Navarion hung back from the rest of the group a few paces, hiding himself in the dense foliage of the hill overlooking the beach. Being only half night elf, he couldn't shadowmeld like his mother and wouldn't have been able to hide. Stealth wasn't his style, anyway - he had other ways of avoiding damage.
Captain Soraya didn't seem to appreciate that, however, and preferred to growl at him to keep himself hidden every few seconds as she and the others observed the movement of the silithid burrows on the beach. Because she and the two others with her could stealth and see the targets just fine, Soraya didn't bother to tell him what was happening and the two soldiers accompanying them - a female and another male - were too afraid to speak up if the captain of their unit didn't.
After at least half an hour of straight observation on their parts and hiding behind a blue fern on his part - he'd long ago dyed both the leather and the chainmail parts of his armor indigo to match the color of his mane - she captain whispered to him.
"Hearthglen, I'll need you down there with me."
Ears pricked up, Navarion knelt low to the ground and pressed as closely against the blue ferns as he could. The two sentinels remained flat on their stomachs as they lay on the grass just within the shade the edge of the inner city forest provided from the moonlight, absolutely motionless as they held watch. Close and closer crawled Soraya until her stealthed, kneeling figure came into view just outside of the ferns. Guessing her as the type that preferred her subordinates to only speak when spoken to, he waited for her to continue.
"How many of your voodoo devil sticks do you have prepared?" she asked, not s hint of scorn laced in her disrespectful comment.
"Captain, they're stasis traps, and they connect to the world of spirits; that's different from demons-"
"You were not asked to proselytize for your beliefs, irregular." There was the scorn that had been oddly absent, back with a vengeance. "How many of those things do you have?"
"Four, ma'am. Each one has a diameter of ten feet."
"That isn't very far," she complained flatly, finding nothing positive to say to any of the irregulars, ever. What she lacked in tone of voice she made up for in her harsh words, and he wondered how someone like her could have advanced in a society that valued manners and etiquette. "I need you to space them out appropriately to defend our position."
"Defend it from what, ma'am? How many of the stink bugs are out there?"
Sighing as if it were a chore to inform her subordinates of the dangers she was asking them to face, she sat down on the grass next to him, still stealthed. "Look, it isn't that difficult. There are three burrows here on this part of the beach. The sand is soft so the burrows can't be that deep and thus the silithids won't be that numerous. The moment you start placing your wards, they'll probably charge so you only have a few seconds to make sure that we're covered." Her explanation noticeably failed to include mention of needing to protect himself as well.
Swallowing back his resentment at the gaping difference in treatment received by regulars and irregulars, Navarion slowed his breathing in preparation to respond. "None of the other units along the shore have attacked their targets yet, captain?"
He sensed an immediate shift in her demeanor, and a measure of hostility filled the air. The leather straps holding her plate armor in place creaked as she knelt further forward to see him under the ferns, furrowing her brow in anger as she made her dislike of him very apparent. "Our unit is leading the attack, you...do you mean to tell me you ignored Commander Lamia's instructions during the briefing?" Soraya asked indignantly.
Navarion held his tone steady but flashed a wave of hot indignance of his own right back at her. "You informed me that the briefing was only for regular enlistees, ma'am," he said in an overly cordial voice. The two other soliders shifted uncomfortably, and he could tell that he was dancing a thin line.
He didn't cross it, however, and Soraya mumbled something incoherently as she found no logical answer in the face of her own dismissive forgetfulness. He could vaguely make out the darkening color of her ears revealing her embarrassment as she turned away in frustration. Once she reached the other two soldiers, she waited for a moment to calm her nerves before whispering back to him again.
"Now. Place them all equidistant to form a wall around us."
Navarion stretched his shoulders and quadriceps, tested his ankles and wrists and bolted. The moment he left the ferns, he could see the targets. Huge, bloated beetle like silithids crawled around on the beach, picking at a deer carcass one of them had dragged to the three burrows surrounded by crawling larva a foot long each. The beetles were neon orange and jet black, impossible to miss, and hover around at a snail's pace while guarding their underground domiciles.
Nimble elven feet carried Navarion across the sand, helping him to maintain a speed commensurate with that of a theoretical full blooded elf. He quickly covered the ten yards marking the halfway point between the edge of the inner city forest - how the silithids had managed to set up nests within the part of the shore enclosed by city walls was anybody's guess - and slid into a kneeling position. The entire sprint had taken him half a second and he could hear the female soldier coo through her nose in appreciation from behind him as he laid down the first ward before any of the silithids had a chance to notice.
Nimble elven hands set up the ward perfectly, the cursed turtle shell not even clacking against the bundle of fel enchanted sticks, bones and animal sinew that formed the body of the ward. Based off of an almost sentient power he imbued in the ward as he set it down, the bundle sank itself into the sand until it was secure without the need for his help, and he already had the second ward settled into the sand by the time the silithids began to chitter in alarm to one another. Even the larva rallied menacingly at the site of a potential threat to their hive, and the large bodied, fully grown beetles lined up to form a sort of phalanx as the third and fourth wars were embedded in the sand. The four of them formed a half circle around the position of Captain Soraya and the two other troops, and by the time Navarion finished his voodoo spoke to him of the other units further east along the shoreline who readied themselves in reaction to his presence. Regulars and irregulars dotted the woodlands that grew right up to the edge of where the sandy slope began, and further down the vast expanse enclosed by the walls of New Nendis he could see other silithid nests that increased in activity at the distant chitters of the beetle phalanx that started to march in his direction.
Soraya hung back, waiting for the targets to move a little closer before she struck. The huge beetle like silithids sped up somewhat as Navarion took a step back, wary of their ability to shoot clouds of stinking gasses to scare away potential threats. Their chittering grew louder as they tried to make a threatening display, flapping the shells on their backs open to show him the neon orange as their weak, flightless wings buzzed. They absolutely disgusted him, and that was probably why he found his hand reaching for the pistol in his holster before he'd even realized what he was doing.
The gun was always kept loaded, a precautionary measure since reloading took at least five seconds - a very long period of time in a combat situation. Unused to fire arms, Soraya failed to protest and he knew she hadn't realized what he was doing either until he squeezed the trigger. The first shot rang out loud enough to send the silithids further down the beach into a frenzy, charging in his direction in futility from their positions hundreds of meters away. The musket ball flew out of the barrel and ripped into the armored head of one of the beetles, blinding it due to nerve damage but failing to kill it. It broke the formation of the phalanx and rotated in circles as it screeched, leaving the other beetles and larvae to charge right into the statis traps as they triggered the wards.
"Damnit, Hearthglen!" Soraya growled as she ran to his side, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back in a vain attempt to save him.
Before they even stupidly reached the stasis traps and their collective doom, the silithids had already fired off their skunk like gas. The fumes shot out of their raised anuses like focused jets of hot steam, except the gas actually felt cool and refreshing.
Felt. Not smelled.
"Oh, shit!" Navarion screamed as the odor choked him and stung his nostrils and throat.
He stumbled and so did Soraya, and the captain shouted every curse word in Darnassian as she hit the ground in full view of her subordinates - a far more demeaning occurrence for night elves than it would have been for almost any other race save perhaps blood elves. The two of them tumbled over each other, clasping gauntlets over mouths as they didn't even bother raising their weapons or helping each other stand.
Fel runes spread out across the ground in reaction to the first larvae passing over the triggering border of the wards, crackling like red electricity as an invisible force pulled them hard into the ground. The voodoo didn't actually pull them into the sand, leaving the ground itself untouched as the runes bound anything hostile to them. The utter idiocy of insects went on full display as the beetles and the rest of the larvae continued crawling over one another to spray again and ended up collapsing into the ring of stasis traps. The two other soldiers raced over to Navarion and Soraya both, but the captain shoved them away and began flinging her glaive in order to save face. The triple bladed weapon bounced from one target to another, ricocheting in a way that only a seasoned warrior of several thousand years could pull off. The two troops, obviously much younger, settled for aiming their glaives at single targets instead, letting their glaives bounce back after one successful hit. They were deadly, but far less quick and efficient than Soraya.
All up and down the beach, the silithids began to run their way only to be blindsided by the mass of ponytails and glaives charging from the forest. The sound of the women ululating filled the air like a deafening chorus as the other units seized the opportunity provided by the distraction of the gunshot and ran right through the rest of the stink bugs without incident. Chittering rang out and then ceased as every last beetle and larve were slaughtered, and those that hid inside the burrows were flushed out by offensive starfall spells from the handful of priestesses and, if they weren't fried outright by the moon magic, they were quickly sliced by flying blades before having the change to spray their disgusting fumes.
"It's a total wipeout!" the female soldier chirped as the rest of the silithids lay lifeless on the shoreline after not more than a minute and a half of fighting.
"Not yet it isn't!" shouted the male soldier.
The blinded beetle chittered and followed the sound of their voices, rising up on its legs and threatening to spray the entire unit. The two younger night elves faltered and ran, looping circles around the row of wards as they tried to escape the confused bug. Since they didn't enter the danger zone of the stasis trap, thinking they could use it as a barrier, the beetle didn't either and it chased them around in a circle. Only when Navarion flexed and then pumped his fist, letting a sickle blade the length of his forearm spring out of the contraption attached to the top of his right bracer and gauntlet, did the two soldiers relax as the half night elf sliced the last beetle's head clean off.
The usual discipline of the Sentinel Army temporarily fell into disorder as cheers rose from the congregating units to the east. Unscathed, ungassed sentinels chattered away as their officers tried to restore some semblance of order to what was otherwise considered the most orderly and organized military on all of Azeroth and Draenor. The relieved young female and male sentinel in their unit looked relieved once they were no longer under threat of being hit by biological weapons, and they took to finishing off the trapped silithids gleefully as the stasis traps did their job and continued to pin the big bugs to the beach.
The unit's captain, however, didn't feel as pleased.
"Gah!" Navarion grunted as she grabbed him by the part of his mane growing from the back of his neck so roughly that he arched his neck in reaction.
Soraya stood an entire foot shorter than him, but the captain's authoritative nature more than made up for that. "Trap the bugs and heal!" she hissed into his ear, and he could feel she was close to violating the prohibitions on corporal punishment without trial within the Sentinel military. "I gave you no order to attack!"
The female and male soldiers both looked uneasy, obviously disagreeing with their captain but not brave enough to show open defiance. Ever the duty bound soldier as his mother had raised him to be, regular or not, Navarion didn't resist physically but instead verbally.
"Captain, look! The other hives focused on my gunshot, so the rest of the units emerged unharmed from the skirmish!" He pointed to the celebrating sentinels down the beach in such a quick, jerky motion that Soraya actually didn't look in spite of her growl at being given a request by a subordinate. "Our being doused in noxious gasses prevented others from enduring the same!" he protested as she loosened her grip on his mane.
Retaining her lighter grip, Soraya continued to glare at him for a moment before turning to see the upbeat sentinels gloating over their kills as the officers rounded them up and corralled them back into the forest. Martyrdom featured prominently in night elven chronicles, and tales of soldiers making last stands and tanking innumerable enemies to protect allies abounded. To absorb damage for the sake of comrades represented a strong desire in their culture, and the appeal was accordingly strong to the captain. Despite her resentment of his presence in her unit, the message broke through and Soraya slowly let go of him as the two soldiers behind them sighed in relief.
"Wait for my command next time," she mumbled begrudgingly.
After traveling with her for the long hike from the Darnassian Base Camp, Navarion had come to know that the statement was the closest thing to both a compliment and apology he could expect from her. Gladly accepting it, he bowed to the captain unflinchingly and promised to pray for her success in life or something flowery like that. He literally forgot what he had said the moment after he'd said it, but Soraya accepted his acknowledgement of her authority and surveyed the damage.
"Mission accomplished, team," she addressed to the two soldiers once they finished off all the larvae. Navarion began to collect his wards, knowing she'd been too humbled by having been wrong twice to speak to him again. "You two, please report back to Commander Lamia of our lead in to the successful clearing of the shoreline. Due to our defense, I will require a visit to the bathhouse before returning to HQ."
"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" the two soldiers cried in unison before falling into step and disappearing into the woods, heading for the city proper.
The job well done, Navarion slung his wards back into their carrying case and salvaged his musket ball from the head of the decapitated beetle. Just as he began to walk toward a bathhouse he knew to offer private showering rooms for individuals, Soraya stopped him.
"Hey Hearthglen," she droned in her sentinel voice as she turned to leave in a different direction.
"Yeah?"
Almost shy to pronounce the words out loud, Soraya stiffened a little too much in her attempt to appear commanding once more. Her nose turned up just a little too high and the closed eyes were too dramatic to be believable.
"You did well out here."
He smiled, knowing not to gloat in a situation that may not repeat itself again. Sincerely touched by her open confession, he nodded and waited for her to walk away first. "Thank you, ma'am," he hummed.
Nothing left save a formal salute, Soraya turned and left disappearing toward the northeast district of New Nendis. Very soon, Navarion found himself alone on the beach except for two exceptionally young looking night elf irregulars judging by the rapidity of their movements. Both of them carried torches and were lighting the silithid carcasses on fire one by one. Confident that he wouldn't need to clean the mess his unit had left, he turned and walked through the woods.
Night elf cities were almost always gorgeous. Wide patches of woodlands right smack dab in between buildings were the norm, often used to conceal the moonwells and reflection shrines from view of passersby. The buildings themselves were also trees, and their tendency to build up rather than out meant that there were people and animals at all levels of the forest cities. Among any other people noise pollution would be an issue, but elves were naturally a quiet and reserved race and the sensation of being surrounded by people in their settlements felt less smothering and more comforting, like one became a part of the magical ecosystem. As he found a footpath in the woods lining the north edge of the city against the shore, he noticed the wisps, another one of his favorite features. Tiny, glowing forest spirits, the little mute beings not only helped the priestesses to raise buildings and walls via direct intervention in the balance if the more stable but slower Druidic magic wouldn't do the trick, but they also gathered resources and fashioned many items that other races had to craft and extract by hand. Despite of the greater technology and material wealth of the Alliance, quality of life in lands governed by the Sentinels was higher, and the humming, twinkling little spirits played a big part in that. A few of them danced around Navarion as he followed the path toward the wellspring in the northwest district, the site of a slightly more expensive bathhouse offering more privacy; the wisps tickled his ears and bathed him in their ethereal glow, unperturbed by the noxious odor wafting up off of him.
Once he reached a properly paved road, paved by naturally risen moonstones, he found the typically heavier nighttime traffic of pedestrians and civilian workers milling about in front of the four or five places of business he'd need to cross in order to reach the bathhouse. Not wanting to offend anyone by his smell, he walked around the back of the shorter trees functioning as shops in order to reach his destination, slinking around the side and into the front door of the long stone structure enclosing the wellspring in that part of town.
Nobody else was in the lobby save himself, a clerk and an attendant, both of them night elf females so young that they were probably born well after the Third War like he was. They chatted excitedly about something until they noticed him coming toward the front desk. At first, they gave him the look of curious attraction Navarion had grown used to receiving from pureblooded women of both trolls and elves, fascinated by someone who looked comfortingly familiar yet dangerously exotic at the same time. Were he in his younger days, his once overinflated ego would have swelled, but having passed this thirty fourth year, he found himself better able to stave off any creeping arrogance his knowledge of his own good looks might cause him.
Not that he'd need to ground himself this time. The moment he stood next to the counter, the stench from the stink beetles' smelly attack hit both of the young women so hard that they both cringed. The one on the left's eyes actually started watering.
"Oh goddess, you poor thing!" the woman on the right cooed while plugging her nose.
"Have the bugs on the beach all been cleared out?" the woman on the left asked, trying her best to ignore the sting in her eyes.
Not even waiting to ask them if they could also find him a runner, Navarion began to strip right there. His belt, baldric, ward case and bracer-gauntlet combinations were already on the counter when he started to speak. "The coastline will be free should either of you be in need of long walks on the beach under the twilight." The two of them giggled at his line despite the horrible smell, covering their noses and mouths but settling into slightly flirtatious body language all the same. "Unfortunately, the captain of our unit and I took direct hits. I'll be in need of a hot shower and a runner - my gear will need to be cleansed and I'll need light clothing." He flopped all of his upper garments and his boots on the table, eliciting more awkward laughs as the two women didn't know whether to ogle his abs or cover their stinging eyes. Hi
"Oh, sir, my goddess...yes, I think we can handle the delivery job for your gear. We can probably just give you some clothes in the back along with a towel," the woman on the right, seated on a stool and probably the cashier as he guessed, giggled uncontrollably while trying to breathe through her mouth. "Could you get the-"
"I can," the assistant replied while pulling a large burlap sack from under the counter.
She held it open in front of Navarion, and he gladly deposited the gear from the counter inside. When he bent over and removed his leather breeches, leaving him in nothing but his boxer shorts, the giggling was accompanied by blushing as the two women almost appeared flustered and gagging as the stench almost became too powerful for them to bear. As a child, Navarion had been blessed by the balance on the boughs of Teldrassil during a family pilgrimage; it was the reason he was immune to status effects such as charm, sleep or fear spells and psychological attacks such as mind control or sound waves. It also made the stench from the stink beetles a little easier to bear, and he realized that to others, the stench must be worse than it was for him.
"You sure you don't need to deposit that, too?" the assistant asked cautiously, pointing to his underwear.
The cashier glared at her in mock anger, too overwhelmed by the smell to chastise her for impropriety. The attendant only grinned like a tart but tied the burlap bag closed all the same, preparing to take it out herself. "You're one of the irregulars, right?" she asked through her hand, almost sounding apologetic as she had to get down to business.
"Navarion Hearthglen, residing at the front male irregulars' ancient of war," he stated, finally becoming halfway serious. "You technically have my coin purse there; don't feel like you have to skimp on any sort of balance based or chemical cleansing necessary."
The attendant, diminutive by Kaldorei standards, struggling to hold the sagging bag in her hands while hurrying out the door. "Oh, don't worry. I might be skimpy with my own clothes, but I'll give yours...um...proper attention!" She looked pleased with her cheesy line that didn't entirely make sense, but winked at him suggestively nonetheless, earning a chuckle from him and a watery eyed glare from the cashier.
Once she'd left, the cashier hopped off of her stool and led him down a hallway. The stones of the bathhouse felt smooth beneath his feet, almost like tile, and the steam hit him as she led him into an anteroom where two more halls split into rows for men and rows for women. It didn't entirely make sense to him that there would need to be separate rows for women and men if the showering rooms were private anyway, but he knew the restraint of the night elves prevented them from questioning many of their society's gender segregation rules.
Rummaging through a portable wooden closet, the cashier pulled out a towel cradling several different types of soap and shampoo as well as a fresh set of cheap cotton clothing and underwear. To an extent, the steam must have covered the odor of the beetle bomb because she stopped gagging every time she opened her mouth to speak.
"Any of the stalls that are free are yours, as are the clothes," she said formally, suddenly becoming less flirtatious and more professional when they were alone together.
"Thank you, sister," he replied, nodding respectfully. He carefully took everything in his hands and did his best to avoid touching her lest he spread the awful smell.
She watched him as he walked a few stalls down and found an open one a good distance away from the anteroom and stepped inside. "Just holler if you need any more soap!"
"Don't worry, you gave me three bars, though I think I'll need to use all of them," he hollered to the amusement of them both.
Most bathhouses were communal pretty much everywhere one could go; it was cheaper and more practical that way. Establishments promising privacy like these were typically quite expensive and rare, and Navarion wondered how much damage he'd be doing to his coin purse. Money well spent regardless, he thought to himself as he set the towel, clothes, bars of soap and vial of shampoo on a marble shelf naturally jutting out of the wall.
The stall was much longer than it was wide. Standing up straight, the ceiling was thankfully high enough for his head not to be visible had there actually been other people in the next few stalls, and his shoulders didn't actually press against the walls. Unlike the smooth floors out in the hall, the floor of the stall itself was a bit rough; not enough to bite into the soles of his feet, but enough to prevent slipping and falling. The length was enough such that he could lean forward on the wall opposite the non-moldy wooden door and stretch out without the risk of his clothing getting wet. The fact that night elf structures had running water as the norm - they had been using simple leverage and valve technology for millennia - was a boon; goblins and gnomes had invented pressurized systems that blasted water at higher power, but those were still available only for the elites of their respective societies. As hierarchical as the Kaldorei could be in terms of prestige, they at least we're more egalitarian in terms of the comforts they afforded the average citizens.
The entire scene was so beautiful to his eyes that he almost forgot about his stinking hide for a moment just so he could stop and gaze upon the relative splendor. Eventually, his stinking hide bothered him again and he quickly snapped off the underpants he'd decided to just throw away and switched the water on, letting it run while the marble stall filled with steam.
There were none of the metallic hums or mechanical whines he'd become used to growing up in goblin cities. Like rain, the sound of the water simply running soothed his mind and even though the march to the city and the skirmish on the beach hadn't left his muscles sore, he felt as if he were on the receiving end of one of Zhenya's massages anyway. Taking the first bar of soap, he let the water soak his mane, hide and the bar and then began the long process of lathering every inch of his body.
It felt good to have a proper shower again; having fought campaigns across the lands of the night elves for so long, he'd grown used to either jumping into a river and drying off in the sun or simply roughing it and going without a shower. Not that he preferred things that way; even being only half elven, hygiene preoccupied his mind constantly and the life of a soldier didn't exactly help to quell that preoccupation. But there, now, when he was able to settle in to the sufficient pressure of the shower head and massage the bar of soap into every nook and cranny until it dissolved, he felt like it was a dream come true. He scrubbed and scrubbed and lathered and scrubbed some more, then switching to unbraid his impossibly long goatee and use the entire vial of shampoo on that and his mane in three rinsing sessions. He started on the second bar of soap and made it halfway through before the smell truly seemed to have left him. His gear got the worst of it, anyway.
Smiling to himself as every muscle in his body loosened and relaxed, he even began to lather some of the soap into his mane. Why not? It was there, he could rinse it out and it was probably health anyway. He didn't actually have evidence for that, but it seemed like a good guess. Lathering it onto his scalp felt like a massage. Massaging one's own self never felt as relaxing as receiving a massage from someone else, but it still certainly felt nice. It was the least he could do; he'd tried massaging his own back before and it didn't work. But at least to massage his own head felt rather nice. Enrapturing. Envigorating...as if he felt energized by it. It didn't make sense...until he felt her manicured finger nails brush against his scalp.
How could his voodoo fail him? Unless he was simply so intoxicated by the steam and her touch to have noticed.
Thoughts of how a paladin knew how to pick the lock on the door of the bathroom stall melted away when he felt her bosom pressed against his back. Thoughts of what she'd done with her armor and how she'd snuck into the men's row of stalls dissipated when he heard the light clopping of her hooves on the floor. Thoughts of how he'd explain her presence to the cashier once they needed to leave vanished when she gasped at the way he spun around and pulled her close.
And then...
...pushed her face first beneath the shower head and snickered as she nearly drowned without being actually under water.
"Ack! No! You fuck! Face!" Zhenya sputtered, clinging to Navarion for balance as the two of them squirmed naked in the shower against each other.
"That's for thinking you can check out other guys right in front of me," he snickered again while pulling her close, watching the anger in her glowing golden eyes shimmer through the steam.
She wiped her drenched, neon yellow and hot pink locks away from her fast as she coughed up more water. Her balance still off, she continued leaning in to him to remain upright though the eroticism had quickly disappeared after his practical joke. "You were checking out those two elf bitches outside!" she hissed right back at him, keeping her voice quiet to avoid detection and making up for the lack of volume via an unhealthy dose of cussing.
He tutted his tongue against the roof of his mouth and began lathering her up with soap. In vain, she tried to resist and prevent him from scrubbing the remains of the second bar of soap all over her. Truth be told, Zhenya was shorter than average for a draenei but even stronger than most of the men, and her resistance was stiff. She wasn't as strong as Navarion, however, and he almost got a rise out of the way she tried so hard and failed even harder to push him away as he smothered her against the wall and forced her to let him bathe her.
"I'm not a child!" she hissed again.
"Most people would find it romantic if their partner wanted to bathe them in the shower," he chuckled while forcing her to raise her arm so he could scrub underneath. "Those two women were nice women, by the way, and I wasn't checking them out. Since you were apparently spying on me - which signals a serious lack of trust on your part - you know that my gaze never went below the neck and that my comment about walking on the beach was made without a flirtatious intonation."
She shook her head in dismissal, accidentally banging her single complete horn against the wall. The other one had been broken off halfway, but she changed her story as to how it happened every time he asked. "I've told you this before: you will not control me. I will look at whoever I want and do who...whatever I want." Her slip of the tongue was so over acted that it was obvious she'd intended it, once again trying to provoke him.
This time, he kept his cool. When the second bar of soap had dissolved, he led her by the hand in the most friendly, unsexy way possible and left her to rinse off by herself, turning away and folding his arms. "If you keep looking at other people, I'm never touching you again."
In a flash, she spun around. Despite her prowess in battle, her hooves spinning on the slanted concrete floor combined with the flowing water caused her to lose her balance and trip. He reached out to take her by the arm and help her stand up, keeping as big a distance as possible and making it clear that there wouldn't be any action going on. She furrowed her brow in frustration, leaving the soap suds to drip down the side of her face.
"I don't do commitment. You know that. You know that very well." Her defiance was tempered by something he couldn't quite detect, and her tone was considerably weaker and less argumentative than when they'd discussed the topic before.
"Then maybe what we have going has run its course," he huffed.
He knew all of his anger, consternation and even his fear of what leaving her would actually be like bubbled up to the surface in his tone of voice and the expression on his face, but his words had hit her fast enough such that he knew he could give a bit of ground this time. His attachment to her was strong, but not to the level where they felt they loved each other, and she was very aware of both of those points. The argument about their status had been few, but they'd occurred over the past month whereas they'd never occurred at all previously. She broke eye contact and looked at the water flowing across the floor for a moment, shaking her head at nothing. Her expression was as blank as usual when she was unhappy, but his retuned voodoo told him of how upset she was. That wasn't usual for her.
"Be patient with me," Zhenya asked shyly, refusing to look at him. It was pitiful to see on someone normally so arrogant and full of herself, and he almost felt bad despite not having a logical reason for it.
Hesitation was unfounded, and he pulled her close again. She leaned her head onto his chest as the shower drenched them both, too proud to actually hug him back but coming as close as she ever had to trying to be the one to make up after a fight. Her heavy breathing was only partially from lust as he could literally feel her suppressing her anger at having been scolded, serving herself a heaping helping of crow. He should feel a sense of victory given how often she intentionally pissed him off regarding the topic and even disrespected him publicly sometimes, but his heart strings were pulled tight and he felt sorry for her despite having told himself he wouldn't. He squeezed her even closer and when she squeezed back, he gently pressed her against the wall again.
One benefit to having taken part in the beach beetle bash earlier and been stink bombed was the early finish to the night's duties. The entire stalking and preparation had taken under an hour, top and the actual skirmish a mere two minutes. By the time he'd even wandered into the bathhouse stalls and emerged alongside Zhenya, the jealous bathhouse attendant had already had his gear magically cleansed of the stench and ready to be picked up. Fresh, clean, rested and sated in at least one way, Navarion and Zhenya found themselves with half the night remaining before they'd need to sleep. Once they were walking out and about once more, smelling like disinfectant soap and fragrant shampoo, the whole ordeal seemed worth it.
For the first time, they were able to get a good look at New Nendis that night. Outside of the military quarter, life was less rigid and the atmosphere more pleasantly slow. Much of the city still had yet to be grown, and the Kaldorei tended to take time in raising their buildings in order to make sure the balance wasn't disturbed. It didn't take as much time as constructing a building by hand did, but it wasn't immediate. Still, the parts of the city that were inhabited were packed, busy and lively by elven standards. On the streets below where they walked, most of the tree dwellings were enormous greenwoods, reaching high up to the sky on either sides of all the roads and forming a beautiful canopy that provided protection from rain, snow, high winds and the dreaded sun. As he'd noticed in other parts of the city - they'd wandered so long that he was no longer sure where they were - the hollowed out trees of enormous diameter features four or even five stories, linked together by firm, sturdy and very safe walkways formed of vines and branches that sprouted from separate trees, naturally growing together as one living being linking all the plant life together. Even for a half elf raised in an industrial goblin city, the natural beauty was breathtaking.
Exploration of the city's upper levels would be for another night, however. On their first time enjoying their surroundings, they both felt content to walk side by side, people watch and learn the location of various shops, restaurants and tea houses in what would be their new home for the next half a year as they finished up their assignments. One advantage of being a mercenary is that their tours of duty were of negotiable length and after they were done, all strings were promptly detached.
The familiar scent of kimchi, a dish popular among night elves and only night elves, caught his attention. Off to the side, a handful of younglings about Navarion's age managed a stall where they both prepared and served the dish, doling out small bowls they accepted back from the customers along with the chopsticks and rinsed everything off under a water pump at a basin behind them. He vaguely noticed the two soldiers from his earlier unit waiting in line already.
"Hey, look," he hummed while trying to take Zhenya by the arm. She pulled away roughly as if she'd forgotten their earlier conversation at the bathhouse, but he ignored it. "A real Kaldorei kimchi stall. You liked it the last time you tried it!"
"No I didn't," she mumbled while following him to wait in line anyway. She folded her arms in front of her as they waited, her posture stiff even after their tryst in the steamy bathhouse stall.
At the sound of his voice, the two soldiers from earlier turned around. It wasn't normal for female and male night elves to so openly socialize, and neither of them were wearing promise rings - he knew of the jealousy of the females from his mother's behavior around his father, and finding some way to mark their males was common. The two of them stood even more closely together than Navarion and Zhenya did, he noted in disappointment, and assumed them to be very young and rather liberal to flaunt a mixed gender friendship so obviously.
"There's our hero," the male chuckled as the half elf approached. The young man, perhaps even younger than Navarion, had a neatly clipped beard not more than half an inch long. Older night elf men might even say it wasn't a beard at all, in a disapproving tone. He could almost hear the jokes from his godmother Irien about overbearing, hypertraditional night elf parents and their accented a Common already. "We avoided a serious tragedy because of you!"
"You don't stink anymore, if it's any consolation," the female joked as they all moved forward with the line.
"There's a bathhouse not far from the beach, and I managed to make it over there without offending anybody as I walked by." Navarion tried to stand as close to Zhenya as the two purely elven soldiers stood to each other, noticing that Zhenya inched away from him when he did. "I'm not sure about Captain Soraya, though."
"She was too shy to bathe in a place where there might have been other people to smell her," the female explained. Even though they didn't know him and Zhenya, the female soldier leaned forward as if she were sharing juicy gossip among trusted friends.
"The captain is all about appearances," the male added, rolling his eyes. "I'm Calil, by the way."
"Thresha," the female chimed in.
The half elf bowed politely, falling into more traditional social behavior. "I'm Navarion, at your ward placing and stink bug shooting service. This is Zhenya."
The draenei nodded but said nothing, displaying no emotion as she only waited to reach the front of the line. Either ignoring or not noticing her lack of manners, the two elves cut the very brief meeting short.
"It looks like it's our turn," Thresha said, moving to the front of the line to pay.
Calil tried to pull money of his own out as well, but wasn't fast enough and turned to the interracial pair instead. "We don't want to keep the hawkers waiting for their bowls back. Zhenya, it was nice meeting you, and I guess we'll see both of you back at the military quarter."
"You bet; we'll keep our eyes out for you guys."
The two elves promptly took their bowls and stepped aside, giving Navarion space to pay for his and Zhenya's. Thresha and Calil sat on a nearby bench, signaling that they preferred to eat without company. Numerous patrons finishing up their bowls of the pickled vegetables stood and talked amongst themselves on the nearby grass just off the main road, steam rising from the bowls. The scent of red chilies imported from Feralas tickled his nose, and when he turned away from the crowd he was greeted by what couldn't have been more than a teenager offering bowls to the both of them.
"Hey, thanks a lot," he hummed while accepting his bowl with both hands.
Zhenya took hers in her left hand and made a minor spectacle of paying for her bowl and adding a tip, embarrassing the girl accepting payment and all the elves and Tauren in the vicinity. Smiling at how quaint she appeared when out of her element, Navarion refrained from making any comments and felt content to blow lightly on his kimchi before eating it. Unable to use chopsticks even after years of living in Kalimdom, Zhenya simply pressed the bowl to her lips and shoveled the food inside.
The second pair of clopping hooves passing by didn't even catch his attention until he saw the bovine face.
A female Tauren wearing the light trappings of a healer passed by, looking in front of her path demurely as she did. Her light brown fur glistened from the light of the wisps following her around, and her entire calm demeanor spoke of peace and focus. She carried a bag of something in her hands, and wouldn't have looked up had the sense of vague recognition hit Navarion so hard.
"Wait...I know you," he surmised out loud while taking a step after her.
The middle aged woman turned to see him, balking at him at first. As a Tauren among elves, she was probably used to being the most 'different' person wherever she went. Navarion was still more foreign looking than her, however, and his instinctive hand on her shoulder to stop her almost caused her to flinch.
"Zoe...Zorna...Zorena? Zorena, is that you?" he asked the woman who had been an acquaintance of his parents from a larger military campaign two or three years before his birth.
The shy woman seemed offended that he'd touched her at first, every bit the self possessed Tauren matron who likely behaved like she was everybody's disciplinary aunt. When he didn't remove his hand, she became nervous, realizing that her demeanor and stereotypes about the women of her race and their ability to shame young people didn't deter the large man holding on to her. Only when she spent a moment studying his face, his complexion and his long indigo locks did she shift totally and actually step closer to him.
"Oh...my goddess!" Zorena exclaimed quietly while stepping off the main road to allow a group of off duty sentinels to walk by. She looked him up and down, certainly shocked that the imposing man before her had once been the bratty child she'd only met once and had the displeasure of watching him color on the map of a post office using his mother's dark azure lipstick. "Navarion, you're...an adult!"
"It happens to all of us, doesn't it?" he joked, the self deprecating nature of his comment lost on Zhenya, who suddenly became rather interested in her bowl of kimchi. "What are you doing here?"
She smiled at him and then frowned when she shifted and caused the bag in her hands to shake. "Well, I'm technically on duty right now...I'm a fully fledged member of the Cenarion Circle. I was only an initiate the last time I saw you."
"Oh, that's fantastic! I'm glad to hear that." He noticed her fidget in spite of her eagerness to talk and felt bad for holding her. "I'm at the military quarter - Zhenya here and I are a part of the war effort."
"Oh, alright then. I'm sure they'll be glad to have your talents here. A paladin, I see?" Zorena mentioned while looking to Zhenya, who bore no interest in the conversation. "Well, I'm staying at the barracks within the ancients of lore, it isn't too far from where you're staying."
"That's good to know, actually. Hopefully we'll be able to catch you at a time when we're both free!"
Subtle and low key, Zorena rolled her brown doe eyes in the slightest of motions, likely to have been unnoticed by many. "Whenever that time is," she chuckled while patting him on the shoulder. "Stay safe."
"Keep us safe!" he chuckled himself as she continued on to wherever she had been going. He watched her disappear into the crowds before turning back to Zhenya only to find her staring intently at something. Or someone, as he realized.
Just beyond the hawkers' stall, a group of low ranking sentinels and normal mercenaries carried crates of supplies from a private business over to a sabre drawn wagon. One of the lifters was a male, his armor swapped out for leather breeches. Zhenya focused entirely on his backside as he squatted down to lift a particularly heavy crate; when she noticed Navarion looking, she focused on an aesthetic, wisp powered lamp in a public display to pretend she'd been looking at it the whole time.
He stepped closer and glared at her, his irritation rising when she refused to talk. "Want to borrow my sketch pad?" he asked irately.
For a moment, she continued to focus on the wisp lamp before them. Unsure of what to say, she appeared to be trying to wait him out, but after their reconciliation in the bathhouse he felt as if her wandering eyes were a form of betrayal. When her expression hardened as if she'd been wronged, his irritation only increased.
"Yes. And some colored pencils, too." Her reply caught him off guard, and when he tried to respond she shoved her hand up in his face in the rudest way possible, letting it hover mere inches from his nose. "Be patient with me," she droned nonchalantly and walked away. She was obviously checking out several more of the men as she returned her bowl and chopsticks and wandered off on her own, almost taunting him with her lack of regard for his feelings.
Forcing himself to focus on his kimchi until he finished it, he distinctly tried to avoid thinking about her behavior, but to no avail. Navarion had cheated on some of the women he'd been with in the past; he felt horrible about it then and even worse about it now. Zhenya had never gone that far, and yet her tendency to talk about being with other people in front of him upset him from the start. What upset him even more was that she started doing it even more after she noticed how much it upset him. To top it all off, she continued to introduce herself as single when meeting new people. While she did refuse to let other men even kiss her on the cheek, her intentional stoking of a jealousy she knew he didn't even like in himself angered him beyond belief. Never had he been with a woman who denied a relationship with him rather than the other way around, nor had he been attached to someone who had the ability to make him adore her one minute and seriously consider slapping her the next.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the space around two wisps moved. Except wisps were blue, not silver. The movement of shape and color just in the very corner of his peripheral vision caused him to crane his neck and look over at the startled woman who hadn't realized he'd noticed her.
The cloak of an elven archer covered all but her hands, face and neck. Skin the color of periwinkle peeked out at him, as did a thistle colored braided ponytail wrapped lightly around her neck. The unknown young woman's face very faintly contorted in concern, as if she were upset about something. What that something was, he didn't know and had no way of knowing. The fact that she'd just witnessed the entire exchange between himself and Zhenya embarrassed him, however, and her sympathetic look made it even worse. Uncomfortable once he'd noticed her spying, the archer turned away and joined a group of her friends.
At that, Navarion turned away himself to return to the military quarter. A random person on the street feeling sorry for his bad excuse for a relationship was the last thing he needed after such an acrimonious parting of ways. Feeling his coin purse, he hoped he'd have enough money left for a light drink.
A/N: for those wondering about the kimchi, it does appear in game as a night elf food. I threw in the chopsticks, because...well, if they're eating Korean food, they might as well eat it properly.