Clearing the Air

As Fentulk and Joanne entered the small inn, two pairs of extremely bloodshot eyes watched them from the ridge behind the fortress.

"There's a dead guy running that inn, so I hear," Derek noted in an undertone. A demonic base camp wasn't so far away that a foolishly loud word wouldn't call attention to them. The fel reaver that got a hold of Andrew was still fresh in his mind.

Derek had seen some pretty awful shit in that tower, and done some as well, but what that mechanical beast did to Andrew nearly made him shit himself.

Shaking it off, he made an attempt at humor to help him put it out of his mind. "Think he'll eat her? Or turn her into a Forsaken?"

"That would make our efforts pointless," Amarn replied dully. This mission had managed to hit every button for him: stupid travel companions, meager fare, poor accommodations, endless small talk, frequent run-ins with the locals... and now desert. Worse than desert, wasteland. He'd done his tour of duty out of Honor Hold years before and assumed his days of coughing up dust-reddened sputum were over. Evidently not.

"Can you pick her up now? That spell thing?" Derek asked.

Sighing, Amarn growled, "For the fourth time, no. The portal negated the spell. It is gone. We'll have to use our wits to track them. In which case, this mission is a failure, considering the resources remaining."

"Look, you coulda helped, you know!" Derek hissed angrily. "Like maybe thrown a fireball or some shit. Distracted it..."

"To what end?" Amarn said, arching his brow. "Andrew was not particularly bright, if he missed all the signs of an approaching fel reaver. Even you noticed it. He served his purpose: the creature was distracted long enough for us to escape. I do not see what is at issue here."

"Never mind, yuh cold-hearted bastard," Derek muttered. Pulling his cloak about him more tightly, he fixed his eyes on the inn below them and seethed in silence.

"Trukk good for it, eh?" the undead innkeeper rasped. "Nazgrel let you in, huh? Musta had a hell of a story." After eying Joanne for a lengthy moment, he shrugged awkwardly with one shoulder, for the other sagged lower from some pre-death injury, and motioned toward a pair of beds in a corner of the building. There were no private rooms; the inn was closer to being a barracks. Fentulk supposed that was understandable, given the location and the constant threats. Everyone, from Nazgrel down to Floyd, must have the same military bend to them.

Still, it was an actual bed, and Fentulk wasn't inclined to complain. And the fact that Floyd only narrowed his glowing green eyes at Joanne's cringing form at least gave him some semblance of confidence that the Forsaken man would do her no harm.

Yet she trembled and kept glancing about. There weren't many guests in the inn, but there were a few. Fentulk scanned them and noted mostly men; a Troll, a Tauren, and two Blood Elves. Of women, there was only one, another Troll. All were fast asleep in their bunks and unaware of the new arrivals.

"Here," Fentulk said, and shoved one of the beds they'd been shown up against the wall. Then he pushed the other against the first. "You sleep in that one there, and I'll... I'll make sure nobody bothers you."

"Thank you," Joanne said quietly, and climbed into the far bed. The mattress was stiff and the linens were a bit stale, but it was not the ground, nor was it outside in the elements where monstrosities the size of the tower walked about freely, seeking victims. She shuddered and pulled the thin blanket over herself.

Fentulk dropped his pack on the floor next to his bed and sat with his back to her for a moment. He should be glad to be on the road home, yet it was bittersweet so long as Joanne distrusted him. Could the ancestors have been wrong? Was she not the one? If she wasn't, why did he feel so certain that she was?

Sighing, he lay down and stared at the ceiling for several minutes, unable to find sleep. He wasn't much of a drinker, but he would have been grateful for a mug of Nixxrax's special brew about now.

"Fentulk?" Joanne whispered to him in the darkness. He turned his head; he could barely see her in the dim light shining at the open doorway of the inn.

"Yeah?"

"Tell me of Nagrand," she said softly.

A slight smile curved his mouth. "It's beautiful. There's hills and valleys... herds of clefthoof and talbuk all about, grazin' in the grass. Tall grass, so green it makes your heart ache, seein' it after this place. Sky's always blue... except when it rains, of course. Trees all over... they got shapes to'em, like they was people once. Hard to describe. Then there's the islands in the sky."

"In the sky?"

"Yeah. Bits of the land got ripped up and just sort of... hover there," he explained. "Got grass on'em. Some trees on the bigger ones. You gotta fly to'em. Get up there, you can see all of Nagrand."

"It sounds lovely," she said. "Will we be there soon?"

"Couple days, I hope. Don't wanna take too long in the swamps if I can avoid it. The Cenarion Circle's out there, right as you come down the road from the Peninsula. Maybe they'll..." His throat closed suddenly and a shudder ran through him. Swallowing hard, he went on, "Maybe they'll let us use one'uh their transports to get... to get home."

"This has been hard on you, hasn't it?" Joanne asked, her brow creasing with worry.

"Pretty hard, yeah," he said, shrugging a little. "Ain't used to begging. Had plenty enough coin on me when I was captured. All I'd ever saved up from them years on the ship." Again, his emotions nearly overwhelmed him. "I'm sorry, Joanne. I got nothin'. I... I can't take care'uh you like I want to. If you... if you wanna go back to your people, I'll understand. There's an outpost about a day's journey from Garadar, I heard. Alliance folk are there. They'd take you in."

He felt her hand on his shoulder and looked at her.

'I have no wish to go," she said. "Only tell me one thing, Fentulk."

"Anything," he replied.

"Did you love her?"

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. "If you mean Kora, no. Never did. She thinks different, but that's just her own ego talkin'."

"I do not speak of her," Joanne said. "I could see nothing like love for her in your eyes. I mean... the woman on your ship. Did you love her?"

"Yeah, I know who you meant," he replied heavily. "I don't wanna make you mad at me, Joanne. Couldn't stand seein' the look on your face back at Hammerfall."

"I am not angry now," she insisted. "I simply must know where your heart lies."

Treading carefully, he steadied himself and said, "It weren't love, what was between me and Karie. She came to me, and... I was just... lonely. Ain't nobody pays no mind to the deckhands on them trips. Passengers just go about their business and I go about mine. She just sort of... asked me if I'd be interested in... you know... keepin' her company and such." Sighing, he turned his gaze back to the ceiling. "Ain't no way to say it nice. It was just sex. Nothin' else. But bein' with her... them times... I didn't feel so... alone. Like maybe... even if all the world didn't give a fuck about me or even care that I was there, that woman did. That one was glad to see me."

"Yet you did not love her?" Joanne asked. She felt herself relenting further. She wanted to be certain that this part of his past was over and done with, and it seemed that it was. At least, his relationship with this woman was not what Joanne had thought it was. Though relieved that he did not harbor a stronger attachment to Karie, she wondered if the feelings this woman seemed to stir in him were not also set aside. But truthfully, Joanne had experienced the same thing in the tower. While she had never sought the same sort of comfort for her loneliness, she had definitely longed for companionship. A friend. Someone to pass the time with. Someone to understand.

"No," he said. "I know what love is, and I didn't have it for her. She didn't love me, neither. It was just... sex. Sorta left me empty after. It's why I went huntin' for a mate. Cause... I didn't wanna be alone no more. Didn't wanna be... empty."

Turning his head to look at her again, he said firmly, "It weren't about lookin' for a fuck, Joanne. I swear it. I know what a mate's all about. My parents... they're mates, good and strong. I want what they have; what they've always had. I just... didn't want someone like Karie, one'uh them 'once and done' things." Grimacing with disgust, he growled, "I could'uh gotten a fuck any time in Booty Bay, if that's all it was about. Bein' with her a week... sometimes it weren't fuckin', it was talkin'. And a lot of thinkin'." A half smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "Whores don't generally chat with yuh, and they sure as hell don't make you think about shit. Karie weren't no whore. And she made me think."

"What you thought... was that you wanted a companion," Joanne said.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, settling once more on his back, his eyes on the ceiling again. "She made me see what I was missin'. What I didn't know I was supposed to be lookin' for 'til she showed me... what it could be like." Growling with frustration, he said, "I don't know how to say it. Probably just makin' it worse."

"No, I understand," she said. "She... treated you well."

He nodded. "Wanted to know my name. Where my folk came from. What my pet's name was. If I'd ever been to Northrend." Grunting with amusement, he added, "Karie made me think she cared. Suppose she did, a bit. Made me feel... good. Down deep, not just... that kinduh good."

Turning his head to look at Joanne, his heart ached, and he could not hold back. "Feels good, bein' with you. Even if you don't...," he began, then shook his head. "That don't matter. I'll get you outta this place in one piece, I promise."

"I know you will," she said softly. "Fentulk... I am glad you are with me."

He chuckled with bitter amusement. "Wouldn't leave you in a place like this. Sorry I had to bring you at all. There just ain't no other way to get home."

Though it was late and Joanne was exhausted, she wanted to talk with him all night. There was a comforting intimacy in it, their whispers in the dark. She felt closer to him now, having heard his side of things. He was a man in need of a companion, as she was a woman who longed for the same. Had the desire, the need stirred in her when he begged the men to spare her, to commit their foul deeds upon him instead? Or was it before, when he attempted casual humor though he'd been abused so badly he could barely stand?

Something about him was different, that much was certain. Something had moved her heart, and urged her hand. A path was laid out before her and she dared to set her foot upon it. Only now did she come to realize that he walked it as well.