Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, or I would have gotten more of the details right.
They traveled through the hot mid-day sun and into the evening. Ga'vik and the panther killed two more hyenas, and in addition to the pelts draped over the raptor's neck, there were now strips of meat drying on its rump. They had spotted a basilisk once, too, but Ga'vik had watched it for several minutes before shaking his head wearily, and waving to indicate they would give it a wide berth.
By nightfall, the raptor and the panther were both dragging their feet, though Litha had been able to nap while mounted. She was entertained by the raptor's efforts to casually crane its immense head back and snatch at the pieces of drying meat. Ga'vik, without even turning his own head, would invariably snap out a sharp word at the last moment, and the beast would straighten out again, chirruping indignantly.
Eventually, Litha deduced that the word he was using might be the raptor's name. Feeling brave, she caught the troll's attention by saying, "Ga'vik." He stopped and whirled toward her, looking surprised.
She pointed to him and said it again, "Ga'vik." Then she pointed to herself, "Litha," and the raptor, "…Jo?"
The troll nodded, then added, "…zala. Jozala."
When Litha repeated the name, the raptor tipped its head back and screeched cheerfully, flexing its talons. Litha patted its neck. She decided Jozala sounded like a female name, and the raptor seemed sort of… feminine, for a reptile. Litha wasn't sure you could actually tell, with raptors.
Before she lost the troll's attention, Litha pointed to the panther as well.
"Lujin," the troll said immediately, and scowled at his pet. When she did not even flick an ear, he said more loudly, "LU!" The black cat continued to examine one paw with feline impudence. When Litha dutifully repeated the name, she got the same response.
Ga'vik looked annoyed, but unsurprised. Snorting, he looked at Litha to see if she was satisfied, then turned and continued to trudge through the sand. He did not seem interested in an extended conversation. He pressed on relentlessly.
Litha knew the silithids were still a threat, and suspected they were high-tailing it out of Tanaris to avoid another attack. She found herself wondering if trolls even needed to sleep. Maybe he could stay awake indefinitely, but she doubted the raptor or the panther would be able to.
Finally, early on the second morning after the silithid attack, Ga'vik simply stopped walking, and dropped into a crouch. Litha thought he must have seen another hyena, until she realized his eyes were closed. She thought he looked a little paler green than usual, and his unruly black hair was stuck to his forehead and neck in sweaty clumps. She noticed the tips of his long, pointed ears were peeling a little. If he had looked exhausted yesterday, he looked positively ill today.
She was just debating whether the get down off of Jozala to check on him when he put both hands on the ground and pressed himself back up into a standing position, swaying a little. He rubbed his hair, sighed, and pointed vaguely toward one of the large skeletons that poked up out of the sand nearby.
When they made their way over to it, he draped the hyena skins across some of the white, arched ribs to produce a little shade, and wrapped the dried meat in his chain mail shirt for safe keeping. The raptor chattered and squawked until he relented and tossed her a piece. Then he peeled off his linen shirt as well, wadded it up for a pillow, and stretched out in the sand on his back.
Within moments his breathing had slowed, and Litha realized he was already asleep. Lujin followed him into the shade and stretched out after a cursory groom. Jozala settled herself down in the morning sunlight, churring quietly and tucking her short little arms under her chest.
Litha sat and watched the trio sleep for a while. She listened to the soft shush of the desert consuming itself, and felt oddly peaceful.
She stared at the troll. Although Litha had been unconscious for most of the time she had known him, he had become somehow familiar to her. The way he scowled good-naturedly at Lujin's insolence… Litha found herself thinking, Ah, that's the way he always scowls at Lujin, even though she could not remember seeing him do it before. In the back of her mind, she even had an image, somehow, of the troll with a wide, teasing grin - pointed teeth and tusks flashing in the sun. She was not sure if she had seen this, or imagined it. She liked to think it was real, but was unsettled by the thought of wanting to make a troll smile.
Regardless, it seemed unlikely she would see that smile anytime soon. He did not seem to smile (or speak) very much, and he was clearly upset by the death of the tauren. Litha had thought the tauren a remarkably kind and gentle soul, but could not dredge up a great deal of grief for him. She had not really known him… not like... well. Did she think she knew the troll?
No. She didn't know anyone. Faces flashed painfully through her mind: Darrick, the betrayer; Sarrolen and the other novices in her class, none of whom had come to save her after she'd been kidnapped; the Light-forsaken goblins… and the others, the various members of the Alliance who had seen her since she'd been a slave: had looked into her eyes as the goblins dragged her around like an old goat to slaughter, and done… nothing.
She slammed a door on those thoughts, as she had trained herself to do. She, Litha, was a survivor, and she could only rely on herself and her own strength. Accepting someone's assistance was not the same as trusting them.
Anyway, she would need to stay with the troll a while longer. She was hardly equipped to make her own way out of the desert. There was no harm in appreciating his competence while it aided her own survival. He seemed downright reliable, in fact, and for a troll, he was not bad to look at.
Litha admired his muscular torso as he slept, letting her eyes track the black line of hairs below his navel again. He had a lean, athletic build, though his shoulders were heavily muscled from drawing the bow. Litha had always had a weakness for shoulders.
Across his upper chest, left shoulder, and curving over toward his back, there was a mosaic of stippled images and designs. The intricate pattern was punctuated by a few long lines, and Litha realized that some of them were the claw marks of a large animal. They were scars, she realized, and unconsciously rubbed her fingertips over the puckering of her right palm. The layer of grime coating the troll made it difficult to pick out the shapes, but Litha thought there was a panther. Lujin, maybe? Or merely a symbol?
She sat back and looked at his face. He had eyelashes, which she found as oddly surprising as the presence of his navel. They were short but dense. He did not seem to grow a beard, unless he had been shaving while she slept, but had bristly sideburns to match his hair. The tusks were… intriguing, to say the least. She wondered dispassionately if troll men went down on their women. How would that work?
Litha had not been a virgin when the goblins had taken her, thank the Light. She hadn't even been one when she had joined the Priesthood. She'd been a precocious child and an impetuous teenager, but a lonely one. She had known it was no substitute for real love, even then, but she had enjoyed the fleeting intimacy that came with sex.
With the goblins, sex had not been… optional. It wasn't pleasant, but sometimes it was preferable to the beatings. She had quickly learned that it could be used to her advantage, and had done so whenever possible.
It would not be so bad, she decided, to have sex with the troll, if it came to that. He did not smell as vile as the goblins, or the orc, or the tauren. She actually thought he smelled better than most of the human men she had been with, and none of them had been slogging through the desert for weeks without a bath.
Litha looked down at herself. She was equally scarred, though not so artfully. She was too scrawny to be merely 'thin', and her burnt hair hung raggedly. She was not sure her body was a very good bargaining chip, but it was the only one she had. She would not hesitate to play it.