The Encounter
A heavy sigh full of wandering dust and regret was forcibly expelled from dry and cracked lips.
"Damn... how can someone with only three fingers in a fist hit so hard?"
Even though his stare down with the overbearing sun caused his vision to splotch and distort, Dahj let his gaze linger until he was certain that he was indeed, alive. The chuckle that rumbled in his chest hurt, but it felt oddly relieving... and pained with an internal sorrow inexpressible by mere words.
"Stupid girl... " the tauren muttered in his own language, surprised at the ease at which he could conjure up the words, despite not having spoken it in so long. A sound from just behind where his head lay pricked at his ears. Footsteps. But more notably, the distinctive scraping gait of a pair of hooves. With a grunt of exertion, Dahj tilted his head back, straining his neck to see who exactly was approaching a full grown tauren male (albeit somewhat battered at the moment) with such unwavering confidence.
What he got was an eyeful of a rather curvaceous chest... before a face appeared. And for a moment, all Dahj could do was blink, in his awkward position, at the draenei staring back down at him. Then, he found his voice.
"Nice... horns," he mused with a twinkle in his eyes, Common rolling perfectly fluent from his lips.
Now the woman took to blinking in dumbfounded shock.
"You... speak Common?"
Dahj could feel the blood beginning to rush to his head, and was thankful when the woman carefully edged her way over to his side and crouched, still studying his face.
"What do you know? So I can. But a better question would be, Bluebelle, what are you doing in the middle of the Barrens talking to a Tauren in Common?"
The Draenei didn't respond at first. Instead, she reached out a hand, ignoring Dahj, who instinctively flinched, and rested it lightly on his chest. Through the thick leather of his shirt, he could not feel her touch, but was almost immediately enveloped by a sensation that was both chill inducing yet pleasantly warm. The tightness in his chest lifted, the dull ache of his ribs subsiding into nothing more than a distant memory.
"My name is not Bluebelle and I'd appreciate it if you did not address me as such. And as for your question, I only just happened upon you and did as any priestess should when she stumbles upon a wounded individual."
Dahj sat up as the woman removed her hand, and he absentmindedly rubbed at his snout where a nose ring used to be.
"And you're not afraid I'll, you know, attack you or something?"
His eyes darted towards the draenei, noting that the amount of space between him and her was relatively close.
"It is my duty as a priestess to do what I can to heal the wounded, among other things. Besides, I'm not exactly helpless, by any means."
"Huh," the tauren scoffed, attempting to shake off the debris that had burrowed into his fur and mane, "Well, Bluebelle, seems to me like you should either find a new philosophy or find another profession. That kind of thinking is liable to get you killed--"
He took a quick glance at his torn and bloodied clothes, shrugging nonchalantly. "--Or almost killed."
With that said, Dahj rose to his hooves, running a hand through his shaggy hair and rubbing the back of his neck.
"So... you going to get lost or what?"
The woman rose as well, brushing loose clay from her robes before meeting the tauren with an irritated frown.
"Is that always how you thank someone after they do you a favor out of the kindness of their heart?"
Dahj rotated his shoulders, trying to get the blood flowing smoothly into the numbed, stiff muscles.
"Usually. Although there was that one time I--"
He severed his sentence, leaving it unfinished as he glanced past the woman before him, who quirked an eyebrow curiously. An embarrassingly small squeak was all she could produce when, faster than she thought the large man capable, Dahj suddenly grabbed her by the wrists and forced her backwards until her back touched the face of an overlooking hill. The draenei's luminescent eyes seemed to glow with fervent intensity, her face deepening in hue by three or four shades as she fumed in raging indignation.
"How dare you--!"
Dahj didn't allow her to continue, quickly stifling her with a hand over her mouth and whispering tersely, "If you could cram a cork in your nag hole, that'd be just peachy."
The woman's almond shaped eyes widened into circles, witnessing the alarm evident in the tauren's stormy greys. Her protests died in her throat even before she heard the voices speaking in orcish and sounding uncomfortably close. Dahj flicked his eyes toward the voices becoming louder and louder, then back at the draenei. With an apologetic half smirk, Dahj repositioned his bulky frame so that only the draenei's hooves were visible from the side and, without a word of warning, took her lips as his own in a kiss.
Two orcs rounded the corner at that very moment, coming to a halt upon seeing the two hoofed "lovers" in mid kiss. Dahj parted from the impromptu kiss, shadowing the draenei's face by keeping his head lowered.
"Excuse me, but do you two mind? I'm already paying a small fortune for this one and I'd rather not make this a spectator event," he growled lowly in orcish with just a hint of aggravation.
The orcs grinned knowingly at each other, laughing rather boorishly before turning and rejoining another group of voices that wafted off from the distance. As soon as the voices could be heard no longer, Dahj took a step back, releasing a sigh from deep within his diaphragm.
"Peons. Love 'em like brothers but they're dumber than a sack of gnome shi—"
The sharp slap hurt a lot more than Dahj cared to admit. He rubbed at the now matted fur, addressing the woman dryly.
"Well that was special. What was that for?"
"You... You kissed me!" From the look on her face, Dahj appropriately labeled her not as "thankful" as he would have hoped, but rather somewhere around "pissed off".
"Well sorry, Bluebelle, next time I'll simply explain that I am guilty of fraternizing with an enemy of the Horde and let them tear us limb from limb. Sorry that my "let's save our asses" kiss didn't top being crushed into meat paste by orcs who step on kittens for kicks and giggles. Next time I'll use a little tongue."
The draenei opened her mouth for a scathing retort, but after a moment's thought, found herself blushing instead.
"No… I apologize. I shouldn't have just hit you like that," she murmured, folding her arms over her chest in hopes to hide her embarrassment. "Although a warning would have been nice…"
"Yeah, and it would have been nice if you hadn't eaten kimchi this morning. Stuff tastes like grass to me," the tauren replied with an effortless shrug, smacking his lips loudly.
The woman's hand twitched again, but this time, she caught herself and settled for glowering at him disapprovingly.
"They were looking for you, weren't they? Or rather, a dead body. There's no other reason for them to be so far out here."
Dahj pulled at his braided beard thoughtfully, looking off to their side at the endless, sun swept horizon.
"Are all of your kind this nosy and annoying or is it just females in general?"
The second slap hurt even more than the first.
"In any case," Dahj muttered, ignoring the lingering sting on his cheek, "You helped me and I helped you. We're even now, Bluebelle. So you can go. Shoo, shoo."
The woman peered at him silently for a breaths span, then replied, "Right. And how, exactly are you planning on forcing me to leave, should I choose to remain, Fuzzball?" In her scan of his person, she became aware that Dahj possessed nothing but the clothes on his back, and no weapons to speak of.
The tauren paused at this, scratching his chin. "By asking very nicely?"
Sighing wordlessly, but making no signs of movement, the priestess inquired, "You don't have a back up weapon or even a hidden weapon? I heard that Tauren were rather peaceful in nature, but this is ridiculous..."
"Well, I'm just not a violent guy, despite all this raw muscle and overbearing machismo you see before you. Plus, I never carry any weapons."
A delicately curved eyebrow was arched at this confession. "Why's that?"
"Apparently, I either enjoy head trauma and bleeding excessively... or it's a result of head trauma and bleeding excessively. And now, since I dare not risk suggesting that you to 'move it', lest I earn another enjoyable slap to the face, I'll leave instead. I'd say it's been nice chatting with you, Blue... but I haven't really been paying attention to anything you've said, so... yeah."
He turned his back to the woman, lifting a hand into the air for a brief goodbye, as if it were an afterthought, and began walking away. The sun soon reached it's noontime zenith, reigning over the sky and it's kingdom below in a diaphanous golden splendor and unmerciful heat. It was times like this that Dahj was grateful for his seemingly infinite supply of patience.
"You know, this now qualifies as stalking."
The huffy reply from behind him was full of angry consternation. "I'm doing nothing of the sort! You expect me to leave you weaponless, and without food or water in this heat? What kind of priestess do you take me for?"
He stole a glance over his shoulder at her, wearing a blank expression. "The kind that will let me release the aching bladder I've been holding for the past thirty minutes you've been following me."
The woman flushed purple involuntarily, stammering, "Oh… sorry."
Dahj sucked back a laugh begging to be released, steering off his course to disappear behind a mound of sheer rock. When he next appeared, he had turned his shirt inside out to at least hide the blood stains, although he could do little for the tears, smoothed down his wild hair and patted down his visible fur.
"I was kidding about the pee thing. It was definitely worth seeing your reaction though. But you can really stop fussing over me like a mother hen. You don't expect to walk me all the way to the city gates with a draenei escorting me like I've been a bad boy, do you?"
"Of course not, but you're headed in the opposite direction of civilization."
Dahj balked, but then allowed a small smile to span out across his face. "… Aren't you Little Miss Observant."
"Well, at least you're not calling me Bluebelle..." the priestess mumbled, swinging her pack from her shoulders and searching inside. Retrieving a leather skin, she offered it to the tauren.
Dahj accepted the proffered object, unscrewing the cork and peering suspiciously at the liquid swirling inside. "This isn't some kind of gnomish concoction is it? I don't trust anything made by beings that tend to blow themselves up into smithereens."
"... It's just water."
Dahj gave the container another distrusting look before tilting his head back and beginning to drain the contents with vigor. The woman took the stand still moment to inspect the missing patches of fur appearing every so often on the visible limbs of Dahj's body, noting the healed over scar tissue particularly.
"What's the deal with all the scars? I thought you didn't carry weapons on you?" she asked off handedly, giving him a sidelong glance.
Dahj lowered the water skin from his lips, nodding, and replenishing his lungs with the oxygen he had deprived them of in his eager thirst quenching. "And that's exactly why I have these scars."
A brief silence befell them, a humid breeze whispering indecipherable secrets softly in their ears.
Finally, the priestess could hold it in no longer. "Why were those orcs looking for you? Who exactly left you for dead? Why aren't you returning to a city? Why can you speak Common so well?"
The tauren slowly twisted the top back on the container. "You ask a lot of questions, you know."
He outstretched his hand, holding the skin out to her. However, when she reached to take it from him, he held tight, and their eyes met.
"It's not a healthy habit."
Dahj released the container. "And haven't you heard that men don't like women who ask too many questions? A woman can go from beautiful vixen to annoying ugmo in three seconds flat from questions like that."
The priestess frowned, snapping her pack shut and slipping it over one shoulder. "So... you're calling me a 'beautiful vixen' now?"
Dahj turned his head to the side, partially to hide a wandering smile and partially to move his face from slapping range. "I might have three seconds ago."
The woman shot poison tipped, serrated daggers from her eyes, which sliced coldly into the tauren. In a cool, detached tone, she asked, "So what do you plan on doing now? Don't you have somewhere to go? I'd rather not have to baby-sit you all day."
"I was planning on sorta'... you know. Roughing it a bit."
"So you're going to wander around weaponless without food and water in the middle of no where?"
"Well when you say it out loud like that it sounds stupid, not manly and rugged like I was aiming."
The draenei sighed, rolling her eyes skyward in a silent plea to the heavens.
"Although... I may know a place," Dahj added, suddenly sounding distant and whimsical. Noting the odd look the priestess was regarding him with, he snapped out of his daydream, returning the look.
"What's your name, anyway? No promises I won't still call you Bluebelle, but I figure you might as well tell me since I can't seem to get rid of you."
She smiled back at the tauren, answering mockingly, "You ask a lot of questions, you know. It's not a healthy habit."
The smile was returned, albeit it wasn't one necessarily formed completely from mirth. "Yeah, but I apparently like things that aren't good for me..." he stated in a placid manner.
The priestess's eyes roamed his face for a few seconds, but, unable to find what she seemed to be searching for, said, "I'm Kishka. And you are?"
"Mirdahj. But call me Dahj. Oh, and got anything in your pack that's not kimchi? Now every time I think about that nasty stuff I think about your lips and it makes me want to vomi--"
Of course, he expected the ensuing slap that followed, but made no effort to dodge or stay the woman's hand. He took the slap full in the face, like a man.
"Next time you get the urge to do that, can you at least slip a slice of bread between your hand and my face, please?"
Muttering darkly in her own language, Kishka reopened her pack and produced a crusty husk of bread, shoving it towards the tauren rather violently.
"Thanks," Dahj said, tearing off a huge chunk of the pastry and chewing it with relish, "Now you're slightly less annoying."
Kishka managed to both frown and glare at the same time, her eyes flashing dangerously.
"Don't you have a civil tongue in that thick head of yours?"
Dahj grinned cheekily in mid-bite. "Well, I suppose you could say that you actually had a small bit of this 'uncivil' tongue in your--"
Dahj was sure there would be a permanent hand print left in the fur of his cheek by the end of the day. He started chewing a bit slower, wincing at the throbbing the act was eliciting.
"Ever get that stinging feeling in your cheeks... that it's just gonna' be one of those days?"