Providence

Part One

Chapter Three

Hanzar sat, his head beginning to swim with sobriety, and replayed the strange scene in his head. She looked nothing like the troll women he knew—she was different, that was for sure. When he imagined beautiful, the first image in his mind was the voluptuous Achsbor, a young orc hunter he had aided to the far lands of the Undead. She was curvy but brusque, calm and bloodthirsty.

This strange creature was soft like fur and wild as fire. He had felt a low hum in his throat when he saw her, clothes torn, her posture strong yet sleek. The troll swallowed another swig of fresh water. He didn't know what had made him give her his insignia—he would get another when they promoted him, but somehow, he wanted her to remember their little mishap. Maybe it was that he thought she had earned it. It was only by chance she hadn't managed to kill him.

Banik slapped his friend on the shoulder. "Sleep," the big tauren said, "You tired." Hanzar nodded and gave an exhausted chuckle.

"Good idea."

The warrior went to sleep and dreamt of a shadow, following him as he walked from the dark forest to the hot, burning light.

--

Garoul stayed in the rented room above the small tailoring shop that night and a good part of the next day. She watched the hippogriffs fly in, hoping to see a familiar red helmet. It wasn't until afternoon that the elf heard a commotion downstairs and came to find Reich chatting merrily with the blonde tailor's wife.

"Ahem." The human glanced up and at once grinned.

"Gari!" He walked toward her but stopped. "Holy... what happened to your clothes?" One long tear ran from her shoulder to her stomach. The whole bottom of her shirt was ripped, her bandana was missing and her boots were gone, leaving only a pair of mismatched slipper-shoes.

Garoul laughed a tired, scratchy laugh. "I've been waiting for you to come. They're making me a new shirt right now... but I don't have the money to pay for it." She rubbed one arm. "Let's go outside, I'll tell you everything."

When the elf had finished her tale, Reich sat and thoughtfully tapped his chin. "Can I see the insignia?" Garoul nodded and handed her friend the small red and black badge. He turned it over once, before handing it back. "What a story." A small, sly grin on his face, he elbowed her in the arm and asked, "So? A troll? It's like one of your fantasies."

The night elf gaped at him. "I couldn't think like that, not in my position." She paused. Only the human knew her this well. While she imagined brusque and forbidden, Reich laughed and listened. He was the only one she ever felt safe revealing her estranged nature to—anyone else she had trusted had called her insane and deranged. Maybe she was, but Garoul liked it better that way. She had very few reservations.

"What was he like?"

Garoul blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

Reich laughed and chewed on another large chunk of jerky, managing between bites, "You hate the Horde but find one troll so fascinating. You must have been loving every moment, so tell me about it." Immediately she wanted to retort nastily, but she bit back a reply because she knew he was right. She had been twisted from birth, but so had he—his problems were more than even she could handle.

So Garoul leaned back and said, "Well, he was blue. A light hue, sort of like the sky, but rough. He was taller than I expected..." She paused. "I hated it, I was too afraid. I'm never afraid, but there, put up for the viewing pleasure of anyone who stopped to see, at the mercy of the Horde, I was afraid. I only stopped to admire once, and believe me, once isn't enough."

Reich shook his head. "You are one messed up little girl."

"You don't have to rub it in."

The two were quiet for a few moments as they looked at the ruins from their spot on the grassy hill. The dryad corpses had been removed, and those who had fled had returned, though now they sent scouts to the lake in case there was another sign of an attack. Hostilities in Stonetalon were growing and the Alliance presence there only grew weaker. Garoul wondered if she stayed here, if she would see her strange foe again.

"I wish I knew what he thought, when he helped me." She crossed her arms over her drawn up knees. "It's strange I don't feel a thing when Adelian puts the moves on me, but when a troll speaks Orcish in my ear every hair on me stands on end."

"I tell you once, I tell you again: you're just plain different. You're weird—like a child raised by worgs. You have no sense of right or wrong. You are impulsive and desire only what you cannot have." Reich tousled her hair playfully. "If you weren't insane, you wouldn't be you. Now, about those clothes—if I'm to pay for them, which do you want: pink, or purple?"

--

The rain here was miserable. It never rained on Kalimdor; this continent, Hanzar decided, was miserable. He disliked the undead, the foul-tempered corpses they were. He did favors for them in their great city merely so that they would refrain from killing him as he walked across their lands toward the Hillsbrad and Arathi territories. Banik remained in the capital, working a booth selling all that he and Hanzar had acquired over the course of their travels. With the Darkmoon Faire in town, there was nothing that couldn't and wouldn't be sold. They had stockpiles of smelted ore and dried bundles of herbs. It was a craftsman fantasy.

Hanzar hardly enjoyed his tour of Silverpine, and dreaded even more to cross Hillsbrad—the place was infested with human peasants, all of the mostly unarmed variety, and the Horde post there was overridden with festering corpses. He had stopped for the day and wished only to reach Arathi as soon as possible.

Banik hadn't understood the troll when he said, "I'm going to escape the dreams." It had been months since he had freed the elf rogue in Sun Rock Retreat, and he kept his new insignia with pride. But every night, in every dream and every fantasy, a shadow followed him, always keeping pace and always waking him up shivering with cool sweat. The shadow had begun to come closer, circling when he stopped and waiting, waiting for something he couldn't quite place. He went on with his dreams but always she followed him. Sometimes he would stop during the day and search for any sign of the rogue, where she might be hiding, why he felt her presence only in dreams. But his consternation was in vain and he went on every day, looking and waiting.

Yet, the rain still bothered the troll, who had grown accustomed to the deserts of Durotar. It rusted his armor and ruined pounds of food as it came down. He would sit beneath a tree, shivering, shooting spiders as they came along and watching for a break in the weather when he could continue his trek to higher, drier lands.

The night he arrived in Hammerfall, two weeks after his departure from the Undercity, Hanzar slept without disturbance. He awoke with no more than a sore hip from sleeping sideways on the small bed he found in a renting room. The troll assumed this boded well and he could continue his travels without thinking more of the elf he should have long forgotten.

"What is her name again?" he asked out loud, hoping he still didn't know the answer. His mind repeated the strange combination of sounds: Garoul. It wasn't like the other elf names he knew, the ones that couldn't escape infamy. The tone of it was rough, almost Orcish.

But then again, much about her seemed out of place, both in his image of the Horde, and of the Alliance. She was a stranger in every sense of the word.

Sitting on the cool steps of the bat handler's platform, Hanzar contemplated his next move: he had come across two countries to clear his mind, but it still seemed he hadn't succeeded, and his abilities were suffering. At his rate of decline he would prove useless in a matter of weeks, and that the troll could not afford. He still had much revenge and havoc to wreak and no amount of slender, open-mouthed elves could—

Hanzar gaped. The picture he had just imagined was beyond anything he would have thought possible for him. It was both wrong and delightful, exotic and disarming. When it danced on the edges of his vision the troll knew at once he could no longer deny it.

He had to find her. For what sinister purpose he wasn't sure of quite yet, but he would pinpoint one when he got around to it. But how to find one pink-skinned, blue-haired rogue—he didn't know.

But he had an idea.