She stopped and leaned against the door frame, panting. Running from the Legion while carrying a three year old girl was no easy task. She took a deep breath and set Annliaa down. "I'm so proud of you." The young mother dropped to one knee and hugged her daughter.
"Do I still need to be quiet?" Annliaa asked.
The young mother nodded, "Just until we can reach Uncle Jakka. Then you can be as loud as you want!"
Annliaa smiled, she liked Uncle Jakka, he was loud and fun, and always had a silver coin for her. "We're goin' to see Jakka?"
Mother nodded. "I'm sure he will be happy-"
"They're around here somewhere!" A woman's voice, but deep and grating, like a blender full of gravel.
Mother quickly grabbed Annliaa and put her hand over the young girls mouth, desperately shushing her. Hoof steps, closer, closer... Mother quickly looked around the small hut they where in, it only had one door. She frantically started walking around the hut. There! An ore chest! It was empty! She quickly stuffed Annliaa into the chest.
"I need you to to be quiet for Mommy until the bad people go away." She looked to the door, when she looked back she had tears in her eyes. "Be brave, K?" She reached down, hugged her daughter and planted a kiss on the young girls forehead. She then shut the ore chest with a click.
The chest was dark inside, Annliaa sat in the bottom with her knees hugged to her chest, she could see her mother through the key hole, quickly piling things on top of the ore chest.
"Ha! There you are!" That horrible woman again, that's when the owner of the horrible voice stepped through the doorway and grabbed Mother by the throat. She was tall, excessively so, and had dark, cherry red skin. Her hooves and hands had bright green veins traced into them. A Man'ari! Annliaa recognized it from the stories her mother red to her when she was misbehaving. She always told her the Man'ari would get her! She started to silently cry. "You had a little girl with you." The woman growled. "Where is she?"
"I'll never tell you, daemon scum!" her mother spit in the Red woman's face.
"Ha! Such spirit!" The red woman laughed and wiped the spit off her face. "I will enjoy breaking you." She tightened her grip in her mothers neck and her mother made a choking sound, her eyes rolling back into her head. "Eratas!"
"Yes Mistress?" A Draenei man in vindicator armor walked into the hut and bowed.
"This woman had a child with her, take the rest of the Sargeri and fan out. I want it found!"
The man bowed, "As you command." With that he walked out, there was some indistinct yelling outside and eventually the noise faded.
"Y-you'll never find her." Her mother choked out.
"I'll find her, she will make a great Man'ari slave." Her mother reached out and tried to hit the red woman, landing a glancing blow on her face. "Ahhh. Naughty naughty." The red woman pulled a knife out of her belt and slowly drew it down her mothers cheek. A bright blue line of blood followed the blade and her mother groaned in pain. "You are going to tell me -exactly- you hid your child!"
"N Never!" The red woman hissed in displeasure and dropped her mother, who lost her balance and landed on her back.
"Your kind, always running." She took a step forward and her mother crawled away, backing up until her back was pressed into the ore crate Annliaa was in. "Even now, you don't fight for your child, you hide and run way. Cowards! All of you!" The red woman bent down, "I think you hid your daughter close, is she in this room?"
"Screw you!" Her mother took a wide swing at the red woman who effortlessly grabbed the hand, pressed it to the ground, and rammed her dagger through it, pinning it to the ground.
Her mother screamed in pain and tugged fruitlessly on the impaled hand. Blue blood fountained from the wound and started spreading across the floor. "Now look what you've made me do. I was very prepared to end your life swiftly with a minimum of pain, now you had to go and drag things out." The Red woman pulled another small dagger from her belt and grabbed her mother's other hand, holding the hand to the ground and stabbing the dagger though it, impaling it like it's partner. "Where is your child?" She growled. Her mother didn't reply, she just glared at the red woman. "So. That's your answer? Pity." She held up a hand and it ignited in flame. "I normally enjoy stuff like this, but frankly. With the invasion of Shattrath underway one Coward and her wayward child are just a meaningless distraction." She grabbed her mothers face with the burning hand, instantly the room was filled with the smell of burning flesh and her mother screamed in pain. "I really do want a slave though, Draenei children are so rare, and breaking them a truly rare treat." She let go of her mother, who took a few ragged breaths of hot air. "Tell me what I want to know and I'll end your suffering..." She grabbed her mothers chin again with the still ignited hand, turning her mother's face from one side to the other. "Pity, you really were a pretty specimen." She took the hand way and the flames on it died. "No? You don't think so?" The red woman laughed, a horrible sound like protesting metal that put Annliaa's teeth on edge. "I think so, let's just clean you up a bit." She pulled a small fillet knife from pouch on her breast. "It's been so long since I got to demonstrate my cooking skills to someone, you are in for a rare treat!" She took the knife and slowly carved a chunk of burned flesh out of her mothers face, holding her forehead with one hand and hacking away with the knife with the other. "Ohhhh!" Just the way I like it." She grabbed the mostly severed chunk of flesh and ripped it off, bringing it to her nose and smelling it. "You know," She put the string of flesh in her mouth and slurped it up like a string of pasta. "You Dreaeni really should just surrender. It'd be mush simpler that way."
Her mother's breathing was ragged and labored. "Fuck. You. The Light protects my daughter, not even you can touch her."
The red woman growled, loosing her composure fir a moment. "I will find her! And when I do I will break her!" She brought the knife down into her mother's breast, slashing a deep gash from the top to the bottom and splitting it like a melon. "TELL ME WERE SHE IS!" The red woman screamed, her face inches from her mothers.
Her mother laughed, a weak, pathetic laugh, but a laugh. "You, you will never find her as long as I live."
"I guess I need to fix that then, don't I?" The red woman stood up and then reached down, grabbing her mother by the neck and ripping her off the ground. The daggers shredded her hands and she just hung there, bleeding on the floor, stunned and in pain."You have defied me long enough!" The red woman pointed her hand at her mother's stomach, her talons glinting darkly in the low light of the hut. "DIE!" With that she rammed her clawed hand deep into her mother's stomach and then ripped it out, pulling her mother's entrails with it. She then threw the mother bodily into the wall. "Tear this hut apart until you found that girl! Bring her to me ALIVE!"
Annliaa couldn't take it anymore, the red woman was so scary, and her mother... She started to cry.
The red woman stopped mid rant. "Ah, where are you little girl?" She walked around listening, Annliaa tried to be quiet, she really did, but she kept hiccuping from trying not to cry. Eventually her whole field of vision was taken up by one blood red eye. "Awwww. There you are." Annliaa was thrown bodily into the side of the crate as the red woman grabbed the crate and flung it across the room where it slid into a wall and popped open. "You are so young." The red woman laughed. "It's been so long since I've had a personal slave." She picked up Annliaa, who struggled. "Don't struggle little brat!" The red woman backhanded Annliaa and stunned her. "That's better, now, let's go." The red woman took a few steps outside and stopped short, there were dead Draenei everywhere. "Incompetent fools!" She hissed.
"DROP THE CHILD!" A deep male voice commanded.
The red woman turned. Uncle Jakka! The man was standing there, bathed in the light, looking like a harbinger sent directly from the Narru themselves. "This child is MINE!"
Uncle Jakka made a gesture and a hammer of pure light materialized above the red woman and fell on her with the force of the light itself. To poor Annliaa it felt like the sky was falling. When the dust settled she realized she was no longer being held, she had been dropped! The red woman was standing there, stunned and Uncle Jakka was charging her. Annliaa did the only thing she could think of, she ran back inside to mommy.
"Liea..." The voice was weak and cracked, but it was her mother's!
"Mommy." Annliaa walked over to her mother and sat down next to her. "Jakka is here! Let's go!" She tugged on her mother's arms.
"Liea... I can't go with you this time." Her mother rasped out.
"Jakka has the Light! He'll make you all better!" Annliaa wailed. "Come on!"
The sounds of the battle raged outside, cries of pain, the crackle of fire spells and the clang of steel on steel. "You need to get away, promise you'll stay strong. Go to Uncle Jakka, he'll take care of you now."
"Moommyyy!" Annliaa screamed. The sounds of the battle abruptly ended with the sound of crystal on flesh, like the sound of a melon being dropped and a feminine scream of rage.
Jakka rushed into the hut, he had a cut over his eye and half of the hair on one side of his head was burned almost completely off. "Sister! No!" He dropped threw his mallet and shield to the side and dropped to his knees. The Light flowed off of him in waves, but it was no good. Her mother was to far gone. After s few moments he sagged into himself and stopped. "I..."
"Make her all better!" Annliaa screamed. "MAKE HER BETTER!" She grabbed his hands and put them on her mothers shoulder.
"I can't, Annliaa..." He pulled his hands back. "In the light, we are one." He said solemnly, he reached up and closed her mother's eyes. "Come on, the Daemons with overrun us shortly." He picked up Annliaa and threw her over his shoulder.
"Moommmyyy!" Annliaa screamed, she struggled and beat her tiny fists uselessly on his plate armor. That was the last time she ever saw her mother, when they went to recover the dead the daemons had taken the bodies somewhere. She was raised by her Vindicator uncle as they slowly lost ground to the Daemons. She never had the same knack for the light that he did, preferring to simply rush in and pummel daemons to death, She found it more satisfying. She chose to stay and defend Shattrath rather than flee on the Exodar with the rest of her kind and remained in outland even after the opening of the dark portal, only now venturing out to fight the Legion once more.