If it sounds breaky in a scene in the middle it's because I don't know what is all right for and what isn't (no graphic stuff, but a little bit of really suggestive language) so I just deleted a paragraph. I really suggest just reading this on link you can find in my profile. Anyway. Thanks. Also I was feeling impatient and didn't edit this very thoroughly so if you find mistakes...oh well. I'll do a better job next time when I'm less impatient to get working on the next chapter.

The Traitor

Chapter Ten

Lo'jar was dreaming again; but somehow, strangely, he knew. This wasn't real, a part of him said. This is a figment of your imagination. He could tell because life wasn't this way. The colors weren't as vivid; his movements came to him without effort and without feeling; the only part of him that was there was his mind. The other people in his dream had faces, blurred a little, but he didn't recognize any of them. They weren't strangers, but yet they were.

And then, in the midst of the surreality, she was there. Her colors were more neutral, less vivid; her eyes shone brightly and when he looked into them, he saw they were really hers. She reached out, touched his face, and said, "Come outside. Let me in."

Lo'jar awoke suddenly, sweating. He was in a very cheap room in the inn, and the bed was small, even for him—a troll on the small side. The image of Morla was still fresh and, purely out of curiosity, he got up.

He tip-toed down the hall, for reasons he couldn't quite explain; it was the middle of the night, but he cared little who he awoke, or if anyone knew he himself was awake. Had the dream been a prediction of some kind? She had seemed so intrusive there, like she didn't belong. It was strange to him, but never one to ignore tricks of the mind, he padded down the hall in his bare feet and was surprised to see the bar still open. It was already two, but a pair of orcs were still there, drunk and laughing merrily. They clinked their great jugs together and the bartender rolled his eyes.

Lo'jar went by them, trying to look as non-chalant as he could wearing nothing but a pair of grey pants. One of the orcs watched him for a moment as he went outside, but the other orc easily distracted him.

He sighed a sigh of relief when he went out onto the front step of the inn and saw nobody there. He hadn't seen Morla in two days, and he didn't expect to see her now. He made a plan to visit her workshop behind the store tomorrow. He had been working the auction house, and thus hadn't had time; a pair of bracers that he had made himself had sold for over one gold piece, and so he was certain to be switching rooms soon. The half-troll didn't know how long he was going to stay. He wanted to be with her, but there was no real way that he could see: Clef would never allow it—hell, society never would. There was nothing for him in this city. Koya had gone home to visit her father, who was sick, and Lo'jar wanted to join her. Banik and Deweyl were like surrogate parents to him.

Lo'jar felt a shiver run from his neck down his spine, and all of the little hairs on his body stood up like they had been electrocuted. The air became very cold and he knew that someone was there.

"Morla?" he called as quietly as he could. "Are you here?" He heard a sound to the left and he quickly turned, walking toward the small indent between the inn and the building adjoining it. There was a scuffling and when he went over to look, walking cautiously and keeping his eyes as sharp as he could, he saw a figure huddled in the small crevice. Suddenly whatever the creature was stopped moving, and then came a familiar steady breathing. Seeing that it wasn't about to move anytime soon, Lo'jar picked his way across the wood it must have tripped on to make a sound, and peered closer.

He knew the cloak immediately and drew up the hood. Morla was sound asleep, crouched in an uncomfortable-looking position. When he touched her face with a finger she reacted only by exhaling and shifting a little. "Come on, little one. What are you doing here?" She seemed too deeply gone to awake by mere prodding. Sighing, Lo'jar covered her face once more and lifted her up, wondering how on earth she had ended up there, and why.

The half-troll took the girl inside, doing his best to not attract attention, and didn't spare a glance at either of the two orcs watching him. He went up the stairs and kicked open his door; he had left it slightly ajar. Inside, he went to his bed and dropped her a little unceremoniously there. He breathed deeply for a few moments, and then went to get a drink of water. When he returned she was in exactly the same position he had left her in, and he sat down beside her to think.

Had she called him outside? Why had she appeared? He surmised that she must have been sleepwalking, somehow, though he couldn't imagine for what reason. When he looked back down at her, and removed her cloak, he furrowed his brow.

Her throat was glowing. A red light emanated from it, circling her neck like a fiery collar. When he touched her skin it was far warmer than it should be, and he had to take his hand away for fear of being burned. "Wake up," he told her then, stroking her hair. She breathed out but failed to open her eyes. "Come on, wake up." Her eyelids fluttered. He thought he was making progress, when suddenly the aura spread and the very air around him became warm. Lo'jar jumped back and watched with horror as she began to convulse, her hands clenching and unclenching, each finger trembling on its own. Her mouth opened but her eyes still did not; the half-troll watched her, but couldn't imagine what he should do.

He reached forward to touch her again, but the heat radiating off of her prevented him from coming too close. "Oh, baby, wake up. Wake up." Something was happening to her, and very slowly the heat began to rise up and off of her. He began to faintly make out the red glow taking on the shape of her body, and when it pulled away from her paling skin, he knew.

"Morla!" Lo'jar reached forward and went through the silhouette. It burned his skin, but he grasped both sides of her face. "Oh girl, wake up! Wake up now!"

There was a pulse through his body that made his heart stop for just a millisecond; everything came to a halt, and he was reminded of the time he had seen her summon her demons on the beach. Her eyes opened and they glowed red. She stared at him and her mouth moved. Her voice came to him again, like it had that time: "He's trying to take me," she whispered.

Lo'jar grabbed her up into his arms and held her to him, his very skin singing. Time had resumed and he felt her skin sparking beneath his; her body shook once, and then twice, and she stopped moving. The burning sensation dissipated and, not wanting to look at her, Lo'jar held the girl and rocked her back and forth. He had no idea what had happened, but she was still like a doll in his arms. "Oh baby, wake up. Wake up," he murmured. Something had been trying to steal her.

Someone was trying to take her from him.

Taking a deep breath, he drew her away from him and her mouth hung open loosely. He laid her down on the bed and felt her neck for a pulse; he had to probe for it, worried for a moment that there wouldn't be one at all, but eventually he found it. Her heart beat very faintly, slowly, and with a little coaxing she looked up at him.

"What happened?" the half-troll demanded suddenly, and Morla's eyes widened. Her face became confused and she sat up, then, looking around. She glanced at him and nervously with her hands she asked, "Where am I?"

Lo'jar sighed then and held her away from him, clasping her shoulders in his hands. She still sat on his lap, her legs together and bent at the knee. "You're at the inn. This is my room." He gestured around the small space. "You showed up at the front step."

She blinked at him and rubbed her arm, then looked away and at the floor. She signed, "I remember falling asleep." Her brows furrowed in concentration. She glanced back up. "I saw you. In my dream."

"I saw you, too." They locked eyes then and Morla shivered. She wore only a long, dark red slip, and goosebumps rose all over her arms. "I think you were sleepwalking."

She sat back so she was fully on the bed, and rolled her shoulders like they hurt. Lo'jar released his grip on her. "I remember that I saw you in a dream, and I was walking towards you... I can't remember why." She closed her eyes and thought about it, while the half-troll waited patiently. Eventually she began to sign again, "I was looking for you, because there was someone here. Someone was in my room, trying to take me away. Then I saw you and began to run. Now I'm here."

Lo'jar could only shake his head and lean forward, so he looked directly into her eyes; he ran his fingers through her hair, drawing it away from her face. His hand dropped so it cupped her cheek. "There is something going on," he said, and felt it best to talk more about it when he didn't feel quite so tired. "I'll take you home in the morning. Since you're here, you might as well get some sleep. We'll think about this more tomorrow."

Nodding her head, Morla silently flopped back on the bed like a child and spread out her arms, taking a deep breath. He rolled his eyes and got up, attempting to fix the blanket while she lay on top of it. "Come on, get up," he told her gruffly and she obeyed, smiling when she wiggled her feet and crawled into the bed. She was so playful and strong, though she didn't look it, Lo'jar thought. She was made like a doll, tall for her age and species, but still built small: a glass toy. He couldn't help thinking she was made of more elements than anything. There were all kinds of parts to her: pieces of a puzzle; he imagined his father, putting together one of his strange contraptions. "Hand me that wood piece," he'd say. "And those bolts." Lo'jar watched her curl up into a ball, almost careless, not thinking too much over the bizarre event that had just occurred: he could see these parts of her, mostly simple, held together with nails and screws, with one thing that he couldn't quite make out: a blurry thing, strange and mysterious; a part of her that even she didn't know.

His father had always told him, "For every hardship in your life, because of who you are, you'll have one gift. You are special, Loren. Every day you'll be able to see things that no one else can—this is the gift of your life. It's the only thing I can give you: the ability to see."

Lo'jar sat thinking for some time before he fell asleep, lying on top of the blankets. His arm circled her head protectively and one leg was flung over her. In the night Morla opened her eyes and rubbed his much larger hand with hers. When she went back to sleep she dreamed of her answer, but forgot it in the morning.

--

Clef was in panic mode. It wasn't anyone's panic, either—he roared and howled and threw blankets and tables and clay pots, throwing a fit until a guard summoned the courage to look in on him. He saw the destruction and closed the door quietly, so as not to alert the raging tauren to his presence, and went back to the main room to get help.

They had to sedate him, and when he was calm again the fog in his eyes cleared and Thrall was sitting before him. "What's come over you, tauren?" Clef raised his great head and his jaws clenched for a moment, the gold ring in his nose shining in the pale light of the throne room.

"M-m-missing." He stood up, stretching his immense thighs. "G-g-girl m-missing."

Immediately Thrall stood, his expression changing from irritation to a selfish kind of worry. "What do you mean by this?" he asked, voice husky.

Clef only shook his head and backed up, head bent, and then said, "W-w-was gone."

There was a silence as Thrall walked down off his large chair and walked a semi-circle around where Clef stood, unmoving. As he opened his mouth to ask another question, the great room's door opened and the annoyed chief yelled, "Stay out!"

The two figures in the entryway froze and one turned to leave, but Clef cried, "Morla!" She paused there and turned back, looking torn and panicked, while Lo'jar's ears lowered and he raised his hands defensively. Thrall followed the tauren's eyes and he let out a great sigh.

"Come in," he ordered, now calmer. He steeled himself to be gentle when the pathetic human stumbled in, closing one of the doors behind her, and came up to stand beside her tauren friend. The other remained behind her, but was momentarily ignored. Thrall waved his hand at them. "Look, there was no need—" he looked at Clef, "and so, I would like this incident to be forgotten." Then, he saw the odd-looking troll by the door and narrowed his eyes.

"And who might you be?"

Lo'jar jumped and raised his eyes to the chief. He had never been in the great orc's audience before, but had heard much about his strength and presence; all the rumors he had heard were true. Unable to resist, the half-troll kneeled on one knee before the great chief. "Lo'jar at your service," he replied, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"I see..." the orc gave him a suspicious look that he didn't see. "You may go. I don't want to see this from you again, Clef Stronghorn." The tauren nodded his head and gazed with a sour curiousness at his two friends. Morla stood by him, and Lo'jar rose from his crouched position and they hurried to leave the throne room.

Thrall looked at his yellowed nails and picked at one. He wondered how this strange troll knew his little secret weapon. He hadn't thought he needed to tell the girl not to associate with anyone, but perhaps he would. It was very unsafe for his campaign to have any possibility of his plan leak out before it came to fruition. Morale was not at its best, and it was important to be prepared. He sighed and dismissed the issue. It was probably just some fluke.

--

When they entered the room and Clef closed the door, there was a silence. The tauren looked at Morla and she immediately began to sign what she remembered.

"I sleep-walked to the inn," she told him. "I stayed there because it was so late." She shrugged her shoulders and Clef looked suspiciously at Lo'jar. The half-troll had always felt that they were friends, but now, the warrior looked simply angry. It was the kind of anger only Clef could muster, unadulterated and a pure kind of emotion. It may have been jealousy, or it may have been disgust; he didn't try to hide it, and he told Morla without looking at her, "Don't sh-sh-shirk your duties." Then he took up his bag and put it over his shoulder. He gave Lo'jar a dark, warning look, and then left.

Clef was slow, but he wasn't completely stupid. Though his mind couldn't fully fit Morla into a place—sister, friend, lover—he felt in his bones that something about it all was wrong, and it irritated him. He loved her, no matter what way, and he couldn't help thinking that the half-troll he had once trusted was going to mess everything up.

He snarled and felt his unruly hair. Morla hadn't braided it in a week. He went into the shop with his bag full of raw gold and a few pieces of mithril, and when his boss congratulated him, he said nothing and got to smelting.

--

She was certainly enjoying it this time, Lo'jar thought headily.

After the fact, they were there for some moments, before Morla jerked up, startled, and covered her mouth. "Work!" she signed quickly and leaped off the bed, naked as the day she was born, and quickly gathered her clothes up off the floor. Feeling far shyer, Lo'jar leaned forward and felt his face color when she looked at him. "You can stay here as long as you like. I'll let the guard know." He only nodded his head as she finished dressing and went to the kitchen to take a piece of bread, which she shoved in her mouth and began chewing as she opened the door to leave. She waved and darted outside.

Relaxing now that she was gone, the half-troll leaned back on the bed and absently stroked the lion pelt. Could he really leave, now? Now he had a moment to think, and the night returned to him rather roughly. He remembered her words: "He's trying to take me." Who was "he"? He pulled up the image in his mind of the silhouette, too real and detailed to be anything but a part of her. It had been trying to escape her body.

Was someone pulling it? What was it, exactly? Why didn't she remember? Lo'jar was full of questions, and there were no answers he could fathom. After some minutes he sighed at the futility of it and got himself up, gathered his clothes, and left the room. The guards nodded to him on his way out and only one of the three looked at him funny.

--

But it wouldn't be true to say that Morla didn't want to know—or that she didn't know.

She went through the motions of work and Sharp commented she was being more meticulous than usual. This was a bad thing, however, for the potion she completed had hardly the usual kick. When she leaned back in her chair and it tipped over, sending her head against the wall, Sharp leaned down and asked, "You all right, stupid human? You're a little out of it."

Morla only nodded and, squinting from the pain, got up. She set her chair back to its usual position and just signed, "I need some air."

When she went outside and sat by the front step, watching customers file in and out of the shop, she knew it was about time for her to go.

She went back in and casually asked, "Has my shipment come?" Sharp glanced at her.

"Which one?"

She thought for a moment and then signed, "From Thunder Bluff." The undead man went into the small off-closet and shuffled through papers and boxes crammed around the small desk that they had somehow fitted into the area. Eventually, he came back with a package less than a pound in weight.

"This is all I could find," he told her, then sat down and went back to removing the stems from the herbs she had gathered, putting the unharmed pieces into glass vials, which he then filled with a clear liquid. Morla split open the package and inside was a carefully sealed bag. She sniffed it and gagged; she set the bag on the far end of the desk.

"We'll have to prepare this," she signed. "Use the thickest gloves you have, and put on those masks." She gestured to the completely unused mouth guards hanging from the far wall. They were supposed to use them with many of the creations they procured, but Morla stuck out her tongue at regulations and often warnings didn't apply to Sharp. He looked at her oddly. "Trust me on this one."

Inside the bag, beside the leaves that they handled carefully, she found a small piece of paper. On it were written the instructions for creating the potion. They separated the dried, crumbly leaves into many small piles so they could make many different prototypes, in case they didn't do it right the first time.

"Just what are we working with?" Sharp asked after some hours of preparation. They had only managed to get the proper balance of chemicals and liquids in which to soak the leaves, and he was getting antsy. This was going to be a long project.

"I can't tell you that," she signed back, not looking up from her work. Sharp sighed. He had expected an answer like that. He knew it had something to do with the forsaken woman that had visited nearly two weeks before, but beyond that, he was clueless. But his job was to do what he was told and in this case, he would have to do just that.

They only had a little bit of herb left when Sharp dropped too much leaf into the chemical mixture and the whole thing exploded, cracking the glass of the vial and causing black smoke to burst from the top in a great mushroom cloud that filled the room. Morla coughed, due to her human lungs, and Sharp only waved his hands in front of his face to clear away the debris. Sharp had to admit that he had a pretty good boss; she didn't get angry at him for his mistake. She believed that anyone learned best from their own mistakes, and someone else pointing it out to them only aggravated the situation. Her assistant seemed to work well with this theory and so she went back to preparing the next vial of liquid compound while he lightly doused the leaves in oil and put them in a miniature strainer.

Finally they had prepared the potion, and when Morla looked out the window, the sun had long set. They laughed, then, and Morla capped the vial triumphantly. She gave Sharp a thumbs-up. "This is a confidential operation," she signed to him as they got their things together to leave. He had picked up her language quickly, but some signs still confused him. Then she would illustrate or just write out the word in Orcish. She wrote, "secret," and he nodded his head. "We're going to have to find some test subjects for this."

The forsaken man raised his eyebrows as they went out the front door. "I'll outline the plan in more detail tomorrow. Bring your best clothes." Sharp only nodded as they separated.

Morla had locked up the potion in the back room, so she thought about other things on her way home, if that's what one could call it.

She had woken up and there were ropes around her neck and wrists, and middle and feet. She wasn't going to tell Lo'jar the whole truth. It was something she felt for a time she had to keep inside of her, until she had managed it, and then maybe he could help her. The ropes had pulled on her and she squirmed and cried out, but there was only a voice calling her name, deep inside her. It was low and authoritative, and though she feared it, she couldn't help but want to go to him.

Still uncertain, Morla pulled back against her restraints, and then Lo'jar had appeared. She would go to him and so she did. She had told him most of the truth, she reasoned. Something the half-troll did severed the ropes and she fell back into herself, clutching onto her body as she rejoined it.

She remembered this all with the vivid detail of someone who could remember her dreams like they were life; who could picture shapes in her mind and feel the realness of them; who could sense her own life force inside of herself.

With a sigh she passed the guards and went into her room, barely registering Clef at the desk before she flopped down on the bed. "Where were you?" she heard the tauren say with a twinge of suspicion.

"I was working late on a special potion," she signed to him, face still pressed in the bed. "If this works out, I'll be taking a trip to the Undercity." Morla heard him make a distasteful noise, something that sounded like clicking his tongue, and she got up off the bed with a great deal of effort. She went to where he sat, the little wooden chair straining from the effort of holding him up, and saw that he was reading over recipes for new silver armors. She pulled up a chair behind him and began to carefully braid his hair. Under her ministrations he relaxed considerably.

After some moments, when she was near done with the braid, he turned around in the chair enough that he could glance at her. Morla gave him a curious look. "What is it?" She appeared confused. "What is it, between you and Lo'jar?"

The girl blushed very brightly then, unable to hold it back, and dropped the almost finished braid. The whole thing came undone, from the bottom up to the top, from the innate wildness of his hair. It sprung out and stuck up from the static electricity she had put in it.

She took a deep breath before replying, and the longer she waited, the darker Clef's expression became. Finally she lowered her eyes to the floor and signed, "There is something." This was enough for him—even without a voice, her meaning was clear. Clef got up from the chair with a wide movement, causing the desk to jerk and the chair to fall over, nearly startling Morla out of her own seat. He grit his teeth and stood with his face to the wall, watching it as if it would give him the answer he was looking for. Morla wished she could call out to her friend, but all she could do was sit and wait for the wrath of him to be unleashed.

Then, he stomped his foot, howling like a small child having a tantrum. He turned to her and roared, then stomped again; finally he shouted, "Why? Wa-wa-why him?" He shook his head back and forth and he reminded Morla of a horse, rearing and snorting in agitation. The tauren really could be quite diverse with his annoyances. When he only seemed to get worse, growling out things in Taurahe that even she couldn't understand, she carefully got to her feet and went over to him. She took one of his large fingers and held it with her whole hand and with her free one she signed, "Calm."

This seemed to have the desired effect and he stopped making a racket. He breathed hard and kept his eyes half-focused on her. "Calm." She raised his great hand to her cheek and held it there. "Don't be upset." The tauren managed to really look at her then. Morla smiled.

She took a step forward and Clef sighed when she hugged him and pressed her face into the soft, white fur of his chest. He patted her head and said, "H-h-he's just a mongrel. What do you s-s-see in him?"

"Don't say that," she chastised. "He's your friend, too." Clef couldn't deny this and so he didn't reply. Morla reached up and patted his soft nose. "You shouldn't get all riled up like that. I'm getting to be a big girl now. I can take care of myself."

These words distressed the tauren, but they hit far deeper than anything else she had said. That was true, he knew. He saw his place by her side disappearing rapidly; it worried him. She was going on missions by herself now, not needing his protection; soon, any purpose he had had would be usurped by the half-troll. He felt a pervasive sadness, and he hugged his girl. If Lo'jar wanted her, he would have to come and ask.

That night, they slept together like they had for so many years before, the human wrapped tightly up in the tauren's big arms, his much larger body curled protectively around her. When Clef woke the next morning and Morla was gone, he felt something had changed, in both of them, and deep inside himself.

He would never be the same again.

--

Sharp was staring incredulously at his boss. "You mean..." Morla nodded. "This is a lot more than I subscribed to when I got this job."

"Now you've got it, and so you're going to do what I tell you." She was pouring out the bloody-red liquid out from the larger vial into five smaller ones. Capping all of them, she put one into his hands and patted his fingers closed around it.

"You're going to have to do this for me because you have access to things that I don't here." She clenched her hands together and then set down the vials, putting on her cloak. "This is going to be complicated. I've gathered some supplies. There are three ways we can apply this stuff." She took out a pair of green leather braces and set them down on the table. Beside that was a metal can labeled with "Air of Sweetmold," and at the end of the table, Morla had laid a juicy-looking pork chop on a plate. Sharp looked utterly confused.

"The mixture can infect by contact with the skin, both direct and indirect," she signed, pointing to the bracers. She picked up the can and aimed it at Sharp, who raised his eyebrows and took a nervous step back. "It can also infect by being inhaled." She sprayed and the man covered his mouth, but only a breath of the sweet, moldy smell that orcs enjoyed came out. He glared at her and she grinned mischievously. "The last way is through direct digestion. They're all equally effective."

"What do you want me to do, then?"

--

Sharp sighed and looked around the auction house. He was putting the bracers up for sale; he had them wrapped up, "For sale," he told the auctioneer, who only shrugged and took the bagged items from him, only opening them up to make sure they were what he said they were. Then he sat back and watched.

She had picked an item that would be sold easily, and she had done it well; within an hour a troll rogue with tied up, ridiculous-looking hair bought the bracers outright—they had been on at an incredible price—and happily took them out of the bag and slipped them on his wrists before even leaving the building. Sharp appeared as casual as he could, exiting the auction house after the hyper-looking troll.

The undead followed his charge for nearly two blocks before he gave up. "If there is a result, it'll appear in the first five minutes," Morla had told him.

His next project was far more difficult. Sharp went into the bar and waited by the grill, pretending to sip on a drink. When he saw that the cook wasn't looking he took out his dropper and dribbled a little of the concoction onto the lamb kabob. He sighed when it was taken later by an undead woman. She sat for nearly half an hour after eating, talking with one of her companions, without having any apparent negative effects.

Sharp used the same method a few more times, with the same results in another troll and a tauren shaman. He sighed and decided to leave. There was little left for him to do there once it began to clear out in the middle of the day.

He wandered Orgrimmar, the spray can tucked into his side-pocket. He couldn't imagine what she was using to make the potion, or what she was trying to accomplish with it, but he knew whatever he was working with was deadly—possibly far more for Morla than for himself.

However, his opinions changed when he stood on a corner and waited. He held the can under his hand and when a pair of orcs, growling and laughing like brutes, he sprayed them when they weren't looking. How he wasn't noticed he didn't know, but he followed the pair boredly. He lost them around a corner and took a moment to pause so as not to appear too suspicious, before walking around.

One orc was face-down, the one that had been closest to Sharp when he sprayed them; the other was kneeling beside him, holding his head and moaning. A few passerbyers had stopped to watch, but most went on and none offered help. Eventually the second orc collapsed as well and eyes wide, Sharp turned and slinked away from the scene.

Morla looked up when her assistant came in, eyes wide, jaw open. His tongue was visible when his mouth was closed because he was missing most of his teeth on one side, and she saw this when he made fishlike bobbing with his lips. Eventually he managed out, "It worked."

Her brow furrowed. "That's not what I was looking for," she told him, and Sharp gave her a confused look. "That is bad."

"Only on the orcs."

She looked startled and then covered herself up. She took the potion that remained and dumped it away, and recycled the vials by crushing them and soaking them in acid. They disintegrated and she hid all of it away.