I felt like something new, again! But this time, I decided to alter course with the changes here.
Anyway, enjoy!
"Ero?"
A gentle wind passes betwixt the two iron-clad warriors upon the stone parapet, an unwritten ode to the fleeting moment of silence.
"Ero?"
Another calm gust whistles past.
"Ero…"
"What, Krik? What in the world do you want?"
The warrior known as Krik blinks as if confused; despite being the one to have incepted this situation. His mind draws a blank, and it is clearly etched with the wrinkles – or lack thereof—upon his face. Though, it is quite common for the boy to act this way. It is, after all, in his nature.
Krik is an easy-going creature. The young lad sports a simple short-cut brown haircut and a features a simply adorably face that seems to have achieved its most rugged features back when he was fifteen. He has never been one for complications. He also has never been one to hold his tongue. So when a question arises he has no choice but to put it to rest before it congeals and forces his head to popping.
Alas, he also has the focus of a goldfish, thus leading to his current dilemma.
So now he shuffles quietly as he attempts to rediscover why he was bugging his comrade so unyieldingly. Fortunately for this man, patience is a prime characteristic of the other.
Krik smacks his lips in efforts to draw his flat-lined mind a pulse. However, it is not with his own movements where the reoccurring revelation reappears, but with the shifting tides.
"Ero!" Krik slaps his friend's arm and points towards the horizon at the setting sun. "Don't you just love starring into the sun as Azeroth eats it for dinner?"
Ero hesitates, praying that he heard that correctly. Shifting his head slowly, Ero cocks an eyebrow and readies his puzzled face. Of course, he doesn't truly need to prep for his baffled state; Krik gave him the proper motivation already.
"Krik," Ero stares at the child as if peering at soar glass of milk, or at the mailman after receiving an unopened package from his mother, "what is wrong with you boy?"
"What?" Krik is once more sporting his own puzzled face, "everything gets hungry. Even Azeroth. So, I mean, the sun looks like a giant toasted orange, so why can't the planet eat it?"
"Are we really having this conversation?" Ero pauses to rethink his comment, "is this even a conversation to begin with? Maybe you are just having a hallucination from a second overindulgence of those mushrooms you love so much."
Krik gasps, "That was one time, Ero! One freaking time. Can't you let it go?"
"I would if you didn't continue to have random relapses." Ero eyes Krik head to toe, shaking his head in acted disgust, "look at you, twitching and what not. Flipping out again, I see."
Driven to his own self-doubt, Krik glances down at his still, unmoving legs and stiff torso. The boy has a prominent posture given his normally apathetic demeanor; of course, the military could have simply beaten it into him.
The boy snorts as confidence fills his person once more, "Ero, you are seeing things. You sure you aren't the one hyped on Darkshore Dank?"
"Hyped on what?"
"You know. The common mushroom of these lands. Darkshore Dank. Everyone knows that." Krik smiles as Ero ponders the comment seriously. With the smirk, however, Ero discovers his fault.
"Krik." Ero narrows his gaze, mentally drilling his way to the boy's heart – his irritation formed more from the fact he almost believed the boy. "Those are called Darkpods. And, if you actually read the nifty three-hundred page informational packets given to us then you would know you also shouldn't ingest them."
Blinking numerous times, the boy stares at Ero as if truly taking the comment to heart. His lips form a tight package of focus and mental-debate. Shifting eyes signify his wandering, searching mind. It is then, as his eyes lock back upon his friend that he speaks his findings.
"They gave us a packet? To read? That's stupid."
Ero sighs, "Reading does help get you prepared for life's dealings, Krik. Like that one time you fell into the excavating site to the south, or that one time you ate a mushroom that made you run through town half-naked screaming about rabid wildkins."
"Hey, there are lots of crazed fluff-chickens in these parts." The boy shuffles in his spot, formulating a grand reasoning to his madness, "I was simply alerting the Elves to the possible threat loaming outside."
Ero chuckles as he readies his already calculated move, "You shouted about how they ate your clothing and mugged you. In that order."
Krik glances left and then right, searching both halves of his mind for a suitable excuse. "Hey, I still cannot find my clothing from that night, or my money, and you still haven't checked the owlkins for either yet."
Ero blinks, baffled fully. Quite pleased with himself, Krik smirks and waits for a response.
Ero frowns, agitated disbelief the basis to his rebuttal, "Boy, you cannot talk your way out of late arrivals to patrols, yet when I ask you about that one night, you suddenly become the master of escape artists. What is wrong with you?"
Krik shrugs, once more hunting for a proper reply. This time, however, it doesn't take him long. "I blame the mushrooms."
Shaking his head, Ero reluctantly accepts defeat. Sighing, he glances towards the horizon as he attempts to limp away from this one with some of his sanity. And he finds his distraction. Before him is a sight of glorious proportions: an amber ball of fire resting upon the murky tides. One-half stands in the sky, its defined edges spewing scarlet and orange rays majestically. The lower half lies skewed upon the rippling waves, bleeding a darkening concoction of ruby shades across the waves.
Such a marvelous sight, almost so much so that Ero feels compelled to agree with the boy's initial comment – to an extent. Yet, the entirety of Krik's crazed remark why have some truth behind it: for as the sun vanishes beneath the planet's edge its image upon the water elongates, expanding as if the infernal flames are devoured and smeared across the seas, digested by the navy blue plane.
And as Ero gazes onward, enjoying every second, he notices the Krik too has left his mind to wander. It is easy to lose oneself in the glory that is this spectacle. So few are welcoming phenomenon upon these lands that all other wealths seem…impoverished.
Both continue gawking, feeding along with the planet; their meals one and the same. Even as the sun nestles fully beneath the horizon, the lingering flares all that remains to flicker upon the skies, they continue gazing. For, if only even a few fleeting seconds, the two can feel the riches that are the tides of the sun.
"What are you two morons doing?" A high-pitched, shrill voice catches the two off-guard. It would seem their day-dreaming left them deaf to the swift, delicate footsteps of this woman. "I swear. If someone isn't watching you two then you have some personal vendetta to dig your own graves."
Spinning, the ironclad warriors catch sight of the feminine creature that looms over them. Fine, tan leather hugs the sleek curvature of the elegant, maroon-skinned woman. Fragments of foliage litter her garments: twigs, vines, etc; the decorations to match of her druidic background.
One of her hands is wrapped firmly upon the mid-section of a staff while the other is locked firmly upon her hip. A bent elbow and shifted weight upon said limb signify her current frustration. Of course, the twisted purple lips, and glaring teal eyes could be another set of possible determinants to said notion.
The two warriors, however, care not for the supple pair of lips, but are focused squarely upon the commanding orbs. These eyes are the prominent portion of her person: they strangulate the toughest of champions, dwarf the stoutest of soldiers, and strike fear into those thought incapable of such.
Fine, magenta tattoos run symmetrical patterns that drift as makeshift eyebrows, and curl downs upon her firm cheeks. These markings intensify the already glowing optics, especially at this time of the day. At dusk, her eyes make the transition for the twilight's haze, making it appear as if her eyes are on fire.
And the teal flames that waft forth are simply terrifying. This holds no less true for the pair standing beneath her wrath, watching as her hefty chest heaves in unison to the flames' curling waves.
"Just planning to stare?"
Ero shifts, taking a brief moment to concoct his own excuses precisely as Krik had to him. The man swiftly glances at his younger companion before instantly glancing towards the menacing maneater. He shrugs and tilts his head towards the seas, "We were watching Azeroth eat the sun."
She cocks an eyebrow. "You were what?" Throwing her staff forward, she silences them before they dare reply, "You know what? I don't truly care what you imbeciles were up to. All I know is that I have spent the last hour looking for you dumdums, and that is enough to boil my blood."
Her eyes narrow to slits, her utter hatred condensed. Eros, however, has grown quite numb to her overwhelming malice. Frowning, he shrugs off the barrage of optical annihilation as if a fly and replies, "The first problem with all of this is the fact you are actually looking for us." He braces the cold stone beneath him and shuffles from his perch, "Which sends me to asking why are you looking for us?"
The night elf widens her gaze, not too much so, and stares intently at the figure she deems a fool. She wasn't expecting him to care nor rise to question her intent, but nonetheless the idea had crossed her mind. She grips the cane tightly with one hand, and sighs.
She may dislike the imbeciles, but they are her responsibility, "If you must know, then the northern command has requested the use of some of our troops for a rather important mission."
Eros eyes her intently before speaking, "How far north we talking?"
Returning the gaze, she locks eyes with him. The night elf forgets the older of two actually has a brain beneath his sickly flesh. She also forgets that he has a knack for actually using it, "If you are inferring that someone somewhere other than the ruins of Auberdine cares that you exist, then you may be half right." She lifts her free hand to halt any signs of joy, "But don't assume the Northern Command actually cares for anything other than your actual body. They need just it, remember. Not the name that comes attached."
The ironclad warrior dusts the plate upon thighs and frowns in disdain. He forgets that the woman has a tongue within that pretty skull of hers. He also forgets that she has a knack for using it in all the wrong ways.
"Ok, Druid, I do appreciate the complete disregard for our value, but could you just tell us what we are needed for? I'd hate to watch you drown in your own compounded loathing." Ero steps up upon the wall, coming to eye-level with the elf – almost.
Her thick boots scrape against the sloping earthen mound the wall is erected upon and gazes towards the sands that the young Krik still faces. She takes a moment to eye the back of the boy's head before casting a rather distasteful glare at Ero.
"Recent activities in the bordering shores of Ashenvale have gained attention of our commanding officers." Unable to completely focus, she gazes at Krik once more, her hatred spewing from her gleaming, bright eyes. "We are not certain what is happening, or the significance, so we need…" Suddenly she exhales heavily, lifts the bottom end of her staff and jabs the back of Krik's head, "Child, are you listening?"
He promptly rubs the tender portion of his battered head prior to shifting angrily in his spot. It takes but a moment for the child to notice his assailant and leaps up upon the wall. She snorts at his eager repositioning and rams the rod back into the dirt.
"Long story short, go south. Cross the border into Ashenvale and keep hidden. We don't need you two getting caught by the orcish guard there." A fierce gaze is cast at Krik. It drifts slowly towards Ero, expending its full fury upon the boy before landing upon him. "Hug the mountains and get a good few of that eyesore of a post. If you find anything out of place, note it. If you find anyone out of place, note it. And don't. Get. Caught."
Once more her eyes narrow, this time upon Ero. He is not quite sure why she eyes him so forcefully, but he cannot hope but assume it's for a greater purpose other than her overwhelming disgust of his person. But that is hoping.
At that she swiftly pivots upon the soil, shifts across the darkened terrain as if gliding and marches towards the brackish thicket that one could call a forest – if death could be deemed so lively of things. Her body quickly vanishes in the shroud, but her eyes, those teal spheres of converging emotions, those orbs of compounded rage, pierce through as if the dark fathom naught of touching them.
And they land upon our ironclad warriors once more. The spheres stay locked, their target clearly their bodies, and strike at their souls as if a starving murloc gnawing at a fish tank. It is then, as a burst of smoke skews her vision, and the spheres eerily descend towards the forest floor that she emits one last word.
A word coated so easily in disdain, duplicity, and curt notions that one can almost taste its vile intent. "Humans."
Now only knee-high, the spheres dart into the forest, their attaching host's form clearly altered. Or possibly she just enjoys running on all fours. But, she is a druid, after all.
Ero glares at the forest, eying the woman as fiercely and spits at the ground. "Shape-shifting harlot. I hope a bear eats that cat. Oh, the irony."
There is a sudden burst of light from behind Ero's position. Most would have jumped at the spontaneously occurrence, but within these forests that is simply part of normality. Ero, still fixated upon the darkness ahead, barely notices the boy crack his light into existence.
Krik, however, loves these jars and all that dwell within them.
"Ero?" Krik stares at the multitude of gleaming, slowly buzzing bugs within the delicately crafted glass jar. They emit an emerald glow strong enough to light a path, but easily confused as a mere reflection of the moonlight at a distance. It is a calm, humming light and an ample distraction for the boy. "Ero?"
"What?" He spins, facing the boy and his bug-lamp. "Oh, enjoying your little friends again, are we? Figure that is the most intelligent thing you have done all day."
Reaching into a pocket upon his belt, Ero pulls out the exact same glass container and gives it a gentle shake. Dozens of bugs drift into liveliness and fill the once dull jar with the same grand glow. Ero, however, lets the bottle fall to his side with his rocking arm. He takes to his feet while the boy continues to watch each insect fly about as if their small world is limitless in span.
"Ero?"
Silence is all that follows – say for the heavy crunching of the older man's boots.
"Ero?"
Silence. Ero halts. No movement nigh.
"What, Krik?"
Silence.
"What are we doing again?"
Ero sighs and waves at the boy, beckoning him. Breaking from his jar, Krik gives the partially lit man his partial attention. Ero, however, has all his attention squarely upon the lad.
"Come, we have a long walk ahead of us. I'll fill you in." Slowly, Krik takes after him. Alas, he begins to drift back to the light as if a moth to a flame. Ero gives the child a gentle shove and frowns. "That is, if you stop staring at those stupid gnats long enough to pay attention."
Weak footsteps echo across the forest, the only sounds say for the delicate whispers that radiate almost inaudibly upon the air. They are all but invisible, say for the set of flickering lamps that appear as if a small army of fireflies upon the skies.
The little bugs dare not match the sun's rays, but they will have to do.