Episode 1: Horns
The afternoon grew late, and the dinner dishes were put away. The boy played quietly on the beach - building sand castles and poking at crabs with twigs - but the corpse that stood nearby could see clear signs that the child was growing tired.
Johnny had been a family man and cooper, before the Plague had taken his life and his family from him. Although he would never forgive himself for their fate, his wife and children had been the fortunate ones. They had died quickly and were lucky enough to stay dead.
But that was then. The twisting threads of fate had deposited him here, in this paradise, and given him another chance. Not for love and for having more children of his own - he was dead, after all - but it gave him another chance to care about others. Fate had given him a chance to help nurture a child, and to see that he grew up healthy and happy, far from Johnny's ruined homeland.
The undead walked over to the boy and squatted down beside him.
"This crab is Rask; the king of all the crabs!" Gorrum explained to Johnny. "Rask is commanding the other crabs to attack the castle. And then afterwards, they'll throw a great feast in the main hall..."
Johnny and Gorrum stared silently, waiting for the battle to unfold.
His highness, King Rask, scuttled back into the surf.
A toucan called for its mate.
Gorrum scooped at the castle and flung the dry sand skyward. "Ka-boom! The castle is destroyed!"
The boy's golden eyes studied Johnny's face. "I'm not tired," he said.
Johnny lifted the child to his hooves and gave him a gentle swat under the tail, urging him back to the hut.
They climbed the ramp together (Tauren eschew ladders and stairs), and Johnny lit the oil lamp on the table. The circular home was small (for Tauren occupants, at least) and simple. Although normally cramped and busy, tonight it felt quiet and empty. A large sleeping mat and a small sleeping mat were positioned opposite the entrance. A small, conspicuously empty shelf was mounted between the two.
Beside the door stood a giant, empty armor rack, and two empty pegs. A third, empty peg was positioned lower. To the other side of the entrance, a simple table was surrounded by two large benches and a smaller, taller one.
A gentle breeze blew through the home and rustled the thatched roof. As with the other huts that dotted the beaches, there was no fire pit inside. All the cooking had to be done outside, so that no spark would land on dry thatch.
Johnny squatted before the boy.
"I could stay up," Gorrum said. "Mom will probably be home soon."
Johnny shook his head as he undid the buttons on Gorrum's vest. He peeled the leather away and hung it from the low peg.
"I could watch myself, you know," Gorrum said, sticking out his lower lip in a pout. "I'm not a little kid anymore," he explained as he untied his breeches.
Johnny nodded as he hung the pants from the peg.
"So I can stay up?"
Johnny mimed a sigh. It was for effect only, had had not breathed in years.
"But you just agreed that I'm old enough to watch myself!" the boy whined.
Johnny used his bony fingertips to brush sand from the boy's hair and fur. He was growing quite a mane of wild, black hair over his brown and tan pelt.
"It's just sand," Gorrum grumbled. "There's already lots of sand in the bed. Sheesh."
Johnny hit a tickle-spot under the boy's ribs, and Gorrum began to giggle. "No!" the calf bleated, but it was too late; Johnny was already tickling him with both hands. Gorrum rolled around on the floor and tried ineffectually to push the Forsaken's hands away.
When the game ended, Gorrum stomped to his hooves and made little fists beside his hips. He set his jaw and stared at Johnny with his most resentful glare. Johnny returned the stare with his usual, emotionless gaze.
Gorrum brushed the last of the sand away and climbed into the smaller bed. The undead tucked the cotton cover up, under the boy's chin.
"Tell me a scary story," the boy begged.
Johnny shook his head slowly.
Johnny's stories were most unlike those told by either of Gorrum's parents, but then again, Johnny was most unlike Gorrum's parents too.
The undead's jaw hung uselessly at an unnatural angle, and his lips were pulled back from his teeth by the dried jerky he had for a face. He made an unusual nursemaid for the tiny Tauren, but the boy did not realize. Gorrum had known the Forsaken since his birth, and presumed that every kid had a re-animated corpse to look after them when their parents were busy.
Johnny seldom spoke, but when he did, it was a most... unearthly experience. His voice was reminiscent of the wind. It evoked images in the listener's mind, even if it was not always clear how they got there.
"Dad said not to tell me a ghost story," Gorrum said, "but that doesn't mean you can't tell me a scary one. There's lots of scary stories that don't have any ghosts in them."
Johnny stared for a long time. The boy had a point...
# # #
Johnny spoke, and Gorrum imagined a boy who lived in a hut on the beach.
Of all the things to see and do in his little piece of paradise, the boy loved two of them most of all. First and foremost, the boy loved the ocean. He swam in its depths and played in the surf until his hooves grew soft.
His hair was always wet. His fur was always drenched. The boy usually remembered to undress before going swimming, but even so, his leather clothes were always damp with brine. When the saltwater dried, the soft leather hardened, turning them into an uncomfortable nuisance.
The boy draped the pants over a large, flat rock and beat the hard edges with another rock in hopes of softening the leather back up. Soon, the continued abuse turned the pants into shorts, and then into a loincloth. The vest survived longer than the pants, but they both were discarded eventually.
In time, the locals began to refer to the boy as "the naked boy," or simply "Naked Boy". Any other name he had before that faded away, like the memory of his clothes.
Naked Boy swam like a fish and hunted for clams. He leapt out of the water like a dolphin and rode the waves into shore.
But the ocean wasn't his only love. Oh, no! Back on land, Naked Boy narrowed his eyes to steely slits as his selected his next victim. He lowered his small horns and waited for the moment to strike.
Then, without warning, he charged at the seagulls that rested on the sand. He charged at the feral cats that stole the bits of gut that the fishermen left behind. He charged at the chickens that pecked the sand for bugs.
From time to time, a family of goats would wander down from the cliffs that overlooked the sea. Naked Boy would bellow in glee.
The grumpy old billy goats would try to claim a stretch of beach, and Naked Boy would not back down. He lowered his horns and charged at the goats. The goats would meet his charge, and for a moment, the world would be replaced with fireworks.
Naked Boy would laugh and butt heads again and again, until he flopped to the sand. Then he would giggle as the world spun.
But today was not an ordinary day. No, when Naked Boy stood this day, he spotted a most disturbing sight. There in sand were the shattered pieces of his broken horns.
Naked Boy put his hands to his head with a gasp, but it only confirmed his fears. His horns were gone.
What could he do? A Tauren without horns was not even a Tauren.
With his hands on his head, he covered his shame, and ran south along the beach, to the Great, Walled City. He knew he could get help there.
Naked Boy ran through the city's northern gate. A heartless Orc dared to laugh at the hornless Tauren. "Welcome to the Great, Walled City, Naked Boy," he chuckled.
Naked Boy felt the insides of his ears burn red. He wanted to lower his horns, and charge at the stupid oaf, but of course, he could not.
He ran on, past tradesmen and travelers. He tried to ignore the laughs and stares. He kept his head covered with his hands, so that no one could see.
Inside the city's eastern gate, he found a band of soldiers. The Orcs laughed out loud at Naked Boy's misfortune. A Blood Elf stared down his long nose at the boy. At least the Forsaken who was with acted as if he did not notice.
But Naked Boy didn't care about those men and their mirth. He wanted help from the Great Warrior that they were clustered about.
The Great Warrior looked up slowly. He was a huge, red bull - as wide as a kodo and twice as tall. The giant Tauren was not amused, despite how his underlings slapped at his back. If anything, he seemed suddenly old, and a little tired.
"I thought we agreed that you would not return to the Great, Walled City, Naked Boy," he said.
"I had to come," Naked Boy cried. "I have broken my horns."
"A bull's horns grow about an inch every month," the Great Warrior explained with a sigh. He put on a reassuring smile. "If you show me how much broke off of them, then we'll know how long it will take for them to grow back."
Naked Boy steeled his nerves and slowly peeled back his hands so that the Great Warrior could see.
The Great Warrior let out a slow whistle.
"Will it take very long?"
"They've broken off below the surface," he explained. "Let's have a closer look."
The Great Warrior picked up Naked Boy and held him like a spy glass, peering into the holes in his head.
"That's not good," he said. "I can see all the way to Kalimdor."
He set Naked Boy back down on his hooves and put a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm afraid that you will be a very, very old bull before they grow all that way."
Naked Boy was devastated.
"But, but without my horns... I'm... I'm nothing," he said, "I might as well be an Orc."
"I know," the Great Warrior agreed. He put a consoling hand across the boy's back.
"But on the other side of town, there is a Beautiful Gunsmith. She can form amazing things out of wood and steel. Perhaps she can make you some new horns, so you will not have to live your life as an Orc."
All around the Great Warrior, his Orcish friends bowed their hornless heads in shared shame.
# # #
Naked Boy walked slowly across the Great, Walled City with head lowered. He didn't bother to cover his head. If the people laughed, then he didn't even hear it.
A small corner of his mind was hopeful, but he was afraid to get his hopes up too high.
Naked Boy found the Beautiful Gunsmith at her forge. She turned when she saw him and smiled as if she could not even see his horrible disfigurement. "Well hello, Naked Boy! What brings you to the Great, Walled City?"
"I have broken my horns," he explained. "The Great Warrior said that perhaps you might be able to make some to replace the ones I have lost."
The Beautiful Gunsmith put her hands on her hips and tilted her head in thought. "Well," she said as she brushed her short, black hair back behind an ear, "a mighty warrior once came to me with a similar problem. He had lost his horns in a duel, and so I worked all night forging him new ones out of truesilver."
She bent down and rummaged through an ammo box. "Aha!" She pulled out two smooth pieces of metal that had been polished to a mirror surface. They were almost exactly the size and shape of the horns that Naked Boy had lost!
"Wow!" the boy gasped. "But if you made these for a mighty warrior, then why are they so small?"
"Um, well you see, truesilver is a rare and precious metal," she explained, "this was as big as I could make them.
"But that morning, the army marched off to battle, before I could put them in. He had to fight... without them."
Naked Boy gasped in horror. "Without his horns?"
The Beautiful Gunsmith nodded sadly. A single tear rolled down her cheek. "He died. Like an Orc."
