Alright, a few things first. One: As part of my trying to decide whether continuing Beyond the Tree into Story Arc Two is worthwhile or not, I’ve put out a call for people to tell me about interesting or memorable NPCs, quest lines or other incidental details they remember from around the Barrens, Durotar and Dustwallow Marsh before the Cataclysm hit. So if you feel you have any suggestions/experiences/insight to contribute in that regard, I’d love to hear of it over on my post at Thoughts for Food. Secondly, Tokkar of Tales from the Crossroads recently announced that after almost a year of “the very last page is coming soon!”, he’s going to try to make something out of it again. Seeing as how I’m still linking to it, I thought I’d point it out here too.
Now with that out of the way, this page was one I kind of wanted along for some time. Since Hani never really explained – either to us or the rest of the cast – what prompted her return to Kalimdor, I felt I kind of needed to have her actually say it. Of course, it would’ve been convenient to just have this page take up after she’d explained and then elaborate it on through the reactions to it, but I felt it was worthwhile to show Raene drawing pretty much the same conclusion when working from the same information – or Hani’s short summary of that information, anyway.
Oh and since people seemed to clamor for it in the comment thread of last page, this page has a non-canon alternate version of events.
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Used to think so, but still more lately, especially with this comic; I would be so tempted to see / read / write something where Raene and Hani are all snuggly-lovey. Just so cute together; the tall silent more muted “husband” and the shorter outgoing vibrantly violet “wife” Hehe ^^
That said, it’s just nice to see Raene being reasonable and understanding.
In the alternate version…Dagri looks so sad (or very perplexed)!
And cloak or no cloak, Hani trying to be discreet is like a Tauren trying to be undercover in Ironforge. Height/mass tends to stand out a bit :-)
Lovin’ it as always, and thanks for the plug!
Excellent as always, and.. err… I will never look at Raene in quite the same way again.
Yeah, it came out a little less ‘hostage’ and a little more ‘bondage’ than I expected. 0.o
so your ending beyond the tree or you gonna keep going with it? i hate to see you stop putting new panels up
Beyond the Tree will end when its story has run its course, basically. Story Arc One still has its share of beats left before it’s over; the standing question is whether I’ll continue it into a second story arc after that or not.
Considering Story Arc One has been ongoing basically since I started back in 2008, even if Arc Two were to be just half that length, it’s still a very significant amount of time to consider, and I don’t really want to start arc two unless I feel reasonably reassured in myself that I’ll actually see it through to the end.
Apparently unlike most, I was pretty sure Hani would opt for an explanation over bondage. That bonus image is still pretty epic though, I love Dagri’s expression.
Fingers crossed for Arc 2! This is one of my top favorite Warcraft webcomics, and I think the only one that manages to pull off a serious, dramatic story instead of making it all jokes, all the time (though I love those too of course).
Explaining her actions truly was the most reasonable thing to do for Hani..
With that said… nothing says “love” like 60 feet of parachute cord.
Ive been curious about Hani’s reasons to return for ages, cuz they seemed abrupt and odd to me (after all, there was so much more to explore in the eastern kingdoms) and I must say I like them, and the bondage.. eh interaction with Raene is brilliant! Keep up the awesome work!
<3 from yet another long time reader who is thinking hard about any fancy vanilla npc's to help out. (its been to long!!)
“Well if you insist…” <3 the work on binding Raene to the tree. Consider this one amused.
I knew Hani would explain things, though. Something about her presence since returning…she's taken a more leadership role now rather than wandering. And the chemistry with Raene is just so natural that she wasn't likely to simply fight her and waste the time doing so, even if she hadn't changed (perhaps).
But that's a good question: With this kind of problem looming, what did she hope to do? Find this guy, I suspect, but…hmm…