"Wait up, Dika!" Pakkar wailed. Being the younger and squatter of the two child orcs meant that Pakkar had a hard time catching up to his friend when she wanted to go somewhere. That and it didn't help that Dika was naturally fast and could shinny between two people like water flowing between rocks.

"There!" Dika shouted, pointing up at the massive remains of Mannoroth. "I told you it was real."

Pakkar stood silent before the dead monster, whose skull had been attached to an old, heavy tree and a shield three orcs wide strapped across its trunk. Thick branches splayed out from behind the shield, almost like arms with too many fingers. The root feet were big enough to squash him like a bug. Pakkar took a step back.

"You're not scared of this thing, are you?" said Dika, grinning.

"No! It's dead, why would I be scared of it?"

"It was alive before. Imagine trying to fight this thing."

She went over to the root and sat on it.

"Get away from it!" Pakkar hissed. "What if one of the guards see?"

"You mean what if your father sees."

"That too! Please, Dika."

Dika rolled her eyes and hopped off the root. Pakkar started to walk ahead of her.

"C'mon, let's go to the pond," he said.

"All right, all right."

Dikasara walked with him this time, somewhat glad to be going to the pond. She still was not used to the intense heat of Durotar even after helping the adults build the city of Orgrimmar for the last few months. She and the other children could not do much but look after the babies and keep them out of the way. Some children were lucky and were apprenticed by a few of the adults. Many orphans were adopted since a great amount of children died during the voyage across the Great Sea. Dika, however, remained at the small orphanage with Matron Battlewail.

"So when is your mother going to have the baby?" Dika asked, wiping the sweat from her brow. "She's getting pretty big now."

"She should be having them soon. And we think she might be having twins, since her belly's so big!"

Dika kicked a pebble down the winding dirt path that cut through the bright yellow dust and sand. "Yuck, I wouldn't want twins."

Pakkar frowned. "Why not?"

Dika flashed a grin again. "You'll find out."

The pond was full of fishermen and fish, but Pakkar and Dika squeezed into the shallow part of the lake to wade in. They were splashing around when the great gong announced that it was the top of the hour.

"I gotta go help my mother now," Pakkar groaned as he started to get out of the pool, "I'll see you later, Dika."

"Wait! I want to go too. Maybe I can help with whatever you're doing."

"Does Battlewail know?"

"She's always busy with the younger and stupider orphans. C'mon, I want to do something!"

Pakkar didn't argue with her after that, since his job was boring and having Dika come along would make it less so. They scampered over to the Drag. They huffed and puffed up the long spiral slope to Pakkar's apartment at the very top of the hide-and-wood tower. Pakkar pulled back the boar skin that served as a door to let Dika into the one room apartment where Pakkar's naked mother laid on the pile of bedding furs. Next to her was a low wooden table with four small furs stacked on the top of it. A flicker of light came from the squat oil lamp that hung in the center of the room.

Pakkar knelt by his mother. She stared up at the ceiling while stroking her swollen belly. Her eyes turned to Dika, and she smiled.

"It's good to see you, child," she said. She pushed her thick plait of black hair away from Dikasara and Pakkar's knees.

Dika nodded. "It is good to see you too, Deyka"

The older orc's hand rubbed across the rim of her large belly. "Would you like to feel for them, Dika?"

Dika's eyes widened. "I—"

Deyka took Dika's hand and placed it on top of her belly. Dika jumped when something under her palm squirm and push up from inside the womb. Dika jerked back, holding her hand to her chest. Both Pakkar and Deyka laughed.

"May I, Mother?" Pakkar asked.

"Of course," she said.

Pakkar stood up and placed both hands on Deyka's belly. Her belly trembled as what Dika guessed to be hands and feet tried to punch through the stomach from the inside. She didn't understand why mother and son were chuckling. It looked so painful to lay on a pile of furs with skin stretched over the belly so thin that one poke of a needle would make the belly pop. Her skin crawled from imagining two tiny, alien bodies wriggling and kicking at her innards, pulling and stretching her skin to try to get out.

She doubted that Pakkar had ever seen a birth. He never saw how that terrible red hole yawned open and out came a wrinkled creature all covered in white goo from inside the woman. Dika's stomach clenched and she sucked her lips in.

"Are you afraid?" Pakkar asked, arms curved around his mother's abdomen.

"I'm not," Dika said a little too loudly.

Deyka laughed again. "That's good. Because one day—ohh, don't squeeze so tightly, Pakkar."

"Sorry."

For a time they sat and talked, but Dika said very little. She couldn't stop staring at the stomach. Couldn't stop seeing the two creatures clawing at her insides. And she knew that one day she would lay on matted bed furs in the dim light for hours at a time because her belly would be so big and heavy with clawing creatures that she wouldn't even be able sit up.

Deyka's hand grabbed at Pakkar's, the other hand on her belly. The things inside were trying to push out again.

"Pakkar, go find the healer. Some-something's not right. Dika, stay by me."

Pakkar stumbled to get up. Then he stopped, half folded, by his mother's legs.

"You're…you're bleeding!" he gasped.

"Then tell the healer that!" she shrieked and took in a great gulp of air.

Pakkar stared, his eyes so wide that the whites seemed to glow in the dim light. He nodded and ran out of the room. Deyka took Dika's hand and pulled her close.

"Stay here, Dika. Stay here," she whispered, each breath harsher than the last.

"Can't I do something?" Dika answered. Her entire body trembled as she clasped his mother's hand with her own.

"This is all I want you to do, child. All I want."

She stopped speaking after that. Deyka's naked flesh broke out into goosebumps as she shivered. The stench of blood putrefied the air; Deyka's sweat made the air sticky. Dika coughed, but the bad air wouldn't leave her lungs.

Deyka screamed.

Her hands grasped at her still belly, the nails leaving behind thin red scratches. Dika tried to pull the hands away but Deyka swiped at her. Dika grabbed at her own face, feeling the sting of needle-thin scratches on her nose and lips.

"Get away from her!" cried the voice of an older orc. Dika turned around and not only saw the long-haired healer stride into the room, but Pakkar's father, still in his guard uniform.

The healer pushed her away and set down his leather medicine bag. Dika hopped up and met Pakkar at the doorway. Her friend stood as rigid as stone. Grunting and cursing, the older orcs blocked most of Deyka out of view. Pakkar's father kneeled by his mate's torso whilst the healer stepped in the woman's blood to open her legs.

Some minutes later, when the healer's knees were washed in blood and white fluid, he procured a silent, still infant. He slapped its back, blew into its nose and mouth, but the infant would not stir. He put it aside. Dika stared as he but his hand inside Deyka.

"Something's not right," the healer murmured. "There should be another—"

He stopped. Slowly, he took his hand out of her.

"It's outside the womb," he told Pakkar's father.

"You can't take it out?" the father asked in his low, deep voice.

"Both wouldn't survive it, Murn."

Murn narrowed his eyes at the healer, then looked down at Deyka.

"Say good bye to your mother, Pakkar."

Pakkar wiped the tears that welled in his eyes. Stiffly he walked to his mother and kneeled next to her.

"Good bye, Mother." Pakkar said, his voice cracking. Murn bent over her, wiping her loose, dark curls from her face.

Her body jerked once, splashing more blood on the healer. As the three males huddled around her, Dika stepped forward to watch her death. Slower and slower the chest rose and fell, the black eyes rolled from side to side, the spasms shook her body. All at once, Deyka was still. One eye was half closed.

Dika could not see Pakkar's face, as it was buried in his mother's shoulder, but his body shook. His father put a steady hand on his back. The healer took a clean cloth from his bag and wrapped the dead infant in it.

DDD

Dika trudged through the Drag towards the orphanage, utterly exhausted. She sneezed, but the smell of blood never left her nostrils. As she approached the orphanage, Matron Battlewail was already outside with her broom, looking around all corners of the wide alleyway.

"Dikasara," she said, then lowered her voice. "Where have you been all day?"

Dika's eyes grew hot. She ran down the hill and threw her arms around Battlewail's waist, pressing her face into her abdomen.

"What in the world is the matter, child?" said the matron, one arm hugging Dika back and the other petting her thick black pigtails. A wet warmth dampened Battelwail's blouse. The orc broke apart from Dika and kneeled down to her. Dika's light brown eyes glittered with tears.

"What happened?" the matron asked.

Dika shook her head.

"You have to tell me what happened so I can help you."

Dika shook her head again and grappled the matron's shoulders. Sighing, the matron picked up the girl and walked inside the lit building. The matron set her down on her small bunk and cradled her until she fell asleep.

AN: Yeah, so, this got kind of gory. Should I upgrade to M or does this chapter still fit the T rating? Also, I'm debating on posting Cassie the human warrior or Minow the gnome musician next. So the next chapter shall be a surprise!

Also, I would like to give credit to Obsidian_Blade for naming Deyka! Thank you again!