Hyperactive author? YOU tell ME.
Are you ready to puke on Dor’ash and Sarah yet? Guuuh. In my defense, I wrote a lot of their misadventures while I was in Germany and didn’t have anything else (read: internet and games) to distract myself with, so of course there’s a lot of notes just ready to be copied onto the comp and I only got around really doing it during the summer.
So.
I said “Here we go again!” last time, and I try not to repeat myself too often.
No, nobody’s going to sing. I promise. And as opposed to the last one, there’s no real fighting going on in this one. Phew!
Set some weeks or a couple of months after the Azshara romp, the timeframe isn’t that important. Just that you know they’ve moved around from where they all ended in that story.
And, uh, I’m writing a romance involving Vo’don too, for a change, and more Diplomacy is underway 
I should be writing an application letter and a review for the school paper grumblegrumble It’s in times like this that I figure this bastard really IS my muse.
Anyway… I’m still working on a title for this one, as per tradition. For the record, the last one was eventually named Where Loyalties Lie
Okay here we go…
The ship drifted closer to the dock, skillfully steered by sailors so used to this that they probably could have done it in their sleep. Ratchet hardly reacted to the Maiden’s Fancy at this time of the day, and the passengers sluggishly hurried off the ship and towards the town, hampered under their packing and the heat. A room, a drink and then sleep for an hour or two, until the heat got bearable again, that was just about the only thing on most of the people’s minds.
A lot of people waited on the dock as well, to either board the ship or meet with arriving passengers.
Dor’ash didn’t mind the heat much, despite his upbringing in the chilly Alterac mountains. Orcs did prefer heat to cold, and though he regarded his youth as a good period of his life, getting into warmer territory had definitely been a plus. The Barrens during midday had a tendency to overdo the warmth, though, and he stifled a yawn. Down by the ocean it was easier, of course, and he had no plans on leaving Ratchet until it was more bearable. He had to think about his wolf mount Grey, too.
His other companion could probably have skipped through a volcano without being worse for the wear. And then again, he realized with a smirk as he glanced at her, Sarah was standing in his shadow. Hmm.
The flow of passengers coming down the gangway was thinning, and Sarah impatiently straightened her creaking back. Then her sun-warmed lips twisted in a recognizing smile, and Dor’ash looked up to see yet another Forsaken sauntering off the ship. Jonathan’s blue robe lazily billowed around his tall, but skeletal form and he turned his head until he spotted the two people waiting for him. Grinning, he hurried towards them as they came to meet him.
“I was starting to think you managed to miss the boat,” Sarah said, cheerfully giving him a loud kiss on the cheek – to the horror of any living people watching.
“Hardly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” Jonathan replied, shaking his head as he squeezed her in a hug. “The damn jungle is too humid. I’ve got mold growing along my ribs. See?”
Dor’ash pointedly looked away when the mage pulled at his own robe, baring a chest with less than the normal amount of skin.
“That could be grave moss,” Sarah said, bending closer and prodding at Jonathan’s chest with a sharp finger. “I can use that. But it needs to grow a little more before I can be certain.”
“But I…” Jonathan paused and then sighed, pulling the robe back in place. “Fine, I’ll let it fester.” He met Dor’ash’s amused look and sighed again, knowing what the orc would say.
“You should know better,” Dor’ash commented.
“Yep. But speaking of which…”
Jonathan reached into one of his bags and pulled out a carefully wrapped package.
“I got you flowers, darling,” he said, offering it to Sarah.
“Ooh, you think of everything!”
When she opened and saw whatever it was in the package, she gave a hoarse, unpleasantly triumphant chuckle and Jonathan got another kiss. Dor’ash tried to ignore their antics. The two of them fell in behind him as he began walking up the pier towards the main part of the dock, to head into town. That they switched to Gutterspeak for their continued conversation was a relief.
There weren’t that many people left on the dock at that point, apart from the sailors and workers loading shipments – moving slowly because of the heat. Dor’ash noticed the group of humans coming up the main dock and slowed, waiting to see where they were heading. Ratchet might be neutral, but he didn’t want any trouble and was prepared to wait on the branch part of the harbor until the humans had passed. He heard Sarah and Jonathan’s step slow behind him in response, but they didn’t stop talking with each other.
And then Dor’ash’s brain caught up with the fact that those men and women wore the colors of Theramore, and were lead by a familiar man in a diplomat’s robe. The first brush of a grin at the coincidence was torn away when cold realization hit. His gaze met Thomas Southstone’s, and the same cruel twist from pleasant surprise to horror reflected in the former paladin’s eyes.
Simon Nebula walked just beside Thomas.
Sarah Nebula walked just behind Dor’ash.
And the living was blissfully unaware of the undead who very possibly was his sister, as unaware as the Forsaken was of the living.
Horror gave away for panicked understanding. Thomas turned to Simon and said something, making him look in the other direction. Perhaps unnecessarily, as Simon already had been talking to one of the soldiers.
Quickly, Dor’ash started to turn to say something distracting to Sarah, knowing his bulk could block the Forsaken from view. He turned also in a desperate hope for the other Theramore soldiers to not recognize him, because if they addressed him both Sarah and Jonathan would definitely step into view.
It might have worked.
However, Fate decided to intervene.
“Hey, Nebula!” the soldier, the one interrupted by Thomas’ attempt to divert attention, loudly said.
Thomas sucked in his breath so loudly it could be heard all the way to where the members of the Horde stood.
“What?” Simon said, smiling as he looked around.
“What?” Sarah said, poking her head out from behind Dor’ash.
They both froze.
The air seemed to turn to glue as Simon spun around, smile torn from his lips by a look of disbelief. It crumbled to pure terror as Sarah stepped further into sight, ducking Dor’ash’s attempt to hold her back. She frowned, straightening up as if to see better.
“What…?” she muttered.
Simon stared. Slowly, mechanically, he began to shake his head. He recoiled, would have bumped into the shocked soldiers behind him if Thomas had not gripped his shoulders firmly.
“Simon!” Thomas said. “No. No, Simon. Listen to me-”
“Sarah?” Simon croaked the name, shaking his head more violently. Not taking his eyes off the silent undead for a moment. “Sarah?”
Thomas shook his head too, but he must have known that it was useless at that point.
“Now what?” Jonathan asked, stepping into sight as well. He was completely ignored.
Gritting his teeth, Dor’ash closed his huge hand around Sarah’s thin arm. She didn’t move.
“Come,” he said in a hard tone, speaking Common. “This is cruel.”
She didn’t seem to hear him, still silently frowning at the trembling Simon. The Theramore soldiers had caught up with the events by now, shock fading into pity for Simon, and cold looks of suspicious hatred for Sarah.
Dor’ash could have just lifted her and carried her off down the dock. He would often look back on this moment and regret not doing so before it was too late. Before Sarah spoke.
“Brother.”
It was a sharp whisper, tentative, disbelieving. Then, louder.
“Little brother.”
And then she too shook her head, a trembling hand rising to her face as a tortured groan escaped Simon. An agitated murmur rose from the Theramore soldiers. Dor’ash and Thomas exchanged pained looks.
We knew. What now?
“Simon.” Sarah spoke even louder this time, and her hands clenched. She recoiled as he kept staring at her, frozen at the sound of his name.
Dor’ash was about to let go of her when she drew backwards, crouching, tense. But when she spoke again, with something completely different in her voice, his grip tightened in alarm.
“You… don’t look at-” This was a hiss, frail at first but gathering force – and rage.
“Watch out!” Jonathan snarled, hands shooting forwards to grab Sarah’s other arm. He missed, she tore forwards, held back by Dor’ash’s grip but surprising him with her strength. He almost lost his hold of her.
Simon recoiled, and Thomas stepped up in front of him defensively, face hardening from experience. The diplomat’s hand instinctively dove for a sword he no longer carried. The other soldiers moved to follow him.
“How dare you be alive?!” Sarah shrieked, flexing her fingers like claws.
Dor’ash knew that she could teleport over there no matter how tightly he held her. He also knew that if she did that, somebody would die. The soldiers could beat her back and even down, but there would at best only be wounded.
He did the only thing he could think of, and shoved her off the dock.
With a furious screech and a splash Sarah disappeared into the water head first, flailing, but sinking because she had no air in her lungs. She would not be able to teleport up from there with precision, and that might give her time to calm down.
That, at least, was the plan. Unfortunately Sarah wasn’t the only one who had lost the ability to think straight.
“No!” Simon cried out and leaped into the water after her.
The second splash was heavier, not only because of the difference in body mass but also because Simon wore several pieces of metal armor. And he would need oxygen.
For a second, all was frozen in disbelief.
Then, swearing at whatever smirking force was watching and pulling the strings, Dor’ash dove in after the undead and the human. He broke the surface and swiftly continued downwards with wide, powerful sweeps of his arms, wincing against the cool water after the hot day above. It might have been pleasant, if not for the tragic situation and the fact that the ocean was Ratchet’s dumping ground.
Luckily the sun’s rays reached far enough down to let him see the slowly thrashing shadows below, and he aimed straight for them. No… only one thrashing shadow.
Simon had obviously realized the fact that the armor weighed him down, struggling desperately, uselessly to move upwards. Sarah hovered just above him, her robe swelling around her thin form and making her seem a lot bigger than she actually was.
She held one of Simon’s hands.
Unmoving.
Waiting for him to drown.
Fury flared through Dor’ash’s mind – he didn’t want to believe it, but it was what he saw. A growl escaped in a cascade of bubbles, and he roughly shoved Sarah backwards while grabbing Simon’s arm with the other. She let go, motionlessly floating away as Dor’ash turned upwards again and hauled Simon along.
Sunlight and air met Dor’ash’s face and he gasped, hefting the coughing and panting Simon onto his huge shoulder while swimming towards the dock. The human groaned, hardly moving at all.
Reaching one of the stairs leading down towards the water from the dock, Dor’ash managed to wrench Simon onto it. Steps beat against the wood as the Theramore group hurried to meet the soaked two, and pale hands hauled Simon further up into the sunlight. Then one of those hands, when the coughing man was out of the way, reached towards Dor’ash. He looked up to meet the pained look on Thomas’ face.
Grunting, the orc heaved himself out of the water, using his own strength but accepting the offered hand towards the end. Didn’t really make use of it, had he pulled then Thomas would have went flying into the water, but part of Dor’ash’s ragged mind had enough sense left to show gratitude.
An agitated murmur from the soldiers made him look around, still blinking against the stinging salt water in his eyes.
Another shape climbed onto a stair further away, struggling with the dripping robe which now clung to her, showing just how unnaturally reedy Sarah really was. She got up, standing to face the staring group with her lips drawn back in a furious snarl.
Simon raised a shaking hand towards her.
“Sarah!” Dor’ash growled. His own rage paused, hit a lull seeing her like that – small, miserable, dripping wet.
She couldn’t have meant to let her brother drown. She couldn’t have. She had to have just been shocked frozen, she had to have something to say for herself.
But then her hands clenched and rose, shaking at him and him only.
“Mind your own business, you damn greenskin!”
The world stopped.
Through a red mist he saw Sarah recoil, turning her head away. Then she was gone, leaving only a fading shimmer and a tinkling sound behind.
Somebody said something, it could have been Thomas swearing in disbelief as he understood the Orcish words.
Dor’ash didn’t hear it.
Fire spun through his mind, searing, blinding and he threw his head back, the air trembling with his roar.
It left him so exhausted that when he ran out of air he slumped onto the stairs, clutching his dripping, black hair in a shaking fist. Trying to keep the burning rage from tearing him apart.
By the sound of it several goblin bruisers came running down the dock, demanding in shrill, nerve-tearing voices to know just what exactly was going on. Thomas and the Theramore soldiers answered them, some in distracted voices, assuring that no, no, everything’s fine, there’s no Horde versus Alliance skirmish going on, we’re just fine and you’re doing a great job, please keep it up and thanks, bye.
He was half deaf to the world until somebody laid their hand on his shoulder.
“Dor’ash…”
The shaman looked around with a growl, but Thomas merely clenched his teeth harder.
“By the spirits, help me,” he said in accented Orcish, consciously using a specific word for ‘help’ implored to shamans, regarding spiritual ills.
Dor’ash’s foul mood nearly made him snap at the man that he had no business calling on spirits, but he reined himself in. There was no reason for that, Thomas hadn’t earned that kind of abuse. Getting to his feet, the orc silently turned around and watched the other Theramore soldiers fuzz around the shaking Simon. The living Nebula stood like a soaked doll, emptily staring ahead while the others pried off his chest piece and shoulder plates.
One of them – a blond man curiously wearing leather armor instead of plate, but still adorned with Theramore’s golden anchor – looked around while awkwardly wringing water out of a corner of Simon’s pale shirt.
“What now?” he asked.
Thomas briefly massaged his temples, then straightened up.
“Collins, everyone, go to the ship. I’ll… talk to Simon for a bit.”
He grasped Simon’s shoulders while the others helplessly nodded, then turned his head.
“And you look like you need a stiff drink too, Dor’ash,” Thomas firmly said.
Dor’ash felt too angrily exhausted to argue with that logic. As Thomas began leading the lethargic Simon up the dock, the orc merely followed. A thought struck, however, and he looked around.
Somebody was distinctly absent.
“Where did Jonathan go?” Dor’ash dully grunted, squinting at the sharp sunlight.
“Who, the other Forsaken?” Thomas asked. “He teleported away too.”
He only got another grunt in reply to that. If Jonathan had gone after Sarah and found her, he would be wise to keep her away from Dor’ash right then.
Thomas ushered both of them into one of the taverns just by the edge of the harbor. Somehow, the three of them ended up around a table in the mostly empty bar, brooding over a drink each though none of them made a motion to even lift their glasses.
The silence stretched, making the air heavy to breathe.
“You knew.”
Simon muttered it in a hoarse voice, staring at the table and gripping his mug so hard that his fingers whitened.
With a sigh, Thomas nodded.
“What should I have told you?” he asked, low and soft. The tone was soothing, but it left him open for any anger that could rightfully be aimed at him and Dor’ash.
It took a moment before Simon answered, his head dipping even further forwards. Then finally he shook his head, teeth gritting.
“What indeed…”
He swallowed hard, and looked up at Dor’ash.
“You, you know her?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know anymore.” Dor’ash spoke through his fangs, glare hard enough to almost set the table on fire. He couldn’t look up and face either of them, just couldn’t.
“What she called you, Dor’ash,” Thomas started, hesitant, knowing he was stepping on a field of goblin land mines, “I’m sure she wasn’t-”
“That’s not all!”
Thomas and Simon both recoiled at the snarl, and Dor’ash’s fist slamming into the table. The emissary’s untouched drink fell over, whatever it was pooling into the table cloth until he righted the glass with a stiffly moving hand.
“She wasn’t doing a thing down there!” Dor’ash growled, forcing himself to sit still and not grab Thomas’ collar. He wasn’t angry at the man, but his fury roared for direction and it was all he could do to grasp the mug and the edge of the table. “She would’ve just let her own brother drown!”
Though pale, Thomas raised his hands in a pacifying motion. He started to speak again, when Simon cut him off.
“She tugged at my hand.”
Shaman and emissary turned towards Simon, mouths snapping shut. He frowned, glancing between them while grasping one hand with the other.
“She did,” he said, uncertainly, “I don’t know if it means anything… I want to think so.”
With a grunt, Dor’ash sat back and pressed a hand to his scalp. He heard Thomas let out a small sigh of relief, and that annoyed him again even if he couldn’t honestly blame the ex-paladin for it.
“How could she be…”
Simon faltered, then rubbed his face with a groan. Shaking his head, a neigh-hysterical chuckle escaped him. Thomas put a hand on his damp shoulder.
“You should’ve seen her,” Simon said in a hoarse, low voice. “She almost started crying whenever father told her to slaughter a chicken for dinner. I always had to do it for her.”
That pathetic little detail made Dor’ash’s chest tighten, so badly that he had to pinch his eyes shut.
“That person is dead,” he muttered, surprised that his voice didn’t crack like Simon’s.
“What of our parents?” Simon whispered. “What of Patrick?”
Dor’ash shook his head sadly, but at the name his breath stuck in his throat. An image of a cruelly smiling warlock flashed past, of that Forsaken who had possessively grabbed Sarah and cowed her with bare, slithering words, then directed his pet doomguard to attack both her and Dor’ash.
But-
“Who?” he grunted, hardly able to speak from all the conflicting emotions.
“Our- my- our older brother.”
Simon stared up at him, and so did Thomas all of a sudden. The look on his face (Dor’ash realized later, when the torturous twisting of his mind stopped), must have been frightening.
He was amazed that the mug he held didn’t break.
“No,” Dor’ash finally said, forcing back the painful constriction in his heart by willpower alone. “We once met a Forsaken named Patrick, but his last name was Hartwell.”
Simon frowned.
“There was a Hartwell family living nearby, their son seemed- Sarah was-” he faltered in a shudder, bowing his head low.
The only reply Dor’ash could give to that was a tired grunt. He saw the truth now, of Azshara.
Her brother would have killed me she killed him spirits her brother and she chose-
And yet the anger roared even higher when threatened by the memory of her saving his life. He couldn’t deal with this, Patrick was one thing-
Hypcrite.
Simon was her brother too and yet-
That unpredictable little witch, leaping back and forth between loyalties on nothing but her whim.
A guilty voice said that those thoughts weren’t fair.
A louder voice snarled at the guilt.
And a bitter voice wondered, not for the first time, if he had ever known her at all.
She chose your life over her own brother’s. Can you judge her?
She would have just let this living brother die!
And her own voice rose up in his memory, whipping at every hesitant feeling that may have eventually smoothened his rage.
”You damn greenskin!”
Had she only made him bleed, he could have healed it. He could have forgiven that. But she took that slur, that internment camp, slave word in her mouth and flung it at him.
Simon might believe that she had really tugged at his hand, and that that meant something – but Dor’ash had not seen it and could not accept it enough to believe it. Not now.
“Wait,” Simon suddenly said, frowning. His head turned between the two of them, realization rising in his eyes. “Your undead friend… you called her Savannah when you told me, but-” He stared at Thomas. “She saved your life!”
“By setting herself on fire, yes,” Thomas said, throwing a guarded look at Dor’ash.
Growling deep in his throat, the shaman rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t deal with this, needed time, needed to breathe.
“I’m very,” he paused, took in a deep breath and shook his head, trying to calm down, “confused right now.”
The cautious look melted away in Thomas’ eyes, replaced by a look of empathy as his shoulders sunk. Slowly, Simon nodded.
“Me too.”
Again Dor’ash shook his head, looking at the two of them. He wasn’t helping matters for Simon, he knew, and these two definitely didn’t deserve to think his fury was ever aimed at them.
“I’m sorry that I-”
Dor’ash looked up sharply at the sound of footsteps and smell of decay, but it was not Sarah who shuffled towards them. It was Jonathan, clutching one shoulder and staggering on the matching foot. Half his robe clung to him in smoldering patches.
Both Simon and Thomas too looked around in alarm when they saw Dor’ash’s movement, and the sight of the approaching Forsaken did not make them look any less uneasy.
“I lost her,” Jonathan said in Common, slumping onto a chair by another table.
“Who the hell are you?” Simon snapped before anybody else could speak, his voice nearly breaking once more.
“Heh…” A dull snort escaped the undead man, and he bowed his head in a mockery of a polite greeting. “Jonathan Schiller, good Sir. I am… or perhaps was, a very good friend of the lovely Sarah.”
A moan left Simon’s lips and he hunched deeper. Helplessly, Thomas patted his shoulder.
Jonathan’s yellow gaze rose, resting on Dor’ash.
“I think she’s breaking up with both of us,” Jonathan said, out of some shred of empathy choosing to speak Orcish this time.
“That warlock in Azshara was her brother too, wasn’t he?” Dor’ash coldly asked in the same language, glaring at the dry, rotting person on the chair.
Some part of him still wanted to doubt it, that tangle which made this so much more complicated. Whatever that was worth.
“You know…” Jonathan said, even colder, “she didn’t want you to know that she killed her own brother for your sake. She seemed to think that you’d be offe-”
The impact of the clay mug hitting his face sent Jonathan tumbling onto the floor. He rolled over on his back, snarling up at the growling Dor’ash, with beer staining his already ruined robe and fat bubbles weighing down the thin locks of hair on his head. In the background, Simon and Thomas had both gotten to their feet in alarm – the latter reaching his hands towards the orc, but faltering. He let his arms slump back to his sides.
The goblin innkeeper came rushing, but stopped and decided to shout his protests against this behavior from a safe distance.
“Don’t you dare patronize me!” Dor’ash snarled. “She was the one who did nothing! She was the one who ran!”
“You breathing types…” Jonathan hissed, reverting to Common with a sneer at Simon. “Why do you think we hate you?”
He drew himself up with the help of the chair, continuing to speak before anybody had a chance to reply. The innkeeper’s snarls remained a background noise.
“It’s a simple little prayer, boys. ‘Please don’t look at me like that’. But you’re always too busy screaming to hear us when we scramble back to ‘life’.” Jonathan’s tone was bitter, but the scorn on his face never wavered. “Is that too much to ask?”
Simon’s fist slammed into a table with surprising force.
“I almost drowned for her sake!” he snarled.
“Ah, yes.” Burnt joints creaked as Jonathan half bowed in a quick motion. “I thank you graciously for risking your life for my sweetheart.”
“Jonathan!” Dor’ash growled, baring his fangs.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
With a final snort, Jonathan simply vanished again. As much as a show of power that seemed, at least it spared all of them the sight of him staggering away.
Dor’ash heavily sat back down, pressing a fist to his pounding head.
‘-‘
It was a painful thing, saying goodbye to Thomas and Simon. There was so much Dor’ash wished that he could say, wished he could do to make sense of this, and he saw the same expression in their eyes. Yet there was nothing any one of them could say or do.
“I want to know if you find her again,” Simon said through clenched teeth, and Dor’ash could only nod.
Didn’t matter how she was found, or what happened next. Simon needed closure. He deserved closure.
And so do I.
Grey whimpered like a puppy and buffed his big snout against Dor’ash’s hands when the shaman came to get his mount from the stables – sensing his companion’s distress. Dor’ash tried to smile, rubbing the wolf’s head. It couldn’t do much against his mood, but Grey did what he could.
Dor’ash tried to avoid looking at Sarah’s unmoving skeletal horse, and didn’t say a word about that creature to the goblin stable master.
That thing was her business only.
The ride across the Barrens was silent, with only Grey’s paws smattering against the dusty road.
They had not always talked, of course. There had been hours of being lost in their own thoughts, in between dialogues sometimes lasting for less than a minute. But there had always been something more than his breathing and the soft thumps of Grey’s padding along. The clip-clop of her horse’s hooves and the creaking of her joints. With her, breath only meant preparing to speak.
Perhaps it was foolish to form strong friendships in a world like this. Especially with somebody like that.
Grey was panting heavily despite the pauses to rest, but the waves of healing magic Dor’ash distractedly sent into the wolf made the long trip easier on him.
The sun was sinking towards the horizon when Dor’ash rode up a rise in the road and spotted the distant guard tower and the huts beyond it.
Too tired to be angry anymore, feeling as if he had been fighting and not just riding for half a day. A cooling evening wind washed over the orc and the wolf as they continued into Drakamash Village and towards a certain farm.
“Dor’ash?”
He looked up to see young Karg looking at him from the other side of the fence. The young orc dropped the hoe he had been carrying and hurried towards the gate to open it. Dor’ash dully realized that he must be looking like he had been mauled by five angry ogres, if one look at him made Karg toss their uneasy relationship aside just like that.
That feeling grew stronger when Dor’ash tried to dismount and almost fell down, only to have Karg grab his arms and support him.
“Mother!” the half-grown boy shouted over his shoulders, then turned back and lowered his voice. “What happened to you? Where’s Sarah?”
Dor’ash could only shake his head.
The sun painted the sky in a blazing yellow and red, the torn clouds feathery streaks of purple against the warm colors above. Another brush of wind toyed with Grey’s fur and the orcs’ black hair, tiny tendrils that had broken free of their braids.
Grema appeared around the corner of the house, absentmindedly drying blood from her hands with an old rag. Seeing the two of them and the wolf standing there she dropped the cloth and ran forwards, reaching out with a question forming on her lips.
Dor’ash could not, in that moment, understand how he had ever wanted to be anywhere else but there.
I’ll try to tweak it to be better.
Them errors will be fixed.