Chapter 94: The Salt-Stained Shore and the Unspoken Farewell

　　The cacophony of Ratchet faded into the rhythmic, hypnotic crash of waves on a long, windswept beach. Kaelen walked north along the coastline, the golden plains of the Barrens to his left, the endless, grey expanse of the Great Sea to his right. This was a liminal space, a threshold between the continent he had come to know and the vast unknown that lay across the water.

　　The air was clean and sharp, scoured by the sea wind. His hooves sank into the damp, packed sand, leaving a trail that would be washed away by the next high tide. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and lonely against the constant, low roar of the ocean. He was utterly alone, a solitary figure on the edge of the world.

　　He walked for days, the landscape unchanging. The sea was a constant, patient presence, its moods shifting from a sullen, grey calm to a churning, white-capped fury under stormy skies. He watched the sun rise from the sea and set into it, painting the water in fiery hues. He slept in the lee of dunes, lulled by the ocean's breath. This journey along the coast was a pilgrimage of farewell, a silent processing of all he had witnessed in Kalimdor.

　　He thought of the tauren elder's wisdom by the standing stones, the kaldorei Sentinel's cold vigilance, the druid's plea for balance in Feralas, the goblin's pragmatic survivalism in Ratchet. He thought of the Maelstrom's chaotic heart and the Moonglade's perfect peace. These were not disjointed memories; they were the verses of a single, complex epic. Kalimdor was a land of stark contrasts and deep wounds, but also of immense, resilient beauty. He had chronicled its pain and its poetry.

　　One evening, as the sky turned to bruised purple and the first stars appeared, he came to a place where the coast curved, forming a small, sheltered bay. Drawn up on the sand was a simple, weathered fishing boat. An old human, his face a roadmap of wrinkles carved by sun and salt, was mending a net by the light of a small, driftwood fire. He looked up as Kaelen approached, his movements slow and deliberate. He showed no fear, only a quiet, weathered curiosity.

　　"Evening," the fisherman said, his voice a gravelly whisper that blended with the sound of the surf. "Don't see many of your kind on this shore." He gestured with a gnarled hand toward the sea. "Heading out?"

　　Kaelen stopped a respectful distance away and shook his head. He looked out at the darkening water.

　　The fisherman followed his gaze. "Aye. It's a long way to the other side. Seen many set out. Not all return." He returned to his mending for a moment, then spoke again without looking up. "The sea don't care about your troubles. It's got its own. But it listens. Carries your stories away, if you let it."

　　He fell silent, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the sigh of the waves. It was a simple, profound companionship of solitude. The old man was not asking for his story; he was offering a moment of shared silence on the brink of a great journey.

　　After a long while, the fisherman finished his knot, held the net up to the firelight, and grunted in satisfaction. He packed his things into the boat. "Tide's turning," he said, pushing the boat into the shallows. "Fair winds to you, stranger. Wherever you're bound."

　　He rowed out into the growing darkness, his small boat soon swallowed by the night and the sea.

　　Kaelen stood on the empty beach, the old man's words echoing in the silence. The sea did carry stories away. It was time to let Kalimdor's stories settle within him, to become the foundation for the next chapter. He was not leaving to escape; he was leaving to continue. The chronicle demanded it.

　　He turned his back on the sea and began the walk inland, toward the goblin zeppelin towers he knew stood to the north. His path now had a direction: east. To the war-torn lands of the Eastern Kingdoms, to the haunted forests of Lordaeron, to the snowy peaks of Khaz Modan. The first part of his journey was complete. He had learned to see. Now, he would carry that sight across the water, a silent witness to the other half of a wounded world. The shore was behind him, the sea ahead, and the story was endless.