Sorry this one took so long. My allergies have been killing me lately and I've barely wanted to get out of bed for the past week. I even temporarily lost my hearing!

I decided to kind of smush the Harvest Festival with a bit of Day of the Dead, as you don't actually get to do that much during the Harvest Festival beyond honoring Orgrim or Uther, and I wanted to go for a broader "honoring the dead" scenario.


To his surprise, Zami found that now having a total of five fingers served as a bit of an advantage. When the vendor asked how many candles he wished to buy, he needed only hold up his hand. After he bought his candles, he approached where Jazax was waiting, with his own three candles.

"Got everything?" Jazax asked in slow Darnassian as he looked around.

"Yeah," Zami nodded, "What are you looking for?"

"Some place for us to set up," Jazax answered, still looking about, "Since we don't have a grave to go to, we can really just set up anywhere."

"I don't think any of these guys even have graves," Zami mumbled, looking at his candles, "Well, maybe except for my brothers…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Jazax frowned, "Oh! Look, there's a spot over there."

Zami followed Jazax over to a small clearing where there was a moss-covered stone bench. It was probably the only one near the cemetery that wasn't occupied by a group of mourners. The two of them quickly set up their respective candles on the bench, offering whatever little tokens and mementos they had brought with them. Zami took off his necklace, setting the broken tusk beside one of the candles. Jazax, meanwhile, set a rusty engineer's pin alongside one of his candles. When the two of them were finished, they sat back and looked at their roughshod little shrines.

"Wish I had more to remember 'em by," Jazax mumbled, slipping into Orcish.

Zami furrowed his brow, nudging him with his elbow.

"Darnassian," He whispered, and Jazax nodded, realizing his slip up.

"I just mean… you know?" Jazax frowned.

"Yeah, I know," Zami nodded solemnly, looking back to the shrines, "Should we light them now?"

Jazax nodded back, and they both moved to light their respective candles. It was tradition to always light the candles in order of the deaths. Zami and Jazax exchanged glances upon recalling this.

"Uh, who died first for you?" Zami asked, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Zeek," Jazax answered tersely, "Back during the Second War."

"Oh, that's right…" Zami frowned, "I always forget you were even in that war."

"Yup," Jazax glanced aside uncomfortably.

Zami cleared his throat, rubbing his neck awkwardly as Jazax leaned forward to light the first candle.

"Guess that means you're pretty old," Zami mumbled, earning a scowl from Jazax.

"Hey, I'm only ten years older than you, buddy," Jazax grumbled back.

"Ugh, then you're practically as old as my mom," Zami cringed, earning a punch in the shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, well neither of us are even half as old as Syrise or Mythene," Jazax pointed out, "And we'll die way before they do."

Zami grunted, not quite willing to deal with that uncomfortable fact. Or the fact that he technically had already died.

"So what happened?" He asked quickly, eager to change the subject.

"Huh?"

"Your friend," Zami nodded towards the lit candle, "Zeek?"

"Ah…" Jazax frowned, looking at the candle, "Yeah, Zeek… Zeek Rapidsnap."

Jazax was quiet for a minute, and Zami was almost going to change the subject again before Jazax finally spoke up again.

"He, uh, got shot. During the attack on Ironforge," Jazax scratched his chin awkwardly, "We weren't even on duty. We'd just gone to Loch Modan to get some water for this missile we'd made. Oh, man, what was it called…"

"Water?" Zami cocked his head to the side, ""What for?"

"The cooling ports," Jazax shrugged, "The missile had cooling ports to delay th-oh, right! The Big Mama! That's what we called it!"

"Big Mama?" Zami chuckled, "Weird name."

"Nah, you should've seen the thing," Jazax grinned, "That baby would have blown a hole right through the mountain."

Jazax's smile slowly fell as he recalled what happened next.

"We, uh, never got to fire it. We ended up finding this lodge of high elves-err, blood elves now, I guess. Farstriders, actually. They'd already joined up with the Alliance, so they attacked us on sight. And like I said. Zeek got shot…"

"Oh," Zami frowned, "Dat's rough…"

"Orcish," Jazax pointed out, "But yeah, it was. Anyway, when's your first death?"

"Huh? Oh, lemme think…" Zami glanced at his candles, recalling each person they were for before nodding slowly, "Ran'do. He died a few years after the Third War started."

"From the war?" Jazax asked, but Zami shook his head.

"Not exactly," Zami said as he rubbed his arm awkwardly, "After we left Darkspear Isle, I decided I wanted to see more of the world. I ended up in the Eastern Kingdoms around the time that Lordaeron fell to the Scourge. That's when I met Ran'do. He was fleeing the destruction with his family…"

Zami paused, recalling the memory so vividly. It wasn't even a decade ago, after all…

"Anyway, I ended up joining up with him and his family, guiding them back towards Booty Bay, so they could cross to Kalimdor. But I, uh, made a mistake."

Zami's gaze lowered, and he leaned forward, lighting the candle with the broken tusk next to it.

"I wanted to take a shortcut straight through Elwynn Forest, to get them south faster. But I couldn't stealth them the whole time and we ended up running into some humans… Ran'do and his wife ended up dying in the fight. I managed to escape with their baby, but she got sick before we got Duskwood…"

"Jeez, you got dead babies and everything," Jazax mumbled, "...This night isn't gonna get much better, is it?"

They continued on, lighting each of their candles and telling a bit about each death. The third candle lit was one of Jazax's friends, a pilot named Maliz Boltspark who died in a zeppelin crash a few years ago. And then Zami lit a candle for Zin'aka. Then he lit three more at once, for his three brothers. He wasn't quite sure the exact order, so he went by when he heard of their deaths-all at once. Lastly, Jazax lit the final candle with the rusty engineer's badge, which was for his friend Dezzak Topnozzle, who died fairly recently when Tanaris flooded during the Shattering.

When all the candles were lit, neither of them felt very happy. In fact, both of them felt a lot worse than they had before. It wasn't exactly a joyous occasion, remembering all the dead people they'd cared about.

"Hey," Zami said quietly, nudging Jazax lightly with his elbow, "Want me to go get an extra candle and light one for you?"

"Nah, I think I'm sick of this whole festival," Jazax grumbled, shrugging his shoulders, "You wanna just get out of here?"

"Yeah," Zami nodded, "Best to go before Mythene finds us out here or something."

"Excuse me?"

Zami and Jazax both jumped with a start as they heard a familiar voice come from nearby. The both of them quickly looked up, seeing Mythene crouched in front of a grave not far from their little clearing. Both of them immediately went pale upon realizing she was staring at them, one silver eyebrow perked.

"Do I know you?" She asked slowly, standing up.

"Uhh, nope," Jazax answered quickly, picking up his rusty badge and pocketing it, "We're just two, y'know, random guys. Don't mind us!"

"Your voice sounds familiar, sir…" Mythene said as she began to approach, "What did you say your names were?"

"We didn't!" Jazax said, hurriedly pushing at Zami's back, "Anyway, we're leaving now! Bye!"

Mythene perked an eyebrow again, crossing her arms as she stood beside their makeshift shrine. Zami winced as he was pulled away, looking back over his shoulder at the shrine where his trophy necklace still sat.