Here I am, starting yet another new story when I still have like 10 to finish. I ought to be working on Illidari, but in the interim have a semi-cute story about an elf and an orc.
-Statyck
/*\
Thrakka had no idea what Dar'thul saw in that tiny little elf girl.
No that was a lie. She knew exactly what he saw in her, and it was unfair to take her anger out on the woman. Thrakka understood that the pair related well because they both used magic. Dark magic, to be precise. Her brother could wield a sword as well as any other man in their clan, but the arcane fascinated him to no end. That was okay, even if it sometimes frightened her. In the days of the Iron Horde, magic was vital. Especially for the Shadowmoon, even if that magic was dark and corrupt in nature. It was only natural that there would be those who clung to it, who wanted to keep it not only as a part of their history but as a part of their arsenal against their enemies. First Yrel and her followers on Draenor, and then their new enemies on Azeroth. It made sense to keep the power of the void close. But then there was that damned elf. No Thrakka, she thought, don't say that. It's not fair.
Now, Thrakka didn't dislike the elf. That wasn't it at all. In fact, she considered Veralia to be a good friend. She was a ferocious magic-wielder in her own right. Thrakka had gone on missions with Veralia. Though she had been immensely skeptical of the tiny woman at first, she had come to see Veralia's might first-hand. She was clever, knowledgeable. She was relentlessly kind. She was essentially a walking encyclopedia and she'd know the answer to almost any question anyone could ask her. Her power was such that she could force multitudes of demonic thralls to obey her every command and rain hellfire down on their enemies. Veralia's power was damn near unmatched.
But that was the thing. She did well in serious battle. Veralia had killed plenty of Alliance lackeys, demons, murlocs even. She had never hesitated to draw the line in the sand when someone made a dishonorable request of her. She had ended one of their own commanders after finding evidence of treason. She had defended her party and her people successfully on multiple occasions. She had saved Thrakka's life more times than the orc was willing to admit, but that was where Veralia's ferocity ended. In friendly territory she was so anti-social. She didn't react well to confrontation, and she had lost more than one friendly battle because she didn't want to hurt any of her allies. She was too soft, through no real fault of her own. While it wasn't that Thrakka thought Veralia to be unworthy, the fact of the matter was that the elf was an elf. She was not an orc.
Yet Dar'thul didn't seem to care. Though he was easily twice her size and could break her with his bare hands, he selfishly paid no mind to the danger. Though she was his sister, Thrakka knew he wasn't an undesirable orc. He was a minor champion among the Mag'har. He didn't turn to magic because of any kind of physical deformity. He wasn't stunted, nor was his musculature atrophied in any way. He kept himself well-groomed and his tusks were sharp, symmetrical, and ever white. He was fast, agile, smart, and he was good with magic. He ticked off all the boxes for any woman, especially the orcish women. When Thrakka found him in cities he was almost always surrounded by pretty girls – orcish and otherwise – wanting a piece of him. As plenty of fit and capable orcish – even troll or tauren – women vied for his attention he only had eyes for a creature so physically weak that she could only be a liability. As much as Thrakka wanted to support her brother in his romance, as much as she wanted to support her friend's happiness, there was no way it would ever work. Veralia was powerful in the arcane. She was a devious swordswoman. She could devise traps and plans and dispel the immense charms that sometimes stood in their way. She had so many admirable qualities, but she simply was not brutishly strong in the way that would eventually come to matter if the relationship continued.
As Thrakka watched the two sit together at a table in the tavern, this was all she could think about. She respected Veralia greatly, and she loved her brother, but she couldn't go along with this. When she thought about the two of them together, she couldn't imagine a mating ceremony or an elven wedding. Not anymore. The only future she foresaw for them ended in one form of tragedy or another. She saw the forced gentleness that Dar'thul had to use when he touched her. She knew that Veralia lied about the bruises on her arms and even sometimes her waist. Thrakka had no idea what she was supposed to do about it. As she pushed her dark braid aside, swerving away from a drunken goblin and watching the pair from her perch on the second floor, she felt an immense wave of shame and guilt crash into her.
It was her fault that they had ever even met.
/*\
Dar'thul knew his sister was there. He knew that she was trying to figure out how to separate him from Veralia, because for whatever reason she had decided that she didn't approve of the relationship anymore. Every time he was with the elf, he could feel his sister watching. Waiting for the perfect time to strike. He genuinely wasn't sure if Veralia could tell. More than once she had proven to be immensely observant. He knew that playing at obliviousness was a tactic of hers, but if she truly hadn't noticed Thrakka's predatory spying he didn't want to worry her with it.
He had grown accustomed to putting on a fake smile for her in recent days. He truly enjoyed sitting in the overloud tavern with her, listening to her chatter away about whatever new book she'd read or whatever new piece of research she had progressed with. In a world that suffered as much as Azeroth, her abject happiness was a welcome reprieve. He didn't even mind the demon that accompanied her all the time, a little imp that would fetch her food or water or whatever else she required without even being commanded. It was what initially drew him to her. She was just so damn excited about almost everything. Her positivity was enough to help drive the voices in his mind elsewhere. Someplace where they couldn't harm anyone.
Tonight though, tonight was unusual. She had been rather quiet. While he kept his ears on Thrakka prowling around on the upper level of the tavern, his eyes watched Veralia. She sipped at her wine slowly, carefully. As though she was being careful not to drink too much. Then she did something he'd never seen her do before. Not in public at least. She pulled at the end of her taught red braid and she unwove it, allowing her lengthy hair to fall in waves around her shoulders. She sighed and planted her face on the table, her pointed ears sticking comically upward. Dar'thul felt his brows knit.
"Are you alright?" he asked, as softly as possible. The elf looked up at him, a disgruntled look on her face. When she spoke, she practically growled. He had once remarked that the sound wasn't that dissimilar from a young wolf pup playing with her siblings. A comment she had nearly set him on fire for.
"Your sister is driving me mad." She hissed. Immediately Thrakka's footsteps stopped, and Dar'thul had to hide the smile that threatened to spread across his face. Well, that was one less thing for him to worry about. He should have never questioned his lover's observational skills. Silently he fished a quill and some paper out of his satchel, scribbling a small note before passing it over.
Do you want to get out of here?
Veralia nodded, a desperate glimmer in her emerald eyes. Dar'thul waved at the barkeep, writing something else down. The troll took one look at the note, chuckled, and nodded his head. Dar'thul dropped several gold coins in his hand, and the Darkspear approached one of the Zandalari men who had begun to frequent the place. Veralia stared at him inquisitively as the Zandalari raised an eyebrow at the barkeep. Dar'thul listened as the troll asked if it was a prank. The barkeep assured him it was not. He consulted with his friends, shrugged, and headed up the stairs.
Wait for it. He wrote.
"DO YOU WANT TO DIE, TROLL?" A familiar voice screamed. As the fight broke out and Thrakka defended her honor, Dar'thul took the opportunity to grab Veralia's hand and they calmly walked out of the tavern.
/*\
Veralia had been distracted all night. She knew she hadn't exactly been subtle about it. She liked Dar'thul so much. Though elves didn't typically find orcs attractive and vice versa, Dar'thul had many appealing qualities. His face was nice to look at, with his high cheekbones and sharp jaw. His brown hair was long and well groomed, though he rarely tied it up. When she looked at him in the tavern that night her attention had been immediately caught by the silver ring in his septum. The silver ring she had gotten for him.
When he escorted her home after Thrakka's unwelcome intrusion she kept finding moments to tell him about what had been bothering her, and then telling herself it wasn't a good time. She'd think to herself that he looked happy and she didn't want to worry him. Or that those people sharing the road were too close and would overhear. Then it was that it was too late in the night and she'd be better off waiting until tomorrow.
She was terrible at hiding things like this, and though she felt a little bad about using Thrakka as her scapegoat she really had been driving Veralia insane. She wasn't sure what Thrakka's problem was. She had tried to talk to the orc about it several times, with no results. Thrakka was getting more and more involved in her and Dar'thul's relationship and Veralia wasn't impressed with the scrutiny.
She ascended to the second floor of her house, one of the few that hadn't yet been abandoned out in the countryside. It had never occurred to her until that very morning just how alone and exposed she was. She was a woman living by herself in the middle of nowhere, her closest neighbor being just a little more than five kilometers away. It had never occurred to her that someone could come to her house without anyone noticing, without anyone hearing. She had been so very lucky that she hadn't been home when the intruder came.
She had been sure to offer Kro'gash a nice deer bone before he departed with his master. As Dar'thul rode his wolf down the road, she stared after him. She waved through her window, waiting. She made sure he had disappeared into the trees before she refocused her attention. Her bedroom didn't look much different from before, but it was her space. She knew where she'd left certain things, and she knew that they weren't where they were supposed to be.
For example, the dress on her bed had been hung up in the back of her closet. It was a nice dress made of black embersilk, with hand-done gold beading. It was a garment she never wore because it reminded her of something painful. A book, too. A silly little romance novel that had been given to her by someone she wished she could forget. A necklace had been meticulously fished out of her jewelry box, no longer buried between other jewels and metals and instead sitting right in the middle of her pillow.
The most incriminating thing was the letter. The letter that she had yet to touch. She knew who it was from, and that information alone terrified her to no end. She hadn't seen Redoran in so long. The void-tainted parchment on her bed was a testament to how much things had changed in the last three years. Her wards spoke of no resistance, they were all perfectly intact. None of her things were missing or misplaced, only the dress, the book, and the necklace. Those things had caught her attention. She'd have never had any confirmation about who the intruder was if not for that letter, the handwriting scrawled in an all too familiar mess.
If he hadn't wanted her to know he could get in, she never would have. If his aim was to absolutely terrify her then he was succeeding. At the very least he was making it abundantly clear that he could get into her home without her noticing, and it only made her more reluctant to open that letter. She'd found it that morning, when she returned from the inn in Silvermoon horrifically hungover. She had been so lucky that the bartender deemed her too intoxicated to make her way back so late at night.
Her hand shaking, Veralia picked up the letter. The void stains stung her fingers. She swallowed hard and pried the letter from its envelope.
It took mere moments for a small army of demons to surround the tiny house.
/*\
After Thrakka had effectively punted the troll back down to the first level, she realized something. The couple was gone. She swore to herself and ran out the door, hoping she'd be able to track one of their scents before they could get too far away. Nothing. Dar'thul had vanished, and Veralia with him. She snarled some curses to herself and turned back to the tavern.
Surely the elf knew what danger she was in. Surely, she wouldn't allow anything to go too far, not tonight at least. Thrakka could feel her face contort as she asked the bartender for a drink. The anxiety was going to kill her. She knew that if Dar'thul hurt her, he'd never forgive himself. Hell, Thrakka would live with the guilt for the rest of her natural life. As she let the stinging alcohol sink down her gullet she wallowed in her misery.
She had searched through the visions. She had so many dreams about her brother and her friend. She hoped so much that she could divine something good, something positive, but what she got could only be construed as warnings from her ancestors. No matter how many times she searched for an alternate timeline, no matter how much she searched for corrupted magic influencing her sight, the dream always ended the same.
There were orcs who had the self-restraint to take elves to bed, some fathering and giving birth to half-elf children. Initially that was the future Thrakka had anticipated for the pair. They had grown so close so quickly. She had been ready to welcome biracial nieces and nephews the moment they were announced, there were times when she thought it would be any day it happened. And then the visions came, and they made one truth abundantly clear. Dar'thul simply wasn't capable. He didn't have the restraint necessary.
The dream always started out pleasantly enough. Thrakka would simply watch the pair walk in the woods together, or they'd be in Durotar. The setting shifted often, and they seemed happy. The world itself looked beyond perfect, with a full moon and seas of stars lighting the dark sky. Then the dream would shift. Always they were in Veralia's bed. Always Dar'thul would lose control. One night he'd crush her beneath his weight. Another, he'd sink his teeth into her throat. In others he broke her spine with only one hand. With each passing dream the visions got more and more violent, and not once did Veralia ever fight back.
It got so bad that Thrakka would go days at a time without sleeping. She couldn't watch her friend die at her brother's hands like that anymore. A death as painful as it was undignified. As she let a third pint of ale work its way through her system, a hand clapped on her shoulder. She hoped that no fingers would stain her new shirt.
"So, you've been rather clingy lately sister." Dar'thul remarked. "Can I ask what's going on?"
Dar'thul sounded so much like their father sometimes. All it took was the darkened tone in his voice to make her want to roll her eyes. Thrakka sighed, letting her face fall into her hands. This was a horrible situation, she was drunk, and the world was beginning to spin a little. As much as the other races liked to joke that orcs could drink their weight in booze, she was something of a lightweight.
Thrakka didn't know if it would be the right thing to tell him. She didn't know if he'd take her seriously. She didn't want him to accuse her of trying to sabotage him, which given how reactionary he could be was an all too real possibility. All his question recalled was the time their father told him he couldn't have a dire wolf pup. He'd stolen one from the breeder at the market and took it home anyhow. That was the first of such incidents, when he didn't take kindly to a hard truth. She knew that Dar'thul had grown since then, but that impulsiveness, that sheer sense of privilege. He wasn't used to being told no, and if Thrakka told him he couldn't have Veralia….
He might even go to Veralia tonight just to spite Thrakka. She wanted to think he wouldn't do that, but it was still a risk she wasn't willing to take. The world started spinning even more.
"I've just been having some awful visions." She said. Technically not a lie. "I can't sleep."
Dar'thul's laughter was as relieving as it was infuriating. It was good that he believed her. It pissed her off that he found her insomnia amusing.
"So, coming to your big brother because of some nightmares?" He lilted, but then he grew serious, "Thrakka, what are these dreams about?"
"I think they're warnings." She answered vaguely. "They get more and more violent each night. I'm…unsettled. To put it lightly." She admitted through gritted teeth.
"Maybe it will help if you give me some details?" Dar'thul pried. Thrakka said nothing. Her brother sighed. "Well I can't just let you stay here getting wasted out of your mind. Maybe I should get you back home."
Without even asking, Dar'thul hauled her up out of her seat and began the journey back to her little house on Razor Hill. Despite her protests that she didn't want to go back, Dar'thul trod on anyway.
The nightmares were somehow worse when she was in the house.
/*\
Dar'thul couldn't seem to get to sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about the immensely strange turn the night had taken.
He had never seen Veralia behave that way. They had only been together a few months, but this was a new and somewhat alarming facet of her personality. The walk back to her home had been distressing, to say the least.
She had never acted with such obliviousness before. Once they got through the portal back into Silvermoon it was as though her mind had gone completely elsewhere. She hadn't noticed but he'd had to steer her around odd holes in the road. He'd had to stop her from veering off the path a few times, her fluffy hawkstrider getting more and more flustered. Finally, he'd simply had her ride with him on Kro'gash, under the excuse that he just wanted to be closer to her. Her smile hadn't reached her eyes. Somehow, she hadn't picked up on the fact that he was helping her, deciding their direction. She was not one to relinquish control that way, not that easily. Something was deeply wrong. She wasn't telling him what it was, but there was no way it was just Thrakka. He wasn't sure if she was always like that when she got too stressed, but it seemed strange that his sister would evoke this kind of reaction from her.
Veralia loved his sister. He knew how the two of them had met. Neither one of them recalled Northrend fondly, but they had done well keeping an eye on the scourge while the war in Zandalar and Kul'tiras raged. They had done many outpost missions like that together, maintaining the order and the peace. They had grown close enough that Thrakka had introduced her to him, a fact he would ever be grateful for. But Thrakka had been behaving strangely as well. She had never declined to tell him the details of her visions. Ever. Especially when they were bad.
Could it have something to do with me? He wondered. No, no, no, that's not possible. I'd never do anything to hurt her.
No, it had to be something else. Was she seeing him die? Perhaps she was watching a close friend die? He'd heard that the clerics of Uldum and Pandaria had been having nightmares. Nightmares of their societies falling and the world burning to ash. Perhaps that's what was wrong with Thrakka. The Old Ones were trying to invade her mind. She was too new to Azeroth and the Horde to trick with the world doom vision, so it was going after the people she loved. It would make sense for N'zoth to do this to their shamans. Their druids and clerics too. N'zoth would have a vested interest in keeping them on edge, to demoralize the Horde and its forces. That was it. That had to be it.
He got up out of bed, the full moon shining through his little window. He closed the bedroom door and pushed his way into another area of the house. Thrakka made no secret of her uneasiness with his workspace. It seemed like a normal enough room, if a bit empty. There was virtually no furniture in the summoning room. There was an elaborate pattern of purple runes on the ground. There were multiple weapons adorning the wall next to the door. Otherwise there was a simple small desk sitting under a mounted axe. Each drawer was locked, and as Dar'thul extracted the necessary supplies all he could think about was Thrakka's horrified face the first time he'd shown her this room.
Naturally, the void scared her. There were plenty of Shadowmoon orcs who wanted nothing to do with the magic of the Dark Star, but there were others who acknowledged its importance and usefulness. He was of the latter opinion, even if it was somewhat unpopular.
He took his sword down off the wall, preparing for something nasty to come out of the portal he going to summon. The runes on the ground glowed. He wasn't strong enough to force the portal to do what he wanted, not immediately anyhow.
For hours void horrors swarmed the room, none managing to get past the locked and warded door into the rest of his house and Azeroth. Bodies accumulated. Some remained whole. Others dissolved into vile puddles made of darkness. All bore the result he wanted.
Once he had one hundred horrors dead on his floor, he closed the portal. He tossed his sword aside and gave himself a moment to catch his breath. That had been a lot of work. Too much work. But his sister was worth it.
He downed a mana potion and pulled the energy out of each nearly incorporeal body. His mind felt hazy. He wasn't sure what incantation he used. He couldn't remember which mana crystal he selected. All he knew was that he'd done it. Just as dawn broke over the horizon, a void crystal sat in his hands. If his theory was correct, this just might help him make Thrakka's nightmares go away.
If she had peace of mind, then she'd stop stalking him so closely. If she stopped stalking him, then maybe Veralia would feel more at ease during their time together. Maybe she would tell him the truth about what was going on.
/*\
Veralia did not sleep.
She spent the night lighting every lamp she owned, taking every candle she owned out of the crate on the lower level. She did not let a single shadow permeate her home, and even with ten wrathguards surrounding her house and multiple imps keeping watch indoors, she still felt uneasy. Every shadow seemed to move. Every few moments she thought she saw a tall figure move in the corner of her eye, disappearing into whatever shadow she hadn't vanquished. She'd taken her misplaced belongings and threw them into the bottom of her armoire, uncaring if they were damaged. She crawled into the bed, letting her back hit the wall.
The imps assured her that they would not let anything get past, but she knew better. They knew how much stronger she was than them, how much more powerful. They knew that whatever had her terrified, it would surely end them. Redoran had never been especially aggressive with her, but she'd watched him go down this path. She'd watched as he decided that the void was a reasonable power to wield, to infuse himself with. Despite her protests he argued that it was no different than her fascination with the fel. It absolutely was different, but he wouldn't hear her.
Finally, he'd vanished off the face of the earth. Much to the dismay of her mother, they hadn't heard from him again after that day three years ago and now her worst fear had been confirmed. He wasn't dead. He had simply joined the Ren'dorei. He was a traitor to his people, and if he had remembered her and gone this far to contact her, she could only imagine what he intended to do.
It was this panicked dialogue in her mind that eventually lulled her to sleep. She had tired herself out, both mentally and physically. As she curled up in her bed, the fog in her mind taking over, she could have sworn that she spied a pair of eyes looking at her. She squeezed her own eyes shut and told herself it was just one of the imps. It was just an imp checking in on her, as she had instructed it to do. Besides, even though she knew it was a lie she was too tired to care.
No imp she'd ever summoned had violet eyes.
Regardless, the morning after was a relief. The imps were still there, as were all the wrathguards. Each demon reported that they'd seen nothing, the night had been quiet and there had been no disturbances as far as they could tell. For a moment, Veralia wondered if she had overreacted. Clearly Redoran was trying to scare her, and he had most certainly succeeded. Just the thought of that letter in her room made the bile rise in her throat. Shame and resignation welled up in her chest. He'd probably gotten a kick out of that prank. He was likely in Stormwind laughing his ass off at the woman he claimed to have once loved. She descended the ramp to the lower level of her house, berating herself all the way. How could she have been so stupid?
It took her a moment. As she tried to wake herself up and convince herself to shower, she plucked a mug from the cupboard. She filled the kettle with clean water and set it atop her little stove. Everything was fine. Redoran just wanted the last word, like the petty brat he was. That was it. That had to be it. As she poured the tea over the leaves and watched the steam waft up in the air, she did everything she could to calm herself down. It wouldn't help her to be stuck in a perpetual state of panic. Besides, the last time she saw him she'd defeated him. It might have been three years ago, but it wasn't as though she'd allowed herself to go soft. She had kept herself well-practiced. She had maintained her research, and she continued to exercise the power she held over the demons in the rifts she'd managed to access.
Everything was fine. Even with the power of the void there was no way that Redoran would ever be able to pull off his threat. He would still need help from at least two other people to catch her, especially now that he'd made her aware of his presence. Though Alleria Windrunner had chosen to tamper with the void and chosen the Alliance over her own people, she would not be so foolish as to let a rogue void elf pull off something like this. It was simply too risky, and she knew that Quel'thalas had enough animosity for her and her students as it was. To do what Redoran proposed would force the Alliance's had. If the High King found out they were kidnapping sin'dorei civilians, there would be hell for them to pay. Though the void was infamous for driving its users mad, Alleria wasn't that far gone yet. She sighed and took a sip of her tea. She turned, and she realized that she'd overlooked something extremely important.
She had a single little dining table. It only had two chairs, as generally it was only her and maybe one rare guest in her house. The table was usually quite neatly cleared off when it wasn't time to eat. This time of day, when she'd only just woken up, there would be no reason for anything to be on this table. Yet, there it was.
A single envelope rested on the table. The parchment glowed a familiar shade of blue, and it took every ounce of Veralia's self-control not to drop her teacup and scream. The demons would not have done this. She had forced them to remain at their posts all night long. The letter from her bedroom was still in the drawer, she had just looked at it.
Unlike the previous letter, this one had a fancy wax seal. Redoran's family crest. She didn't touch it. She refused to touch it. Instead she turned away from it.
She had been considering moving to the city. There were plenty of little townhouses in Silvermoon. As much as she didn't like the clutter of the city, she could not let Redoran torment her like this. She thought back to that odd little sighting last night. The violet eyes in the shadows. Her terror gave way to rage. The mug cracked in her grip, steaming tea leaking through to the floor. If he wanted to stalk and scare her, he would have to try harder. Much harder.
/*\
Well that was fun.
-Statyck