disclaimer: i own nothing really, this is just an exercise in creativity.
author's note: mind the 'm' rating, eh? character death, mild swearing. also hints of genocide (physical and spiritual), loss and longing and how to be as cool as a cucumber when faced with your demise. a five and one deal.
summary: we enjoy killing each other too much: last words blue-bitch? (on grieving and dying with your head held high)
1.
"No, we are not going to die." Her voice says and her hands glow as she mends their friend. The tall draenei is calm, quiet and collected. The gnome sits and frets as she fiddles with the knots in her hair and the night elf watches the world outside their cage darkly. Eventually, he shudders and gasps and a small smile carves her face.
"How do you know that?" the gnome squeaks, her skin as pale as the untainted snow in Khaz Modan. The paladin checks for a pulse, for fever and then tends to the broken leg.
"Orcs see power in strength," she explains as she sets the break, ignoring the young man's scream. "They will not kill us now. They will wait until Garrosh arrives and then make an example out of us. To show the rest of Azeroth how strong they are. Then we will die, or be slaves."
"... I am unassured, thanks."
"It was not meant to comfort you friend, it is just how it is going to be."
2.
"How are you so calm?" the human asks as the paladin fiddles with the bandage and splint. She wears a small frown with her thin leathers underneath her tabard.
"I am resigned," she replies as she runs a finger through her hair. "To what my fate will be. I outran the Legion to be captured by orcs. I knew I would not escape both."
"Light preserve us." he groans. He was hoping for a little more piss and vinegar than this.
"Light give us strength. It is unlikely we will survive." she corrects, and then closes her eyes.
3.
"I disagree – the orcs need water and they need wood." The druid sputters in utter rage as the gnome looks on in amusement. The paladin shifts a little, her left leg mottled with indigo bruises above her hoof.
"How can you say that? They butcher the forests and dry up the rivers!" His voice has dropped several octaves and there is a growl around his words. The paladin shrugs.
"I disagree with how the Horde has gone about getting their resources, I worry about what will happen in twenty, thirty years from now when the forests are erased and Mulgore's water dried up. But it is wrong to deny them these essentials. It is necessary, and it is not helping the problem on either side by screaming about it. Why has nobody opened up a table for discussion on properly preserving Azeroth's limited resources?" she asks. The human chuckles and leans against the bars of the cage.
"We enjoy killing each other too much."
4.
"Because I remember." she says simply, and the druid's jaw snaps shut. They all stop and look at her for a minute and wince.
"When I was still a youngling, after we arrived on Draenor and my family settled in Terrokar we made peace with the neighbouring orc clan. They were my friends," her eyes glimmer. "When the Legion found us and corrupted the orcs I did not understand what had happened to them and why they were so angry with me. That hurt far worse than anything else that they did: my friends were gone as if they had never been and I have not yet stopped missing them."
Outside their cage the orcs are laughing – there is a woman with her children around the fire and the male is telling some sort of story. The guards are cracking jokes as they patrol and the innkeeper is pouring somebody's ale and nodding to something a shaman is saying.
How easy it is to forget that they are people too.
"I remember," the vindicator says. "I remember them before and I grieve because it is never coming back."
5.
"I work with the Shattered Sun as a medic." she'd replied as she stretched. The sun was rising and spilling weak light over the courtyard. A few orcs were up besides the guards: the innkeeper was rifling for eggs, a few children were collecting firewood. A drunk troll dragged himself into a dark tent to sleep his hangover off.
The gnome's belly rumbled and she'd grinned sheepishly from where she was sleeping up against the furry side of the sleeping bear.
"Some vacation they sent you on, huh?" the archeologist said wryly as he tightened his bandage. The vidicator made a rude gesture and he laughed.
"Get away from the demons they said," the gnome deepened her voice and attempted the accent. "But no, I got caught in an orc raid. What can go wrong?"
Even the druid laughed at that.
1.
The noose hangs mockingly in front of her face, the elf's legs are twitching. Beside her, the gnome's eyes are wide in fright as the human is dragged up the stairs of the platform. Hellscream grins widely as she stares out into the faces of the crowd. It is a quiet crowd filled with wide eyes and clenched fists, no jeering or cries of victory. Executions are for traitors, for killers – not for two archeologists, a messenger of the Circle and a healer from the Shatter Sun. The interrogation hadn't mattered, nor the evidence they'd provided: the maps the archaeologists were helping the vindicator correct (hers was out of date) and the fact that the druid was delivering a message the the local Circle outpost and that none of them were within spitting distance of Horde territory at the time. Garrosh is a conqueror and this is but a taste of the power he will soon possess.
"Any last words blue-bitch?" he asks. The vindicator eyes him with disdain.
"I still miss you," she sighs as looks out onto the crowd once more. She thinks of the neighbouring clan, of the feasts underneath the trees, the songs the orc elders sang that her mother had taught her to dance to, and the games she'd played with her friends in the foliage that stretched to the sky. "I miss you and all that you could have been."
Then she steps up to the noose with dignity and closes her eyes.
Somebody screams.
fin.