Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, or I would have gotten more of the details right.
Litha had seen the last of the silithids disappear into the distance some time ago, but the raptor was still moving at a jarring speed. The sun had set ahead of them, and stars were appearing in the sky over Ga'vik's shoulder as Litha watched. They were headed west. She figured they would probably turn at some point and head back to Gadgetzan, but she felt a little lighter as they made steady progress away from the goblin hub.
Shortly after the last of the insects had skittered over the horizon, the panther had released the troll's shoulders from her grip and dropped to the sand. She coursed beside the raptor, never straying further than an arm's length from its side. She ran with her ears pinned flat, unusually subdued.
The troll, for his part, clung doggedly to the raptor and stared straight ahead, cobalt eyes unwavering from the horizon. He stayed like that for hours as they traveled, even when Litha began to shift and look around. After the sun went down, the dry desert air became cooler as it whipped past them. Eventually, Litha began to shiver, and she was forced to press herself even harder against the troll, trying to absorb his warmth. The orc had torn her dress off, and she had nothing on but the slave collar and a few strips of linen around one thigh.
The orc had done more than take her dress, of course. She shifted again to relieve the ache between her legs. It would have been worse if the tauren hadn't intervened. Still, her bruises ached as she trembled with cold on the raptor's prickly, scaled back.
Her squirming seemed to rouse the troll at last, and he glanced quickly at her before reaching back to grasp his light cloak and tug it around her. She huddled under it in relief, and tucked it beneath herself as protection against the rough scales.
She was just beginning to relax into the rhythm of the raptor's movement when Ga'vik began to speak. He spoke quietly at first, then increased in volume as he gathered speed. It was not Orcish, but also nothing like the harsh, coarse words he had exchanged with the tauren. Zandali, she decided.
He went on for a long time, sometimes emphasizing his words with one-handed gesticulations. At first his words were mostly snapped away by the wind as they moved. As he grew louder, the raptor began to toss its head and the panther would occasionally turn her face up to observe them with wide, golden eyes. Even when he began to shout, Litha thought his tone was more sad than angry, and she recognized Eikahe's name more than once.
Eventually, his voice began to break, and then died off. Litha thought she heard a choked sound at the end, but did not look at his face. He grieved in silence after that, only clicking is tongue to slow the raptor when it began to stumble. They continued at a more sustainable pace, though still moving more swiftly than they had with the orcs.
Litha slept for a while, cradled under his arm and cloak, surrounded by his now-familiar smell. She woke to the early morning light and a tickling sensation at her throat. The troll was fastening the cloak around her. She jerked in surprised as he put his large hands around her waist and lifted her up, turning slowly to lower her onto the sand. She had a moment of gut-wrenching fear when she thought he would abandon her, but he slid down as well and stretched.
They had a single water skin with them, and the troll sipped from it now and offered it to her. She drank sparingly as she watched him. He looked exhausted, as far as Litha could tell. His normally bright blue eyes were dull and lidded, and he slouched a little lower than usual. He ran both his hands over his face – delicately avoiding the tusks – then up over his spiky hair. He swung his head to gaze in the direction they had come, then took the water skin back and simply began to walk. The raptor and panther trailed along. After a moment's hesitation, Litha followed them.
They continued west as the sun rose at their backs.
Litha moved slowly. Her groin ached, her hips and thighs were stippled with bruises, and the too-tight scar tissue of her burned leg had split open during her struggle with the orc. She could feel it pulling each time the muscles flexed, pulsing in pain.
The troll gestured to her impatiently at first, then abruptly slowed his own pace to match hers. She understood the need to rest the raptor after their headlong flight, but she was struggling to walk through the unforgiving sand at all.
She saw Ga'vik watching her sidelong, and wondered how she must look to him. She was at least draped in his frayed cloak now, but she knew there was little point in feigning modesty. He had been carrying her around, naked or half-naked, since he had found her under the goblin wagon.
She had been a pretty enough girl, once upon a time, though never particularly striking. Her close friend, Sarrolen, had been porcelain-skinned, blond and busty, and had drawn appreciative looks wherever they went. Litha had lamented her own slight curves and excess of freckles. Her time with the goblins had not improved matters. What little padding she'd had was gone, replaced by hard angles. She felt as frail as a ninety-year-old lady, and figured she looked worse. She knew her hair was singed and ragged, though either the troll or the tauren had apparently braided it while she slept.
The scar on her neck would be a permanent reminder of the slave collar, even if it were ever removed (and Litha found that within herself, she did hold out a faint hope for that). The puckered scar on the palm of her right hand was not so visible, but nearly the whole outer length of her left leg was a mess of angry red splotches. She knew that the colour would fade over time, but not even the greatest healer in the Alliance could remove scars such as those, once they had set.
The bandage on her thigh was crusted with dirt and blood. Litha was worried it would lead to more infection, and picked at it carefully as they walked. The inside of her other thigh was also streaked with dried blood. Litha bit her lip and refused to think of that. It was over and done. The orc was dead, as was the tauren who had come and shoved the orc off. The silithids had killed them both, and she lived on.
It would not do to dwell on the past. Whenever she thought of the past, she would remember her own mistakes, and all the bitterness would well up anew. She would remember Darrick, the handsome mage, and how he had asked her to meet him at his tiny cottage. She had been suspicious, but flattered. She knew he preferred to rest his eyes on Sarrolen, as they all did, but she had ignored the warning bells in her mind and met him all the same.
She had not been entirely innocent. She had expected him to make a pass, and had already been planning to let him down gently when he had launched into a soul-baring soliloquy about his alchemical research, the difficulty in obtaining certain banned substances for use in his experiments, and his resulting financial ruin.
As if that weren't shocking enough, he had lifted his hands as if in apology, only to blink himself suddenly beside her, and hit her over the head with something heavy. She had awoken with a pounding headache and a slave collar on, bound and helpless.
The next few weeks had been a blur as he smuggled her out of Elwynn like a sack of potatoes. When he had turned her over to the goblins at last, Litha had felt a strange mix of chagrin and satisfaction as the goblins told him she wasn't worth anything near what they were owed.
Litha shook her head. She must not let her mind linger on those things. Darrick had met his fate (it had been a grisly one, thank the Light) and she lived on. She must accept her path and keep going.
If her path led her to any Alliance outposts… well, she did not have too much pride to ask for help. She felt certain that if she could get back to Stormwind, Archbishop Benidictus would be able to remove the collar. It was true that she had no living family, but the other novice priests would remember her, and they would believe she had never willingly signed any of the goblins' contracts. There would be an outcry, surely, and the whole practice of goblin slavery would be banned. Goblins would be hunted down and slaughtered, all other slaves would be freed, and Litha would be hailed as a hero.
If her path led her to any Alliance outposts. She could not even recall if there were any in Tanaris.
Where was the troll planning to take her, anyway? Litha wished that she had learned more Orcish, though the troll was scowling and aloof, and did not seem to like the language any more than she did.
Instead, she dredged up a mental map. Un'Goro was to the west of Tanaris. She had come from there, with the goblins, and she thought it had been weeks since they left. Even if they spent most of their time riding the sure-footed raptor, it seemed a long way to go with a single skin of water. What would they drink?
Litha's second question was answered quickly. The troll had stopped suddenly to point in the distance. She could just make out the shape of a lone hyena, skulking around a red rock that jutted up out of the sand. At a word, the troll sent his pet after it, and then followed in loping strides, knife in hand. She realized that although he still carried his bow, he seemed to be out of arrows. Litha waited with the raptor, who crooned at her and bobbed its head soothingly. She had always believed raptors were intelligent, fearsome beasts, but this one reminded her a little of Sarrolen's pet parakeet.
They drank the hyena's blood, then ate the meat raw. It was warm, and chewy, and salty. Litha thought it might be an acquired taste. She did not like the way the tough sinew snagged in her teeth, but she forced it down. The troll ate quickly and surprisingly delicately, though he would not be asked to dine with the High Priestess anytime soon. His eyes scanned the horizon continuously as he ate. The panther ate delicately as well, then groomed herself from head to tail. The raptor ate with rather indelicate relish.
Before they moved on, Ga'vik skinned the hyena and draped its hide on the back of the raptor to dry. When they started to walk again, Litha found that her legs had stiffened, and she was barely able to move. She was unused to the exercise. Without a word, the troll lifted her again and placed her back astride the raptor. With his large, green, three-fingered hands, he placed her own hands on one of the raptor's neck spines for support.
"Hold," she thought he said in Orcish, though his accent was terrible.
"Yes," she replied. He met her eyes for once, and she read worry, and grief, and anger there. He started to turn away, but stopped suddenly and clicked his teeth. Ruffling his hair with one hand, he looked sidelong at her again, then let out a stream of choppy Orcish. Litha shook her head helplessly, not understanding.
Clearly frustrated, he growled and turned away fully, kicking at the sand. He rubbed more vigorously at his hair. When he turned back, his expression had softened again. He lifted one finger and pressed it lightly on the inside of her good thigh, where she had scrubbed off the blood with a handful of sand. She had not been able to scrub off the bruises.
"Sorry," he said, clearly, though his cobalt eyes seemed to say a great deal more. She was too stunned to reply, for a moment.
"I… sorry… Eikahe," she said at last, carefully watching his expression. He scowled and looked away, jutting his lower lip up between his tusks, his powerful jaw muscles flexing. He nodded sharply, then seemed to come to some internal decision, and nodded again, more slowly.
He squeezed her thigh briefly before drawing his hand away. "Come," he said, and they moved on.