Azshara, after the fall of Deathwing
Kalec had never been to Zhai's home in Azshara. He could always track her down. Or rather, he could track Tarecgosa down and she was always with Zhai.
He'd been surprised when Rhonin had asked to join him when he decided to visit Tarecgosa and mentioned she was currently in Azshara. Rhonin's grin of delight had confused him until they had teleported to the base of the path leading up to a cliff. Rhonin led the way with easy familiarity and it was clear he'd been there before. They turned a bend in the path and Kalec had to pause, taking in the truly bizarre sight in front of him.
Once it had been a small wizard's tower built on a high shelf of rock on the cliffs near the gates of Ogrimmar, overlooking the shore and scattered ruins along it. There were several holes in it and the roof had collapsed. Zhai and Hahji had patched these up using stretched and patterned hides, bent palm trees and skeletons from some kind of large animal. Curved, open overhangs of this style covered the roof, windows, and holes in the wall, creating a patchwork building that probably would have appalled the original owner of the tower. Two large, wrought iron lamps from the original tower glowed softly with magical fire on either side of the bead shrouded door. A painted mask hung from one and a bundle of leather strips studded with charms and bones hung from the other.
Kalec just stood there, studying it with bemusement and Rhonin was positively beaming at it. "I love this place." Of course he did, Kalec thought. Rhonin had gleefully watched Zhai rise through the Kirin Tor and helped her every way he could, Kalec wasn't surprised Rhonin would be involved with her and her family.
He felt the warm, familiar presence of Tarecgosa a few moments before a child's laughter echoed down from the tower and a floating blue light appeared, chased by a little troll girl. The light stopped and the little troll fell down on her rump, looking up at it in confusion. The light floated toward Kalec and the child- Amra, he recalled -cocked her head and waved.
"Ey!" Both humans looked up to see a wild looking male troll pushing out a wood and leather window covering and peering down at them with sharp green eyes. "Firehair! Watcha doin' here, mon?"
"I've come to take your wife away," Rhonin called back.
Hahji waved a hand. "Feh! Good! Take dat one wit ya too." He pointed at Amra, who just grinned up at her father. "And her dead dragon!"
The blue light that was Tarecgosa flashed. Hahji grunted and pulled back inside, letting the covering fall into place with a bang. From inside, they could hear him shout, "Zhai! Ya pet mage be here!"
"Papa be hexxin'," Amra informed them.
Slightly muffled from inside: "Tryin' to!"
Kalec looked up apprehensively. "Hexxing someone or something?"
"I've found it's better to just not ask those questions, Kalec," Rhonin replied.
Zhai pushed aside the curtain of beads, shells and bones that shielded the front door, peering out at them. Kalec felt another jolt. When doing business for the Kirin Tor, Zhai was usually very neat and favored simple robes. Seeing her in a brightly colored dress, her blue and green hair falling loose and wild around her bare shoulders was not a sight he'd seen before. She held the beads back and gestured for them to come in. "Tarecgosa'll be able to take form if she's closer to de staff," she said quietly.
"Look pretty, 'Gosa, look pretty!" Amra called out as she scrambled inside after them.
"I thought ya were takin' her, mon," Hahji barked down the curving stone stairs leading upward.
"We seem to be bothering your mate," Rhonin said dryly.
"He be cranky today," Zhai said, deadpan, ignoring the snarl that came from above.
The inside was as eclectic as the outside. Golden, floating shelves like the ones popular in Dalaran hovered near curved walls decorated with woven tapestries, including a banner Kalec recognized as representing the Darkspear Tribe, and more painted masks. Zhai's spinning wheel sat next to a giant clay urn that held several spears. A large, roughly carved table, little more than a smoothed chunk of wood, took up most of the room. Objects for enchanting, books, scrolls, tablets and objects Kalec guessed were for Hahji's voodoo workings were scattered across its surface. Drying herbs dangled from strings strung from the rafters and a long string held several dead snakes and drying snake skins. The air smelled heavily of incense, herbs and that odd, darkly musky odor the trolls seemed to carry around them.
Zhai's staff, Dragonwrath, stood upright in the middle of the room, held by its own magic. As promised, the blue light took on the faint form of a dragon as it floated near the staff and Kalec smiled, running his fingers through it. She coiled around his hand, her warmth soothing.
"Amra, sit down and finish your fruit," Zhai commanded. Amra climbed up onto a rough chair pulled up to the table and dug into a bowl of fruit with her hands, chewing dutifully and watching Kalec and Teracgosa with curious eyes the same dark blue as her mother's. In coloring, she looked more like her father with light green skin and green hair streaked with yellow. Rhonin sat at the table and Zhai placed a plate of more fruit down, giving the dragons some time to visit, obviously caught up in a mental conversation. "Tea?"
"You have any of that citrus one you brought to Dalaran last time?"
"We do. It's Hahji's favorite." She placed a kettle on a hook in the massive fireplace. "How your boys be, Rhonin?"
"Trouble. But the best kind." Rhonin hid a smile as Amra snuck a piece of fruit down to feed one of several lizards wandering around the building while her mother's back was turned.
"I know all about dat. Amra, you feed dem lizards any more, dey gonna get fat," Zhai said without turning around. Amra just giggled.
She joined them at the table while they waited on the tea. Rhonin was looking at some of the scrolls she had spread out on the table. He raised a brow. "Karazhan?"
"Research, mostly. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how careful you got to be explorin' it." Judging from the light in her eyes and the way she smiled, she didn't mind that at all. Ah, the magi of the Horde, always ready for a fight.
"Mama brought me a sparkly," Amra piped up.
"With permission," Zhai said hastily. "Spirits, Rhonin, even I'm not stupid enough to steal nothin' from Medivh's tower!"
Rhonin smirked, then tapped the scroll thoughtfully. "Running between here and the Eastern Kingdoms has to take its toll even using magic."
"I stay in Dalaran, usually. Dey have a portal dere. It be best lately that I not be within our Warchief's," she almost spat the word, "immediate vicinity."
Hahji had come down from above right in time to hear that and stopped short on the bottom stair, his eyes narrowing.
Trouble here, Rhonin thought, looking between them, at the way Hahji stared daggers at his mate and she avoided his gaze as she crossed the room to get the tea and mugs. Rhonin felt an odd chill. Hahji was rarely among people of the Kirin Tor but he knew because of the careless, unheeding way Hahji spoke and acted, the automatic assumption people made was that he was stupid. The sharp steel in those green eyes reminded Rhonin suddenly of something he'd overheard Zhai say once.
"It's so wonderful to find a companion who's a match for you in intelligence." The high elf- Rhonin couldn't remember her name -smiled at Zhai with that practiced condescension they were all so very good at.
"Wouldn't know," Zhai had replied quite calmly. "My mate be smarter dan me."
Amra had gone very still and Kalec looked up as Tarecgosa's image moved closer to the child. Obviously she shared a bond with her. Hahji glanced over at her and his gaze softened. He walked over and picked her up, sitting down and settling her on his lap. Amra relaxed a bit.
Zhai poured tea in all of the mugs, pushing one toward him, Kalec, and Hahji. Rhonin knew the expression on her face all too well. Kalec did too, the fire behind it had been what helped spare Tarecgosa in the first place. Did she really have to have that stubborn, defiant expression amongst her own family?
"Zhai." Rhonin kept his voice quiet but firm, drawing her attention to him. "What's wrong?"
"Our Warchief be fragile when it comes to criticism and I find much about him to criticize lately." She hesitated. "Rhonin..."
"Zhai." Hahji's voice was a low, warning growl. "It be Horde business, Redhair, nothin' to concern ya."
"The hell it isn't," Zhai snapped before turning back to Rhonin. "His cronies keep needlin' me 'bout Jaina Proudmoore den mutterin' when I tell them to mind dere own."
Rhonin frowned. "Jaina?"
"Zhai." Hahji actually snarled at her like an animal.
Zhai shot her mate a blistering glare. "So if I end up arrested, ya know why!"
The tension between them almost made the air crackle. Amra was cringing on her father's knee, her soft whimper clear in the sudden silence. Tarecgosa coiled around her and both her parents backed down. Hahji rose with Amra in his arms, heedless of the dragon spirit, and carried her upstairs. Rhonin could hear him crooning softly to her, soothing her.
Zhai watched him go, still angry and defiant but for a moment she looked truly miserable as well before she remembered herself and shook it off, glancing down. "I'm sorry...Kalec, Rhonin..."
"It's all right, but Tarecgosa is threatening to throw us all out before we upset your daughter further," Kalec said.
Zhai very nearly smiled. "Appreciate the 'we' part but you had nothin' to do with it."
"Zhai..." Rhonin told himself to stop. If there was trouble on the horizon for Jaina they could find out about it without Zhai. There was no need to put her or her family in more danger than they might be in already.
She looked at him wearily. "I don't know nothin', Rhonin. I didn't tell them nothin' but I don't know nothin' either and I have no real way of findin' out. If I even start askin' questions around..."
"You don't have to." He reached out and caught her three fingered hand in one of his, giving it a brief squeeze before rising. "Kalec is right, we'd better go."
"Jaina's been wonderful to me," she said, her voice very quiet. "As good as you been. I admire her more than anyone I've ever known. If I knew anythin', I would tell you."
"I know, Zhai. Be careful."
Zhai held the curtain aside to let them out, picking up Dragonwrath as they went so Tarecgosa could move alongside Kalec and say goodbye. She watched them until they teleported away.
She and Kalec would cross paths many more times in the future, but it was the last time she ever saw Rhonin.
Zhai felt Tarecgosa's presence fill her for a moment before she returned to the staff and took comfort in it, closing her eyes. She didn't open them even when she felt Hahji come up behind her. "You got a note from your family today, didn't you?" Her voice was flat. Zhai and her father and sister in law were not on good terms lately so a note from either of them rarely put him in a good mood.
"Ikra's worried about us. Especially Amra, remember her? Wants to know why keepin' her safe is less important than keepin' ya mouth shut."
"Funny how that wasn't a problem at all when Thrall was Warchief."
Hahji went silent and she didn't need to know that verbal barb had found its mark. She took no enjoyment out of it.
"Thrall chose 'im as Warchief, do ya doubt him?" Hahji finally said.
That was a question she'd been hoping wouldn't come up. She took a deep breath. "In this case, yes."
Hahji made a growling sound and grabbed her by the shoulders, spinning her around to face him. "Dem mages...dat staff...makin' ya arrogant. Ya forget yourself. Our people. De Horde. Ya family. Ya tink ya too good for us now, Zhai?" His words were an echo of his sister's. "Ya tink them damned mages gonna be dere when you need 'em? Even Firehair and ya precious Proudmoore only see ya like some kinda dancin' bear they can play wit!"
Her expression went cold and blank. Now his verbal barb had found its mark. They got sharper every time. "Let go of me."
He gave her a little shake but released her. "Vol'jin decided to keep us in de Horde, do ya doubt him?"
Zhai looked away, her lips pressed in a tight line around her tusks. No, she didn't doubt her chieftain. "I tink he did it more to keep us safe than loyalty to Garrosh."
"Now ya are arrogant. Ya got no prayer of understandin' Vol'jin's mind, Zhai. He'd see anything Garrosh plannin' from a mile away."
Words that would come back to haunt him later.
They stared at each other in silence.
The past few months, Hahji had felt like a vice was tightening around his heart and right now it was so tight he thought it could surely be crushed. He'd known her all her life. He was several years older than she which meant he'd watched her grow up a couple steps behind him but always she'd been in and out of his life. And then the humans had come- humans from Proudmoore's homeland -and everything seemed to spin out of control, culminating in his mother's death and the death of both Zhai's parents. They'd lost wise Sen'jin and his son had stepped forward to lead them.
To the Horde.
They'd both been too young and too new in their abilities, especially Zhai, to help the orcs much against the Burning Legion but they'd supported their tribe in Durotar, fought against everything that tried to take down the Darkspear and carved out their place in the Echo Isles.
And there they diverged, he and Zhai, because Hahji had always been turned inward. To their people and preserving their ways- the ways of Sen'jin and Master Gadrin, of the witch doctors and shadow hunters -to the Horde, to carving a place out for them under Vol'jin's guidance until they were as intricately woven into the Horde as the orcs.
But Zhai had been obsessed with the arcane energy woken in her and the others. Arcane magic had been all but unknown to them at that point and once she'd learned all she could from the orcs, she started focusing on finding out everything she could, looking out toward a world that was suddenly so much more vast than they'd ever expected and lit a hunger for knowledge in her Hahji considered more of an addiction, though he'd never said it out loud. She was eager to see it, eager to explore it, always looking outward.
Yet they'd found each other, crossing paths only now again and again and yet their eyes kept meeting. And lingering. They weren't children anymore and Hahji had been delighted to find Zhai managed to be logical in her thoughts except where he was concerned. That knowledge she craved didn't seem to matter so much when she was laying with him in a tangle of limbs on the jungle floor, biting his shoulder to muffle her screams. Lust and affection and fascination had entwined together and deepened into love and throughout their bond they'd balanced each other out. She guided and helped him learn this new world of theirs as they explored it and he was her touchstone. To home. To the Darkspear. To the Horde. She was his storm and he was her anchor and it made life quite exciting indeed. Exciting and dangerous.
When Amra had been born and Zhai had settled down to focus on their family, that was when the balance started to tip and he had no idea how it had happened. The Cataclysm had happened and suddenly it was chaos again that wouldn't even stop with Deathwing's fall. Zhai seemed unable to remember what was truly important, that loyalty underpinned so much about what made the trolls who they were.
"Vol'jin says the Horde be family," he reminded her quietly. "We are ya family. Not dem. Ya gonna choose them over family?"
Zhai raised her hands to her face in a gesture very close to despair. "Why am I choosin' at all, Hahji, can you at least tell me that?"
Hahji opened his mouth and then shut it, unable to answer. His sister spoke often of Zhai's stubborn pride, her arrogant hauteur, but it was so much more than that looking back at him from those blue eyes right now and it chilled him to the bone, brought those little, niggling doubts to the surface he had no idea how to deal with. He knew Zhai, knew every aspect of her as no one else possibly could. That wasn't stubbornness looking back at him: it was genuine sorrow. Whatever her grievances against Garrosh Hellscream, they were genuine ones and she truly felt she was in the right. They were standing on opposite sides of a line he'd had no idea was being drawn, how had they come to this?
He was still absorbing it, stunned, and didn't hear her at first when she finally spoke. He had to shake himself out of a daze. "What?"
"I want to take Amra to Dalaran."
Panic surged through him. "No."
"Hahji, just hear me out..."
"No!" Not his Amra, his sweet baby girl. Not her too. Spirits, his father and Ikra would explode and they already were so close to hating Zhai that they wanted her beheaded as a traitor.
"Hahji, she'd be safe..."
"Ya not taking my baby away from me, Zhai!" Fear made his voice gravelly and far more harsh than he'd intended.
Zhai physically jerked back, her eyes going wide. "Of course I'm not..." She sounded horrified. "I'd never..."
"Ya want to haul her off to Dalaran, what am I supposed to tink?"
Zhai stared at him and Hahji's anger left him in a rush because he'd seen enemies staring at him with a similar expression after he'd just shoved a knife in their gut. Then it was gone, closed off behind an icy mask, her eyes frighteningly blank. Hahji took a step toward her and she backed away, wrapping her arms around her middle in a defensive gesture that made that vice around his heart tighten.
"Your Warchief wants war, Hahji."
Yours. That didn't escape him. Yours. Not ours.
"It'll be a madman challenging a madman." Zhai was of the opinion that Varian Wrynn was stark, raving mad. "I just want her safe. Dalaran is neutral which is 'bout as safe as you can get right now. If not, I at least want her away from Ogrimmar, can you grant me dat much?"
"I...let me tink it over, yah?"
"I'll make a special hearthstone or a portal for any place she goes." She wouldn't look at him. She turned toward the stairs. "I want to check on her."
Hahji nodded and made no move to touch her as she moved past him. He stepped outside to clear his head and wondered which one of them felt more lost at the moment.
Zhai was called to Dalaran the next day. She slipped out at dawn and teleported there after a whispered conversation with her daughter, cuddling her close and reassuring her over and over and over. If asked, she wouldn't say anything about a vice around her heart. It felt numb. And cracked.
When Hahji woke up, Amra was curled up on her sleeping mat, clutching the doll Hahji had made her in one arm and clutching the sparkling gem Zhai had brought back with her the last time. Dragonwrath was standing right beside the mat, her soft blue glow illuminating Amra. Amra opened her eyes when he brushed his fingers through her hair. "Mama went back to the creepy tower to kill a demon," she informed her father sleepily. "She say you an' 'Gosa will keep me safe."
A week or so later, Hahji accompanied his chieftain to Ogrimmar where Garrosh Hellscream announced his intentions to march on Theramore.