A/N: Ok, small warning. There is some cuteness in this chapter…Warcraft cuteness. The two main characters in this story are both war veterans from Azeroth who fight demons and supervillains for a living. Their idea of a pleasant evening might be…a bit more gruesome than what people do in real life. Consider yourselves warned.
The entire long, flat expanse of the salt flats rumbled as the force of Draenor's natural spring water shifted. For hundreds of yards, maybe even a square mile, the dry, cracked badlands were pockmarked with the small craters that gushed forth boiling water colored with minerals.
The steam that rose from the water glistened under the moonlight and created a slight hissing sound as it escaped from cracks around the geysers themselves. The hot water failed to moisten the dry, light brown pieces of earth as it spilled over them, instead filling the cracks in between with a darker mud that oozed and bubbled up.
The rumbling increased as the entire area quaked with anticipation of the incredible force pushing its way to freedom. Reaching at least twenty feet in the air, a spout of hot water shot up out of a mud volcano, its roar deafening had there been anyone still living to hear it.
All around the geysers, soaked into the cracks between the broken ground, flowed dark red, stinking blood. Blood between the cracks. Blood mixed with the minerals. Blood caked on the few rocks. Blood shooting up out of a geyser. It was as though Draenor itself was bleeding.
Dotting the landscape in between the water and mud spouts were pieces of gore. Bone chips mixed in with the pebbles and small stones, and the last explosion of hot water shot shattered fragments of a humanoid skull into the air. The blood, the bones, the mud all created a foreboding sight.
Up in the sky, a small black dot soared across the moon. The oval was trailed by what appeared to be string attached to the back of it, flapping in the wind. It sailed in front of the moon, creating ghastly silhouette as it arced downward. The object picked up speed as it neared the ground, headed right for one of the geysers…
::SPLAT::
Landing just a foot and a half to the right of the geyser, the oval exploded into a mess of blood, brains and bone fragments as the disgusting mess seeped into the cracked earth. Just another grisly trophy of what must have been a horrifying battle.
"Woooooooooooooo! Ya almost got it, girl!"
"Don't call me girl, I'm five-hundred times your age!"
Fifty yards back, the flies had begun to collect over an undefended Iron Horde camp. The metal picket fence that had been set up in a semi-circle around some rocks was intact, but the sole wooden cart was on fire, as were the corpses of the two rabid timber wolves that had been pulling it. Smashed supply crates were scattered everywhere, the edible contents pillaged and strewn about half-eaten. Broken weapons and armor fragments littered the ground, the armor covered in blood.
No sight was as macabre as the pile of bodies. At least fourteen red-skinned orcs, minions of Grom Hellscream's wicked Iron Horde, lie dead in two piles. Their limp, lifeless bodies were battered and bruised, some impaled or riposted with their own weapons. Some were missing arms, some were missing legs, and eight of them were missing heads.
The entire sight was nothing but mayhem and murder of villains undeserving of pity or mercy. It was a slaughterhouse.
"You just picked this game because you wanted to impress me!"
"That's correct, little lady! Hey, what…? Ya're little compared ta me, right?"
A large jungle troll reclined atop a rock, his muscles taut as though he had just been exerting himself. His light azure skin was flecked with spots of red, an even deeper red than his mohawk. He had a pleased grin on his face with a relaxation that didn't match the innards and humanoid meat still staining the double-sided fel glaive on a drying rack to his right.
"I see that smile – ya know ya like it!"
"Shut up."
A heavily armored yet still graceful night elf stood tall at the edge of the demolished camp, wielding a large kodo femur conveniently shaped like a club with ease. Her shining silver armor was splattered with the blood of her enemies, a sign of her victorious conquest just a few minutes before. She was focused on the rhythmic eruptions of the geysers out on the salt flats, her dark azure ponytail that was miraculously untarnished by orc blood hanging halfway down her back.
She tried to pout at her comrade in arms on the rock, but a reluctant smirk interrupted her and resulted in a half-pout/half-smirk that only caused him to laugh more.
"Don't laugh! This is my first time!"
"It's all in tha hips, I told ya."
The armored elf laid the club down against a metal fence along with her tower shield and moon glaive momentarily, unable to prevent herself from sharing his smile. "How many has that been so far?"
The savage looking troll turned around to inspect the pile of devastation they had lain. Eight of the bodies had been decapitated. "Eight shots so far," he answered casually as though they weren't surrounded by dead bodies. "But ya gotta keep tryin', at least try ta make one shot before we go."
For a moment, the jungle troll stirred and sat up as he glanced at the bodies again. Before he had descended from the rock, he stopped himself and shot her a coyly raised eyebrow before settling back down. She pursed her lips, stifling another smirk as she looked at him expectedly.
"Oh, by tha way," he added cheekishly, "I got tha last one. It's your turn now."
This time, her pout was real though it was quickly followed by a mischievous grin that caught him off guard.
"Gosh," she exclaimed just a little too loud for a personal monologue, "my back sure is sore after stomping so many Iron Horde soldiers into the ground. Oh, how I wish I were a spry five thousand year-old again."
Bracing her hands barely above her rear, she arched her back just a little more than was required had she actually needed to stretch and inhaled deeply. As she bent backward, she rotated her head slightly and he noticed that she was checking out of the corner of her eye to see if he was looking.
The bad guy blood on her plate gear glinted in the moonlight just as the thorium itself did, reminding Khujand of how flawless Cecilia had been when spinning around and cutting through Iron Horde armor like butter. Her cheesy way of trying to sound cute, her back arching that was just a little too obvious, the way she looked so serene after having just cracked some skulls…
It's sexy.
What! he thought to himself as his eyes visibly widened. Go away inner voice! Bad thoughts, bad!
"Uh...oh! One more severed head coming right up!" It took him a moment before he could stop ogling and realize what she was hinting at.
Khujand slipped off the rock and walked backward toward the miniature murder mountain, tripping over half a helmet on his way. Palming the cranium of a medium sized footsoldier, he braced its upper back with his other hand and twisted until he heard the neck crack. Then, he pulled until the neck flesh tore, the vertebrae snapped and the head came clean off.
As he regained his composure and walked back to her with the bleeding, fly-ridden severed head, she pulled her heels together and clasped her hands with her fingers intertwined, throwing her hands back like a princess receiving a suitor's gift.
"For me?" she said as she batted her eyelashes coquettishly. They shared a light chuckle in which he could have sworn he heard his own slight nervousness echoed in her voice as well. The torn neck flesh of the severed head was still sputtering blood on the ground, but neither of them noticed.
Khujand placed the severed head down in front of her as she took up his bone club again, standing sideways as he had instructed her. As he started to return to the rock, she tugged at the feathers attached to his bicep by a leather strap.
"Teach me."
He stopped like a deer in headlights once he could see where this was going. "But…it's simple, like I told ya!"
Cecilia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You told me verbally, but if you don't want to be here all night I'll need you to walk me through it. I just want to make one shot before we go."
Fighting off the gulp, he ambled back toward her, wishing he could do Kuma's breathing exercises and talk at the same time. "Well, uh, ya keep ya weight even between both legs."
"Like this?" she asked, straightening her legs and arching her back again, though this time she may not have been doing it on purpose.
"Yeah. And ya bend ya knees…no, that's a bit too much."
"Well, how much?"
"Okay," he sighed as he knelt and placed a hand behind the pit of her knee. His wrist and her leg twitched at the same time and they both pretended it didn't happen. He pushed in to the back of her knee until it was bent just enough. Her skin felt so soft under his palm that he had to fight off a tingling sensation between his eyes.
"Like this," he said, nearly slumping over from a kneeling position to falling over to the ground.
"And my back straight?"
"Yeah, ya know how ta do that."
Her eyes were focused on the salt flats before them, the moonlight bouncing off of the boiling water and illuminating the whole area. "But I feel like my swing is off."
"Well, it ain't about how hard or fast ya hit. It's about tha angle."
"Teach me!" she demanded, the insistence in her voice neither childish nor aggressive.
His entire neck jerked back, though she didn't notice. "What? Oh…uh, right."
He took a deep breath and prayed that his anxiety wouldn't show; the mere thought of hugging around her almost made him weak in the knees.
Moving with his chest against her back, Khujand wrapped his arms around Cecilia and covered her hands with his and prayed that the intense pounding of his heart wouldn't be strong enough for her to feel it through the back of her armor. Both of his feet were spread just wider than hers, the insteps of his shoes pressed right agaist the outer edge of her boots. Her armor wasn't cold and although she was the tallest night elf he had ever seen, he still had enough of a height advantage to hold his chin above her ear snugly. He hoped she wouldn't feel all the heat in his cheeks.
"It's all in tha hips, right? Ya arms shouldn't be doing much of the work. Raise tha club slowly and show me tha movement. Slowly."
"Like this?" She raised the club as he said, the outside of her arms pressing against the inside of his as a fiery tingle ran through the whole length of his body.
"Well, I feel ya arms tensin' a bit. Use ya core muscles."
He could feel her rear buck against him as she followed his instructions for a practice swing. It was some bizarre, once in a lifetime voodoo miracle that he didn't feint right there.
"Ya got it, ya got it. Go ahead, take tha swing."
Still gripping her hands in his, Khujand felt her arm muscles relax as she raised the club in a circular motion. Her eyes closed for a moment and she actually seemed to be focusing on the game. With one fluid movement, she brought the club down and he pressed his hips into hers at the right moment, helping her drive the swing into the severed orc head at the proper angle.
"Whoa! It's flying!"
The head soared as blood trailed behind it in the air, forming an arc that was aimed right for a dormant geyser. In what could almost be described as a symphony, the severed head landed directly into the opening of the geyser.
"Ya did it!"
"Woohoo! Up yours Hellscream!"
"Wait for it, there's somethin' else…"
Pressure mounted inside the now plugged geyser as the steam was not allowed to escape. Even with the fifty yards of distance, they could both feel the quake vibrating into the soles of their feet as they watched in awe. With an explosion of blood and mineral water, the geyser erupted into the sky, balancing what was left of the head on top of its spout for the eruption's duration and then leaving a pile of brains and teeth to fall to the ground once the spout had subsided.
"Taz dingo!"
"Hail to the night!"
The two ginormous fighters jumped up and down like children, celebrating her first hole-in-one that evening. They had not only reconciled after a bad experience the previous night and done their jobs of securing the camp for their companions, but also decimated an Iron Horde encampment, killed all fourteen of its troops and both its riding mounts and burned or ate most of its supplies. Playing golf with the severed heads of their foes was just icing on their cake of carnage.
Once they had caught their breath, they both looked back at the burning wagon and pile of bodies.
"Do ya…want ta hit some mor-"
"Oh by the moons, no," she laughed with a hand on his shoulder as she scrunched up her nose. "My back really does kind of hurt and the corpses are starting to stink."
His eyes softened as he realized he wasn't literally melting under her touch. "Oh thank God, I was hoping ya wouldn't wanna hang out here more. That's enough for a night."
The two of them gathered up their belongings, strapped their weapons in the appropriate places and readjusted their armor. The blood stains would have to be removed later. Khujand barely had a chance to react before he had to shoot out with his hands in front of him and grab the massive silver tower shield flying straight for his face.
"What tha hell!" he shouted as he caught it in the nick of time. "Why?"
Cecilia had already started jogging away, pointing to a long, grassy patch of land between the barren rocks as she moved. "Race you to that hill over there!"
Struggling as he tried to understand how best to hold a shield while running, he stumbled to a start. "Wait for me! Ya didn't gimme any time ta get ready!"
They ran, bounding down a slope and into the soft earth from whence the grass was growing. It was strange; the grass was straight but not sharp, and somehow it stood almost as tall as Cecilia despite the blades having no thickness or weight to them. There was a beaten path where the grass appeared to have been trampled for decades.
Winding through the field unevenly, she led him in the direction of a hill he hadn't gotten a good look at. Once he was comfortable holding the shield, he focused on the race, his thoughts clearing from his mind again like they had during their slow dance the other night. He wasn't thinking and worrying anymore, and anything outside of that field no longer existed.
"Come on, slowpoke!"
She was undoubtedly faster than he was, yet she never allowed him to drop out of her sight. When he began to catch up, she put more distance between them. When he had difficulty angling around some of the mounds of soil and thicker patches of grass, she would slow down to a jog in an almost sideways position and watch until he built up speed again, grinning wide the entire way as he fixated on those pretty, pearly fangs.
They hit a straightaway in the grassy field, though it was difficult to tell which direction they were running in now. She turned around and jogged backwards now, waiting for his reaction. A tall blade of grass bent like an upside down letter L brushed against his face and startled him, but he regained his balance and saw her laughing with him. It was on, and he clutched her shield closer and barreled down the dirt path. She spun around but continued jogging, waiting for him to almost pass her before she burst forward again, ignoring a bend in the dirt path and running straight into the field of grass. There was a dip as the soil fell in elevation by a foot or so, and she staggered and picked herself up again as she disappeared.
"Hey, there might be snakes here!" he laughed a bit nervously, though he was still willing to follow her anywhere she led them.
He slowed down to a trot as he heard her footsteps slow down as well. His mohawk and the top of his head were just barely visible above the blades of grass and there was no way he could approach her without being seen; she knew exactly where he was. Moving around in a circle, his long ears pricked to pick up where the sound of moving grass was coming from.
Off to his right, several tall blades were trampled by feet carrying a weight less than his that he could tell was roughly Kaldorei sized. His heart pounded excitedly as he followed, still keeping the shield tucked underneath one arm. The grass was trampled back to his left now and he darted in that direction, more or less resigned to not only losing the race but losing whenever she felt it was time. At that moment, he was comfortable even losing herself as he felt every point of strain and stress in his body disappear.
"Psst."
Through the evergreen blades shining even brighter under the stars, he spied a flash of silver followed by long azure strands just a little darker than his own skin. Thinking he was clever, Khujand leapt forward and swept the tall grass away only to see more grass. He looked around, wondering how someone suited up for battle could move so quickly.
"Too slow!" she chirped as the tagged his shoulder from behind and ran right past him without looking back.
"Ya cheatin'! I gotta carry this shield!"
She jogged a bit faster now, but took the time to turn back over her shoulder as they sped up. "I'm still wearing plate!" Her armor clinked as she turned back around and leapt up out of the grass.
Following her up a small embankment, he found them both on another beaten path with some soil and mostly matted down grass. She put more distance between them, not checking back to see if he could catch up and he clung to her shield even more tightly as he tried to convince himself that he could catch the suddenly very youthful elf.
The grass was as high as her shoulders on the raised path now, allowing them to see the rolling hills of the lush valley dotted by lakes and the occasional large rock. He snapped back as she reached up behind her head and slowed down a bit to unfasten something from her hair. A series of metal clips was covered by a violet-blue scrunchie, its fluffy and diminutive form contrasting with the blood-splattered armor she wore. Khujand could have sworn that scrunchies had gone out of style on Azeroth before the war in Outland had even started six years ago, though it was still a cute contrast on Cecilia's hair.
Earlier that night, she had grabbed onto the arm of an Iron Horde soldier and ripped his arm right out of the socket, then beaten him to death with his own arm. Now she was undoing her ponytail and letting her long azure hair flap in the wind behind her, fastening the wavy violet-blue piece of cloth around her wrist like a gigantic, seven-and-a-half foot tall youngling. The irony was overwhelming and he almost couldn't believe the two beautifully contrasting images were the same person.
Yet there she was, blue locks flowing, slightly-dated hair fastener on wrist, arms spread wide open as she ran the tips of her fingers through the tall blades of grass on either side of the beaten path. A spell of some sort had been cast on him, and he had no desire to cure whatever she afflicted him with. She took off, leaving him in the dust as she bounced irreverently around a taller patch of grass to the left and out of his sight.
Guided by the sound of her light footsteps, he followed around the patch of grass in an attempt to catch up. Once he caught sight of her, he stopped dead in his tracks.
There were some scattered trees off to the sides of the flat area; it wasn't quite a forest and the trees were far smaller than those in Ashenvale, but it did create a sort of clearing. In the middle of the sort-of-clearing stood a hill. It wasn't as large or as far away as that hill he was thinking of, nor was he on a raised ledge. But it was close enough because of the moon.
In a way which seemed so magical that he probably imagined it, a ray of moonlight shone down on the top of the hill. It created a sort of blue pinnacle surrounded by the pitch black sky, with wisp-like particles floating in the air and shining visibly as they passed through. In the middle of it all stood a night elf, the light of her eyes shining not quite as brightly as those of most of her people but bright enough to be seen nonetheless. The significance of the scene was obviously lost on her, but she paused and seemed to allow him time to slip in to some sort of flashback, a stupefied look on his face. It reminded him of a dream he had about a night long ago when he wished, in his lonely misery, that he could move on from the ruination that was his life. Now, years later, he found a person who had been down that path and seemed to have mentally coped with the reality of her crimes. Although there was no jealousy for what she'd achieved, he admired how she seemed to truly be happy despite knowing what she'd done. Perhaps, one day, he'd be able to just move on from the past as well.
They stared back and forth for a minute, and when she laughed he knew that she was experiencing the same sense warm relief, both of them leaving all the pain and guilt behind at least when they were able to commiserate.
As Khujand approached, Cecilia sat down and removed her helmet and glaive, signaling that they could finally sit down and get some rest after the hiking, battling and racing during the first part of that night.
The two of them laid down on the top of the hill as they looked up at the stars. There were no clouds that night and the could see the gas clouds suspended out in the emptiness of the Twisting Nether, both trying to wrap their heads around the whole alternate timeline thing as they panted and caught their breath.
They were both flat on their backs, with their heads side-by-side and their feet pointing in opposite directions from each other. His gloves were thick enough to function as makeshift pillows for them both.
"But when we get back to Azeroth, will it be our Azeroth? Or could it be a third timeline?"
Khujand blinked, his mind blown away by Cecilia's questioning. "That Khadgar fellow ya have there in tha Alliance said some stuff ta the ones of us that survived through ta tha end of Tanaan, but I didn't understand a word of it." They both went silent before he finished. "I think he said it would all be fine."
The camp was in clear view from the top of the hill, and with Cecilia's night vision they were able to keep an eye out for any potential threats. It was about half a mile from where they were in the valley; they didn't feel like they were shirking their responsibilities.
It was a welcome break after the race, at least for them to catch their breath.
"Thanks," she whispered out of nowhere. He turned his head to see her upside-down face, his perplexion apparent as he tried and failed to figure out what she was thanking him for.
"It isn't easy for me to cool off when I'm angry," she elaborated, recognizing that there was a lack of context to her previous statement. "All that…it was just what I needed."
He breathed deeply, unable and unwilling to stifle his smile at her acknowledgement of their reconciliation. "Tha least I could do, seein' how I wouldn'ta opened up like we did tha other night unless ya pushed for it, and we woulda missed tha opportunity ta realize that we ain't alone."
She smiled as well, knowing where he was going with this. "I guess I didn't finish my story, did I?"
Khujand scratched a non-existant itch on his elbow as he tried to appear nonchalant, not wanting to push her if she wasn't ready. "Ya only say as much as ya want, when ya want, for however long ya want. I don't wanna make ya feel tense or stressed."
Cecilia swatted at him playfully and snorted. "I told you, I want to share. Sharing means that you told your story, so I have to tell mine."
He started laughing with his mouth closed, causing her to roll over even closer to him curiously.
"What?" she asked as she caught his eyes once again, red meeting silver.
His comfort level remaining steady despite the eye contact, Khujand felt himself loosening up as well. "Do tha voice."
She arched her brow as she tried to figure out what he meant by that and then stifled a laugh herself. "Seriously?"
"Talkin' is up ta ya but that voice is mandatory," he said, looking back up to the sky again and closing his eyes in anticipation.
Cecilia cleared her throat, taking a moment to stop laughing herself. "Let me tell you a story," she said in the best arakkoa accent she could muster as they both writhed around laughing.