Shele and Talla, while Lyrah kneeled at the opposite end of the spread.  The shaman had garbed herself in a thin, flowing white skirt with a matching piece of cloth across her chest, though her beaming smile outshined every stitch.

In Lyrah’s excitement she hopped up and trotted around to throw her arms around his neck in a loving embrace, followed by a long, shameless, passionate kiss on the lips.  “I think I bought every candle in Gadgetzan to get you to 82.”

The paladin was in utter shock.  The tension in his arms went limp, and all he could do was look between the three of them for several long moments in silence.  As his brain steadily rebooted, the muscular tauren brought his daughter into his lap and kissed her deeply a second time, finally speaking as the kiss broke.  “I would not mind a little help.”

Lyrah smiled wide, the pair of them looking to the cake, taking deep inhales, and blowing as hard as they could.  In one good puff, every candle went up in smoke.  Talla and Shele clapped and smiled, and quickly the four of them devolved into feasting and chatting as if Drenan and Lyrah had never left.  All four were all smiles between every bite, and their little feast lasted well into the night.  Lyrah had sent a letter to Shele for her to meet the three of them for Drenan’s special day, and as the sun began to set over the horizon, Drenan reached out for Shele’s hand to look her in the eye and say, “Despite kidnapping me… thank you for coming out here for my sake.  You did not have to do that.”

“I was more than happy to,” she told him and squeezed his hand back, sidling a bit closer to him with a sly smile.  “I brought much of the food with me as well, but Talla cooked it all herself.  She has quite the talent for cooking, you know.”

Lyrah blushed fiercely at her words and giggled quietly, adding her own hand to theirs.  “It seemed like a good idea.”

Shele looked to Lyrah, and the pair seemed to exchange curious glances right in front of Drenan.  Lyrah quickly glanced back to Talla, who in turn seemed a bit sly-looking herself, albeit a deep pink flushed over her cheeks.  All three soon turned to Drenan as Shele added, “Well, you have had your feast, but your lovely daughter had a wonderful idea for your present.”

Drenan looked between the two of them curiously, struggling to keep his composure and avoid assuming anything.  “Oh?” was all he could muster.

Almost as if rehearsed, all three tauren females stood up in a line before him, and in unison all three took their meager garments, pulled at their respective strings, and let them drop straight to the floor.  The trio stood proudly naked before Drenan, even though Talla continued to blush far more than her compatriots.  It was Lyrah who swayed her hips as much as she could with each step, walking to her father and teasingly straddling his lap.  Her arms draped around his shoulders once more as she kissed him again, smiling wide.  “We wanna give you a night to remember, daddy.  For tonight, we’re all yours.”

The speechless paladin, lovingly returned his daughter’s kiss, and almost in slow motion the four of them melted into a pile of tender kisses and caresses.

Personally, I doubt any of them slept that night.