Gren,
You told me to write you when you went to Nagrand so now I am!
Tar'ash chewed on the end of her bamboo quill as she thought slowly on how to continue her letter, her small, sharklike teeth leaving angry bitemarks. Her elbows rested on the writing desk the brewers had provided for her upon her very insistent request when she and her family had arrived. After 20 long seconds of expressive thinking, she continued.
Right now Papa and Mama and Garad and me are in Pandaria! It is really pretty and all the pandaren are very nice and have a lot of stories. Did you know that the Pandaren who joined the Horde and Alliance came from the back of a giant turtle? I want to go there!
She paused again after that, looking down at her large, scrawled handwriting with great pride and approval. Tar'ash had learned her runes at an early age, something most orcs never learned at all, and she was quite proud despite her abysmal handwriting. She was glad Gren could read and write as well; in fact, she was so glad she felt she ought to tell him so.
I am glad you can read and write so that we can talk in letters since you are not allowed to leave while you're training and I can't even come visit either. That's so dumb! Papa says Saurfang is really great and I know a lot of good stories about him but I think he has dumb rules about training.
"You writing to your boyfriend again, Tari?" asked a familiar, scratchy voice from the doorway behind her. Tar'ash swiftly covered her very private letter with a stack of the pandaren's delicate, translucent parchment and spun on her brother, scowling.
"He's not my boyfriend, Garad, you're stupid!" she howled at him, her spine curved in challenge. Her brother, 4 years her senior and already quite tall, only laughed at her and tugged at her wild, wiry, dark-chestnut hair. She grabbed onto the back of her chair to steady herself and kicked him hard. He only laughed again, smiling his wide, clever smile.
Despite his black hair and green skin Garad looked like their mother, with full lips and soft, dreamy eyes. It was unfortunate for poor Tari, who sadly resembled their square-jawed father, a third tusk already peaking out over her top lip. Her features were pronounced, her skin a dull brown, her frame tall and wiry, her head overlarge and her sapphire eyes even more so. Tari was, at 9 years old, starting to notice that she was not, and likely would never be, pretty. She took it better than most girls her age might.
"And yet, you hide your letter..." Garad said coyly, stepping over to the desk and using deft fingers to slide the papers from atop her scrawled note. She dove for it.
"Dooo-ooon't!" she whined, leaning over the letter, claws sinking into the parchment protectively. Garad chuckled, then the sound twisted up into a squeaking pitch, and her brother darkened. Tar'ash laughed maliciously. Garad wrinkled his nose at her then spun and wrapped an arm around her neck, digging his knuckles into her scalp.
"I'll teach you to laugh at me!" he growled jovially, and Tar'ash's arms clawed at him futilely as she laughed and howled for him to release her. The clearing of a throat interrupted them. They both turned to the doorway to find their father's imposing figure folding his thick, green arms and giving them a most serious look. Garad swallowed. Tar'ash chewed her lower lip and looked at the ground.
"Garad? Perhaps, in my old age, I'm not recalling it correctly, but I'd thought that I had asked you to come and fetch your sister for our dinner with Chen. Did she refuse? Is that why you seem to be wrestling her into submission?" A thick, black brow raised up at her older brother.
"She started it," Garad accused with nothing close to a straight face. The wrinkles forming at the edges of their father's blue eyes belied his serious expression. His frown was slowly twisting into a smile, and soon Tari was sure they were not at trouble at all.
"Garad's voice cracked again," she revealed, immediately covering her mouth to hide her huge grin.
"Tari!" Garad protested, but as he did the last syllable cracked and pitched up, and then both father and daughter roared with laughter. Garad at last broke, being far less stubborn than Tar'ash about such things, laughing with them and covering his face with embarrassment. At last, their father calmed his mirth and beckoned them with a meaty hand.
"Come on, you two, Mr. Stormstout awaits us," he rumbled jovially, stepping from the doorway to let them pass, his pale, burlap robes shuffling and the huge, heavy beads at his throat clinking with the motion. Garad, recovering himself and putting on the serious face of a young diplomat, strode past their father, Go'el. Tar'ash was still trying to shuffle out of her chair.
"Do you need help, little one?" her father asked her gently as she hopped off, leaning against the back of the chair for balance.
"No, I'm alright," she answered, reaching with some difficulty for her crutch, which she'd set against the side of the table. With a grunt she tucked it under her arm, grasping the handle with comforting familiarity, and hobbling out of the doorway past her father. He eyed for a moment her desk, and his lips thinned slightly upon spotting the name writ there in Tari's large, bold hand.
Gren.
Sighing, he watched his little daughter head down the paper-lined hallway of the brewery, then slid the door shut behind him and followed.
