A/N: Don't own Warcraft or Blook. Fluffy tiff + violent throwback and coarse language. That's all the warning you get.
Although there was an enormous central platform carved from stone that formed the main square of Exarch's Refuge, much of the burgeoning town was comprised of the more recent buildings erected in light of the war effort. With the reconstruction in places like Tuurem already under way, the gradually turning tide in favor of the forces of good at Auchindoun attracted a large number of both Azerothian adventurers and even natives of this alternate version of Draenor.
More soldiers and adventurers meant, of course, more demand for services: waystations, inns, bed and breakfast joints, regular restaurants and food and drink vendors, war mills, weapon and armor smiths, clothiers, general provisioners, stables, and every craft and trade from shoe repair to barbershops.
Although a good number of the entrepreneurs were goblins - and to a lesser extent, gnomes and dwarves - from Azeroth bidding on contracts from the Alliance, Horde or Steamwheedle governments, the races native to Draenor had proven their business skills as well. The entire Refuge was lined with hawkers, merchants and service workers from the draenei, the orcs, the arakkoa, a few saberon and an ogron construction worker. It was a multiracial, multicultural mileu that could even challenge the neutral cartel cities on Azeroth or Shattrath on Outland, the version of Draenor correlating with the Azerothians' version of-
"Alright wait, that's just a bit much while we tryin' ta take everything in."
Cecilia smirked at Khujand, her own head spinning from her description as well. "I'll leave the alternate dimension stuff out while we play the narrating game."
It was a multiracial, multicultural mileu that could even challenge non-factional cities. Some of the shops were simple tents - gossamer silk for the draenei, carelessly yet still adequately woven cloth for the arakkoa, skillfully tanned leather for the orcs and simple animal hide for the cat-like saberons who seemed almost instinctively antagonistic toward worgen yet oddly warm toward trolls, with whom they seemed to share a surprisingly high number of cultural similarities.
Still, much of the 'settlement' proper was now composed of wooden structures built from locally harvested wood. While blood elves did their best to leave their aesthetic mark on the architecture of the new buildings, the presence of stained glass and emphasis on varying shades of blue and purple signified the dominant influence of draenic design.
Through the motley crowd of workers, travelers, simple customers and irreverent children, a couple of long-eared giants walked side by side, Khujand towering over every other person there aside from the ogron (it was so abnormally intelligent for its kind that most of the locals had started saying 'he' instead of 'it') and Cecilia towering over almost everyone else, save three of the four tauren wandering around. Dozens of people were jabbering away in different languages - Common had not come to predominate on Draenor the way it had on Azeroth given its extraterrestrial status - and different habits of interpersonal relations. And through it all, there were surprisingly few conflicts, only a handful of arguments here and there over items without marked prices and, all in all, a very congenial atmosphere hanging over the Refuge.
It was so relaxing that, for the first time, Khujand didn't pull away when Cecilia held his hand while walking in front of other members of the Horde. As they made their way toward one of what she told him were several inns built on the grass next to the central platform of the Refuge, a group of two orcs, a tauren and another troll shot the couple a series of bewildered looks that they both tactfully ignored.
"Hail Blook beater!" chirped the enormous ogron construction worker, his single eyebrow turned up in a friendly manner.
"Oh, nice ta see ya again Blook," Khujand answered with a bit of surprise as Cecilia giggled at their reactions to each other.
The giant cyclopean didn't miss a beat. "Would you like to get beaten?"
The night elf warrior covered her mouth with her free hand, not wanting to embarrass either her fiance or their new, pleasantly simplistic friend.
"Maybe next time, Blook," Khujand answered incredulously as a diverse gaggle of children took turns trying to climb the ogron.
"Fifty percent off all beatings!"
"Blook, I win every time," Khujand said with so much confusion that his sentence almost sounded like a question. "And didnshya say ya wanna be a role model for tha kids?"
"You're right, beater boss!"
"I'm not ya boss man, we just frien-"
"I love you."
"What?"
The jolly ogron was already bounding down the road to skip rocks (read: boulders) across a lake with the local children before he could even explain where in the world his last comment came from. Cecilia was doubled over with laughter.
"I think he's sweet," she chortled as she pulled Khujand along toward the hawkers in front of the inn.
He rubbed the back of his neck before shaking his head. "Guess no matter what, I can't find it in me ta dislike him."
Right in front of the inn was a native draenei family pushing a cart, the mother and father hard at work preparing some sort of fruit on a stick dipped in a light brown viscuous liquid. The children, despite appearing to be pre-teens, were rather skillfully taking and handing over the orders of customers. Their clothes looked professionally-made but were covered in stains from the goopy sauce, and although the whole family of four appeared happy they also appeared almost overworked.
The sight of a night elf holding hands with a jungle troll - both of whom were tall enough to be seen from quite a distance in the crowd - right in public with their own respective faction members staring was enough to even draw the attention of the two hardworking draenei parents.
"Hey, let's try some of these!" Cecilia exclaimed while already sliding a few coins over the little fold-out table top on the side of the cart. "Could we have two?"
The draenei daughter shot a confused look back to her father, who then took a step forward and spoke in Orcish. "I'm sorry, were you asking for two?"
Linguistic mishaps weren't uncommon in such a multiracial place, though a number of the Azerothian adventurers had begun to whisper to one another. Khujand turned to look curiously, though the sweep of the big blue man's mohawk-topped head caused most to grow wide-eyed and continue with their business.
"I'm sorry," Cecilia chortled in Orcish. "Yes, two of those, please." The father and daughter both smiled at how quickly the elf code-switched to a language they understood and handed the two treats over to the two odd, irreverent customers.
With a mischevious grin, Khujand had already held his own treat-on-a-stick down for Cecilia to eat, evoking a muffled, slightly perturbed chuckle as she bit forward to stop it from dribbling on her chin. Breaking all rules of elven propriety regarding public behavior of couples, she tried to stick her own treat up at his face and missed by half a foot to the side. A small herd of children, amused by the giant couple, lined up at the cart so they could try to smear the treats on each others' faces as well, and most of the Azerothians passing by seemed to lighten up a little at the infectious behavior.
As he leaned over and finished up the tasty treat in a single bite, Khujand noticed Cecilia looking back and forth between him and an onlooker near a small public water fountain. Turning to see what she was looking at, he was shocked enough to pull away from her a few inches and he immediately felt her tense as the sensation of her hand being enclosed in his was ripped away.
"Khujand?" asked the very much alive sounding voice of an unusually large Forsaken who had been having a rather tense exchange of his own with a red-robed blood elf. "My God, man, this day really has been a long string of odd coincidences."
The Forsaken's healthy voice and refined demeanor contrasted sharply with his aura. He was more than a head taller than even many human warriors, and his entire head was concealed by a light metal mask and helmet. Not an inch of his body was visible underneath his expensive clothing, but there was something about him that alerted all those around him to his undead status. Although he kept a rapier sheathed at the side of his belt, his very educated-sounding manner of speaking Common, bright, intelligent-looking eyes and upscale civilian clothes all insinuated that even undead could be people of culture.
"Valmar?" Khujand asked with a hint of nervous recognition, not noticing Cecilia's somewhat lost expression as she stood next to him idly with her hands at her sides. "Oh...well, it's been more than a year, hasn't it?"
Despite much of the attention on the long-eared couple having tapered off, eyes were focused in their direction as several people standing nearby moved noticeably to make way for the craggy-faced, red-haired elf. His long, flowing crimson robes and staff with a fel green orb at the top of it signified him as a Blood Mage. His demeanor was about as close as a hardened, stern blood elf could be to 'casual,' though even the beefy troll was visibly put off by the presence of such a potentially dangerous wizard. Cecilia folded her arms in front of her slowly as she searched for something inanimate to look at.
"We were on the inside together," Valmar explained to his disinterested companion. "I once saw this man shank a former platoon commander over a stolen hot dog, he's that serious." Valmar turned back to his old friend now, not seeming to notice Cecilia reaching to cling to Khujand's elbow without looking up at him. "Hey, we have some serious matters to attend to in the Spires of Arakk. You should come-"
"Not necessary," interjected the Blood Mage, likely attempting to be dismissive but also saving the large jungle troll from turning down a request for assistance from a former cell block buddy - an offense with a gravity that he worried wouldn't be understood by those who had never done hard time in prison, not even his fiance. "As much as I understand your elation at crossing paths with an old acquaintance, it must not escape your attention that since he's here, you will be able to reminisce again in the future. Our affairs in the region south of here, however, are time-sensitive."
Khujand's eyes got wider, causing Cecilia to look up to him perplexed. The cool reaction of the Forsaken only increased his surprise.
"Well...I do suppose you have a point," Valmar sighed without seeming annoyed at all. "Khujand, my associate and I do have some rather crucial affairs to attend to in the Spires. Before we leave - do tell, what is your current situation here? I was under the impression that you wouldn't yet have been released."
About two or three minutes into the brief reunion with one of his old prison buddies, the nameless draenei and the mage - named Professor Seraph, apparently - who seemed incapable of any facial expression other than closing his eyes lightly when he found something amusing, Khujand felt Cecilia lean her head on his shoulder in the middle of the conversation. Feeling the muscles in his cheeks creak as he realized how left-out he must have caused her to feel, he tried to both bring her into the conversation and cut it short at the same time.
"This is Cecilia, by tha way," the guilty troll said as he wrapped his arm around his stiff fiance's shoulder. Her face betrayed little emotion as she seemed to have crawled into her shell. "We met here on tha campaign, up north in Gorgrond."
The Forsaken and the blood elf shifted uncomfortably at the introduction, mumbling their helloes and how-do-you-dos quietly before the professor tapped his staff on the ground. It was obviously to prompt Valmar to cut the conversation short, though several passersby jumped at the sight of the Blood Mage fiddling with his frightening arcane staff.
"Well, anyway Khujand," Valmar started with a snap of his head as though he were returning from a daydream. "Now that I know where you're staying in Frostfire, you can be sure that I'll write once my own living situation is squared away."
"Ya welcome ta come up any time, man," he answered as he rubbed Cecilia's shoulder in a conciliatory act that only made her and the trio in front of them even more uncomfortable. "There're more and more jobs every day, plus we get alotta quests up there from people that can't do their own dirty work."
Chuckling awkwardly while shaking hands, the two travelers made their way to the flight master, the crowd parting ways as they walked to give the Blood Mage wide berth. Khujand didn't wait for them to drop completely out of view in the crowd before he switched to Darnassian to attempt damage control.
"I'm sorry," he apologized as he put both hands on her shoulders in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her downcast eyes. "Cici, this ain't a normal situation, I swear. Ya know what it was like in there. I..."
She looked up at him finally, her expression emotionless with the exception of her flaring nostrils - a sign only he and Irien recognized as her 'I'm upset but we're in public' face. His heavy brow strained as he felt the pain he had caused, and he stroked her deep mauve cheek with his finger.
"Let's go ta an inn and drop all this gear, yeah? We got time ta ourselves before tha moon rises. We can sort things out once we by ourselves."
Cecilia continued looking up into his eyes blankly. Her nostrils were still flaring, but she nodded her head and when he took her hand in his, she didn't pull away. Leading her to an area with three traveler's hostels right next to each other, Khujand pointed to one with a taller doorway than the others which signaled that it had beds large enough for travelers their size.
Their room wasn't particularly spacious, but the bed was both comfortable and sturdy, with pillows thick enough for the necks and heads of people draenei-sized or larger and enough closet space for robes or gowns designed for people over seven feet tall. They unpacked in silence, working quickly in anticipation of getting a few hours rest; they still had planned to meet another couple they got off on the wrong foot with for dinner, and then a whole other day for their sixth month anniversary. Khujand wanted nothing more than for it to be an entirely blissful vacation from their work duties, and he knew Cecilia did as well, but they were both crestfallen after the previous exchange.
As always, Cecilia finished unpacking first; at her advanced age, her experience with everything from hunting to fighting to repairing her own clothing to even simple, everyday things like organizing her room or unpacking her bags allowed her to perform every task in the same speedy yet skillful way. As much as she truly didn't miss her people's drone-like lifestyle during the Long Vigil, certain positive habits had stayed with her; all of her own clothing and items were stocked and organized in the rented room as though an entire team of cleaners had swept through.
She sat on the edge of her bed - legs crossed, hands folded, eyes down - as she waited for her fiance to finish. Once he had finally thrown his final pair of two-toed socks into a dresser drawer, he immediately moved to her spot and knelt down on a single bended knee in front of her. With one of her hands clasped between his, he kissed her knuckles lightly as she spoke - a reverent habit he had that made her feel uncomfortably celebrated but which she tolerated due to the comfort it brought him on those very few occasions when they upset each other.
"You don't need to apologize again," Cecilia started, already feeling what he was thinking. She tried to resist his grip on her hands as she always did, and he obstinately refused to release her as he always did. "I'd never doubt your sincerity. I just thought we were past this."
Khujand remained kneeling as he looked up at her remorsefully. As comfortable and open as they had grown with each other during the past half year, he still had difficulty expressing himself when he felt he had done wrong. He knew he was with the most perceptive person he had ever met, and Cecilia's hyperirritability had decreased dramatically since they had been together. They both felt lucky to have each other, but resolving disputes was still new territory.
"This wasn't normal, okay?" he repeated, another nervous habit of his. "Ya know what it was like. Ya stayed only a month on tha inside; imagine six years. Valmar and I got along, but we saw things back at tha slave labor camp. He just showed up now...I mean, I never thought I'd bump inta him again, and it put me back in that place."
She acquiesed to his prying fingers and opened her palm for him to start kissing her fingertips despite the tickling. "We've been through the chances before," she tried to explain for the third time. "That you and I met in Gorgrond wasn't such a coincidence; all adventurers will be flowing here. That you'll meet more people from your past while here is not only possible, but highly probable."
"I'm tryin', Cici, but this is only tha...I dunno, fifth time I found somebody from my past. Tha third was finally findin' tha greatest person I know..."
He pulled a strand of her hair loose only so he could tuck it back behind her ear again, finally eliciting a warm smile despite her still somewhat sad eyes. "Another time ya weren't there and tha guy didn't recognize me anyway. Another time...well...I swear, tha more it happens, tha better I will get. And I'm gettin' better about not carin' when we around other Azerothian people, right?"
She nodded with a look of both resignation and understanding. Her nostrils flared but less noticeably, and she held eye contact - a double-edged sword when either of them needed to retain the other's attention. "I'm not a mindless...automaton, like during the Vigil," she said with a mixture of fatigue and empathy in her voice as she ran her fingers through his mane. "I can't just turn my feelings off with the push of a button. I know you didn't mean it, but it takes time for the sting to heal, even when small."
Sensing both her physical and emotional weariness, Khujand rose and then lied down on the bed, and Cecilia crawled into his arms without hesitation; neither of them even bothered to change out of their clothes.
"I promise, I will get over this habit," he whispered to her. "We gonna live a normal life, and act like a normal couple. Ya gonna see."
"I know we will," she sighed wearily. "You're my secret weakness. The only one who can affect me like that."
"Ya tha same for me, ya know that. I react that way cause...well..." He trailed off as he found no words to express himself. He didn't need to; even after he had upset her, he knew she could feel him.
"You don't have to explain. I understand, you're still learning how to live again. Please, just keep trying to adjust. For us."
With no window in the specific room they had rented and without the candles lit, there was a soothing darkness surrounding two pairs of dimly glowing eyes as they felt each other breathe. They both knew things would be alright as long as they were patient with one another, and the thought helped them both to drift off and rest from all the hiking that day.
The open deck at the rickety, log-cabin food shack run together by two draenei and orc families was so noisy and bustling that evening that the sound of Cecilia and Elizra chattering away in Common was almost drowned out. The former sentinel normally wasn't so talktive around anyone other than her fiance and her close circle of friends, but Elizra was so energetic and bubbly when relaxed that Cecilia couldn't help but be affected. Tyron, for his part, was just as passive and content to sit back and listen as Khujand, and once the wolf man was out of his armor and not waving a sword around, the night elf found that the two men were similar in interests if not in mannerisms and demeanor.
There were at least twenty wooden tables set up on the smooth sandstone deck that was ringed by a two-foot high wall of the same material. Despite having only cropped up when goblin money began flowing in from Azeroth, the masonry work was absolutely stunning - so stunning that the two men provided an unwitting source of laughter for the two women when they began seriously discussing the craftsmanship of a two-foot high wall nobody other than them and Vegnus, were he there, would care about. Every last chair was occupied and there were even a few patrons leaning against that magnificent two-foot high wall as they joked loudly with their companions. The servers, like with so many establishments run by natives of Draenor, were the children, nephews and neices of the owners and they all hurried to handle all the orders and requests flying their way.
The multiracial mileu - what a swell word - along with the sincere gratitude of the worgen couple helped Cecilia and Khujand both to unwind from their earlier low point, and they soon found themselves trying to step on each others' feet and brush fingertips underneath the table as they spoke to their new friends. Most of their meal had been finished by that point and they were only waiting for the two men to finish rummaging through the remaining scraps while their dessert was prepared.
"It hasn't even been a full day and we've found work, by the way," Elizra beamed, appearing thrilled at their change of fortune after having lost their talbuk and most of their gear only about twelve hours ago.
"That's wonderful! There really are so many ways to do well by doing good during the campaign," Cecilia answered with a legitimate interest that only raised the spirits of the gradually less and less downtrodden Gilnean couple. "What will you both be doing?"
Elizra shot her suddenly shy husband a giddy glance as she straightened her back and folded her hands into her lap. "Tyron here was enlisted by the Auchenai Defenders! They were previously all natives of this planet, but they've started accepting those from Azeroth with sufficient combat experience."
She reached over and squeezed her husband's hand swiftly. "He actually knocked over one of the larger Defenders during training. They were quite impressed." Tyron looked down into his lap, a nearly embarrassed smile creeping in at the sides of his snout. It wasn't strange for Cecilia to recognize normal emotions on a face so different from her own, given that she's spent decades learning to speak Ursine during the Long Vigil.
In another peace offering that he may not have had the social skills to pull off just a few months before, Khujand apparently did his best to flatter his new friend in front of the guy's wife.
"I can believe it," the jungle troll chimed in. "He sure knocked my ass down this mornin'." He rubbed the back of his neck as though it were sore for effect.
Ears perked up slightly, Tyron remained fixated on his lap though there was a contented sound from his lungs as Elizra tilted her head to look at her husband again proudly. Cecilia shot Khujand one of those 'I see what you did there' looks while running her pointer finger along the inside of his out of view of the worgen. That the socially maladjusted troll had managed to open up to her group of Alliance coworkers months ago after they had quite literally saved him in the wilds of Gorgrond was one thing; for her fiance to get along so well with a proud member of the Alliance who had tried to jump him that same day was a whole other level of bridge-building.
Once the moment had passed, Cecilia let go of Khujand's hand to rest her elbow on the table and lean toward Elizra. "So are you with the Sunreavers?"
The whole table shared a laugh just as hearty as those they heard at the tables around them, and they all seemed to forget that such a meeting wouldn't be possible on many cities - well, perhaps most - on their home planet.
"Not quite yet," Elizra chirped, or at least approached as near to chirping as a Gilnean could. "There is an interfactional infirmary tent that's been set up on the main central platform. My shift happens to be at the same time as Tyron's, so it will work out rather well once we start duty tomorrow morning."
"We're really glad things have worked out for you two," Cecilia chirped right back without even noticing. "I hope that the next time we have a longer break from our respective jobs, we'll be able to come back here to Auchindoun."
"Any time! Please, any time," Elizra laughed as her eyes spied their dessert heading toward the table. Khujand was already rising by the time the server had arrived.
"I need ta hit tha fraternities before we start," he stated far too formally, and Cecilia realized that he had forgotten the polite word in Common for toilets.
The three languages her fiance had learned aside from his mother tongue - which he was slowly teaching her to speak - were all learned informally. Orcish, he claimed he had learned through friends after the Darkspear joined the Horde; Common and Darnassian, he had started learning in Ashenvale during the Third War when the Alliance, night elves and Horde all fought side by side as allies and then later when he was monitoring Alliance and night elven prisoners all day for a year at Mor'shan. Cecilia's entire relationship with him was based on Darnassian, her language, and both their letters and constant talking while together were better than any formal lessons. Still, the fact that none of his four languages were even remotely related to one another must have been taxing considering how short his lifespan was compared to hers, and he frequently seemed to forget words he didn't use regularly.
Hiding a snicker by pretending to scratch her snout, Elizra turned to her husband. "Tyron, could you point it out to him?"
Nodding as he stood, Tyron lead the way and the two tall, rather fierce looking fighters exited the deck in front of the food shack and started on a dirt path between the sparse patch of trees that started within the settled area of the Refuge and continued out for a ways. Once the menfolk were out of view, there was a comfortable lull in the conversation despite Cecilia and Elizra themselves having done most of the talking before. As the former sentinel watched the thinnest pandaren she'd ever seen walk with a group of Horde friends down the same path, she marveled at the diversity of the campaign against the Iron Horde. Having worked for the Steamwheedle Cartel for so long, Cecilia had become quite worldly compared to other Kaldorei of her generation and rather enjoyed meeting people from different cultures and races.
Something changed in the atmosphere, however, and she continued looking down the path toward the latrines as she tried to decipher what exactly the issue was.
"Elizra...how exactly did you describe the bandits that attacked you and Tyron before?" Cecilia asked as she fixated on the path. The worgen woman didn't respond for a long time and the night elf finally turned toward her. "Elizra?"
A look of horror plastered to her face, Elizra began to shrink in her seat as though she'd seen a ghost. Shifting from bubbly to afraid, her eyes were fixated on a person standing behind Cecilia as she stared. Something was very wrong.
"Grue sends his regards," whispered a human voice from behind that made her skin crawl.
Cecilia's eyes grew wide as she realized who it was. She only had a split second before several other patrons screamed and she leaned far over to the left in her seat.
::SLAM::
The man swung a knife toward her neck, missing at the last moment and slamming the blade ineffectively into the table. Her millennia of martial training kicking in, Cecilia shoved the table forward into Elizra - she would be fine - and threw herself backward into her assailant, looping her arm around his and swinging him into empty chairs left by fleeing, screaming patrons as she looked up to see Earl Goldthwaite, after nearly half a decade, wearing the robes of a blasphemous priest.
"Say hello to Angela for me!" the greasy human with exruciatingly severe body odor bellowed as he swung again.
Bobbing to a kneeling position, Cecilia moved her head below not only Earl's dagger but two more from grubby looking human associates of his despite being a foot and a half taller than all of them. In the same motion, she slipped a hand into her left boot and gripped the hilt of a dirk she always carried around with her, no matter what the occasion.
There was only one more split second. More patrons were screaming and trying to run as two more assailants, orcs this time, jumped over chairs to surround her. Instinct took over as Cecilia remained in a crouching position, waiting for just the right moment when all of a sudden-
"Blook smash!"
::SMASH::
The gigantic ogron construction worker literally grabbed the head of one of the orcs wearing similar robes between his massive index finger and thumb. With one heave, Blook lifted the thug into the air and slammed him into the ground with a sickening thud signalling death beyond a shadow of a doubt. Using the distraction to her advantage, Cecilia flicked her dirk to the left, turning the human on that side into a pez dispenser. He didn't even have a chance to counterstrike before he dropped to the ground, gushing blood all over the concrete. A second swipe by Earl and his remaining associate resulted in another dodge from his blade and the severing of the arteries in the associate's wrist, causing the man to back up from the strategically crouching elf to clutch his slashed wrist in futility.
Panicking, the other Orcish thug tried to run in the other direction, only to discover that the barrel of a hunting rifle was the last thing he would see.
::BLAM::
More patrons began screaming and running as Irien Rainsong, Cecilia and Khujand's best friend, unloaded a technically illegal hollow-tipped round into the thug's forehead, blowing his entire head to smithereens.
Earl swung with his blade one more time, but he lacked the speed of a warrior of the night with thousands of years of experience. One fell swoop and Cecilia had risen to her full height and arced back downard with her dirk, piercing the top of Earl's skull like it was a holiday pumpkin as she drove her own blade through his cranium and into his brain. She shoved it in all the way to the hilt and didn't even bother grabbing his weapon hand, allowing it to fall to his side as she stepped back.
For a moment, Earl stood paralyzed in front of her and she knew that he was still alive. Taking one last look into his disgusting eyes, she stretched her hand forward and poked him in the chest with one finger, watching him slowly tip back and hit the ground like a felled tree.
The scene was utter chaos. Elizra had found Anushka who herself had somehow shown up out of nowhere with Irien, and the worgen and draenei were both crying and clinging to each other for dear life. Many of the patrons filtered back in to gawk at the gory scene, and Blook reveled in the positive feedback as he flexed for the crowd.
Irien slung her rifle over her shoulder and sauntered over to Cecilia like she hadn't just totally shot someone in the face. "Where's Khujand?" she asked curiously.
Dressed in another pair of baggy brown, knee-length pants worn by the Darkspear along with matching leather sandals and vest - shirtlessness was socially acceptable for the menfolk of his people and Cecilia's but not most other civilized races - Khujand noticed that the shorter races and even shorter members of the Alliance weren't avoiding him as they usually did. Tyron was wearing a long sleeved white shirt that wasn't buttoned up all the way as though he were going to a party, and Khujand imagined that the wolf man might have felt more at home within the more diverse settlement as well.
After meandering down the beaten path for half a minute or so, they were out of view of the people on the deck and at a small clearing with several outhouses. The area was strangely empty as though nobody needed to go to the bathroom that night.
"Be careful," Tyron warned seriously. "They aren't particularly clean. I can try to find a bucket of water if you need."
Khujand's heart thumped from his squeamishness about toilet hygeine as he realized what he might be about to see. "I don't want ta impose, but-"
"It's alright, my friend. I'll try to be quick."
With that the worgen was off, and Khujand was left with privacy as he prepared himself to face something awful. Opening the door to the nearest outhouse to him, he noticed the comparatively weak odor, lack of lighting and the spaciousness of the interior. With such a varied group of visitors that might include ogres and ettin, equal-opportunity fraternities would need to have room to maneuver.
Khujand hesitated before entering. He had conquered his social anxiety about many situations, but public bathrooms was not one of them. The door hung open as he stood there, and he took two steps inside without closing it. There was still enough space between him and the actual toilet itself such that he could have stretched out had he wanted.
His heart rate wouldn't slow down for some odd reason, though; perhaps it was the lack of a visible wash basin. Tyron had said he would be quick, so there technically wasn't anything to worry about.
Except the knife that was slid around from the back of his head and held against his neck.
"That ain't funny, Tyro-"
"Tye-rone isn't here," a voice rasped to him in Orcish as the cold steel of the knife was tapped against the skin of Khujand's neck. He held his hands up; his regeneration had got him through a lot of awful wounds, but there was no reason to take chances. He'd seen enough nasty altercations in prison (and participated in a few of his own) to know his coinpurse wasn't worth a sliced ear or nose.
But the knife-wielder wasn't reaching for his coinpurse.
"You're one tough motherfucker to find, you know that?" the young man who was obviously a native speaker of Orcish asked. The youth was familiar, and spoke as though he knew the jungle troll. Where had he heard that voice before?
"Yeah," the young orc crooned as two more sets of footsteps scuffed around in the clearing. "Spent months paying people to watch you back at Thunder Pass, waiting to see when you would leave. Heard you went into Gorgrond, but I couldn't get anybody to Beastwatch in time - what with the lack of Frostfire-Gorgrond flights back then."
He had heard this voice before, but it wasn't threatening like this. It had been shouting in fear. Where?
"You were going back and forth to Gorgrond quite a bit after that, and this hasn't been the first time you came to Talador either." The more the youth continued, the closer the memory seemed to float toward the surface. "Alliance cities, according to the rumors; no way to chase someone like you in there."
The youth's free hand nudged the back of Khujand's shoulder, ordering him to step forward a bit further into the outhouse. The other two people hanging behind didn't follow.
"My friends died out there, you know," the young man said in a voice that was far too calm for the information he was imparting. "You cut them up bad, real bad. The temperature was below freezing that night, though the blood loss was enough. Only I made it over to the next settlement, and I almost gave up on trying to catch you outside of a safe zone."
The free hand tugged on Khujand's vest, motioning for him to turn around and face his attacker. He kept his hands raised and as he rotated, the youth who wouldn't just shut the hell up and instigate something...wouldn't shut the hell up.
"And here I am, trying my best to survive on honorable work of looting Alliance caravans on a planet with largely undefended highways when I happen upon some wolf man asshole who knows how to handle a sword. Lost two more of my men, I did."
Khujand had turned around entirely now. There was no interior lighting, but the red glow of his voodoo helped him to see just enough in the dark.
"And now, here I find you, consorting with the enemy. Betraying your faction and your brothers, first for the sake of that little whore outside that tavern back in Thunder Pass, and now for some big whore you won't stop playing footsie with under the table out at the food shack."
Fury rose in Khujand's chest like he hadn't felt since the last raid he had participated in. First at the insult to the memory of an innocent girl who made the best with what she had. Second at the insult to the wise woman he shared an unfathomably deep love with. Third at the realization of just who he was talking to.
The stupid-looking leather headband. The light blue, poorly applied headband paint. The missing ear. The piggish, oinking manner of speaking. It all clicked.
This was one of the three young punks who assaulted Jarinta half a year ago. The other two had died and this piece of trash still thought he deserved revenge for having been thwarted in his crime.
Khujand lashed out at the same time that cool steel ate into his neck. His fist crashed into the orc's face, shattering its cheekbone beyond what any healer on all of Azeroth or Draenor could repair and snapping the orbital bone that held the eyeball in the socket. The entire eye was hanging by an optic nerve within half a second from the knockback of the punch and the Shadow Hunter distinctly heard the familiar sound he remembered from wartime when the ligaments in someone's jaw were ripped apart due to the force with which the bone was dislocated from the skull.
The orc fell in a heap at the jungle troll's feet as there was scuffling of another person entering the fray outside. Khujand coughed up blood and when he tried to suck in air, nothing reached his lungs.
He caught himself on the door frame with one hand as he started to fall forward and reached to his neck to feel that the knife had sliced his wind pipe clean open and was now lodged in his carotid artery, gushing blood all over his vest.