Taken directly from Elephant logs with minor editing for setting, flow, grammar, and time stamps.
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In the Shattrath infirmary, an orc huntress and artist recovers from the shadowy infection of a fel-hunter bite to her shoulder. With the recent work of the Pilgrimage's kitchen, the city's poor sated somewhat, it is relatively quiet.
Orvisha starts to sit up again as Gantrithor holds the leather 'canvas' in his hands. Taking the opportunity as his wateful gaze is across the room and focused on the ink wash staining of a trading post before Draenor's shattering. After the expression of his appreication of her skill and the subject, he carefully returns it and she asks; "What was--your village called?"
“It was called Baar'an.” The ex-vindicator's deep voice responds, lower than usual. After he rises from setting the stained 'canvas' down he turns to pace to the edge of the walkway to the lower entry.
Orvisha blinks as he turns. She leans to peer at the walkway, perhaps expecting the appearance of someone.
“It was not much, really, a simple settlement. We had little to offer, our craftsmen and workers simply keeping the village running.”
“It is hard to imagine anything draenic being simple.”
Gantrithor turns back. He's just pacing in place. “Heh. There is a reason why Shattrath and Karabor endured but Baar'an did not.”
Orvisha squints her gaze slightly as she peers at the man, pondering something. Lips tighten slightly, drawing back.
“When the attacks began, Baar'an was among the first to fall, due to its close proximity to orc villages. I was on patrol in the wilderness, though...”
Orvisha still ponders whatever it is she's considering as he speaks.
“But I saw the smoke in the horizon, the sky clouded on sunset. I hurried back only to find smoldering ruins and burnt canvases...” Gantrithor trails off, somewhat deliberately.
Orvisha grunts softly once. "...Nngh." Silent for a few, long moments. She sighs. "As a people--orcs don't apologize. For anything, always surviving, moving forward. M'not one to shoulder the guilt for things in the past much either but--...I'm sorry." She pauses again. "Really. Whatever that word's worth."
Gantrithor stops, not expecting the apology at all. He stammers for a moment, almost embarassed. He takes a moment to recollect his thoughts.
Orvisha flickers a smirk a moment a this reaction. She shrugs.
“... O-Orvisha... you... you've done nothing wrong. Not to me. Not to the draenei. There's no need-”
Orvisha lifts a hand, and her brow. “S'fine. I know.” Then just shrugs again.
Gantrithor stops himself, considering his words over. He sighs and droops his shoulders. ".... no. That's wrong of me to say. Not to say you have hurt me... you've not. If anything, you've helped me more than most others have in my life."
Orvisha blinks as he continues.
“... it is wrong of me to say you don't need to apologize. If you feel compelled to do so, as of a people who never do, then... I should, no, I must, accept it, with full grace and humility. To do otherwise.... would be an insult. Thank you." The ex-vindicator nods very lightly.
Orvisha squints her gaze again, then shakes her head. "...You've changed--not that I knew you much before Northwind. But, I think you have."
“... heh. I think I have, too.”
“Well, you told me you have, but anyway--”
“Before Northwind, I may have disregarded you, if not hated you. Before I met you, I always tolerated orcs, but in truth, it was a farce. Deep down, I despised them. Hated them all. What they did, and how they did it, and that they would never say why, or even say they regretted it. Acted like it never happened.”
Orvisha keeps her demeanor generally stoic and tranquil. Generally. Doesn't quite fully reach her eyes, which are soft. Almost sad.
“... I just, acted like I was "ok" with them, because... it made me feel better than they. I couldn't give into my anger, because that would make me just like an orc, no? So I wore a mask of tolerance, one that made me look better, superior. But Light, help me, how I truly wanted to lash out at every orc I'd met back then."
Orvisha keeps listening, still as any stone in the rubble of the city.
Gantrithor turns, looking out at Shattrath for a moment, exhaling.
“... do you hate me for that? Knowing how huge a hypocrite I'd been?”
Orvisha blinks, finally. Then again--eyes apparently drying slightly from how long she kept still. A shake of her head. "Of course not." Voice and speech returned to her usual eloquence. "I suppose I am lucky to only know the changed you." She huffs, tiring of speaking across a room. She scoots to turn around, hops off, then pads over.
“... changed. Mmmm. Changing, I feel is more appropriate. I do not feel at peace inside myself.”
Orvisha folds her arms. "Are you different than you were before?" Redunant question.
“What was once anger, disgust, mixed with a false face, is now.... uncertainty. I do not hate you. I could never hate you. You are honest, smart, gifted, insightful. Everything good in a person."
Orvisha shrugs. She blinks at all the compliments, very vaguely blushing. She squints at the wall a moment, then looks back to him. Blush is gone.
“... and, I know now there is far much more to orc culture, than just being proud, honorable warriors who kill to make a name of themselves. I can no longer look down at the thought of orc culture with disdain, as if it were a joke. Yet, still... I see orcs, they make me uneasy. I can accept the individual. I can accept the culture. But still I can not accept the people. The race itself. And by extension, I can not come to peace with them as a whole."
“...Ehn. You ask me--if you changed over night, it'd be shallow.”
Gantrithor droops his shoulders some. "And I do not know if I ever can do that. Or, maybe, perhaps.... if I want to. Hate is a funny thing. Makes you feel safe. Strong. Secure."
Orvisha glances to him. A small frown, then a rueful smirk flickers as he speaks of hate. "Telling that to an orc."
“... I like being strong. I pride myself on my strength, my ability to keep safe others. I wonder just how deep my hate really goes.... heh. Yes, I know. I'm silly...”
“Far. Perhaps. Not to your core.”
“... mmm. I suppose if my nature was to hate, this wouldn't bother me now, would it?” Gantrithor chuckles, shaking his head.
Orvisha nods. "Aye." She looks to him again, ponders then lifts her hand. A small drop indicates he should put his there.
Gantrithor wiggles his fingers some. Idle movements. He slowly places his near Orvisha's, not really thinking about it as he looked out at the city still. "..."
Orvisha snerks a moment at the finger wiggling. She claps her other hand atop his, wincing slightly. Bad shoulder. "You'll be fine, Gantrithor." A squeeze of both, then she lets go.
Gantrithor lets go, his arm lightly falling to his side. He breathes out his nose, looking up, then to the orc beside him. "I feel, with you by my side, that I will." A smile follows.
Orvisha furrows a brow slightly, unsure how to take that. She shuffles closer for a friendly shove. "Sap."
“... bah! Were you not recovering, I'd shove you back.”
“Quit treatin' me like a human priss.” Orvisha laughs again. She shoves him again, likely goading him to return it.
09-26-2012, 02:48 PM (This post was last modified: 11-05-2012, 01:25 AM by c0rzilla.)
Quote:“But I saw the smoke in the horizon, the sky clouded on sunset. I hurried back only to find smoldering ruins and burnt canvases...” Gantrithor trails off, somewhat deliberately.
Orvisha grunts softly once. "...Nngh." Silent for a few, long moments. She sighs. "As a people--orcs don't apologize. For anything, always surviving, moving forward. M'not one to shoulder the guilt for things in the past much either but--...I'm sorry." She pauses again. "Really. Whatever that word's worth."
A few weeks later...
A green-skinned shadow slipped lowly through the brush and perpetual blue hour of Terokkar forest. She was weaponless, only protected by the thick leather of her kilt, chest piece, bracers, speed, and silence. Eyes of the earth's amber remained wide, pupils flickering. Heightened orcish sight was a blessing she always thanked the ancestor's for. Her path deemed safe and empty, she crept forth--
Scraaw! Then the whoosh of huge, brown wings. An Arakkoa kaliri taking flight after declaring its canopy territory secure.
Orvisha froze, breath stilling in less than a second. Holding while she watched the alien feathered raptor soar off to another edge of its kingdom. Slowly, silently, her lungs emptied through parted lips, then refilled through slightly flared nostrils. Out again, then she peered ahead. Her goal was in sight after a short while, not far outside the Easternmost gate of Shattrath.
This was her second visit, the first being last night. She and the ex-vindicator Gantrithor had gone to search the World's End tavern for Spirit Walker Kapre's favored fetish. A necklace upon which various trinkets hung or were tied, the most prominent being a pendant with a red gem. The orc did not know its origins, but that did not matter. What did, is that this spiritual bridge of cord and trinkets kept one her people deemed revered—one she deemed friend—sane. The Walker had lost it in the noisy, crowded tavern during a Walk with the paladin Cristovao's lost father.
It was found, but not immediately. They, she and Gantrithor, would be guided to it by another spirit. A cold, vengeful ghost, twisted in life by a red mist her own people had unleashed on this city. Twisted, and ultimately Lost. It was no wonder then how the spirit hated Orvisha, had forbidden her to follow while it—she--tugged on Gantrithor in a delusion that he was her son. The orc had kept her distance in the shadows and brush, following her friend and the spirit to its nest. A bloody testament to maddened hate.
Arriving, the spirit “settled” Gantrithor in his “bed” in what her Lost eyes saw as Nagrand. The Walker's fetish was found, the two friends bolting once the spirit became threatening to the draenei's continued existance. An echoed orcish war cry from Orvisha distracted the Lost spirit enough for them to flee.
The nest was her goal again tonight, though with the spirit's fading back into the between fields of cold memory, the spot was decidedly less threatening. And sad. And horrible.
Creeping up the hill into the nook against the rock wall, Orvisha crouched. Still as the stone nearby, she waited and listened. Eyelids fluttering to lower half-way, breathing slowing. Nothing. The spirit seemed to be wandering elsewhere for now, thank the Ancestors.
Amber gaze flitted down to the remains. A tattered nest, no treasured collection of draenic trinkets. No club made of orcish skulls. A few arrowheads were scattered, and last night there had been a draenic child's top, which Orvisha took along with Kapre's fetish. She thought he may recognize it as well, though she saved its reveal for when he had recovered.
Sandal-clad feet pushed, palms pulled her a bit closer in. She then slowly assumed a meditative position; legs folded, earth-stained palms on her knees. A deep inhale, then a rather forced exhale as her head tilted back, braids and dreads falling over her shoulders. A few moments of silence, then she began to sing. Quietly, tone low and deep—from her chest and heart. Notes catching roughly in her throat.
Moments and notes pass, dark-haired head eventually lolling forward. A rough cough as she suppresses the burgeoning tears. But, her continued speaking only brings more cracks in the dam of her socialized stoicism. Another cough, the back of her hand pressed on the bridge of her short nose. She leans forward further, other hand's palm pressed to the earth. Singing finally gives way to sobbing for perhaps the next ten minutes of the oncoming evening.
The next few, she remains still, regaining control of her deep breath. One final, long sigh and her head falls back yet again, then forward to straighten. The thick hand that had pressed to her now flushed and tear-stained face pressed to the earth. Remaining there firmly for half a minute before she pushed herself up to stand.
Song and tears given, whatever their worth is to the spirit, she turns to slip away again. Back to the city, green-skinned stoicism returning its cracked stones about her own spirit.
The illusion had lasted less than ten minutes, but its complexity and emotional weight had left the draenei baker drained, so much so that Orvisha had to hold Andra to keep her from sprawling on the floor. Her arcane sickness as clawing as any cancer since she denied herself the addictive art for the past weeks.
As a potentially last trial to rid herself of the weight of her losses, Andra had trekked to the dark ruins of her home in Karabor, accompanied by a trio: Xanthe, Mahen'tosh, and Orvisha. All three had watched the illusion she gifted them as an explanation with varying degrees of guilt, sorrow, and awe. The baker asked to be left there, in what was left of her home, to pass this trial alone.
"These... tormenting phantoms... that... is what I see... that is... what I must rid of... Every vision... every word... I see them..."
"I rid... not of the mem..o..rie... But I rid... of this torment... To see him die... every time I sleep... To see her cry every time..."
"These illusions have... become reality to me... I..I can not live with them... I can not cling to... these visions... The past..."
And so she was left, though not abandoned. Orvisha carried her over to settle against a back wall, the orc draping her own cloak over the draenei's lap.
"And I worry for you... Keep him safe... And do not waste a moment.", she had advised Xanthe. "The same for you... Orvisha..", she continued two beats later. The orc has not responded, save for a rueful smirk to show she had listened.
While the trio had left Andra to her meditation, they had not left the tiers of the darkened draenei temple yet. The elder orc and tiny elf, she knowing the baker somewhat better than Orvisha, quietly conversed. Xanthe tried to offer comfort to Mahen'tosh, the Elder's guilt the deepest of the orcish pair. Herself, Orvisha had wandered off, unable to sit with the fire that grew in her blood. She might have likened it to the Blood Lust of her race, but there was no battle drawing it out, darkening her eyes from golden amber to ruddy orange.
Ducking around a corner, her booted steps had quickened. Booted instead of her usual sandaled, she had donned a new set of armor for the trip, the set smithed for her first steps toward shamanism. It felt so tight, unlike her usual leather and fur kilt. And it only irritated her quickened pulse. Her hastened steps and tear-blurred vision left her lacking in her usual grace, and it wasn't long before her toes collided with the scraps of an orcish siege engine. Down she tumbled, gloved palms hitting the sickly colored stone floor. A light cloud of dust and dirt rose, further disturbed as Orvisha scrambled up, turning to face the dead engine.
She stared, bristling for the first few moments, as the light from the fellish meteors that still rained from the skies of Shadowmoon reflected in the metal. Making the dead steel and wood almost twitch with life. The tears in her eyes only made it worse with their shuddering blur over her vision.
Breath is tugged in, pushed out. Tugged in, pushed out. And then her feet pushed against the stone towards the engine. Halting before she ran into it, one foot lifted and--
"f**k!"
The heel of her boot met the dry wood with a dull crunch, and she stumbled back, nearly losing balance again. Catching herself, she stared at the indentation of her heel, splinters fraying.
"...f**k."
The eloquent orcish she had been raised with did not possess a suitable curse for the things she wanted to spit. A stronger dart forth, a kick of her heel to the dent in the wood, then she stumbled back again. The force had her half-spin, the shadow of a mountain suddenly looming in the corner of her vision.
Thinking it some threat far nearer, Orvisha hopped to face it, gaze widening. Instead of a rogue remnant of the Illidari she beheld the volcanic Hand of Gul'dan. The continuously erupting geyser of fel could be seen from nearly anywhere in Shadowmoon, but here the view was clear like nowhere else. Like an oozing wound in flesh, green lava rolled down its sides to the viridian rivers at its feet.
Here, it was said, Gul'dan raised the volcano himself when he severed the orcs' connection with the Spirits.
Almost entranced by the sight, Orvisha's arms dropped to her siders, and her feet shuffled closer to a nearby edge. Toes bumped the carved stone before she could fall over, gaze flitting down, widening a moment at the height. Then pulling back up to stare again at the Hand. For a couple minutes the fire in her veins quieted.
“But I saw the smoke in the horizon, the sky clouded on sunset. I hurried back only to find smoldering ruins and burnt canvases...", his words drew off, that alien-deep baritone fading.
For a couple minutes. After they passed it sparked again, sliding through her veins as the sick lava hemorrhaged in the distance. Breath was tugged in, pushed out. Tugged in, pushed out. Leather creaked as her fists clenched, fingertips clawing her thighs briefly as they were pulled in. She had to get it out, let it loose, but there was nothing to strike besides dead siege weapons and stone.
So, she roared at the Hand. Like she never had before, even when aiding the Deadeye Watchers in Felwood. Or frightened off one of many hungry beasts in the wild. Roared in denial, confusion why had she gotten a flickering hint of herself in huge arms when the image of Andra's husband held her as the illusions sped by, anger, sorrow, and as her voice cracked at the end, acceptance.
Arms started to flail as she nearly toppled over, voice drained. A jerk back, and she landed on her seat, dust lifting again, gaze not truly focused on anything except perhaps those floating motes.
"...Dammit", Orvisha growled as a dirty palm wiped her face, the other pushing herself up again. A spit, then she blinked as the saliva shone on the stone. She wiped it away with the sole of her boot, and for not even a hint of a moment, the stone looked clean again. She frowned, brow creasing as that illusion passed, gaze pulled up again to the volcano. A few loping steps back, slow and careful to not trip again. Both of her hands lifted, their backs facing the ever-bleeding wound in Draenor's earth. Two fingers flicked up in farewell to the corruption, then arms dropped as she finally turned to head back to her companions. A short sniff, and a low chuckle.
"... And do not waste a moment.", she had advised Xanthe. "The same for you... Orvisha.."
11-04-2012, 10:46 PM (This post was last modified: 11-05-2012, 01:17 AM by c0rzilla.)
Clarity
Orvisha sat back down by the fire in the middle of the small camp in Sholazaar's River's Heart. Another figure occupied the area as well, male, orcish. Though he remained sleeping, deep and peaceful. She wondered if he had ever slept so before he met her, and they had bonded. A quick blink, a shake of her head, and she pulls herself out of her reverie to focus on the filled bowl in her lap. An odd assortment of ingredients; water from up the river, cooler than the nearby hot spring lake. A pinch of earth for mind and spirit's stability. A seed from a fallen fruit for growth.
A sapta.
Let's see if I remember what Emra taught me. She never let me use hers, though...
The not-quite-shaman scooted closer to the fire, setting the bowl upon the small fire. Grateful the wood is lacquered in such a way that it won't burn. Drawing her hands back, she watched the tiny bubbles start to rise. Then grow. Before long, the small bowl was bubbling and boiling. Orvisha's gaze widened in a small amount of panic, and she dovefor her satchel. Hands tearing into it, she fished out a small herb packet, dashed back to the sapta and tossed a large pinch in.
The nearby male generally remains undisturbed. One large, scarred arm floped onto his face. Both eyes remain closed, a red lens of mechanical nature hanging around his neck.
Orvisha glanced to him, a smile flickering, then back to the fire. Steam rose from the boiling water, thickened by the scent of the herbs. Slowly, she adjusted her position, movement easy and comfortable in a simple cloth shirt and pants.
Inhale. Exhale. The steam was drawn into her nose, her lungs, then her veins. Held. Empty breath is pushed out. With it, her throat hummed with an aimless mantra. Inexperienced with saptas as she was, she did not notice herself drifting out of the consciousness of this world, and towards that of another.
She also did not notice two sleepy yellow eyes blinking open, one faded. Then peering at her. She barely caught sight of the rushed scrambling of a scarred, green body towards her. Barely felt the brush of as it sits by her.
...Awake? Did it work? It worked! I can't--...ice? Ancestors above, did I teleport myself to felling Dragonblight?
…
No. This—this is River's Heart. But...frozen. Everything's frozen! Am I cold?--yes, yes I'm cold. But, I can breathe. But, I'm cold. How can I breathe, when I don't see that little cloud?--need to run to get warm. To get out.
…
I see green on the horizon! Run faster or you'll freeze to death here! Faster! Fas--...dammit! Get up, and r--...seed? That's the seed I had in--...
Is ice not equal parts air and water? WintersstormsRAGEandFREEZEtheearth.
It--...it is. But, I did not call--...
We called you. We always called you.
...Yes.
We declare you a balanced channel for winter's fury. WintersstormsRAGEandFREEZEtheearth. Keepseedssafeforspring.
Why?
Did you not notice both your trials were in the cold? Northwind and Northrend? Mindandbodyarebalancedyessssss.
I understand.
The fury of Winter's storms will hone your axes' blades. The deep waters of the North will heal your allies. The snow that covers the seeds for spring will guard you.
Thank you, spirits.
Go. You have still much to learn, as do all shaman. But your feet will be guided by our winds.
...Warm. So warm--...hot! Why...
.
.
.
Lids pulling open, Orvisha blinked heavily. Breathing. She wasn't sure when her last real breath had been, and so her lungs grabbed at the humid air of Sholazaar, throat choking. Then exhaled in a cloud.
"'Vish! Ancestors' nuthair, don't do that! You hear me? I don't know what you shaman smoke, but--!", Corlmitz blurted out in hurried Orcish.
"'Mitz--I'm fine. I promise. But...why am I in the lake?"
"...Oh. Heh--you got so cold, I thought you were gonna freeze!"
"...I love you, 'Mitz."
"I l--...you too. But, what happened? Why'd you go tripping without me, heh? Eheheh."
"I wasn't tripping. Not--like that. It was a sapta. A brew shaman use to commune with spirits. It--seems...it seems those of winter and cold like me."
"...Right. So--...you're a shaman now? For real?"
"...Seems so."
Corlmitz stared at her blankly as he held her in a near deathgrip in his lap. Both sitting in the warm waters of the River's Heart lake. She in his lap now, as opposed to by their camp's fire. Then, as quick as a cold flurry in Winter, he squeezed her, face in her shoulder.
"M'proud of you. But, tell me next time you decide to commune, 'er...whatever that...just tell me."
"Heh--thanks."
Another bout of staring for a few moments after the mercenary lifted his head off her shoulder. A rough sigh follows as he moved forward for a loving kiss. A pause. Then he pulled back, blinking in confusion.
"...Your lips are cold. If that fuckin' ele--..."
"'Mitz. It'll fade, don't worry."
"Oh. Well--..."
"Let's get back to camp. We already had some fun in the water, and I need a bit of a break after my 'tripping'."
"..."
"You can hold me."
The mercenary flashed a wide grin, then stood, still holding Orvisha. Both dripping, he turned and carried her back to the simple camp. By the fire again, he flopped to the ground, she tight in his arms as his chin rested on her head.
12-05-2012, 12:07 PM (This post was last modified: 12-05-2012, 12:10 PM by c0rzilla.)
A History Lesson
Orvisha peers up at the palm tree thoughtfully, both she and it standing on a sandy pillar in Thousand Needles, between the two halves of Ratchet-on-the-Rocks. It had been a couple weeks, maybe three, since she arrived here after the end of the Deadeye Watchers’ campaign in Felwood. Her chest rises and falls with deep, quiet breaths. Her lungs taking advantage of what clear air she can get in the goblin city, most of her time having been spent in the slums.
"How can you survive out here?," she finally asks the tree (and herself, somewhat) in her people’s tongue. The tree rustles in the breeze rising from the canyon below.
A watcher makes his way out from behind the steel rig behind her, and accompanying him is a strong gust of sandy wind that tugs moderately at his similarly-hued robes, revealing the armor beneath. He lifts his head slightly, peering about the arid landscape. After a few silent moments he would ease closer to the orcess.
Orvisha keeps staring at the tree a while, though her right ear twitches at the appearance of the man. An elf, tall as most of his folk are (he had an inch on her), fair, crested by platinum hair. Her short nose gives a very vague flaring of its nostrils. He even smelled like sand. Chin still lifted, her gaze lowers, head barely tilting to the left to peer at him. "Was wondering when you'd wander here."
“It's a trail I've wandered a great many times before. I was wondering why it took you so long.,” he retorts in vagueness. A slight lilt in his mostly monotone voice belies the humor gotten from frustrating the orcess. The elf’s stature shows for the man to be at complete ease, despite the layers atop of him.
Orvisha finally lowers her chin to a relaxed tilt. A fist rests on her hip, other palm lifting. "Sorry, I was too busy aiding in the killing a nathrezim. And I don't have the whole desert nomad look you have going."
“You sound rather proud of yourself.”
“I think it's called for. Far as here goes, I just got done almost causing a global incident. Well, me, this other orc, and this recent merc group.,” she continues, gesturing with her hands in sardonic excitement. Hands drop, and she rolls a sore shoulder.
"The Horde and Alliance will always be at one another's throat. No one incident will make them kill each other anymore or any less."
Orvisha steps over to give his shoulder a slight prod. “...I know. A joke to relieve stress. And you?”
“What of me?”
Orvisha folds her arms loosely. "How've you been? Your talk of people trying to off your weird self got me worried." She smirks slightly, though speaks honestly.
“No need to worry your pretty little head over an old man's foes... Never the less, I have been as I always have. For the most part at least. A tad bogged down with work.”
Orvisha peers at him a moment, then rolls her eyes at the remark of her ‘pretty little head’. She thinks a moment as her gaze rolls down back to him. "...Hey, you're up on Silvermoon's news, right?"
“I'm up on much news. What's pestering your mind?”
“Know a Lady Reigen Somethingorother--...death knight. Tiny.”
“Reigen Talah'Malanore, yes.”
“...Elf names. You're a relic guy, right? She's contracted out the same merc guild I tagged along with to search for her.”
“I am a man of relics, yes. Reigen is a friend of mine, I suppose you could say. We have a few common interests in terms of what has come and gone.”
Orvisha eyes him up and down, brow lifting in some concern. "You need better friends."
“They're dead.”
“M'not. Not sayin' I'm better, but hey--I'm not dead. I'm also getting the sense something specific brought you here. Ratchet doesn't seem like your kind of 'town'."
“Neither did Felwood.”
“Felwood? Felwood's littered with kal'dorei ruins. Who knows what's lying in those burrows. It’s a damn playpit for you.”
“Mmh... Never the less, I suppose you are as perceptive as I thought you to be. I am here for something, namely you.”
Orvisha stares at him a moment. "You could'a just sent me a letter, " she snerks.
“Not quite... This task is something I can't quite complete on my own and I require the aid of another. I figure you would be a good fit.”
Orvisha’s smirk fades for a more thoughtful, perhaps wary, tightening of her lips. Her right foot slides back so that she might more or less face him. "...Right. Why me?"
“Why not you? You've yet to hear the task to begin with.”
Orvisha eyes him again, hooded head, to sandaled feet. "Alright. Go on."
The elf slowly turns his head towards the woman. From beneath she could see a slight smirk forming. It was eerie. "Somewhere else... there are too many prying eyes."
She vaguely squints her eyes at the smirk. Her lips tighten, resisting returning it. "Creepy. I don't know the city so much, so you're going to have to find a place."
Another strong gust blows, kicking up a flurry of sand. With it the elf seems to as well, his form breaking down into grains which are carried away in a stream of hot air. Much the same would begin to occur with Orvisha, the woman soon being pulled away into the flurry. She widens her gaze. Slowly, slowly--her eyes become as saucers. "Aw, what th--!" She steps back...and the sand follows. "Gah!," she chokes out as she scrambles to the tree, clinging. Nails scrabble, but she isn't strong enough against this wind. Her nails marks are left in the bark, the only sign left of her presence here as she vanishes.
The sand whips about through every which way in the air. There seems to be no sense of time, as the woman feels herself forming back up almost as quickly as she had faded away. However, the sky is now greatly different from the sandy dunes of the Needles. Dark, shot through with strings of viridian. Reddish clouds, not of rain-giving vapor, but of dust float by, hiding the alien stars.
Orvisha pretty much THONKS on the dusty iron of the parapet upon which the elf transports them. She lays there quietly a moment or two, eyes closed tightly. One after the other, they pull open, peering through her messy hair. "...Hellfire?," she mutters in a croak, then slowly gets to pulling herself up. Turning once or twice, to make sure--...the elf is in armor now? She peers at him, leaning back slightly. Then to the iron structure. "...This is the Citadel, isn't it?"
The elf nods slowly. "Is, has, always will be," he comments, though his voice seems to be very much not his own. Instead it comes out twisted and perverted into a darker form of itself. Each tone is unnaturally low, and with such he seems to be completely changed from the robed wanderer he once was.
Orvisha leans back a little further at that, one hand drifting more toward the draeneic-angled axe at her hip. She studies the tabard covering his chest plate, not recognizing it. Another pull of her gaze around, pointed ears pinned back. She seems to listen for something, but doesn't hear it. Gaze pulls back to him. Blink-blink. Narrows. She points. "Knew it. Knew I was on the right trail when I mentioned the red flight, just got the color wrong." She pads around, peering to the tabard again, now picking up on the bronze draconic figure stitched therein.
The elf slowly paces towards the battlement, his horned helm slowly observing the sand and dirt of the lands about. "It was to be, so I had little reason to keep myself so cloaked... Though either way you seem to be quite..." He peers to her. "Perceptive. Never the less, there is a work to be done and it is your aid I need, my green-footed friend.”
Orvisha watches him carefully, turning to keep her gaze on him with every step. Slowly, she pads to the edge as well, flits her gaze down, then to him. "...Ancestors, I feel under-armored. What're you--we--looking for?"
“Nothing in particular, I simply enjoy the view. Now then... this task is for you to complete and no one else.”
“...I thought you said you needed help.”
“Precisely. I cannot complete this by the ruling of a greater power. You and you alone can complete this task... Are you familiar with the Slaughter of the Draenei?”
Orvisha inhales, then sighs. Arms fold tightly, as if they might keep her from dissolving again. "Of course." She nods back. "That's the Path of Glory, right there." Indeed, the great road, paved with the bones of the Exiles, stretched Eastward to the Portal.
“Good. I need you to go and be sure it still occurs.”
Orvisha drums her fingers on her arm tensely, waiting for the terms for a relic hunt--...wait. She stares at him. Mouth gapes. Closes. "You..." She seems dumbstruck a moment. A few things flash over her face, a number of them not welcoming. She stares at him again, then back to the path for a long one or two minutes. Then back to him with some effort. She mutters something, a name--Gantrithor, as she turns. A deep inhale. "...Fine," she states, though her arms are the tightest they've been folded, brow deeply creased.
“You may decline, Orvisha... but the timelines are under a theat of becoming unbalanced.”
“...I said fine,” she snarls. “It's an atrocity that shouldn't have happened by any moral stretch. But, if the draenei didn't make it to Azeroth, the Army of the Light wouldn't be coming. Kil’jaeden may still be--…Ancestors. I don't know anything about any timelines. And how am I supposed to do this?”
“It shouldn't have happened, but it did. That is what is important.”
Orvisha just stares at him, waiting for him to get to the point. Her mossy skin, by now, far paler than it was just minutes ago.
“Now then... there are individuals that are attempting to talk one of the orcish commanders out of assaulting the draenei. I suggest you use some of that ingenuity of yours to be sure he stays on course. I will do my best to handle these... corruptive individuals, so that you are unimpeded. You must be sure the commander continues to entertain the thought of the slaughter.”
Orvisha closes her eyes tightly, listening. A deep inhale, and she nods firmly.
“Good. I suggest you act natural. The commander is on his way.”
By the time Orvisha opens her eyes once more, she finds that the elf has disappeared without a trace or rustle of a breeze. However the guttural grumbles of a rather noisy orc can be heard far off and rapidly approaching.
Orvisha heaves out a choking sigh, almost giving into panic. A quick inhale, a shudder. Fists clenching--and she aims a heeled kick at the rampart's edge. Natural for a conflicted bard, and a battle raging...whatever she's supposed to be to the commander. Right? She pushes off, and finds herself facing a—map upon an orcish table? She eyes the Path again, then glances to the noise. "Natural, natural--what...hngh." A shake of her head, and she pads around the map slowly, studying it.
"...What are they doing, attempting to get me and my men killed... Bah.. Scout! You're back early. You damned well be bringing something interesting."
Orvisha catches sight of the giant, red orc. She flits her gaze up to it. Him. Chest lifts with a deep inhale, pupils shrinking to dots, though she controls how wide her gaze is. Thinkthinkthink. Heart pounding. Her fist claps to her chest in the salute that seems to have lasted ages. "Commander! " She stares at his fellish malformations, though she doesn't let her gaze wander from his hideous face. Her tongue switches to older orcish easily. "I made it to Terokkar. I saw little presence, but the wild’s tracks, signs in the branches--they speak of the draenei's movement to their great city." Slowly, with the act, she gains a little more confidence, nose wrinkling, lip curling. "The major trade line through the woods is empty--they have fortified themselves behind their walls. Cowards, that they are, on our world."
The Commander neared his map, nostrils flaring with each snort and grunt he made. By the end of Orvisha's report he would have nodded in the slightest sign of approval. "Lambs they are, no doubt. Even still news from the clan lords has me troubled." He quickly draws a dagger of steel and jams it into the map- where Nagrand would be. "They're calling for us to slaughter the draenei and our own people. The Frostwolves have already made themselves scarce since the drinking of blood. Much the same with the Whiteclaws. The clan lords want their blood."
Orvisha watches him closely, daring not to move. Her hand lowers to her side again, posture straight. Her expression drops to numb blankness as he looks away. She glances to the dagger, then he. "Let them run, we have the draenei to focus on. Spirits know how long they can last a siege in there if we let them strengthen. We must strike, and when we have the city, the stray clans will know what banner to fall under."
"We cannot underestimate a caged animal…plus the lords wish the heads of the traitor clans before we act on the Slaughter. If they drag my men into this then we're asking for heavy casualties."
Orvisha shakes her head. "We will lose men either way, whatever path is taken. But, we will lose more if we attack the fleeing clans. I do not believe we should risk a civil war, when we have the draenei to go after. We can fortify our numbers with ogres. And, among your numbers as I am, I would wish for death in battle against the blue-skins, and not against the Frostwolves or Whiteclaws. When we slaughter the blue-skins, they will return. And if they do not, then we will crush them once we have the resources of the draenei. As well, the fleeing clans do not have our strength. Their skin is only green from miasma, and not the direct power we have taken.” She nods, finally taking a shaking breath she prays he doesn’t notice. "You know this."
"They are not us but they are orcs never the less, and with them they carry the arms of their petty ancestors... I cannot say for sure what secrets they may be hiding. However... the ogres may make good shock troopers if we coat them in enough of the cheap slag steel we have."
Orvisha nods stiffly. "We know what secrets the blue-skins have, and how to crush them. And, the use of ogres would save much orc blood." Throughout this, she keeps very still. As any scout might in the presence of such a commander. Her gaze drifts over the old map, keeping her awe in check.
The commander reaches over, pulling the dagger out with a heavy 'thunk!'. "Ogres..." He says with a snort and a smirk. "You're a smart one scout." He looks back to the map. "Now we won't be getting any help from the Thunderlords nor theMok'nathal. So we're going to have to the ogre chieftains to provide our troops."
A sharp shudder passes up Orvisha's spine at the smirk. "I can foresee no issue with that. They love battle as much as we, perhaps more so." Gaze flits from the map, to the dagger, and then up again to the Commander. "Do you've any further questions, or assignments for me, Commander?" Her fist taps her chest again. Not in farewell, but appropriate salute.
The commander slowly nods as he draws out a piece of paper as well as charcoal. Soon enough he would scratch down a few notes and bind the paper with twine. "Pass these orders off to the sergeant. He should be out on the next terrace."
Orvisha taps her fist to her chest again in affirmation. "Aye, Commander."
The Commander offers the scroll out to her as he looks back to the table. "Good work out there. Now get going."
Good work? Good--...what did I just do? Will all you war-happy bastards in Orgrimmar call me honored now? I am swimming in--...
I'm so sorry, Gantrithor.
Orvisha steps around for a closer distance to take it. Nostrils flare for a silent inhale at the closer sight of his horrific self. Scrolls taken, she nods, and strides off. Moving into a trot a few more feet away. Finally, with her back to him, she clenches her eyes shut. Panic wells, her stomach clawing at her throat. Both are pushed back down. Eyes pull open again.
As the dots in her vision fade, out on the Terrace she spots a rather bulky orc--even more so than the commander himself. Constantly he moves, shadow boxing with the air all about. Agitated, and restless. Wanting to pound his fel-red fists into blue skulls. As the 'Scout' nears, however, he slows down, immediately snarling. "What is it, girl?," he demands with a guttural tone.
Another shudder of disgust shoots up Orvisha’s spine, gaze widening, pupils shrinking again. She pulls herself forward, and then nods. "Sergeant?," she asks briskly, respectfully.
"Yes, now what is it?! I'll have your hide on a wall if it's another set of fake orders you scouts made up."
Orvisha widens her gaze slightly, stiffening. She pulls herself forward again. "From the Commander. Ask him yourself--sir--if you doubt."”
The sargent reaches forward, snatching the paper form her grasp with little care for her wellbeing. Orvisha stiffens her legs so as not to stumble, pulling her hand back which balls into a fist, arms straight at her sides as she awaits any further note. She keeps her gaze about his collarbone, hiding her nearly irresistible desire to stare in utter horror at her distant ‘cousin’. With impatient hate he rips the binding away and pulled the orders up so that he can read them.
Then, after a long few moments of the sergeant turning the orders every which way to read them over he quickly tosses the scroll aside. The rough orcish parchment wafts to the stone floor. The yellow, hand-long fangs and tusks that line his thick jaw are all revealed as his mouth splits into a grin. "Yes..." He growls with glee. "Yes!," he bellows out soon after. Quickly, he seems to lose interest in the woman, soon barreling past and out the door. His departing woops can be head echoing; “Death to the blue-skins!”
Orvisha pulls her gaze up slightly, though doesn't quite lift her head with it. She nearly falls with the barreling, turning to watch. Left with no order, she stands there blankly. Breaths are shallow and short. A quick glance about, and she scurries to the hall the sergeant just ran through, pressing back to the corner between the wall and iron support. Another glance back and forth to make sure no one is close, and she bites onto her fist.
The officer tiers of the Citadel now all seem to have gone quiet, though the bellows of the soldiers along the ramparts seem to ring out from the heart of the Citadel itself. Orvisha flinches upon hearing them, sliding down the wall to curl up as an infant might. Teeth still grip onto that fist, other arm holding her knees.
Eternity passed.
Heavy plate boots echo. She tenses a moment at the sound, eyes pulling open, the orcess bard ready to defend against a monstrosity. Surely her cover would be blown now. Except—the elf pauses in the middle of the hall, his movements almost mechanical as he turns his head towards the woman. Her chest rises with a deep, shaking inhale and she sinks again against the wall.
"You've completed your task, I see." He begins in that same distorted voice. "They're readying for the slaughter."
She exhales in a strained chuckle. "...I figured," she croaks. “...So. That was all real? I talked to--...? In the past?”
“Yes. With your words you've sentenced women, men and other innocents to die. Just as it should be.”
Orvisha tugs the Draenic-lined axe into her lap, both hands holding onto the handle tightly. Eyes close again. "...Now what?,” she asks with a cracking voice. Her lids squeeze out a tear or two.
“Now I have an offer for you,” he begins. To which, she barks out a short chuckle. The heel of her palm pressing to each closed eye.
He comes about to crouch before the woman, an almost comforting gesture. The glow of his eyes seem to be cloaked by a false blue within the helmet. "I can have you forget this ever happened. I can return you to the world and you can continue on with your life uninterrupted. Or you may work with My Matron, Minormi, as one of her sworn. You will see and cause countless deaths and countless joys for the sake of preserving the world as we know it.”
Her hand lowers--and she blinks her eyes open, hearing him closer. She stares at him. Lips open. Shut. A heavy sigh and she shakes her head in disbelief. "I cannot forget. That would be an...insult of--" She pauses, then listens more. Brow creases. "Who--..." Realization in her reeling mind. Mouth opens, shuts. She tugs the axe a little closer to her stomach. "...I can't forget this." Her gaze drifts more toward his chest. Lips tighten, eyes close again. A deep inhale. "I don't understand why me, but...I will aid."
“Understanding why will come with time, for now I suggest relaxing. It's not every day you're hurdled through time.” He brings a hand about, reaching into a small beige pouch that sits along his belt. From it he pulls a simple pendant of gold, a token of bronze fixed into its center. "This is a gift for you."
Orvisha sets her right hand to the support, pulling herself up. She peers at the pendant. Glances to him, back to it. With a softly shaking hand she reaches to take it. As it rests in her palm, her thumb brushes over its surface.
He nods. "It's blessed by your Matron, Minormi. Should she need you she will contact you through the pendant just as she had to for me when I was called to test you."
Orvisha lifts a brow at 'your', glancing to him again. Lips part again, tongue having a million questions ready to slide off it. She, however, chooses to heave another sigh and lean to her right against the support. "...Thanks." Honest in the word, despite her emotional exhaustion. She lifts the pendant. "Not just for this, but--...guess I'm glad it was your crazy elf butt 'testing' me." She strains a weak smirk.
“Now then, your questions? I'm sure after all of this you have quite a lot.”
Orvisha chuckles dryly again, dragging a hand down her face. She decides to start with something practical to get her grounding. "Alright, I get keeping things as they are--...but, what's causing damage?"
“There are more dragonflights than the traditional five that everyone seems to know... Nether, chromatic, so on and so forth. One of these lesser flights is the Infinite dragonflight. Their purpose is to disrupt the timeline. Our job is to fix it.”
"I know of the Nether. You're saying there's one--..." Her brow creases slightly. "Why? I mean--why do they do that?"
He shrugs. "It's their purpose... There are many things we don't know about them. There are only theories, but you cannot base an entire argument on theories alone."
Orvisha grunts. "S'a start." She keeps fidgeting with the pendant, studying the elf. "I'm guessing I need to be quiet about this, right?" That weak smirk again.
“If you trust your loved one you might want to tell him... otherwise, guard it with your life.”
Orvisha nods slowly, sighing again. "I can't--think of anything else right now." She pushes herself off the wall, standing straight again, though, still very pale.
“Right...let’s be off then. Before anyone misses you.”
She nods slowly, blinks, and then stuffs the pendant under a pocketed flap in her kilt.
Then, much like before the wind would begin to tug at their forms. First the elf faded into the wind, particle by particle of sand. Once he faded from view, Orvisha would follow soon after. She does not react strongly this time. She watches, very unnerved, as she fades.
Reforming in Ratchet…
Orvisha half turns to the right and left. Shudders. Then peers to Krilari. Awkwardly, she stuffs her hand in her hair at the back of her scalp. "I, uh...I'm likely gonna hide in Mitz's apartment for a week." A weak chuckle. "So--...bye?" She sighs, usually graceful words failing her horribly. "...Not sure how to bid farewell. Right now."
Krilari looks to the Orc, a smirk visible beneath his hood. "So your story begins." He nods in recognition to her goodbyes. "I wonder where it will take you."
She blinks at his smirk. She snorts. "So, you my mentor now or something?," she asks quietly.
“I am but another man in an army, just as you are. There is no one above or below another.”
Orvisha peers at him skeptically, then shakes her head with a defeated sigh. "...Alright. See you 'round." Another pause, no form of 'bye' seeming appropriate. A soft huff, then she pulls herself south, beginning to pad off. Footing unsteady despite her attempts at a rigid posture.
Krilari makes his own way in the opposite direction. "Eonar's blessings."
---
To assure anyone wondering about the No Two Dragonsworn Allowed rule, Annabelle's sworn-ness has been nullified.
12-10-2012, 10:27 PM (This post was last modified: 12-10-2012, 10:31 PM by c0rzilla.)
To Serve the Horde
“You will hate me for asking this question. But which would you serve first? The Horde? Or a dragon?”
Orvisha peers to him, uncertainty flickering at her father's reaction. "...I know of our history with--" She pauses, then glances down in thought. "...I do not hate you. I am no less loyal to the Horde. The only thing asked of me is to record. Watch." She looks to him again.
Kilshi 's arms fold over his chest. "You know too well the value of information. A single scout could cripple an opposing army with what he or she tells a superior."
“The bronze flight does not seek to destroy the Horde or the orcs, only to keep history.” Orvisha keeps her tone as it has been, not arguing with her father.
“Dragons are fickle. The azure ones proved that much.”
Orvisha nods slightly, acknowledging the battles against the blue dragons. "...I know not what fully caused--that. But, did not the rest of the flights, along with mortals, put a stop to it?"
Kilshi nods. "And if your dragon and her flight decided the Horde needed to be eradicated, would you aid her? Or would you turn back to the Horde?"
FOR THE HORDE!
LOK'TAR OGAR!
VICTORY OR DEATH!
YEAH! WE GOT THIS!
AUROOOOOOO!
Orvisha nods. "I would aid the Horde." She glances to the ironic yelling outside, catching her sister's voice among it, then settles her gaze back on Kil'shi.
Kilshi sighs quietly. "... I see. Good," he says quietly, holding out the medallion for Orvisha to take. "... The Horde are your people, Orvisha. To me, to us, you are family. The life and blood of our race."
A day or so, perhaps two, after Orvisha had told her father of her being chosen to aid the Bronze dragonflight she rested in Orgrimmar. Not minutes after the announcement, her sister Emra had come knocking on their home's door to speak of her task. She was to aid Lirshar Goresight, daughter of Farseer Mochla Stormcaller, in rescuing her mate. Held captive by Cabal remnants, the spirit champion would make a fine prize. If the venture was successful, Mochla would train Emra to be a Farseer not unlike herself. The party, consisting of Emra, Orvisha, their brother Lobo, Lirshar, and two Goresight had ventured at dawn to the cave, slaughtering all who stood in their way. Duron was rescued—mostly. His soul had been shattered and scattered, and thus their next step in this quest was laid before them.
Emra Rendbolt had jumped at this chance to serve the Horde. This “defeat” had her approaching their father with head bowed--...father. How many times did she call him High Warlord instead of father? Lirshar Goresight, a kor'kron warlady, lived and bled serving the Horde. Kil'shi Rendtear, High Warlord—needed little elaboration. Lobo, though a wolfish wanderer, was in all ways loyal. Snarling with distrust at the sight of Alliance. Orvisha knew little of the other two—Thragash and Terc? She did not like Terc; loud, rude, and seemingly ready to spill blood for the sake of it. Thragash appeared far more mellow, but that was all she knew.
Where was she in all of this? Awkward, distant, quietly strumming her sanxian on the end of a log by a bonfire, while the others yowled and bashed heads. How did she serve the Horde? She felt she did with her arts, her music, her lorehunting. Lirshar had asked if this meant she searched out information on the enemy to better kill them with. No, she answered. I do not seek glory in blood. Lirshar had responded that, in her eyes, that was the only way to attain glory.
What enemies of the Horde have you slain? Demons, their acolytes, undead. How many? Show the notches on your axes! I--. Pah! Do you not take pride in the blood of your foes upon your blades? No. Weakling!
Heavy plate boots echo. She tenses a moment at the sound, eyes pulling open, the orcess bard ready to defend against a monstrosity. Surely her cover would be blown now. Except—the elf pauses in the middle of the hall, his movements almost mechanical as he turns his head towards the woman. Her chest rises with a deep, shaking inhale and she sinks again against the wall.
"You've completed your task, I see." He begins in that same distorted voice. "They're readying for the slaughter."
She exhales in a strained chuckle. "...I figured," she croaks. “...So. That was all real? I talked to--...? In the past?”
“Yes. With your words you've sentenced women, men and other innocents to die. Just as it should be.”
Orvisha shuddered at the memory, a huff of a breath forced out as it reached the top of her spine. She had been the grain of rice that tipped the scales, ensuring the slaughter of the draenei. And no one would ever know—not anyone that demanded to know where her pride in blood was. Corlmitz knew; she had broken down in his apartment, hiding in his arms. Her family had not asked what her trial had been.
Her family. She knew she could confide in them, trusted them, loved them. But—she knew she befuddled her father. Emra was everything she was not; rigid in rank, happy to see the world of the Alliance burn in elemental fury, read to cry lok'tar ogar. When Orvisha had started to tell of her swornhood to her siblings, Emra was quick to ask if she was planning to go slaying dragons. And now she was to be a Farseer, a true leader of her people. Orvisha was not jealous, her meeker nature giving her no interest in leading. She was truly proud for her sister, for she had sought this. Still, the contrast between the two seemed to grow starker.
What did it mean to serve the Horde? To fall in line, step by step, trudging through the blood of its foes? Victory or death, let the weak die. Where did she fit into this great machine of war and honor—this family?
01-24-2013, 07:49 PM (This post was last modified: 01-24-2013, 07:50 PM by c0rzilla.)
Clear as Water
The dry, dead pine-needles crunched under Orvisha's briskly padding feet as she strode away from Earthshaker Hold. She couldn't stand being there at the moment—one of the most peaceful places on Azeroth, and she felt like she might sock the next grunt she saw. At least it had stopped raining. The drops fell from the trees, catching moonlight as they fell.
"It is late. But first..." He settles his gaze on Orvisha. "I cannot do what you ask. It would be a betrayal of those who taught me. I could, at best, offer a few words, but little else." "...As you say." "Apologies come. And harsher words from the voices of the past. Be thankful you do not hear them." He turns to go after that. "Be thankful you had guidance."
Orvisha had sent a small letter to Grakor Spiritaxe a day or so prior to her current visit to the Crater—following her sister, keeping an eye on her. The letter was a request for Grakor's young wisdom to aid another Spirit Walker. Surely a right cause, she had thought. The spirits belonged to no one but the land. Even one's ancestors, though they aided a clan or village, were beyond vendettas. Even ones as large as genocide by war or camps.
Weren't they, in their spiritual wisdom?
It seemed not, when the Spirit Walker that needed aid was a draenei. Orvisha did not understand the politics of Walking. What rules there might be, what bargains. What oaths, besides protecting the clan and the people. Crunch-crunch-crunch. A pause to glance back and she had walked a ways from Earthshaker Hold, and was nearing the small water shrine by a stream. A kal'dorei ruin by design, orcish by use, a powerful water spirit lay in its depths. Re-focusing on the environment, she cast a slow gaze around, then slowly strode over to sit on the small island containing the shrine. She watched the pine-needles drift past in the stream surrounding it.
"I ask that you consider carefully your true allegiances. As Orcs, we hold a debt as long as we deem it fit; for that reason some of us no longer fight for the Horde. It is the same for you Draenei: more pressing matters exist than clashes amongst ourselves. I leave you with but one thought... remember that you are not Orc, you are Orvisha. You are not Draenei, you are Gantrithor. Are you an Orc, a Draenei? Of course. But do not let that bring you to do something you would regret."
So had been Jurok's words to her and her close friend in Outland during the small memorial festival of the ancient Kosh'harg. Those couple weeks ago, she did not think it so simple. How could she, a High Warlord's daughter, truly pick and choose her causes? She could not, would not, casually stride out of Orgrimmar one day. “An orc, huh? What's that mean, anymore?”
Another thing she knew was she would not be is a cog in a war engine. Serve the Horde! My life for the Horde! Anything to further its goals! No, her mind’s voice denied as she recalled the cries of others. Not anything. In her heart, she knew she would not betray herself, either. She knew deeper that her father would not see that either. “Tch, telling me to be thankful I don't see. I didn't ask to see. He should be thankful he can sit here and only see.”
"You've completed your task, I see," he begins in that same distorted voice. "They're readying for the Slaughter."
She exhales in a strained chuckle, trying to fend off the horror. "...I figured," she croaks. “...So. That was all real? I talked to--...? In the past?” “Yes. With your words you've sentenced women, men and other innocents to die. Just as it should be.”
With that, she tossed a pine cone into the stream, whereupon it gave a flat splash, bobbed, then floated away. Her amber eyes trailed it for a few short moments. Once it had floated past, her gaze remained on the shallow water. A vague tilt of her head, a flickering of her pupils, and she watched how it flowed around the pebbles, and other natural detritus blocking its path.
“I don't know about the rest of everyone...but I'm going to punch all my problems in the face until they stop being problems.” “I prefer turning problems into solutions at my side. Then they're other problems problems.”
Orvisha released a slow breath she didn’t know she had been holding. A quick glance was cast back to the underground water shrine. Then back to the small stream. Water—one might consider it the most powerful of the elements. But why? It could quench fire, wear down earth, and wind only churned it into a torrent of storms. And it always, always found a way through the cracks. “…I should not be so angry--…patience. Patience, but not stagnation,” she muttered as a hand reached out to dip its fingers in the stream. Fingers spread, chilled by the water still clinging to Winter’s cold. Another breath in, then out—and then something happened. The water about Orvisha’s hand began to grow cloudier, whiter. Bits of white began to float and bob—ice! Ice was forming about her hand, creeping out in fern-like shapes. Before her hand might be frozen into the stream, she drew it out, watching the shapes float away. Her warmer hand rubbed feeling back into its twin. “Was that it? Have I been as a wave crashing against a cliff, when I need to be a river working through a mountain’s cracks? Heh—patience.”
Rendered calmer by this epiphany, she pulled herself up to stand. One final shake of her chilled hand, then she peered about the immediate area. A soft chuckle, then her arms lifted in a long stretch. She finally turned to pad off as they flopped to her sides again.
What did it mean to serve the Horde? To fall in line, step by step, trudging through the blood of its foes? Victory or death, and let the weak die. Where did she fit into this great machine of war and honor—this family?
She knew her part now. The burden of uncertainty lifted from her shoulders, her sandaled steps were lighter upon the pine-needles.
02-08-2013, 08:28 PM (This post was last modified: 03-06-2013, 09:59 AM by c0rzilla.)
((This event is based on logs of RP with ImagenAyshun. I'll add more speech color and formatting later. Maybe.))
The Pack
Orvisha sat perched in a wind-bent tree on the edge of the remains of a draenic post in Nagrand, idly studying the remnants of the town. Her lips creased in a deep, thoughtful frown. Soon enough her ponderings were halted at the sudden movement of blue at the entrance to one of the bronze buildings. Frown faded for neutrality as she peered to it. A lean forward as her eyes squint. Upon realization of who it is those eyes widened as she sat up. Despite, she did not yet make herself known.
The draenic spirit walker she had aided and accompanied before stepped out, shirtless and hairy as ever. Contrasted to her own drifting melancholy, he beamed joyously, his eyes gazing out to the violet stars. Though, he seemed to search for something. He seemed to let his hooves do the guiding as he made his way to the bridge out of the empty settlement, not noticing Orvisha's presence at all.
She scurried from her perch, slinking to a new one near the bridge. She watched. She leaned again to peer from whence Kapre came--there was no sign of his new wife, the flower decked sin'dorei that smelled of herbs and hints of Zangarmarsh's moss. Just as she settled she caught the twitch of Kapre's head, the dim flickering of his eyes. The hunch of his back as if he took on a new weight, the curl of his tail as if adjusting to a different balance with it. The frown returned to Orvisha's lips at that, head tilting. A glance flitted around, then returned to the spirit walker.
Meanwhile, Kapre huffed as his breathing steadied. His fist thumped onto his shoulder as his stance straightened. Most notable, his draenic accent vanished as his tongue turned to orcish speech. "Throm'ka, perched one. What do you seek?"
Orvisha blinked a moment. One brow creased, the other lifted. "...When have I ever been so formal in greeting?"
Kapre placed his arms akimbo and cocked his hip in an effete manner. The expression on his face differed from the norm, as well as the air he carried around him. "Good question, young one. Why do you linger upon the tree branch? Come down, I won't bite."
Orvisha opened her lips to speak again, then closed them. Eyes squinted, as it dawned on her. She leaned back slightly, then turned start her slink down the tree. She paused at the base, then padded forward. "I don't--think you and I have met," she spoke slowly, switching to her native tongue as well.
"We have not. I am Je'ana Thunderaxe. Shamaness of the Frostwolves."
Orvisha watched Kapre with wide eyes. She approached slowly, strafing a step or two to the side, her head barely lowered, gaze tilted up. "Orvisha Lorewolf--Flowerpicker." A pause, then she bowed at her waist. "Far as the tree goes, I like high places. Perhaps I am shy." Orvisha shrugged lightly.
Kapre crossed his arms as he smirked. "Shy for what reason, child? It seems you are in touch the departed, or at least learning to. The lot of us are frightening. Surely the living--such as this big blue guy here--would be less terrifying, hm?" The entity speaking through him took a moment to look up and down the body she borrowed. "I would have preferred another orc. Blue is not my color."
Orvisha relaxed somewhat, relived the orcish spirit realized and accepted its state. She straightened loosely. "I am not so frightened of you, no--it is actually 'the big blue guy'. Aaand, the last spirit that habitually spoke through him lead him to Karabor. Heh." She shrugged loosely. "And I am learning to be a shaman, yes."
"I am not a hostile spirit. I died long before my others among my people partook in the Blood of Mannaroth. I remain to guide the lost should they have me... though I must be of care, for once, a Dark Shaman attempted to take hold of me. You, however, seem trustworthy."
Orvisha lowered her chin slightly, overwhelmed a moment by such a chance to speak with the elder spirit. And being deemed trustworthy. She approached somewhat closer, inhaled, then stood straighter. "I don't know if I count as lost, but I'm not going to pass this opportunity to listen."
"Many are lost and do not know it. What is your place among the Flowerpickers?"
"...No idea, heh. My father is a high warlord, my sister seeks to be a Farseer. My brother is a beastmaster. Me?--storyseeker, and all around oddity that befuddles my family."
"Storyse-...lore keeper. Heh. An underrated role. The orcs of today have oft to deny or fully forget the atrocities that led them to the sorry state that is today. Those that remain linger in numbers that struggle to recover. Their stories untold. Are you a mouthpiece of the Ancestors child? Do you wish to be?"
Orvisha inhaled, thinking. "That is an inevitable part of being a shaman, I'd think. I want to be a shaman. Though, I do not think I could be a Spirit Walker or Champion."
"It is inevitable... but as I walk upon this earth, there are those we wish to have nothing to do with, yet they try to take us. The Ancestors will deny their place by those who only wish to use us as tools. You need not to be a champion or walker to actually walk among us."
Orvisha lifted her hands somewhat, palms facing Kapre. "I don't wish to take anything, you can be sure of that. I cannot really--commune yet, as I think you're implying."
"How long have you been walking this path, Lorewolf?"
"...A few months. The winds have blessed my arrows for longer, though. Little more."
"So, you were a warrior longer? Huntress?"
"Huntress, yes."
"So, you have mastered tracking? Communing with the earth itself?"
Orvisha answered this question with a soft smirk. "As much as a twenty year old can, I think."
Kapre smirked in turn. "You have much to learn, young one. Though your experience as a tracker can be used in communing with spirits. Do you possess sapta?" He started to search himself, large blue hands awkward under their new user. "Does this Walker possess any?"
"His sister is the sapta maker. I have...not a finished one, but..."
"Does his sister dwell here? The Walker?"
Orvisha turned to search herself as well. From a leather loop under a flap of her kilt she takes--a rock? A rock. This rock possessed a hidden hinge, which with she opened the item. "I don't know where she is, and she'd likely hoof you. She doesn't like orcs." Inside the rough 'locket' is a compartment full of shamanistic essentials. Coral, spices, seeds, feather bits, volcanic ash.
"...Hoof me?"
"As in, try to kick you out of him. Like I said--doesn't like orcs. Will these do for sapta making?"
"...Gracious me." He lifted one of his hooves up, balance awkward. "I can possibly crack a skull with these..." Kapre then realized 'her' distraction as he looked towards Orvisha. "What herbs do you possess?"
Orvisha searched again, after closing the rock. From the satchel hanging across her torso, she pulled a cloth wrap with little pockets. She laid it out on the ground; various herbs rest therein. A fairly disorganized mix of Azerothian plants for basic healing. And a few Outland bits she found attractive, though might not be useful.
"What you have will do. Walk with me."
Orvisha wrapped the cloth up again, and trotted the few steps over to follow. The first few steps taken on a long walk towards the Nagrand arena named The Ring of Trials. Braziers remained lit nearly constantly as goblins frequently used the place for their own tournaments. At the moment though, it was conveniently empty.
Kapre stopped at the entrance of the ring. He took a deep breath as they approached it, looking up to the banners and braziers that surrounded the place. "Do you possess a wolf guide, Lorewolf?"
Orvisha thought a moment, then glanced to Kapre. "...A what?"
"A wolf to be your companion. The shamans of my time often had one, especially the far seers. They are our guides and companions as we would have dwelled upon the material plane."
"I have a wolf to ride. But--I'm assuming you mean spiritual. I do not."
"Come with me inside," Kapre beckoned then hoofed onto the ring's floor, stopping at the center. "Perhaps one day, when you are ready, we will do this as well by the Oshu'gun. But here...is where you start. Bring forth your materials to your sapta and sit here." Kapre pointed to the sandy ground before his hooves, hand brushing with foreign grace.
Orvisha eyed 'Kapre' again, then shuffled forward. The cloth wrap was tugged out from under her arm as she sat with folded legs. Afterward, she unrolled the wrap. She peered up, neck craning. "Bet this is the tallest Walker you've spoken through."
"He certainly is. And...the hairiest by far. This is disgusting. I should make a talbuk joke, but there are so many, I don't know where to begin." After attempting to brush any loose fragments of chest hair off 'herself' Kapre made to kneel--then suddenly found the action very awkward. These new legs unable to bend like her old ones. A near topple occurred, but the spirit tugged on Kapre's muscles and nerves just in time before falling to sit, tail flopping in the dust a second after. "Now. May I see what you have?"
Through the ordeal, Orvisha had controlled her laughter with a well-placed bite to her lip. Grand amusement strangled to a snerrrrk in her throat. She sat properly. Back straight, hands in her lap. Lips had curled into a suspisciously feline manner of wit. She gestured to the laid out wrap.
"A piece of earth, a piece of fire, a piece of water. The wind will be in union with the fire. Put them together in that hollow stone of yours."
Orvisha 's counted the contents of the rock, finding it already has at least three of four. Water was represented by coral, fire volcanic ash, earth was Mulgore soil. Despite, she plucked and tossed in a couple herbs extra.
"Call upon the water above your cup to gather within it."
Orvisha thought. Having trouble with straight water, frost began to coalesce. Little jagged fern-like designs growing and curling, and melting into water along the rock cup's concave sides.
Kapre smiled as he watched. "Let it be that the fire licks upon the water upon which earth upholds. Let it be that the air is in union over the rock that holds the water as the fire licks upon it. Make all four so with a burst of flame upon the water."
Orvisha 's brow furrowed as she pondered that riddle. She seemed a little nervous for a moment or two, hesitant. She bit her bottom lip--she possessed even less skill in fire. Eventually after an old prayer or two, the volcanic ash began to smoke, despite the frosty water so recently introduced. The sudden spark and ignition that followed startled her, and she nearly dropped the thing. Nearly.
Kapre reached his hand over the flame as it mingled with the water despite their incompatibility. "Careful, now," he assured as he waved his hand onto the fire itself. His hand remained untouched by the small tongue. "In your hands, you hold a miniature of the earth on which you walk, eat, breathe, and sleep." He held back his hand as fire quieted. Before Orvisha was a simple concoction, clear, but not at all simply water. "You hold the elements in liquid form, a drink which will allow you to see the spirits. But this is not for you to simply see them... you can become like them, yet still be among the living. If you wish to commune with the Ancestors without being their Champion or Walker, you must at least learn to move with them and attain your own spirit guide. Breath in and out, Orvisha."
Orvisha flitted her gaze to 'Kapre' as the spirit speaks, though the rest of her doesn't move much. Not after that near dropping of the sapta. At the instruction to drink, she looked to it again. Then took a slow breath through her nose, then out through barely parted lips.
"You sit within an arena where many have died in honor. They are not like the spirits of Oshu'gun, but pained spirits dwell here among those who departed with their heads high. Drink very slowly, Orvisha. Let each drop melt on your tongue."
Orvisha 's shoulders sunk slightly at the description, a sense of foreboding drifting a mist over her mood. She flitted her gaze around in a quick scan, then focused on the sapta again. A huff of her breath out. Then the sapta is set to her lips and she drank. Slowly.
With each drop, one by one, a spirit became visible like a ghost coalescing, solidifying from the fog that was now the world. Some of them still fought each other in joyous clash of arms. Those who had died in shame slunk away to the corners where they wallowed in mourning. As more and more of the sapta slid down Orvisha's throat, the arena around her wafted and shimmered about like smoke on a windy day. Finally, seated by Orvisha is now not Kapre, but an old brown-skinned crone with hair that dropped past her shoulders and hips. She grinned a tooty grin upon seeing the young shaman acolyte in this realm.
Orvisha removed the little rock cup, eyes closing a moment. Then she pulled them open, not quite in synch in their hesitation. The sudden absence of a large blue figure drawew her attention. She blinked, then returned an awkward grin. Her attention is then quickly drawn to the myriad spirits and their doings. Particularly the sorrowful mourners.
Je'ana turned her head to those who wallowed in shame. "These fools resorted to dishonorable means of victory, or won without acknowledging the crimes that brought them here. They are punished and fell to wallow in their cowardly blood. They did not live long enough for their cowardice to be rewarded by the deceit that is Kil'jaedan and his Legion.”
Orvisha peered sidelong to Je'ana. "...Arena traditions confound me. Was there no chance given to them to redeem?"
"Chances at redemption are only provided to the truly remorseful. But how often would an orc admit to remorse? Heh. Look there."
Orvisha squinted softly in skepticism, then peered to wherever the elder might gesture or indicate.
Je'ana pointed to the side. A ghostly apparition of a wolf stalked upon the champions who died with their heads held high and axes to the sky. "A spirit wolf. They do not ever abandon the truly brave and strong, in soul as well as body. Careful, child. Approach it like you would a wild wolf of the tangible earth."
Orvisha watched the wolf carefully, head turning slowly to keep it in view. She then peered to the sorrowful losers again. She didn't seem very willing to get up, a deep frown tugging at her lips. Eventually, she pulled herself to stand, watching the judging spirit once more. She glanced to the sorrowful, then the 'brave' again. "...Hmph." She muttered an inaudible 'we will see'. Then slowly padded around. Chin held high, though she did not make domineering eye contact with the 'beast'.
The Spirit Wolf continued to pad around in its lazy confidence, sniffing along the earth as it passed the champions and the defeated. It turned its head to Orvisha and lowered its snout as its piercing bright eyes darted towards her. It growled low, paws firmly planted onto the spiritual earth. As it did, more wolves came into view, pawing forth from the cheering crowds and among the wallowing fallen. They began to circle Orvisha.
"Ah... they acknowledge that you can see them."
Orvisha turned slightly to spot the new wolves. "...Yeah. Yeah, they do." An inhale, and she peered to the first wolf again. The Alpha. She still remained careful to keep eye contact to a minimum. The gesture of a threat would be unwise. "Who are you, ah? Do you judge all these fallen?" She asked in old orcish, with a slightly sing-song quality to her voice. She padded forth slowly. "The strong the brave."
The wolf lowered his nose, though its eyes remain on the young orcess. Its lips did not move, maw remained shut but a haunting voice drifted from its form like a whisper in a moving fog. We... stand... by those who honor us. Those who walk with us and do not resort to wicked means to an end. The fallen here who wallow in eternal unrest have become so for they have abandoned us in life, as they shall continue to do so in death. Many here are before your time... before the Blood has tainted you and severed our ties. But should you return to us in heartfelt genuinty... we will not abandon you. Do you wish to walk among us, Young Shaman, as one of honor and duty to your people, and not a wretch who will relive the shame they have caused among their bretheren?
Orvisha truly had not expected a verbal response. Even one that only broke on the shores of her mind and spirit. She paused to listen, glancing to the Sorrowful again. Still skeptical. She listened. She pulled her gaze back to to the Alpha, then slowly around at the lupine audience. The Pack."...Honor, duty. I have been questioning those of late." Her head tilted, eyes closed. "Shame. Such easy words to espouse." Eyes opened, half-lidded, peering off into thought. "Would this pack round on me if I said my lifemate is an Exile? Branded, one who has committed crimes likely worse than any these warriors have imagined?" A breath. "I would not be surprised, if you did." She eyed the Alpha again, huffed a moment then strode toward a Sorowful. She crouched beside the fallen warrior. "My duty. Is to my people. All of them. The one that guided me here asked how often an orc apologizes. I have seen an elder break down at the edge of this land for a lost village. I shed tears over the nest of a ghostly Broken." Eyes close, then open. "If we are a pack, we will not survive if we cast out our brothers again and again."
The Alpha padded next to Orvisha as the other wolves followed. It sat down upon its haunches next to her, the Sorrowful raising his head and lowering it in shame. Pride is often the reason of the fall of orcs. It is the reason they have abandoned us when the Deceiver came and spoke to their Warchief. The ones you see standing tall did not trample their brethren for their own means; they did not raise their hands against the innocent and vulnerable. The Fallen here have forgotten their duty, and they lived to their selfish gain--slaughter of the unarmed, raiders of the peaceful, stirrer of wars, violaters of the pure. Tell me, Shaman... does your lifemate slaughter the Exiled Ones for the joy of the hunt? Does he raid villages for perceived glory? Does he spit upon graves to prove his way to the world
Orvisha glanced to the Alpha. "His crimes were committed because that's all he's known. There is no joy in it.”
Lead him away from the path, for it will lead him to the shame that are the Fallen here. That is part of your duty, or it will doom not only your lives, but your union as well.
Orvisha stared down the Alpha a moment, then peered to the dishonored one again. "...Should a hand be offered to one of these, would they not see it?"
You walk among us, but they may not acknowledge you. You may try.
Orvisha pulled her gaze back to the one before her. "...What is it that keeps you here?", she asked in the same old orcish. She did not quite reach out--literally--yet. Her tone of voice rung smooth, not pitying. Speaking to the ghostly orc as if he were on equal footing with her.
The fallen one looked up to Orvisha, eyes drawn and haggard with his belly split open. As he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth are broken and falling out, as though he endured much before his soul would depart. "I laid with my captain's wife when I myself was married. When I learned she was with child, I denied her and sent my own men to slaughter her while she bathed unarmed in the nearby river. The captain learned of my treachery and sent me to death here in this arena. I fought well against six of his men. I should be champion and let go."
Orvisha flopped to sit, not looking too hard at the injury. "What is it you regret?" She still spoke in the same tone, not letting any disgust cross her face. She did not lead on with what he should regret.
"I regret laying with her in the first place. She seduced me."
Orvisha grunted in sardonic humor at the familiar line. "Did you lay with this woman when you were a whelp just growing your first hairs, and wondering why your voice was changing?"
"Do not mock me, shaman. I was weak. The ogres and beasts do little instill fear in my spirits, but the flesh of woman turns me to mush."
"I speak to you like I would an equal. In the same vein--...what if you had the chance to leave here? To try again for honor?"
"I have died in shame for the slaughter neither I nor the Ancestors can justify."
"You did. And you seem to accept that. I cannot return you to any sort of life, but..." She peered to the Alpha. "The ghostly wolves that accompany shamans, usually in pairs. From whence do those come?" She softly nodded to the Sorrowful she speaks to in indication. A hint.
We are mediators of the Elements and the Departed. Judgement among the Fallen are passed from the Elements themselves.
“Would it be possible for one regretful enough--truly regretful...to leave this place? Alongside one that would reach out to them? To leave this place in a form similar to your own?" She nodded outwards to the general pack. "Would redemption be possible through service?"
This is the responsibility of the shaman, to bring to rest the restless. Lead him to redemption, and it shall become so.
Orvisha huffed a moment, then looked to the fallen again. "What do you think? My hand is offered, it is up to you to take it."
"If it unbinds me from this arena, then I shall follow," the orc answered with dispassionate frustration.
"No. Only be at my side if your wish for a second chance at honor is true." Orvisha stared down the Fallen, brow lifting.
"What do you intend with me, Shaman?"
"Serve at my side, fight with me as a wolf would. I am the daughter of a high warlord, I fight for the Horde and spirits on a world called Azeroth. I seek peace as well, so that our whelps might not be taken advantage of by the Legion again."
The orc's eyes widened as he stood up. "You are a daughter of a warlord?" He bent on one knee. "I served one of the higher commanders of the Warsong... but in my weakness, I forsook honor for saving face. I am closed from the happenings of our descendants, dying years before the demons walked this facade of our world. Does honor lie among the orcs in Azeroth? Have they truly forsaken the Legion?"
Orvisha leaned back at the reaction, mildly startled. Then relaxed. She nodded. "Our skin remains green, and not every one has truly forsaken battle for the sake of violence. But we strive. I strive, my family strives. The demons no longer send us out, though." She paused. "What is your name?"
He lifted a fist and clapped it across his chest to his shoulder. "I am Sergeant Mor'gosh Stonecleaver of the Warsong."
Orvisha pulled herself up to stand, and her mind rendered her movements awkward. Still thinking she'd be stiff from sitting so for so long during the conversation, despite being a spirit. She returned the salute. "Orvisha Lorewolf." With that, she held out her hand to him for a clap of a shake.
Mor'gosh swung his hand to clasp it to Orvisha's. "I am grateful this chance at redemption is mine. Perhaps, this way, I will walk freely in this plane. Guide me, Shaman Lorewolf. I beseech you." He salutes her once more.
Her hand squeezed, then dropped. She turned around, peering at the rest of the sorrowful fallen. "...I need one more! One more to fight at my side, and Stonecleaver's side. Who will step up, and reclaim their honor?" An inhale for a breath as she spoke, an attempt to calm her nerves. "For those left--do not wallow. Others will come, for I will speak of this. You will not be forgotten."
One did not hesitate to come forth. Female, though her head had been fully shaven. She just about crawled to Orvisha and bowed his head with groveling humility. She spilled her story at Orvisha's sandaled feet. "I am Sharna Windgavel, for my clubs and hammers were faster than the wind. My dishonor came when I systematically drowned my children for perceived weakness when the Spirits have planned something greater. The blood of my children stain my hands, and I walk to see our descendants fall into the Legion's deceit. Please, give me the opportunity to guide the children of our children, as I did not in life."
Orvisha turned her gaze downward to watch the woman crawl, lips tightening into a hard line. She did not respond verbally at first. Instead, she crouched to grasp at the woman's arm and heft her up to stand. "...I am but yet a whelp myself, Windgavel. You will see and guard this new generation beside me."
"What must we do?" She asked once she found herself on her feet.
"You will fight beside me as my wolf spirits. I fight for the Horde, but I seek peace all the same. When I call, you answer. When I pass on at my end, this new chance will be finished."
"I will do this with no question, Shaman," she agreed with her head bowed. Despite lacking breath, her voice quaked.
Orvisha heaved out a needless sigh, stood a bit straighter, then peered to the Alpha. "...Will your blessing fall upon this?"
I will grant my blessing, Lorewolf. Though your ability to call upon the spirits have only begun. To call upon the spirits to your aid within the tangible plane, you need to learn how to run like us.
"Yeah, that's--...originally what I was seeking. I didn't expect all this." She could not help a disbelieving chuckle, then cleared her throat.
Not any spirit will come to your aid at any time. These two cannot yet cross the Nether to aid you on Azeroth. Ride along the spirit plane and come to the tangible earth first. Then, you can learn to call upon the Stonecleaver and Windgavel.
The other wolves began to gather at the entrance of the arena as the other spirits step aside. Je'ana herself stood aside, the old crone bowing her head to let the wolves pass.
Orvisha ponded a moment, the language puzzling her. Then a couple quick nods followed. She turns to offer the two companions a salute for a brief farewell, then she trotted over to Je'ana. "...Um. I'm not--quite sure how to -leave- here. Heh."
Je'ana turned her head as the arena seems to produce more and more spirit wolves--enough to fill a cavern's worth. Large, small, starved, filled, they all seem to represent different states of the elements and departed. The areana spirits slink back as the wolves nose onto the training shaman. All who was left was the old crone, who simply stood aside. "Just run with them."
"...Oh!" An embarrassed huff, then she pushed off back to the pack, encouraged by the many spectral snouts. Her needless breaths were slow and deep--then she blinked. Breathing? Who needed that here. Just run with them. Her toes curled into the dirt as she waited for the pack to set off.
The wolves' noses all faced forward, tails lowered in anticipation for the run. At last, the Alpha raised his maw to gape and bellow out a haunting howl. All at once, like a great gust of wind dragging an ever-moving earth, the spirit wolves dashed forward. Their paws clamored like thunder, with each brush of their fur like thistles of a thorny brush. They rushed past Orvisha in great waves of ethereal blue, like a river flowing through the tall grasses. The Alpha remained, the wolves running past it. Waiting.
Breathless--from being stunned by the spectacle, not any lack of corporeal lungs--she pushed off again after, and hopefully with them. Deer-like legs and arms pumped. The rhythm of the thunder beat in her ears, and rendered her deaf to much else. At the start, she fretted about tripping over and under these entities, but as she saw them move through each other and her, she calmed. And ran. Sinking into the rhythm of it all allowed her to focus.
The wolves pushed her forward, each them dragging like a forceful river. Orvisha was led directly out of the arena and out to the grassy open, with the Nagand sky twisting ominously. It seemed the wolves are endless as number, at least as far as her eyes could see. Regardless of how long she ran, they never seemed to end. The wolves all bolted down the hill, across the river, and past the trees. A biting sensation enveloped around the shaman as the spirits continued to race on the ethereal plane.
With no energy to spend until fatigue besides what her mind tells her she should have, she ran on. The effort was easier out in the fields with a mound to leap off of, ground gained from the jump. She was unable to imagine at present where this might end, not chancing a look upward at the twisting sky, lest she might be sucked into it.
One wolf suddenly leapt through her, a sensation like being slammed felt at first. The wolf kept running past her. Almost goading her to chase it with its bounding. Orvisha was rightly slammed to the ground, nearly cursed out loud. She scrambled up, snarling in indignation. Perhaps a bit too much. As she made after that one wolf, for as long as she might spot it in this sea of spirits, she remained on all fours for the first few moments. Feet pushing, hands scrabbling at the dirt as she tries to claw herself up.
Keep running, keep running. A growling whisper scraped at her ears as the sea of thundering paws rushed past her.
For a few triumphant moments, Orvisha was successful in getting to her feet. This would not be allowed for long as yet another wolf tackled her, then leapt enough into the blue river. She ignobly faceplanted again, nose wrinkled in a snarl. She scrambled to run again, and remained low, if only to avoid being knocked down again. From this angle, her eye sight was on generally the same level as the giant pack. Feet pushed, hands grabbed at the earth to pull. She glanced back now and then to eye for another spectral assailant.
Then something changed. As she remained low, with the pack, her hands faded into a dusty brown. Fingers shrunk and curved, nails darkened to black. Paws, with claws forming from the tips. Her eyes widened in a brief bought of horror at the shift in her hands. It took the few moments until it passes for her to realize how much easier it was to keep up with them. Runrunrun. Blend with the flow, was what she tried to repeat in her rushing mind. Eventually, her 'paws' beat on the ground with the same rhythm as the hundreds of others. Or close enough.
The wolves raced across the plains and eventually fanned out. Their movements were slowed to Orvisha's eyes, able to catch every arc of a back or stretch of a limb. But the land beneath them zipped past. Trees, rocks, mountains, and even living villages seemed to move past them in a blur as the sky twists and evens out to show violet stars and twisting lines of errant magic. The spirit wolves, still in their eerie ethereal blue, began to gather at a hilltop where a famliar sight comes down below. A giant, pristine diamond reflecting the sky above.
Spirits walk and haunt around the Mountain as it stood tall before the little hill. As the sun began to rise, they all vanish, though the wolves remain. They paded and pawed, some reclining, seated down, or scratching their ears with their hind feet. The Alpha sat serenely at the very top, having completed its run before them all.
Orvisha slowed to a trotting pad, catching her breath in pants. Her flopping tongue fell out of her mouth and all. Padpadpad. She peered at the other wolves, quite relaxed in her four-pawed trot. Then she noticed Oshu'gun in the fields below. Long, sandy-brown ears perk towards it. She then slunk low as she spotted all the haunting spirits, making her way up the hill towards the alpha. Once before the entity, she stopped and sat on her haunches.
The Alpha nodded its head towards the shaman. The large wolf looked up to the sky then to the Oshu'gun as the sun rose higher over the shattered horizon. "Your training has only begun, young Shaman. You have learned to run with us, but control will not be fully yours until you learn to be in contact with the spirits without the aid of the sapta. Drink it to seek us out, and we shall run together so that you may change. Over time, you will no longer need it. You will learn to release your spirit, and your body will follow. And then, you will run like us."
Orvisha was about to ask how long that might take, when she might know--but, she realized those questions might only be answered with vagaries and riddles. She wasn't even sure if she could speak right now. Her dainty paws lift and pad a few times. Her acknowledgment, excitement, honor--it all came rushing forth. Unable to contain it, she pushed off to the side and ran in a circle right there, barking however a wolf might. She stops after a few turns, then howls her pride.
The Alpha bowed his head, the pack's aid for the young shaman at an end. "Until we meet again," it bade farewell as the great number of lupine spirits were pulled away to the air like so much blue smoke.
03-04-2013, 11:28 AM (This post was last modified: 03-05-2013, 10:45 AM by c0rzilla.)
Rotblossom
The Royal Apothecarium echoed as it always had for as long as she had been a member of the Society. The delicate clinks of glass alembics, the frothing bubbling of myriad mixtures, the general open chatter between Society members as they worked diligently for the Queen’s ends all bounced off the damp stone walls of this corner of the sewer system under Capital City.
The muffled screams of living captives further below were as common as anything else.
Odetta Mosle shuffled down the ramp into the Apothecarium’s most open room, one thin hand gripping onto her robes so that she would not trip on the hem. Once her feet settled on the stone floor, she loosened her grip and peered about from under her large hood.
She had been called here to aid in some project of a colleague. It was hard to tell the difference between them all. After so many glorious scientific breakthroughs in another way to horribly poison a living thing, they tended to bleed together.
“Odetta! Dearest Odetta, there you are,” called a rough though chipper voice from the far side. Odetta gave a quick roll of her ghostlit eyes, and then forced her cold lips into a welcoming smile after. The owner of the voice hurried over to her, draped in robes as dark as her own.
“Yes, yes here,” Odetta assured as she begrudgingly accepted and returned a greeting from the fellow Forsaken. A gentle hug preceded a peck to her cold cheek. This one must have been Alteracean when their blood still flowed.
“Now, come this way. I need that green thumb of yours.” Greeting formalities exchanged, the colleague turned to shuffle off back to whence she came, and then down a smaller side-ramp. Deeper underground, towards the periodic screams.
“For—what exactly, madam?” Odetta asked hesitantly as she carefully made her way down the slick stone.
“Ah, I’ve an outline for a recherché little concoction for our Deathstalkers. While your—main project lacks much practical application, your theory and knowledge of plants and their mixings is profound. I just need a little help matching up a few pieces. All the herbology tomes I need have been borrowed! Pah, luck.”
Odetta’s shoulders drooped slightly, though she kept any facial expression at bay. More toxins. More ways to bring twisting suffering to the living. Yet another dismissal of her own work purportedly supported by the Apothecarium—that of seeking a cure for their Forsaken condition. She, wisely, kept her contentions to herself. Most of her more delicate and promising work was kept to her home in the Eastern Plaguelands.
“…Certainly, madam.”
“Splendid!”
Finally reaching the bottom of the slippery ramp, Odetta was greeted by a familiar sight. Cages. Many cages both sitting on the floor, or hanging from the ceiling. Inside were curled pink-skinned prisoners. Mostly unlucky Scarlet Crusaders, those zealots being easy pickings. Others were here as the results of a bad deal, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time in some distant land where an apothecary happened to be traveling. Odetta’s colleague shuffled over to one cage holding a young man, making a crooning noise and wiggling her bony finger at him as if he were a beast at a noble’s zoological garden.
“Now, then—this one here. Strapping young thing. I have business to attend to in Brill, but I shall return in oh…two days. One if the bats are open. Do browse my notes . This fine fellow will be happy to provide some practical applications.”
Barely, Odetta’s ghostlit eyes widened at the mention of her colleague vacating the Apothecarium. Otherwise, she kept her face guardedly blank. A polite incline at her waist was given. “I’ll have the outline refined by your return, and a report of anything practical.”
“Thaaat’s my little rotblossom.” The senior woman cooed as she made her way over to Odetta to take her face in her hands. Were either living, she might have squished it so that her lips pursed. As it was, her still flesh didn’t move much, though Odetta put on a small smile. ‘Rotblossom’. An irritating moniker she had earned from her work in herbalism down here.
After an exchange of farewells and last minute instructions, with Odetta resisting outright shooing the other woman off, the colleague finally left. Still as the stone of the Undercity, she watched her depart. She then quickly shifted her gaze to the test subject once she was out of sight.
Said test subject weakly attempted to scurry back into a corner of the very round cage. It didn’t work so well. He stared up blearily at the scarecrow-like Forsaken woman left behind. Black and silver robes covered a tall rail-thin figure, hood concealed a blue-white face, save for the dead lips and relatively bright glow of her ghostlights. Her long, thin fingers flexed in thought. To his dismay, she turned on the ball of her foot to approach him, crouching before the dirtied bars of his prison. From here, he could see the black-purple of her hair.
“…How long have you been here?” She asked quietly, neutrally. Yellow orbs settled steadfastly on his own, bloodshot greens.
“G-get away from m-me! No!” He blurted out in pure instinctive reaction, scrambling again.
Odetta turned her head to watch him, otherwise remaining completely still in her angular crouch.“How long have you been here?” She asked again in the same tone and volume of voice.
This time the question broke through his panic. Perhaps if he answered rightly, he wouldn’t be vivisected today. Or worse.
“M-months. I think--…weeks. Time isn’t--…I don’t….”
Before he could ramble loudly again, Odetta held up a silencing finger. No spell was cast, but the motion itself stilled the frightened man. The finger curled slowly again as she pulled herself up in nearly one motion, robes unfolding. Silently, she turned to the table of her colleague nearby—for convenience, what Odetta would need that she could provide had been laid out. That same finger drew down a list of plants theorized to bring the results she wanted in the toxin. It tapped once, then withdrew as Odetta looked to the man again from under her hood. A moment of staring, then she shuffled over to crouch again.
“…You’ve been handed over to me as a test subject for a new toxin for the deathstalkers. Do you know this?”
“I--…no! Leave me alone!” The man’s protests grew weaker in hopelessness.
“…That, however, is not a project I am inclined to facilitate.”
The man stared at Odetta in silence, ragged breath caught as he continued to listen to what seemed to be a glimmer of hope.
“I will—have to do things to you, to make a ruse. But--…in a day, you will be let go to whatever afterlife it is I am barred from. Is this acceptable?”
More staring from the man. Then sobbing, though not the distraught wailing of before. A wheezing ‘thank you’ reached her ears. At this, Odetta nodded, saying no more as she rose again to turn back to the table. Upon its surface she pressed her palms and leaned, heaving out a sigh. It was more relieving to her weighed mind than her lungs. “…Time to get to work.”
And so she worked, quite diligently. It was so unfortunate to lose such a fine test subject to the toxins of the mold in the sewers, said Odetta’s colleague when she returned.
03-29-2013, 05:43 PM (This post was last modified: 03-29-2013, 05:45 PM by c0rzilla.)
Pieces of the Sky
I
Spoiler:
Kalandrios rumbled like the distant knell of a thunderbolt. It might just have been laughter. "You listen. Good. You listen to truth and tale. Why?"
Orvisha straightened smoothly, eyeing the stormy Fury, one of four. Each representing an element at the Throne in Nagrand. For once during her brief discourse with it, she blinked. "...Why do I listen? How else is one to learn?" She answered slowly. Sure in her answer, but suspecting some double meaning in the Fury's question. "Then do you wish to hear the Four Winds?" "...I do." "Those miniscule things at the side of your head hear the howls... the whines and the sighs of us. But they do not allow you to hear our words."
Kalandrios elongated and threw both things that resembled arms into the air, pointing upwards. "A part of the Sky needs to be yours before you can truly listen."
Orvisha stiffened, a sandaled foot shifting back as the Fury's arms suddenly lifted. When a thunderstorm didn't suddenly rain down upon her, she relaxed. Slowly. She glanced skyward in the direction of the storm spirit's hands, then back to where his eyes crackled electric blue. She remained silent, gaze wider than before.
The veils of mist within Kalandrios' twister body thickened and darkened, coalesced into colourless forms clearly discernable in the mass of the elemental. The developing scene became an shadow play of the canyons of Nagrand and upon the edge of a cliff was a small point that sparkled. Suddenly it shattered and lesser glimmers spread across the canyon.
Orvisha kept dead quiet as she watched in awe. "Pollen from the Dreaming Glory caught as it sails acorss the depths of Nagrand. And it represents the Wind as a medium, a messenger with infinite reach."
Kalandrios churned and the first image faded, becoming a huge windroc with a grand wingspan. A familiar glimmer was held within the eyes of the avian chimera.
Orvisha 's brow creased slightly as she discerned a pattern. "The eye-socket of a grey-feathered windroc. Representing the realm of Air and the vast knowledge that can be percieved through it."
Again the elemental shifted, and the well-known silhouette of Oshu'gun appeared, the Mountain of Spirits itself. At its foot moved several dots of crackling lights.
Orvisha nodded a bit to herself, and awe faded for expectant thought.
The glowing pinpricks zoomed closer so that their nature was revealed. Ethereals, the duplicitous merchants of the Nether. They wielded ornate, fanned staves, and launched powerful spells at the roots of the sacred mountain, cracking them so that its diamond shell might be harvested.
Orvisha 's lips tightened in disgust, tough she held her tongue. "The wraps of an Ethereal spellslinger. Which will represent the fickle nature of the Winds. And the potence of our sudden Fury."
Kalandrios slowly shifted back to his original state and colour, lightning-eyes appearing to lock onto Orvisha again. "These three things you shall collect."
Orvisha nodded with a small breath, quickly lifting her gaze to his. "I shall." "Show them to another enligthened one of the Earthen Ring when you have them all. Their purpose should be clear to them and they can aid you in crafting this tool."
Orvisha Lorewolf pulled herself up along the incline of one of the many steep rises of the Nagrand plains. It had been some hours since her conversation with Kaliandros, the Fury of Wind at the Throne of the Elements. Uyendu the Wellwaker, Kro'kul shaman of Water, had jestingly instructed her to speak with the twisting, thundering entity for guidance on a larger venture for balance in Outland. A venture that also had the goal of potentially finding a number of lost shaman in Outland's elemental plains. Orvisha had grown to like the elderly, chastising Kro'kul, and so his surprise that she was actually spoken to and given instructions for a totem--her first totem--brought a grin to her face. She quickly set off to fulfill those instructions upon telling Uyendu of her conversation.
The first part--seeking the pollen of a Dreaming Glory. Orvisha pondered the irony of a Flowerpicker orc being given the task of hunting flowers and their pollen.
Her prize blossomed at the top of this ridge, and it was in sight before long. The loreseeker took a moment to take in the sight: a crop of golden-hued flowers, swaying in the constant breeze of Nagrand's plains. Their petals translucent and ephemeral, as if the sun that once shown over these grasses had descended in countless drops, rather than be taken by the fellish forces that tore this planet asunder. True to her clan's name--not that it much existed anymore--Orvisha enjoyed flowers. Partially for their beauty, but mostly she saw the strength in such delicate stems and petals. A boot might stomp out a bed, but these tiny things always found new ways to grow, new lands to settle in.
A soft sigh, and she strode over. She gently sat amongst the ghostly petals of lost sunlight. Even this soft movement sent the pollen she desired into the air, soon carried away by the ever-present winds. Amber gaze watched it, chin bobbing with the curving motion.
"Pollen from the Dreaming Glory caught as it sails acorss the depths of Nagrand. And it represents the Wind as a medium, a messenger with infinite reach."
Another irony struck her as she gave a soft 'huh' of thought. A messenger with infinite reach--she had always been a messenger of sorts, trying to spread the stories of old tradition, and new adventures. Perhaps a lesson of self-recognition was in here. Orvisha took a deep inhale, trying to detect a scent from the alien blossoms. Again, sunlight--she had never thought sunlight would have a scent.
"Achoo!--...pfft."
Some grumbling ensued as she wiped at her short nose with the back of her hand. A snort followed to make sure the pollen was thoroughly expelled from her nostrils. Another huff, then it was time for her to get to work.
She tugged a small, rough cloth from a fold in her fur and leather kilt. Setting in her lap, she gently bent the stem of a blossom towards her and tapped. Slowly, the golden pollen drifted down and settled. She repeated this action with a few more blossoms until the cloth bore a dusty golden hue. First trial finished, she brought the corners of the cloth up, so that it formed a little sack, and tied them together.
Orvisha turned her head to the right. Then the left. A sudden grin flashed as she threw herself back amongst the flowers. A sheen of pollen rocketed up, and caught onto the breeze. Ready to carry their message of new growth to other hills.
04-04-2013, 12:42 PM (This post was last modified: 04-04-2013, 02:16 PM by c0rzilla.)
Pieces of the Sky
II
Orvisha's feet beat against the grassy plain as she ran. Legs pressed them to the ground easily, as she had abandoned her usual attire of a thick kilt, and tunic. A pair of torn-and-stitched pants still kept her lower half decent, and a bracer still guarded one arm against the bite of her bow-string. Speed, mobility, and silence would be required for this hunt, not hardened protection and padding. Arms pumped, lungs took in and expelled air rhythmically. Then, as if a switch was flicked somewhere, she fell to the ground. Propped up by her rough palms, and one knee. She watched her quarry with unblinking eyes from behind the tall grasses in the wind-bent tree ahead.
The elderly, gray-feathered windroc preened itself in the automatic, ritual movements so prevalent in birdkind. Even in the fierce predators. Orvisha recalled the instructions of the Fury, and why this bird's skull was required.
Kalandrios churned and the first image faded, becoming a huge windroc with a grand wingspan. A familiar glimmer was held within the eyes of the avian.
Orvisha 's brow creased slightly as she discerned a pattern. "The eye-socket of a grey-feathered windroc. Representing the realm of Air and the vast knowledge that can be percieved through it."
She had been tracking this prey for a few days. Studying the makeup of various windroc colonies, the loners, where they might nest. She had learned that an elderly male was oftentimes kicked out of the clan by a younger upstart, should that upstart win in an aerial fight.
And here was that elder male, still preening his feathers as if he still held his throne and the females that went with it. She wondered what old bird-tales he might have behind those sharp eyes.
Oh so slowly, Orvisha straightened, easing back to sit on a heel so that she kneeled. One arm reached back for an arrow, and she allowed herself an exhale, her breath barely swaying the closest of grass blades. The arrow was notched, and shoulders squaring, she pulled back the string. She waited for a sudden gust to pass, then--twang! The shaft flew with a sharp hiss in the air right for the elder bird's collar bone.
It flew, but it did not hit. For the gust had moved the grasses just so that he might spot his hunter. Not many creatures in Outland or Azeroth could best an aerial raptor's sight. Instead of the collar bone, the shaft hit his shoulder. The old one had turned and spread its wings to fly off and circle, but was quickly grounded, grand limbs flapping awkwardly.
Orvisha cursed, then slunk closer. Just in time to see the windroc bite off the shaft with its beak, then flap a few feet into the air. He fell again, but had regained enough lift to provide a fight.
Good, she thought. An old one like this should not die in weakness. Either a swift death, or one where he claws and buffets.
On her feet now, she bent her knees into a mild crouch--ready to jump and move out of any swooping talons. Another arrow was notched, string drawn. Her amber gaze met his, and for a moment she thought she detected a sense of knowing. She barely tilted her chin down in a nod to the beast. At that, he opened his wings to their full length, save for a hesitancy with the injured shoulder. A challenging, and welcoming screech was taken by the plains' wind.
A sudden buffet of his expansive wings sent a dusty breeze her way. She kept the arrow for now, not risking a blind shot. An arm lifted to guard her vision against the dust. Through her squinted sight, she saw him lifted high enough to make a claw at her face, and she rolled. At the end of her roll, she righted herself to a knee, and again pulled back the string. The second shaft flew, and with a quiet thck landed on its mark, between the bird's hollow collar bones.
The old one wheezed, trying to sound another shrill cry. Wings flapped weakly, gaining him an inch or two of uncertain height. He then fell for the final time, deep feathered chest rising and falling in quick pants.
Orvisha pushed herself up and hurried over to the fallen elder. She took no joy in his pain as she fell to her knees beside him. He did not make any move to strike her, taloned feet vaguely kicking in automatic firing of dying nerves. Orvisha's nimble fingers darted to her belt, from which she took a small knife.
"Thank you, old one, for this last battle of yours. May your years, what you have seen in Nagrand's skies, guide me as I do the Wind's favor."
With that prayer in Old Orcish, Orvisha drove the knife into the windroc's heart. Blade slipping under its breastbone. Another reactive, instinctual twitch of wings and feet. Then his old heart stilled. Slowly, Orvisha slid the knife out, then peered at the blood. She heaved a sigh, dabbed her fingertips in it, then dotted her forehead once in another gesture of thanks and respect.
The day after next, Orvisha would arrive to face the last challenge--the Ethereal Spelluser--with the elder roc's skull firmly tied to her belt. Cleaned to a pristine white. A gray wing feather would flutter in her hair.
04-19-2013, 03:12 PM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2013, 03:35 PM by c0rzilla.)
A 'Leader's' Mess
After separating from Gurvok Wolfbite, the Deadeye Watchers' pack-master, Orvisha finally found a bit of quiet in the Mag'har settlement of Garadar. Upon the two greenskins' arrival, both had been greeted with warmth and welcome, especially after the news brought by one of the village's scouts: Orvisha had just finished 'leading' an attack on a Mag'har settlement that had been conquered by Murkblood Broken. The attack had routed their armed warriors, and ended a dark shaman that had been binding the elemental spirits there, mostly pressing those of air. The young shaman weaved her way to a private section in the inn, avoiding more attempts at congratulation from what citizens had heard. Once certain of her privacy, she unstrapped her chain armor, then flopped onto the grassy mat of a bed and groaned.
The last thing she felt like was a leader.
In her eyes, the whole thing was a mess, nearly on the scale of her companions' attempt to strengthen the spirits of water in Zangarmarsh. A step in the larger campaign to bring the elements into balance to save trapped Earth Ring shaman in Draenor's elemental planes. Nearly a mess as big—at least this attempt seemed to succeed. It would be a while before the images of all the rent and bloody Murkblood soldiers were blanketed in her mind by time and wisdom brought by meditation and experience.
She had tried to open with a peaceful talk, knowing little of this clan of Broken. Gantrithor, a friend of hers on the level of loyal brother, offered to approach to actually do the talking. The consensus had been that an orc would just anger them further. The powerful ball of lightning to Gantrithor's chest, knocking him down in one hit, proved they would speak to none not their own. Immediately seeing her friend struck, Orvisha lead the charge into the village. After a grueling battle with many an injury to herself and her companions, they found victory. She even had to call the aid of her ghostly wolf companions, Mor'gosh and Sharna. Gurvok, overcome by the battle lust wrought by a dark cloud of fire spirits and those of the village's fallen Mag'har meant to rally what was left of the Murkblood soliders, killed the dark shaman as he was cowering. All of his rage vent into the spell, he was left quivering before the berserk orc.
Afterward, Uyendu the Wellwaker eased Orvisha's strife somewhat, as he healed Gurvok on the shores of one of Nagrand's ponds. While still calling her charge foolish, for the small party was far outnumbered, he assured that peace was impossible. The note of the Anchorite Telah potentially wishing for the attempt eased her a bit more. Even so, the guilt at nearly getting her friends killed ate at her. Even little Xanthe was put in harm's way because of her rashness. At least, that's how she felt.
Her conflict was fed by the joy of the Mag'har in Gardar, and knowing that many orcs at home in Azeroth would be congratulating her, praising the blood on her axes despite her bad tactics. She wondered what the draenic participants of the Pilgrimage would be told, or hear by rumor. If their thoughts of orcs as bloodthirsty savages would be solidified.
...Did it all matter in the end? The corrupted and enslaved spirits of air were free now, no longer caught in chaos. Was this all a tangle of self-pity, this conflict? Orvisha was not sure. Either way, when morning came, she would push herself up and make her way to the Throne of Elements with a stoic face, whatever was in her heart.
For now, she sorely made herself sit up, and begin to write a letter about the events to her family and her mate. Paper and charcoal pencil fished out her satchel.
04-19-2013, 05:43 PM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2013, 09:51 PM by c0rzilla.)
The recipients are free to respond in this thread.
Upon finishing writing these letters about today, Orvisha would send them off however mail is delivered in Outland.
To the Rendtear family Wrote:My loved family,
I write this letter seeking your advice. I've been generally quiet about my progress in aiding the elements of Draenor with the Earthen Ring, but the venture to strengthen air has left me conflicted.
The problem was a Broken dark shaman that had been binding the spirits of air, and possibly the Mag'har spirits in the old orcish village he and his kin had overtaken. I know little of the Broken mindset, or what clans they have made, or how they practice or force a farce for shamanism. As such, I tried to open with a peaceful approach.
It didn't work. A good friend of mine was quickly struck down with lightning, and battle ensued. Not very long, but hard. We were left wounded, and their armored ones mostly dead, the dark shaman fallen.
Was I too rash in charging upon seeing my friend struck? We were very outnumbered. I cannot help but feel the spirits will frown on all this blood, despite their freeing.
My trials aside, I will do my best to make it to the Barrens celebration, Emra. How are you and Thun'tuk? Tell father and Lobo I love them both, if they are not there when you get this. If either father or Lobo get this first--hello!
Love for you all,
Orvisha
In this letter, Kil'shi would receive a small packet of seeds of Outland flowers for his planter box.
To Corlmitz Lostblade Wrote:My Corlmitz,
I pray you are not fretting too much without me there. I am still whole, though not unscathed. I miss you, very much.
Do you remember when I was tasked with aiding the Earthen Ring in restoring balance to Outland's elemental spirits? It was the last time we were in Outland together, in Nagrand with that grumpy Broken. You gawked at the mag'har that accompanied us.
Today we tried to aid Air. I believe it was a success, though much blood was paid in battle for it. I was rash and defensive of a friend, and put other friends in danger because of it, though we all live.
I wish you were here so speak with. Today weighs heavy on me, and your arms always lift whatever holds me down.
I love you, and I will be back soon. Give Berry and Frieda my regards as well.
04-19-2013, 06:42 PM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2013, 06:44 PM by Xigo.)
An Expedient Response Wrote:Throm'ka Orvisha,
The state of the Broken mind should be made evident enough in their moniker. Broken. They have no purpose. The greatest mercy you could bestow upon one would be death. Some might be sane, but they are exceptions that prove the rule. Treat every one as a potential threat, more than you would the average draenei.
Emotions will take grip of you from time to time, it is our nature as orcs to let the fire in our hearts burn brilliantly. Take your moment of fury as a lesson to be learned about your own nature. Come to terms with what you are. When you do, you will be better capable of taming the flame, unleashing it only when it needs to be.
We can discuss whether or not you made the proper tactical decision later. Regardless, the spirits would not be displeased with the ideals of protecting your friends and destroying those who would enslave others. I can only assume you did the best you could in a poor situation.
Be strong, Orvisha, as I know you to be. Do not let doubt tear at your thoughts. May we see one another soon. I wish to hear of your adventures in person.
Rega,
Kil'shi
Quote:[8:53AM] Cassius: Xigo is the best guy ever. he doesn't afraid of anything.
Corlmitz sat up, wrapped head to toe in bandages. The sounds of the hospital clattered about. A goblin nurse handed him a scrap of paper, and a quill pen.
Quote:
Deer Visha Mate Love Sex Precious,
I remember elementals stuff. That's where red orcs were, rite? Non-corrupts. Never heard them. Big shock. I gawked lots, like you says. Good that yer restoring air. Air is good cos we breathe it, and stuff.
I'm kinda fucked up rite now. Set on fire. Blown up. Okay though good like.
Doc injected a thing in me. Pain thingy. Feels great. Like, *Mitz draws a long, squiggly line*. I want more of it but doc says no so he's a dick and f**k 'im.
Bunch of gits blew up the Militia house. f**k 'em too.
That's how I got set on fire and blown up. We're gonna kill 'em.
I miss ya. Lots and lots. Wish you were here. If you were here we could have sex. Not right now though, of course, as I'm all messed up from being set on fire. It will be a few weeks before we can have sex again. Maybe three.
Two if you get me drunk.
I gotta end this letter now cos I'm running outta space. Shoulda given me a bigger scrap.
Yers always for forever and a half,
Mitz.
P.S Beranz says the situation with the gobs is getting complicated. Next time yer in town, he'd like to talk.
P.S.S Frieda says I suck at writan.
P.S.S.S Haha--the above thingy looks almost like 'piss.' Also so does this! That's funny.
Mitz handed the scrap of paper to a courier, then sat back in his hospital bed.
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