As usual, visit my account to read the full version. This is awkward because of the cutting, naturally.
The Traitor
Chapter Eleven
He wanted to hear her, but not this way.
Clef had for some reason wanted Lo'jar to go with her to the Undercity instead of him. The half-troll knew they had been found out but his friend seemed undisturbed, and so he accepted the position. Clef had full employment benefits and was working to become an artisan blacksmith. He was given a room with the other shop workers behind the building in a separate establishment.
Lo'jar moved in to the castle. No one was sure what he was doing there, but they didn't dare ask. Once, one of the guards had stopped at her door on his way by, showing his curiosity a little more blatantly than the rest, and an imp had been sitting there trimming his nails. The creature made a rude gesture to him and when the guard didn't look about to go on, Alrash lit his tunic on fire.
The pair living there was left alone after that.
Morla found the life satisfactory; it didn't crunch her system or schedule, and the troll often practiced with her in the courtyard. They built heavy doors into the back of their room that led outside, and so rarely were others there—practically never—that late at night they sparred. Once Morla used her corruption on the half-troll, and he was haunted by dark dreams for two days afterward. He forbade her later from using it again, as effective as it might be.
Lo'jar really had nothing to do. He sat in the room sometimes and watched the sun rise and set; he had his cousin send him his father's blueprints, and he went over them during the days, trying to piece them together. They were strange contraptions, often with clear purposes but faulty thinking. Other days he went out and haggled, buying items at low prices and selling them high on the auction house. Most of the time when Morla needed him, he was a translator, mediating arguments between her boss and herself, making her orders to supply shops. He was her voice when they traveled among the Horde, and he waited for her patiently in base camps and towns when she went on her special missions. Often, she couldn't even tell him what she had to do there; she only asked that he wait. Sometimes he worried that she wouldn't return, but she always did.
When they went to the Undercity, Morla was walking along when something seemed to hit her like a ton of bricks. "Come!" she called, and curious, Lo'jar followed her to the jewelry shop in the middle of the great city of the undead. She went into the store and dug through her bag, pulling out a little dusty, faded, grimy white ticket.
"This item has been ready for some time," the clerk commented. "The master finished it before he left." He shuffled into the back of the store and a few minutes later, he came out with a box Morla found quite familiar. He set it down on the table and opened it for her to see.
There was a wide mithril necklace, elegant, and holding an immense ruby in a secure casing. The mithril cupped the jewel carefully, three spidery legs curved up and over to keep the precious stone from falling out. The chain was long and well-crafted, with no visible blemishes on the nearly imperceptibly small links. "Would you like to try it on?"
Too awed, Morla nodded her head and when the forsaken removed the jewel and went to put it on her, Lo'jar intercepted him and took it. Morla put it on herself beneath her hood. The man smiled, and before either of them could stop him, he pulled off her hood to get a look at the necklace around her neck.
He nodded his head. "Good." Morla looked at him, confused and afraid, reaching for her hood once more to cover herself; then she saw Lo'jar staring, his mouth wide enough to let in any bugs that might wander by. "Would you like a mirror?" the jeweler asked. When the girl didn't reply, he looked at Lo'jar.
"She would love one," the half-troll said smoothly. The undead man nodded and reached beneath the table, pulling out a little mirror. He handed it to Morla, who looked nearly frightened enough to panic and flee, and the undead smiled again.
This was not what she had expected to see. In the reflection was a rotting girl, her once-blond hair now dirty and uneven, pulled out in places. Her eyes were glowing a vibrant yellow and her skin was a hollow greenish color, mostly in-tact, with some missing around her eyes and mouth. She and Lo'jar stared at one another for a moment, and then he said, "It's great. Thank you so much." The jeweler nodded his head and went back to his work. Morla set the mirror down on the desk and, a little dazed, left the store.
"What is that necklace? Where did you get it?"
Morla swallowed. "The jewel was given to me... by a teacher. They were working on it for a very long time," she signed to him. Lo'jar looked at her, and then shuddered.
"No offense," he said, grinning, "But you look horrible." They laughed.
Morla covered her mouth. She looked up at Lo'jar, who stared back at her. "... Did you just laugh?"
She flexed her jaw and then furrowed her brow. "Nah," she signed.
"No, I very clearly heard you laugh just now," he pressed. Leaning down, he looked in her eyes and said, "Why didn't the undead man cross the road?" She shook her head. "Because he didn't have the guts!"
Morla laughed. She laughed, and when she heard herself laugh, she laughed even harder. She began to cry from laughing, or maybe just from being able to laugh, and soon she was laughing and sobbing all at once. Lo'jar, trying to keep from making a scene, took her by the arms and led her out of the way and into a little weapon shop. The owner barely looked at them.
The half-troll couldn't figure why he was comforting her. Eventually she stopped and took a few deep breaths, and then opened her mouth. She breathed out, "Ah." There was definite voice to it, and she gasped. Trying again, she spoke: "I can talk!" She stomped her foot, yelling out loud and most definitely getting the store manager's attention. He gave them both a look and Lo'jar held a finger to her lips.
"As great as this is," he said, "Maybe this isn't the place." She only nodded, grinning, and they went off hand-in-hand to the elevators.
They were to scout Tirisfal for the Dreadfall crops that Zamah had reported, and take account of anything unusual. Morla had informed the woman of the results of her test, and even she seemed to be surprised. "Targeting the orcs?" Morla nodded. Zamah looked momentarily puzzled, before she asked, "And you tested this on humans?" Again, the girl gave an affirmative. "And what was the reaction?"
"The man I tested was unaffected, mostly, though he did sweat a lot. Some hours later, though, he died." They exchanged looks. The apothecary tapped her foot pensively before she replied, "Then we can't be sure if this herb is really directed to the orcs or if it's just a coincidence. I want you to approach the Dreadfall fields any way you can and look for clues that might provide an explanation."
She hadn't known how she was going to do it; initially Morla had thought to send Sharp in her place after getting a general idea of the area, but with her new and unexpected disguise, she could walk in broad daylight and no one would suspect a thing.
It was a short walk, and once they got outside the ruins they ducked off the path and sat down among some trees. Morla was giggling, unable to control herself, and Lo'jar waited patiently for her to recover from the giddiness. Eventually she came to.
"Talk to me again," the half-troll commanded.
She hadn't even her mouth open all the way before sound tumbled out: "I-can't-believe-this-is-real!" she cried. Strange, he thought—it sounded much different than the sound he had heard that time on the beach, or in his dream. It sounded almost... mechanical.
"Slow down. Say something again."
She gave him a curious look, and then victoriously sat back and began to talk. "My name is Morla Stronghorn and I live in Orgrimmar, Durotar."
It was female—that was for sure; however, the voice definitely did not have the bell-like charm that he remembered. It had very little lilt to it, very little emphasis or emotion. It seemed monotone and uninspired, much unlike the voice he expected to hear from the excited girl.
"Take it off for a second." Furrowing her brows in confusion, Morla did as she was told and removed the necklace, in the cover of the trees. Her form reverted to that of her usual very much alive human body. She tried to speak again but this time, no sound came out. Curious, she looked to him for permission and when he nodded, she put the necklace back on. She took on the undead appearance and when she spoke, her voice came forth.
"Strange," she said. "I don't actually feel like I'm using my vocal chords. This seems just the same... except now there is sound to go along with my thoughts."
"It's magic," he determined strongly. He lifted it from her breast and rubbed over the jewel in his finger. When she spoke, it warmed and glowed a little; when she was silent, it appeared only as a plain ruby. "The jewel is filtering your thoughts into words. It hasn't given you your voice back, it's only allowed you a new one."
Though this seemed to bring down Morla for a moment, it was a short moment and quickly she stood up, stretching her arms. "A voice is a voice," she said confidently. "You don't know what it's like. This is the greatest thing to happen to me." She gave him an odd, somewhat hostile look and Lo'jar had never figured her for the insecure type, but her mood change took him for a short loop. However, he nodded his head. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be her; that was true enough. He couldn't blame her for being excited, so the half-troll smiled and got to his feet, saying, "Shall we?"
He led her through the unfamiliar territory, having been around the glades once before. He had been sent by his mother for special leather batwings that could only be found on the bats that lived among the ruined old shacks of the forsaken.
As they traveled from village to village, asking about farmers and receiving only odd looks, for the undead never raised produce, they talked. "Could you speak before?" Lo'jar asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "Maybe when I was small. I don't remember much before coming to Bloodhoof." She told him of some of her life there, before the dwarves had come. Listening to her describe her brothers and sister, her people and her homeland, he knew she was just a tauren girl in a wrong body.
Outside of Brill, the pair stumbled across a small house. There was a barn attached, rotted away, and a skeletal horse stood silently outside with its thin, scraggly mane blowing in the wind. Behind the house were three fields and a brambly paddock, ignored for probably more than two decades. There didn't appear to be anyone in the house at that time, and so they carefully went around it to the tilled ground behind it. There, Morla saw what she had expected: short, greyish-green bushes, sickly-looking in nature; the leaves were long and distinctively ratty; from each thin branch hung a nest of tiny black leaves, crowded around a blood-colored berry.
"Here they are," she said, peering around. She didn't know who was growing them, and it didn't seem like the grower had been there recently—the herbs were untrimmed and growing out of control. When they came closer the undead horse glanced over at them, swished his tail, and went back to looking off into the distance.
Morla surveyed the area once more as a precaution before she stooped down. She took the fruit and bud off a single bush and held it up, putting the whole thing into a small bag. As she began looking at samples of the grass around the field, she heard a sound and both she and Lo'jar turned around. Two spiders, exactly like the one they had seen in Echo Islands, had come up to the far field and were pleasantly scrounging the herbs. "They don't eat bugs?" the half-troll asked. Morla shook her head.
"They have more of a refined taste than that." The two creatures devoured a whole plant before moving on, nibbling another and then ambling off back into the woods without noticing the visitors. This at least proved Zamah's theory about Achsbor; all Morla had left to do was to figure out if someone was trying to kill the orcs, and if so, how.
Sealing away her bag, Morla pointed off toward the woods. "Now we have to go find some wild ones, and then we can make a comparison."
--
They returned to Orgrimmar the next evening. They stayed a night in the Undercity and when they got into their room, Morla collapsed on the bed. "All right," Lo'jar said, standing in front of her and defiantly crossing his arms. "Take it off." She sat up, giving him a quizzical look. He pointed to the necklace, and gave her a distasteful look. Morla looked down at herself and laughed, holding up her greenish, dead hands, and waved them around. She obeyed and removed the necklace, her form changing smoothly from rotting forsaken to full-bodied human girl.
The half-troll smiled then and walked up beside the bed, leaning down to look at her, his nose only inches from hers. His grin was ferocious and playful, and Morla was pleased when he crouched lower and supported himself by putting both hands down on the bed to either side of her hips. She wouldn't be able to talk now, but because Lo'jar hadn't known any different until today, her silence didn't bother him. He kissed her lightly and pushed her down on the bed, and she giggled silently as he ravaged her neck and collar. He touched her all over, running his hands down her chest, cupping her breasts beneath her thin shirt, and rounding the curve of her hips. After a minute she pulled away from him and sat up, pulling off her shirt; she had to stand up, off the bed, to kick away her pants. She wore nothing underneath since they had been living together, and sometimes Lo'jar thought she was growing too much used to him.
These thoughts disappeared when she remained standing and with one hand she ushered him to stand, as well. She removed his shirt with his cooperation and, fully naked and comparing herself with his only partial nudity, she began to admire the well-defined muscles of his chest and stomach. She kneeled down to undo his pants and there she inspected him as well, earning a great dark blush. "H-hey," he managed, and then leaned down as well to pull her up to him. They stood there for a moment and watched one another, before the half-troll grinned and leaned down to kiss her.
--
Morla was quiet, her consciousness slowly fading away with the effort of loving and the long day she was leaving behind. Lo'jar smiled to himself when he saw she had closed her eyes, and not long after her breath evened.
He always felt a little guilty, like he was spoiling something untouched and innocent. Often times he remembered her face in Grom'gol, eyes blazing and hungry for blood, and wondered if the little girl he was slowly realizing he loved and that woman with burning hands were different people.
Lo'jar stood up and crossed the room, pulling on his pants awkwardly in the process, and went out onto the back porch. Strange, he thought, and looked up when a drop of water touched his face. It was raining.
He felt a coldness in his neck and assumed he was getting a chill, so he went back inside and closed the door firmly behind him. He got in bed, Morla's back to him, and pulled her against him to warm up; the cold didn't go away, but he fell asleep regardless.
--
Morla was huddled in her chair, reading a heavy book when Sharp came in. He looked at her and was confused for some moments, before she glanced up and he recognized who she was beneath the disguise. She smiled. "Do you like it?" she asked.
The assistant was too overcome with surprise to say anything for a moment, and then he replied, "Ah... it works." Then he saw the large silver necklace and the jewel drew his attention; he pointed to it and asked, "What is it?"
"A present."
"Enchanted, obviously." Morla nodded her head and rubbed the necklace, causing a bit of her greenish skin to be normal-hued for the time that she touched it; when she took her hand away, the disguise returned to normal.
Sharp sat down then and tried not to be fascinated with the changes in his boss, or ask her questions just to sample her newfound voice. Instead, he looked at the book she was reading and frowned. It was some written account of the history of the scourge, and she was fascinated by it. After he had been working for nearly an hour, she raised her head and asked him, "To kill off the humans, why not just... join forces?"
Innocently he replied, "With who?"
The girl gave him an irritated look. "Arthas. Why be divided? So much more could be accomplished." Sharp had a nervous look about him.
"It's a lot more complicated than that."
"But don't they want the humans dead, too?" He was quiet and then shrugged his shoulders, crouching defensively over the two vials he was mixing. Morla let out a sigh and put down the book, pushing it to the corner of the desk. "I have some different work for you to do today."
Sharp groaned but she silenced him by raising a finger. "We just have to make mixtures of these two samples." She took a bag up off the floor and set it out, removing two smaller bags from it. She unwrapped them and presented her assistant with the wild Dreadfall and the harvested one; there was a clear difference, with the farmed berry being a much darker color and the leaves around it also darker and smaller. The wild herb looked almost harmless, green and the berry looking ripe and almost delicious, though anyone familiar with the glades would know better than to eat it.
He gave her a curious look and she pointed to the wild herb. "Mix this into a potion like the one we made before; do you remember the ingredients?" The forsaken nodded. "Get your materials and if you have questions, ask them. I'll be mixing this one." She gathered up the foul-smelling item and tucked it back in the bag. Her assistant only nodded, curious about this new assignment, and they went to work.
--
Thrall was patronizing her. "You have him, bring him with you."
The girl gave him an exasperated look. "This is easy! I can do it on my own."
The orc chief shook his head and said, "You work for me. When I tell you to bring your guard with you, then that's what I want you to do."
"But what will he do when I go in?"
"Wait outside."
She was going to act as a page; however, she was not going into a city bringing divisive letters to leaders of the Alliance forces. Thrall was sending her to a small village, where he claimed a secret weapon was being developed. His reasoning seemed faulty to the education she had given herself on the state of the enemy, but there was little she could do but investigate. It seemed like a waste of her time, especially to bring Lo'jar out to the far reaches of the world on a useless mission that she could easily handle herself.
Morla felt more and more that having "protection" was a greater liability to herself than a precaution; she resented Thrall for not trusting her abilities, when she had shown herself to be fully capable in the past. The orc dismissed her and she left the throne room feeling bitter and irritable.
--
Between Duskwood and the forests of Elwynn ran a river; along the darkened bank, hidden in a grove and tucked away from most of civilization, a little village was stewing. It was smaller than a farmstead. Two orchards sustained the seven houses, one mansion, one shack, and one barn.
Morla stood outside, frustrated and unable to do anything about her situation. Lo'jar was nervous, wearing the same cloak she had before, though it didn't fit him as well. He had on immense boots to cover his troll-like feet and had the hood drawn over his face, though it didn't much disguise his protruding tusks. He felt both completely vulnerable, and also the human's annoyance; it radiated from her and infected his own bones, making him standoffish and defensive. The attitude between them seemed to have suddenly changed from a fair companionship and a beginning emotion of something more to a distinct frigidity. There was something about this mission that Lo'jar didn't quite understand, and whatever it was, it made Morla surprisingly distant. When the half-troll attempted to ask her just what Thrall had said or told her to do that bothered her, she shrugged him off and gave simple instructions.
He suddenly felt more like a bodyguard and not at all like a lover, or even a friend. It made him wonder what exactly there was between them—at least on her part.
Lo'jar was in love with her. He could admit it to himself, though he hadn't the guts even in his feet to tell her about it. He knew it was obvious enough how he felt. The little human girl had taken him over. She went one night to visit Clef, and he went to bed early because he was bored without her. He had dreamt about her and when he awoke, she was in the other bed. There was a little inner fury at the event but he quickly got over it; but alone, his sleep was oddly disturbed and it didn't get better until Morla rose, hearing him, and came over to sit with him.
However, besides the way she usually was, she never gave any indication about what it was she wanted. Now, she even seemed irritable about him. But realizing he was not properly attending to his guard duty, the half-troll turned back to the road—more of a thin path, really—and watched for anyone that might be approaching, also eyeing the village should trouble arise.
Morla stood impatiently at the door of the smallish mansion at the top of the road. There was a well beside it that two children were attending to; they looked at her curiously, but when she looked back, they scrunched up their noses and took off.
Eventually a servant woman answered the door and looked over her. "You must be the courier," she said, noticing Morla's outstanding outfit with white collared shirt and the flamboyant pants that the girl particularly hated. Morla nodded and the woman went off.
Sometime later she was let in. As she had been instructed she kept an eye out for anything unusual, but besides an enormous wall of history books and farming tutorials, there seemed nothing odd about the drawing room where she was seated on a small, comfortable sofa. Across from her was a door, which opened after a time. A very tall man came in and when she looked at him, she felt a small tingle of familiarity deep in her chest. However, when she stood up and examined him further, the feeling faded and she forgot about it.
The master seemed to catch on quickly that she was a mute and so he set to business. She took out the letter that she had to give him, which she had been asked to write herself as Thrall's Common specialist was away; he took it and sat, not immediately looking at her, and read a little before nodding his head.
"Then I assume he wants me to send my response back with you?" Slowly Morla gave an affirmative. She hadn't expected the ruse to work. The letter was from a "Dakkis" in Stormwind, a mage of "considerable" fame. He was asking that this man, someone she couldn't hardly remember the name of—though she thought it began with a "K" or maybe an "R"—please send him some ingredients for... something. Morla was too poorly informed to be pleased with the situation. The note went something like, "My messenger will have the funds to compensate you."
If this man gave her the correct materials, he was an alert; if he was tricky, he was on even more of an alert; if he provided nothing, refused, or simply had no idea, then Thrall would forget all about it.
Morla nodded her head then and he made a short list on a piece of paper, and handed the list to his servant woman. She went off into the house and after some minutes of tense silence, where Morla tried her best not to look at the rather stale-looking, older man, she returned and produced a small bag. He gave the bag to her and said, "This is free only on the condition that he send me his apprentice." She seemed confused then and the thin man gave her a sly, owlish smile, one that drew up his thin lips over his yellowing teeth and gave him a distinctly threatening appearance. She was at once put off and so hastily took the bag, bowing and nodding all with the greatest speed. The servant led her to the door and once outside, Morla left the town at a fast trot.
--
Though she had not noticed it while arriving, after she had left, Morla realized that she had definitely seen the little town before, and the wicked smile that hovered in her memory was one she knew had been there, in that same place, before; it terrified her and she couldn't quite understand why.
Thus she decided to take the materials first, flatly undermining Thrall, to the one person she thought she could trust. Lo'jar was clueless about the whole matter and for this she was grateful: she had a growing resentment of his babysitter-like quality, not one inherent in him, but one given to him by the atmosphere that kept them. He was slowly becoming a symbol of her prison, one that she sought to escape.
However, Morla still felt an irrefutable connection with the half-troll and had begun to depend on him for a measure of pleasure in her life. He was a lover and a friend, a constant, where Clef had abandoned her. This is what she felt about it, though she knew consciously this was not the case; she saw him often, but he seemed to push her away and this made her heart clench in her chest. She blamed Lo'jar for her distance from her best friend, her only family, and slowly she began to morph her anger at Thrall in her mind into one that was very misdirected.
Thus Lo'jar followed the warlock quietly into the depths of the Undercity, where she sought someone in particular. She took on her disguise here and followed the jewel like she had done all that time before, more than a year ago, she surmised. It took them, in what both surprised and didn't surprise her, to the same shack on the outskirts, though now it was far more dilapidated. She went in and stood, waiting for Matheas to look up from the work that seemed the same as the work he was doing the first time.
"I imagined you coming," he said, and gestured to a chair that hadn't been there before. She drew it up to the desk and the half-troll waited at the door, looking nervous. "I love what it's done for you."
"Thank you," Morla managed. This caught Lo'jar's attention, but he didn't let on. Instead he trained his ears on the conversation and kept his eyes out the door.
"What can I do for you?"
The girl took out the bag and put it on the desk, emptying out the contents. They were all too strange for her even to describe them, just random bits and pieces of things that had no real meaning in her undereducated mind. "I got these from a man. Here is the enchantment or whatever that they are supposed to be used for." She held out the paper she had been given with the information, and Matheas took it, contemplatively stroking the leather strap wrapped around his neck so tight that the flesh had long swelled.
There was silence as he looked over it, and then the pieces in front of him. After a while he spoke. "I don't know what to tell you, my girl. These are the things, except for this." He took a glove from his desk and used it to lift up an odd, diamond shaped piece that had a bit of a dark yellowish glow. "I can't put my finger on it, but there's something wrong with this one. It's not quite what it should be, and I imagine if it were used, equally strange results might occur." He then breathed on it and rubbed it with a cloth, which he stood up with and put into a jar. He disappeared into a small closet and came out with some liquid; he joined the clear substance and the cloth, which began to fizzle, just before black escaped and a small bud of smoke appeared.
Suddenly, Morla recognized it. "I know that!" she said suddenly, pointing to the shape just before it disappeared with a breath. Matheas gave her an odd look. She quickly looked at her wrist and shook it, so that the bracer she still kept there came loose and she removed it. Holding up her arm to Matheas, she grinned triumphantly; the warlock didn't reciprocate. Instead, he grew quite serious, and then gazed up at her.
"Do you remember anything about the life you had before this one?" She furrowed her brow. "Where did you live?"
"Well, I don't really remember..."
"Are you sure?"
The undead warlock knew she wanted to lie, but there was a sudden mystery springing to life and he would see it; to look and wonder if there was merit to it, perhaps there was a political kind of debauchery this girl might have wandered into at some point or another in her short life. She gazed at him and replied, "It was familiar. This village, and this man."
Matheas nodded. "Anything else?"
"That's all." She looked away and he knew she wasn't ready to speak more, or she simply didn't remember anything else. Though it wasn't much to work from, he imagined more might come in the future. Maturity could bring memory, and when it did, he wanted to be there.
"You can always come to me. I think this little errand of Thrall's might have something to do with you, whether or not he knows it. If you remember anything, come and talk to me. Until then, take these things back to your master and do as you're told." Morla nodded her head.
"Thank you," she said.
Matheas gave her his softest grin and replied, "You're always welcome."
--
Morla sat patiently, waiting, and watching, as some orc went through the ingredients and hummed thoughtfully, never once revealing what thoughts ran through his little devious mind. She had quickly grown irritable and suspicious about orcs, or much of the Horde, for that matter. Slowly she grew stale here and with each passing day, so did the things around her.
The orc wrote some things down and then waved his hand at her. She was being dismissed, without knowing anything about what she had done. Normally she would have asked a few innocent questions, but today, she wanted to sleep. Just to go home and lie down, and sleep forever and ever.
In the room Lo'jar wanted to be with her, but she shrugged him off and climbed into bed, even though the sun had barely started to disappear over the mountains. He stood in the middle of the room and thought very hard, for he was extremely intelligent, and then sat down once more at the table. He played a few games of cards with himself, inventing rules and then breaking them when they limited his ability to play, effectively avoiding his tendency to think, and think on the matter that he ought to be thinking on.
After a few hours of this—in which he ate some fruit—he sat down on the bed beside where Morla slept, her face looking disturbed. Watching her, he knew there was something else she would have to do, before everything could be all right. It made him tremble a little with emotion, but he lay down and went to sleep. In dreams, the girl reached out and he caught her, and they went on through the night hand-in-hand.
--
Thrall hadn't called on her in nearly a month, and Morla felt more idle and useless than any other time during her long stay in Orgrimmar. She thought about running away, but what would she do? She couldn't imagine living among humans, and she couldn't imagine keeping her disguise for the rest of her mortal life. When her situation seemed so hopeless, Gothor came to her and told her, "You're leaving."
The girl raised her eyes and so did her assistant, but he quickly averted and went back to his work like he wasn't overhearing anything. "What do you mean, leaving?" There were two emotions that hovered on the edges of her consciousness as the old, ugly shaman spoke. Giddiness, of course; she might be let free. She might be given a place to go. Somewhere new. Somewhere interesting. But, dread, too, that they were abandoning her. That she had done something wrong—that they would kill her, maybe. Did someone find out about her? Someone with more power than even Thrall?
"You are dismissed, for a time. The chief wants you to rest and prepare for a journey." She watched the shaman carefully. "You will be reacquainting yourself with human society. We want you to become integrated; to build yourself a position there; to gain reputation and eliminate any suspicion about you. Once you are inside, we will begin operations again."
Morla felt a sting, deep in her chest, and it burned its way up into her throat. She imagined she was a bit ill because her stomach turned. After some moments, though, she thought that instead it was probably fear, trepidation, and...
A little tremble of excitement.
This last part stunned her, before she took it and held it closer. Then she glanced at Gothor and gave him just a very small, insincere smile, and nodded her head.
"You may choose to go wherever, but we would like to see you in Stormwind before the end of the year."
Morla gave an affirmative, again.
"We will be communicating with you frequently, so you will have to find a medium for this."
She nodded.
"The rest is up to you. Thrall will not brief you."
He was ready to be rid of her. Morla knew this, at least.
After a few moments of silence the big, ugly orc got up and left. Sharp came over and sat with her, watching her face for a moment, and then when they locked eyes he gave her a very rare smile. It was lopsided from disuse and seemed a little awkward, but Morla felt the little bit of friendliness that was behind it.
"I will also be contacting you," Sharp told her then, "exchanging recipes and, should you need it, sending supplies. I assume you will use your abilities in alchemy to advance." Morla only watched him and she noticed her arm was going numb, so she moved it, but still the feeling persisted. "Though we don't want you to expose yourself, you also should keep up on your abilities. Make sure they stay hidden until needed."
Then they stood up and shook hands, and Morla left the little building easily. Even before going home she went to the blacksmithing shop, which was still open, and went in. Clef was working in the back corner, never instructing or talking with customers because he was unable. He claimed that he had grown better, but Morla couldn't tell—he had always been all right with her, unless he came upon one of his moods. However, it seemed he had somewhat grown out of his issues and was learning to manage on his own.
To be honest, this made her heart a little heavy; she had always liked the way that he needed her, and she needed him. But with his maturity controlling his disability and Lo'jar acting as her guardian, they seemed to have lost touch with one another.
She went up to the desk and when the big tauren saw her, his face changed completely. His nostrils flared and his eyes went a pillowy-soft; he got up and remained silent. She had shown him her fun trinket before, and now it amused him. It was strange to hear her talk, and so sometimes she would even sign to him. This she did, just to remember the old times. She was a girl of almost nineteen now, though in her skin she felt older, and Clef had grown to be less lanky and had the muscles given to one in his profession. However, he was still bony and thin-like for a male of his breed and in his age he seemed awkward; but to Morla, he was the same as ever.
She told him everything she knew to tell him, never once speaking. The head of the shop ignored them because he couldn't understand the signs she went through rapidly. Only Clef could understand her at this kind of speed. She imagined it was far faster than any normal being could speak.
When she had finished she breathed deeply. Clef stood up and went to his boss, telling him something quietly, and then came back to take Morla by the hand. They went out and walked around the great city, admiring buildings in silence and pointing out people walking who looked odd, or strange things they had noticed since being apart.
After a while they paused outside of the great Orgrimmar gates and Morla turned to him. "I am afraid of leaving," she said.
"B-b-because he c-can't go?"
Morla shook her head and reached up, taking his ears in her hands like she used to and rubbed them for a moment, and trailed her fingers down his great neck. She took a lock of his hair and braided it, and left it hanging over his shoulder. "Because you are the most important person to me. Even more than he. I love you, and I won't be able to see you."
They were quiet and watched as travelers came in through the gates, riding mounts or walking patiently. Slowly Clef put a great arm around her shoulders and drew her against him, and hugged.
"You will do good," he said in a low voice that crackled a little. "You will." Morla could only nod her head, and they turned around and went back the way they had come.
--
Morla told Lo'jar what she had to do, and they argued for a time about it, before he finally raised a hand in the air and said, "I will go with you, to leave you where you wish to go."
For this they went to the Undercity and then flew to Tarren Mill. "I don't know why you would choose this place," he said bitterly, as they stood on the edge of the little outpost and watched two forsaken guards walk by, talking and loosely wielding their weapons. "That village is the most dangerous."
"Every place is dangerous these days," Morla replied blandly. She turned to him. "I'm leaving you here."
The look on his poor face damaged her, but still she was too bothered and too much desiring to be alone. The desire wasn't founded on him, the half-troll with his insecure handsomeness and soft, leisurely voice, but within herself. She was ordered to do this and she would; her continued success at the game of life rested in the hands of the Horde, and so she would please them. At that moment when she looked at him, remembering his healing hands on her on the beach, and when he had helped her test her powers, hooded and standing up above the boiling lake, she tasted something bitter in her mouth. The hair that was usually wild now looked tame, soft and longish around his ears; his tusks seemed less prominent and the makeup on his eyes was coming off, and the glow in them was growing with each passing moment. When he reached out to her his fingers were thinner and longer, and Morla saw that he wasn't just half-troll, but half-elf, too.
She sighed when he touched her and so he drew away. Lo'jar felt a little confusion at her apathy, but it wasn't unexpected; however, the feeling inside him was more foreign. "I don't want you to do this," he told her. "At least not without me. I want to go with you."
Morla's eyebrows narrowed. "You can't."
"I will! What will you do? Maybe you can talk, but barely! You can't carry out these orders."
She was quiet, not arguing. Lo'jar opened his mouth to go on and then she cried, quite suddenly, "No! I don't need you!"
His eyes grew wide. "I don't need you anymore! I can do all these things for myself! Just... just step back." She pointed at the ground. The poor, confused half-troll looked at her and then the ground, and when she shook her hand, he reflexively did as he was told and took a step back. Morla took off the necklace and her disguise fell away, but no one was looking; Lo'jar looked ready to panic, but she signed to him, "Now go off!"
Morla turned and walked away. Lo'jar followed her with his eyes and his stomach churned angrily, but he couldn't bring himself to follow. She disappeared over the top of the road and into a grove of trees before the guards turned around and came back, where they stopped and watched him as he sat down on the ground, covered his face in his hands and cried like he had as a boy when someone stomped on his foot.
He had wanted to hear her speak; but never those words.