The events of this story are inspired by a few quests in Borean Tundra, but a couple things have been changed in a some ways to fit this story and make the environment of Azeroth bigger and more realistic. For example, the cave system beneath the Riplash Strand does not exist in the game, and the gladiators don't seem to be taken prisoner for long periods of time, just immediately pinned against one another. Gamel the Cruel is a real NPC, though, as is Karuk, and there are many prisoners of the skadir in-game too.
Yes this is a pairing between a human a naga. I'm sorry if that offends you. If it does, please direct your attention to the back arrow located next to the URL, or to the X button in the top right corner. If this doesn't offend you, I hope you enjoy this tale. It's not going to be a long story, but not a one-shot either.
Sorry for any errors, I've been writing most of this on my phone.
Disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, its quests, stories, or characters. If I did, BFA would be very different.
"Let me go!"
In the damp darkness of a freezing cave in Northrend, a young woman thrashed about in the arms of a gargantuan man. The skadir raider, fearsome warrior of the northern sea, dragged her by her hair through the winding caves beneath the Riplash ruins. Though she kicked at his armored legs and clawed at the hand fisted in her cornsilk hair, his grip was like iron. For the most part he ignored her. Without her sword and shield she was of little consequence to him, but as they approached the leader of the raiders, he shook her harshly.
"Shut up!" He growled, kneeling before his leader. The stench of rotten fish and salt wafted over her face and the young woman scowled, squirming in his grip to get away from the man's foul breath.
On a throne of rocks, fur, and the severed heads of several naga sat Gamel the Cruel. He was as ugly as the rest of the skadir invaders. His skin was a sickly green, littered in scars and barnacles. Long, stringy hair of an indeterminate color hung in his scarred face and clung to his armor. He grinned down at the pair of figures on the floor before him, his soldier kneeling at his feet and the girl forced to her knees beside him.
"Gamel, I bring you another prisoner, one of the Alliance dogs from the northeast!" The raider twisted her head so that she was forced to stare up at the raid leader. "I fought her myself. She's a tough little rat, but not so terrible without her weapons. She'd make a fine sacrifice for Leviroth!"
Gamel stood, his boots scraping against the floor. "A sacrifice, you say? Let me see her."
He took the woman from the other raider and looked her over. She was as fit as any of the other human weaklings they'd killed thus far, small and breakable, but there was an unmistakable fire in the woman's blue eyes that roused his interest. Perhaps she'd make for good entertainment-
Suddenly, her fist was in his gut. "Gah!" He yanked her from the ground and watched as she writhed in pain, her hands flying to her hair. She kicked at him from where she hung, still fighting through the pain, and Gamel laughed. Entertaining indeed.
"So fiery! No, this one is no sacrifice- not yet, at least. If it's a fight that she wants, it's a fight she shall get. She goes to the tunnels!" He handed her back to his subordinate and returned to his place on the throne, a rotten-toothed grin spread across his face as he waved them away.
"As you say."
Through the winding tunnels they went, further and further into the dark. Dim, icey light filtered in through holes in the stone and ruins, wind howling alongside it. The tunnels were a maze that seemed to go on forever, often branching off into nowhere or looping back on themselves. Through the haze of pain, cold, and exhaustion, the woman tried her best to keep track of where they were, but it was impossible. Before long, she was hopelessly lost.
Dead naga in various states of decomposition littered the floor, their broken weapons discarded alongside them. The freezing damp air smelled heavily of blood, salt, mold, and death. A shiver ran through her as she locked eyes with the lifeless gaze of a naga warrior. An expression of terror she hadn't thought possible for such a beast was frozen onto his face. Fury and terror, feelings she knew well, feelings she felt then as she was dragged into the bowels of a vrykul infested ruin. If even the naga had failed to withstand them…
The further they went, the less the light could reach them. When the raider finally stopped, she could barely see anything at all. But she could listen, and all around her in the dark she heard a cacophony of groans and hisses and pained coughs. She knew those sounds well from her time volunteering in the infirmary in Valiance Keep, before being sent to seek out the tuskarr, these were the sounds of the injured and dying.
Other prisoners...
A terrible screeching filled the air, the harsh squeal of metal on metal, as what she realized was a cage door opened. She panicked as she found herself thrown to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and rushed the door, trying her hardest to reach it before it closed, but her exhausted, wobbly legs weren't fast enough and as she tumbled to the ground once more, the door slammed shut with a clang.
Her fate was sealed.
Desperation overtook her as she hobbled over and kicked furiously at the bars. Clang! Clang! Clang! Her mind was racing. This couldn't be happening. She was trapped here! Trapped in the dark, injured and-
"I would stop that, if I were you…"
She froze, door forgotten in an instant at the sound of the voice in the darkness behind her. The voice was deep and rough, caught in between a growl and a hiss, the s in 'stop' dragged out just a little longer than needed. Slowly, the blond woman turned and squinted into the dark, eyes searching and chest heaving as she gasped, adrenaline soaring through her shaky limbs as her panic shifted into fear and she remembered that she wasn't alone.
Finally, her eyes caught on something in the dark. There, leering at her through the darkness, was a pair of yellow eyes. A naga… Pressing herself back against the bars, she stared into the snake like, slit-pupiled eyes of the fellow prisoner, longing for her own to adjust better to the dark.
"If you keep that up, you'll either agitate the guards enough that they'll feed you to Leviroth or one of the other prisoners will kill you first…" The pair of eyes moved closer as the naga slithered toward her. From where she stood, she could just barely see his hulking silhouette.
Flattening herself even further against the bars, she eyed the rest of the cage. It was only then that she realized that the cage was much bigger than she'd thought. She could make out other forms in the dark, some moving, some slumped against the walls of the cage, some lying still on the ice-slick floor.
Eyes narrowed, she met his piercing gaze once more. "Is that a threat?"
The naga rolled his eyes, a gesture that struck her as odd for such a bestial being and might have been funny to behold if not for her circumstances. "Calm yourself, human." He spat the name of her race from his mouth as though it pained him to say it. "As if I'd waste my time and energy on something as insignificant as you. You're the least of my worries… just as I am the least of yours."
She found that hard to believe. Even in the shadows, she could see that he easily dwarfed her. Without her weapons, she would stand little chance against him if he chose to attack, that much had already been proven by the vrykul who captured her. And since when were the naga such merciful creatures? All throughout Azeroth they were known for their viciousness. Why wouldn't this naga strike her down where she stood?
"And why should I believe you?"
Once more, he rolled his eyes and sighed a rattling, hissing sigh. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend?'"
Oh. This certainly wasn't what she'd expected.
He went on, "Do you have any idea what you're here for, little human? Did you think they had just spared your pathetic life out of kindness or pity? Look around you. We're slaves- gladiators, more precisely- and we're all to fight each other to the death for the amusement of those pathetic savages. That is, unless we decide to do something about it. If we are to survive this, there is only one option for us; to band together."
Never in her life would she have thought she'd be listening to a naga, let alone that the naga would be making sense. His little speech did make sense, after all. He was right, what other option was there? To kill each other and hope the skadir would let them go? They would never let them go unless it was to die or be fed to whatever monster the Leviroth must be. The only paths to freedom were death or escape and she was not going to die at the hands of some giant, rotting sailors.
"Well?" The naga asked, shaking her from her thoughts.
The naga slithered a bit closer, scaly underbelly scraping against the stone. The closer he came, the more clearly she could see him and the more monstrous he appeared. His face was barely humanoid, an almost dragon-like muzzle with deep set, serpentine eyes and a jaw lined with long tentacles. The entirety of his body was covered in turquoise scales save for the orange and yellow frills and fins that rose from his spine and the backs of his arms. This close to him, the rumors that naga once came from elves seemed almost impossible.
Taking a deep breath she stepped forward and held out a shaking hand. "Brigette." She said, voice wavering more than she cared for it to. She hated the weakness she felt at that moment, allying herself with a naga of all creatures! Just because he was right didn't mean that she had to like it, and she certainly didn't.
"Brigette Frost."
The naga's gaze flitted between her face and her outstretched hand, amusement and triumph flashing in his yellow gaze. She hated how conceited he looked and wondered, yet again, how a beast was able to be so expressive. The feeling of his huge, clawed hand, webbed fingers and all, closing around the entirety of her own hand and wrist quelled all questions, though.
"Tythaliss."
The cage, Brigette discovered as she stumbled around in the dim light, had only one wall non-natural wall. It was a wall of mangled metal that closed off an entire looping portion of tunneling, or at least that was what the naga had told her. He had followed her from a distance while she traced her hands along the rusty bars, careful not to cut herself, interjecting every once in a while with a hissed comment or two.
"The skadir took inspiration from my brethren when it came to the keeping of their prisoners." He hissed, his facial tendrils lashing angrily as he spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"I helped to build this cage. In the occurrence that we did take prisoners, we found it difficult to accommodate them. So myself and a few of the others were tasked with finding a solution. The walls are made of old wreckage from foolish sailors who sought to navigate the icebergs, and unneeded relics from a time before the Sundering."
The other prisoners, she learned from both observation and Tythaliss's warnings, were a mix of insane, hostile, and paranoid. That or they were badly injured and in no shape to plan an escape, let alone fight.
"They'll be of little use to us." He said as they passed by a tuskarr lying prone on the cold ground. "Many of those who were capable have perished or will perish in their next fight, if they live long enough to be thrown back into the ring." He nudged the tuskarr with his long tail as they passed. He did not stir. "This one is already gone."
Brigette shuddered as they came to the end of this side of the cage, her hand connecting with cold stone. Around them she could hear the quiet groans and hisses from before growing slightly louder. "How many others are there?" She asked as she turned to look the naga in the eye again.
"Perhaps a dozen, maybe less now. More will die before the savages return in the morning."
She nodded, suddenly exhausted at the mention of the following day. With a sigh, she pushed her dirty hair away from her face. She'd been fighting for hours before coming here, battling the skadir on the shore at the behest of Karuk. She'd cut down many before they'd turned their attention from the naga and tuskarr defending the ruins and the shore to her. Once they'd grouped together to take her, it had taken only minutes for them to best her, but still she had taken down three of the four who'd charged her. In the end, only the raider who dragged her here had managed to beat her, and only after a nasty blow to her ribs, knocking the wind from her and slightly denting her breastplate.
Adrenaline had kept her going before in the face of her skadir captors and the initial threat that Tythaliss had posed, but now, as she pondered her fate and looked to the body of the tuskarr nearby, she felt grim and tired. The need to survive rose in her and her body screamed at her to rest and recover her strength. She needed to be ready to fight again when the morning came. In her current state, she wouldn't last.
"I need to rest…" She told the naga, her voice a low rasp, gone ragged from fatigue and cold.
Tythaliss nodded his giant, dragon-like head. "You do." He agreed. "We will discuss plans of escape when you are rested. For now, follow me."
He led her into the darkness, far from the dim light near the cage's door and back into the tunnels. "You are not like me," he commented as they walked, he slithered gracefully as she struggled not to trip over his tail and her own feet, "or even like the tuskarr. You will likely freeze to death if you are not careful. I helped build this place, and in the week I have spent here I have come to know the warmest spaces. Come and I will make sure you will not freeze."
There was little choice but to follow him as cautiously as she could. Even in her exhaustion she kept her guard up. Although he was her ally, for now, she did not trust the naga myrmidon. Who would? He might have been diplomatic for the time being, but it was temporary, of that she was certain. She had encountered naga before, had even slain a few, and never had they shown her mercy or even an inkling of anything besides wrath and ferocity. That Tythaliss even spoke to her was surprising enough, that he had such a cunning mind only put her further on edge. The naga were far smarter than she'd given them credit for, that was for sure. She'd be sure never to underestimate them in the future- if she survived this.
The naga held true to his word. The air where he'd led her was considerably warmer than the rest of the tunnels. Here, she could hear running water somewhere nearby and her boots made small splashes as she trudged through puddles on the cave floor. As her eyes adjusted to the nearly complete darkness in this section of the tunnels, she could make out the edge of a black, flat expanse to her right. Tythaliss slithered toward it and she watched his bulky silhouette sink into the blackness. It was a pool of water, and a deep one, at that. Suddenly, her mouth felt as though she'd spent hours in the desert, thirst surging through her like a tidal wave.
"Is that water safe to drink?" She asked.
"It's runoff from the ice, so yes, it should be safe enough for one like you."
She nodded and felt around her belt for her water skin. She found it where it always was, hanging from her right hip, the only bit of normalcy she'd had since her capture. She clung to it desperately as she knelt down before the pool that Tythaliss was lounging in and filled the skin, not caring that she was drinking water that had a naga soaking in it. She couldn't afford to be picky, hence why she was stuck with the myrmidon in the first place. The water was cold, as icy as anything else in Northrend, and ever so refreshing. She leaned back against a nearby melting ice chunk and drained the rest of the skin before filling it again.
Minutes passed and she stared up at the cave ceiling, well, what she guessed was the ceiling, in a daze. She was so tired. Her limbs felt leaden with exhaustion and her head spun even though she could barely see. A quiet soft sigh escaped her as she willed herself to relax. She had to recuperate if she wanted to live.
"Here." The naga's voice echoed through the tunnel and she flinched, nearly having forgotten that he was there for a second. There was a swish followed by a dull thud as a pile of fur landed beside her. "One of the others left this behind. He will not need it anymore."
She didn't ask what happened to the owner of the fur cloak or why they wouldn't need it any longer, for she already knew. She might even share his fate. The cloak was heavy and well made, though one corner was damp and encrusted in half-melted ice. It smelled of sweat and mildew, but as she drew it around her shoulders, she found she didn't care. She was thankful for the warmth it provided her, her own cloak having been shredded beyond repair in battle earlier.
"I don't suggest sleeping there." Tythaliss piped up again, this time from the other side of the pool. He sounded sleepy, if a naga could sound such a thing. "You'll end up soaked. There is a dry ledge just behind you to your left."
But why, she wondered, why did he go through the trouble of assuring that she was safe, comfortable even? Sure, she was his ally in this Light-forsaken place and sure they had a common enemy, but as she took his advice and settled against the stone ledge, she couldn't understand why he was going to such lengths. She would not have gone to such lengths for him if their positions were reversed. It made her suspicious, but there was no time to think about it. As she listened to the water running down the ice, dripping and trickling into the pool that her naga companion rested within, she found she was too tired to ponder his true motives.