And, as many stories like this go, that's when I found my pet. She was on the right side of the bridge, this gorgeous brown bear who was just screaming, "Me! Me! I can protect you! Pick me!" So I did. And she was my go to pet and, in fact, my only pet for a very long time. Of course, when I got Gwyn this all changed. I've always been more comfortable with ferocity pets-- this was when I found that out. Shiota got demoted to the stables and, for a long time, I didn't even think about her. Oh, I'd pull her out occasionally, but I'd always get frustrated and dump her right back in.
At some point before Cataclysm, I decided that naming her after a kingdom in the Wheel of Time series had been silly. I renamed her Astrid and tried to see if we could reconnect. It was worse than ever and I ended up releasing her to tame the Clutchmother (back when we still thought that she and her skin were gonna be goners once Cata hit). Once Cata came I decided that, while I had tamed to Clutchmother to save her, I really didn't like tallstriders. So she went and I'm sad to say I can't even remember her name.
I had promised myself that, once we got the extra stable slots, I'd go back and tame all the pets I'd released (of which there were really only three) and bring them home again. Before Cata, I had a huge spree of releasing and taming again. I released my hyena, Lorcan, and named my devilsaur after him. I released Shiota and tamed the Clutchmother. I tamed a chimera named Echidna and released her again. I never tamed any of those pets again.
Today, I decided I needed another tenacity pet. I love my warpstalker, Kairos, to death, but I desperately needed a tank pet for Vash'jir: my gear is so shit that it's pitiful. I was running through my head the list of tenacity pets. "Oh, I'll just pull out Flutter, that challenge tame bear. Oh, wait, I released him because he was such a derp. I could get a rhino? Nah. You know, I really don't like any of the tenacity pets except warpstalkers... OH." Then I remembered. And suddenly I missed her, you know? She'd been my first ever pet and I'd just dropped her like she was trash. I suddenly felt horrible.
But I knew that just requesting she be restored to me wasn't going to be enough. I'd hurt her, I'd abandoned her, and she'd gone home.
I took the boat to Darnassus instead, then flew to Azure Watch on Azuremyst. I was going to do this right. I dismissed Kairos. I mounted up and ran to Bloodmyst, unnaturally worried that everything in the area was going to eat my face off. And then I was standing on these rocks, petless and alone, and just watching her. I was so scared she wouldn't come back. After a while, I dropped down of the rocks and tamed. No traps, no hits, nothing. I wanted to do this the same way I had back then.
I was so happy when she came home. Throughout those ten seconds, I was afraid she was going to somehow kill me or use a knockback or that the tame just wouldn't work. Yeah, she tried to eat my face off for a while. But she came home anyway.
Glad to have you back, dear. <3
Lovely story, Aela! Welcome home, Shiota! <3
