A/N: hello, dear readers! Welcome to the sort of origin story of one of my continuums of OCs. Don't worry; you DO NOT need to read my other stories for this one to make sense. Of course, I would love it if you do, but I won't force anybody to. Also unlike my other stories which I write beginning to end before posting, this is one I'll just post as I write at my own leisure. So unlike the guaranteed Saturday updates every single week for the next four years on my other stories, this one will be updated whenever I have the time to write another chapter.
For reference, this story takes place around the beginning of the World of Warcrsft but before the Burning Crusade expansion. And for anyone wondering...yes, the protagonist here is the brother of the protagonist in my story "Where Angels Rush In," though neither continuum intertwines. Enjoy!
"Barghash, you'll knock over the beaker!"
Despite the protests of the gnome proprietor, the stern yet young looking human continued organizing the shelves in the Dustwind magic supply shop using rapid, almost violent hand movements. Vials of reagants and jars of various arcane extracts quickly fell into place after browsing customers had shifted them around, protests of the relatively young gnomish mage (though her diminutive stature might have added to her younger appearance) be damned.
"You hired me to do this job," he replied, teetering on the edge of proper respect when addressing one's employer. "It will be done, and it will be done efficiently. That was my guarantee to you."
As the human had expected, he'd rearranged all the glass items without incident and moved on to reorganizing the tomes by author's name fast enough to make the gnome's head spin. "Oh! Well...just be careful, alright?" she requested of him.
He bit down on a small measure of resentment; did she mean to insinuate that he wasn't careful sometimes? "Understood," he replied, hurrying to finish his work once the latest customer had finally left.
Life in the Badlands could be monotonous. Mineral wealth kept the locals taken care of materially, subsisting off of imported food and other goods. Filling in one's free time, however, was the main difficulty. Some turned to collecting stamps and postcards in order to pass the time; others met at the small handful of restaurants in the budding town to discuss current events as news from around the world arrived (always two weeks late). Others simply spent their time drinking.
Barghash, on the other hand, could never find enough free time. Even after his sister had moved away to become a missionary, leaving him alone in the rent controlled apartment they'd once shared, the young man always found ways to busy himself. Having at one time attempted to join the priesthood himself, he'd eventually dropped out due to perceived lack of discipline (ironically like his sister, he'd tried to specialize in the school of discipline). Though he'd never give the class a second try, he did quite enjoy pouring over the books on healing spells. Not that he was interested in healing...reading on the process of death and injury grounded him when it often made others feel uncomfortable. Understanding one's own mortality aided in preserving it.
When he wasn't studying tomes on healing for purposes other than healing, he was most often engrossed in his books on military history. Strategies, formations, the names of the greatest generals...he'd even taught himself passable Thalassian and Orcish for the purposes of learning the ways of war of other races. What he wouldn't give to somehow see those old warriors again; to ask them for their tales, to learn from their mistakes. It was merely a hobby his sister had always found quaint, but to him, memorizing those organized formations that had worked for commanders past fascinated him almost as much as the magic shop he worked at.
The people in the shop, he could do without sometimes. His employer, Desdemona Finklesnap, not only possessed a name nobody could forget but also a certain flair for engaging in long, drawn out discussions with the shop's patrons. As Barghash recounted a shelf full of frost powered astrolabes, he could almost remember the last limp wristed fop who Desdemona had wasted half an hour chatting up only for the sale of a few glacial catalysts.
To be fair, Barghash owed the tiny woman much; after all, most magic using classes depending on magi at least for their basic training. Priests, warlocks, paladins - all of them tended to flock to a mage at the beginning of their training to learn the fundamentals of ley lines and tapping into one's inherent mana pool. Although he was still undecided as to what he wanted to learn specifically, he knew it would involve magic. Skilled with a blade and comfortable in metal armor, he often dreamed of becoming a battlemage one day; one of the reasons why he disliked the shop's customers so much was their lack of ruggedness and aversion to physical labor.
How glorious it would be to wield a sword while setting enemies ablaze, if only he was interested in pyromancy.
How stupendous it would seem to freeze a foe in a block of ice only to shatter them to pieces with a maul, if only he was interested in cryogeny.
How fantastic it would feel to incapacitate one's interlocutor with a hatchet and then watch their ragdoll body fly from the force of an arcane blast, if only he was interested in pure magic for magic's sake.
Every time he read about one of the recognized schools of magic, he finished whatever book he'd opened feeling disappointed. He never judged others for their interests...he didn't care to. But he did have the right to pursue his own interests, if only he could find them.
A pair of arcane proof gloves used for handling unstable crystals had been tried in and then left on the shelf turned inside out. Biting down on a nasty curse word, Barghash calmed himself down by donning the gloves to fix them and imagining the himself crushing the offending buyer's head between his index finger and thumb. Lack of organization drove him mad, and carelessness could push him to harsh words. He could feel Desdemona's eyes on him as he fumed; no matter how much unsolicited mentoring she delivered, she also acknowledged that Barghash was the best person she could have hired. Whenever the dour apprentice who was mature and cynical beyond his years was on duty, there was no need for the presence of town guards; even the local dwarven miners tended to step out of his way when they saw him.
And no matter how much Barghash was irritated by unsolicited mentoring, Desdemona was also one of the few people he found it impossible to be mad at.
"Barghash, it's getting late," she announced from behind the counter once he finished checking that every item in the shop had been returned to its proper place. "You can go ahead and check out. Job well done today."
Giving the shop one final look for any irregularities as if it was his own personal establishment, he stepped backward so he was straight across the counter from her. "Thank you, Demi," he replied before pulling his dark magenta apprentice robe from the rack near the door.
"And try to lighten up, will you!" she chortled after him as he stepped out into the sandy, barren streets of Dustwind.
He pulled the hood over his head and surveyed the relatively empty roads of the poorly planned town before starting on his way home. "I tried that before...it didn't work out so well," he chortled back, too quiet for her to hear.
Dusk approached as the apprentice walked down the wooden sidewalks lining the dirt roads. Why a city council of a city in the desert would use a scarce resource like wood for a beaten walkway was beyond him, but he didn't make a habit of asking questions. Head low and mouth shut, he'd learned from the mistakes of others despite never having been in trouble himself. During his childhood he'd done his fate share of mischief, but not until he saw someone else do so first; and when he copied them, he always did so faster, more skillfully and more stealthily, learning lessons when his friends were caught stealing, fighting or painting their names on buildings at night. To learn from the errors of others was much preferable to him; he'd rarely faced the wrath of authority and enjoyed keeping his life that way.
Though as he passed a side road in the desert town of stone buildings, a peek toward the barracks and prison tucked in between two workshops reminded him of those rare occasions when he was willing to face that wrath.
"She's squirming, she's squirming!"
"Come on guys, that's a little too far, don't you think?"
Barghash slowed his pace until he came to a virtual stop. Keeping one's head down and mouth shut had its limits. The group of six people down the street that ended with the barracks didn't notice him at first, his robes mostly matching the beaten, dried soil of the dirt roads in the Badlands. A growl deep in his throat garnered the attention of at least one of them.
Four local citizens - a relatively young gnomish couple and two of his fellow humans - were crowded around one of several metal cages suspended from tall wooden posts for the purposes of embarrassing criminals. One of the cages had been lowered to the ground, partially blocked from his view due to the two armored footmen standing in the way. Both of them appeared rather amused by the flash of shifting rags inside though the four civilian bystanders didn't appear to find it a laughing matter.
Not that any of them made any move to stick up for the distraught orc matron inside, however.
A remnant of an unnamed clan, the sole survivor of a group of interned orcs from the Second War squirmed as one of the two guards poked her with a stick. Although a truce had been reached with the Horde after the recent end of the Third War, not all orc clans were members of the faction. That didn't bode well for the few remnants left in the Badlands, who were left without any allies in the world. As the only interned orc who hadn't starved to death, the old woman was mostly relegated to staring out of her cage blankly, granted only an hour a day to exit and roam about the practice yard of the barracks in addition to infrequent bathroom breaks. The fact that she hadn't succumbed to madness after all the torment a handful of less educated, more racist guards subjected her to was a testament to true tenacity.
One of the two human civilians tried to wave his hand in the air in between the more aggressive guard and the cage. "Officer, you've made your point; doesn't she need to sleep now?" the older gentleman tried to reason.
A hard stare from the footman caused the older man to slowly back away. "Mongrels don't need sleep," the barely eighteen year old guard replied.
"That probably explains why you spend all night at the tavern touching yourself and wondering why everyone pinches their noses when you walk by."
While it wasn't the most creative insult, it was hurled with such audacity that the entire group turned around. Barghash held his empty hands outward to show that he bore no weapons, but walked toward the guard in a manner so aggressive that the youth might have had legal grounds for swinging his mace in self defense. The four other civilians quickly backed away, allowing the two men the space they needed for a staring contest so heavy that it practically filled the entire side street with its palpable tension.
Refusing to break away his gaze and tapping into a level of stubbornness that only members of the Narume family seemed to attain, Barghash scowled without fear of reprisal until the guard laughed nervously at his companion. "Sounds like another townie needs a lesson in manners," the youth forced himself to snicker. His attempt at mockery came off as fake, and even the other civilians failed to be intimidated.
Barghash didn't need to resort to exploiting his reputation; a bully with a badge like this one was far easier to deal with than the rare but not unheard of captain or lieutenant possessing such sadism. "You lay a finger on me and anyone here and I'll sue you in the regional court until your daddy goes bankrupt, little boy," the magic shop apprentice growled without a hint of restraint even when the second guard laid a hand on the hilt of his mace. "You lay another finger on that woman and I promise you that you will not pass a single person on the street in a hooded robe without wondering if they're about to kick you in the spine when you walk by."
The guard's eyes grew wide, a bit of real anger shining through momentarily. "You just threatened an officer of the law!"
"Prove that I threatened to snap your vertebrae when you're off duty by myself, rather than just predicted what somebody else might do to you."
"Knock it off, Narume," the second guard, older and more weathered, said a little less nervously.
Narrowing his eyes at the older guard, the apprentice refused to back down. "Officer Garamonde, you have three counts of excessive force against three other people on your record. If daddy's boy here touches that woman again I'm going to do something that forces you to hit me. And if you hit me, then with a checkered past like yours the city council will accept my testimony that it was unprovoked." The four other civilians began creeping away, leaving the apprentice to continue his battle of wills against the two officers with suddenly deflated egos. "Control mister short dick here or I will force you to defend your very position."
Before the younger guard could move to start yelling, a loud, throaty cough emitted from his mouth despite the fact that tobacco wasn't available in their town. Garamonde took the opportunity to grab the younger man by the shoulder and shove him toward the barracks, but paused to give Barghash an expression that was a mixture of frustration, resignation and acrimony.
"Watch yourself, Narume," Garamonde warned. "I really don't have a problem with you, but...nobody can walk the line forever without crossing it."
Barghash didn't show a hint of a reaction as he watched the two men walk just outside the door to the barracks to engage in a hushed argument. "I'm more aware of that than you," the apprentice muttered under his breath, trying to rationalize the exchange based on the fact that he and Garamonde truthfully hadn't ever argued unless the younger guard was around.
Once the two of them became engrossed in their heated discussion, interspersed by the younger guard's occasional hacking fits, Barghash looked down at the green skinned woman that had become the unofficial punching bag when the commander of the city guard wasn't around.
Wrapped in dirty, sweat stained prisoner's rags, the grey haired orc huddled in the far corner of her tall, rectangular cage. Her eyes were shut tight and she hugged her knees to her chest, folding in on herself in a manner which looked so unbefitting of a person of age. Even if she'd been their enemy once, she deserved better; perhaps a more spacious cell than a group of other orc prisoners, or some sort of a palace imprisonment where she was given a proper bed in return for entertaining an Alliance commander in the occasional philosophical debate. Being caged like an animal and poked with a stick felt more evil than an act of warfare; execution would have been more benevolent.
Kneeling down so he didn't loom over her so much - he surmised that she'd be quite a bit shorter than him were she allowed to stand - he looked her over as she cowered. He'd defended her from local youths and the occasional abusive guard before, but he'd never taken a good look at her; he wondered if she recognized his voice as that of the person who often spoke up in her defense. Most orcs understood Common rather well, especially those in internment camps. Dustwind was no camp, but she and the initial group of four had been held there for years; Common was likely the only language she ever heard now.
Searching in the pocket of his robe, he pulled out a piece of cheese wrapped in a bag that he'd been saving for his dessert. Though she was mostly covered, he could tell from the sinews in the tops of her hands that she was underfed. After a moment of translating the words in his head, he spoke Orcish out loud for the first time, based on the translation manual he'd used to read the accounts of the Second War that members of her race had written. He'd obtained them through his sister, whose missionary work cut across factions, but he'd never tried to pronounce the language before.
"Please...you should eat," he whispered to her in Orcish, smiling in delight when she peeked at him from behind her folded arms.
Terrified, pleading eyes looked at him, shining with an intelligence he didn't detect in most of his own people. Her eyelids trembled though whether from fatigue or fear, he didn't know. Too frantic to focus well, her gaze darted from his to the cheese and back to his again. Dairy was a delicacy in the wastelands; the piece be held out to her was probably the first she'd seen in over a decade.
When she didn't budge, he placed the food at the bottom of her cage, his heart rate decreasing rapidly after the confrontation once he saw her loosen her posture. "It's not a trick," he whispered in her language again, surprised at how easy the pronunciation was. "I want you to have it."
Like a person truly stricken with poverty and need, she snatched the cheese with trembling hands and ate it entirely too fast, not savoring the flavor and swallowing most of it as if she'd lose it if she waited for too long. Immediately she folded her hands over her knees again, hiding her face from him as if she still halfway believed that he was going to hit her.
A grudge formed deep in his core as he shook his head at her sorry state. One's worst enemies didn't deserve such confinement; he would never comprehend why the commander had agreed to keep her locked up in the first place, considering the fact that the man at the top actually was an honorable person at his root.
Fearing that drawing out the moment would endanger her further, Barghash stood up and pulled the rope tied to the top of her cage. Running through a pulley, the piece of binding lifted her up off the ground, suspending the cage high enough such that none of the guards would be able to directly touch her again. She looked at him for a few seconds, her expression unreadable behind her forearms.
Just as Barghash was about to turn away, the younger guard - who'd still been standing outside the main doors to argue with his superior - fell into a harsher, more violent coughing fit. Nearly choking on air and saliva, the young man had to be helped into the barracks as his throat gurgled, disappearing behind the wooden doors.
That was when Barghash saw it.
Faint and fleeting, like a creeping shadow in the corner of one's eye when trying to sleep alone at night, the red lights flashed. So fast did they disappear that he almost thought he imagined it, but he was not the type to hallucinate or imagine such things. Those two red lights had glowed just where the orc's eyes had been, and the movement of her sleeves insinuated that she'd been peeking out when the red glow had flashed. Her head had shifted to face the door of the barracks even after her face had been hidden; despite her age, she could make subtle movements rather quickly.
Alone on the ground level of the little road, Barghash looked up at her a little while longer, wondering if she'd shift enough for him to spy her eyes again. They obviously weren't glowing now, but he wanted to be sure. Her light, almost pleasant snores rang out a second later, and exhaustion pulled the old woman into a deep, almost peaceful looking sleep despite her confinement.
Brushing the exchange out of his mind, Barghash continued on his way home, reminding himself to lay low for a week or so. He'd survived by avoiding direct conflict with authority figures so far; that day, he worried that he might have crossed the line sooner than he or Garamonde expected.